Bad news for my URL shortener service Shr.ty: the top level domain .ty doesn't exist! Now I'll have to think of another clever name for my service if I want to dominate the URL shortening game!
I also checked up on a couple possible addresses for Twitter's own in-house shortener. Twi.tr or Twitt.er would seem like appropriate names for this type of service; the .TR top level domain belongs to Turkey and the .ER top level domain belongs to Eritrea, a small country in Africa. Another option for Twitter is the address Twe.et. The .ET top level domain belongs to Ethiopia.
Although none of these top level domains currently offers commercial or vanity usage, I'm sure Twitter can negotiate with the registrars of each country to acquire an address. Bit.ly uses a Libyan domain and Goo.gl uses a Greenland domain, so it shouldn't be too hard for Twitter to secure a custom address for itself.
URL Shorteners: Bit.ly, Goo.gl, Shr.ty
I'm not a huge fan of URL shorteners. Quite honestly, I don't trust them. I like to see exactly where someone is trying to send me, and I can often sniff out a spammy link just by looking at the URL. There was a time when I refused to click on a TinyURL link. But with the rise of Twitter and 140 character limits I've been forced to change my habits as shortened links are pretty much unavoidable these days.For most of the year URL shorteners like Bit.ly and Ow.ly were quiet servants of the internet, not making too much noise and working as well as one would expect them to. This past month however there's been a bit of shake-up with the entry of Google and Facebook into this tiny (pun intended) space. Goo.gl and Fb.me were launched for internal use at each respective company, but it's easy to see how these shortening services might be extended to the general public, especially in the case of Google. How will sites like Bit.ly continue to operate in the face of this tough competition?
What is Bit.ly's value proposition? Right now it's the market leader mostly because it’s the default shortener for Twitter. But before Bit.ly the shortener of choice for Twitter was TinyURL. Twitter was able to change over to Bit.ly without too much disruption, so what’s to stop it from changing providers again? Why wouldn't Twitter create its own shortening service, something like a Twi.tr service?
It's really not too hard to start a URL shortening service. In fact, if I wanted to I could start up my own URL shortening service tomorrow without too much effort. (I would call it Shr.ty). But why would I, when there are services like Bit.ly and Goo.gl out there that will take care of all that for me?
Right now I use Bit.ly because it's the default Twitter shortener and because it seems to be the most 'trusted' service out there (whatever that means). But if Google were to offer its service for free to the public, I would probably use Goo.gl over Bit.ly. Why? Well, because I simply trust Google more than I do Bit.ly. I trust that Google has a small army behind it dedicated to security and data integrity, and I trust that Google has a massive database behind it that will allow it to verify and secure all of the URLs that go through its service. Bit.ly simply doesn't the firepower and data to keep up with Google in this area.
Google can probably also offer better reliability and real-time tracking capabilities than Bit.ly. Interestingly enough, Twitter switched over from TinyURL to Bit.ly earlier this year due to these exact issues. Twitter and Google have already partnered up for real-time search, so why wouldn’t they also partner together for URL shortening and link tracking services?
Bit.ly hasn’t remained dormant throughout all this. Bit.ly responded to Google's entry by releasing Bit.ly Pro and Bitly.tv, premium services built on top of its basic platform. Bit.ly Pro allows web publishers to create custom branded shortened links through its service. Sites like the New York Times (nyti.ms), Foursquare (4sq.com) and Meebo (mee.bo) have already started using this service. Bitly.tv is an analytical service that lets you see what videos are currently going viral on the web. Since a lot of the link sharing these days happens through Bit.ly links, Bitly.tv is a pretty accurate view of what is trending right now on the internet. Expect to see this service expand to cover news events and blogs.
Still, the advantage that Bit.ly would gain from these premium services seems fleeting. There’s no real barrier preventing a competitor like Google from entering and stealing away Bit.ly’s customer base. And if Bit.ly figures out how to monetize its service, they why wouldn't Twitter move into this space? Right now Twitter has no real reason to make its own URL shortening service since there's no real profits to be made through this, but if Bit.ly can create a working business model then that’s a whole different game. Why would Twitter give away the link data and profits generated on its platform to a 3rd party company like Bit.ly?
2009 was a good year for Bit.ly, but 2010 will be a rough year for the service. If Goo.gl is opened to the public or partners with Twitter we'll see Bit.ly squeezed out of the market. If Bit.ly figures out how to monetize its service then Twitter will bring this service in-house and leave Bit.ly out in the cold. Either way, it seems like a ‘lose-lose’ situation for Bit.ly.
Or who knows, maybe I'll go ahead and launch Shr.ty and take the URL shortening world by storm!
Tri Toys Wish List
Being the big tech geek that I am, I like to have technology in every aspect of my life, including my active life. I'm a big fan of fitness gadgets and own several high tech devices that help me train better and race faster. As with any other type of electronic gadgets, every year there are new models introduced into the market that are more advanced and sophisticated than the previous models. In the spirit of Christmas I thought I would put together a wish list of some cool new tri toys that I'm hoping someone will put under my Christmas tree this year.
Swim
I like to listen to my iPod while I train on the bike or on the run; music motivates me and helps me push my workout just a little bit harder. Unfortunately I can't take my iPod into the pool with me. But, with Finis's SwiMP3 player my boring pool workout days are done! The SwiMP3 is an MP3 player that works underwater! This fall Finis just released the SwiMP3.1G, their latest player with an increased memory capacity of 1GB. I can load it up with my favorite tunes and swim for hours! (Note: I can't actually swim for hours.)
Bike
Right now for my bike I have a Saris PowerTap SL. This little device sits on the rear wheel hub of my bike and measures the power output as I pedal. It lets me know exactly how much energy I'm exerting as I ride. This information is relayed up to a display unit on my handle bars so I can see it as I'm riding. During training I establish a baseline number that I then use to measure how hard I want to push myself during a race. It really lets me dial in my effort accurately and lets me know exactly where I'm at performance wise. Well, just this year they announced new advancements in power meter technology with the introduction of the Metrigear Vector Power Meter. This new meter not only measures your power, but it also measures the force vectors in every direction of your pedal stroke. This allows you to analyze your pedaling technique and find weak angles where you can improve your stroke. I personally have a weak upward pull in my stroke that I need to work on so this device would be perfect for me! Plus it's lighter and smaller than a PowerTap so it won't weight my bike down as much during a ride.
Run
For the run I definitely want Garmin's Forerunner 310XT. This GPS enabled watch collects distance, pace, heart rate and more. It's waterproof and can be worn throughout your entire race (unlike previous Forerunner models that could not be taken into the water). It's a bit on the big side for a sports watch, but it collects so much data that I think it will be worth it. Right now I have a Garmin Forerunner 50 but it doesn't have GPS and uses an accelerometer to determine distance. It's fairly accurate and is a good watch for casual runners but I have definitely outgrown it. It's GPS or nothing for me now!
I'll probably end up buying something like the SwiMP3 player this winter to get me through the boring pool workouts, and this spring I'll probably buy the Forerunner 310XT when it warms up enough to run outside consistently. The Metrigear power meter will probably have to wait a while... it's pretty expensive and I don't think I can justify the expense just yet. PowerTaps are pretty expensive too but I bought mine used from a friend so it wasn't that bad. I would probably buy a new bike first before I bought a new power meter, but that's a whole 'nother post!
Swim
I like to listen to my iPod while I train on the bike or on the run; music motivates me and helps me push my workout just a little bit harder. Unfortunately I can't take my iPod into the pool with me. But, with Finis's SwiMP3 player my boring pool workout days are done! The SwiMP3 is an MP3 player that works underwater! This fall Finis just released the SwiMP3.1G, their latest player with an increased memory capacity of 1GB. I can load it up with my favorite tunes and swim for hours! (Note: I can't actually swim for hours.)
Bike
Right now for my bike I have a Saris PowerTap SL. This little device sits on the rear wheel hub of my bike and measures the power output as I pedal. It lets me know exactly how much energy I'm exerting as I ride. This information is relayed up to a display unit on my handle bars so I can see it as I'm riding. During training I establish a baseline number that I then use to measure how hard I want to push myself during a race. It really lets me dial in my effort accurately and lets me know exactly where I'm at performance wise. Well, just this year they announced new advancements in power meter technology with the introduction of the Metrigear Vector Power Meter. This new meter not only measures your power, but it also measures the force vectors in every direction of your pedal stroke. This allows you to analyze your pedaling technique and find weak angles where you can improve your stroke. I personally have a weak upward pull in my stroke that I need to work on so this device would be perfect for me! Plus it's lighter and smaller than a PowerTap so it won't weight my bike down as much during a ride.
Run
For the run I definitely want Garmin's Forerunner 310XT. This GPS enabled watch collects distance, pace, heart rate and more. It's waterproof and can be worn throughout your entire race (unlike previous Forerunner models that could not be taken into the water). It's a bit on the big side for a sports watch, but it collects so much data that I think it will be worth it. Right now I have a Garmin Forerunner 50 but it doesn't have GPS and uses an accelerometer to determine distance. It's fairly accurate and is a good watch for casual runners but I have definitely outgrown it. It's GPS or nothing for me now!
I'll probably end up buying something like the SwiMP3 player this winter to get me through the boring pool workouts, and this spring I'll probably buy the Forerunner 310XT when it warms up enough to run outside consistently. The Metrigear power meter will probably have to wait a while... it's pretty expensive and I don't think I can justify the expense just yet. PowerTaps are pretty expensive too but I bought mine used from a friend so it wasn't that bad. I would probably buy a new bike first before I bought a new power meter, but that's a whole 'nother post!
Augmented Reality on Michigan Ave.
This weekend I went Christmas shopping on Michigan Ave. and I decided to try out a couple iPhone augmented reality apps during my trip. The Magnificent Mile is a high traffic shopping area with a good mix of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues. With all of these different points around me I'd have access to a lot of data to play with as I walked around the area.Augmented Reality Apps
Augmented reality on smartphones is essentially taking your phone's camera feed and overlaying graphical information on top of it. Most of the apps I list out below deal with your location. That means these apps use GPS to find your location, then take your camera feed and the digital compass capabilities and figure out where to lay out the data on the screen. It's pretty interesting stuff.
I had several different types of augmented reality apps on my iPhone. I had some venue review apps, like Yelp and Urbanspoon. I also had Wikitude, which overlays Wikipedia information on top of geotagged points of interest. Similar to Wikitude, I had Layar's augmented reality browser, which hooks into Wikipedia data. Layar also has a plug-in for showing tweets nearby. I also wanted to check out some of Google's Favorite Places so I downloaded NeoReader's app for scanning QR codes.
Augmented reality on smartphones is essentially taking your phone's camera feed and overlaying graphical information on top of it. Most of the apps I list out below deal with your location. That means these apps use GPS to find your location, then take your camera feed and the digital compass capabilities and figure out where to lay out the data on the screen. It's pretty interesting stuff.
I had several different types of augmented reality apps on my iPhone. I had some venue review apps, like Yelp and Urbanspoon. I also had Wikitude, which overlays Wikipedia information on top of geotagged points of interest. Similar to Wikitude, I had Layar's augmented reality browser, which hooks into Wikipedia data. Layar also has a plug-in for showing tweets nearby. I also wanted to check out some of Google's Favorite Places so I downloaded NeoReader's app for scanning QR codes.
I started up north by the Water Tower Place. Right off the bat I realized that there would be no subtle way for me to use augmented reality with my phone. You have to point your device at the 'horizon'... which actually means a little bit higher than eye level. So essentially I was walking around with my phone held at arm's length in front of me. As you move the phone around from one direction to the next the data on the screen changes, so you have to keep an eye out on the display the whole time.
I started out with the review based apps. Yelp has a feature called Monocle that uses AR to display quick restaurant reviews around you. Urbanspoon has a similar feature. These apps worked pretty well, I noted that they were fairly accurate in direction and distance. One bad thing was that the number of data points on the screen was a bit much at times. You can set filters to limit the types of restaurants and places that get displayed, but in a densely populated area the AR items can quickly overtake your whole screen.
The Wikipedia based apps were a bit of bust. Both Wikitude and Layar's Wikipedia plug-in failed to show any real data around me, even though I was near actual points of interest like the Museum of Contemporary Art, Water Tower Place, or the John Hancock Center. The best these apps could show me was information for 'nearby' locations like Millenium Park to the south and Lincoln Park to north, which actually weren't that close to me at all.
Google's Favorite Places was also a bust. I was under the impression that the Favorite Places program had rolled out in Chicago and I would be able to find QR codes on windows of certain venues around the city. I had a list of places around Michigan Ave. but every one I checked out didn't actually have a decal sticker on the window. That was a bit disappointing.
The most interesting tool of all of them was definitely Layar's Twitter plug-in, Tweeps Around. With this app I could see tweets around me and find some pretty interesting tidbits of data. The problem was... most of these tweets weren't relevant to the location! I only saw one or two tweets about people actually shopping on Michigan Ave., the rest were just random bites of nonsense. The tweet that got me the most excited was one I saw near the Apple Store. Someone tweeted that they had just dropped off their computer at the store. Not too much there in that actual tweet but it shows a glimpse of the potential behind people geotagging relevant tweets around the city. Imagine being able to take the 'pulse' of the area based on tweets around you. Say for example you're on Michigan Ave. shopping, and you're thinking of going to the Apple Store at some point. If you see that there are a lot of tweets coming from the store that the place is "packed" you can plan accordingly, either by giving yourself extra time to shop there or skipping it altogether.
Overall Experience
Overall, 'augmented reality' itself didn't add too much value for me. There was a bit of a 'wow' factor at first, but that novelty quickly faded. The review based apps would have worked just as well for me without the augmented reality factor. Same goes for Layar's Twitter app. One thing I did notice was that there was a lot of 'noise' in the data being presented to me. There was a lot of information available, but it was cluttered and at times irrelevant. My small iPhone screen was quickly overwhelmed by labels and data that didn't really enhance my experience.
We're bound to see a huge growth in location based services as more data is geotagged on the internet. The key to all these services will be to figure out how best to filter all this data and present it to the user. Sure, 'augmented reality' is a cool way to present data, but I would much rather have a service that actually offers highly relevant and useful information to me and my current location.
Vision Quest
I've been taking advantage of my 3-week holiday break from school to hit up my tri training hard. I've actually been to my gym so many times this past week that I easily picked up my 'Gym Rat' badge on Foursquare! You get a Gym Rat badge for checking in 10 times to venues tagged 'gym' in 30 days, and for me that venue is Vision Quest.Vision Quest (VQ) is a training center in Chicago that's geared towards cyclists and triathletes. They offer coached workouts throughout the week in cycling, swimming, strength training and yoga. I really like VQ, it's full of great coaches and friendly members and I really enjoy doing my training with them. Over the past year I've taken several classes at their facilities, and just this past month I took the plunge and became a full time VQ member.
With my schedule suddenly becoming a lot busier because of school, I decided that I had to replace my training quantity for quality. I used to have a lot of free time to train, but my actual workouts were pretty loose and unstructured. Now that I don't have as much time, I need to get in good quality workouts whenever I can. At VQ every workout is really well structured and fits into a larger training plan to help me meet my goals.
What are my training goals? Well, right now my goals are to go faster in all three disciplines. I'm a fast runner, an average biker, and a slow swimmer. This winter I'm focusing on bringing up my bike strength, and in the spring I think I will focus on my swimming technique. Overall, I would say that I'm not a very fast triathlete. I generally finish in the middle of the pack (MOP) during most races. The big goal for me is to move up to the front of the pack (FOP). If I can be an FOP triathlete next summer I would be extremely happy.
A couple quick digital tidbits:
- I just saw this week that VQ received a packet in the mail from Google to be included in the Google Favorite Places program in Chicago. How cool is that!
- I'm checking into Foursquare every time I go to VQ to help me keep track of my visits. This way I can easily see how many times I've been to VQ over the past couple of weeks and hold myself accountable to my training.
- Here's my 'Gym Rat' badge!
Taking notes
I'm a big fan of making lists and jotting down notes to myself. It's how I keep my life organized. I started out with just scraps of paper and over time I've evolved my methods by using tips and tricks from various GTD sources. At the heart of my notes strategy is email. I send emails to myself to keep track of various tasks I need to do and keep detailed notes in my mailboxes to help me remember specific items and details. I flag important items and every day I try to run through my entire list of flagged items and make some progress on it. I do this at work with Lotus Notes and in my personal life with Gmail. Because I can access my email from pretty much anywhere I always have my to do lists at my fingertips. It may seem a bit disorganized or unstructured but so far it has really helped me keep my life in order.Over the past couple of months I've been doing a lot more research on business & technology trends, and as I've been collecting information online I've followed my usual note taking technique of jotting down key data into emails and storing it. I drafted an email to myself in Gmail and started saving URLs and story headers into it. This "blog topics" email quickly grew in size and pretty soon I was looking at a multi-page block of text that had random links and bites of info in it. Whenever I wanted to review an article or blog entry I had 'flagged' during my research I would have a hard time finding it in my notes. Clearly my standard approach to note taking wasn't going to work here, so I decided to look into more robust tools that would be a better fit for this type of work. I needed a tool that would allow me to list out various links and topics, archive web pages for future reference, add additional notes and information, and allow me to search and categorize all the content in some fashion. After a bit of Google searching I narrowed my options down to two tools.
Evernote vs. OneNote
The main contenders in my book were Evernote and OneNote. They're both very similar in functionality. They both allow for web clipping, storing of various different file formats, tagging of content and contextual searching of data. Ultimately my decision came down to availability. I took a look at when and where I would need to collect and access my notes and information. I based my final decision on which product would be the most available for me.
OneNote works great on my Vista laptop with Office 2007, but not so much on my older XP desktop. Although we're a Microsoft shop at work, we don't have access to Office 2007 and so no OneNote there either. Mobile access is also limited for OneNote, especially on the iPhone.
Evernote has a couple different options for accessing your data. They have a standalone Windows client which works well on all my machines. They have good web access through browser plug-ins and a web interface. And they also have a powerful app on the iPhone for checking your data on the go.
So right now the winner for me is Evernote, based mostly on its portability across platforms. I've started playing around with it and moving over all my different notes and information into it. So far it's doing a pretty good job and I've started organizing my data with Evernote's categorizing features. I used the tagging and search functionality in Evernote to put together the research for my last couple of articles. So far I have around 100 items in my notebook.
I do have a couple issues with Evernote though. One, I'm not 100% satisfied with the Evernote Windows client right now. It's a bit of a memory hog and it tends to freeze up a lot. I have the 3.5 beta client right now, so hopefully they'll improve upon that a bit. Two, I'm a little leery of the monthly data limit that Evernote has for its free version (Evernote operates with a freemium business model). I'm afraid I'll eventually go past my monthly data limit and then I'll have to upgrade to the paid version.
OneNote works great on my Vista laptop with Office 2007, but not so much on my older XP desktop. Although we're a Microsoft shop at work, we don't have access to Office 2007 and so no OneNote there either. Mobile access is also limited for OneNote, especially on the iPhone.
Evernote has a couple different options for accessing your data. They have a standalone Windows client which works well on all my machines. They have good web access through browser plug-ins and a web interface. And they also have a powerful app on the iPhone for checking your data on the go.
So right now the winner for me is Evernote, based mostly on its portability across platforms. I've started playing around with it and moving over all my different notes and information into it. So far it's doing a pretty good job and I've started organizing my data with Evernote's categorizing features. I used the tagging and search functionality in Evernote to put together the research for my last couple of articles. So far I have around 100 items in my notebook.
I do have a couple issues with Evernote though. One, I'm not 100% satisfied with the Evernote Windows client right now. It's a bit of a memory hog and it tends to freeze up a lot. I have the 3.5 beta client right now, so hopefully they'll improve upon that a bit. Two, I'm a little leery of the monthly data limit that Evernote has for its free version (Evernote operates with a freemium business model). I'm afraid I'll eventually go past my monthly data limit and then I'll have to upgrade to the paid version.
I'm using Evernote on a trial basis right now, and I'll potentially revisit my decision in a couple of months. Evernote can import OneNote data onto its platform, so it shouldn't be too hard to go the other way in case I want to switch to OneNote. We'll see how much utility I can get out of this software and if it changes the way I organize all the information around my life.
iPhone, Google Phone, Zune Phone?
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With the upcoming release of Google’s Nexus One we’re seeing a big shift in the smartphone industry. The new direction in mobile is in integrating the hardware and software behind the device and delivering a ‘complete’ and ‘pure’ experience to consumers. Apple obviously started this out with the wildly successful iPhone and now Google is following suit with the Nexus One. Let’s not forget about Nokia’s Maemo platform and Samsung’s upcoming Bada operating system. But what about Microsoft? Where do Microsoft and its Windows Mobile platform fit in this increasingly competitive arena?Microsoft has certainly fallen behind the curve in the mobile world. There’s no buzz around its mobile platform right now and sales of Windows Mobile devices have been relatively low compared to its competitors. Some analysts are calling for Microsoft to get out of the phone business entirely. It seems unlikely that Microsoft will exit this area given the importance of mobile computing, but it definitely needs to shift its strategy if it hopes to compete for market share. I think that if Microsoft hopes to remain a player in the mobile world it will need to cross the threshold into smartphone hardware and release its own fully branded Windows phone.
Microsoft is no stranger to stepping into the hardware game. Microsoft successfully entered the video game market in 2001 with the introduction of the Xbox console, challenging Sony and Nintendo for superiority in the home gaming market. Microsoft also entered the portable media player market in 2006 with the Zune player to challenge Apple’s line of iPods. The Zune player itself is a sleek device that rivals the iPod in functionality and ease of use, but it never really caught on with consumers. Although it has not sold well in the market, analysts predict that Microsoft may enhance the Zune device with phone capabilities and enter the smartphone space with it.
Over the past year, there have been murmurs on the internet about the ‘Zune Phone’, but so far nothing concrete has materialized and Microsoft has not confirmed any of these rumors. The release of the Nexus One will certainly increase this chatter. It’s also going to inadvertently shine a bright light on Microsoft and call into question its current mobile strategy. Right now it appears that Microsoft is focusing much of its attention on the next version of its mobile operating system, Windows Mobile 7, scheduled for a 2010 launch. But will this be enough for Microsoft to regain its lost market share? Probably not.
If Microsoft hopes to once again become a leader in mobile computing it will need to follow the lead of its rivals. Windows Mobile 7 will not be enough. Microsoft needs to move beyond software and integrate into hardware for smartphones. I think we will see a Zune Phone released by the end of 2010. If Microsoft waits much longer than that it could find itself completely out of the mobile revolution.
How much will the Google Phone cost?
The Google Phone, aka Nexus One, has only been out (unofficially) for one day and already it's causing a frenzy on the internet. Over on Mashable Jennifer Van Grove has already listed out a comparative analysis between the Nexus One and the iPhone, based on the limited information that's been released to the public.
One of the big unknowns right now revolves around the price of the Nexus One. Google is selling the phone online and unlocked. This means that the Nexus One can be used on any GSM carrier. This also means that there won't be any carrier directly subsidizing the device, which could make the Nexus One prohibitively expensive. The iPhone retails for $199-$299, but this price is heavily subsidized by AT&T, which then makes up the cost over the lifetime of the service contract. The question on a lot of people's minds right now is whether or not Google can subsidize the Nexus One down to this level.
I expect to see the Nexus One retail for $199-$299, comparable to the iPhone. Google will use the same approach it’s taking with Android and the Chrome OS; subsidize the ancillary product heavily with the end goal of generating more revenue through Google's core product: AdSense.
This all goes back to Google's Revenue Equation. Google's main strategy is to get consumers on the web and to increasingly keep our lives wired. As long as we're using the web, Google is making money, thanks to its omnipresent AdSense program.
The Nexus One is the latest product of this basic strategy, and it stands to reason that Google will subsidize the device enough to make it comparable in price to the iPhone. If the Nexus One is released unlocked and at a low enough price then there won't be any reason for anyone NOT to have a smartphone device and be connected to the web at all times.
The Google Phone is coming
Big Google news this weekend: the Google Phone is coming! This highly anticipated move takes Google's Android mobile phone platform to the next level and could be a big game changer in the mobile landscape.
Last month I talked about Google's current problems with Android; brand appeal, simplicity and applications. All of these issues stemmed from Google's decentralized approach to the mobile market. Google gave away the Android OS to any manufacturer who wanted to use it and as a result the market was flooded with many different Android devices that each worked a bit differently than the rest. The fragmentation of the Android market was causing headaches for both consumers and app developers alike.
The solution itself seemed simple enough, although it would be hard to implement. Google would have to regain control of its mobile platform and standardize the consumer experience on Android. Google would have to somehow rein in all of the Android devices running in the wild and establish a unified platform for consumers.
The Google Phone looks like it will do all that. By rolling out its own phone, Google will be able to control every aspect of the device, from hardware to software, and deliver a complete 'Google' experience. The issue of brand appeal and simplicity go away. If a consumer wants an Android phone, the choice is clear; get the latest Google Phone. The issue of application compatibility goes away too. Google will control the OS on its phone and can push out updates and patches as it deems fit.
But what about Droid and the other Android devices out in the wild? Will Google continue to support these devices? They'll probably still be supported but we're likely to see the number of non-Google Android devices go down. The Google Phone may not be immediately available on all carriers, so there may still be a couple new Android devices released on different networks. Expect to see Google exert a tighter control on these devices as it looks to enforce the Android standard.
Now that Google is moving away from a 'Windows Mobile' strategy and moving closer towards an 'iPhone' strategy, how will Microsoft and Apple react?
Will Microsoft enter the phone manufacturer market? There have been murmurs of a Zune Phone but nothing concrete yet. Windows Mobile is falling further and further behind the curve; what can Microsoft do at this point to regain market share?
What will be the impact next year when the AT&T and iPhone exclusivity deal ends? Verizon is rumored to be the next major American carrier to roll out the iPhone. Can T-Mobile be too far behind? You can already unlock an iPhone and run it on T-Mobile's GSM network. Can Apple nip the Google Phone in the bud by making the iPhone more widely available to consumers?
Finally, don't forget about the impact of apps. As of November, the App Store has 100,000 apps available to the Android Market's 15,000. The Windows Marketplace has 376. Unless the Google Phone completely blows away the iPhone in terms of hardware superiority, the battle will still come down to apps. Google has a long way to go before it can match Apple for app numbers. The Google Phone will cause a spike in the number of apps on the Android Market, but will it be enough to pass up the App Store?
Last month I talked about Google's current problems with Android; brand appeal, simplicity and applications. All of these issues stemmed from Google's decentralized approach to the mobile market. Google gave away the Android OS to any manufacturer who wanted to use it and as a result the market was flooded with many different Android devices that each worked a bit differently than the rest. The fragmentation of the Android market was causing headaches for both consumers and app developers alike.
The solution itself seemed simple enough, although it would be hard to implement. Google would have to regain control of its mobile platform and standardize the consumer experience on Android. Google would have to somehow rein in all of the Android devices running in the wild and establish a unified platform for consumers.
The Google Phone looks like it will do all that. By rolling out its own phone, Google will be able to control every aspect of the device, from hardware to software, and deliver a complete 'Google' experience. The issue of brand appeal and simplicity go away. If a consumer wants an Android phone, the choice is clear; get the latest Google Phone. The issue of application compatibility goes away too. Google will control the OS on its phone and can push out updates and patches as it deems fit.
But what about Droid and the other Android devices out in the wild? Will Google continue to support these devices? They'll probably still be supported but we're likely to see the number of non-Google Android devices go down. The Google Phone may not be immediately available on all carriers, so there may still be a couple new Android devices released on different networks. Expect to see Google exert a tighter control on these devices as it looks to enforce the Android standard.
Now that Google is moving away from a 'Windows Mobile' strategy and moving closer towards an 'iPhone' strategy, how will Microsoft and Apple react?
Will Microsoft enter the phone manufacturer market? There have been murmurs of a Zune Phone but nothing concrete yet. Windows Mobile is falling further and further behind the curve; what can Microsoft do at this point to regain market share?
What will be the impact next year when the AT&T and iPhone exclusivity deal ends? Verizon is rumored to be the next major American carrier to roll out the iPhone. Can T-Mobile be too far behind? You can already unlock an iPhone and run it on T-Mobile's GSM network. Can Apple nip the Google Phone in the bud by making the iPhone more widely available to consumers?
Finally, don't forget about the impact of apps. As of November, the App Store has 100,000 apps available to the Android Market's 15,000. The Windows Marketplace has 376. Unless the Google Phone completely blows away the iPhone in terms of hardware superiority, the battle will still come down to apps. Google has a long way to go before it can match Apple for app numbers. The Google Phone will cause a spike in the number of apps on the Android Market, but will it be enough to pass up the App Store?
4mapper
Check out this Google Map image showing all the places I've checked into around the city on Foursquare. Unsurprisingly enough, I've checked in the most around work and school. Seeing as how I spend most of my time at these two locations that shouldn't be too much of a shocker.
I generated this map over on the 4mapper website. 4mapper is a nice little mash-up of Google Maps and Foursquare that overlays your check-ins on top of a map to give you a visual display of your recent activity. From my map you can see I tend to hang out in certain areas of the city more so than others. Hopefully I'll add more spots on the map the rest of this month when I embark on my iPhone maps & augmented reality expedition. Stay tuned for more details!
Rest of December
December is only 6 days old but I feel like a whole month has gone by already. School and work were pretty rough last week, and I pretty much spent all my time this weekend studying for finals. It's been pretty brutal. I'm going to be really happy when this quarter is over so I can get back to some semblance of a normal life. This Wednesday is my last exam and after that I'll have the rest of the month off before the next quarter starts in January.
Since it'll be like a mini-vacation, I'm preparing a list of some of the things I want to get done during my break. On the business technology front, I want to play around with these 10 Augmented Reality Apps. I started using Layar's Foursquare adapter last week and was a little underwhelmed by the experience. Hopefully some of these other apps will provide more utility and coolness. I'm planning on heading down to Michigan Ave. and walking around with my iPhone testing out each app. I might get a couple weird looks from random people, but that's OK. I'd also like to start playing around with Google Wave at work. We have a big project deliverable due mid-month, so hopefully after that I can reward my team with some fun time exploring the Wave platform.
On the non-business technology front, I'd like to put in some quality time at Vision Quest and get my training back on track. I'm also planning a trip to Tampa at the end of December for the Outback Bowl. Northwestern will be playing there this year, and since I went to NU for undergrad and now I'm at Kellogg I really feel like I should support my alma matter on the road. It looks like a bunch of my friends will be going too so it should be a lot of fun. Go Cats!
Looking forward to the rest of December!
Since it'll be like a mini-vacation, I'm preparing a list of some of the things I want to get done during my break. On the business technology front, I want to play around with these 10 Augmented Reality Apps. I started using Layar's Foursquare adapter last week and was a little underwhelmed by the experience. Hopefully some of these other apps will provide more utility and coolness. I'm planning on heading down to Michigan Ave. and walking around with my iPhone testing out each app. I might get a couple weird looks from random people, but that's OK. I'd also like to start playing around with Google Wave at work. We have a big project deliverable due mid-month, so hopefully after that I can reward my team with some fun time exploring the Wave platform.
On the non-business technology front, I'd like to put in some quality time at Vision Quest and get my training back on track. I'm also planning a trip to Tampa at the end of December for the Outback Bowl. Northwestern will be playing there this year, and since I went to NU for undergrad and now I'm at Kellogg I really feel like I should support my alma matter on the road. It looks like a bunch of my friends will be going too so it should be a lot of fun. Go Cats!
Looking forward to the rest of December!
Part-time activities
Working full time and attending school part time doesn't really leave time for much else in life. I've tried to keep up my other activities like triathlon training and blogging but I've recently let both of them slip a bit. Thanksgiving was last week and with all the food and family time I wasn't really able to do anything productive. This week hasn't been much better due to fast approaching deadlines at work and school.
I'm not giving up on my extracurricular activities though. Training helps keep me sane and feeling alive and blogging is helping me stay on top of my industry. I may not be writing too many full blog entries lately but I know I've been staying on top of the constant stream of news and articles regarding business and technology. My writing style may not be as fluid and free flowing as I would like it to be but I feel it getting better every day. I've also been able to speak expertly about technology trends with my peers at school and work. In short, I feel like I'm accomplishing exactly what I set out to do with my blog: make myself a subject matter expert in my industry.
I should have a break soon from all the school and work madness, so then I'll be able to spend time doing the things I really enjoy. Once I wrap up finals and my work project next week, I'll have around 3 weeks to relax and recharge before the cycle starts all over again in January. Until then I'll just have to sneak in short runs and quick blog entries (or tweets) here and there throughout the week.
I'm not giving up on my extracurricular activities though. Training helps keep me sane and feeling alive and blogging is helping me stay on top of my industry. I may not be writing too many full blog entries lately but I know I've been staying on top of the constant stream of news and articles regarding business and technology. My writing style may not be as fluid and free flowing as I would like it to be but I feel it getting better every day. I've also been able to speak expertly about technology trends with my peers at school and work. In short, I feel like I'm accomplishing exactly what I set out to do with my blog: make myself a subject matter expert in my industry.
I should have a break soon from all the school and work madness, so then I'll be able to spend time doing the things I really enjoy. Once I wrap up finals and my work project next week, I'll have around 3 weeks to relax and recharge before the cycle starts all over again in January. Until then I'll just have to sneak in short runs and quick blog entries (or tweets) here and there throughout the week.
Foursquare in Chicago
I've been playing around with Foursquare for the past couple of weeks and so far I'm the mayor at my office and gym, and I'm in the running for mayor at my school. Yeah!
Running through my Foursquare history, here's what I've done so far. I joined two weekends ago and started checking in as I ran some errands around town. I stopped off at the Borders on North Ave and Halsted and noticed that there's no mayor there. Hmm, I study there from time to time... maybe I'll try to take the mayor crown there.
I added my work location to Foursquare, and started checking in every day. I'm now the mayor at work! Considering that no one else in my office uses Foursquare it wasn't that hard to do. I also started checking in at places around work as I went out to lunch, but not every place was listed in the system. Oh well.
I added my training center (Vision Quest) to the map. Vision Quest is actually doing a pretty good job with social media and the web. They have a Facebook page and a Twitter account (@vqcoaching) but no Foursquare presence yet. Started checking in there and quickly became the mayor of VQ. Sweet!
I added my work location to Foursquare, and started checking in every day. I'm now the mayor at work! Considering that no one else in my office uses Foursquare it wasn't that hard to do. I also started checking in at places around work as I went out to lunch, but not every place was listed in the system. Oh well.
I added my training center (Vision Quest) to the map. Vision Quest is actually doing a pretty good job with social media and the web. They have a Facebook page and a Twitter account (@vqcoaching) but no Foursquare presence yet. Started checking in there and quickly became the mayor of VQ. Sweet!
I also started checking in at school but so far I'm not the mayor there yet. Jane U. has that crown now, but I've politely let her know that I may challenge her for mayorship of Kellogg.
So far Foursquare has been pretty fun, but I don't feel like it's done anything useful for me yet. Deals are starting to show up on my map, but I don't think the Foursquare 'buzz' has caught on in Chicago just yet, despite this weekend's article in the Chicago Tribune. I did score a free shot at the Hunt Club over the weekend thanks to Foursquare, but that's about the only real application of the system I've seen in the area.
Another problem for me is that none of my friends are on Foursquare yet, and I really only know of one or two other people on the service. Having my friends use Foursquare would make the game a lot more enjoyable for me, as I'd have people I could challenge for points and mayor positions all over the city. Right now most of my friends have never even heard of Foursquare and look at me funny when I "check in" at certain places. They get the concept of the game, but don't quite understand why I'm using it or what purpose it serves.Geolocation services like Foursquare haven't quite gone mainstream yet, but according to many analysts the mobile market will soon begin trending this way. There's a lot of potential in these context-aware services, with applications ranging from mobile entertainment and social networking to targeted advertisement and localized recommendations. Like any hot new service du jour, success will ultimately be dictated by the size of its user base. Foursquare is generating a lot of buzz lately and is building up its user base, but will it be able to hold off bigger players like Twitter and Facebook, who have started to move into the geolocation space themselves?
I know if Facebook rolled out its own geolocation service tomorrow, I would start using it instead of Foursquare. Why? Well, all of my friends would already be on the service so the experience would be a lot more social and enjoyable for me. Also, with Facebook's massive installed user base we'd see more applications built on top of the platform and more "offers" available for users on the map.
We'll see how long it takes for geolocation to go mainstream. Hopefully all this media attention for Foursquare will lead to new users signing up for the service, especially in the Chicagoland area. It's a little lonely playing Foursquare all by myself. :(
Backlog
Happy Thanksgiving! I've been enjoying a very relaxing four day weekend with friends and family and haven't really had a chance to write a full blog item lately (mostly due to the food coma I've been in). But that doesn't mean I haven't been working on stuff lately. If you check my Twitter feed to the right you'll see that I have been busy following trending stories on Twitter and using Foursquare all this week. I've also pulled together a list of topics I'd like to write about in future blog entries, full of items new and (somewhat) old that interest me. Here's a quick look at my blog backlog:
-Foursquare and Facebook - Who will win the social geolocation war?
-Mapmania - Mobile, maps, social networking
-Augmented Reality - Experiment with this technology on the iPhone
-Twitrratr, ScoutsLab - Keeping track of feedback on your brand or product
-4mapper - Mapping your Foursquare entries for visible representation
-Newspaper business model - News. Corp, Journalism Online
-Social network platforms - How to build on top of them, web IDs, micro payments, friend connects, skins
-Social games - Foursquare, Farmville, Stack Overflow
-Google Wave - Still waiting for my invite, doing research on the tech specs
-Google Phone - Android fragmentation problem solver?
-Speedily - Link shortener classifier, impact of Bit.ly and others
-Sony Online Service - Can it even begin to rival the App Store?
-Corporate uses of Social Media, story telling - AARP LifeTuner, Mayo Clinic Stories, Ford Story
-Top 5 Social Media Books - Read and review top 5 Social Media books
-Verizon and the iPhone - Analysis on the impact of the iPhone on the Verizon network
-Google Music Search - Implications of service
-iPhone App Economy - Analysis on the iPhone Apps ecosystem
Whew, that's a petty long list. I better get a jump on these topics soon before my backlog gets too out of control.
-Foursquare and Facebook - Who will win the social geolocation war?
-Mapmania - Mobile, maps, social networking
-Augmented Reality - Experiment with this technology on the iPhone
-Twitrratr, ScoutsLab - Keeping track of feedback on your brand or product
-4mapper - Mapping your Foursquare entries for visible representation
-Newspaper business model - News. Corp, Journalism Online
-Social network platforms - How to build on top of them, web IDs, micro payments, friend connects, skins
-Social games - Foursquare, Farmville, Stack Overflow
-Google Wave - Still waiting for my invite, doing research on the tech specs
-Google Phone - Android fragmentation problem solver?
-Speedily - Link shortener classifier, impact of Bit.ly and others
-Sony Online Service - Can it even begin to rival the App Store?
-Corporate uses of Social Media, story telling - AARP LifeTuner, Mayo Clinic Stories, Ford Story
-Top 5 Social Media Books - Read and review top 5 Social Media books
-Verizon and the iPhone - Analysis on the impact of the iPhone on the Verizon network
-Google Music Search - Implications of service
-iPhone App Economy - Analysis on the iPhone Apps ecosystem
Whew, that's a petty long list. I better get a jump on these topics soon before my backlog gets too out of control.
Rupert Murdoch's Plan
Rupert Murdoch, founder and CEO of News Corp., has a big problem on his hands. His media company has reported massive losses in the past year as both its print ad revenue and online ad revenue have dropped hard in the current recession. The rise of new media has changed the landscape of business today, and old media companies with old media business models, such as News Corp., have struggled to generate revenue in the world of free flowing information. Rupert Murdoch isn't going out without a fight though, and over the past couple of months we've seen him slowly roll out his plan for turning around News Corp.'s fortunes.
First, News Corp. started out by announcing that Hulu (a joint venture between ABC, NBC and Fox) would soon start operating with a subscription model. Then News Corp. announced that MySpace Music would also begin charging for access to its content. And now the next big shake-up comes from News Corp.'s Wall Street Journal, which has announced intentions to remove its content from Google's search engine and forge an exclusive deal with Microsoft's Bing search engine.
Rupert Murdoch is essentially calling for an end to the internet free-for-all. He wants consumers to start paying for access to his online content. Murdoch's plan is to place his major online properties behind a paywall and restrict free access to premium content. If successful, he expects other major content providers will follow suit. It's a bold plan to say the least, but it does make you wonder about the risks News Corp. faces in implementing such a plan. Can Murdoch reverse the tide of free flowing information and create a successful revenue stream from his online content?
It can be done, but not with Murdoch's current approach. It's understood that News Corp. needs to change its business model in order to generate revenue in the online world, but Murdoch's current plan of attack is flawed and short-sighted. Aside from Hulu, which has a valid shot with a freemium business model, Murdoch's other web properties won't fare so well if he decides to put them up behind a paywall. MySpace Music isn't as hot as it used to be and has been leapfrogged by other music sites. The Wall Street Journal may be a prestigious news source, but there are many other reliable news sources on the web that would be more than willing to step up and fill the void. Murdoch will lose major online traffic volume and could see his precious web properties relegated to the archives of internet history. The news will continue to flow freely on the internet even without the presence of the Wall Street Journal.
My suggestion to Rupert Murdoch: instead of trying to remove value from the system, why not add more value into the system? I like the idea of working on an exclusive deal with Microsoft; why not try to work on an exclusive integration of WSJ material (and other News Corp. content) into Bing? Other search engines can still access the basic content, but only your exclusive partners would have access to your enhanced coverage. Use innovation and creativity to devise new ways to deliver material and enrich your reader's experience.
Information is meant to be free, and will remain so on the internet. How you package and deliver that information is where you'll find opportunities to capture market share and create profit for your business.
First, News Corp. started out by announcing that Hulu (a joint venture between ABC, NBC and Fox) would soon start operating with a subscription model. Then News Corp. announced that MySpace Music would also begin charging for access to its content. And now the next big shake-up comes from News Corp.'s Wall Street Journal, which has announced intentions to remove its content from Google's search engine and forge an exclusive deal with Microsoft's Bing search engine.
Rupert Murdoch is essentially calling for an end to the internet free-for-all. He wants consumers to start paying for access to his online content. Murdoch's plan is to place his major online properties behind a paywall and restrict free access to premium content. If successful, he expects other major content providers will follow suit. It's a bold plan to say the least, but it does make you wonder about the risks News Corp. faces in implementing such a plan. Can Murdoch reverse the tide of free flowing information and create a successful revenue stream from his online content?
It can be done, but not with Murdoch's current approach. It's understood that News Corp. needs to change its business model in order to generate revenue in the online world, but Murdoch's current plan of attack is flawed and short-sighted. Aside from Hulu, which has a valid shot with a freemium business model, Murdoch's other web properties won't fare so well if he decides to put them up behind a paywall. MySpace Music isn't as hot as it used to be and has been leapfrogged by other music sites. The Wall Street Journal may be a prestigious news source, but there are many other reliable news sources on the web that would be more than willing to step up and fill the void. Murdoch will lose major online traffic volume and could see his precious web properties relegated to the archives of internet history. The news will continue to flow freely on the internet even without the presence of the Wall Street Journal.
My suggestion to Rupert Murdoch: instead of trying to remove value from the system, why not add more value into the system? I like the idea of working on an exclusive deal with Microsoft; why not try to work on an exclusive integration of WSJ material (and other News Corp. content) into Bing? Other search engines can still access the basic content, but only your exclusive partners would have access to your enhanced coverage. Use innovation and creativity to devise new ways to deliver material and enrich your reader's experience.
Information is meant to be free, and will remain so on the internet. How you package and deliver that information is where you'll find opportunities to capture market share and create profit for your business.
Hulu Freemium
A month ago we were asked "Would you pay for Hulu?", and this week we're being asked "Would you pay for MySpace Music?" It seems like the business model for premium web videos and music is changing, and the new name of the game is "freemium":
Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc., then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base. - Fred Wilson
The freemium business model can be seen in play at many successful web 2.0 companies such as Flickr, LinkedIn, Skype and Box.net. Offer basic services for free, then offer advanced services for a premium cost. Pretty simple.
For MySpace, the answer to the question "Would you pay for MySpace Music?" seems to be an overwhelming "NO". MySpace Music has fallen behind its rivals and doesn't really have anything advanced or enhanced to offer that consumers would be willing to pay for.
Hulu, on the other hand, has more options available to it. As the leader of streaming web video, Hulu is in a great position to turn its captive audience into a source of income. Meghan Kean at eConsultancy lists several of the approaches available to Hulu: ad-free access, offline viewing access, additional extensive programming, on demand video, pay-per-view video and early access to shows.
What would you pay for a Hulu subscription? eMusic charges from $11.99 a month for its service. Netflix subscriptions start at $8.99. Would Hulu start at $9.99 a month and tier up depending on the amount of premium videos you watched?
Or, would you prefer a pay-per-view video option for premium content? iTunes charges $0.99 a track and $9.99 an album. Would you pay $0.99 to view a premium video? $9.99 to access a whole back season of a certain show?
Mobile App vs. Mobile Web
First off, let me start by saying: I work for a Fortune 100 company and this is my personal opinion.
I work in the consumer division at my company doing software consulting. Right now we're prototyping a mobile app for some of our web users. It's actually more of an experimental proof-of-concept item right now, falling under a pseudo-budget we have for "innovations". This past year one of the big initiatives I've been trying to champion at work is this concept of innovations and creativity within our team and this mobile app project is the latest figurehead of those efforts. Our development team has taken it upon themselves to create a mobile solution that we believe will add business value and create sales opportunities for our company.
So far we've only been able to work on this mobile app project in bits and pieces. Since we don't have a proper budget for innovations yet, we've had to work on it during our down time and off-hours. That's set to change soon, as our stakeholders have finally recognized the benefits of innovation within IT and are planning on adding an official Innovations budget in 2010. I'm excited to see what our team will be able to produce next year as we expand on our efforts to create business innovations through the use of technology.
Our team is excited to play around with mobile technology right now, especially since we're hoping to launch a version of our mobile app on the iPhone, Blackberry and Android platforms. We're trying to develop a successful prototype by the end of the year, but we haven't really been able to allocate that much time to development lately and we've been hampered with some mobile platform issues (especially on the iPhone). I've had to scale back the expectations of the prototype to our business partners and I'm generally worried about what we'll be able to deliver by the end of the year. This weekend I was thinking about the larger approach to our project and kept asking myself over and over: Should we be building a mobile app or focusing on a mobile web solution?
Is our team pushing this technology just for the sake of technology? At our company this is one of the business owners' biggest concerns with our IT department... and the reason why I think our team has had such a hard time earning credibility in our innovation efforts. Too often our team gets caught up in trying to use the latest technology or software release without really thinking about the actual benefits of that technology. We're all about trying to use the latest and greatest, even though we can't quantify what we'll gain through the adoption of the latest and greatest. It's something I'm keenly aware of and I always stress to my team that we *have* to show the business value behind our technology if we hope to gain real traction with our business partners.
So, should our team build a mobile app or focus on a mobile web solution? How can we best serve the mobile needs of our consumers? Our devs are excited to work on mobile apps because it's something that personally interests them, but is that the best way to go? Here's a quick rundown of a (native) mobile app vs. a mobile web solution on the iPhone (courtesy of O'Reilly):
What is a Web App? [Mobile Web]
....A web app is basically a web site that is specifically optimized for the iPhone. The site content could be anything from a standard small business brochure site to a mortgage calculator to a daily calorie tracker–the content is irrelevant. The defining characteristics of a web app are that the user interface is built with web standard technologies, it is available at a URL (public, private, or perhaps behind a login), and it is optimized for the specifics of the iPhone. A web app is not installed on the phone, it is not available in the iTunes App Store, and it is not written with Objective-C.
What is a Native App? [Mobile App]
In contrast, native apps are installed on the iPhone, they have access to the hardware (speakers, accelerometer, camera, etc.), and they are written with Objective-C. The defining characteristic of a native app, however, is that it’s available in the iTunes App store.
The O'Reilly website lists out the pros and cons to each approach, from functional hardware access to ease of deployment. For us, the pros of going with a mobile app are essentially just access to all the cool hardware features of the device. The cons list is much longer though: develop using Objective-C, develop on a Mac, lengthy Apple approval process, cumbersome bug fix process and slow development cycles. For a mobile web solution, the pros for us are: develop using current tools, develop on current platform, bug fixes in real-time and a fast development cycle. The cons are lack of access to all the cool hardware features and loss of sophisticated UI effects.
After reviewing all the pros and cons and the business requirements I honestly don't think we need to go with a native mobile app. Sure, we'll be able to deliver a cooler application if we go with a mobile app, but I don't think it's worth the hassles of going native. We're already dealing with native platform issues and there are major concerns over deployment and maintenance in the future. So far our team has turned a blind eye to these items and we've taken a "we'll figure it out later" attitude, but I think it's time we take a serious look at our approach and reconsider our solution. We can't just force a mobile app solution because we're all super excited to work on the iPhone and Android. You have to use the right tool for the job, and right now mobile app technology is not the right tool for our job.
After reviewing all the pros and cons and the business requirements I honestly don't think we need to go with a native mobile app. Sure, we'll be able to deliver a cooler application if we go with a mobile app, but I don't think it's worth the hassles of going native. We're already dealing with native platform issues and there are major concerns over deployment and maintenance in the future. So far our team has turned a blind eye to these items and we've taken a "we'll figure it out later" attitude, but I think it's time we take a serious look at our approach and reconsider our solution. We can't just force a mobile app solution because we're all super excited to work on the iPhone and Android. You have to use the right tool for the job, and right now mobile app technology is not the right tool for our job.
Sigh, I guess I'll have to be the bad guy at work this week. Hopefully our team won't be too crushed when I tell them we'll have to scale back the "cool" factor for our mobile solution.
Google's Revenue Equation
I've been talking a lot about Google products lately, including Android, Gmail, YouTube and Google GPS. There are other Google products I haven't touched on yet, like Google Wave, Google Chrome browser, Google Chrome OS, GTalk, Blogger, Google Friend Connect, Orkut.
With Android and Google GPS, I've talked about Google's strategy of giving away its products for free in order to acquire mobile search market share. It's worth taking a look at this tactic from a higher perspective and analyzing Google's larger strategy. What is Google's core product? Search, of course. Search drives ad revenue through the AdSense program, and a quick look at Google's income statement from last year shows a $21 billion in advertising revenue. So, Google's main strategy appears to be: Drive people to search, which in turn leads to higher ad revenue.
Ben Parr argues that Google's strategy is actually much simpler than that. Google's strategy isn't to gain market share with its products, it's simply to get you to use the web more often and for longer amounts of time. AdSense is the core of Google's revenue engine, but you have to think about AdSense outside of Google's products. Google's places ads all over the internet, not just in its own products. Go to any website, big and small, and you're likely to see Google ads. From YouTube, MySpace, New York Times and blogs worldwide, you're going to see Google ads delivered to you. The entire web is a platform for Google's AdSense product. So, Google's main strategy now appears to be: Drive people to use the web, which in turn leads to higher ad revenue. Parr has a nice little equation to sum this all up.
Android fits this equation, as does YouTube, Gmail and Google GPS. In fact, if you take a look at most of Google's products you'll see they're all designed to get you on the web. This is why Google chooses to give away some of its more innovative products for free, like Chrome or Android. They're designed to make it easier for us to connect online and to increasingly keep our lives wired. As long as you're on the web, Google is happy.
With Android and Google GPS, I've talked about Google's strategy of giving away its products for free in order to acquire mobile search market share. It's worth taking a look at this tactic from a higher perspective and analyzing Google's larger strategy. What is Google's core product? Search, of course. Search drives ad revenue through the AdSense program, and a quick look at Google's income statement from last year shows a $21 billion in advertising revenue. So, Google's main strategy appears to be: Drive people to search, which in turn leads to higher ad revenue.
Ben Parr argues that Google's strategy is actually much simpler than that. Google's strategy isn't to gain market share with its products, it's simply to get you to use the web more often and for longer amounts of time. AdSense is the core of Google's revenue engine, but you have to think about AdSense outside of Google's products. Google's places ads all over the internet, not just in its own products. Go to any website, big and small, and you're likely to see Google ads. From YouTube, MySpace, New York Times and blogs worldwide, you're going to see Google ads delivered to you. The entire web is a platform for Google's AdSense product. So, Google's main strategy now appears to be: Drive people to use the web, which in turn leads to higher ad revenue. Parr has a nice little equation to sum this all up.
Google's Revenue Equation: Revenue = Amount of Time on the Web
Android fits this equation, as does YouTube, Gmail and Google GPS. In fact, if you take a look at most of Google's products you'll see they're all designed to get you on the web. This is why Google chooses to give away some of its more innovative products for free, like Chrome or Android. They're designed to make it easier for us to connect online and to increasingly keep our lives wired. As long as you're on the web, Google is happy.
Android's Problems: Brand appeal, simplicity and applications
There's a lot of anti-Android chatter right now all over the web, stemming from the Android fragmentation problem I've mentioned a couple of times. Mike Elgan, from Datamation, is the latest analyst to call for Android's failure. Elgan writes "In today's [smartphone] market ... only three things count: brand appeal, simplicity and applications." In all three of these the iPhone leads the market. It has the "top brand, easiest-to-use phone and the most and best applications" available. It's not hard to see why the iPhone is dominating the smartphone industry. Any real challenger would have to tackle the iPhone on all three fronts:
If we take a look at the barriers that Google faces on all three fronts, they each boil down to one thing: Google's decentralized strategy with the Android platform.
Google has a Brand problem because it allows for any phone manufacturer to rebrand the Android platform. You have the Motorola Droid, the HTC Magic and the Samsung Galaxy, to name a few. By next year there will be many more phone with many different names all using Android in different ways.
Google's Simplicity problem stems from the same source as its Brand problem. Google provides the Android platform for any phone manufacturer to use. Again, you have the Motorola Droid, the HTC Magic and the Samsung Galaxy, to name a few. If you walk into a store you may get overwhelmed with all of the different options and complex features available. Apple doesn't have this problem. Apple has the iPhone. You walk into a store, you see the latest iPhone, and you get it. Quick and simple.
Finally, Google's App problem is one I've talked about in my "Fragmentation of the Android market" posts. With all of the different versions of Android platforms out there, applications built for the Android may not be guaranteed to work across all Android phones. This is problematic for both consumers and developers.
Overall it sounds like the tech market is bearish on Android right now, which is too bad because it's a solid open platform that could bring real innovation to the smartphone market and provide an alternative to Apple's iPhone. Google's current Android strategy is working well in gaining market share right now, but at some point it will need to evolve if it hopes to be sustainable in the industry. I'll repost my recommendation from my 11/17 post: My recommendation: standardize the Android platform and enforce that standard. Once Google has gained a large enough foothold in the mobile market, it can command better control over the usage of Android with phone manufacturers. It can limit the number of OS versions, force software upgrades, set hardware standards, and standardize the user interface. All this will help to enhance the app experience for both users and developers on the Android platform.
This is the problem competitors face with creating the elusive "iPhone killer." In order to beat the iPhone, a cell phone would have to at minimum equal the iPhone in two of these measures, and surpass it in the third. In other words, an iPhone Killer would have to, say, be associated with as good a brand as the Apple and iPhone brands, be every bit as simple to use as the iPhone, and have more applications.
If we take a look at the barriers that Google faces on all three fronts, they each boil down to one thing: Google's decentralized strategy with the Android platform.
Google has a Brand problem because it allows for any phone manufacturer to rebrand the Android platform. You have the Motorola Droid, the HTC Magic and the Samsung Galaxy, to name a few. By next year there will be many more phone with many different names all using Android in different ways.
Google's Simplicity problem stems from the same source as its Brand problem. Google provides the Android platform for any phone manufacturer to use. Again, you have the Motorola Droid, the HTC Magic and the Samsung Galaxy, to name a few. If you walk into a store you may get overwhelmed with all of the different options and complex features available. Apple doesn't have this problem. Apple has the iPhone. You walk into a store, you see the latest iPhone, and you get it. Quick and simple.
Finally, Google's App problem is one I've talked about in my "Fragmentation of the Android market" posts. With all of the different versions of Android platforms out there, applications built for the Android may not be guaranteed to work across all Android phones. This is problematic for both consumers and developers.
It's already difficult, expensive and time consuming to develop on the Android platform. As a result, we can expect three bad outcomes: First, consumers will face uncertainty and confusion about which apps can successfully run on what devices. Second, the complexity, time and hassle of coping with multiple OS versions and many hardware variations provide a disincentive for many would-be developers to stick with it. And finally, providing real compatibility requires extra code, which could affect app performance.
Overall it sounds like the tech market is bearish on Android right now, which is too bad because it's a solid open platform that could bring real innovation to the smartphone market and provide an alternative to Apple's iPhone. Google's current Android strategy is working well in gaining market share right now, but at some point it will need to evolve if it hopes to be sustainable in the industry. I'll repost my recommendation from my 11/17 post: My recommendation: standardize the Android platform and enforce that standard. Once Google has gained a large enough foothold in the mobile market, it can command better control over the usage of Android with phone manufacturers. It can limit the number of OS versions, force software upgrades, set hardware standards, and standardize the user interface. All this will help to enhance the app experience for both users and developers on the Android platform.
Gartner's Top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012
Gartner released a report today with the Top 10 Consumer Mobile Applications for 2012. Topping the list? Money Transfer.
There has been a push worldwide to use mobile technology for money transfers, but I haven't seen too much adoption here in the U.S. market. Security is a top concern for consumers, so if we want to see a wide scale adoption we'll need a large increase in security and fraud protection. There has to be an assurance that our money will be safe once we hit the 'Send' key on our mobile devices.
Aside from that top pick, Gartner's list reads like a "hot" topics list today in mobile technology. Location-based services, mobile search, and mobile browsing come in the next three spots. Rounding out the top 5 is an interesting pick... mobile health monitoring.
I think we'll definitely see a rise of activity in this market as the health care industry seeks reform. Technology will play a critical role in increasing doctor/patient communication, transferring patient information across different providers, and lowering overall care costs. I tweeted the other day about an article in the WSJ with Bruce Goodman, CIO of Humana Inc. In the article, Goodman talks about the role of technology in health care and reform. He hints at some aspects of mobile health monitoring, so it sounds like the industry is taking some steps in that general direction. I guess we'll have to wait and see if this truly becomes a top 5 mobile application in 2012.
There has been a push worldwide to use mobile technology for money transfers, but I haven't seen too much adoption here in the U.S. market. Security is a top concern for consumers, so if we want to see a wide scale adoption we'll need a large increase in security and fraud protection. There has to be an assurance that our money will be safe once we hit the 'Send' key on our mobile devices.
Aside from that top pick, Gartner's list reads like a "hot" topics list today in mobile technology. Location-based services, mobile search, and mobile browsing come in the next three spots. Rounding out the top 5 is an interesting pick... mobile health monitoring.
"Mobile health monitoring is the use of IT and mobile telecommunications to monitor patients remotely, and could help governments, care delivery organizations (CDOs) and healthcare payers reduce costs related to chronic diseases and improve the quality of life of their patients."
I think we'll definitely see a rise of activity in this market as the health care industry seeks reform. Technology will play a critical role in increasing doctor/patient communication, transferring patient information across different providers, and lowering overall care costs. I tweeted the other day about an article in the WSJ with Bruce Goodman, CIO of Humana Inc. In the article, Goodman talks about the role of technology in health care and reform. He hints at some aspects of mobile health monitoring, so it sounds like the industry is taking some steps in that general direction. I guess we'll have to wait and see if this truly becomes a top 5 mobile application in 2012.
Fragmentation of the Android market: Part 2
Yesterday I talked about the fragmentation of the Android market from a consumer's perspective. All the different Android versions on the market could potentially confuse consumers and stop them from making an Android phone purchase. Today I wanted to take a look at the fragmentation issue from an app developer's perspective.
Wired magazine has an article this week about Android's rapid growth and rising developer concerns. Android is now available on at least 12 phones and is scheduled to be released on many more over the next year. But this isn't necessarily good news for Android developers.
It looks like the flexibility that Google has given to phone manufacturers with Android has created many different variations of its mobile platform. These variations may be small enough to go unnoticed by an average consumer, but they're large enough that they can cause a developer major headaches. Instead of working on new features and apps, developers find themselves busy debugging their existing apps across different Android phones.
This problem will only get worse as more and more different Android phones are released into the marketplace. iPhone developers don't have this problem since Apple tightly controls the iPhone platform and the operating system version. “Apple maintains an iron grip on what they do and there’s an advantage to that,” says Kelly Schrock, app developer. “IPhone developers don’t have to worry about fragmentation and creating apps for the iPhone is much easier.”
App developers are critical to the complementary network around a mobile platform. Where would the iPhone be without the developers that created the 100,000+ apps in the App Store? No matter how small or trivial, apps play a major role in the mobile world. If a slowdown in developer productivity leads to less new app releases on the Android platform, Google could very well see user share slip away as consumers switch to a platform with a better 'eco-system'.
At some point in the near term future, Google must address this problem. My recommendation: standardize the Android platform and enforce that standard. Once Google has gained a large enough foothold in the mobile market, it can command better control over the usage of Android with phone manufacturers. It can limit the number of OS versions, force software upgrades, set hardware standards, and standardize the user interface. All this will help to enhance the app experience for both users and developers on the Android platform.
Wired magazine has an article this week about Android's rapid growth and rising developer concerns. Android is now available on at least 12 phones and is scheduled to be released on many more over the next year. But this isn't necessarily good news for Android developers.
A slew of problems have made managing Android apps a “nightmare,” [developers] say, including three versions of the OS (Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0), custom firmware on many phones, and hardware differences between different models.
For users, it means apps in the store could be buggy, might not work well depending on their handsets, and could deliver a frustrating experience. Unaware of the increasing back-end complexity, they would then be more likely to leave bad reviews for those apps — a potentially lethal blow for small businesses, say developers.
It looks like the flexibility that Google has given to phone manufacturers with Android has created many different variations of its mobile platform. These variations may be small enough to go unnoticed by an average consumer, but they're large enough that they can cause a developer major headaches. Instead of working on new features and apps, developers find themselves busy debugging their existing apps across different Android phones.
This problem will only get worse as more and more different Android phones are released into the marketplace. iPhone developers don't have this problem since Apple tightly controls the iPhone platform and the operating system version. “Apple maintains an iron grip on what they do and there’s an advantage to that,” says Kelly Schrock, app developer. “IPhone developers don’t have to worry about fragmentation and creating apps for the iPhone is much easier.”
App developers are critical to the complementary network around a mobile platform. Where would the iPhone be without the developers that created the 100,000+ apps in the App Store? No matter how small or trivial, apps play a major role in the mobile world. If a slowdown in developer productivity leads to less new app releases on the Android platform, Google could very well see user share slip away as consumers switch to a platform with a better 'eco-system'.
At some point in the near term future, Google must address this problem. My recommendation: standardize the Android platform and enforce that standard. Once Google has gained a large enough foothold in the mobile market, it can command better control over the usage of Android with phone manufacturers. It can limit the number of OS versions, force software upgrades, set hardware standards, and standardize the user interface. All this will help to enhance the app experience for both users and developers on the Android platform.
Fragmentation of the Android market
Great article from Peter Burrows about the real hurdle Motorola's Droid faces: fragmentation of the Android market. Peter writes:
Ed Zander, former CEO of Motorola, raises another good point. Zander "wonders if consumers will be put off by the complexity of the Android model. It’s bad enough with the iPhone, where Apple is responsible for the device and AT&T for the network. With Android, 'are you buying from Verizon, or Google or Motorola?'"
Google's distributed approach in the mobile market is giving it an early jump in market share, but it will have to be careful to keep a cohesive and unified "platform" as the different number of Android versions in the marketplace multiply.
If I have a Motorola Droid, my friend has an HTC myTouch (Magic), and our mutual friend has a Samsung Galaxy, our phones should all be able to talk to each other. And if not, who should we turn to for support?
But Droid’s main competition isn’t really the iPhone: it’s fragmentation of the Android market. Clearly, Apple will have no problem keeping consumers focused on its device. The iPhone is the only smart phone Apple sells ... now consider Motorola’s challenge. Within weeks, consumers who go into a Verizon store will have many of different phones to choose from ... all these different interfaces is bound to confuse consumers.
Ed Zander, former CEO of Motorola, raises another good point. Zander "wonders if consumers will be put off by the complexity of the Android model. It’s bad enough with the iPhone, where Apple is responsible for the device and AT&T for the network. With Android, 'are you buying from Verizon, or Google or Motorola?'"
Google's distributed approach in the mobile market is giving it an early jump in market share, but it will have to be careful to keep a cohesive and unified "platform" as the different number of Android versions in the marketplace multiply.
If I have a Motorola Droid, my friend has an HTC myTouch (Magic), and our mutual friend has a Samsung Galaxy, our phones should all be able to talk to each other. And if not, who should we turn to for support?
Twitter's Business Model
A lot of people have talked about whether or not Twitter has an actual business model, and if so what it actually entails. Recently Twitter has made deals with Bing and Google to integrate Twitter data into "real-time" search results, which sounds like a pretty good fit for all parties involved. But aside from search, what other outlets does Twitter have to monetize its user content?
David L. Smith, from Harvard Business Publishing, outlines a couple ways he sees that Twitter can generate revenue from its massive user base in his post "Twitter's Business Model: Brilliant or Non-Existent?" On top of search, David mentions other potential revenue streams such as Ecommerce, network marketing, and Twitter applications.
According to recent network data, Twitter's growth has been slowing down a bit lately. A tweak to Twitter's business model may help resolve both its monetization issues and growth issues. Maybe Twitter can kill two birds with one stone?
David L. Smith, from Harvard Business Publishing, outlines a couple ways he sees that Twitter can generate revenue from its massive user base in his post "Twitter's Business Model: Brilliant or Non-Existent?" On top of search, David mentions other potential revenue streams such as Ecommerce, network marketing, and Twitter applications.
According to recent network data, Twitter's growth has been slowing down a bit lately. A tweak to Twitter's business model may help resolve both its monetization issues and growth issues. Maybe Twitter can kill two birds with one stone?
Samsung throws its hat into the ring
It seems like all I talk about these days is mobile platforms. Android this, iPhone that, Windows Mobile here, Blackberry there, etc... But if you thought there were enough players in this market already, think again. Just this week Samsung announced the launch of its own 'open' mobile platform, Bada.
The whole plan by Samsung is to move away from using the Windows Mobile platform on its phones and instead shifting to open (free) platforms. Samsung will shift to using Android and Bada over the next couple of years as it looks to retain control over its phones.
I think moving to Android is a smart move for Samsung, but trying to launch a new platform probably won't work. Samsung may be the number 2 phone handset maker, but they have less than 5% of the smartphone market. That's simply not enough phones to gain any real traction among app developers. Their best bet would be to focus on handsets and leverage an existing open platform like Android to retain control over its phones and cut down on OS licensing costs.
The mobile platform market is already pretty fragmented right now, so I don't think adding more players at this point is going to do us any good. I'm not against competition, but in a game where market share is king, if you're not already in this space today you're probably too late.
The whole plan by Samsung is to move away from using the Windows Mobile platform on its phones and instead shifting to open (free) platforms. Samsung will shift to using Android and Bada over the next couple of years as it looks to retain control over its phones.
I think moving to Android is a smart move for Samsung, but trying to launch a new platform probably won't work. Samsung may be the number 2 phone handset maker, but they have less than 5% of the smartphone market. That's simply not enough phones to gain any real traction among app developers. Their best bet would be to focus on handsets and leverage an existing open platform like Android to retain control over its phones and cut down on OS licensing costs.
The mobile platform market is already pretty fragmented right now, so I don't think adding more players at this point is going to do us any good. I'm not against competition, but in a game where market share is king, if you're not already in this space today you're probably too late.
Business of Healthcare Conference
Today I was up in Evanston for the 2009 Kellogg Business of Healthcare Conference. They had an outstanding set of speakers and panelists at the event, and there was a lot of great dialogue on healthcare, reform and technology. For me the standout session was the "Leveraging Interactive Marketing Tools in Healthcare" panel, which featured speakers from many different segments of healthcare and social media. Panelists included:
Michael Millenson, President, Health Quality Advisors, LLC
Lee Aase, Manager, Syndication and Social Media, Mayo Clinic
Sarah Campbell, Partner, Assoc. Director of Content Strategy, Ogilvy Interactive
Beatrice Ellerin, Managing Director, InterbrandHealth
Marker Wiegand, Director of Consumer Marketing, Amgen
The big message at this panel was that technology (specifically social media and mobile technology) is changing the face of healthcare. It's enabling the delivery of a more personal and customizable product to consumers. The panelists gave several examples of successful applications of this new trend in the industry. From doctors using social media to connect with their patients, to the Mayo Clinic sharing stories to build awareness of medical conditions and to empower their patients, there's a definite lean in the industry to forming a more personal and direct relationship with consumers (just as it is in any other industry). One thing to keep in mind is that this 'connection' process needs to be simple, easy to use, and transparent. This is where social media really comes into play, since it has already established itself as all those things. Other industries are already leveraging social media to connect with their consumers, and it's time for the healthcare industry to realize this and get on board with the movement.
My favorite panelist was Lee Aase, Manager of Syndication and Social Media at the Mayo Clinic. He shared with us the social media tools the Mayo Clinic is using to connect with their patients. It was surprising to see such a conservative organization using tools like YouTube and Twitter, but I guess Lee has convinced the Mayo execs of the power of social media and the net positive returns they can receive through these tools. What's pretty funny is that he was tweeting during the event, using the hashtag #KelloggHC to tag his posts for others to follow. Of course I pulled out my phone and followed his tweets, which made the whole event feel very meta-esque.
Here's Lee's Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/LeeAase
Michael Millenson, President, Health Quality Advisors, LLC
Lee Aase, Manager, Syndication and Social Media, Mayo Clinic
Sarah Campbell, Partner, Assoc. Director of Content Strategy, Ogilvy Interactive
Beatrice Ellerin, Managing Director, InterbrandHealth
Marker Wiegand, Director of Consumer Marketing, Amgen
The big message at this panel was that technology (specifically social media and mobile technology) is changing the face of healthcare. It's enabling the delivery of a more personal and customizable product to consumers. The panelists gave several examples of successful applications of this new trend in the industry. From doctors using social media to connect with their patients, to the Mayo Clinic sharing stories to build awareness of medical conditions and to empower their patients, there's a definite lean in the industry to forming a more personal and direct relationship with consumers (just as it is in any other industry). One thing to keep in mind is that this 'connection' process needs to be simple, easy to use, and transparent. This is where social media really comes into play, since it has already established itself as all those things. Other industries are already leveraging social media to connect with their consumers, and it's time for the healthcare industry to realize this and get on board with the movement.
My favorite panelist was Lee Aase, Manager of Syndication and Social Media at the Mayo Clinic. He shared with us the social media tools the Mayo Clinic is using to connect with their patients. It was surprising to see such a conservative organization using tools like YouTube and Twitter, but I guess Lee has convinced the Mayo execs of the power of social media and the net positive returns they can receive through these tools. What's pretty funny is that he was tweeting during the event, using the hashtag #KelloggHC to tag his posts for others to follow. Of course I pulled out my phone and followed his tweets, which made the whole event feel very meta-esque.
Here's Lee's Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/LeeAase
Buzz Killer?
Hmmm, haven't heard too much about the Droid today. The "killer" phone was launched last Friday and was supposed to really shake up the mobile phone industry, but so far not too much noise being generated on the internet about it. Maybe it's being overshadowed by bigger news... such as the rumored Verizon-iPhone deal for 2010...
The Droid has arrived
Verizon's Droid is released to the public today! We haven't seen this much hype and buzz around a phone since the Palm Pre or the Blackberry Storm, and we all know how those worked out. Many have hailed the Droid as the next iPhone killer, but I prefer the term Windows Mobile killer. We'll see how much of the hype actually lives up to the real thing this week.
Gizmodo sums it up quite nicely:
Gizmodo sums it up quite nicely:
It's this simple: If you don't buy an iPhone, buy a Droid.
It's the best phone on Verizon, and with Android 2.0, the second best smartphone you can buy, period. It's flawed, deeply in some ways. But it's the second best phone around, on the best network around.
Google GPS
Google just keeps dropping bombs all over the web, and its latest product offering is already making huge waves. Last week, Google announced that it would provide free turn-by-turn GPS maps to mobile devices. Reaction was sharp and immediate: GPS-makers saw their share prices plummet.
It's hard to compete against a giant like Google when it gives away its products for free. Just like with the Android mobile platform, Google is giving away its GPS maps product for free in order to build up its mobile search market. So it's hard for the other mapmakers to compete against Google when all of their profits come directly from the map technology and Google's profit comes from the search revenue delivered indirectly by the map technology. Google's complementary search product is so strong that it has a huge competitive advantage in almost any field X it enters since it can afford to off-set any direct losses on product X with indirect search revenue, so long as that product can add to Google's search market share.
What's even more interesting is that sometimes Google even pays for others to use its product. For example, with the Android platform, Google will actually pay you ad splits to use certain licensed versions of its software. This "less than free" model is even more bad news for anyone competing against the search giant.
Who will be next to fall under the mighty axe of Google?
It's hard to compete against a giant like Google when it gives away its products for free. Just like with the Android mobile platform, Google is giving away its GPS maps product for free in order to build up its mobile search market. So it's hard for the other mapmakers to compete against Google when all of their profits come directly from the map technology and Google's profit comes from the search revenue delivered indirectly by the map technology. Google's complementary search product is so strong that it has a huge competitive advantage in almost any field X it enters since it can afford to off-set any direct losses on product X with indirect search revenue, so long as that product can add to Google's search market share.
What's even more interesting is that sometimes Google even pays for others to use its product. For example, with the Android platform, Google will actually pay you ad splits to use certain licensed versions of its software. This "less than free" model is even more bad news for anyone competing against the search giant.
Who will be next to fall under the mighty axe of Google?
Scott Monty
I've been reading Scott Monty's blog a lot lately and have been really trying to soak in all of the great information that he's been sharing on it. Scott's specialty is social media and marketing, and just recently he became head of Ford's Social Media department. Scott is more or less doing what I want to do with my career. I want to be in that cross section of technology and marketing; helping drive and develop consumer technology, and shaping consumer use through technology. It's still a broad concept in my head, but I'm hoping that I can define it a bit better over the next couple of years.
In a happy coincidence of personal and academic work (did I mention I'm going to business school right now?), I have a group assignment due soon on the electric car industry, and my group is thinking of picking Ford for our write-up. Well, guess what, I just happened to have read a ton of great material on Ford and their social media initiatives. Score! So now I think we're going to leverage Scott's social media efforts for our assignment and I may even reach out directly to Scott. This could be a great opportunity to learn more from Scott on utilizing social media in the business world and to develop a great contact in that industry.
Somewhat related to that, I'm attending a Business of Healthcare conference on November 11th. One of their panels is on "Leveraging Interactive Marketing Tools in Healthcare". This event will be a triple score for me, since 1) It's about using social media in the business world, 2) It's hosted by my school, 3) It's about using social media in the healthcare industry (did I mention I work in the healthcare industry?). So, it should be a nice mesh of personal, professional and academic development. Here are the details on the panel:
Leveraging Interactive Marketing Tools in Healthcare
Moderator: Michael Millenson, President, Health Quality Advisors, LLC; Author, Demanding Medical Excellence: Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age
Healthcare companies are just now beginning to leverage interactive marketing tactics that have been so common in many other industries. Discussion boards, blogs, social networking and any other medium that has engaged customers have been highly successful in driving growth, all in a cost-effective manner. Now it’s is time to harness this trend in healthcare. The platforms have already been developed; now the industry needs to successfully leverage them. Panelists will share both successful and failed interactive marketing examples from their companies and the results that came out of these unique initiatives. We will explore challenges and the common pitfalls encountered when implementing such a campaign. Finally, the group will discuss the trends and strategies to become successful in levering interactive marketing tactics.
Panelists include:
Lee Aase, Manager, Syndication and Social Media, Mayo Clinic
Sarah Campbell, Partner, Associate Director of Content Strategy, Ogilvy Interactive
Marker Wiegand, Director of Consumer Marketing, Amgen
In a happy coincidence of personal and academic work (did I mention I'm going to business school right now?), I have a group assignment due soon on the electric car industry, and my group is thinking of picking Ford for our write-up. Well, guess what, I just happened to have read a ton of great material on Ford and their social media initiatives. Score! So now I think we're going to leverage Scott's social media efforts for our assignment and I may even reach out directly to Scott. This could be a great opportunity to learn more from Scott on utilizing social media in the business world and to develop a great contact in that industry.
Somewhat related to that, I'm attending a Business of Healthcare conference on November 11th. One of their panels is on "Leveraging Interactive Marketing Tools in Healthcare". This event will be a triple score for me, since 1) It's about using social media in the business world, 2) It's hosted by my school, 3) It's about using social media in the healthcare industry (did I mention I work in the healthcare industry?). So, it should be a nice mesh of personal, professional and academic development. Here are the details on the panel:
Leveraging Interactive Marketing Tools in Healthcare
Moderator: Michael Millenson, President, Health Quality Advisors, LLC; Author, Demanding Medical Excellence: Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age
Healthcare companies are just now beginning to leverage interactive marketing tactics that have been so common in many other industries. Discussion boards, blogs, social networking and any other medium that has engaged customers have been highly successful in driving growth, all in a cost-effective manner. Now it’s is time to harness this trend in healthcare. The platforms have already been developed; now the industry needs to successfully leverage them. Panelists will share both successful and failed interactive marketing examples from their companies and the results that came out of these unique initiatives. We will explore challenges and the common pitfalls encountered when implementing such a campaign. Finally, the group will discuss the trends and strategies to become successful in levering interactive marketing tactics.
Panelists include:
Lee Aase, Manager, Syndication and Social Media, Mayo Clinic
Sarah Campbell, Partner, Associate Director of Content Strategy, Ogilvy Interactive
Marker Wiegand, Director of Consumer Marketing, Amgen
Windows Mobile Killer
The Droid chatter continues on the web, and Verizon has announced that it's releasing it next week on November 6th. It will be interesting to see how the Droid actually performs in the market and how much user share it can steal away from the other mobile platforms.
Of course the Droid has been called the "iPhone Killer", but then again so has every other new phone that has come out recently. One thing I mentioned in an earlier post is how much different Google's strategy is to Apple's when it comes to their mobile platforms. While Apple has only released the iPhone on its handsets and on the AT&T network, Google has gone with a wider spread approach and essentially released Android into the wild. So maybe it's incorrect to compare the Android (Droid) to the iPhone, when we really should be comparing it to something else.
This Tech Crunch article ("The problem with iPhone Killers") does a great job of highlighting this point. The Droid isn't actually an iPhone Killer because first and foremost... it's not trying to be an iPhone Killer! Although it's competing in the same marketplace with the iPhone, in actuality Google's strategy and approach seems to be more targeted at being a "Windows Mobile Killer". Google is following the same mobile operation model as Microsoft; releasing its mobile operating system to the device makers and letting them control the physical hardware and distribution process. But the big difference for Google is that its OS is open source and free, while Microsoft charges licensing fees upwards of $25 per phone. The problem for Microsoft right now is that the Android platform is starting to gain real traction with the public and with the device makers. We're seeing more and more phones released with the Android platform, stealing away market share from Windows Mobile. Microsoft is responding with its upcoming Windows Mobile 7 platform, but for now it looks like it could be facing a lengthy uphill battle against Google.
So while most people will be eagerly anticipating the release of the latest iPhone Killer next week, I think I'll be keeping a closer eye on the real battle going on in the mobile world. At some future point, Android might be a true iPhone killer, but for now Google appears to be focusing on building up its mobile base by going after much weaker prey: Microsoft.
Of course the Droid has been called the "iPhone Killer", but then again so has every other new phone that has come out recently. One thing I mentioned in an earlier post is how much different Google's strategy is to Apple's when it comes to their mobile platforms. While Apple has only released the iPhone on its handsets and on the AT&T network, Google has gone with a wider spread approach and essentially released Android into the wild. So maybe it's incorrect to compare the Android (Droid) to the iPhone, when we really should be comparing it to something else.
This Tech Crunch article ("The problem with iPhone Killers") does a great job of highlighting this point. The Droid isn't actually an iPhone Killer because first and foremost... it's not trying to be an iPhone Killer! Although it's competing in the same marketplace with the iPhone, in actuality Google's strategy and approach seems to be more targeted at being a "Windows Mobile Killer". Google is following the same mobile operation model as Microsoft; releasing its mobile operating system to the device makers and letting them control the physical hardware and distribution process. But the big difference for Google is that its OS is open source and free, while Microsoft charges licensing fees upwards of $25 per phone. The problem for Microsoft right now is that the Android platform is starting to gain real traction with the public and with the device makers. We're seeing more and more phones released with the Android platform, stealing away market share from Windows Mobile. Microsoft is responding with its upcoming Windows Mobile 7 platform, but for now it looks like it could be facing a lengthy uphill battle against Google.
So while most people will be eagerly anticipating the release of the latest iPhone Killer next week, I think I'll be keeping a closer eye on the real battle going on in the mobile world. At some future point, Android might be a true iPhone killer, but for now Google appears to be focusing on building up its mobile base by going after much weaker prey: Microsoft.
Would you pay for Hulu?
That's the question a lot of people are asking themselves this week, as Hulu subscription rumors began flying all over the internet. It seems that Hulu isn't really an "evil plot to destroy the world" after all, but just another multimedia company trying to make money off of us. Who knew? Still, for those of us who have started to rely on Hulu for our viewing needs, it could signal the end of the free ride.
Hulu has done an impressive job of building up a large user base and partnering with several key content providers (NBC, ABC and Fox) over the past year or so. They have a lot of mainstream TV shows on their platform, both from the major networks and the smaller cable networks. I've used it a bunch of times to catch up on shows that I'm casually following (I DVR my serious shows). Some of my friends have even gotten rid of their cable subscriptions entirely because most of the shows they would watch on cable are now available for free on Hulu.
So how much would you be willing to pay for Hulu? There haven't been any real numbers thrown around yet, so it's hard to get a feel for what the Hulu executives are thinking. There has been mention of this pay model only applying to certain programming, so it sounds like it will be a pay-per-view model, and not a general subscription model. If that's the case, will they follow an iTunes model, and charge something like $0.99 for each show? You'd be able to watch the show for a couple of days after paying for it, and potentially be able to watch it on more than one computer.
If they went with this pay-per-view model for only the latest and hottest TV shows, I think it could work out. In theory, people would be willing to pay a premium charge to gain access to the latest episode of their favorite shows. Still, I don't think casual viewers would be willing to pay this cost, and it could turn off a lot of potential viewers from an aspiring show.
We'll see how Hulu plays this out. I'm tempted to close out this post by saying something about the "best things in life being free", but I won't. Instead, I'll close it out by saying something about "if it's seems too good to be true, then it probably is". I think we all knew Hulu was too good to be true, and that one day it would start charging for its content. It seems like that day is coming soon, whether we like it or not.
Hulu has done an impressive job of building up a large user base and partnering with several key content providers (NBC, ABC and Fox) over the past year or so. They have a lot of mainstream TV shows on their platform, both from the major networks and the smaller cable networks. I've used it a bunch of times to catch up on shows that I'm casually following (I DVR my serious shows). Some of my friends have even gotten rid of their cable subscriptions entirely because most of the shows they would watch on cable are now available for free on Hulu.
So how much would you be willing to pay for Hulu? There haven't been any real numbers thrown around yet, so it's hard to get a feel for what the Hulu executives are thinking. There has been mention of this pay model only applying to certain programming, so it sounds like it will be a pay-per-view model, and not a general subscription model. If that's the case, will they follow an iTunes model, and charge something like $0.99 for each show? You'd be able to watch the show for a couple of days after paying for it, and potentially be able to watch it on more than one computer.
If they went with this pay-per-view model for only the latest and hottest TV shows, I think it could work out. In theory, people would be willing to pay a premium charge to gain access to the latest episode of their favorite shows. Still, I don't think casual viewers would be willing to pay this cost, and it could turn off a lot of potential viewers from an aspiring show.
We'll see how Hulu plays this out. I'm tempted to close out this post by saying something about the "best things in life being free", but I won't. Instead, I'll close it out by saying something about "if it's seems too good to be true, then it probably is". I think we all knew Hulu was too good to be true, and that one day it would start charging for its content. It seems like that day is coming soon, whether we like it or not.
The Droid is coming
There's a lot of buzz going around right now about the new Droid phone. It's a Motorola smartphone running the Google Android platform on Verizon's network. The technical specs on the phone sound impressive, and the marketing campaign launching right now is positioning it as the iPhone killer everyone has been waiting for.
A couple posts ago I talked about Windows Mobile phones vs. the iPhone. I mentioned that even though the Windows HTC phone I was looking at might have better technical specs, it didn't have the same complementary 'network' (Apps Store, user base) that the iPhone has and as such was at a disadvantage. I didn't mention the Google Android platform at the time, but it is certainly emerging as a contender in the mobile operating system market.
The App Store has 85,000 applications available, and coming in (a somewhat distant) distant second is the Android Market at 10,200. These numbers are based on statistics pulled on Sept. 9th, 2009.
So how did Google get the Android platform to a place where it's ready to take on the current reigning champion? This CNET article ("Google Andoid: More than just a cheap date") seems to attribute most of Android's success to its open source nature. Google pretty much gives away the Android platform to any device manufacturer that might be interested in using it. This allows for anyone to experiment with the platform on their upcoming phones and helps lower the overall cost of manufacturing and licensing. The platform also draws in a heavy crowd of application developers looking for the flexibility of open source. Seems like a win-win in terms of adoption for Google. For now the focus appears to be on gaining widespread adoption and usage, and using that as a channel to deliver search and advertising services. Classic Google.
The new Droid phone appears to have the two key features needed to take on the iPhone. It has equal (if not better) technical specs. More importantly, it has a complementary network that is growing and will soon challenge the App Store in offerings. As the Android platform is released on more and more new phones we should see the Android user base steadily grow. We'll see if this is enough to take on the incumbent Apple.
A couple posts ago I talked about Windows Mobile phones vs. the iPhone. I mentioned that even though the Windows HTC phone I was looking at might have better technical specs, it didn't have the same complementary 'network' (Apps Store, user base) that the iPhone has and as such was at a disadvantage. I didn't mention the Google Android platform at the time, but it is certainly emerging as a contender in the mobile operating system market.
The App Store has 85,000 applications available, and coming in (a somewhat distant) distant second is the Android Market at 10,200. These numbers are based on statistics pulled on Sept. 9th, 2009.
So how did Google get the Android platform to a place where it's ready to take on the current reigning champion? This CNET article ("Google Andoid: More than just a cheap date") seems to attribute most of Android's success to its open source nature. Google pretty much gives away the Android platform to any device manufacturer that might be interested in using it. This allows for anyone to experiment with the platform on their upcoming phones and helps lower the overall cost of manufacturing and licensing. The platform also draws in a heavy crowd of application developers looking for the flexibility of open source. Seems like a win-win in terms of adoption for Google. For now the focus appears to be on gaining widespread adoption and usage, and using that as a channel to deliver search and advertising services. Classic Google.
The new Droid phone appears to have the two key features needed to take on the iPhone. It has equal (if not better) technical specs. More importantly, it has a complementary network that is growing and will soon challenge the App Store in offerings. As the Android platform is released on more and more new phones we should see the Android user base steadily grow. We'll see if this is enough to take on the incumbent Apple.
Social class on the internet
CNN posted (yet another) story last week on the social class divide between MySpace and Facebook. This concept has been thrown around for a while now; I think I first read about it a year ago. Basically, users of Facebook tend to be more educated and affluent than users of MySpace. This makes sense when you think about how and where Facebook got started. It originally started out as a service for students at Harvard, and branched out to other colleges before becoming fully public in 2006. MySpace, on the other hand, started out open to everyone.
I avoided the whole MySpace craze back in its day. I had a Friendster account way back when and then joined Facebook pretty late after taking a hiatus from social networking sites. So I may not be the best resource on all these sites, but from a personal perspective I never liked (and still don’t like) MySpace. Every profile page I looked at had HTML diarrhea all over the place. It was the most cluttered busy obnoxious site I could imagine, and I couldn’t comprehend why people needed to add so much junk to their profile pages. It appeared “uneducated”, if that makes any sense… it all seemed so childish and amateurish I couldn’t bring myself to make a profile and validate MySpace’s existence. I know, it sounds a little harsh, but I don’t take too kindly to my eyeballs being violated every time I had to visit MySpace.
Facebook on the other hand has a lot more structure and control, and that visually and logically appeals to me. The privacy controls are important to me, because I understand the risks of letting the public see my profile, both personally and professionally. In my mind, Facebook has a lot more ‘functionality’ in place that actually serves a purpose and isn’t just there to flaunt the latest style or widget that was hot at the time.
Back to social class on the internet. It makes sense to me why the demographics are lining up the way they are on those two social networking sites. There are several articles out on the internet that talk about that. The CNN article also mentions two other sites that attract even more affluent users: Twitter and LinkedIn.
LinkedIn makes sense; it’s a site for white-collar professionals who are seeking to build up their professional network.
Twitter is a bit more interesting… is it because only upper-class yuppies would be so self-centered to think that anyone really wants to ready the very minutia of their lives? Or because only they have that much free time on their hands to waste time twittering about life’s little foibles? :)
Here’s another example of a class divide between internet services. Gmail users tend to have a higher credit score than Yahoo users… the article notes that it might be because young users favor Yahoo email so that drives down the average credit score on that site.
I wonder what other cases might be out there… YouTube vs. Hulu? Flickr vs Picasa? Blogger vs. LiveJournal?
New Smartphone
I’m in the market for a new phone right now. My current phone is a couple years old, and it’s constantly getting made fun of when I pull it out. It’s a T-Mobile MDA phone, which uses the HTC Wizard base model. I’m actually not quite sure if it’s a Wizard or a Hermes model, but that’s beside the point. The point is my phone is very old.
A month ago, I had it in my head that I was going to buy the latest HTC Windows phone, the HTC Touch Pro 2. It’s a pretty slick phone, it has all the latest touch screen features and is 3G enabled and has a slide out keyboard. It has been toted as the iPhone killer, but then again, so has almost every new smartphone that has come out recently. On my Facebook profile I posted a link to the phone and said “My next phone, aka the iPhone killer!” Well, that prompted a couple of people to comment on my post, most of them disagreeing with my statement and saying the iPhone was better. My brother actually made the best point of the bunch when he pointed out the biggest reason why the iPhone was better than the HTC phone had nothing to do with the phone technology itself, but with Apple’s App Store. Both phones are on par with each other, technology wise, but only the iPhone has the big content base at the App Store which gives the phone so much more added value.
Most consumers don’t care about the exact specs of each phone; which phone has the most memory or the slightly better camera. What they care about is all the “cool stuff” you can do with the phone. Right now Apple has a huge advantage over all other phones and applications stores because you can do more “cool stuff” with their phone than you can with other phones. That doesn’t mean their phone is better. It means that Apple got into the market early, built up a massive installed user base, and is now leveraging that user base to build out its complementary App Store service. Microsoft or Blackberry can roll out phones with better specs and functionality than the iPhone, but until they build out their user base and offer equally as cool applications on their own stores they won’t stand much of a chance against Apple. Which is a bit of a catch-22… how do you get more people to use and develop apps for your phone if the only way they’ll do that is if there is a bigger user and developer base for it?
In the ideal world (for consumers), we’d see a uniform platform used for all these phones and all the cool and innovative applications would work on any smartphone. That’s probably not going to happen anytime soon, but it would probably spawn a lot of growth in the mobile apps market. As it is right now, Apple has the dominant standard in the industry, but I can see Microsoft investing a lot of time and money trying to get their Windows standard spread out across the mobile landscape. It will be interesting to see the tactics they’ll use to achieve this…
Ok, back to my next phone purchase. I’m not sure what I’m going to do now. The HTC phone is nice, and would work well with my current carrier (T-Mobile), but it’s still priced really high even with a 2-year contract. I’m not sure if I’m ready to switch over my family plan to AT&T, so that limits some of my options. One thing I am considering is buying a separate phone line just for the iPhone, so I can play around with it over the next couple of months. I’m also *maybe* thinking about buying an iPhone unlocked and using it on the T-Mobile network. I’ve heard you can do this and pretty much everything works properly. I may go down this route just to go down the route… it sounds pretty cool and hackerish! :)
A month ago, I had it in my head that I was going to buy the latest HTC Windows phone, the HTC Touch Pro 2. It’s a pretty slick phone, it has all the latest touch screen features and is 3G enabled and has a slide out keyboard. It has been toted as the iPhone killer, but then again, so has almost every new smartphone that has come out recently. On my Facebook profile I posted a link to the phone and said “My next phone, aka the iPhone killer!” Well, that prompted a couple of people to comment on my post, most of them disagreeing with my statement and saying the iPhone was better. My brother actually made the best point of the bunch when he pointed out the biggest reason why the iPhone was better than the HTC phone had nothing to do with the phone technology itself, but with Apple’s App Store. Both phones are on par with each other, technology wise, but only the iPhone has the big content base at the App Store which gives the phone so much more added value.
Most consumers don’t care about the exact specs of each phone; which phone has the most memory or the slightly better camera. What they care about is all the “cool stuff” you can do with the phone. Right now Apple has a huge advantage over all other phones and applications stores because you can do more “cool stuff” with their phone than you can with other phones. That doesn’t mean their phone is better. It means that Apple got into the market early, built up a massive installed user base, and is now leveraging that user base to build out its complementary App Store service. Microsoft or Blackberry can roll out phones with better specs and functionality than the iPhone, but until they build out their user base and offer equally as cool applications on their own stores they won’t stand much of a chance against Apple. Which is a bit of a catch-22… how do you get more people to use and develop apps for your phone if the only way they’ll do that is if there is a bigger user and developer base for it?
In the ideal world (for consumers), we’d see a uniform platform used for all these phones and all the cool and innovative applications would work on any smartphone. That’s probably not going to happen anytime soon, but it would probably spawn a lot of growth in the mobile apps market. As it is right now, Apple has the dominant standard in the industry, but I can see Microsoft investing a lot of time and money trying to get their Windows standard spread out across the mobile landscape. It will be interesting to see the tactics they’ll use to achieve this…
Ok, back to my next phone purchase. I’m not sure what I’m going to do now. The HTC phone is nice, and would work well with my current carrier (T-Mobile), but it’s still priced really high even with a 2-year contract. I’m not sure if I’m ready to switch over my family plan to AT&T, so that limits some of my options. One thing I am considering is buying a separate phone line just for the iPhone, so I can play around with it over the next couple of months. I’m also *maybe* thinking about buying an iPhone unlocked and using it on the T-Mobile network. I’ve heard you can do this and pretty much everything works properly. I may go down this route just to go down the route… it sounds pretty cool and hackerish! :)
