broadstuff

So Facebook has finally released a synchronous chat service, like oh...IM. Problem is, attached to a Full Service social network with 60m odd users one gets immediately bombarded with lots of people chatting - like various IM services were in the early days when everyone was trying it out. But IM calmed down.

To be sanguine about it therefore, the Facebook service will probably calm down when everyone has told their entire social network that they are in chat mode, and become more usable

We did most of our "heavy lifting" work on social network dynamics about 3 years ago, and to be honest we haven't seen much change in people's behaviours since then - at the time "Chatting" (ie direct interaction between people) - in all its forms - was the killer application on a social network.

This is probably also good for Facebook usage stats - in fact given the collective brainpower they have allegedly amassed, its sort of surprising they have been so slow to the party. They've allowed all sorts of other services to grow into the vacuum.

The other issue they face is platform interoperability - Twitter for example being across mobile and websites, and being fairly open lends itself to a lot of add-on services.

I wonder how Beacon integrates into this service

Update - another surprised user....maybe pull based comms and/or some sort of presence/warning system may be a good idea?

This came to me on the train this morning - I was thinking about which tech blogs I like to read, and why, and how you might structure "what sort of blog are they" into a filter system - and then this simple 2x2 came to me:



The 2 axes I thought of are the:

- Tone of blog - is it continually breatlessly awestruck by whatever new new thing is emerging or perpetually cynical?
- Content of blog - is it part of the echo chamber, or is it giving out original thoughts

This led to 4 quadrants - so, and my thoughts on them, starting from the "Sweet Spot 2.0" :

(i) Original thought, but perpetually awestruck. This - in my opinion - is the path to "Gurudom 2.0", you are leading the way in saying what everyone desperately wants to hear. The two problems with it (I find anyway) are:
- I think it is to an extent intellectually dishonest - they must know that this stuff isn't always so shiny shiny - mustn't they?
- it ages fast - the lack of a critical aspect shows the writer to be naive in hindsight, and this is a fast moving industry.

Still, it works - its arguably the best way to clamber up the Blog Influence ladder.

(ii) Echo Chamber, Continually Awestruck - I look at these and think "whats the point" but in reality this is the A list blogger equivalent of a fan base, at worst they are the blog groupies. By and large harmless, but - as we have experienced - if you ever disagree with a Blog Guru or a Current Trend, these are the blogs that will attack you directly. This allows the Gurus to stand above the fray, so they have their uses.

(iii) EchoChamber, Perpetually Negative - Precisely because there is so much hype and snake oil in any bubble that running around with a pin pricking all the bubblemes is an easy gig. Possibly they serve the purpose of the Jester, but because the tone is resolutely cynical but without adding anything new, its sort of like candy - a bit of it is wonderful, but, like Private Eye its best taken in small doses or else its tales of the Valley wind up wagging your blogging dog

(iv) Original Thought, Perpetually Negative - in a way I admire these most - they are getting up there and saying stuff that is unpopular or unpalatable, and backing it up with sound, original argument. Over time though, they risk being ignored by the Faithful (always too negative) and even by the neutral as its the easier gig - the Accuntants play - see the price in everything, but not the value. One person I really do admire here is Nick Carr - perpetually curmudgeonly, but always soundly argued and thought provoking

Over time I find myself inclining to the right in my reading, and whereas once i sought out the bottom corner to run a counterpoint, I am increasingly of the opinion that that is where "realism" lies, as I think Gurudom 2.0 does risk breeding a sort of "Optimism Arms Race" - who can pimp the new new thing better, faster, further?

And what about Broadstuff, I hear you ask?

I think we have over time become more sceptical in the flow, (though it may just be we've stayed the same as optimism inflates?) - the analytical part of me (or the Santayana's Law part that went through Web 1.0 ) just knows that much of the New New stuff is pan-glossing over reality - but I'd like to think we do it with a sense of fun - "wittily sceptical" would be the aim. Whether this is the "correct" tone for a sober, mature New Media consultancy is unclear - but its by far the most fun to write

Also, I know how hard it is to continually provide original thought, and my respect for those of all persuasions who do has increased over the time we've been doing Broadstuff. Our standards have slipped to doing some original thought - one a week if we can - but also commenting on what is going around - the rule we try to follow though is only to comment if we know something about the area from real work we have done.

Oh, and if I could write half as well as the Economist does, I'd die happy

I guess in a way the risk is we sit in the space of the stuff I like to read the most now, so for diversity I now try harder to reach outside it.

Be fascinated to hear others thought (i) on what you think / like, (ii) how you might filter it and (iii) of what you think we could do better / differently.

Last year Google pulled the plug on its DRM'd video service (see our post on that here). The lesson for anyone buying DRM's material was clear - at some point, your supplier is going to pull out and you will be up sh*t creek sans digital paddle.

Anyway, looks like Microsoft has now joined the happy club - from Ars Tech.

Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft's now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it's done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer.

Microsoft's decision to turn off the MSN Music authorization servers serves as a painful reminder that DRM ultimately severely limits your rights. Companies that control various DRM schemes, as well as the content providers themselves, can yank your ability to play the content which you lawfully purchased (and now, videos) at any moment—no matter what your expectation was when you bought it.

Update - Microsoft defends the decision over here - tough sell....

I was surprised that there was no real legal challenge against Google last year, so clearly there is little protection for customers against DRM unplugging.

That possibly leads to a way to bring about its downfall - lobby to ensure that DRM user companies must keep their customers' media going, or pay for upgrade - ie raise the exit costs to a point that its just not worth risking using DRM.

This is too funny - London's literati are up in arms because the British Library (shock horror) has got people in it - sez The Times:

Two years after one of the world’s greatest libraries opened its doors to undergraduates and anyone working on research, high-profile writers and academics say that the struggle to find a desk is now intolerable. Library directors stand accused of increasing visitor numbers to boost funds and performance bonuses.

Although there are 1,480 seats in the library, the author Christopher Hawtree was last week forced to perch on a windowsill while the historians Lady Antonia Fraser and Claire Tomalin have swapped horror stories of interminable queues.

Poor things! Isn't it terrible that this free, hugely useful, tax funded resource is being used by - the people who fund it! But clearly if you are one our Literary Elite, being of the people and for the people is one thing, but having them all round you is a Tragedy of the Commoners:

"Access has many good points, but making the British Library, which was for specialist readers, into something for general readers seems to me terrible.”

The historian Tristram Hunt said that it was a scandal that it was impossible to get a seat after 11am when students were there. Many people travelling from outside London complain that they cannot get to the buidling any earlier. “Students come in to revise rather than to use the books,” he said. “It’s a ‘groovy place’ to meet for a frappuccino. It’s noisy and it’s undermining both the British Library’s function, as books take longer to get, and the scholarly atmosphere.”

Not only that, but the peons are revolting !

Ms Tomalin described the crowds as intolerable: “It’s full of what seem to be schoolgirls giggling. I heard one saying, ‘I’ve got to write about Islam. Can I have your notes?’ It’s what you expect to hear in a school.”

(Actually, mathematician and satirist Tom Lehrer sent up the academic fraternity on this in one of his songs, the refrain being:

plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research".

I do have some sympathy though, having experienced noisy giggling people in the reading room (but they were in their 40's and quite clearly researching a dangerous liaison of the non-literary kind ). Clearly you can't fill a resource like this with too many people who are not using it for its intended purpose, ie research using the materials at hand, but also quite bluntly you can't expect taxpayers to pay for stuff and then deny them entry, even for the shocking pursuit of...studying. That's basically taking working class people's money to pay for expensively educated people's pursuits, which is the National Lottery's job

So how about we suggest you have to....gasp...pay for passes to the reading rooms. That, as any economist would know, will quickly remove the tragedy of the commoners problem. £120 a year OK, a tenner a month, the pound a day in the locker is theirs for keeps?

I'll bet that would generate even bigger wails of protest

(Disclosure - We do a huge amount of our background research at the British Library, when we started using it 3 years ago it was fairly unique in London in having great space, good coffee and the added bonus of the Business and Science reading rooms - which are usually far emptier than the Socio/Literary ones by the way . Its biggest problem is no free wifi as yet. Maybe the Literati should come on over to the Biz rooms - a few good novels or histories on patents, or the market for concrete, for those crowded out....)

Last night Nico MacDonald led the Innovation Reading Circle discussion on Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody. I read it when it came out (here's my review) and I was curious to see what others' views were.

Well, we had a very robust discussion on the book before delving into all sorts of interesting subjects, my take on the synthesis re the book was :

- It's probably the best summary around in one place of "where we are today" in the overall "New Broadband World"
- Its well written and easy to get into, though the predictable "its page 17, so here's a reference to a Web 2.0 icon story" made it read like a standard production line schlockbuster at times
- It's pitched at a general audience, its probably too lightweight for anyone who has been in the area awhile, but has some great insights and is still a necessary read to cover any gaps in one's knowledge

What I do have to give Clay credit for though, on last night's evidence, is getting the "balance" about right in terms of the way the stuff was covered, in that we were equally divided over issues such as too much economic bias vs not enough, too socially "right on" vs not enough, too reverent of Open Source vs not enough, too dry vs too opinionated etc etc - in other words he had managed to upset everyone equally

So what was missing - the strong themes emerging were:

- Too optimistic - ie Bad Things were touched on, but were pan-glossed over in the general upsell
- There were great insights, but not nearly enough follow up "So What"
- There was a related feeling that he had "kept his powder dry" too much, as people familiar with NYU and elsewhere all know there is a lot of interesting work going on in projecting these trends forwards - the feeling was that this book needs a sequel, discussing what this all implies.
- The basic contention around the power of small groups to get things done - quite a lot of doubt about whether this is true (do they just get subverted by bigger interests) and the ability to build/run things rather than rebel/tear down things.

What it did drive were some great discussions - outsourcing R&D and its risks (see earlier post), how creative destruction works, structural vs charismatic power, what bureaucratic structures were essential in society, risk averse societies grabbing social media, digital natives vs those who held power etc etc.

For me though, the killer thoughts of the evening were two related ones:

- All major comms revolutions drive major socioeconomic changes, not all of these are benign (job losses en masse) or peaceful (wars)
- This technology is appearing at a point in time when people seem to be uniquely unhappy with the current structures by which we are governed and run, and just who are the decisions in favour of (the £50bn bailout of prodigal bankers happening at the time being a case in point)

Fascinating stuff...and I suppose Clay would note that its the changes in technology that he wrote about that allows a small cell like this to form, meet and disband so easily

Crowdsourcing product development is a meme I've been watching bubble away awhile, but these 2 articles got me going enough to write something: Firstly, Jeff Jarvis in the Grauniad - the use of customer feedback for suggestions:

Starbucks, Dell and Salesforce.com have opened public forums for customer ideas, all using software from Salesforce. Customers submit their ideas, then fellow-customers vote on them - some gain a following, others die on the vine - and the companies implement the best of them.

So far so good, and it can be a great power for the good:

Dell's IdeaStorm.com was a tactic in the reformation of its scarred relationship with customers online. At the latest count, Dell has received more than 8,000 ideas, voted on 600,000 times, and it has implemented a score of them, including a new line of computers equipped with open-source Linux instead of Microsoft Windows. Michael Dell told me when I interviewed him for Business Week that this is the beginning of "cocreation of products ... a company this size is not going to be about a couple of people coming up with ideas. It's going to be about millions of people and harnessing the power of those ideas."

But it has its limitations - somehow I doubt this is what Starbucks Corporate wanted to see:

The top suggestion at MyStarbucksIdea as I write this - with 53,000 votes and 600 comments - is loftier: to bring cafe society to the cafes. "Use the power of media and wireless new media in particular to foster a sense of conversation about the arts, current events, etc," one customer proposed. An enthused commenter responded: "Great conversation will also renew the image of Starbucks as being not only a coffee community but also a global community where humanist ideas and great artists, writers, comedians etc could also attract a lot of people and turn Starbucks into a cultural, humanist hub!"

You can see where this one is going....the issue with all things Socially Mediated is when they get sidetracked from the original intentions, or worse gamed, and then how do you bring it back on track without (publicly) losing goodwill. So when Jeff says that.....

I would love to see this platform for mutual engagement also taken to government. I'm not suggesting we transform parliament into an online forum. But why shouldn't constituents share their good ideas and use the organising power of the internet to gather movements around them?

....that when the part of me that believes in democracy says "Yes, that is Way Cool" - and then the part of me that understands Social Media's true usage patterns (ie small minorities of connected actives tend to drive the buzz) , and how lobby groups work, and how access to PR money trumps honest wisdom of crowd systems etc etc, says no ways should this approach be used, not without considerable safeguards to ensure that powerful special interest groups don't over-run the systems and drown out the Silent Majority.

The other thing that concerned me was a related Read Write Web article on much the same subject, except they called it "Crowdsourcing R&D". But this is a myth - Crowdsourcing software is not "R&D" - Crowdsourcing is just a glorified "Social Media" suggestion box scheme. R&D is that hard stuff that creates sustainable economic advantage, that requires investment and long term planning - the thing that many western companies are cutting back on for short term gain. To confuse this sort of project with R&D, while comforting, is probably risky as one starts thinking that box is ticked when it isn't.

Now to be sure, there are success stories of outsourcing R&D - but there is probably a useful debate here - ie structurally, is it wise that major corporates - and by extension, western nations - crowdsource their forward R&D to their customers and (lowly capitalised) enthusiasts in garages, whether they be startups or retired enthusiasts? Can this approach really pull off the groundbreaking R&D required for long term competitive advantage?

Update - Vivek Bhaskaran , the CEO of the company featured in the RWW article, has put a thoughtful post below. I also noted I wasn't maligning his company - or an other Crowdsourcing company - more that RWW calling this R&D is not really accurate. Maybe I'm just oversensitive, but with the closure or scaling back of large amounts of the US and UK's "real" R&D labs over the last decade, its not clear to me how this is being replaced.

(Disclosure - we have worked with a number of the top UK R&D labs in our space)

As 20 UK & Irish startups fly to Silicon Valley, hopefully Being Good, Sarah Lacy has written another post on her impressions of the UK scene over on BusinessWeek. As always, the issue is "does London have/ will it get a Tech startup scene"?. Sez Sarah:

The fact is, you can start a breakout Web-based company anywhere. But there are few pockets where this happens with any regularity. It's an open question whether the MySQL, Skype, Bebo, and Last.fm acquisitions were coincidental or there is genuinely some Internet scene and momentum building in London. It's also unclear whether any big standalone public companies will emerge from the pack.....

.......There's hope for London yet. While the number of bets placed by U.S.-based firms is declining, the average deal size is on the rise. In 2007, the number of investments by U.S.-based firms in Europe declined for a sixth straight year, to 897, even as the tally soared elsewhere, according to VentureOne, a Dow Jones company. Meantime, the total invested has been rising steadily since 2003, increasing to $4.6 billion in 2007. In other words, there are fewer bets, but the bets are substantial.

That looks to me like the healthy emergence of a market—and not sheer momentum investing that will disappear as soon as a slump hits.

I hope that London does increase its scene, and some people think we have everything we need and going to the US is fruitless...though a market that is declining in number of bets and increasing the value per bet, and where major gorilla 3i is bailing, looks like its a return to the safety first VC world of the post dotcom crash to me.

To be fair though, its not the VC's per se that are the issue - its that "equity gap" between where Friends & Fools fall away, and VC's come in - that c £150 - 750k area where Angels are fearing to tread - that is the UK's own Achilles heel in my view.

If we can solve that in London, we have a viable entrepreneurial scene - if we don't...well, we won't.

.....by none other than David Byrne, a real Talking Head, over here.

(We have analysis of our own, but this is the level of authority that really goes down well - hence the link love )

Thanks to Confused of Calcutta for the link - interesting article too.

I have written a few articles recently on the increasing commercialisation of the Open Source world (see here for example) and not everyone is happy with this

However, in my defence, its not just me commenting on the trend - Nick Carr writes about Linux today:

There's nothing particularly surprising in the shift from the volunteer to the corporate model - it tends to be what happens when lots of money enters the picture - but it does reveal that while Net-based "social production" efforts may be unprecedented in their scale and unusual in their technology-mediated structure, they are no more immune, or even resistant, to being incorporated into established market systems than any other type of labor that produces commercially valuable goods. The shift in Linux kernel development from unpaid to paid labor, from volunteers to employees, suggests that the Net doesn't necessarily weaken the hand of central management or repeal old truths about business organization.

No doubt not everyone will be happy with Nick either

Forrester reports that Enterprise 2.0 will be a $4.6bn market by 2013, as reported in ReadWriteWeb.

We're in the middle of an Enterprise 2.0 / SaaS / PaaS / Add your term here for this emerging arena - and the thing that is most amusing / frustrating / time consuming is that the same rough buckets of money appear in many / all of the different market sizings, so that double / triple / quadruple counting is endemic / systemic / the norm.

Not only that, but as ReadWriteWeb notes, a lot of "Web 2.0" stuff are features, not products in their own right, so are fairly easily absorbed into current Enterprise applications.

The article goes on to talk about the vexing question of getting adoption, the standard issues are raised:

- "Not invented here" - groups outside IT want them, IT doesn't, because...
- IT has no budget for new stuff
- IT has to run a reliable, secure, scalable infrastructure - it needs new unproven stuff like it need a hole in the head
- IT will use the free consumer version rather than pay up
- IT will wait for their current suppliers to integrate the services

Our observation is that these technologies will be adopted faster by:

- Companies in sectors where the tools will impact what they actually do for a living - not everyone needs a Wiki, Blog or Social widget desperately
- Smaller companies, for whom the low cost bang for buck is attractive and the existing infrastructure is less pervasive
- Areas outside IT will drive adoption, as by definition they will have the need

But the path of adoption will be low price, low risk in the early days - who is going to bet the server farm on small companies that couldn't deliver an extensive SLA ........