Tag Archives: web 2.0

Whats the Buzz ?? It still just tastes like chicken

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Almost a year ago now I blogged about the impending death of innovation when it comes to the user interface and asked “Does everything have to taste like chicken?”

My point was that in the rush to get the next great Web2.0/Social Networking/collaborative toy out into the market, developers were just copying each other and no one was being really innovative. Rather than celebrating the fact that one could be genuinely different, the prevailing view seemed to be that if you simply just throw more and more familiar stuff into into the same pot then the customers will be happy. Its the equivalent of the one stop shop…. the BlueWater approach to development. Just put as much as you can in one place and then the punter doesn’t need to think – they can just do. So as a result; Facebook updates Twitter which can update Facebook and set your status automatically in Linkedin which can pass the information to Plaxo and so on. Tweetdeck can be a browser and can now do embedded Picasa and YouTube, Disgby can look like Google Talk but actually update everything – aggghhhh !!!

Well, here we are almost 12 months on and its no better – infact to my eyes its getting worse…. and the most recent offender in the tastes like chicken stakes is Google Buzz. Who in the name of all thats good and true though we needed yet another social networking tool and then, worse still, who thought it would be a bright idea to embed it in a really good email client. Jeez, it must have been ‘Chicken Tonight’ over in Mountain View when they came up with Buzz. Now I don’t intend to go into the well documented privacy concerns here – you can google them – but just pause for a minute on the approach. Did we really need another status setting tool ? Did we really want to grow our already impossibly large contact lists again ? Did we really want our finely tuned and pimped Gmail client messed up with yet more notifications ?? ….. and wouldn’t an add on to Gtalk been just as useful (sic) ?

To my eyes, and granted they’re getting on in years now, it seems that there’s no value in being innovative. First mover advantage has all but disappeared and now we can all be fast followers – even Google – by just incrementing what already exists. Call me an old cynic but everything really is starting to taste like chicken

What d’ya think ?

5 Technologies that CEOs intend to invest in next year

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Amid all the CIO and vendor hype about where the next round ou IT investment should be focussed, it was hugely refreshing to read on Silicon.com the 5 technologies that CEOs will invest in next year. Not a mention of cloud computing, virtualization, web 2.0 > enterprise 2.0 and all that jazz, just some very basic fundamentals that will driver their businesses forward

  • Better data collection and retrieval systems… to directly drive business growth and find more savings as well as new business opportunities’.”
  • Home and remote working… to get more performance from their existing workforce whilst reducing travel overheads at a time when unemployment is on the rise.
  • Mobile commerce… CEO’s are starting to believe that, after 10yrs of hype, this might just be ready for prime time
  • Business intelligence… track and responding to customer behaviour – if you’re not doing it then you competitors sure are and implied customer loyalty is long gone.
  • E-discovery systems …. “In difficult economic times, legal challenges tend to increase” … so how good are your retrieval and analytical systems ?

Now clearly I’m not saying that cloud computing, virtualization, web 2.0 > enterprise 2.0 et al don’t have a part to play in many of these priorities but shouldn’t we be focussing on the problems – as articulated by our most important customers – rather than the technologies and their somewhat abstract labels

JMHO

New York Times appoints social media editor

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I have to admit I didn’t really know what to make of this when it first hit the wires.

My initial reaction was “contradictions in terms” – surely the whole essence of social media is that is is self generating, self managing and ultimately self perpetuating so why would anyone need to be an editor ?

Dig a little deeper and you find the role, according to a memo from  deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman is “… someone who concentrates full-time on expanding the use of social media networks and publishing platforms to improve New York Times journalism and deliver it to readers”. Laudable indeed. The memo continues that the role will   “… work closely with editors, reporters, bloggers and others to use social tools to find sources, track trends, and break news as well as to gather it”

So there it is. Not exactly an editor – more like an evangelist and mentor to the collective editorial wisdom at the NYT. No bad thing at all…. and the holder of this illustrious title is one Jennifer Preston.

As of 27/05/09, Jenifer had over 2500 followers but surprising was only following 165 of us. I guess she’s getting plenty of input and just being selective 🙂 but we should probably all wish her good luck.

Newspapers failing web 2.0 challenge

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Newspapers need to find innovative ways to embrace web 2.0 – or face a perilous future

(Originally published 12/05/09 – silicon.com)

For too long now people have talked about the decline in newspapers as if this was something slow and cyclical – worse still, something that they can actually manage.  I’m sure the people who ran chemical based photography at Kodak thought the same. The music industry clearly also had this perspective on life. Look, this might well just be a “decline” that has been accelerated by a recession but equally we may be approaching a structural, social and generational cliff face. Either way, you surely don’t want to be just another lemming?

Newspapers are facing the most fundamental period of change in their history. Some would say that until recently nothing much had actually changed since the town crier used to wander into the market square, ring his bell and shout “hear ye, hear ye – plague, death, taxation, fat-cat bankers and the worst recession in living memory …. local vicar involved”.

Click here to continue reading


Apple to buy Twitter – really ???

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As wild rumours go its right there with the best of them but ….

According to Trusted Reviews (and a heap of less reputable websites)….. “Apple, yes Apple, is apparently locked in “serious negotiations” to buy Twitter for $700m. Quoting a “source who’s plugged into the Valley’s deal scene and has been recruited by Apple for a senior position” ValleyWag claims the duo want to unveil a deal by 8 June in time for WWDC 2009″

The article also points out that

  • Apple has no ad model
  • Apple is hardware and OS focused
  • Apple doesn’t do ‘free’
  • Apple image is slick and expensive- Twitter image is cute and bumbling
  • Twitter has already stated it will not sell for under $1bn

The FT has an equally sceptical position (though from a slightly different angle)

….. and as for me …. I just cant see it but stranger things have happened

Wikipedia 1 – 0 Microsoft

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Microsoft today ran up the white flag in the battle of the online encyclopedias

“On October 31, 2009, MSN Encarta Web sites worldwide will be discontinued, with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will be discontinued on December 31, 2009. Additionally, Microsoft will cease to sell Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009…”

Interestingly they close with ……

“Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past. As part of Microsoft’s goal to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today’s consumer, it has made the decision to exit the Encarta business.”

Is free and socially networked the only way to survive ?

Does everything have to do everything nowadays …

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Time was when being unique was a bit special; when being different was something to be celebrated. It seems now that when it comes to social networking solutions and tools, everyone just wants to be the same.

A few weeks back facebook announced that they were opening up their status API to “… make sure the ability to share this content was available through our standard APIs….. and opening new APIs for you to post links, create notes, or upload videos etc”. So there you go then, in no way a response to the mega growth of twitter and its impact on the usage of facebook.

Earlier, and in a move that angered many users, LinkedIn added a status element (aka “what are you doing now”) to their offering, mirroring both Twitter and Facebook

Today we hear that social contacts platform Plaxo “…is adding two new stream aggregation features to its stream service Pulse which tries to build a social network around third-party data, allows users to stay connected to their friends’ updates” – sounds familiar.

More worrying though is the conundrum that may soon face many software developers. Is there any value in being unique and developing something new or do you simply just throw something together based on what already exists? What sustainable value is there in being new and first anymore? Don’t get me wrong, mash-ups are cool and many of the best ones work because, through a combination of different solutions and ideas, you actually do create something new. It seems to me though that the current trend in social network solutions is just to do more of the same and shamelessly steal from the competition.

Oh well – looks like everything really does taste like chicken

JMHO

Enterprise 2.0

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I was fortunate to meet up with Andrew McAfee from Harvard Business School (blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee) last week, discussing the growth of social networking software inside organisations – commonly called Enterprise 2.0 – so I thought I would add some content here on my observations, leanings and views. Most of you will know from my posts on “learning from my kids” and “facebook” that I am quite keen on this topic

About the best definition I can find so far for this stuff is “… the use of existing and emerging social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.” So that basically covers blogs, wikis, content tagging, social networks, RSS etc

As Andrew says

Despite the hype, these are genuinely new technologies which offer the potential for an organisation to be far more effective around innovation, collaboration, knowledge sharing and collective intelligence. Unfortunately the bariers to adoption now seem to be the lack of foresight or draconian policies of the IT department (or maybe even the irrational fears of some CIOs) rather than the willingness of the customers to embrace the solutions on offer.

There are some simple trends that seem to be driving the adoption of E2.0 solutions

  • Software has become simple, social and inclusive. Technology is now actually being used to connect rather than alienate or frustrate people.
  • Network effect – all of these solutions improve with scale so its in the interests of participants to promote use and “market” their new found information and connections
  • “Platforms” are replacing channels – Web 2.0 promotes the move from channels to platforms (email is a 1.0 channel – a one to one conversation that has no interactivity or contribution). In a web 2.0 world the platforms aspire to be universal, visible and open to the broadest possible interaction.
  • Most Web2.0 tools have a distinct lack of upfront structure but they have mechanisms in place that allows structure to emerge. This is a really new (and potentially frightening concept for IT folks) – get out of the way of the customers and almost give them a blank slate. Conventional IT has lots of rules and structure. It slots people into roles, assigns privileges to roles, define workflows and data formats etc. This is not wrong, but applying this approach universally can be barrier to collaboration and innovation. Web 2.0 tools (praticularly inside an enterprise) requires a bit more sublety – segmentation if you will – making sure that the appropriatre tools and services are available to the right people. Wikipedia is a great example of managed collaboration – with great self selection and editing. Del.icio.us allows you to store bookmarks online and share them but people tag their entries, not based on any predefined lists, but entirely on the words they choose themselves.

Adoption Challenges
The biggest challenge for any new solution is usually down to replacing or superceeding what already exists. Email is the most common collaboration tool – however bad we think it is !! – and for anything new there will always be a level of personal evaluation between an incumbent technology and a prospect technology. Remember that customers rarely make rational lists to come to a decision. An existing or incumbent solution is over-weighted – often by a factor of 3 and the new proposition is under-weighted by a similar amount. So new concepts often have to be at least 9x better than existing systems.

So what do I think…
I think Enterprise 2.0 is going to be the difference between innovative and laggard companies. The ones who can embrace and harness the potential from a connected and collaborative organisation will simply be streets ahead of their competritors

The power of social networks …

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I’ve long been interested in the social networking phenomena and particularly how it polarises opinions. Of all the recent incarnations, the one that has polarised the most opinion has to be Facebook. Now, I’ve posted before about it (and if you want a more in depth view I can heartily recommend JP Rangaswami‘s blog – confused of calcutter) but this mornings FT.com article made me smile and I just had to post part of it here.

Under the title Facebook Revolt forces HSBC U-turn the article reports that …

“….HSBC on Thursday reversed its decision to take away students’ interest-free overdrafts as soon as they leave university after it suffered a consumer revolt by graduates on the pages of Facebook, the cult social-networking site.
The bank said it was not “too big” to listen to customers and that it would freeze interest charges on overdrafts up to £1,500 for students who graduated this summer, repaying any interest charged in August……. ”
“……The move would have cost a graduate who had the maximum interest-free overdraft of £1,500 nearly £12 a month, or more than £142 a year. But a group set up a month ago on Facebook by Wes Streeting, a vice-president of the National Union of Students, called “Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-Off”, attracted strong support from members of the social-networking site which is hugely popular with students and graduates.
The group, which attracted more than 5,000 members, caused acute embarrassment to HSBC at a time when all high street banks are busy marketing their services to young people arriving at university for the first time this September.
Mr Streeting said: “There can be no doubt that using Facebook made the world of difference to our campaign.
“By setting up a group on a site that is incredibly popular with students, it enabled us to contact our members during the summer vacation far more easily than would otherwise have been possible.
“It also meant that we could involve our former members – the graduates who were going to be most affected by this policy.”
“….. On Thursday Andy Ripley, HSBC’s head of product development, announced the climbdown and said the bank would work with the NUS to “enhance our new account offer so that it fully reflects the needs of recent graduates”.
Members of the group celebrated the bank’s U-turn by posting messages on the campaign’s Facebook page…”

As Wolfie Smith would say – power to the people !

On immersion therapy ….

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… or why grown ups just don’t get it (…..and maybe we never will)

I posted a long time ago about Second Life and Facebook and how I didn’t really understand the attraction of either. Just to recap, I considered Second Life to be an unsatisfactory role based gaming experience and I didn’t understand why we needed yet another way to interact and communicate online using Facebook.

I was of course deluged by people who would gleefully tell me that “I just didn’t get it”. As was my wont back then, I listened carefully, read diligently and then simply concluded that everyone was wrong 🙂

Well it turns out that I was wrong – I didn’t get it ….. and the worrying thing is that my generation (if you don’t know me, I’ve slipped into the wrong half of my mid forties) don’t get it and in all probability may never get it.

The “it” that I’m referring to is what happens when someone immerses themselves completely in an experience. I realised this when a colleague (of similar age) and I were discussing our Second Life and Facebook experiences. What became clear was that we used them as you would use any other computer applications or game. We started them up, used them for a while, shut them down, went and used something else, came back etc etc ….. which is a very structured and detached relationship. My kids, and those that I know, use these solutions very differently. They immerse themselves in them. In the case of Second Life, adopting genuine persona’s, constructing new relationships/interactions and behaving in a new way as a result. Actually, if you watch committed gamers playing the current genre of networked computer games they do the same. It seems to be the same with Facebook. Of course my daughter could phone, txt, IM or email her friends to tell them how shes feeling – but she doesn’t – she updates her status in Facebook to reflect her mood and then interacts with her friends using it (and its associated application)s to communicate all manner of related feelings, information and activities as a result.

And maybe that’s the point, and the real reason why ‘grown ups don’t get it’. We’ve forgotten what its like to be immersed in something and to engage at that level. We are too thoughtful and practical. We are looking to use something to get something done. We are academically interested and deal in practicality rather than allowing ourselves to become immersed in the emotional impact.

Maybe its just part of growing up ….and maybe, if we really want to understand this stuff, we need to stop behaving and thinking like adults. Now, what would that bring … ???

Just a thought …