Is Google+ the New Hula Hoop?

October 12, 2011 · 5 comments in Online privacy,Social Media

 

 

To me, the Grand Canyon of Social Media is the ability to be social in private.

I want to be able to talk to my fellow Red Sox Fans without a Yankee booster jumping in and without a spammer telling me where I can buy a sports tee-shirt online. I want to learn from friends who know more about China, India, Israel or South Africa than I do, and I don’t want intruders hijacking our conversations away from cultural and into political paths.

I can’t get this on Twitter or Facebook. I thought Google was taking me there but now almost a half year later, this has not happened. My Circle are not cozy nooks for me to chat with friends. Google is evolving into yet another place where broadcast seems more appealing than conversation and where privacy is really not assured.

I had thought that Google+ broke new ground, but all it seems to have done is make a neater path to get where you already get, crossing ground you’ve already traversed.

I didn’t make a conscious effort to  abandon Google+. I just found myself going there less and less. I waited to hear about what I was missing, but I never really heard much in that area. I found myself back at Twitter, using it just about the same way I’ve been using it for years. If there were any lasting change, it was over at Facebook, where I find myself liking the changes that they have made… at least for now.

But yesterday, when news reports asserted that 60% of Google+ users had abandoned the platform, I was surprised, but not shocked. But then, Computerworld’s Mike Elgan, a journalist I greatly respect, showed why that number was probably greatly inflated.

But, for me, social network is not really about massive trends and big numbers. I want to hang out where my friends hang out. I want to have interesting and useful conversations. I want to give when I can and I appreciate that I meet people who do the same for me.

I asked the folks who follow me on Twitter about Google+ and ket a tally. The count is continuing, but the trend is clear. Some 34 people told me they have abandoned or greatly reduced their use of Google+. Only two–both early adopters, are still using and loving it.

Mike Elgan’s math may be right, but I’m pretty sure that my friends and colleagues are trending sharply away from Google+

And they are doing it for the same reasons:

  • Not enough new-and-different for them to switch established habits
  • Their friends and colleagues are not hanging out there
  • The only dominating conversation is about Google+ itself.
Back in the 50s, someone invented a toy called the Hula Hoop.  Made out of plastic, and originally marketed to children, it went viral as we now see. Everyone started using them. People figured out all sorts of cool, clever, fun and sexy things you could do with a Hula Hoop.
It was a memorable rage. TV, movies, newspapers, magazines, campuses and playgrounds were filled with them. People taught each other the neat things you can do with them.
Then one day, there seemed to be this spontaneous, global yawn. People got bored. The hoops found their way into the garages and eventually into landfills, where they proved more endurable than was desirable.
Then they were gone. Perhaps this is the fate of Google+. Perhaps not. Perhaps Google, will prove that it has become a more social company and start asking people why they are leaving and what would get them to stay.
If they get around to asking me, I have a few ideas for them.

 

 

 

 

We don’t need no steenking ‘Blogger Outreach’

September 28, 2011 · 4 comments in Miscellaneous,Public Relations

Chris Abraham is one of a large handful of PR professionals, who in my view, gets it about social media and PR. Yesterday , he had a decent post on tips for PR operatives trying to comprehend blogger outreach.

What he wrote, makes sense and is good advice for inexperienced swimmers in the Ocean of Clueless smilers-and-dialers who seem to plague those of us who write about topics of interest.

But there is something about the term, blogger outreach, that bothers me. When Chris asked me for feedback, I tweeted: “My condensed view: 1. read my stuff  b4 you pitch me & 2. Treat me like any other media pro.”

Seems simple enough. But, in fact, there’s a lot of issues going on here. With all these conferences, blogs and articles about how to pitch the press, PR people just don’t seem to read the editors they pitch.

I told Chris that my most frequent conversation with a PR person goes a bit like this:

PR Person: “Your readers will love to hear what my client has to say about [fill in the blank]!!!”

Me: “Sorry, I don’t cover that.”

PR Person: “No? Then, what do you cover?”

Me: “READ MY STUFF!!!!”

My stuff sometimes appears as a blog; in the form of  an online column and in a few rare examples, it appears on paper in books or magazine articles.

To the client, it really doesn’t matter where I write, so much as what I write and who reads it.

When someone pitches a story to me, I am attentive and curious if the story sounds like it’s interesting to my readers. If not, I have learned to be less friendly and more cryptic than is my usual nature. There are just too many swimmers in the Ocean of Clueless.

Blogger Outreach implies that bloggers should be treated as different or separate than plain old-fashioned press. But we are not. All of us are just media, and if you are in PR you will do better if you think of us that way.

Chances are if you read the NY Times you do it online–just like if you were reading Robert Scoble. The difference is that Scoble is probably more accessible and if you need a tech audience, more valuable.

We are all media. We play by the same rules or should be expected to do so. What we want from people who pitch us is a good story in the category where we report, opine or analyze. As a blogger, I want to be treated precisely as I want to be treated as an editor. As a PR professional, you should expect–and require–that I play by the same ethical rules.

My advice to PR folk is to consider us your customers. Your clients will come and go. Consider them manufacturers that give you something that some of your customers might like. You need to understand who in the media will find which  products useful or interesting.

If the last time you talked to an editor, you had something he or she used, chances are high they will listen to you next time.

If the last time you talked to a tech editor, you pitched toy fire trucks for Christmas, then chances are the editor will not respond warmly to your new effort to get their attention and time.

In 2006, I was invited by a PR operative to attend a Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Sounded titillating, I thought, but what does it have to do with my focus of social media for business?

Their PR person, sounded confused. “But you wrote Naked Conversations, didn’t you,” she asked.

It was clear she saw my name on a list. She saw the single word “Naked,” and went after me, without going to Amazon and reading two sentences of book description. She saved two minutes and wasted ten of mine.

I get about five pitches a day. There are those who receive many times that number. Multiply each bad pitch times ten minutes and you see the basic problem. Treat me as an outreach blogger and you’ll compound the problem by insulting me with offers for free tee shirts or that you can drive traffic to my site.

Chris Abraham would never do such a thing. He uses social media to connect with a great number of professional writers. He seems to understand that his first step is to establish a credible relationship long before he has to pitch.

He is well-suited to teach others how to practice his profession right. But I wish he would just call it “editorial relationships.”  Somehow “blogger outreach” makes me think of social workers helping lost people find help.

 

 

 

Dear NY Times: Forget the Device. Think of the Cloud.

September 21, 2011 · 1 comment in Braided Journalism,tech business

I have always been an ardent fan of the NY Times. Early in my life, it showed me a world that was far larger than the part I occupied. When I was a journalism student, the times, we were taught, was the standard for excellence to which all journalists should aspire.

Simultaneously, I have never been a fan of freeware. Long before the web went social, content started to be given away. Now, 20 years later, there is a generation of web users who expect all content to be free forever, all of it sponsored by ads that ours eyes have learned to ignore.

So, when the Times, a few months announced that after view 100 articles each month, it would block content, unless you were a free subscriber, I was among the few social media enthusiasts who publicly endorsed it. I have a vested interest in seeing that those who pay writers get paid for the writing.

It also seemed fair. It takes talent and work to produce anything that has the quality that the times has. I tweeted on the day of the Times announcement: “Sign me up!”

But I didn’t sign up, not until today. What stopped me was that the Times wanted me to select where I would consume their news: desktop, iPad or iPhone. If I wanted all three, this would be $39 a month or $468 a year. This was 400% what I used to pay for home delivery, before the web whisked me away from paper-based news.

This didn’t seem fair on two counts. First, the Times is saving enormous costs by going paperless, by not needing coin machines on corners and delivery trucks. Online subscriptions, I would guess would be about twice as profitable if they charged half as much as formerly.

Second, is that they are viewing my iPhone, iPad and MacBook as three addresses, which independently they’d charge $19 month. They are seeing it as though I have a San Francisco address, a Tahoe address and a little chalet in the So of France, I guess. But if that were the case, I would simply have one subscription and inform them when my address changed.

On the web, my address changes several times on most days. It should not matter to the NYTimes. I am one person and I go to the cloud on multiple devices. This doesn’t increase their costs by a penny, but they want it to increase mine by over $300 a year.

It just doesn’t seem fair to me.

So I’ve held out. I’ve read the Times free for the first 10-15 days each month. Then when the “PAY UP!” screen blocks my content, I’ve gotten my content from the myriad of other quality web sources.

In the back half of the month, I have missed the Times. It remains my favorite news source, but I just hate being unfairly charged. The Times, it seems to me, has mechanically moved to the internet but spiritually, it still seems to be an old-time newspaper with circulation managers getting paid that missed houses get their papers on the same day.

Today, I broke down. I got a special email offer allowing me to get eight weeks of the NY Times anywhere online for 99 cents per week. This, was an offer I could not refuse.

But what happens two months from now? Their thought is that I will be so addicted to getting my Times fix whenever I wanted one and will then allow my costs to jump from $50 yr to nearly $500.

Perhaps I will. Perhaps not, we shall see.

Over at the Times, I picture a bunch of guys in white shorts and spectacles crunching numbers, trying to figure out how many more readers they could have if they charged less. I urge them to do that. I also urge them to understand that there should be on set fee for receiving their content via the Internet, and stop forcing readers to consider where and when in the day, the Times will be available to them.

I would never argue that a bad subscription policy would kill the Times. But I do argue that the current bad policy is costing them readers, many of them younger readers who may find their lives are just fine if they get their news of the world from places more myopic than the Times such as TechCrunch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Techcrunch Disrupt–The controversy & the event

September 16, 2011 · 3 comments in Miscellaneous,Social Media,tech business

If size matter, then TechCrunch Disrupt [TC Disrupt] wins the prize. With 2600 attendees, it is arguably the largest US-based tech industry conference. With 200 companies exhibiting–often for  just one of three days–it often took on the characteristics of a trade show.

I just love the promise and excitement in young start-ups exploding with grand visions. While many of these visions will turn out to have been hallucinations, but others will be real and will disrupt something large and institutional who will disdain them until it is too late.

For companies showing the ability to disrupt this was just about the best show I’ve attended in more than 25 years in the tech industry.

That should be what this column is about, and it part it is. But the the conversation going in and coming out of this event was more directed at the drama and trauma that is Michael Arrington and his hand-picked TechCrunch team.

If you like controversy, well this one was juicier than crushed peaches in your pocket.

At the very core of it, of course, was Michael Arrington, the charismatic, controversial former lawyer, turned startup founder, turned  TechCrunch founder turned angel investor. The fact that these serial entrepreneurial endeavors have overlapped are at the root of all this controversy.

TechCrunch covers startups. Arrington has long invested in them in the earliest phases and TechCrunch writes about them. While there have been some utterances of there being no conflict, no one seems to be able to recall an incident where an Arrington company has not been favorably covered in the TechCrunch newsletter that enjoys two million unique visits each month.

I have previously described Arrington  as the Rupert Murdoch of our industry. Both have incredible power and influence over publications that reach mass audiences all over the world. Both influence investors and other media. Both have been called bullies, and in my view, for good reason. And most recently both have been called to rask for questionable ethical practices particularly the venerable New York Times.

For all these reasons,  Arrington, like Murdoch, seems to make enemies by the truckload.

Arrington’s controversies reached something of a crescendo the week before TC Disrupt opening Sept. 12.

The week prior, usually is filled with editorial speculations on what new media and web-based apps and trends would be unveiled. Instead it was filled with fast-breaking news of Arrington’s abrupt and dramatic termination from AOL who had bought TechCrunch for $30 million last year, a deal that disrupted a prior Disrupt event.

Each of these incidents seem to me to be a distraction. Journalists are taught in 101 courses never to get in the way of your story. Yet Arrington seems to be a persistant roadblock of his own production, this time featuring 200 very promising companies exhibiting and 30 presenting on the stage;  2600 people gathered in the vast, dark San Francisco Design Center and tens of thousands more watching the livestream worldwide.

TechCrunch was born in controversy. Arrington and erstwhile founding

partner Jason Calacanis, had attended a DEMO conference. DEMO has been around for 21 years and was a consistent success, until Arrington and Calacanis–sitting at a bar at the DEMO conference–announced they would start Disrupt to directly compete with the well-established IDG production.  By no coincidence, would be held on the same dates as a future DEMO.

Calacanis had previously started two tech news organizations. He sold Silicon Alley Reporter to Murdoch’s Dow Jones Company , which promptly bungled it to death. Then Calacanis sold founded the controversy-loving Engadget, which he sold to AOL who has done rather well with it.

At last year’s San Francisco Disrupt event, Calacanis suddenly disappeared. Arrington went on the dais to announce the couple had gotten a surprise divorce. A court will decide the terms of desolution in a saga that may take a few years and mud wrestling matches to resolve.

Calacanis has since started his own product-intro conference, Launch, which has a similar format and was held in March in the same SF Design Center. Calacanis has announced plans to start a newsletter of its own and few doubt it will compete against TechCrunch.

So, it seemed to me that TechCrunch’s brief history had already become steeped in controversy going into this fall edition. For the 200 companies who hope to build awareness and win customers by strutting their stuff on the stage or in the exhibition hallways, there was some hope that this yer, unlike previous years, there might be some hope that the spotlight would remain on them, without the eruption of a sideshow that would diminish  and divert focus.

But then it hit the fan.

This year’s trauma eclipsed all the traumas that have come before it.  A while back, Arrington announced he was starting an early phase investment fund, calling it CrunchFund. This would mean that CrunchFund could invest in startups that TechCrunch would write about and who could also be stars in TechCrunch events such as Disrupt.

It wasn’t really anything all that new. Arrington has been investing in companies for years. Many have fared well at TechCrunch events–as have other companies in which he did not invest.

I was an early critic of this practice. Other newsletter impresarios of earlier years had gone into investing and immediately divested themselves of any editorial interests to avoid conflict or even the appearance of it. But back then I was hollering in a hurricane. Some people grumbled privately, but no one wanted to take on Arrington whose TechCrunch has proven to be a powerful bully pulpit a great many times.

And for the sake of my own transparency: Michael Arrington and I were once friends. We no longer are. We do not wish each other well. For precisely these reasons, I rarely cover his activities, and when I do, I try to give a balanced view, but advise you to keep in mind my personal perspective.

What had changed for Arrington was that he was no longer a private investor running a privately held company. He was employed by AOL, a publicly held and closely watched company struggling to make a comeback on ground it had previously lost. AOL, it was disclosed, was a major investor in the new CrunchFund.

On Sept. 1, 11 days before Disrupt, Arrington & AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. “TechCrunch is a different property and they have different standards… we have a traditional understanding of journalism with the exception of TechCrunch.”

There are many ways that TechCrunch could have been positioned at that point. It seems to me that Armstrong picked about the lamest approach. Other possible positioning was discussed by TechCrunch’s Paul Carr, who played much of the host role at this year’s conference and is clearly loyal to Arrington.

The response was instant and mostly negative. The lofty, New York Times, which in itself competes with AOL and TechCrunch in the media business hit hard to the negative side challenging the ethics of both Arrington and AOL.

Traveling through Brazil at the time, Arrington’s boss Ariana Huffington, no stranger to controversy herself,decided she couldn’t stand the heat so she threw Arrington out of the kitchen. She unceremoniously sacked Arrington.

And the saga of drama continued into the days immediately preceding the conference, there were all sorts of speculations: the TechCrunch team would resign en mass. Arrington would assemble them to start a new online media organization; Arrington would buy TechCrunch back from AOL; the whole thing was just a stunt to fan fires and grab attention.

Then came the conference. All seats were filled for many reasons. The opening remarks often set the tone for an entire conference. Their was mystery and speculation on who would deliver them and how the issue of Arrington would be folded into it.

Then, none other than Michael  Arrington strode onto the dais.There were murmurs of surprise. He waited until the room became entirely still and then spoke for less than five minutes.

His tone was calm and his style was gracious. He explained that he was an AOL employee for four more days and he was on stage in that light. He talked of his life being filled with personal drama, and urged attendees to focus more on the 30 presenting companies as well as the other startups exhibiting in the StartUp Alley exhibition area.

In my view, it was one of his finest moments.

And for the most part, attendees abided by Arrington’s recommendation. While there was much talk on the controversy, most of the people I talked with were talking about the startups they represented or the ones they enjoyed.

The TechCrunch teams gets to see most industry companies in their earliest phases. They have a good eye for quality, for tech trends and yes companies with the potential of disrupting the status quo where disruption is much needed.

This year showed a couple of companies who promise to make healthcare issues easier for people. One of the Cake Health was a finalist. Another couple were making it easier for people to get organic food from local sources. One of them Farmigo, was a finalist and I’ll be writing about both of them in the future.

My personal favorite was a mobile app from Vocre of San Jose that lets you instantly translate via a mobile app in 13 languages. It won the people’s choice award and is available in beta for iPhone users.

There were at least 15 companies who were focused on small business. This was a pleasant surprise. I’ve long been a champion of social products for small business and this conference showed me that there’s a fast-forming trend to help small business with programs that are more sophisticated and useful than Facebook fan pages.

Also I was at the conference representing American Express Open Forum, and I found a wealth of material there for my columns in the form of some exceptionally fine companies.

Everyone–yes everyone–I spoke with said they were happy they attended and were getting as much or more than they had expected from the conference which filled the large and unfortunately dark San Francisco Design Center to it’s walls.

But elements of controversy seemed to pervade far too much:

  • The actual start ups presentations–the real stars of the show did not get to present until the closing hours of each day. Most of the primetime morning stage events were interviews with prominent VCs, many of them are apparently doing business with Arrington.  The quality of these conversations and interviews was not bad–although the questions were often disappointingly softball.
  • The winner of TC Disrupt, which receives a $50,000 cash award, and the first runner up were both companies Arrington had invested in–it was disclosed.
  • Pressly, a presenting company with visually beautiful graphics for reading media content on a  mobile device did a great presentation then got hammered by two judges who just happened, it turned out, to have investments in Flipbook an obvious competitor of Pressly.
  • Robert Scoble was banned from attending. Arrington had told him his crime was that he had favorably covered Calacanis Launch conference earlier in the year. Scoble held court in a small bar across the where many presenting companies went to be video interviewed by him. To bar presenting companies access to Scoble, one of the most influential voices on new technologies seemed to me to be particularly petty and unfair to entrepreneurs.
  • The Techcrunch team is clearly pissed that their leader has been taken out of the game. Little shots from the dais were fired at varying intervals for the three days. Arrington, was less gracious then earlier when he pointed out that Om Malik heads a newsletter, yet is part of an investment fund. In my view the comment did not help Arrington, but probably hurt Malik.
I started writing this with the intention of reviewing the conference. It seems I ended up with a very long piece reviewing the controversy. To that end, I would predict that Arrington will remain a powerful influence in the entrepreneurial side of technology for many years to come. He will survive unscathed in that light. But his baby has been taken from him.
In my view TechCrunch is better off. The ongoing sagas have started to distract from the fact that Arrington has assembled a high-quality team of journalists. Right now there’s apparent danger of defection and this would be a shame. The TechCrunch brand and Michael Arrington are not the same thing–as Arrington recently declared they were.
And it is now time for this publication to evolve into something new and perhaps stronger under whoever takes the reigns in coming weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Common Ground

August 22, 2011 · 5 comments in Personal & off-the-wall,Politics

 

 

I am reading On China by Henry Kissinger. It is far more informative and less self-serving than I suspected it would be, and I am learning a great deal about the nuances and key players in the China-US relationship.

For 20 years the US and China could not begin to discuss friendship because of their diametrically opposing views on a few subjects. But in early talks, China’s premier suggested they set aside any discussion of Vietnam and Taiwan, the two issues of greatest difference, and see whether they could come together on other issues, issues of common interest.

The results have changed the world for the better. Most people are aware of the enormous flaws in Richard Nixon and Mao Tze Tzung, the two principal players. Yet these two giants of the last century have made the world a better, safer place by finding a path two friendship, trust and collaboration at a time when most people feared the countries would go to war.

For a fleeting moment in the last century, it appeared that there would be enduring peace in the Middle East. Yitzak Rabin, the Israeli President was criticized for sitting down with Yasser Arafat, the former terrorist who became head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Rabin explained, “We make peace with our enemies, not with our friends.”

In the US right now, our government has become so polarized as to be rendered inoperable. Most Americans are worried. In fact, the entire world is now concerned with our inability to proceed through compromise, as our government has done since it was formed.

It seems to me, that our elected officials have lost the ability to find a common ground. And that has led to a feeling that our ground is sinking beneath our feet.

My point is quite simple: If Nixon and Mao could put differences aside and find common ground so can American elected officials. If Arafat and Rabin could make peace with our enemies, than so can our elected representatives.

The whole world will feel safer if we could find that ground and build a framework for progress on what we have in common. We had another president, at another divisive point in history note that divided houses don’t stand.

The Online User Manifesto

August 16, 2011 · 17 comments in Online privacy,Politics,Social Media,tech business

Some day, I believe, people’s online civil rights will be protected by laws, just like the they are in the real world. But that day will not come soon, not in these short-sighted and polarized times.

So until then I propose this Online User’s Manifesto.

A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature and sometimes religious. Two manifestos have so far been published related to online issues.

In 1999, four diverse and passionate authors published The Cluetrain Manifesto. Addressed to “The People of Earth,” it declared that markets are conversations and that we should not think of the internet as places where trains whiz by delivering gadgets and gizmos to markets. Instead we should envision the internet as a table for two, where honest, personal conversations can be conducted.

Cluetrain, was a lightening rod for a lot of thinking that drove the early phases of social media.

In 2005, Robert Scoble, then Microsoft’s best-known social media personality, set the standard for enterprise social behavior in his Corporate Weblog Manifesto, which told people to tell the truth and speak in a human voice.

The Corporate Manifesto became the framework for how the enterprise could credibly use social media to engage with relevant audiences.

So, manifestos have made a difference in online conversations. I hope this one does as well.

I hope that my User Manifesto serves as a small step for our online rights. It is self-evident that we users are having our rights abused and we have some distance to travel to right the wrongs being done. Help me build upon this first step. Add other elements to the manifesto. Dispute my argument or otherwise further the conversation I’m trying to start.

This is not my Manifesto. It is ours.

The Online User Manifesto

1. We the people of the internet have certain inalienable rights, which you the online site provider cannot remove or diminish. We were born with these rights and do not relinquish them when we go online.  When we visit your site, we continue to have these rights and you will respect those right.

2. You have presumed the right to gather data on each of us. You collect it, resell it and decide what we will see based on it. You call this “personalization.”

We recognize that it would be easier to stem the ocean’s tide than to stop these practices. But you must stop doing this in secret. You assume a privacy related to our personal data by taking our own privacy away from us and this must stop.

We have the right what you say and sell related to ourselves and this you cannot keep from us.

We, the users, have the right to review the personal data you collect on us. We have the right to challenge it and even add our own comments. If you make assumptions, based on this data, you must ask us before presuming to filter and shape the results you give us users in the name of “better user experience.”

3. In the same name of personalization you determine what we see when we search. You determine who we friend, follow and what we read. You have, without our permission, become our filters and censors.

You do this autonomously, and that determines not only what each of us gets to see and know, but also what other people get to see and know about us.

This is just not right. We demand the right to Opt In before you manipulate the content we see.

4. Legally, you are adept at covering your buttocks with small type and legalese that most of us do not read and cannot understand. If you are required to use such language, then you will develop executive summaries, which state in clear and simple terms, what is being said.

5. You select content for us you think we will like. The advantage to you, you believe is that we will stay longer, be exposed to more ads and enjoy the people we encounter.

This may or may not be true. We, the users, have the right to see content and viewpoints that are different from our own. Liberals can opt to see content from conservatives and the reverse. Atheists and agnostics can have easy access to people espousing religious agendas.

We have the right not to become a polarized society for the decisions you make about us without our knowledge or consent.

6. We have the right to own our words, images and thoughts. To take ownership of our words with or without permission is plagiarism. To reuse any intellectual property without attribution is theft. To ignore these facts is to ignore laws as they stand in most countries of the world.

 

Why Taking it to the Streets is Neither Senseless nor Shocking

August 11, 2011 · 3 comments in Personal & off-the-wall,Politics

Why is it that we cheer and sympathize when the citizens of Cairo take to the streets to protest the way their government is treating them, yet we are shocked and label it as “senseless” when the same thing happens in the poorer neighborhoods of London.

In fact, the shock of the year is the Arab spring, where the people have been suppressed for centuries and have suffered–as far as we westerners know–in silence.

They rioted in the UK as recently as 1983, and for the same reasons as it seems they this week: government policy which cut backs what the poor are getting in the name of an austerity that does not appear to much impact the rich.

The poor feel disenfranchised for pretty good reason. They are.

This is not a political statement of any kind. The poor have spurred most revolutions because they are, almost by definition, the most exploited class. When they become idle, and have access to alcohol or other abusable substances, their frustration mounts.

Then something happens, which ignites a short fuse into a large explosive keg. In this case, it was the alleged mishandling of a black youth being arrested by police in Hackney.

For those of us Americans who are old enough, there should be a certain sense of deja vu. This is what happened in the late 60s and early 70s in Harlem and Watts, Detroit and Boston, Chicago and Newark. There was something an advisor to Richard Nixon  called “benign neglect.” The victims of it found any hope they had was replaced with frustration. Then a fuse got lit and then “boom.”

The newspapers call what happen in riot-torn areas senseless. The leaders blame gangs of thugs. The rioters slip into the night for a while and the benign neglect continues, often in the name of fiscal austerity.

The issues in London are not all that different from the issues of Cairo, or the Philippines or Thailand, or Gandhi’s India, Mandela’s South Africa, or for that matter, King’s America of the 1960s.

The degrees of oppression and cruelty; the levels of racism or  sexual discrimination may vary according to government or century, but a certain truth remains the same and self-evident: that all people are created equal and have certain unalienable rights. When government takes away too many of them for too long a period of time, then most people will eventually refuse to be governed.

I am no advocate of violence. I would note that many of the most successful overthrows of government in the last 100 years have come about through nonviolent protest–that almost always results in violent government response. People endure great cruelty and display great bravery once they realize that to not stand up against such policies is to live a life like cattle and to leave a legacy for their children to graze the same pastures.

I also do not mean to liken British PM David Cameron to Hosni Mubarak. The political situations are far different and Egypt’s corruption and cruelty to citizens was far greater. But I do see similarities, move for move between Cameron and America’s Richard Nixon–who also complained of street thugs as he flew home from an aborted expensive vacation and vowed also to get tough rather than listen and communicate.

Sometimes I wish that governments could learn what many commercial enterprises have learned in the past few years through social media. In 2005, I started a book about blogging with the statement “We live in a time when most people don’t trust large corporations.”

I could have just as easily written that we live in a time when people don’t like their governments. In democracies, we are supposed to respond to that by  voting. Yet over time, we discovered the act of voting one bum out seems to do little more than install a different bum.

This leads to frustration and anger. Those most afflicted eventually take to the streets and the cycle resumes yet again.

I do not endorse what happen in the last few days in the UK. In fact, it saddens me to a large degree. But I find it neither shocking nor senseless and I hope the powers that be respond in a more conversational way before it becomes to volatile.

 

 

 

Microsoft: The Empire Strikes Out.

August 8, 2011 · 3 comments in Social Media,tech business

Time was when Microsoft was the most powerful and hated and feared company in technology. But that time is more than ten years past. A decade ago, the Redmond-based software giant was universally referred to as the “Evil Empire.” Now, it is more like the Impotent Empire.

Robert Scoble was at Microsoft when I collaborated on a book with him about business blogging. I chose Robert because I thought he had nailed what corporate blogging could and should be. Through him, I got to hang out a little bit with “Microsofties,” as they called themselves back then. I was surprised to find most Microsofties were really cool and smart and passionate about where technology was going and I thought they would be agents of change in the world’s most powerful software company.

But most, like Scoble, were at the middle layer of the organization, where they could not actually foment change–they could only recommend, hope and wait. I watched many of them waiting and believe, then wait and hope, then stop waiting and start updating resumes.

At Microsoft, it turned out in the middle 200s, waiting for an innovative idea to get a corporate blessing was as futile and absurd  as Waiting for Godot. One-by-one, I watched my friends leave. A few stayed and I have watched the fire in their eyes become extinguished and their respective self esteems wane.

Many of those who left went to big competitors. Some took the plunge into the joy and anguish of start-ups. I consult companies of all sizes, but my heart usually goes to the start-ups. It’s something to do with passion and urgency that gets me hooked.

Of Microsoft’s myriad areas of misjudgment, I think there was none greater than their consistent fumbling of startups in the last decade. In the mid 2000s, management declared they would acquire no start-up that could not produce $100 million in revenue in its first year. The Catch 22 is that no startup ever produces that kind of revenue until it grows. If it could, why on Earth would it be acquired?

So Microsoft did nearly nothing in the startup category. It sat and grew corpulent as the best and most promising social networking, social media, open source, Web 2.0 companies were acquired by competitors or became competitors themselves.

Perhaps the most painful chapter in its poor decision-making on acquisitions was its most recent. Early this year Microsoft purchased Skype for $8.5 billion. Skype founders jumped ship simultaneous to te closing of the deal. Rumor had it that Microsoft wanted to charge EU users for its free services. The acquisition was completed shortly after Apple Computer came out with FaceTime an extremely cool competing service and Google came out with Hangout, an equally cool free video chat service.

Seems to me Skype was purchased a decade too late.

All these thoughts came back to me this morning, when headlines declared Windows Phone 7 sales are down 38% since it started shipping 10 months ago. This was surprising news on an already dismal news day, since Gartner and other respected analysts have given glowing projections on how well the new phone software from the client whose virtues they were extolling would do.

But it all came back when I read the editor’s analysis which sounded to me like it came out of a Microsoft messaging committee meeting. According to the story, the plummet in sales could be attributed to the fact that Microsoft had announced a new Windows Phone 7 version that would end up owning the smart phone mobile apps market by offering a one-stop applications shop.

It seems to me that is wishful thinking and which has slightly less than a snowball’s chance in Hell of coming true. First, we buy apps the minute we need them. We get them where we can find them and we don’t wait for new versions to come out, particularly from Microsoft.

When Microsoft mattered, they were probably the most notorious of all companies for shipping late, and when they did ship, they were even more notorious for shipping buggy software that was vulnerable to hackers.

Would mobile apps users really bypass Apple and Android platforms and apps for something that may or may not come from Microsoft at some near or distant future date? Personally, I would prefer to wait for Godot.

To be honest, I was hoping for a comeback from Microsoft with Windows Phone 7. We customers benefit from new competition. It helps innovation and lowers price. I am agnostic to companies, but I am passionate for customer benefits and rights. We who love social networks have greatly benefited already from Google’s surprising recent resurgence in the category.

Today is probably the day, that I have concluded what so many people have been thinking for a very long time. Microsoft will probably continue along as a fat, profitable company with limits on its growth and even greater limits to its relevance to the computer industry as a whole. Yes, I include the enterprise when I say that.

More important to my thinking is the lesson learned. Microsoft was once perceived as the indestructible monolith. They were Borg and resistance was futile. Companies panned products based on what Microsoft might or might not do. VCs required entrepreneurs to submit business plans that included a Microsoft Strategy section.

The lesson learned is that giants fall. I often get told that I am hollering in a hurricane when I protest Facebook’s disdain for the rights of its customers. I’m told Facebook is too big and too entrenched and no one can live without them and no one really cares that they are being spoon fed the data Facebook wants to feed us. That our private chats are subject to Facebook commercial exploitation.

It cannot be stopped I get told. From now on I’m just going to smile and ask: “Remember Microsoft?”

 

Google+, MySpace & Milking a Dry Cow

August 7, 2011 · 3 comments in Social Media,tech business

 

Sometime in the month of August, Google+  will surpass the once mighty MySpace to become the fourth largest social network in terms of users.

No one debated this prediction when I made it on Twitter, perhaps because it was so obvious. But what was interesting was that a couple of folk expressed surprise that MySpace is still around at all.

In case you missed it, News Corp sold MySpace to Specific Media, a Southern California ad network for about $35 million in stock and cash in June. The timing might explain why the event was little noted.

At the end of June, we social network aficionados were going bonkers for Google+.  News Corp watchers were reviled by the hour as details of the British phone hacking scandal unfolded with the sort of scandalous news you usually find in cheap detective novels.

Had it been a slower news day, I’m sure that many would have noted that MySpace, founded in 2003 was once the unstoppable social network, with a market value estimated at $65 billion. News Corp bought it in 2005 for $585 million, which seemed like a fire sale at the time.

Yet the net loss of $550 million plus costs for the six years of ownership has to sting. It probably exceeds the legal costs they face for getting caught tapping into the voice mail of British citizens including a dead teenager–so that they cold publish juicy stories in tabloids.

The really interesting question is where MySpace goes from here. Does it continue to zoom toward the vanishing point of zero users and zero revenue? Do the new users find a strategy that will stop the bleeding or will that last user discover that there’s no one left to talk with and turn off the light on her or his way out?

Obviously, Specific Media had what they considered to be sound business reasons for buying MySpace. Since they are an ad network, I think it’s pretty clear they want to put more pages in front of more eyeballs for more revenue and I wish them good luck in the effort. Since the new owners are steeped in Southern California culture, I’m betting entertainment is part of their turnaround strategy.

I am also betting that in the end, MSpace will crash and burn at a rate perhaps even to the relentless rise of Google+

For one thing, MySpace’s fundamental problem was never solved. It was built on technology that makes it impossible to open up to third-party developers. It cannot interact with other social media properties. Further, social media already provides entertainment up the yin yang and attracting more users who will stay and spend time there are as likely as it is for me to stay on Direct TV’s Channel 245, because that’s where I watched the NBA playoffs.

And that’s an important point: Social networks don’t work like TV networks. We don’t go there to sit and watch. We go there to participate and interact. On television, we may visit a tired old brand like CBS for an hour of entertainment, but in social media we go to where our friends hang out and we are interested in what is new and cool.

MySpace is old and tired. It did not develop as the scores of millions of users who abandoned it did. It tainted its brand by pursuing ad revenue at the expense of user experience.

In social media, particularly social networks, if you want to build something that explodes in popularity, I recommend you start with a clean slate and a new name. You find something that we all want, need or could get addicted to. You ask early adopters like Robert Scoble, Chris Pirillo, Steve Rubel and Marshall Kirkpatrick and they encourage their friends to join them.

I never met an ad network that coud even think that way and I have very high doubts that the new owners of MySpace are any different. I am betting that what they will do is make some expensive noise as they continue to milk an aging cow until it goes completely dry.

 

 

Lost in the Middle

August 5, 2011 · 1 comment in Personal & off-the-wall,Politics

This is not a post that has anything to do with social media, mobile apps or online privacy. It is about the country where I was born and live and where that country is or is not headed.

It is not intended to be a particularly political column. I have promised myself to stay out of that mud-pit. I used to love having intelligent debate with people who see issues differently than I do, but in recent times I have found such efforts have turned ugly and unconstructive.

But it is about politicians who keep eschewing quick fixes to deep and complex problems. It is about a polarization of voices that seem far further to my left or right than the voices I would hope represented me in government.

Politically, I am pretty much in the center. I believe most everyone I’ve ever talked with has a sense of decency and fair play. They want government to do what is fair and what makes sense. It’s frustrating how often we do not get that and it’s frustrating how fast that frustration focuses on blame rather than solution.

I believe in the process of debate and compromise. I believe in the natural friction between intelligent people who bring diverse viewpoints. In fact, I believe intelligent and passionate debate followed by compromise is what has brought my country as far forward as it has come over the years–until these troubled times in which entrenched views and rigid position have fomented paralysis.

Try this: Take a Tagamet or some  anti-nausea medication. Then read watch or listen to the voices of Washington, DC. Do any of them represent your point of view? Do any of them propose solutions that make sense to you?

I didn’t think so. We all know we that the country and the world face huge problems. Most of us prefer simple solutions–but it seems to me we are only hearing the solutions of simpletons. And somewhere between now and the day we reach Hell in a handbag, I hope we reverse direction.

I don’t know how we got to the point where the people who represent the people we are, tend to speak for the extreme poles of our diversity and not those of us in the center; those who value diverse perspective, those who realize you need to understand the complexity before you can find the often-elusive simple solution.

In business and in life, none of us get everything we want. We debate, plead, cajole, scream for our causes, but at work or in the home, major disagreements are usually settled by compromise. These compromises moderate opposing views and in so doing we see that perhaps the opposing view had some merit to them. It’s how we learn to live with each other and begrudgingly give respect to those who see it differently than we do.

Like many of you, I voted for Obama, and perhaps like you,  I’m disappointed. He promised to find a common ground in a bitterly divided country and he has not succeeded in this. You can perhaps rightfully point out that the Tea Party’s success has made that impossible and there is truth in all that as well.

But I believe we must find that common ground and we must find it soon, all the rest of the ground is shaky and getting very dangerous.

A Slow News Day in August 1947

August 3, 2011 · 2 comments in Miscellaneous,Personal & off-the-wall,story telling,tech business

AUGUST 2, 1947, NEW YORK, NY– It was a slow news day. I was facing yet another deadline and my mind was as blank as the sheet of paper I had inserted into my trusty old Underwood typewriter.

Outside, the summer sizzle had turned to drizzle. The muted tap dance of raindrops against my window pane had replaced the coo and chirp of city birds.

It was still muggy. I left the windows open a and kept my two room fans from the new Sears store blasting at my face. Their whirr harmonized with the sounds of the rain as the clicking of ice cubes in my bourbon kept rhythm.

Nice audio, except one sound was missing– the sound for which I got paid–the rattatat  of my typewriter keys as they etched words onto my still-blank page.

Maybe it was the mugginess of the day, or the excess of bourbon, or maybe it was the fear that I was losing my way with words, but I sat there blaming my editor and the world in general for not giving me a good news story.

My editor thought he was doing me a favor when he assigned me to write a feature on the future of technology for this week’s Sunday edition. But features are soft stuff for bleeding hearts and I like to think of myself as a hard-boiled guy, who writes about real people, particularly when they are bilking the public.

I’m a beat reporter. I cover hard news about hard lives in a tough city. I live to find dirt under the fingernails of public officials and usually New York City is filled with my kind of stories almost as good as covering the fat politicians in Washington DC.

But this was August. All the crooks in New York City had gone out to the Hampton’s for the summer.  All the papers were filling their front pages with photos of street kids dancing in the cooling gushers from fire hydrants they had illegally unscrewed.

I sat staring at my blank page and cursing the world for its lack of real news. “It will be fun. Just use your imagination, my editor had boomed into the phone.”

Fun? Imagination? I’m a reporter, not a sci-fi writer. I lead with what bleeds. I write about things that I could never have imagined would happen. Besides, the whole idea was lame.

This was August, 1947. The world had all the technology anyone would ever want. We had cars that got us to places infinitely faster than the horses we rode where I had grown  up outside of Hoboken, some 20 very odd years earlier.

Everyone had a telephone in their home. Rich folks even had extension phones in their bedrooms. These days you could dial directly–putting Mabel the switchboard operator right out of business. The old party lines were disappearing so you could trust the phone company to let you speak in private.

They had started passenger airplanes.  These days you could get you from New York City to Washington DC faster–and cheaper–than on a Greyhound Bus

What more  friggin’ technology could you possibly want?

I took a long tug on my bourbon and sat back, getting lost into the rhythm of the sounds of rain and whirr, angry at my editor and a world that made today a slow news day.

That’s when it got very, very weird. Maybe I blacked out and it was all just a dream. Maybe I have more imagination than I give myself credit for–or maybe, just maybe a Gypsy came by and gave me a glimpse into her crystal ball.

It was all strangely real–or may it was really strange.

I tumbled in time, sort of like I see my shorts tumble when I watch them through the window of the new Bendix washing machine in the new washing machine the wife nagged me into buying.

The first thing I noticed was my daily calendar. Pages were flying off, slowly at first then faster and faster. Time was literally flying as I sat and watched. Suddenly it was 1948, then 1955 and 1976. The calendar whirred into the next century, that slowed and settled down a few years later.

 

Now, it was August 2011.

It was still my room, but everything had changed. My window now opened sideways instead of up and down. My floor and desk lamps were gone, but new lights were sunken into my ceiling. The room fans were gone, but cold air was flowing through a grated hole in the wall. My steam radiator was gone as well, but I’d worry about that next winter.

My typewriter dramatically kept changing shape as the calendar dates whizzed forward. Suddenly, the word Underwood was replaced, by Smith Corona. Then the keys became a ball and the machine transformed again, this time into an IBM Selectric. As the days flew turned into years of the future the name kept changing into  Altair, Kaypro, Commodore, Compaq then Dell. The shape kept changing.  Suddenly music was playing out of it and as the calendar pages slowed, the calendar itself jumped inside this thing on my desk.

When we stopped, the typewriter had assumed a very sleek shape, like something you’d expect from outer space–if there is anything in outer space. It was now silvery and nice to touch. In the middle of its top was a mysterious logo of an albino Apple–I have no idea why.

I opened this machine, and where my blank paper used to be there was a blank screen. I pushed the button and it came to life. It was a screen filled with color and as I pushed buttons I could talk with people and watch movies, and write my columns, which appeared on other people’s screens.

I reached for my phone, but it too, was transformed into some cute tiny thing. It could fit into my short pocket, just like my Lucky Strike cigarettes. I soon discovered that I could still tak on the thing, but I could do most of the stuff that the Apple thing would allow me to do. I was relieved to discover I could still actually talk to people on it, but that no longer seemed to be the big event. Instead of talking, it seems people of the future will send notes to each other on telephones. It beats me why we would send words when we can actually talk.

Then I noticed my bookshelf. I’d been collecting books for as long as I had my Underwood. Maybe longer. I used to spend my spare time in the bargain bins and back shelves of dusty old book stores, usually managed by eccentric old men  invariably wearing rimless bifocals. The wife and I moved a lot, and the hardest part was toting box after box after box of heavy books. Now my beloved books were gone–every last yellowed and dog-eared one of them.

Now there was just one thing–a flat gray thing. On it was embedded one strange word AmazonKindle. I couldn’t quite get my brain around that. Last I checked, Amazon was a river and Kindle was how you started a fire. Did you use this thing to douse a fire or boil a river?

When I finally figured out how to turn the damn thing on, I discovered that somehow all my books were inside this Kindle thing–even my underlining and bookmarks. I cannot possibly describe it better. I would show you, but it probably only exists in the dreams of writers who drink too much bourbon. It would sure make moving easier if such a device ever really existed.

My desk had also been transformed. It had been cluttered with the tools of a writer’s trade: steno books, pilfered ballpoint pens, carbon paper, White Out, newspaper clippings, and an overflowing ashtray that let you set your burning butt in a flamingo’s beak.

But the desk was far from uncluttered. Where all these objects once had been, there were now all these little boxes, each of which had green and red light blink in uncoordinated sequence to each other. And there were wires everywhere. One connected my little typewriter replacement to something larger than my old Underwood. It somehow managed to type the words I put into the Apple device.

Then, without explanation, I blinked and I was back to August 1947. It had all been a dream. I was back where I lived and I was very, very relieved to be in a time I understand.

Besides, we have all the technology we need, right here, right now in August 2007. It was all just a really strange dream–or was it strangely real.

The only thing, I can’t figure out is that by my typewriter, there’s this little black square. It measures about one inch across. When I turn it on I see that strange white Apple, and then it lists every song, I’ve ever heard. It has all my albums and radio stations. I wonder where it came from or what I’m supposed to do with it.

Anyway, this is isn’t exactly the feature story my editor asked for, and he may spike the story I’m telling you here. I hate it when that happens. I wish I could just talk directly with my readers without lame editors getting in between us.

Most of all, I hope next week, there’s a nice juicy murder in the City. It’s the kind of news story I understand and you readers love.

All Things D & Business Insider: How Good Press Can do Bad Things

July 24, 2011 · 3 comments in Appconomy,Online privacy,Social Media,tech business

 

 

Some people say that when you are a small company in a big universe, all press coverage is good press coverage, but it just isn’t true. When I saw on Friday afternoon that Liz Gannes of All Things D and Matt Rosoff of Business Insider had both written about my favorite client, Appconomy, I got downright excited. These are two editors I read working for two publications I respect, but in fact, what they had written–based on what I had written, missed the boat by a very large ocean.

Let me back up .

On Wednesday, I posted a blog announcing that my client Appconomy was no longer actively marketing its Grouped{in} software in the US consumer market because it is sharpening its focus on a new global apps development platform directed at Transpacific markets, primarily the US and China.

In my years consulting startups, I have seen more perish from lack of focus, than from lack of either financing or talent. All too often companies get excited about what their teams can do, and not what they should do. So I was very happy they had come to this conclusion, but it posed an issue for me.

I originally joined up  with Appconomy because Grouped{in} is designed with great respect for user privacy. I have long been a voice of concern about Facebook’s disdain for user rights and joined up with Appconomy because they were going up against the evil elephant who assumes they own the data contributed by 700 million users.

By contrast, my client had named itself Appconomy, short for “Applications Economy,” so it’s pretty clear what they were primarily about since long before I met up with them.

But when I write here, it’s from a personal perspective, and in that perspective I mentioned Google+. Google, 88th entry into social media is a blockbuster. And it respects user privacy or t seems to so far. It is also an unquestioned global powerhouse, and Appconomy, so far cannot claim to be. So Google was coming in to the US market even as Appconomy was deciding to focus on markets across the Pacific.

My mistake was to bring Google+ into the conversation. The decision to stop marketing Grouped{in} to US consumers and instead use it as a cloud service for app developers was based on company strategy that long predated Google’s social network entry.

The results was that Gannes and Rossof wrote inaccurate and misleading accounts based on what I had written and without following up with either me or Brian Magierski, co-founder and co-CEO whom I cited in my post.

Gannes picked up the conversation on Friday afternoon, which is perhaps the best time-of-week to get bad press–if your going to get it. But it is also the hardest time to respond to a large online publication, when your own readers are disappearing for the week-end.

Her short piece hit a few key points, but in my view, had an extremely misleading headline: “Grouped{in} Gives Up Citing Google+”  Appconomy did not give up and has no intention of giving up. Moreover, it is not ‘ceasing development’ of the Grouped{in} platform, as she stated and which I had gone through some pains to make clear in my post.

There was no attention given to the fact that Asian markets are burgeoning and hungry for the sort of Web 2.0 technologies Appconomy represents. There was no speculation, that perhaps, China has a larger market and fewer competitors for a network that lets you be social with peers and colleagues in private.

There was just an exaggerated rumor about the death of Grouped{in}.

While, I was pondering what to do about her piece, Rosoff’s came out with a headline stating that Google+ claimed it‘s first victim in Grouped{in}, then served up artwork characterizing Google+ as a piranha-like big fish gobbling up a little fish.. It amplified the inaccuracy and left me with the impression that he was playing off Gannes, and had not actually looked at my original post. Certainly he had not bothered to contact me or anyone at Appconomy.

Not very long ago, any responsible journalist would have gone to the source and asked some questions to ensure accuracy and to put a fresh lead on an three-day-old announcement.

But the rules of journalism have been altered or eliminated in the new Conversation Age. Now our focus is on speed and page views. I speak from a great deal of experience because I have been a full-or-parttime writer for 40 years.

My favorite editor when I was a young newspaper reporter taught me: “If your mother says she loves you, you’ll need to get a second source before we’ll print it in our newspaper.”

Yet I find myself skipping the step myself with increasing frequency. Every time I do that, there is a danger of distortion, which can mislead people and cause unfair damage to the subjects being covered.

In the last two days, the two inaccurate versions of what Appconomy has done have appeared several times on Twitter, Facebook and–you guessed it–Google+. Because “D” and “Insider” are very high readership organizations, they will appear prominently when customers, prospects, partners, customers and future hires search Appconomy online.

Appconomy, will undoubtedly survive the incident, and it will get more coverage–some of it correct and some unfortunately not. This sort of stuff happens in this business and you move in. I am certain neither editor meant harm.

Maybe there is no harm done, but there is certainly pain.

I’ve been working with Appconomy since March. I have come to think very highly of these guys. They have a crack technology team, one who has worked hard and long on a valuable piece of social networking technology. Their senior team has the sort of focused determination that a start up needs to win in today’s tough marketplace.

It saddens me that what I wrote was so badly distorted and that the distortion might somehow cloud their fine work and fierce determination. And I regret that part of this story very deeply.

 

 

Whatever became of Grouped{in}?

July 19, 2011 · 8 comments in Appconomy,mobile apps,Social Media

About six weeks ago, I announced I was working closely with Austin-based Appconomy, a mobile apps startup. The relationship was unique for me because it was structured to be an ongoing relationship. Most of my client relationships are project-based, so in my view, this one was different and special. It still is, despite a month of significant changes.

Let me explain.

I joined to help draw attention to a promising piece of beta software called Grouped{in},  a  social network designed for mobile platforms. Grouped{in} hit very close to my heart on a single feature: it allowed you to socially interact with friends, colleagues or customers privately.

I’m big on the idea of being social in private. The places where I had previously hoped to do that either grew to a point where intimacy and confidentiality became nearly impossible. In the case of market-leader Facebook, we had a category leader who has been audaciously contemptuous of user privacy and data ownership rights.

Now beating Facebook is a daunting task. I wasn’t overly confident that little Appconomy could do that. But I felt that the privacy issue alone would equip us to poke the elephant in the eye and by so doing, give users a fresh option and Facebook a very sore eye.

Then one day, we all woke up and there was Google+.

Candidly, G+ as people call it, is the most promising social network I have ever seen. It is structured on circles of people you know. It warns you to be prudent in where you share information from your circles.  It is easy to use and inclusive of long-and-short text, audio, video, chat and video chat. It is free and will probably remain so.

The privacy elements are not bulletproof. I am not yet clear on who owns G+ data. But I do know this: I trust Google with my stuff far more than I do Facebook.

On the other side of it, Google is in a far better position to compete against Facebook, than is tiny Appconomy. And then it has an additional asset: G+ is fun. Lots of fun and more addictive than sling-shotting angry birds.

Brian Magierski, Appconomy co-founder agreed with me about G+. In fact, he got there first and invited me to join in, as he did with the remainder of the Appconomy team.

It took us at Appconomy a short time to decide to opt out of competing with Google+.

From my perspective, it’s absolutely the right strategic move and I applaud the calm logic the used to arrive at it.  On a personal level, I greatly enjoyed getting compensated to tell people why Facebook should not be trusted and that reasonable alternatives will make the Internet a safer, happier place.

Grouped{in} will not be actively marketed into the end-user social networking space, but will indeed live on, and if things go according to plan, it may end up being enjoyed by many million users.

Grouped{in} was the first test of a talented and growing development team. They passed very well. Now they will shift to Appconomy’s core focus: develop a worldwide, world-class mobile applications platform–thus the name Appconomy [for the 'applications economy.'].

Our focus will be China more than the US. It is too early for me to share details, but deals have been made. Partnerships were secured. Formidable roadblocks often placed before American companies in China have been removed.

Appconomy will soon be providing a mobile apps platform for western developers hoping to get into the lucrative and burgeoning China mobile apps market.

I have never seen a company adjust course so quickly and so unanimously. Prior to this decision, we were caught at a crossroad between the social network product and the development platform. Now, we are all looking in the same direction and sharing a single vision and it looks very promising–at least from where I sit.

The Web Economy is huge and interesting and I am pretty certain I’m riding with a winning team.

 

 

 

How I’m Using Google+

July 9, 2011 · 17 comments in Appconomy,Social Media,tech business

It’s hard to believe that Google+ is barely over one week old. Already, it is the most vetted new social media platform to be yet introduced and it also self-evident that G+, as insiders call it, has pushed its way into the very top tier of social networking. Way back, on July 1 or so, there were only two major social networks–Twitter and Facebook. Now there is a Big Three of social networks.

In my view, this is disruption at its best. With extremely little fanfare and zero marketing hype, Google introduced G+ to a small circle of respected social media enthusiasts, who cautiously told others they liked it. Others, adapted, and well you know how these things go, when they go right and G+ so far has gone very, very right.

For me, my greatest challenge was to decide just how I would use G+. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, who have pretty clearly structured how you will socially network, Google has left much of that up to its millions of new users. It’s using a “circle” metaphor. You can start a circle of friends or acquaintances, colleagues, hobbyists, sports fans, or whatever.

The beauty of G+ to me is that it is structure on sharing with people along avenues of shared topical interest and this is a very powerful attraction, not just to me but by a great many of the millions of folk already using G+.

I’ve decided to keep my circles relatively small–at least for now. I have a 60-member friends circle. It is comprised exclusively of people I actually know and respect and enjoy. These are people I’d like to get together with for dinner. If they are attending an event, it will influence me to go to that event more than all the advertising you could throw at me.

I also have a 90-member Acquaintances circle, made up of people I generally know, but not quite so well. In a few cases, these are people I’ve met and enjoyed, but have not really spent lots of time with them. In a few cases, there are people who I have barely talked with, but who have said things in social media from which I have learned or perhaps even been inspired.

Then I have a couple of tiny circles, one with my client Brian Magierski from Appconomy, but we have not yet fully figured out how to use it. We also need to figure out how we will adjust course for the company’s own social network Grouped{in}.

I have also started circles for my family, but not many of them have yet joined G+ so it remains a place keeper, after my first week on the platform. I envision have several circles, each containing fewer than 10 people.

Another G+ benefit is spontaneity. Last night, Mike Brito, a friend, started a “Hangout” a G+ video chat. Irene Koelher, an acquaintance and I jumped in and we bantered together for a few minutes before I ran off to dinner. Perhaps the novelty will wear off, but last night it proved to be an extremely cool way to spend a few minutes with people I like who I rarely see in real life. By contrast, the experience has never happened for me on Skype video, which I’ve been using for several years. Hangouts with up-to-10 people are free. I pay over at Skype, but the people who try to spontaneously talk to me there are invariably pornsters and hucksters who are most certainly NOT in my circle of friends and who manage to slither through whatever filters the developer has provided.

The key point is that I am keeping my circles small. In so doing, I have noticed that I am spending more time per visit on G+ than I am on Twitter and Facebook. I am enjoying my time there more than on the other platforms and I find, I am listening to others far more than talking to them. I am enjoying a level of fun that attracted me into social networking to begin with.

One issue that came up this week, is that outspoken posters dominate more in a small circle than in a large one. I have two authentic friends whose postings were dominating my Friend streams every time I visited them. I have quietly demoted them to my Acquaintance circle. I may end up putting them into a circle of their own, so that I can enjoy them when I wish and still get to hear what others have to say.

In both Twitter and Facebook, I have ended up with networks where I directly interact with thousands of people. In many cases, I find myself clueless about a person who I’m seeing. Sometimes this is fascinating and enriching. At other times it has far lesser value to me.

I intend to make G+ my quality social network. I’m going to keep it small and my “friends” will really, really be friends. I’ll let you know how it works out.

 

First thoughts on Google+

July 4, 2011 · 5 comments in Appconomy,Social Media,tech business

It’s the American July 4th week end, one of our two really big national holidays. People here usually flee the summer heat to gather with friends and family in parks or near water. The night’s in many places are ignited by fireworks, a tribute to bombs once bursting in air and our flag still being there.

In New York, many folk go to The Hempsteads on Long Island. In Boston they queue down to Cape Cod. In Cyberspace, this past week-end, there was an unprecedented migration out of Facebook and Twitter over to Google’s new social network, Google Plus, or Google+ or G+ as the cool kids are already calling it.

There is some drama to the build up. Insiders say Co-Founder Larry Page pushed Eric Schmidt out as CEO because of the venerable Schmidt’s inability to grasp how to make or market a social media platform. It’s true, I knew Schmidt when we were both you in the early days at Sun Microsystems and greatly admired him. but under his purview, he failed to get people to Wave, Buzz or even learn how to properly spell ‘Orkutz.’

Schmidt launched, Wave, Buzz and other clumsy social attempts in a traditional marketing sort of way–with big marketing and advertising and noise. The products were developed with feedback from focus groups and they just did not engage or compel the people who influence us to use social media tools.

I’ve said before that Google learned Buzz is the last sound you hear before getting stung on the neck. Most of us counted google out of the social media game. They still mattered because of Gmail and of course search, but as for new and cool–well they might as well be Microsoft.

This must have been very painful for Larry Page and Sergei Brin, who–despite incredible personal wealth–are too young to sit back and relax on past laurels. It must have been hard watching many of their best technologists leaving their campus to go to Facebook. It must have been hard seeing their names slip from the conversation only to be replaced by that of Mark Zuckerberg.

As entrepreneurs they are too young to be old, and most people were perceiving Google as prematurely aging.

So young Larry wrested the reigns back from his adult supervisor Eric and in a short while puts his thumbprint on yet another social media platform–G+. Most people figure it’s too little, too late and the week before it came out, I sense far more apathy than anticipation.

This time Google’s launch was relatively modest–a blog announcement. G+ got into the hands of a few people, each of them prominent in social media circles. Those people use Twitter and Facebook to talk about how cautiously optimistic they were about the new platform. The conversation on other competing networks soon was filled with G+ talk seemingly to the expense of all else.

It’s less than a week later. Millions of people are using G+. Folks have started using Huddle a new video chat that accommodates up to ten users for free. So far, all Huddlers I’ve seen love the product. For Google, this must be frosting on the cake because Huddle looks like a Skype killer and this is a mere week after former arch-rival Microsoft acquired the original video chat platform, causing speculation that Skype’s freeness and openness may soon be changing.

I’ve started using G+ and like just about everyone else, I really love it. How this will change my use of other social networks, I cannot yet tell you. But my loyalty is to my friends in social networks and I will go where they go. I like G+ ability for me to make small circles of real friends or business colleagues. I like the simplicity and elegance of G+.

It also seems to me–on early examination–to allow the sort of private social conversations that I’ve ranted about. Google may not have a perfect record on its “don’t be evil” slogan, but it’s record is a damn site better than Facebook. I trust Google will keep conversations that we think are private out of scrutiny with advertisers and online data collectors. I do not think there’s a chance of that over at Facebook.

I’m going to leave most of the product analysis to the product gurus who have written volumes about G+ in the past few days. I’m more about story telling than product analysis.

The Google Plus story s shaping up to be is one of the best technology has produced. Most of us did not see it coming, but it did. G+ started as a mere disturbance in the vortex and has already become a tsunami in cyberspace.

And we users are the better off for it.

How OpenForum Research takes me to strange places

June 30, 2011 in Personal & off-the-wall,Social Media

I write a column on small business for American Express OPENForum. Currently I’m researching a piece on how small business people use social media in the travel industry.

The column will include the story of Mark and Terrie Hayward who own and operate a small guest house on Culebra, a scenic & remote Puerto Rican Island. In researching them I discovered they have been in the Peace Corps, serving in New Guinea.

In my emailed questions I asked them for an anecdote from their Peace Corp days. What they sent me is too long and off-topic to use in the Open Forum column. But it is also too good, and well-told to discard.

So I am posting here–for your enjoyment– what Mark sent me. It is verbatim. My only personal comment is that–like I keep saying–you really need to have the right tools.

What did the two of you do in New Guinea? Where were you stationed?

We were rural community development volunteers in Papua New Guinea. For most of our service we were stationed in the Lakekamu Basin, which is a vast 2500 square kilometer area that contains the largest expanse of unbroken humid forest in the southern watershed of peninsular Papua New Guinea (PNG). While there we worked with the Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific on projects that were meant to offer alternative means for income generation, as opposed to selling timber rights. You can read much more here – http://www.worldwildlife.org/bsp/bcn/learning/ar97/97_lakekamu16.htm.
Can you give me on anecdote of something that occurred there?

Here’s a little anecdote for you that we like to call “Arrow Head.”

Imagine if you will, that you have survived three months of Peace Corps brainwashing training in the beautiful Papua New Guinea Highland’s town known as Goroka. With training finished you and your unbridled enthusiasm head for the airport to get on a plane that looks like a tin can with an engine to make your way to your new village where you will spend the next two years.

Fast forward a little, you have landed in your village, spent a day or so offending people with your horrendous grasp of the local language, met the Chiefs, and are generally full of optimism. On the third morning in your remote village in the rainforests of New Guinea there is suddenly a large commotion outside your door and you can feel many eyes peering at you through the open slats of your bush hut. Instead of finishing off breakfast with an audience watching you go out front to see what’s happening.

Initially, it seems as though a few of your new neighbors are dropping by for a chat, some tea, and maybe for a heartfelt discussion pertaining to, “Whether it is true that the US really sent a man to the moon?” Upon further inquiry with your broken language skills you discern that the group has actually come to your house that morning to see if you “might have something to remove an object.” First, you assume it’s just a common splinter, or at most maybe a tooth from a dog bite. So, in your best Peace Corps can-do spirit you go and get the tweezers out of your brand new bright red Swiss army knife. When you come back the crowd gasps then goes silent as they see the tweezers and then they give a look that crosses cultural boundaries which says…uh, gee – I don’t think those tweezers will quite work for what we have in mind.

Standing on your porch confused, not knowing if you offended someone, you try to glean what on earth the problem could be. While engaged in a new conversation about “object removal tools,” at first you don’t notice or see a thing, then out of the corner of your eye you glance at something a little strange…does that man, oh no he couldn’t, OH yes he does, why that’s a long stick hanging out of his head and it appears to be an arrow.  Sheepishly, the man comes forward and suddenly you realize that the Swiss army knife tweezers, while tough, are no match for what now stands before you.

Greetings and welcome to the Peace Corps, I don’t remember anything in training, or even in the famous book, “Where there is no Doctor,” that even slightly resembled this situation!

You can see the full post on my original blog here – http://www.mytropicalescape.com/2007/07/04/pardon-me-is-that-an-arrow-in-your-head/

Taxing Amazon & other Online Merchants

June 30, 2011 · 7 comments in Social Media,tech business

When e-tailing started back in the 1990s, it quickly became clear that an unintended consequence was that transactions took place in cyberspace, which does not physically exist inside any state, nation or territory. But no one really cared, back then. Sales online amount to fly-doo. Besides the economy was roaring and even the states, who were loosing sales tax revenue were swimming in cash.

Times change. Almost everyone has felt a bite and the cuts on state and local levels–as you may have noticed–have become brutal and damaging. Lots of response has been the usual finger-pointing at government inefficiency and of course there is some of that. There are those who also realize that much of government is comprised  of decent people who really try to provide constituents with needed services, but it’s just easy to blame the government as “them,” and the excesses and abuses as universal.

A while back, someone estimated that just Amazon.com sales in California were costing the state of California $1.1 billion annually. That advantage has put tax-paying book sellers out of business. It also amounts to about four percent of the California deficit of more than $26 billion.

To make up for that you have to lay of an awful lot of teachers, librarians, firefighters and cops. You need to bump over lots of potholes and close state parks because of maintenance costs.

No one seems to know just what total US sales are online, but it is a very, very big number. Online merchants have not just managed to have this competitive advantage, their devastation of local merchants have caused yet another inestimable billions.

Laws governing the situation predate online sales. It’s a head-scratcher in jurisprudence. But it seems to me to be an unfair advantage to online, which has so many very fair advantages already. It seems to me unfair to the states and  to the people who live and pay taxes there.

California is among the first of many states to be trying to do something about this. It is a slightly clumsy attempt, because the only legal course they have is to go after affiliates like me, who just never even thought of paying state income tax on the relatively small amount we make in affiliate sales. My personal hit will be under $100.

But the real target is clearly Amazon and other online merchants. Well, it should be in my opinion. There are many years of debate, legislation and court challenges. In my view, it is time to think of such Conversational Age issues as this one on a very high level.

We simply don’t have laws to cover issues like these and it forces governments and citizens to forget the basic premise of what most people want in laws: fair and equal justice.

The free ride of online merchants is not fair and should be changed as it related to state sales tax.

The User’s Right to Opt In

June 29, 2011 · 6 comments in Appconomy,Online privacy,Online privacy,Social Media

I’ve been ranting lately about issues raised by Eli Pariser’s book “The Filter Bubble.” Essentially, he argues that all major online sites collect data on us and make judgements about us based on that data.They share that data with other sites all the time.

This data very significantly impacts what we see when we sign in online. It’s not just advertising, but news, people to follow, and just about anything else you can follow.

In my previous post, I reported on how Facebook–the apparent worst culprit of these data assumptions–has pushed me away from many of my online friends. By the hefty response, it seems many people have had similar experiences and on more sites than just Facebook.

Earlier today, Rebecca Slossberg posted a response to my post, mentioning that Klout has taken a nice step in the right direction. You can now go to their site and look yourself up. Then you can see the topics on which you are being measured. You then have the choice to opt out on any topic that you consider to be irrelevant to how you choose to be measured, judged and profiled by online sites. For example, Klout said that I had influence on the topic of “Muslims.” I don’t know how they based that–nor does it matter, because I could very simply opt out.

Klout, like Facebook, has been no stranger to controversies But Klout has consistently demonstrated that it listens to users and cares about what we think. Not bad thing, if you happen to be in the influence-measurement business.

I commend them for their leadership in the right direction. They go further than other sites, but still it is but a baby step in the right direction, if you ask me.

Ultimately, you and I have the right to review the data being gathered on us. We have the right to correct errors and assumptions being made and marketed by data aggregators. Not only that, we should have the right to do this before they use it in any way whatsoever.

Newspapers or TV stations that spread lies about people because they did not properly check their facts get sued for libel. They lose credibility and this lose influence.

But online, assumptions about us are used to impact what is published about us and what we see is published. Our US Constitution is a wonderful and wise document, but back then such issues could not even be perceived.

But in this Conversational Age, I think there needs to be some new essential human rights. We should have the right to opt in–or at least rebut–what is being said behind our backs by online people who then decide to put in front of our faces. It should be at least as easy to see the data being collected online as it is to review our own credit reports.

There are those who tell me I should get over whatever it is that is bothering me. That this is the way it is and will be. Would those same people have told slaves they should always be slaves or women that they should not be allowed to drive or vote?

We users should have the right to opt in on what is said about us by content providers. We should have the right to edit out that which is untrue. We should have the right to see diverse views from diverse people whom we choose over the decisions made by software robots and the content providers who deploy them.

I seems to me that this right would  be self-evident.

 

 

How Facebook pushes me away from my friends

June 27, 2011 · 21 comments in Social Media,tech business

Whenever I go to Facebook and click on most recent news, chances are almost 50-50 that one of three of my friends will be on the top of the list: Heather Meeker, Jolie O’Dell or Krystyl Baldwin.

These three women are all friends. I’ve recently chatted back-and-forth with them on Facebook. Additionally, photos of me smiling by their sides have been uploaded to Facebook and believe me I’m just fine with that.

Make no mistake,  I enjoy the company of attractive young women, but that is not all that I am about. I enjoy diverse people of diverse appears and thinking. Unfortunately,  there’s mounting evidence that Facebook is making assumptions about me–without asking. Those assumptions are shaping who else I see, meet and talk with an I find that unfortunate.

For example, Facebook friend suggestions seem to be skewing toward more attractive young women and fewer cantankerous old hippies like me. Worse, they are pushing me away from the opportunity to meet more people who share my interests in so many subjects such as China, So Africa, social media, Boston Celtics, obscure little movies you have to search for, and so on.

Worse still, is a growing awareness of long-established friends with who I haven’t spoken for a while such as Robert Scoble,  Howard Rheingold, Joseph Thornley, Tom Raftery, Brian Solis, and Kaiser Kuo. I consider each of these folk a friend. Each has influenced my thinking in social media and I want to see what they’re talking about. Yet Facebook has put each adrift from me like rowboats detached from a dock.

Facebook makes all sorts of decisions based on who we talk with on their site. This is called personalization and every major site uses it. Each uses it in different ways.

It is very often convenient and useful. But it can also be wrong and damaging. Personalization may find you lots of what you like, but take a close look at the ads you see. They are based on certain assumptions about us.

When Naked Conversations came out, every time I searched Google, I saw an ad for Victoria’s Secrets. Whenever I go to Facebook, I see an ad suggesting I spend money to see Brian Solis speak, when I’d prefer to have dinner and a beer with him.

That’s all incidental. The point is that the assumptions behind personalization are wrong all too often, and those assumptions will push you in a direction that you may not want to head into. I don’t mind chatting with attractive bright young women, but I miss and value my old and established professional friends.

The simple solution is for Facebook and the other sites to offer us the option of opting in on each issue. They can ask each of us to confirm assumptions they are making.

But they don’t. It seems like it’s inconvenient to them in their haste to assume they know what is convenient to us and what is not.

 

 

Microsoft Acquires Skype

June 21, 2011 · 5 comments in Appconomy,Miscellaneous,Social Media,tech business

You may have been busy checking into Costco on Foursquare the other day when Microsoft completed its $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype. So maybe you didn’t notice. But since you’re obviously interested in mobile apps, I thought I’d share my thoughts on this and tell you why Microsoft and Skype are so very important to where mobile apps and computing as a whole is going.

First, a quick comment: I think Skype video is a miracle application and one of the most underrated applications in the Conversational Age. It is the next best thing to being face-to-face, and so much cheaper than flying. Plus, you get much better seats. I use it to talk for free with people all over the world. including my grandchildren who will grow up knowing me even though I live far away. For them, it is no stranger than talking on the phone was for me as a kid.

Skype got forgotten as social media exploded. it was sequestered in some dark cellar during its years under the dysfunctional ownership of eBay who neither improved the core product nor found any reason for having purchased it. Instead of auctioning it off online, they eventually spun it.

Yet, Skype remains very current, with the only glitches belonging to connection blips by carriers who hate anything that give so many people quality services for free or inexpensive. I’ll get back to that issue in a couple of paragraphs.

First I wanted to mention my surprise and hope for Microsoft decision to acquire it. I’ve been scanning the little gray cells of my memory and I think the last Microsoft acquisition of enduring value was in 1987 when they bought Powerpoint for $14 million. It’s hard to believe how recently Microsoft seemed like the unstoppable Godzilla of computing. But one short decade of developing and acquiring technology based of pursuing short-term revenue rather than long-term customer relationships may have had some humbling effect on the company. It certainly has had a level impact on its market position.

But, I am too old to assume that buying a quality product with enormous market potential, that Microsoft might not muck it up.

Will we soon start seeing, Professional, Office, Developer, ad nauseam Skype versions? Will they need service packs to stop phishers and governments from eavesdropping on our global Skype conversations? Will the versions randomly be incompatible. Will my iPad Skype be able to talk with your Android Skype? We shall see.

My fears also got enhanced when almost simultaneous to the closing of the deal, the remaining Skpye founders jumped ship. Historically, such hasty departures have not boded well for products. The founders, in this case, could have been motivated by the fact that each has suddenly become enormously wealthy. Another possibility is that a sense of horror  pervaded them when they learned of Microsoft’s go-to-market plan.

And that brings us back to the future of mobile applications. As the NY Times pointed out this morning, The mobile carriers of Europe have been blocking the free Skype apps from their nets flying in the face of EU Net Neutrality regulations.

But Microsoft has pinned its future, many believe, on Windows 7 telephone operating systems. Personally, I think that this is a wise course. Microsoft strategies may prove more formidable than we iPhone/Android-loving cool kids may think.

Microsoft wants to do business with European carriers. Those carriers want free versions of Skype dead. How do you think it’s going to come out? Has Microsoft learned a lesson and now understands that longterm user relationships matter more than next-quarter revenue? We shall see. Did Microsoft just invest $8.5 billion as an investment in European carrier relationships? Once again, we shall see.

What is clear is that Skype is a piece of Microsoft’s mobile strategy, and is the case for every tech company wishing to evolve into the new Conversational Age, mobile strategy is survival strategy.

Here’s a case of how Skype mobile works.  My client Brian Magierski, co-founder & co-CEO of Appconomy, itself a global applications company was in China last week. He was being driven to a meeting and using Skype on his iPhone to meet face-to-face with someone many miles away.

“It worked perfectly,” Brian told me. “It was very natural.”

So far, Skype has been current because it has had no competition. But all of that has recently and dramatically changed. When you buy an iPad, it comes with a native app called Facetime, which also works with any other Mac or iOS device. Facetime integrates with your contacts so you can just call-and-see any of them who also have Facetime. On the iPad, however, the front-and-rear cameras allow you to see a colleague, slide a button and show that person either you kid, or a white board or anything else in visual range.

This is real competition and Microsoft’s first challenge will be to catch up on that compelling feature.

Skype, of course has a huge head start and a huge installed base, but my advise is never, NEVER sell Apple short in a competitive battle against Microsoft. And never sell Apple short when it comes to innovative disruptive technology.

Personally, I don’t care who wins. I’m on the side of us users and competition usually keeps things free and innovation coming. I just hope Microsoft understands both parts of my previous sentence.

 

 

Games, Gaming & Gamification

June 18, 2011 · 4 comments in Social Media,tech business

When I was a kid, there was a sugary treat called CrackerJacks. It consisted of caramel coated popcorn which got stuck between your teeth. But the big thing was, there was a prize inside–a cheap little whistle or toy soldier or something I would soon lose or break.

It was fun. It also generated conversations between kids who often swapped toys. Other kid marketers jumped in and soon we were mailing cereal box tops to cereal manufacturers who would send us magic decoder rings, in various colors so we could collect the whole set. We started buying gum that we would throw away, because it contained baseball cards to collect, share and shoot against stairs in competition with other kids.

Making marketing fun is nothing new. Making games of marketing is also an ancient art. Some of it was highly original and generated much conversation. That of course made it copied, and copied and copied until the thrill of surprise and the originality were sucked dry.

I’ve been researching my next book about the origins of social media and games are a significant part of it. Gamers gave us avatars, point systems, the thrill of competition, personal rating systems, badges, virtual money and intentionally addictive programming. Nolan Bushnell, inventor of Pong, the first really successful computer arcade game once told me, “The objective was not for someone to win. The objective was to get kids to put another quarter in the slot.”

I woke up the other morning and discovered someone had invented a new buzzword: “Gamification.” It has already found its way onto into Wikipedia. Last week I got my first invites to a Gamification presentation as well as a webinar. I’m sure I’ll soon see a business card from a consultant claiming to have gamification expertise.

I have to admit, the whole concept seems to be pretty long of tooth to be a candidate for the “Next Big Thing.” I think the whole idea of making marketing fun is a good one. It’s usually pretty transparent what marketers are doing and everyone likes a deal, a contest or a chance to win a free plastic whistle.

What I am afraid is about to happen is that all marketing and sites start copying all others in this gamification stuff. It can once again mess up what has started to happen in recent years in social media. There has been some motion toward making marketing about relationships with customers and less about seeing people who buy your products and services as sticky eyeballs with targets painted on their foreheads.

My really big thought for you marketers out there is to never underestimate the value of fun in business. Think about yourself and the people you hang out with. Think about the meetings, presentations, shopping experiences you remember fondly.

Be original. Use games, or entertainment to amuse, and even entice. But if you think cluttering a program with points and badges will really distinguish you from the competition in some sort of enduring way, then I wish you good luck in you next online job search.

 

 

 

 

 

Avatars, Military Ethics & Elevating the Conversation

June 17, 2011 · 4 comments in Personal & off-the-wall,Social Media

 

It’s been a debate that has not raged on since Shel Holtz started it back in February. Rather,  it barely has trickled. It’s an issue about government deception and ethical quagmire in social networks.  Most folk these days seem to prefer chattering about things like “Six  Power Steps to Getting More Followers,” or the “Seven Best Left-Handed Social Media Gurus,” or whatever used to adorn the cover of People magazine.

Shel’s post was about the military using intentionally disguised avatars to spread venom about people they-or we-consider enemies. The anonymity was important because our military was lying in its attempts to capture hearts and minds, which I guess is more efficient and less messy than killing the people whose hearts and minds oppose us.

When I read it, the movie Avatar came quickly to mind. It wasn’t on Facebook, but it was an example of how you can fool innocent people who happen to be obstructing business or military goals.

Shel, one of the calmest and most rational voices in social media was clearly outraged and it showed. But his post got few retweets and fewer comments.

A full month later, social marketing author Jonathan Salem Baskin picked up the conversation in an Advertising Age column. With a good deal of eloquence he joined Shel Holtz viewpoint, but added another question: why was the social media community virtually ignoring the whole thing?

Now, John Cass has joined the conversation. And he has added a few questions of his own, that makes your realized there are nuances and insinuations that seem to make the issue more complex than Shel or Johnathan argued.

He and Johnathan are collaborating on a joint article and they are looking for as many voices and points of view as they can muster. It is an attempt to raise awareness, and more than that it seems to me to be an attempt to shake the apathy over important, complex and ethical issues that seems to have clouded social media into a fog of cute quips and banal topics so often lately.

Let me clarify that I find using deception in social media to be almost always wrong. The only anonymity that I have endorsed has involved discussions of children who have been abused and a woman who blogged years ago as a rape victim.

The use of such deceptions and contrivances by the military is of course wrong–at least from wear I sit. I share the outrage. But I really cannot add to what my colleagues have stated in that area.

What I would like to add to the conversation is my sadness, that this is no longer a topic upon which the blogosphere would pounce. It once was. A blogger would write an opinion piece in 600-800 words and there would be a stream of 20-50 comments. Then someone else, with a different perspective would move the conversation over to her or his blog.

Facebook and Twitter back in those ancient times of say 2007, would serve as amplifiers. You’d go there and point to links. Perhaps you’d add a short comment. The deeper talks stayed on blogs or maybe podcasts.

Somehow, in the last three years, it seems to me that the central conversation has moved to the shallower, faster venues of Twitter. There’s good reason. The social nets require less time and less talent, so more people can join the conversation.

This, in general, is not so bad. It seems to have a great many business advantage. it should allow people to talk with many other people on hot topics where diverse points of view can be shared.

But it isn’t looking like that is what has happened.

More and more, each of us, seem to be chattering away with people who share our points of view; with people who like what we like, see what we see and say what we say but in slightly different words.

Back in 2007, the blogosphere was sometimes viewed by institutions as a potentially angry mob. Now we are a crowd.  The crowd is not always sought for its wisdom, so much because it is an inexpensive way to shape public opinion.

I like what my three colleagues are trying to do. They are attempting to elevate the conversation. They are attempting to bring your attention to a topic you probably don’t often search for because it is important. It impacts the ethics of the Western world. It impact who we in the west are as a culture.

I hope you join this conversation. If you disagree, I hope you will take the time to post a thoughtful piece about why I am wrong.

 

 

 

 

Reading Books on iPad & Kindle–a comparison

June 16, 2011 · 10 comments in Social Media,tech business

 

I don’t know when my new book will be available. But the longer I wait the more overwhelming will be the percentage of people reading the book on a handheld device, rather than in paper form. A majority of business books are now purchased in ebook format.

Like most people my age and a great many authors, I had some reluctance to leve paper.As a child I found libraries to be hallowed places. I could go to the shelf, pull something out and travel all over the world and beyond. As an author, I love seeing my name on a jacket and I love people queueing up to get my autograph.

But I need to write in style and format that my readers will be seeing so a few months back I purchased a Kindle. I felt like I cheating on a tradition when I started reading on the book. I immediately missed page numbers and I deeply resented that Amazon format on it’s device did not make the author’s name evident. The design was nearly non existent and the editing clearly inferior to in finished books.

That being said, I never looked back to a paper book again. I no longer browse in a neighborhood Borders and the local independent bookstore stocks nothing that interests me that I have not read. The Kindle form is small and light and durable. I like to read in bed, and fall asleep often with the lightweight device on my chest. I can travel anywhere without schlepping the weight and paper. Kindle remembers where I left off, so I don’t have to search for my place. Any sentiments I held for the paper book soon went the way of the newspaper that once joined a cup of coffee at the start of my day.

Then I purchased an iPad. I did not get it as a reader. I got it in part, because the platform is extremely important to my anchor client Appconomy. I also got it because I am considered a tech community insider and not having one felt wrong. Besides, watching all my colleagues swish about the touchscreen made it feel like they were cooler and having more fun than I was on a MacBook.

I downloaded the Kindle for iPad after a few days and started switching off between it and my Kindle form. There are many differences. The iPad is a bigger sharper screen. There are three very different setting that you can use under different lighting conditions. It is beautiful and has some design incorporated into it.

I started to switch off between the two. The first marvel is that when I picked up my iPad the app knew where I left off on my Kindle. I slapped my forehead realizing that my books were stored on the Internet. But the look between the two was very different.

A few friends warned me that it is unhealthy to read on an iPad because it has a backlit screen. I have had no problem with eye fatigue and asked my optometrist who knew of no reports of a vision problem caused by iPad.

Also, most people with iPads purchase a$39 cover, that let’s you stand your computer on two angles–one for typing and the other for reading. On an airplane, where I used to contort myself with large, heavy paper books, the iPad on the stand is a thing of elegance.

In fact, for me that is where it works best. Because of the touch screen, an iPad is best for book reading when you can read hands free, then just tap the screen to turn a page. It works worst in bed, where hands on the device keep flipping pages or closing the program when I have no desire to do so.

On the other hand, the Kindle is smaller and much, much lighter it is easier to read and hold than the iPad because it was designed to do so.

In Many ways this is an Apple to Oranges comparison [pun intended]. The Kindle is designed to do one thing and the iPad to do a great many. I think in the end the iPads will continue to get lighter in weight and people will gravitate to having just one device.

In fact, I’d be happier with a Kindle if it had less functionality. I don’t need the keypad it provides and would prefer more reading space on the same sized form.

The iPad is clearly going another route. It is likely not to get less expensive and it is undoubtedly picking up more and more functionality as we speak.

As far as what I’ve learned as an author. I will make my paragraphs and chapters shorter. I find I read more often during the day, but for shorter periods of time. In books, I never really minded long chapters, but somehow I now prefer to read block-length chunks on an e-book.

New Grouped{in} available. Please help us make it better.

June 15, 2011 · 1 comment in Appconomy,Social Media,tech business

I have been hammering a lot about user identity, and privacy and personalization on the Internet lately. This is partly because I am passionate about the subjects and I’m reading a book that has raised my alarm level by several clicks. But, in the interest of transparency, I have a vested interest. I am working very closely with Austin-based Appconomy, a company that has absolutely convinced me that can do something about letting you socially network with your friends and colleagues in private. Today, they released the new Grouped{in} Ver 1.2 at the Apple Store. It is a considerable improvement over the previous version if you ask me, but it still has some distance to travel. I hope you will download a version onto your mobile device and play with it for a while. Set up a group of friends and colleagues and see how it works. Then give me your feedback—pro or con. You can tweet comments to me at shelisrael, leave a comment here or send me email. Either works for me, although I prefer the transparency of public conversations in this case. Grouped{in} is one of a small—but growing—handful of emerging social networking software products designed for you to talk with people you know and with whom you share a common interest as opposed massive social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.   Here’s my perspective on each, seen from my perspective as a Grouped{in} champion.   Beluga is perhaps the best-known, in part, because it was purchased by Facebook and is integrated with Facebook—but not with Twitter. It’s a nice piece of technology. And like, Grouped{in} promises users privacy. But, it seems to me, you need to stop and think about the owner’s track record on respecting your privacy and in tracking your conversations. Facebook would concern me if I were collaborating in a workgroup, or discussing a family health issue. Also, for those of you who remember Friendfeed, the future for Beluga may not be as bright as one might hope.

GroupMe is our other major competitor. It also has some very nice functionality. I like how they’ve integrated maps, which is important in a mobile app. But unlike Grouped{in}, you cannot integrate your conversations onto either Facebook or Twitter when you want to go public with your conversation.   Grouped{in} is still a little rough in places if you ask me. We need to make it clearer to new users, what is going on. We need to make it wealth of functionality clearer to users.   But we do have a lot more than our competitors do, if you ask me. Here are some of our competitive advantages:

  • When you talk inside our application, you are absolutely, unbreakably private. We are not looking. We will not look. But when you have a need to include others in your conversation, we let you talk with them on Twitter, Facebook on text or even good old-fashioned email. The point is that you should be able to form a group based on friendship or common interest, not on the platform provider’s marketing goals.
  • Too often important social network conversations get lost in cyberspace. Grouped{in} has a deal with Evernote that allows you to archive your conversations there.
  • We are the only group networking software that integrates with Twitter. For those of you conducting business conversations, you may find that important.

Uh-oh. I’m starting to sound like a product guy—and I’m not. I’d rather you take a look at it and tell me what you think. It is really important to me. I want users to collaborate with our ace development team, so that we can produce a superior product.

Privacy, personalization & why I’m so concerned

June 14, 2011 · 11 comments in Appconomy,Disruptors,Social Media,tech business

I’m continuing to read “The Filter Bubble–what the Internet is Hiding from You” by Eli Pariser, former executive director of MoveOn.Org. I really wish that you would look at the book. There is more going on than I realized and the issues impact all of us.

Essentially, the book points out that virtually every large website is paying attention to what we do online. Google measures our clicks and what we look at. Facebook pays attention to who we talk to. Netflix of course monitors what we watch.

Meanwhile, there are two data collection companies–obscure entities with names designed to be readily forgotten. They are running around collecting data on every single person on the Internet. On the average they have 2500 pieces of information on each one of us. Worse, they are in the business of selling the data they collect to anyone, which is pretty close to every large organization that you visit on the web.

Most of us already know that this has to do with what ads are put in front of us, which is not all that bad, because we should be seeing more about things that interest us and receiving special offers and discounts on items we may actually want.

But in the process that Google, Facebook and other companies call “personalization,” web sites are serving you information today, based on what you looked at yesterday. So you see more and more content that reinforces what you already saw. So if you are 24 and were exploring topics or politics or sports you will be setting in motion the content that you will see for the rest of your life online.

You will eventually not realize that there is other information, with other points of view. This is starting to shape, not just ads, but what information we see related to elections, foreign affairs, the environment, etc. If you were an investor, during the recent BP fiasco, you very well would have continued to see more data on stock performance that you would have on the oil spill.

In short, we are being fed what we ate yesterday. Those who consumed different information that conflicts with you, eats from an entirely different plate on a complete different menu. Over time, it makes members of society increasingly polarized, a phenomenon which many of us already feel we are seeing.

But hat really concerns me is evidenced in those ads we see in the left column on Google, in Facebook and elsewhere. Those “people you may know” and those deals that might interest you, usually don’t.

In short, the sites are still doing a bad job of personalizing most of us in a way that is helpful to us. The advertisers may be happy, because response has grown from two to four percent. But you and I are being personalized–and stereotyped based on data that seems to be wrong an overwhelming majority of the time.

I consider myself a social media evangelist. Since 2004, I’ve sung the praises of social media and personalization. Eli Pariser writes about unintended consequences, and personally–they are very disturbing to me.

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