Tag Archives: ReadWriteWeb

Social media

Two social media themes: March 9 2010

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Now that we have multiple social networks for multiple purposes and interests, with new ones emerging and gaining traction regularly, technologists and user experts are thinking about what's next.

Turning activity across networks into actions the user manages:  Making it possible for people  on one network to communicate with people on other networks, in terms of content and activity, without leaving their original networks.  But will the networks allow it or continue to buttress the walls in their gardens?  Adrian Chan via Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb.

Turning fans into buyers into communities:  Several of these principles for how not to kill a startup are amazingly appropriate
for how to turn targets into buyers.  Starts with knowing who you are
and who your customer is and where the twain must meet.  Greg Boutin.

Cloud computing, Executive, Management, Technology

Cloud computing: March 1 2010

The titans of Silicon Valley were talking about cloud computing in the late 1990s — way before anyone called it cloud computing.  I remember Larry Ellison telling Charlie Rose that one day, we'd be accessing our data from a box on our desks, but the data would be off somewhere in a central server, not in the box. 

Today, whole businesses are building in the cloud, offering companies of every size the ability to manage information strategically — affording a focus on the various communities consuming the information, not where the information is stored.

ReadWriteWeb's excellent ReadWriteCloud, the online publication, just ran this article.  While it addresses cloud recovery and whether it's a new name for the simple backup, the article serves as a solid immersion into the value of cloud computing.  

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Cuil. Too cool for words?

Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb wrote a post last night about the big coverage of Cuil, thought and/or hoped by many to be the Google killer.

The MacManus post muses about the coverage of the new search engine and the major criticism that followed its debut.  A lot of expectations mismanaged.  So MacManus cites the echo chamber and the hyperbole that stokes it.

But let’s not blame the PR people, people.  Yes, I find much of the language, elitist and cozy, too much to bear.  But somebody’s swallowing it.  And it’s not just the TechCrunches and the Valleywags.  It’s our highly trained, self-proclaimed highly professional mainstream media.

Here are the suggestions I just shared in a comment to MacManus’s post.  Let’s start stripping away the hype.  Ultimately, it’s the best thing for all concerned.

Lots of insightful comments on your interesting post.  This is not a criticism of Cuil, either.  Time will tell.

I do have comments to the press, bloggers, all the new media types “covering” startups, Silicon Valley, tech money:

1  You are part of the echo chamber.  Think before you write.  Choose your words carefully and wisely.

2  Talk with the potential enemies as well as the pals and coterie of the founders and the VCs.

3  Recognize that not everyone tells the truth.

4  If you don’t understand the technology, find someone neutral who does.  Neutral = doesn’t have an ax to grind.

5  In comparing products, rely on your own instincts and that of a true expert to unearth key points of differentiation between products and services.  Don’t just reprint what you’re being fed.

6  Start looking for the real stories of Silicon Valley.  Yes, you’re busy.  But when you take on the responsibility of distilling facts for others, you take on the responsibility to dig.  If you don’t have the work ethic for this role, find something else to do.  We’re sick of the hyperbole.  The real stories of Silicon Valley are not that far beneath the superficial surface on which you skate.

This is coming to you from someone who helps to craft and tell the stories of startups and corporations that are in this for the joy as well as the payoff — and who wouldn’t dream of yanking your chains.  Wake up.

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Data portability and the user — we’re finally considering the value chain!

Wrote this to some friends the other day.  We were discussing the whole exploding world of data portability.

Bob, still not sure that everyone along the data porting spectrum concurs on the problem.  Especially users.  What's a problem for Bob Scoble or Chris Messina — as meaningful as their perspectives may be — might not be a problem for the mainstream user.  So I think engineers have to be clear on why they're interested in this — and if it's not addressing a user benefit directly, then why a solution is important along the "supply chain" of data solutions — where that solution fits in the chain that eventually ends at the mainstream user.

Stephen, the larger sites, if they're smart, will build their traction and retention by acquiring either the brains or the existing solutions that will protect their intellectual property and market share while giving users the ability to use their content flexibly.

Then along came Dan Farber's post, "Birthing pains in the colonization of the social web," on cnet.com, to which I made the following comment.

Dan, how do we know that the big social networks aren't giving users
what they want? How do we know there is a mainstream need for open
identity, data portability and apple pie? If it were profitable to be
open, I think we all know that the for-profit entities would be all
over the entire spectrum, from openness to portability. Any chance they
know something we do not?
Either way, companies in the space of creating networks and serving
them need to put the mainstream user first. You do that by
understanding what that user values — not what you think they might
value.
Thank you for the thought-provoking post. Mary

Saw this piece by Tim Bull and this one by Chris Saad, one of the founders of The Dataportability Project and its most assertive evangelist.  And Bob Ngu's blog, which addresses technology in a way that many mainstream users can understand.

Posted this comment to Fred Wilson regarding a piece he did for thestandard.com.  He was referring to last week's podcast by the Gillmor Gang and the key points made by the participants.  My compliments to Mr Wilson on being able to distill any conclusions from that podcast.  Yikes.  Without them, I wouldn't have thought of this response.

Whether the user owns
the tree is not important unless the user thinks it is. And telling the
user that the network makes a lot of money transporting his data is not
enough to make most users storm the gates. In fact, they LIKE to feel a
connection to the kid in flip-flops who hit it big.

These networks are competitors. Please tell us something we don't know.

Moving user data is "gonna happen" only if users demand it. So far,
the only users demanding it live in zipcodes beginning with 94. And
their direct influence over the mainstream user is unmeasured so far.

There are startups that already give users the flexibility and
access they want without taking the data off the networks. Those
startups will be ripe for the picking within six months.

Yes, sir, you are absolutely right. It's the experience that counts.
Not the plumbing, nor the pseudo-arguments, nor the posturing, nor the
pontificating. If I were an engineer, I'd try to figure out a way to
make data portable in the way the user defines it. That's the next stop
on the gravy train.

Then Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote this really great piece for
ReadWriteWeb.  He addresses the question of where portable data could
add value to the culture and business of an enterprise — the impact of
data portability on economics.

There are so many aspects of data portability, and so many solutions
and opinions being thrown into the mix, that our tech community has
come very close to losing perspective.  But I'm thinking the tide has
turned.  Time to articulate the value chain.