Connecting the Dots

Minnov8: Showcasing Minnesota Innovation in Internet & Web Technology

If you're out in the Bay area or on the other coast in New York or Boston, it's pretty easy to be smug about your culture of risk-taking, pool of top talent, and strings of successful, world-changing innovations. But as the world continues its acceleration to one that's increasingly connected and ways of collaborating make distance irrelevant, smart people will pop up everywhere and I'm convinced we'll see a flattening of the geographic advantages these pockets of innovation represent.

Six of us were bugged that there was so much going on in Internet and Web technology innovation right here in Minnesota, that when I suggested we start our own blog to showcase that innovation, there were nods of agreement and a willingness to dive in and make it real.

The biggest reason we were all interested in this blog is that these showcases and interviews are what we wanted to read and there wasn't anything like it out there.

The result is Minnov8: Minnesota Innovation in Internet & Web Technology. This past weekend was the biggest Barcamp yet, Minnebar, and over 400 people showed up to present, learn and participate. Rather than recreate everything on this blog, why not take a peek at Minnov8? This and this post are ones that will recap what took place.

Wherever you live and whatever space you care about (e.g., technology, education, greentech, etc.) and where there are a critical mass of people willing to leap in and work together as multiple authors, I'd encourage you to start one of these...it's pretty simple to do and fun to boot.

Virtual Communications: Using Lessons Learned Elsewhere

Moviemakers of the suspense, horror and drama genres learned long ago that in order to build tension in the audience, slowly lowering the sound makes moviegoers start to strain to hear the dialogue (and yes, music and other sound is added to build to a crescendo). Tension builds, the muscles in the bodies of the audience tighten, they begin to lean forward slightly and THE HAND FLIES INTO THE SCREEN, GRABS OUR HERO AND THE AUDIENCE JUMPS IN THEIR SEATS SCREAMING!

Works every time.

Now take a technology we've used for a long time -- conference calling on the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) -- and realize that people calling in on a variety of devices (headsets, cell phones, office phones) add noise and the telephone system (and conference bridge) sample at only a measly 8khz. The result? Tension builds, our muscles tighten and we actually shift our attention (you know who you are....you surfin' the web folks when you're supposed to be listening to us on the call!) and the quality of the conference and what we're trying to communicate to one another suffers.

Let's look at Skype and how using it decreases tension and increases the quality. Sampling at 16khz means the quality is substantially higher than POTS and is so good that you can hear people breathe, move something on their desk or even click their mouse. The "resolution" of the audio is much higher and thus the call quality is better. The result? Lower tension (or none at all), the callers are relaxed and the communication is higher. Thankfully there are emerging conference bridges that can handle call-ins via Skype and sample at 16khz to maintain call quality (e.g., HighSpeedConferencing).

Let's take this one step further to other forms of social media: Imagine you hosted a party and when your guests arrived, no one greeted them at the door, clusters of people were broken up into little cliques ignoring them, and as you glanced over at them in the doorway thought, "They're on their own and are just going to have to figure out how to participate."

The Cognitive Age: Why Social Media Matters

Our economy is down, gas prices are up, jobs are being lost and outsourced, we're at 'war' with possible escalation (e.g., attacking Iran), and there is tremendous uncertainty in nearly every industry being disrupted in some way by the connecting of the globe and the increasing influence of the Internet.

Let me submit for your consideration that the impact of social media -- technologies, software and approaches connecting any of us willing to participate with them online -- is pointing the way toward new systems and behaviors that will enable us all to move higher up the value chain as we learn how, together, we can create and deliver what the world needs in new and innovative ways.

One of the best op-ed pieces I've read in some time, The Cognitive Age, was published in the New York Times on Friday by David Brooks.

In this piece he's putting globalization in context in this election cycle, which is chiefly on competition with other countries and the policies of government that ostensibly is accelerating job loss in the US. Brooks puts forth this premise which bears emphasis:

"The chief force reshaping manufacturing is technological change (hastened by competition with other companies in Canada, Germany or down the street). Thanks to innovation, manufacturing productivity has doubled over two decades. Employers now require fewer but more highly skilled workers. Technological change affects China just as it does the America. William Overholt of the RAND Corporation has noted that between 1994 and 2004 the Chinese shed 25 million manufacturing jobs, 10 times more than the U.S."

Then he outlines his central argument which, I should add, I completely agree with:

"The central process driving this is not globalization. It’s the skills revolution. We’re moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combining information. This is happening in localized and globalized sectors, and it would be happening even if you tore up every free trade deal ever inked."

What does this have to do with social media and why does that category of technology matter?

The Hybrid/RIA War: Adobe's Open Screen Project

Today's announcement by Adobe of the Open Screen Project has been well covered in the blogosphere. What hasn't been well covered is the story-behind-the-story and that this is a major salvo in the hybrid application war.

I've written before about the rich, internet application (RIA) space (here, here and here for example) and the momentum being built behind the tools, approaches and delivery containers with content, data and functionality mashed up and delivered in a hybrid manner.

As the world is increasingly connected and broadband/wireless speeds increase (and device types proliferate with internet connectivity), the demand for more and more functionality integrating the desktop and the internet is accelerating and the major vendors (and open source ones) are trying to figure out how to empower us to create and deliver new digital assets that customers will value and buy.

What isn't discussed much is the now primarily covert 'war' underway between Adobe with Flash (and AIR, Media Player, et al), Microsoft with Silverlight, Apple with WebKit (though little has been intimated publicly on what they might do in the RIA space or how they might leverage the stealth Quicktime installs on Windows with iTunes and the recent Safari Windows release) and Mozilla's Prism. All are focused on how to provide a winning environment upon and within which content creators, developers and strategists can deliver ever higher value and create competitive advantage for they and their companies. Whoever pulls that off will win.

Four very different approaches, market positioning, tools to create and develop, and overall go-to-market plans (most of which an outsider can only guess at) but the promise of RIA's is huge for applications and for us, whether we want to create-n-deliver or just enjoy the fruits of the labors of others: replacement for current web apps; completely new categories; and even one area we're already exploring in my company, a new type of subscription/self-updating ebook that RSS feeds, video and audio automagically appear within when a subscriber opens it and is connected to the 'net.

Who will win? I don't know yet but the winner will be the one with the best tools, the largest runtime container distribution, and the most support from the ecosystem surrounding them. The momentum is with Adobe but, then again, it was with Apple in 1980 at the dawn of the personal computing industry, and we know how that turned out.

Behind The Eyeballs: 75% of All Ads and Content Ineffective?

So many designers, user interface creators and arm-chair critics think they know what makes really compelling content, how ads should be displayed or even how a web site or application should be delivered. But do they? Do any of us really know what it takes to present and communicate content and ads that are truly compelling, cut above the noise, and garner attention from an increasingly scattered audience who have in front of them an overwhelming and accelerating number of choices?

One company is staking a claim to an understanding of the cognitive landscape behind our eyeballs with their quantitative and measurable solutions: NeuroFocus (via AdLab). Dr. A.K. Pradeep, CEO of NeuroFocus, said this in a follow-up interview with Media Post: "We've found that about 75% of all content--not just advertisements--is not neurologically optimal."

"For example, consumers interpret info on different parts of a screen with different sections of their brain. [...] So an advertiser or TV show producer has reduced the engagement potential and effectiveness of their content from the onset if the bulk of the textual and numerical info is placed on the left side--with the imagery or brand logos on the right."

The company obtains their results through biometric measurements. That means volunteers strap on a skull cap with electrodes on it and engage with the content and advertisements of which they're presented. The thing that troubles me a bit, is that like the uncertainty principle in quantum physics, my experiences have shown that when observers know they're being measured their behavior and cognitive processing changes. It does seem, however, that NeuroFocus' research at least provides a baseline from which content and ads can be more precisely delivered. Then further refinement can occur (with we unaware and passive brains behind eyeballs) with other analytical tools or simple measures of clickstream data.

The Nielsen Company (the grandaddy of TV measurement) has made a strategic investment in NeuroFocus so they're obviously on to something.

The promise (to advertisers) of the shift to internet-based ad delivery is measurement and to us (the online user) it's ad relevancy, contextualized or personalized ads. Rarely does significant  and ongoing ad placement occur without measurement nor do venture capitalists sit still for long as ad-dependent-for-revenue companies attempt to drive user engagement and expansion of our involvement with their offering...and thus garner advertisers.

Solid measurement is healthy. Best practices more so as they're indicators of actions we can take with understandable and quantifiable returns. It's still pretty early in the evolution of the internet, but knowing what to do, how to deliver it and how to measure it is key to economic success on the 'net and continued innovation.

To read more, take a peek at this well done New York Times article here and the CEO has a couple of mp3's and a white paper here.

Photojournalism: Every Career Affected in an Internet Age

Last night I was delighted to attend the National Geographic LIVE! event with photographer Sam Abell, and came away with something I didn't expect about professional photography in today's internet age. More on that in a bit, but first a story on how I came to attend this talk and some impressions.

I've been clear while on this new adventure Connecting the Dots and fulfilling my intention as a management consultant in all things internet, web and social media, that I had to be attuned to "the signs" pointing me along my path. These signs are usually tiny and insignificant unto themselves -- and therefore most of us miss seeing them -- but I've been hyperaware and on the lookout for over two years.

As an amateur photographer, I'm always seeking ways to improve my photography through making my lens clearer and ensure I'm using the right filters. This isn't the camera lens or filters I slap on to them, but rather is the lens through which I view the world (my perceptions, prejudices, curiosities) and the mental filters I apply to a photograph's outcome (knowledge, ego, and my inner drive to show technical competence) and strive to convey in a photo what I'm feeling inside.

Last week I scanned my bookshelf and grabbed an early 1990's book on photography (from National Geographic (NG)) to re-read it. Flipping through this nicely done smallish paperback, I settled on a sidebar about the techniques of this guy, Sam Abell, and how he'd almost been fired by his first editor for his dark and non-use of the tricks-of-the-trade (e.g., fill-in flash for underexposed subjects on a bright background). There was something about his approach that resonated with me and caused me to go back and look at his photos and dwell on them awhile.

Two days later I'm on my way to an appointment and Minnesota Public Radio has an interview running with him that I listened to for 45 minutes. Then I read a newspaper article about him. Later that day I come across the event linked to above and broke into a smile...

...."OK, I get it and see the signs," I thought, and bought tickets to last nights event.

Are you even aware of what's available on the Web?

The good new and bad news of the Web: There is so much innovation, so many resources, such a wealth of content and now millions of participants to connect with and pay attention to, it's sometimes easy to overlook the fact that the global database is being added to every moment of every day and ironically making it tougher to find stuff.

Besides some of the obvious-to-my-tech readers directories like Go2Web20, a listing of Web 2.0 hosted applications (2,294 listings as of Thursday, April 17, 2008), the Open Directory project, Sourceforge listing of more than 174,000 open source packages or even such more narrowly focused sites like one for content management systems (OpenSourceCMS), it's the acceleration of content repositories that stun me and yet finding them is more challenging than ever.

At issue is the amount of energy investment required to seek and find what you need. Here's one example: I have a friend in need of access to huge numbers of photos for his K-12 education initiative. Of course, these need to be unrestricted-license images so kids and teachers can use them with abandon. Besides some of the obvious education offerings from key providers, I've placed 19 links to sites I hadn't heard of before (click on 'Continue reading...' below) but finding them took me nearly two hours of trolling to discover and this list is FAR from comprehensive.

This illustrates my point: Without considerable time invested coupled with some searching competence, it's tough to find all of the great stuff that already exists on the Web and is being added to daily.

This is one reason that I'm cautiously optimistic about the semantic Web summed up thusly: "Humans are capable of using the Web to carry out tasks such as finding the Finnish word for "cat", reserving a library book, and searching for a low price on a DVD. However, a computer cannot accomplish the same tasks without human direction because web pages are designed to be read by people, not machines. The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, sharing and combining information on the web."

My hope is that one day, any of us will be able to perform one search, computers will take on more of the tedious task of determining what's relevant, and every single reference to "free education photo" offerings that meet my criteria will appear in a way that a human-directed listing now can.

Competing (and being discovered) in a Time of Utility Computing

Unless you are actively seeking a particular solution or invest enough time looking at hosted Web applications like I do (once per quarter over the last nine quarters I've looked at nearly every Web hosted application on the major lists), then you'll undoubtedly miss seeing huge value Web applications like One True Media (OTM).

A friend had a specific business objective in mind and went on the hunt for a solution that would fit his need. He searched in vain and one day I happened to be doing my once-per-quarter surfing of sites and came across OTM and sent him the link.

"It's absolutely PERFECT!" he exclaimed and ended up choosing and aligning around it. Helping him out with communications and training around his initiative, I've spent significantly more time within OTM than I have using its competitors (e.g., Scrapblog, Vuvox, Flektor and Animoto), but I've been stunned with OTM's features, the "fit and finish" of the application, and how it is perfect for consumers interested in putting together mashed-up montages of video, images, music, and text slides. The bonus is inserting that finished creation either within a theme or not and then having the option to embed it in their social network/blog/website or to make a DVD (for a full review of OTM, see the excellent one done by one of the most under-appreciated and best reviewers of technology on the planet, Robin Good, here).

But will OTM survive? Will all of the ones I mentioned above in this category be able to survive as it becomes easier and cheaper to create and deliver hosted Web applications and thus competitors to arrive in this space?

I'm using OTM as a "poster child" for what I see as THE biggest issue of our new, social media/Web application/Internet-centric world: there are so many phenomenally good and valuable offerings out there that it's almost impossible to be discovered and build critical mass needed to survive -- and this problem is only going to get worse as utility computing accelerates making it easier-n-easier for competitors to appear.

Twubble: Is it a weally, weally good service?

Joking around and poking fun isn't my style -- especially when someone has launched something that is trying to make a good service (Twitter) better -- but I couldn't help myself when I saw a link to the new Twitter extension Twubble and went to it half expecting to be greeted by Elmer Fudd (also, what is this world coming to when even cartoon characters have their own Wikipedia page?).

Twubble is actually pretty cool. I was already logged in to Twitter and it went out to find (and recommend) others whom my friends are following. It actually does make Twitter more useful and I have already added some people my friends are following.

Enjoy a bit more Elmer Fudd reference:

Quit whining and let's appreciate how far we've come...

On our last day in New York, my son and I had fully intended to head to Ellis Island but alas, timing didn't work out (Northwest Airlines cancelled our flight and other issues). Now facing a six hour adventure to get home (vs. just over three hours) has put my 13 year old in a foul mood, "Dad...I'll be so BORED!" he cries as we talk about ways to keep our minds occupied in the airport, on the flights and the one hour layover until we finally get home.

Oh....we poor babies! A six hour, relatively comfortable flight with nothing to read or DVD's to watch...how can we manage?

Imagine being one of the 12 million immigrants that spent WEEKS on a journey that culminated in arriving in New York and going through Ellis Island (unless you were wealthy or 'upper class' and then you were automatically in). Arduous? To say the least. Boring? Undoubtedly. Smelly, dirty and infested? Yep.

I think about stuff like this whenever I complain about technology: slow, expensive Wifi (like I experienced in our New York hotel); lack of 3G in my iPhone and that I can't use it as a bluetooth modem; or that it's challenging to integrate free, open source software projects. At least I'm not in the middle of the Atlantic with nothing and coming to a land of opportunity and unknown challenges.

Am I grateful for what I (and we) have today? Oh my God yes. I'm also aware how 'soft' we are as a nation and a people since most of us haven't lived through true hardship like our immigrant ancestors (though we may now if the economy continues its downward trend!). I'm aware often that I come from quite modest means and my maternal grandparents, for example, were as close to the poverty line as I'll ever experience (hopefully) and were the salt of the earth...teaching me early the meaning and importance of love over anything else...especially the material. The guidance from them, my parents and the people I've gravitated toward over the years have reinforced this perspective.

The flip side is that whining and complaints is the market speaking and actually is a good thing. We're telling the creators, the vendors and the service providers what is NOT working and what needs to be improved. It's the only way that progress occurs and the inefficient is made efficient.

It's just that whining and complaining works best if it's balanced with appreciation on how far we've come and we approach our suggestions, criticisms and feedback in the spirit of making it better.

I've been invited in to dozens of 'private beta' Web offerings as well as sit on the advisory boards of two companies. Why? I really appreciate where we've been in the space they're attacking (usually one that desperately needs improvement), where we are now (the current offerings in the market), where they're headed, and that my positive whining, complaining, guidance and insight -- if offered in the true spirit of improvement -- is deeply appreciated and results in positive change.

Give it a try the next time you're mad, frustrated or befuddled by some product or service that you think needs to be made more efficient. I'll wager it will be accepted well if it's offered with appreciation and your positive feedback.

M&M World gets our attention

Waiting for our room in a New York hotel, I was struck by the recent additions to the Times Square screaming signage noise, but how effective they are...and how this is a harbinger of things to come as traditional media continues to decline.

When billions are at stake as they are with TV, radio, newspapers and magazines run by people quite adept at the psychology of gaining and holding our attention, they'll undoubtedly do a lot more than reality shows as more of us tune them out.

But will this attention acumen translate to Internet properties? I'm not so sure since there is an inherent equality of attention-getting when your site or blog is a click away from, say, MTV's or CNN's and an audience can be grabbed and held for slot less investment than a press, broadcast network or gigantic, animated billboard in Times Square.

Why pay for software in a day of open source?

You may have noticed the highly visible online argument going on between SixApart's Anil Dash and Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg. It escalated today when Matt continued the "open source vs. paid" debate (which is really open source ecosystem energy vs. a perceived slow-to-move commercial vendor positioning against open source).

This is amazingly healthy in my view and the competition for the hearts-n-minds of bloggers clearly is driving SixApart to build and deliver better and more robust services (and I've been waiting for them!).

I'd reframe this debate like this however: why should you pay for software in a day when open source is free and the ecosystem surrounding the successful projects is immense?

When I made my decision to begin blogging in earnest in 2004, there was only one vendor I was willing to bet my blogging on: SixApart's Typepad hosting. Though I can easily install, run and maintain numerous types of open source packages (and could've with Movable Type, the software at the root of Typepad), I knew myself well enough and that I'd be twiddling bits instead of writing content if I used the then fairly immature Wordpress. Typepad looked like a sure bet and had the momentum so that was my choice.

Even though I've been at the enterprise software level with Vignette and Lawson Software in leadership positions, for some clients I've chosen Joomla, Drupal and even used Wordpress as a low-end content management engine. But when it comes to betting your business or a new initiative on a new category, it's imperative there's someone or some organization available to ensure a successful outcome with the software used.

Freeconomics: What about MY cost for YOUR free?

Am somewhat amazed by the backlash against Chris Anderson's new Wired piece, "Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business". Charges that he wrote a "communist manifesto" were probably the harshest ones, but many people I've been talking with, both in person and virtually, share somewhat of that same opinion: "something is wrong if you have to give away your value" and "we can't all make money by grabbing mass numbers of eyeballs in order to deliver advertising to them."

They're missing his point and he missed one I think he shouldn't have.

Anderson's "it's the falling costs, stupid" premise can be summed up in this paragraph taken, ironically, from his article in the Economist magazine:

The dominant business model on the internet today is making money by giving things away. Much of that is merely the traditional media model of using free content to build audiences and selling access to them to advertisers. But an increasing amount of it falls into the free-sample model: because it is so cheap to offer digital services online, it doesn’t matter if 99% of your customers are using the free version of your services so long as 1% are paying for the “premium version”. After all, 1% of a big number can also be a big number.

Free is a major shift and a huge trend, especially with any sort of online service. If you thoroughly read Anderson's article in Wired you may or may not buy into the argument he makes, and may even accept his premise that free is driven primarily by the fall in producer costs as the costs associated with delivering them continue to drop online.

But wait just a minute.

Economic Effect on Tech

If you have a job, retirement assets, are looking to spend or invest in anything, or have a company that relies on discretionary consumer spending (or a Web startup that is dependent on equally volatile discretionary ad spending), then listen up.

Woke up this morning to this article in the Minneapolis StarTribune entitled, "Retailers Hit 40-Year Low" which said in part, "On Thursday, the nation's retailers turned in their worst January in almost four decades, as high fuel and food prices, a slumping housing market, tighter credit and a tougher job market pushed consumers to the edge."

It's no wonder that Apple cut its production of (what is mostly) discretionary purchases. From that StarTribune article, "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says that its shoppers are redeeming their holiday gift cards for basic items -- pasta sauce, diapers, laundry detergent -- instead of iPods or DVDs."

But it gets worse than consumers buying staples instead of tech.

Hostway WWW: The World's Worst Web host?

A cautionary tale as you decide whom you'll entrust with your mission-critical business applications and why Hostway gets my vote as the world's worst web host.

I decided to write this post since my wife's web site is down AGAIN as is the backend of the service and I've burned up an hour dialing the phone in an attempt to get someone, anyone, to address it.

For several years my wife's business has hosted her web site at Bigstep. When we first started with them in 2000, I was at Vignette and looked for a robust, browser-based ecommerce/website engine that would allow she and her non-technical staff to completely run the site. It worked and we were successfully up and running in days.

Unfortunately, Bigstep had burned through $30+ million in venture capital and couldn't make a go of it. The architecture is java-centric and thus tough to maintain and expand (and slower I hear) so they were sold to Affinity, at that point the world's third largest hosting company (or so they claimed).

Affinity was gobbled up by Hostway in April of 2007, and I had high hopes they'd now invest in Bigstep. Not only did they not seemingly put a nickel of investment in Bigstep, as of last week, they announced they're taking Bigstep offline at the end of March.

I wouldn't have formed an opinion that Hostway is the world's worst web host had it not been for all the effort I've expended TO TALK TO SOMEONE OR HAVE ANYONE RESPOND to an email, a phone call, or requests through the support system to understand where they were taking Bigstep strategically.

Hostway claims here that, "Superior support sets us apart from the bargain-basement Web hosts. We pride ourselves on offering the best and most reliable support in our industry. And with 24/7 live support, we're there when you need us all day, every day and with 24/7 live support, we're there when you need us all day, every day." Sorry Hostway. I've had better service from hosts like Bluehost for $6.95 per month.

Their lack of responsiveness extends, ironically, to sales. Try calling them at 1-866-467-8929 and, for example, request commercial sales. If you're on hold for less than 10 minutes I'd be surprised (I've tried repeatedly to reach out via sales, support and the corporate office...all to no avail...and been on hold for 20-30 minutes or more). How long would a commercial customer stay on hold in the hope someone would come on the line and help me buy? Sorry Hostway. You get one or two minutes of my time if you're selling and I'm buying.

"Hostway's number one asset is the growing base of loyal customers we serve every day. Customers small and large rely on Hostway to provide secure, reliable and value-rich hosting services for their Web operations. Hostway's number one asset is the growing base of loyal customers we serve every day."  

Hostway, you know that's marketing speak and not reality. My wife's business is in the smallish category and you've NEVER provided us with reliable services for our Web operations (the site has been down dozens of times since you acquired Affinity in April of 2007 and we've often called and been the catalyst for a system reboot!!). We're not a loyal customer (the switching costs is what's held us back thus far) and will never be a customer again once we've switched.

---

UPDATE: Not being able to connect, I called the Chicago corporate office at 312.236.2125 and randomly dialed extensions until I reached someone and ultimately got a call back from tech support for Bigstep. The kicker? It's been a half hour since I was told they were rebooting the system and the whole shebang (our site and the admin backend) is still down returning a "server error." During my on-hold time, I poked around Google and found a major outage last summer with their premiere low-end property, ValueWeb, that caused severe problems as it was so protracted.

Sprout: A mashup & application tool for the masses

Our pals at Techcrunch just posted about a new company that debuted today at DEMO called Sprout and thought I'd attempt to get in on the private beta and lo-and-behold...I got in.

The 'sprout' (their term vs. 'widget') you see below is one I created in 15 minutes. It took me longer to open Photoshop, reduce the size of the Connecting the Dots header and to type in the pathnames to my podcasts (yes I know...they're OLD) then it did to create the sprout!

I just grinned and shook my head in disbelief as I used it since Sprout has delivered on my pent up desire to have just such a mashup and creation tool which begs the question: why the hell didn't Adobe do this with their rich internet application (i.e., RIA or Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)) strategy? To date mere mortals -- who are savvy enough to use InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and the like -- can't truly deliver on AIR, Microsoft Silverlight or even Webkit apps unless the propeller on their beanie is fairly large.

There are a few nits (the words "Click on any playlist..." were bolded and italicized which didn't publish) but they're so few compared to the power Sprout has unleashed they're easily overlooked. I also want to understand what they'll charge for the service -- or those I direct to Sprout to create -- before I get too fired up about recommending people leap on the tool and deliver mission-critical products.

I also noticed a slight latency as my 'sprout' loads which you might notice also. I've been a broken record on the topic of the "dirty little secret" -- that Internetwork latency is already affecting mashups, Web/Enterprise 2.0 applications, video delivery and essentially everything we do over the Internet -- but this latency won't likely slow down the creation and delivery of mashed up applications. I hope, really hope, that this latency doesn't crush the spirit of those of us truly wanting to create and deliver significantly higher value on the Web with tools like Sprout.

Using this tool for 30 minutes tonight has sparked about 25 ideas for how I'd use it. From completely self-contained multimedia slideshows to a different sort of ebook to a poor man's RIA, I suspect many others will have exactly the same reaction and start building these things like mad.

Are you suffering from attention overload?

In my work it's imperative I stay abreast of new technologies, approaches and how social media startups are figuring out how to increase our capability to connect to one another in more interesting and meaningful ways.

But how many places can we focus our attention?

I blog. Follow and skim 138 blogs and dozens of news feeds in Google Reader. Deal with dozens of emails per day. Scan Techmeme and Blogrunner. Post and follow people on Twitter and now Pownce. Barely use Facebook but feel compelled since so many people I know are using it. Just joined Seesmic (in private alpha) which is a social network for participatory video (see what your friends post, you can post, and a 'conversation' can carry forward). Scroll through Digg's feed and often click on an article.

Oh....and I have work to do for my clients and business!

Since one my strengths is "input" (collecting information is something I love to do), I thought my scattered focus and partial attention was atypical until I talked to dozens of other people. Nearly everyone I talk to is feeling the effects of traditional media clamoring for our attention, more coverage and news with less analysis than ever before, and thousands of new media methods (some which I mentioned above) that are connecting us in ways that making it very challenging to think, mull it over and breathe.

Many business leaders feel that this continuous partial attention is a Millenials or kids phenomena, but my own anecdotal research shows that this is increasingly cutting across all age groups, demographics and cultures (Linda Stone has the seminal thoughts on the topic).

Anyone with a computer and internet connection is now a mini-media mogul since it's trivial to publish, create radio and TV (even live streams ala uStream, Qik, Stickam), deliver screencasts and learning content, and stake a claim in the micro-blogging arena (e.g., Twitter, Pownce) and snag followers tuning into your thought stream.

With all of these sources coming at us (or those we choose feeling compelled or pressured to stay abreast of their content) while we pay continuous partial attention to each, what happens to these attention traffic jams in our brains? How can we discern what is worthy of our attention since not all of it is?

What if all human knowledge was free and accessible?

Imagine that for lunch today you had to go into your storehouse and find the peaches you canned last summer, the meat from the cow you slaughtered and smoked, and the grain you packed away after harvesting it while heading up to the kitchen to prepare it all. Pretty ridiculous to consider for we urban dwellers, heh?  We instead go to the grocery store and get what we need all nice and shrink-wrapped or just head over to our favorite local restaurant for lunch to be served to us all piping hot.

The farming, ranching, slaughterhouse, bakeries, food service and distribution system (e.g., refrigerated trains, trucking, grocery stores) ensures that most of us don't need to think too hard about where we'll get today's lunch or tomorrow's remarkably inexpensive calories. We also expend laughingly few calories to obtain what we need compared to even a generation ago (thus why we're so fat...but I digress) and this whole food ecosystem has allowed all of us to move to a higher level and specialize in our work in ways our great-grandparents could never have foreseen since we're not expending so many calories (not to mention time) to grow, gather up, store and prepare them.

One thing is clear if you're investing any time staying abreast of the acceleration in Internet-centric knowledge repositories (e.g., Wikipedia, Google Knol, Instructables, Connexions), as well as higher learning institution initatives (e.g., MIT Open Courseware), then you'll begin to understand the vision and promise embodied in a new initiative by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Rich Baraniuk, respective founders of Wikipedia and Connexions, called The Cape Town Open Education Declaration (via Smart Mobs).

We are on the cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge. They are also planting the seeds of a new pedagogy where educators and learners create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go.

This emerging open education movement combines the established tradition of sharing good ideas with fellow educators and the collaborative, interactive culture of the Internet. It is built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint. Educators, learners and others who share this belief are gathering together as part of a worldwide effort to make education both more accessible and more effective.

Does this mean that your training, learning, knowledge work or content is going to be free or cause you to give it away?

Giving your value away...

As the weeks go by I'm more certain than ever that monetization of any intellectual capital-type efforts will be Internet-centric or people won't give money in exchange for it -- and, ironically, that giving value away over the Internet may become 'table stakes' to be in the content or software game. 

Traditional distribution channels for intellectual capital (TV channels and non-online video, bookstores, video rental and music stores, industry publications and newsletters, learning in classroom or DVD, et al) can't scale in the same way they can on the Internet. There is finite shelf space; it takes too long to deliver information when something is published and distributed; people want the information or training when they need it vs. when they can travel somewhere to learn it; and people are shifting their demand criteria anyway in a day of on-demand, always-available access.

Something you might not have considered is that people are also increasingly expecting complimentary sources for what they consume so they can get multiple points of view and perspective as well as having multiple sources to compare and from which to choose (it's where my "experts don't exist" mantra comes from since I demand more than one or two sources for anything). Shopping services; memetrackers to get multiple blogger points of view; voting sites (e.g., Digg) so the community decides which articles are most important and so on.

What's unique in delivering intellectual capital-type efforts over the Internet is that more of us are expecting it to be delivered for free and many of us take advantage of it. The kicker? People simply taking the value without paying for it increases its intrinsic value IF the act of taking it in some way adds a form of personal perspective or influencer metadata above it and provides the intellectual capital-type efforts with more attention, importance, word-of-mouth buzz or informal guidance (premise based loosely on Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns).

Here are three examples.

WebKit-based application from Ntractive to debut at Macworld

If you don't know about the category of applications dubbed "hybrid" or "Rich, Internet Applications (RIA's)" then you need to learn more since 2008 is the year this category accelerates. RIA's are functionally like desktop applications but arguably the most significant feature of them is the ability to interact with "the cloud" or computing that occurs with hosted applications on the Internet.

Though not explicitly an RIA-type application, the easiest way most people understand the category is to think about iTunes. This application is a desktop one enabling you to rip, manage, burn to CD or sync to iPod all of your music. But where it gets really interesting is when you're Internet-connected and you can buy music or videos, subscribe to podcasts, and download cover art. This hybrid nature is quite useful as Internet connections become ever faster, increasingly wireless and more ubiquitous.

The Minneapolis StarTribune had an article in the business section Friday morning showcasing a Grand Forks, ND startup, Ntractive, who will be launching Elements SBM™ at Macworld which opens Tuesday with a keynote by Steve Jobs.

Marketing Consultant Graeme Thickins of NewMediaWise contacted me to find out if I'd be interested in having co-founder Dale Jensen walk me through Elements SBM, which we did in early December. We met and I was stunned with the completeness of the application, how well thought out it was and that it looked great. The user interface was one that I saw any small to midsized business would have a staffer up-n-running on in an hour.

Rather than re-create the great job they've done laying out their features and benefits, I'll instead suggest you go through the tabs on their site starting with Features. The application integrates very well with such Mac applications like iChat, iPhoto and, of course, connects to Ntractive's hosted service to leverage data storage and connection in a true software as a service (SaaS) fashion.

What I'll end with is my perspective about the brilliance of these two deciding on and engineering upon WebKit. There are competitive approaches and examples include: Adobe leveraging Flash and other standard technologies with their RIA container called "AIR" (Adobe Integrated Runtime); Microsoft with a browser plugin to deliver their RIA runtime Silverlight; as well as other projects to "hybridize" web applications like Google Gears and Mozilla Prism. WebKit, however, is a complete, self-contained application framework that is fully standards compliant and open source.

WebKit is the basis of Mac OS X's Safari web browser (now on both Mac and Windows). Though the horserace has just begun on who will win the dominant approach to creating and delivering RIA's, I'm experiencing my alpha geek friends staying neutral on which "RIA horse" to bet on (or keep coding using other approaches). Still, there is no question in my mind that choosing WebKit enables Ntractive to move faster and build higher level functionality than other approaches while leaving the framework horserace to the software stallions Adobe, Apple and Microsoft.

Internet: Disruption Happens Slooowly

Those of you who work at newspapers, TV & radio stations or networks, magazine or book publishers, advertising or public relations, telephone companies -- or any of a myriad number of threatened industries being "made more efficient" (i.e., disrupted) by the Internet -- may not be fully grasping how a culture of participation, social media offerings and a techno-savvy world is embracing new technologies and forcibly choosing something different or simply no longer paying attention to what you do.

Major disruptive changes happen so slowly that most of us don't react quickly enough or are uncertain and thus take little or no action.

My grandfather was employed with the Great Northern Railroad beginning in the early 1900's and lived and worked through the heyday of the railroad. He found himself beyond delighted to have a stable, good job (especially through the Depression) that lasted without interruption for 44 years.

Grandpa also experienced first-hand the massive changes in the last century which caused him to slowly become concerned that "his railroad" was being disrupted by the automobile, the trucking industry and the Interstate highway system and later on by the airplane. If you would've told him in 1930 that the railroad wouldn't be the be-all, end-all transportation system in America today he would've laughed at you. I suspect he was tickled to have retired and had his pension before mergers and consolidations happened in the railroad system during the '60's and 70's.

Web 2.0: Not everyone knows...or cares

As I race ahead playing with and learning about seemingly every new Web 2.0 offering, I've experienced over-n-over again people I trust (those willing not to blow-wind-up-my-skirt, that is) who've let me know how impressed they are by my command of numerous types of technology, process and business models. "Oh my gosh Steve, how do you know so much about ___!?!" is a familiar refrain I hear and I'm just now learning to accept the positive feedback.

Here's the deal: I don't think I'm some special Internet/Web expert since I'm always in awe of others who know more than I do; of crowds of thought leaders I rub elbows with while we brainstorm pushing against the membrane of the future; of developers who know the depth and breadth of coding whose talent I equate with a great artist (or as Picasso said, "There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." I'm fortunate to know a lot of thought leaders and transformers of yellow spots in to the sun which keeps me humble, but also makes me realize how much I don't know rather than be grateful for what I am fortunate to have stuffed into my brain.

Another thing that's happened in the last six months of 2007 is that much of what was magic and mysterious about Web 2.0 is becoming more mainstream and I've realized a gift I have is making the magic and mystery understandable to many. As more companies and thought leaders are blogging, creating YouTube video channels, podcasting, staking their claim in Facebook, offering their customers communication options (RSS, email, Twitter, SMS), and giving away free content and services in order to get attention and attract people to what they're offering, there's an increasing demand by those who aren't doing so to get-in-the-game and stay competitive by moving in the same direction.

Seems like that demand should suck up all the supply of Web 2.0 companies, heh?

Ahh....no. My cautionary tale is a parallel experience these same last six months where I've been confronted DAILY with people stunned and amazed by all the Web 2.0 offerings out there. These are people that don't know what RSS is (and don't use it), really aren't sure why they should bother to blog, know their business is being disrupted by the Internet but are overwhelmed as to what action to take, and are simply unable to understand -- let alone strategically bet their business upon -- any new social media, Internet or Web 2.0 direction.

So keep that in mind as you're rolling out your new products and services. Don't assume that people know and will use it. Prepare teaching and presentation tools to guarantee people can dig in and figure it out without help. Make certain your support and FAQ pages are well done and comprehensive. Consider adding a forum or other peer-to-peer support infrastructure. In other words anticipate most people don't get it and act accordingly.

Because most people out there don't know, don't get it, or it's not relevant to their lives and your success depends on helping them with all three.

Digg + Techmeme/Blogrunner + Newsvine = Wikio

Grabbed lunch in a coffee shop so I could followup on some emails and surf Google Reader and leech off use their free wifi.  Like you probably do as well, I use tabs in Firefox to create "tabbed workspaces" that let me use different browser windows to load my oft-used sites so they're at my fingertips just a tab-click away.

Four I check constantly are Google Reader (GR), Newsvine as well as the memetrackers (probably THE most powerful automated conversation tracking mechanism on the Web) TechMeme and Blogrunner. With the 1,000 or so articles popping up in GR that I skim/read each day -- cross-referenced in the memetrackers so I make certain I've seen all the hot stuff of the day bloggers are "conversing" about by linking to one another -- I really have a handle on what I need to stay appraised of daily.

While reading Mashable just now I came across this breaking news on the US launch of Wikio, an offering that I describe as sort of a Digg, Techmeme, Blogrunner and Newsvine combined. I dropped my sandwich as I realized that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to combine my use of these four sites within just this one!

As Mashable's Adam Ostrow states in his opening, "Wikio, which already claims 5 million unique users in Europe, is officially launching their memetracker in the US today. “Memetracker” is probably too narrow a description for Wikio, as it attempts to be much more than services like TechMeme, BlogRunner, and the new Technorati."

Wikio describes their site like this: Wikio is a personalised page of news, including a news search engine that searches media sites, blogs and member publications. Even without signing up or personalizing Wikio for myself and my own interests -- which I just did -- I can really see the potential here.

You can vote and promote articles you find interesting ala Digg. It acts as a memetracker, like TechMeme and Blogrunner (though I think that capability looks weak....but I haven't yet formed an opinion). It allows submission like Digg does -- and Newsvine before Digg appeared -- but with a twist: since you can complete a profile like a social network, it allows someone who is willing to invest in article submission with the capability to build a reputation on the site which Newsvine pioneered with news gathering.

The bad news? I can't export my OPML file from Google Reader (which I've painstakingly invested in categorizing over a couple of years) and then import it into Wikio. Maybe I'm missing something and I can do this, but if not it's a deal-killer for me using Wikio as my primary hub.

The good news? I've broken into huge grins several times as I've bumped across articles and blog posts that I've *never* seen before. THAT sort of experience will be the acid-test for acceptance of this tool: if the value delivered by Wikio is higher than figuring out how to really use it effectively (which isn't too tough) and if it provides more of us with the ability to consume and parse high volumes of information, than Wikio is a winner which it already looks to be.

3 Strategies to Think. Consider. Mull it over. Breathe...

Do you take the time to absorb new information and let it percolate in your brain awhile before rushing to judgement, making a decision or throwing together a blog post, a tweet, an SMS or comment somewhere?

At breakfast this morning my wife, 13 year old son and I were in a conversation about television. In a poor attempt at grabbing his attention, I tried to set context for him on what is was like for me at 13 -- three networks, one independent TV channel, no recorded media -- and what it was like for him now.

We have DVD's, DirecTV with hundreds of channels, game systems, books galore, two daily newspapers, and an Internet with essentially "millions" of channels. He smiled and said, "Whatever Dad" and went on with conversations about his skiing adventure this weekend! He made it clear that he LOVES all the choice and ENJOYS the constant interruptions his mobile phone, IM, Skype, XBox Live teams give him.

I submit that it is VERY hard right now to turn off the river of news, shut out the Twitter's, the social network alerts, SMS, IM, Skype calls, emails, and all the other interruptions and make 100% certain that you have the time to think, to consider, mull stuff over and just breathe.

What I try hard to do with this blog -- and life in general -- is to ferret out the meaning behind a person's incentives, company/product direction or strategic announcement before going off half-cocked to write about it and/or get involved in conversations. Connecting the dots, if you will.

I frequently turn off every possible interruption in order to buffer myself against intrusions that are accelerating and demanding ever higher levels of my attention. It's the only way I can be assured that I'll be able to place myself in a position of contemplation before taking action.

Here are three strategies that you can do right now to set yourself up to be more contemplative. It will pay off and I guarantee it (or your money will be cheerfully refunded):

Molding and Shaping Perception in an Internet Age

My daughter had a college paper to do and ended up doing it on, "Old and New Media Influence on Anti-American Sentiment".

What was fascinating was to read this report (PDF) from May, 2007 entitled, "The Communication of Anti-Americanism: Media Influence and Anti-American Sentiment” by the Department of Communications at Cornell University and see that this massive research study focused on traditional media and completely left out new media!

They examined all sorts of statistics and variables in the report: country, age, income, media habits, and much more. The problem in leaving out new media is that  most people under 30 have radically reduced their consumption of old media and instead are having their perceptions molded and shaped by exposure to all sorts of opinions and alternative new media forms.

Her argument was that negative perceptions of America were being molded and shaped by all media, not just traditional media. In an age when many globally are eschewing broadcast media for social network's, YouTube, SMS, blogs, and shows like The Daily Show or even Al Jazeera offerings, there is no doubt that any thoughtful consideration and examination of public opinion and cross-cultural perception must include new media forms.

As I wrote this looking at that goofy picture of Ze Frank (which must frighten children and small animals), I thought about how tough it would've been for Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbel's, to have done what he did for perception-controlling had the Internet existed in the 1930's.

Internet TV Studio & a Free, Live, New Media Event

Mogulus just announced to their 15,000 beta testers that they were adding some new features (a "grid" to watch multiple channels at once) but that is not why I'm posting about them. Instead, it's that you, yes you, can start and run your own TV channel and Mogulus is your very own TV Studio online.

This startup is also going to be broadcasting the NewTeeVee Live event on November 14th for free and using it as a pre-launch (end of November is launch) proving ground for what they're offering.

Why is this a big deal and why should you care?

One reason is that you'll be able to "attend" the NewTeeVee Live event as stated on their blog, "For those of you who can’t make it, the conference will be broadcast live by Mogulus, who prepared the promo below to give you a flavor of what’s to come. Joyce Kim of The GigaOM Show will be hosting the Mogulus broadcast with live hallway interviews." More here.

Besides free attendance to this event, it also means that you have an atypically intriguing method of delivering high value video content with Mogulus and are able to connect and switch live to multiple, geographically disbursed people (who can be "talent" or content experts on webcams), switch to video feeds from rooms or events with a live television-like production method, and then run recorded videos 24/7 afterwards. The Mogulus player -- though skinned with what I think is their default butt-ugly gray or even their special NewTeeVee orange like you see above -- can be embedded anywhere (and I hope they provide different skins upon launch!).

Take a peek at the Mogulus video after the jump and watch the whole thing as you'll get to the good stuff how Mogulus works, etc.) about halfway through.

Problems in Web 2.0 Land

There's a problem in Web 2.0 land. It's fabulous that hundreds of startups are coming online trying to disrupt status quo companies, make the inefficient, efficient, and giving us all great services, but too many of them classify themselves as "beta" meaning that they get to work out all their bugs publicly and on our backs.

I'm the only guy I know who has looked at *every* Web 2.0 company once per quarter for the last six quarters. I usually spend only a few minutes at each site, but I'll take a category and look at each offering to see if something is new, are they articulating their value proposition well, and is this an offering that makes sense for me, my clients, or anyone else for that matter.

There are dozens of Web 2.0 offerings that I love, use, and can see the long term potential of going forward. But deciding on what to try, what to use, how much effort and energy to infuse in one of them is, unfortunately, a crapshoot and THAT is the problem in Web 2.0 land. Most of these are ones I wouldn't bet my business on nor recommend others do either.

I've chosen several offerings over the last couple of years that, for one reason or another, have disappointed my friends, my clients, or myself as they've been acquired, had bugs that meant they don't work all that well, or have gone out of business altogether.

I'll give you three examples:

Zipidee: A prosumer digital goods marketplace

If you've read this blog for awhile, you know I'm a bit of a fanboy for user generated content. No question that there is significant untapped potential in those of us who have knowledge and experience that we could pass on to others and yet there aren't many effective ways of monetizing our Long Tail knowledge.

A digital marketplace for sellers (i.e., content producers) and buyers to come together -- with protection for the content so it can't be given to non-paying others for free -- seems like a good idea but Zipidee's beta launch isn't showing that idea in its best light.

Their press release today details their value proposition:

Zipidee today announced the public beta release of the premier Prosumer Generated Content (PGC) marketplace for digital goods. Zipidee is an open marketplace that empowers PGC digi-good owners, from aspiring media moguls to large media companies, to generate revenue from their existing digital assets. Zipidee provides the storefront and tools for content owners, distributors, and networks to publish, protect, promote, and profit by selling their original digital content. Zipidee provides digi-good buyers immediate access to an extensive library of content without shipping fees or wait time. The platform currently supports videos, audiobooks, podcasts, and music, with eBooks, games, and ringtones coming in the near future.

The problem? The content available in this launch is incredibly bad. From poor editing to tragically amateurish talent, I found absolutely nothing that I'd pay money for (prices ranged from $1.99 to $7.99 with owning the download at ~$9.99) and, in fact, as I watched about 25 videos I thought they should pay ME for watching these!

Zipidee must've swung a deal with a firm called Education 2000 since about 90% of the videos seem to have come from that firm's inventory. Almost all of the ones I watched seemed to be of the type that an infomercial might be hawking at 2am showcasing "the educational hits from the 70's" or something cheesy like that.

What could've or should've been done and why am I so uncertain Zipidee will have any success?

Google "doing evil" by invisibly observing?

Google is known for it's internal guiding phrase "Do No Evil". What I've never seen is a strict definition of what "doing evil" really means to the folks at Google. Have you? Should you care? What data is Google looking at when you're online?

An article in SLATE yesterday entitled, "Google's Evil Eye" about summed up what I've talked about previously (a key post is here and another handful are here, here and here) and all of this should at least make you stop and think about all the Google services you're using and how much you're simply handing over to them:

Google's fingerprints aren't just on your e-mail. Last week, the Senate held hearings regarding Google's proposed acquisition of Doubleclick. Google dominates the micro-end of Internet advertising with its text ads. Doubleclick is the leading provider of banner ads, like the one at the top of this page. A combined Googleclick would be a force in Internet advertising—Google makes 99 percent of its profits from ads—and have an awesome ability to track your online behavior. Google will be able to inform advertisers what sites your browser has visited, what ads have been clicked on, what search terms have been used. The company can also get a good idea of your physical location from your computer's IP address. And that's just the tip of the data iceberg. If Sony wants to target teenage PlayStation 3 owners in Southern California with a special promotion on flatscreen TVs, who do you think they are going to call?

When I was at Vignette during the dotcom heyday, I recall the Doubleclick controversy in 1999 that showed, for the first time, the unprecedented capability of tracking and measuring. From Wikipedia:

"In 1999, at a cost of US $1.7 billion, DoubleClick merged with the data-collection agency, Abacus Direct, which works with offline catalog companies. This raised fears that the combined company would link anonymous Web-surfing profiles with personally identifiable information (name, address, telephone number, e-mail, address, etc.) collected by Abacus. This merger made waves and was heavily criticized by privacy organizations. Controversy grew when it was discovered that sensitive financial information users entered on a popular Web site that offered financial software was being sent to DoubleClick, which delivered the ads."

That was over seven years ago which is an eternity in internet time.