Facebook Week

I am also looking forward to reading more about Facebook during the Facebook week at Mashable.

http://mashable.com/2009/03/30/facebook-week/

24 Things Going Extinct

I like this article in that it forecasts or speculates things that will go away or become extinct.  I am sad to see most of these go, but that is probably because I am more of an old school sort of guy.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977641082&grpId=3659174697253781&nav=Groupspace

Relationship Symmetry

This was a new topic for me, but a simple one to consider.  It is also an interesting way to categorize various networks out there.

http://bokardo.com/archives/relationship-symmetry-in-social-networks-why-facebook-will-go-fully-asymmetric/

The idea is that a relationship in a social network can basically be one-way or two-way.  Today in Facebook relationships are two-way or symmetrical.  This means that for you to be my friend, I have to be your friend.  There are personal reasons to desire this that also lay the tone of a symmetrical relationship network.  An asymmetrical relationship network is essentially one way.  You can be my friend or follow me without me having to be your friend or follow you.  Twitter is exactly like that and lends itself to a tone that is more public. 

This seems like a cool topic that would be interesting to analyze in actual relationships outside of the computer.

Social Media Expert, is a what?

Clearly, and for some time now, there is a position in the organization that requires Social Media expertise.  However, what does that really mean?  What is a Social Media Expert.  This link discusses that topic.   

http://www.smoexpert.com/what-a-social-media-expert-should-be

As always common sense plays a big role in the answer.  This article points out how the expert needs to be an intelligent people person able to engage in topical discussion.  They must also be able to understand the variety of social media tools and how to use them.  Finally, they must be able to determine and describe marketing value with respect to social media.  It is this final expertise that I have discussed before around monetizing social media.  This will be a hot topic/trend over the next 12-24 months.

Monetizing Social Media II

Here is another article discussing the same topic as below.  The basic premise is that advertizing alone will not generate enough to keep the business alive.  I tend to agree, which is why I like the twitter model.  But, I may be naive in this manner.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13326158&CFID=48835061&CFTOKEN=90444495

Monetizing Social Media

This is a good article from a familiar blog.  They have added a new perspective beyond the usual Facebook and Twitter observations.  The author suggests that Apple with it's App Store has found a way to monetize 3rd party sources.  I agree, but is the App Store a community where teens hang out and adults converse.  Continuation of common thought leads to simple adds like those you find in Facebook.  These may eventually support a portion of Facebooks budget, but something more needs to come from it.  The author suggests that Twitter will be introducing accounts that can be paid for in the hopes that businesses will take this on.  I think the Twitter model actually has some merit.  Businesses will soon see that they want to use Twitter internally, but without sharing with the world for competitive reasons.  Businesses will want to implement their own Twitter for quick brainstorming and the gathering of virtual and naturally formed groups within the enterprise.  This sort of application could foster Intellectual Property gathering or Root Cause determination or simply new innovative ways to solve problems.

http://mashable.com/2009/03/28/monetize-social-media/

Earth Hour a Success

For those of you not sure what Earth Hour is there is a good comment on the last Earth Hour post that describes it.  As for last night from 8:30 - 9:30, timezone by timezone, nearly 4000 cities in 88 countries turned off non-essential lighting as a statement that we must do act on climate control now.  I have read that the response however has changed from street parties to street protests. 

Earth Hour Game

You have to try this game out. You will be addicted immediately and your kids will want to play also.

http://lightsout.earthhour.org/lightsout/

Chris Barger @ GM

Chris is the Director, Global Communications Technology at GM. He has a great attitude and outlook about his work at GM. I recommend having a look at the link below describing his inteview by Shel Holtz, complete with video on his responses to questions.

http://www.simply-communicate.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=910

Social Networking within the Enterprise

It seems that March has been the month of social networks and business mashups. As expected there are many applications and useful ways for the enterprise to benefit from social network and media. Now of course this has been a long time coming, in fact the Wall Street Journal reported on this in the summer of 2007. Here are a list of ways that business is using social networking and media.

• Employee collaboration
• Online marketing
• Product development
• Support services
• Business contacts
• Linkage of business to social media about the business
• Recruitment of contestants
• Public relations
• Learning tool
• CRM
• News feed

Believe it or not, these are examples from news articles that were published in the month of March. The following blog is a nice summary and source of links to the actual articles.

http://blog.sewardinc.com/2009/03/26/social-networking-watch/

Not surprising but Twitter and Facebook are among the most commonly mentioned social networking tools. As reported earlier Twitter has grown 1,382% from Feb. 2008 to Feb. 2009 (CNET March 19, 2009) with now over 7 million members.

Auto Social Media Luminaries

This is a good interview with Scott Monty, Ford's Social Media Luminary with reference and Comparison to Chris Barger, GM's Social Media Luminary. I will be listening to Chris speak to a group of high level executives next week on Social Media.

http://www.simply-communicate.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=1147&d=68&h=60&f=75&dateformat=%25e-%25h-%25y

Being effective with Twitter

For those that are uncertain on how to increase what you get out of Twitter here is a good read.

http://blog.shoutem.com/2009/03/25/build-your-blog-community-with-twitter/

Everything Twitter

Here is a great site that describes everything about Twitter. I think that those of you who are wondering what the big fuss is about Twitter and it's 140 character message this site will clue you in.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/03/the-ultimate-guide-for-everything-twitter/

Sprint and Clearwire and WiMax, Oh my!

Reading about the new Sprint 3G/4G modem U300. First, the modem and technology are very cool. The modem itself can switch between EV-DO and WiMax, a first I believe. It is a small and rotatable dongle that plugs in to the USB. You can read more about it here.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343549,00.asp

However, also in this article you will read about how crazy the business is for Sprint and Clearwire. In fact, I would ask what the heck Clearwire is doing?

Google email undo

Google has a new feature you can add in that allows you to undo sending a message... sort of. You get about 3-4 seconds to react to hitting the send button, then if you see the message at the top of your screen you can click there and stop the send function. It definitely works, but you have to be on your toes to catch it. Here is how to add it.

On your main gmail screen click on settings

Next click on the Labs tab

Finally scroll down (way down) to the Undo option and enable it.

Go to the bottom of the page and click Save

Now you have the feature.

Lots in the news today...

It doesn't take long to find something interesting on the news today to write about.

Email VS Social Networks:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10200669-62.html

According to Neilsen Online Social Networks are more popular than Email now. This is not surprising to me. Email lacks the community need. Sure you can reach out to whomever you want, and they to you, but why. In a social network there topics and discussions going on to hang out around and take part in. Email definately is not going away and has it's place, like for CYA in many places.

Tom Tom to MS - Get Lost!

http://www.crn.com/software/215901395

It is patent infringement wars between the two around navigation. Linux is pulled into the mix because MS claims Tom Tom is using part of MS technology that relies upon Linux. Interestingly MS has said that they are willing to work out some sort of license agreement with Tom Tom and other developers. This has outraged Linux developers because Linux is an open source platform. TomTom has countersued MS, saying that in fact MS has infringed on their patents. Wow what a mess.

Ballmer has eyes for yahoo!

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090319_464203.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_technology

After speaking with CEO of Yahoo! Ballmer sees a real opportunity for a deal. Referring back to the first artical that claims 85% use and are interested in internet search seems to indicate clearly why MS wants a search engine with some popularity. Currently, MS search capabilities have not found success, although they are rebranding their search capability to be Kumo. What is Kumo??? Would you Kumo it???

What are you all thinking about, send me mail or comments and lets talk!

-Wylie

Contract free iPhone

I am reading on CNET about the speculation that AT&T will offer the iPhone free of the two year contract. This is good news, but the price of the phone is $599-$699! Without the two year contract could we take the iPhone to another carrier?

Mobile and Location Based Wireless Presence

Presence is best described through the example of most Instant Messaging software. Simply put it is a way for software and systems to always know the availability of the users. This is also being extended to the wireless communications world with Push to Talk features on phones. I am thinking that it will need to used for any peer to peer application.

So, the question is how will this work. It especially becomes an interesting problem when the status of the peer is changing constantly, as would be in the case of location based peer to peer applications. It seems unreasonable to have the application constantly sending messages with a new status of the presence, but is that the way it gets done today? Is there a technology that enables presence?

Wireless Trends

After reading the CTIA Agenda I think I have come up with a list of wireless trends over the next 12-24 months. Here are some of the more interesting ones.

• The falling of the walls around the walled garden
• Peer to Peer applications that make use of GIS
• Mobile social networking

It will be interesting follow these trends and product developments over the next 1-2 years. For starters match up Apple's iPhone announcements with these trends. Hmmmm....

Killer Apps

I have been reading two good books lately by Tomi Ahonen.

• "Services for UMTS"
• "m-Profits"

I am really starting to understand the 6 Ms method of determining killer apps. I highly recommend the read. Here are the 6 Ms as described in these books.

1. Mobile: Must be mobile and enable the free movement of the user and service
2. Moment: Relevant to the time of day or delivered at the crucial moment
3. Money: Must generate money while delivering value
4. Me: The user wants what they want not what we want – My content, my services, my interests, supports my work needs, makes my life easier
5. Machines: Services must come in many different shapes, sizes, and colors. The must be usable from many different devices from home, the office, vehicle, phone, and more
6. Multi-User: Creates a sense of community. People want to belong to something, anything. Information travels and improves faster within a community

Frictionless Communications

Yesterday my eyes were open to the future of information communication and collaboration. While reading tweets from my some of my favorite techie tweeters I learned that Apple was about to host a special meeting for the press to announce the new iPhone OS 3.0. Lance Ulanoff a tweeter I was following was attending the meeting and decided to start blogging live on the event (complete with pictures). I was following Lance and others on twitter and his blog (http://live.appscout.com/2009/03/apple_iphone_os_30_announcemen.php). All in all this was very fun and I actually felt like I was learning new information real-time.

The point I am making is that in the advent of social media, which started with blogging, and has now advanced to sites like Twitter and Facebook, information is shared more easily. The sharing of data is refreshing. I hope this continues and that new technologies are developed on open platforms with open software so that anyone with a computer or phone can feel the power of frictionless communication and collaboration.

-wb

IBM and SUN

My head is still spinning on this one. IBM is talking with Sun about buying the company. Here is a summary of what I have read.

• May happen as early as this week
• Sun's pricetag is $6.5B
• IBM most interested in the software
• People are not seeing Sun HW go away
• Like everyone else Sun is struggling (revenues are down and staff getting laid off)
• If deal goes through Linux will NOT be impacted and Solaris will certified on IBM servers
• IBM would likely get mySQL

Apple iPhone OS 3.0 announcement

Yesterday at 1:00 Apple had a special meeting for the press to announce the new iPhone OS 3.0. I was reading the highlights live on blogs and twitter, which was really exciting. Here are some of the announcements they made.

· Available in June

· iPhone in 80 countries with 13.7 million sold in 2008 (projected 10 million units sold). I wonder if this will do anything for the stock?

· 800,000 downloads of the iPhone SDK

· 96% of apps built by 3^rd parties are approved. 98% are approved within 7 days.

· 100 new features and 1000 new APIs

· Maps app for iPhone done with Google (go figure). Provides public API for embedded maps in applications. TBT capable, but something goofy about bringing your own maps.

· Push notifications done all server side. Claims that when tested with processing all on phone the battery and cpu were drained.

· Social Media and Networking. New app with Meebo (social network aggregator)

· Touch pet: social pet simulator

· Lots of new games through EA.

· Global game playing

· Buying into games at $1 a piece.

· Mention of Oracle Mobile as a way to contact CRM backends from the phone. Not sure what the app was here.

· New app with Lifescan for simplified diabetes management and realtime communication of health data to doctors so as to alter dosage and med strategies on the fly. Also, used to keep others informed of the health of the diabetic. Interesting “notification” type app.

· Peer to Peer support by using Bonjour for discovery. Location based music. iTunes sharing with nearby iPhone users

· MMS messaging

· Calendaring

· Search multiple apps at once

· Stereo Bluetooth

· Cut, Paste, and undo by shaking the phone (how cool is that! Etch-a-sketch style)

That about covers it. Most bloggers and tweeters were impressed, a lot of them said there is much here that is simply expected with a smart phone.