Connecting the Dots

Web 2.0: Why Less May NOT Be More

As I've personally used and also recommended dozens of Web 2.0 hosted applications, I've been enamored by how perfect it's been that most were highly focused, did one thing and did it well, and didn't try to bake in everything that any user might desire. They were simple to use, quick to train others to navigate and didn't require major investments to get up-n-running.

I'm not so enamored anymore and wonder if less may NOT be more and that suites may rule as the Web matures. Or maybe it won't be suites but rather platforms?

Let me explain what I mean by suites. In the enterprise software space, every analyst (Gartner, IDG, Forrester) constantly weighed the possibilities of success independent software vendors (ISV's) could achieve by how expansive their footprint was within an organization or whether they simply sold a "point" solution -- giving them far less competitive advantage. The objective by most ISV's then was to expand their footprint and build an ever increasing set of functionality until they had....a suite of products.

The problem is that few ISV's -- save for the biggies like Oracle, IBM, HP and others -- are ever in a position to build or acquire enough point solutions, cobble them together and push away competitors to be viable. There are far too many building blocks available today in open source, with web services and all of the emerging "by the drink" on-demand solutions from Amazon and others to make suite plays a growth strategy long term.

One thing I read over-n-over again about "Enterprise 2.0" is that many organizations are looking at all the "Web 2.0" upstarts as having hit upon something that they need to emulate...namely fast-to-market, discrete, highly functional and easy to use point solutions. Forget the suite approach. It's too slow, too monolithic and has everything but the kitchen sink in it....a lot more than anyone needs and costs the enterprise millions of dollars. So even as the lower end, consumer-centric Web 2.0 space accelerates, enterprise organizations are trying to figure out what lessons can be learned from them and how they can apply Web 2.0 best practices to their companies.

The flip side is that the Web 2.0 crowd is starting to swim upstream toward suites and adding (or trying to add) considerably more functionality. For instance, today sees an announcement by Zoho regarding their Zoho Notebook....an add-on to the Zoho Suite. There seems to be a bit of buzz within the blogosphere about this add-on application and a fair amount of talk about how great it is that Zoho has such an expansive suite of useful offerings.

Hey! Wait a minute...aren't suites bad and run counter to the Web 2.0 meme?

The Web *Needs* an ID Hub...

Marc Canter's lengthy post on his ID Hub concept really struck a chord with me today. He so completely sees the deluge of digital offerings, the chaos it is creating, and understands to his core that aggregating all of it together must happen. It's the basis of his company and primary offering.

Any of us who've ever sent someone a vCard understands the power of a standard file format exported from a PC address book and it's not too big of a leap then to understand a microformat (like the hCard microformat) and what these could bring to the Web. Haven't you also had the experience of walking into medical appointment and having to fill out the same damn forms again-n-again and wondered if there might be a better way of maintaining ONE version of your truth so you could provide controlled access to it!?! Me too...but I'm also experiencing profile fatigue as I join site after site after site filling out the same crap over-n-over again (and then forgetting to keep 'em all updated!).

Marc doesn't just focus on that sort of mundane name, address, phone-type data, he GETS that an ID Hub is all about what you can DO with that data and says, "The end game here are VERBS!  Actions!"  I'm paraphrasing, but what riled him up to post about the ID Hub was a premise another blogger had that federated identity would mean people wouldn't "invest" in a particular social hub thus it would be stillborn.

Not true and, in fact, the opposite is true. People are going to stop joining new social sites pretty quickly since they'll be just as pissed off at filling out YASSP (yet another social site profile) and wish that they could just push a button and auto-fill the damn thing. Without the ability to self-federate portions of our own centralized identity, there will be a point where new social sites will automatically be dead on arrival. Super-simple joining will mean people will register quickly and then we'll get past the bullshit numbers we all see when sites must focus on "active members" vs. "numbers of registrants".

Since we all have multiple affinities (e.g., husband, father, geek, member of the gun club, model railroader, volunteer, et al) many of us already belong to multiple affinity groups. The same slicing-n-dicing of social-site-types will inevitably occur as social networking matures and federated identity will make it easier to engage in these sites and also easier for people site-to-site to engage with one another thus accelerating growth.

Back to "VERBS!" and "Actions!".  What if you were in the market for, say, a digital SLR camera. You don't own any lenses and so you could go either Canon or Nikon. You put out a request for quote (RFQ) into a marketplace and it would have your ID Hub number alias affixed to it. The vendor looks up your ID number and verifies your ability to buy, predict that your net worth and past technology purchases indicate a high probability that you'll buy lots of lenses, and the vendor then competes hard for your business.

THAT is how I view "VERBS!" and "Actions!" with my own ID Hub data and THAT is what the promise of a robust ID Hub might provide...besides all the happiness that would ensue when we didn't have to fill out redundant forms!

OpenID, Liberty Alliance, Cardspace and even the Sxip approach are all interesting for delivering an ID Hub. But the problem isn't just a technology one. It's a core, fundamental one: trust.

Gizmo Project Game Changer? Or still not one-click?

Key to staying on top of developments in Internet-centric communications means not just reading about something...but leaping in and actually using the products and services. It's one reason why I invest an inordinate amount of time in Web 2.0 betas, currently shipping offerings as well as installing and using lots of different communication technologies and open source software.

In May of last year I posted about putting Gizmo, Skype and Vonage through my own, personal usability testing and quality of service (QoS) subjective use. Vonage won for having a rock-solid, land-line-like system and Skype because of the sheer ecosystem surrounding it as well as the critical mass of users. Gizmo, though using my preferred open protocol SIP, lost.

Reading Om Malik's post this morning about Gizmo Project's new Flash-centric call product launched this afternoon, I decided to put Gizmo through its paces again. As before, several Gizmo features didn't work like recording a voicemail,  setting up a conference room, calling to the "Record" or "Conference" numbers (they just disconnected) and other weird behaviors. I absolutely *love* the Gizmo Project software and, especially, it's built-in call recording feature for podcasting and other uses. I'm not sure it's enough to get me to use it much...but I'm going to keep trying.

But I am *very* impressed with Gizmo Project's new Flash-based product! Could this be the game changer to get people to use it vs. Skype?

Voice vs. Typing in Second Life

If you haven't yet experienced the virtual world Second Life, you owe it to yourself to invest some time in experiencing it. It's free, fun and worlds like this will, at some point in the not-too-distant future, become one way we meet and interact online.

One frustrating aspect in-world has been the sloooow communication with others. Typing out every single thing is annoying, and like email misinterpretations, it's more difficult to convey meaning and emotion in the written word.

A new, free, Skype-centric service has debuted called SecondTalk, allowing Second Lifers to put on a headset, go in-world and talk!

Second Talk brings free, easy to use voice chat to Second Life. Wear a Second Talk headset, and you’ll instantly know when other Second Talk users are nearby. Choose one or more to talk to, and Second Talk connects you via Skype.

This is a breakthrough on lots of levels. It will have its biggest impact, I predict, in venues like what you see above. In-world meetings, lectures, collaborations or group get-togethers will be much more enjoyable, faster and meaningful when someone can talk vs. typing everything out.

If this catches on, it may be harder for you to have your 18 year old female avatar be believable if you're a 40 year old guy! In some ways, it may also take away from some of the quiet, immersive, and experiential qualities that sometimes feel like you're moving through air seamlessly and weightless. A cacophony of talk might be too distracting...but only time will tell.

Just one word....mobile

In the movie The Graduate starring Dustin Hoffman, Mr. McGuire (a family friend) is giving career advice to Hoffman's character Benjamin, "I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening?" Benjamin says, "Yes, I am." McGuire then leans in and says, in a low voice, "Plastics."

If that scene was repeated today, that one word spoken in a knowing, low voice would be "Mobile."

No less than three venture capitalists I'm connected with (all of whom have made major bets on mobile offerings), a friend that runs public sector and education for a major mobile smartphone company, and several friends that own their own companies concur...the world is accelerating toward mobile.

Apple's iPhone got a lot of attention and rightfully so. This article in eWeek, however, spells out what's happening globally that's significantly more important than what is happening in the US...namely that mobile devices dwarf all other connection types:

Global sales of mobile phones totaled a record 1.02 billion units in 2006, an increase of 25 percent over 2005, and 299.6 million units in the fourth quarter, a survey found on Thursday.

Right now, my Treo 700p lets me connect to: Google search; Google Maps; Yahoo News; to my IM via an application called Toccer; a Flight Status app; my RSS reader, Newsgator;  and essentially anything on the Web. Though not as easy to use as I like, I still have access to the world's information in my hand wherever I happen to be at the moment. How huge is that...and we have only just begun connecting humans to the internet with a variety of device types and applications!

My excitement over the coming acceleration in rich, internet applications in 2007 is palpable but, at the same time, my concern is growing. Anything my clients deploy or use on the Web -- especially if repurposed as RIA's -- needs to be accessible with mobile devices. There is still a tremendous amount of work necessary (e.g., the W3C Mobile Initiative) but a big chunk of the future is summed up in that one word....mobile.

Hacking Your Longevity

Today is my father-in-law's 94th birthday. I love this guy for a bunch of reasons...none the least of which is he brought my bride into the world and raised her with the values and perspective on life I obviously adore.

He's in the hospital quite frail from a bout of the flu and I'll visit him this evening. His long life, optimism and sharp-as-a-tack mind, ability to just ignore things that would've knocked down lesser men (blindness in one eye, knee replaced, mild emphysema from decades of smoking) and just plain goodness is an inspiration.

My own father just turned 81 after a similar life so I'm optimistic about my own chances of making it a few more decades. But after reading extensively on what Ray Kurzweil is pursuing to extend his life and the perfect timing of happening upon this Wired article called Hacking the Human Life Span, it got me to thinking: am  I doing enough to strategically prepare myself to live until, say, 100?

Will corporate social networking include dating?

There's no shortage of social networks out there...all hoping to cash in on the success of MySpace and the alleged billion dollar valuation of Facebook. Today's Wall Street Journal and this article in the New York Times gives one extra dimension to the social networking phenomena: when a company like IBM recognizes social networking and prepares to ship software for companies to build and deliver their own social networks, it legitimizes the entire category.

Most organizations I've been in have amazingly insular cultures. People stay on their floor in a building, hobnob with small circles of colleagues, and executives rarely bother to have coffee or lunch with underlings. As a sales leader, I always encouraged my team to reach out and discover who in our company might know leaders at any of their prospects since it often allowed us access to information and people we otherwise wouldn't have had.

Though the Holy Grail of marketers would be to find a way to unleash the collective intelligence of customers who'd tell them exactly what to make and what they'd then buy, starting with internally connecting the intelligence of the people inside the organization makes perfect sense.

With Ning, PeopleAggregator, GoingOn, ElggSpaces (sort of a Blogger for social network building), next generation bulletin board/forum software offerings like Alstrasoft's efriends software (scroll down to visit social sites built with their software), to instructions on how to build your own MySpace, companies and people are scrambling to figure out what the next, great hub model will be now that more and more of us are connected online and participating like crazy...and are attempting to monetize the phenomena by empowering others to build their own networks.

I predict social network sites will explode this year and dwarf forums (as of today Big Boards tracks 1,933 forums) and getting attention for a new public network will be as tough as attracting people to a blog, web site or any other online offering.

Google Launches In-Urinal Ads

Personalized peeing advertisements -- with scanning to determine what you need -- is probably a ways off, but Google being in talks to acquire AdScape Media (via PaidContent) is just one additional piece of evidence that wherever people's attention and seeking behavior occurs, Google intends to be there to deliver what we need.

The goal is in-game advertising where people are hyper-focused and notice everything while playing. As I said before in this post, my son (the huge gamer), doesn't mind in-game advertising as long as it doesn't interfere with game play.

Non-personalized, above urinal advertising already exists and some even come with video screens that play brief ads. I've seen newspapers behind plexiglas, paper ads and even ones that rotate. All are geared for the 1-2 minutes most guys invest staring at a wall pretending to be unaware of the guys next to them while acting like they're handling something pretty monstrously huge.

The picture of the Google ad above the urinal is intended to be humourous, but the levels of their personalization and targeting is only going to accelerate as methods to capture more and more data proliferate. I welcome some of this but there are times -- like when I'm spending a little quiet time in the men's room -- that I'd prefer to NOT have sponsored by some company.

How much is too much? What will be the Google equivalent of the pop-under Web browser ad? How good will they be at walking the tightrope between too much and not enough ads?

Viral Learning Center

Today I was in quite a spirited discussion with a client about buzz and viral marketing. The focus was on the absolute imperative of authenticity in blogging, podcasting, video creation and ensuring that claims were truthful. Thankfully this client is ready, willing and able to create and deliver really fun videos, isn't interested in corporate-speak in any way and is willing to take a risk while also acting authentically.

The kicker? No matter who you are, it's really hard to do a fun, viral video that doesn't scream, "THIS IS A VIRAL VIDEO. PLEASE WATCH IT AND IMMEDIATELY ALERT EVERYONE YOU KNOW." Every client of mine wants a magic bullet, some formula for instantly gaining attention, and usually I'm told, "We want one of those viral and buzz marketing doohickey's" so we then work with their agency to create something that doesn't trash their brand or make their target viewer think, "Oh geez...I'm embarrassed *for* them that they did this video!"

Just like the months leading up to the dotcom crash when everyone seemed to think their Web site would automagically vault their business into the stratosphere, the notion seems to be that viral messaging and videos will do the same thing...somehow.

Unfortunately what you're about to see -- though tongue-in-cheek -- is undoubtedly going to happen as even Joe's Plumbing Shop decides that creating and uploading a viral video will be a perfect way to get attention. Take a peek at your one-stop-shop for learning all about viral and buzz marketing, the Viral Learning Center. It's the #1, authentic place to learn all about viral marketing doohickey's.

Web 2.0: We're getting closer and closer...

If you want to get a sense of what's coming...look at how two, early stage companies are delivering on a vision of enabling normal humans to create and deliver Web applications: Goowy's new service "YourMinis" and a site creator called Weebly.

I've written about the Lego-like assembly model needed in order to accelerate creation and delivery of Web applications and blow-the-doors-off of this next generation Web. My prediction about Apple and iWeb stands since desktop development isn't going to cease...but it makes SO much sense to do this work online (collaboratively too) and leverage Ajax, the coming revolution in rich, internet application development along with all the widgets, gadgets and open API's within products like those from Goowy and Weebly.

There are other solutions like those mentioned in this TechCrunch review, but the only one I've found that is NOT a tool for, "Hey! Build a Web app for YOU to look at!" -- but rather is intended to create and deliver an actual, robust and completely customizable externally facing site with app-like functionality -- is Synthasite. To me, their approach seems (since I haven't been able to thoroughly test drive the app) to be an enterprise software-like direction and a toolset for each of us to use and deliver whatever we can think up.

The fundamental problem in most of the "value creation and deliver" Web 2.0 tools are that you get a lot of capability, but their name, their ads, their usage of your data (e.g., YouTube videos), their terms of service and your value is more meaningful to them than you and the value you can create is tipped in their favor...not yours. You can slap your logo on many of them, but to truly customize it and make it 100% your own -- so you can maybe create your own video channel within a site while consuming RSS feeds and widgets, etc. -- isn't uniformly easy...yet.

An example of a model to follow is Adobe InDesign or Quark along with Photoshop, Illustrator and other tools for prepress production for (mainly) print publications. We buy these enabling tools and then create and deliver whatever we can dream up -- but our print products, brochures, catalogs or PDF's don't scream, "Powered by Adobe". Adobe isn't providing these tools to us for free or for a pittance and then selling advertising on all of our publications or within PDF's. Same paradigm needs to take place with all of these new, Web 2.0 hosted tools which I'll happily pay for once I can choose a world-class solution and depend upon it.

Can't count out open source tools either. If you care to get under-the-hood and tinker a bit, making Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla and other tools "your own" is pretty straightforward but again, it's the hosted apps and the simple desktop apps that will explode the mass market for Web 2.0.

iPhone: *Any* Publicity is Good Publicity?

Apple has hit a nerve with the iPhone. Not only several billion dollars in additional market cap happened within hours of the announcement as the stock leapt in value, but the meme trackers (Techmeme, Megite, Tailrank) exploded with blog conversations about this device as did the mainstream press. I haven't seen this level of conversation on these trackers ever before which is both interesting and potentially troubling to Apple...but maybe worth the publicity?

The conversation has shifted....dramatically....and the device has only been in the hands of laughingly few people! The concern is over the closed nature of the device itself (only Apple will approve which apps are loaded on the iPhone), the demands to take down a faux iPhone user interface skin for Windows Mobile and Palm, the iPhone trademark issue (Cisco allegedly has one) and whether it's actually worth $500.

All of this just makes me chuckle. Even if Apple used all of its cash on hand (more than $9B as of 9/30/06) they couldn't buy this kind of publicity! Long masters of event marketing, Steve Jobs has often been held up as a model for how to launch products (BusinessWeek, April 2006).

In my view, ONE sentence in that BusinessWeek article above is what EVERYONE is missing: "Steve Jobs does not sell bits of metal; he sells an experience." THAT is the whole point to everything discussed above: the closed nature to the iPhone; the demands to take down the interface; the trademark issue. It's all about the experience.

Mobile, RIA's and Web 2.0

Bumped into a prominent Palo Alto venture capitalist awhile back and -- after we'd caught up and had a nice chat -- I asked, "So where is your firm focusing investments? What's hot?" Without skipping a beat he said, "mobile."

This week has been quite busy so I've been out of my office more than usual and thus pretty mobile. I've really been leaning on my Palm Treo 700p for email, telephony and web browsing (but I did watch Jobs' Macworld keynote Tuesday evening on streaming on my laptop and was stunned by the iPhone). That made me think of several things simultaneously:

1) No question that having an amazingly robust computer and multimedia device in our pocket or purse will be life changing

2) 2007 is going to be the year that Rich Internet Applications (RIA's) accelerate. RIA's will put phenomenal power in the hands of the creative class to deliver well designed applications that live in or out of a Web browser

3) I have no idea how I'm going to take advantage of all the Web 2.0 applications I'm using since NONE OF THEM are mobile enabled.

While watching Jobs tap-tap on the iPhone to zoom into The New York Times looked phenomenal, it's still not a replacement for truly mobile enabled data access.

The W3C mobile initiative sums it up best, "While becoming increasingly popular, mobile Web access today still suffers from interoperability and usability problems. W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative (W3C MWI) addresses these issues through a concerted effort of key players in the mobile production chain, including authoring tool vendors, content providers, handset manufacturers, browser vendors and mobile operators."

Cool iPhone's or not...the current Web isn't very mobile accessible and I shudder to think what's next with the acceleration in Web 2.0 applications and the coming evolution in RIA's. Most of the application creators I deal with and the tools vendors I've been following don't pay much attention to mobile.

iPhone: Changing the paradigm of connection

There are dozens of thoughts swirling through my head after Jobs' keynote at Macworld, but there is one that is uppermost in my mind and, perhaps, is a slightly different perspective than others about the amazing package Apple has delivered with the iPhone.

The accelerating human-to-human connection that a global internet and mobile telephony provides is astounding. But when you think about the implications of the world's knowledge AT YOUR FINGERTIPS with extremely powerful handheld devices it gets even more interesting, lifechanging, and truly an enormous catalyst to drive interactions online.

Not that smartphones haven't existed before...it's that they've been "just OK" since they're replete with compromises. I love my Treo 700p and think it's cool...but the operating system and applications on it (I use the PalmOS version) feels like the old, shaky, MacOS 9 instead of the robust, unix-based Mac OS X operating system (which the iPhone is based upon). The Windows Mobile version of the Treo is worse since Windows Mobile feels like Window98 stuffed into a phone and has a PC-centric user interface.

The iPhone is a reinvention of the concept of a portable, rich, elegant, comprehensive communications device for your hip or purse and if the keynote or Apple web site animations are any indicator, this is going to be one phenomenal device. Are there tradeoffs and compromises? Probably...but sitting on my desk right now is the first generation iPod which looks laughingly clunky right now even though it was launched in October of 2001. My...how things have changed with the iPod devices in that short time. We can expect the same with this class of device from Apple and others.

Now think about the trends in social software; in Web applications; in video, audio and animations; in education. How cool is it that you could easily and seamlessly interact with them all from wherever you happen to be at the moment?

I can only imagine the possibilities of searching Google and having location-based advertising show up. Or being able to grab a picture and moblog on the spot. Or working on some machine and quickly looking up the manual online (I do so now but go to my computer, find the PDF, print the page and take it with me). Learning (education and training) is the category that promises to be changed the most since why bother to memorize tons of information and data when you can just look it up? Having the world's information at your fingertips will have profound implications and I'm already experiencing many of them today via my Treo and the fast Verizon EV-DO network.

I have one year left on my Verizon contract with my Treo 700p but will undoubtedly buy one of these anyway and sign up for Cingular. Wow.

Value 2.0: Your Value in a Box?

Wikinomics just arrived and I've leapt into reading this new book by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams -- and am already 25% of the way through it. It's a very good book for those needing context about the accelerating change occurring with an increasingly connected globe and the disruption, changes -- and exciting opportunities -- being enabled by the Internet and the emergent culture of participation.

I've been thinking deeply about -- and searching for thought leaders discussing -- the non-monetary, non-barter value exchange accelerating globally (or what Tapscott calls "non-market production"). Wikipedia, open source software and even cooperative non-profit efforts are manifestations of the phenomena. Mass collaboration fostered by a globally connected consciousness is certain to exponentially increase it and is at the core of Tapscott/Williams argument.

Though 1/4th of the way through it, Wikinomics has already crystallized my thinking on one, key point imperative to all of us if we intend to be a marketable commodity in a globally connected world: how can we put our value in a box? How can that value be encapsulated so it can "plug in" to strategies, projects, and efforts where mass collaboration is required? How can others trust that the value is real?

I've written before about extreme specialization and clearly mass collaboration will allow each of us to more narrowly focus our personal value propositions and deliver our value if a way emerges to offer our value into a marketplace and plug-n-play it into a larger effort. Step #1 is identity management, but my thinking is expanding:

• What if there was an agreed upon microformat or profile (LinkedIn has the closest thing to what I'm describing) that would telegraph to others our capabilities, experience, strengths, knowledge and, especially, our availability to be hired?

• Who would be the trusted authority to certify that our stated value representation was authentic? Or would it be as simple as a reputation system and a trusted authority would be unnecessary? (e.g., eBay's seller feedback/rating). (In my view, reputation is where LinkedIn falls down since most "recommendations" are from friends or close colleagues and are thus tinged with too much positive and is more evident of the effort someone has put into LinkedIn and harnessed others to recommend them).

• Or perhaps it could be as simple as participating in a value marketplace. "This work is worth $X" and "you need reputation Y to bid on it" so teams would be self-assembled and willing, available participants could come together to mass collaborate and receive monetary value in return equal to their effort and merit.