Info Chat

I’ve been trying for a while to figure out how the new wave of social media sites fit in to the economy. Late the other night, I think I finally got my mind around it. It happened while I was watching a Seinfeld re-run (it was the one where George pretended to be a marine biologist and ended up accidentally saving the whale into who’s blowhole Kramer lodged a golf ball - one of the all-time classic episodes).

Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and the like are really nothing more than the Internet equivalent of television shows. They are for pure entertainment purposes, part of out pop culture. One is hip and the place to be until a new one comes along, and then everyone migrates. Loyalty doesn’t really exist. Now, before I get bombarded, I totally get the actual potential value of these type of sites, Andrew McAfee does a great job of evangelizing this.

However, I don’t think most people use the sites in this way. To most people, it is a purely recreational activity. Enter all your information, keep in light touch with people you don’t have the time to truly stay in touch with. Studies have shown most people, when presented with a choice to pay for use of these sites, would not do so. Sounds like network television to me. Would I pay to watch new episodes of Grey’s Anatomy? Likely not.

So if people aren’t willing to pay for these sights, then how can they be a valuable contributor to the economy, and receive multi-billion dollar valuations? Advertising of course. Much like Seinfeld or Grey’s Anatomy they present a wonderful audience for advertisers. Of course they can be even more targeted than television ads, hence why advertisers are salivating over them.

So what does it mean? I think it means they can generate oodles of revenue during their run (like Friends). It also probably means that unless they figure out how to develop a long term business model that people are willing to pay for (like ESPN for TV, maybe Ning for the web) the life span of these sites is probably limited, much like a network TV show.

It also means that advertisers will ultimately want to rate them in ways other than page views, and number of users. Advertisers have become incredibly savvy with the network TV medium, and will do the same with social media sites. They know that some of them will be hits, like Facebook and that others will ultimately end up the Gossip Girl of the web.

So before we get carried away with how these social media sites are going to revolution the way we do business, let’s try and put them in perspective. Advertising mediums that provide users with entertainment, not new economic models…

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I really have not been a fan of all of the versioning that has gone on with the Web. Mostly since no one ever indicated web 1.0 when it was web 1.0, I mean if we knew it was going to be labeled a 1.0 release, instead of thought of as an ever evolving platform, with too many incarnations to possibly enumerate, maybe we would have put more thought into it before it was released…

But I digress. I wanted to talk about how instead of web 2.0, maybe we should call it part of the maturation process we all expected from the web. If we compare it to the human maturation process, I would say the web has hit puberty. You remember puberty - there are a lot of changes going on in your body. Some of these changes manifest themselves in unpleasant form (acne). You really haven’t established you identity as a person yet. And you still act like a kid most of the time, but demonstrate flashes of adulthood on occasion.

Really, doesn’t that sound a bit like the web today? The platform (body) is evolving and presenting new widespread standards that will support it in the future. Unpleasant manifestations, like this blog, are popping up everywhere. Business models (its identity) on the web are evolving beyond commerce and advertising supported models into service based models. MySpace and Facebook (kid-like behavior vs. adult behavior).

If this analogy holds any water, I can’t wait until sometime in the next 5-7 years when the Web gets its first date. Maybe a truly integrated ERP system which users can deploy and modify over time? Nah, we’ll probably save that for adulthood - maybe that will be the Web’s first marriage.

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How can you not be in love with Twitter? One of the most simple, thoughtful, useful, and innovative uses of the web and communications technology in a long time. On the face it is just a basic little tool to stay up to date with your friends and what’s going on in their lives. As you begin to dig deeper, you can see the many ways that this consumer interface has a lot of great business applications, and a model that can be monetized in a lot of ways beyond advertising.

The latest business opportunity is in the Twitter Tracking feature. It’s simple, tell Twitter any phrase you want to track, and anytime someone twitters with that phrase, you get a copy of the message. It’s a way to know what people outside your network are saying on a subject you are interested in. Useful for a consumer because it is information in a subject that interests you, plus it is a way to expand your social network. Oh, and it can be fun to track dirty words too, you can  check out Marc Andreessen’s blog for how this gem works.

For business the value is even greater. Every company out there is interested in what people are saying about there company and products. Imagine what Apple could have learned if it had tracked “iPhone” and had the results sent to some sentiment analysis software, or analyzed by its marketing team? 

Kudos Twitter team. I wish my ideas were as robust. Instead, I come up with the modular shoe - but that is a whole different story…

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We are slowly beginning to hear success stories of the Enterprise 2.0 tools in the corporate world. Productivity increases, communications efficiencies, grassroots systems being validated by IT. E 2.0 is getting a lot of press, analyst and blog coverage and enterprise software vendors are launching their forays into the space every month.

One of the things I am reading and hearing very little about from the market is how these solutions are directly benefiting the customer. All the hype seems to have an internal, corporate focus. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, and the customer should ultimately benefit from corporate productivity enhancements. I believe however we would see higher adoption rates if these solutions were directly tied to customer benefit.

To clarify, I am not speaking of applications using web or Enterprise 2.0 technologies. I am referring to traditional brick and mortar business deploying applications using these technologies for their customers. I know there are some examples of this of course; even my company has launched a Facebook network for one of its products. I think when we see wide-spread and well documented examples of customer focused deployments adoption rates will soar.

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After I posted my recent blog about Google Gears and its failure to thrill me, a thought occurred to me (a rare occasion, ask my friends). What are the NEW concepts in Information Technology? Wikis, blogs, tagging, mashups - not so new at all. I’m sure if anyone was reading this blog, I would get a myriad of responses refuting that statement. Seriously though, think about it for just a minute.

Is tagging new, or is it just a new twist on bookmarking (think about ten years back and sites like itlist.com or hotlist)? Are blogs new, or are they the latest reincarnation of the message board, which then became a discussion forum? Are mashups new, or is it simply a new name for a portal? Hey - even the first Wiki appeared back in 1995.

Of course all of these Web 2.0 concepts are unique in that they are extremely simple for the end user to participate in, and are becoming more widespread. So while they are evolutionary in technology, what they are not is innovative in concept.

So where has the innovation gone? Where is the new technology that will change business as we know it? Who is going to revolutionize how people use technology to process information and knowledge?

Not me, I’m going to have another blueberry ale instead…

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Now that the Google Gears beta has arrived, there seems to be a lot of excitement out in webland about its possibilities, and the introduction of online/offline access with the same application. Pardon me if I refrain from jumping up and down.

There are a couple of things that are tempering my enthusiasm for the latest buzz about how the web will change the world. First, this really is not a new concept. Salesforce.com has had an offline module for a couple of years now. Nine years ago my company had a product that allowed healthcare workers to log case information via one web-based interface, whether they were online or off. It was all MS technology and was not incredibly difficult to implement. Of course I understand the technology has advanced - cross platform, even cross application access are some of the new possibilities. Still, I don’t think the concept or execution is groundbreaking or game-changing for the business, maybe just a little easier for IT to implement and deploy.

Secondly I’m not convinced Microsoft is of the mind to give up the desktop just yet. And really, this is where Google probably wants to head (in closed door meetings in Mountain View at least) . Providing cross platform applications with the richness and autonomy of desktop applications would certainly take aim at reducing the core value of the OS. Why else would we not have seen MS Gears or OfficeWeb 6 years ago? Because MS didn’t have the foresight or execution ability? I think not. MS will continue to ensure that you want Windows Whatever on your desktop.

Third and most importantly, cool technology aside, how critical is this to the business? What percentage of people in any given enterprise spend so much time disconnected they would greatly benefit from offline access to not necessarily up to date information? I’ll venture a guess that it is not enough to warrant enterprises making significant investments, or they would have done so years ago. Sometimes we lose sight of the actual value of technology as the hype cycle creeps upwards.

Finally, since this is an Information blog, what does this do to enhance the value, relevance, or timeliness of information (the fuel for the enterprise). Maybe I am missing it, but I don’t see it.

So, pardon my lack of excitement about Google Gears or Adobe Apollo. I’ll save my giddiness for the day Google, MS, or some other software vendor introduces a technology that helps me do my job better, not just in more places.

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