Entries by Alan Patrick

This is the script - Google's Android takes the place of the IBM PC/MS-DOS play (DOS, for the yoof, was the first Microsoft PC Operating System*, wot came before Windows) in the emerging Smartphone market, knocking out the others and pegging Apple back to its typical 15-20% of any computing market (of the highest margin gear, of course). Figures recently released show Android has doubled in share from 2.7% of the market to 5%, against iPhone's 25% and Blackberry's (read CP/M) 42% (see above)

Is this possible? Well, one person who I trust reviewed his experience of the AndroidoPhone on Twitter:

cluttered ui which punishes mistakes. forces you to learn new non- obvious interactions. screen doesn't work in daylight. no apps

Which he followed up with:

Not an android developer? get an iPhone

However, according to the article quoted above Android is the second most desired platform after the Apple now. So can it play the IBM/DOS role? PR spin or reality? Three things here:

- it seems the Android OS/UI is as user hostile as DOS ever was, so no barrier there . The difference was that compared to what came before you could do a lot more, on more powerful kit, with DOS. IBM's killer play was the PC with (gasp) 10Mb Hard disk at a decent price. Everyone had to have it!

- in the DOS/Apple wars, the DOS platform was open, Apple was closed so the developers flocked to DOS and unseated Apple, groovy Rip-Off-The-Wall Ads or not. This time round, Apple has learned the lesson so it has a massive community of developers building Apps already.

- Early DOS machines were sold by retailers with lots of support, which punters loved. Google has used more of a BOFO approach (Buy One and F*ck Off) which has not won friends and influenced enemies as much

- Microsoft were not The Borg at the time, they were seen - believe it or not - as quite groovy people. And everyone moaned about Big Blue but respected their ability to build good hardware. Who is the Groovy Guy in the Googlecamp?

In short, for Google to play IBM/MS-DOS and take centre stage this time round is going to be lot harder, as Apple has learned its lessons. If anything, Google seem to be behaving a bit like Apple did in the 1980s - Arrogant attitude, Average kit and no Apps.

*Well, technically DOS belonged to someone else, but MIcrosoft convinced IBM they had it - its a long story of intrigue and so on.....

They say that if Facebook was a country, it would be 350m people and the same size as the USA. Interestingly though, it's social networks break down into a number of regional ones, as noted in the diagram by Pete Warden (see above). He defines 6 distinct regions:

Stayathomia

Stretching from New York to Minnesota, this belt's defining feature is how near most people are to their friends, implying they don't move far. In most cases outside the largest cities, the most common connections are with immediately neighboring cities, and even New York only has one really long-range link in its top 10. Apart from Los Angeles, all of its strong ties are comparatively local.


Dixie

Probably the least surprising of the groupings, the Old South is known for its strong and shared culture, and the pattern of ties I see backs that up. Like Stayathomia, Dixie towns tend to have links mostly to other nearby cities rather than spanning the country. Atlanta is definitely the hub of the network, showing up in the top 5 list of almost every town in the region. Southern Florida is an exception to the cluster, with a lot of connections to the East Coast, presumably sun-seeking refugees.

Greater Texas

Orbiting around Dallas, the ties of the Gulf Coast towns and Oklahoma and Arkansas make them look more Texan than Southern. Unlike Stayathomia, there's a definite central city to this cluster, otherwise most towns just connect to their immediate neighbors.

Mormonia

The only region that's completely surrounded by another cluster, Mormonia mostly consists of Utah towns that are highly connected to each other, with an offshoot in Eastern Idaho. It's worth separating from the rest of the West because of how interwoven the communities are, and how relatively unlikely they are to have friends outside the region.

Nomadic West

The defining feature of this area is how likely even small towns are to be strongly connected to distant cities, it looks like the inhabitants have done a lot of moving around the county. For example, Boise, ID, Bend, OR and Phoenix, AZ all have much wider connections than you'd expect for towns their size:

Socalistan

Sorry Bay Area folks, but LA is definitely the center of gravity for this cluster. Almost everywhere in California and Nevada has links to both LA and SF, but LA is usually first. Part of that may be due to the way the cities are split up, but in tribute to the 8 years I spent there, I christened it Socalistan. Californians outside the super-cities tend to be most connected to other Californians, making almost as tight a cluster as Greater Texas.

Pacifica

The most boring of the clusters, the area around Seattle is disappointingly average. Tightly connected to each other, it doesn't look like Washingtonians are big travelers compared to the rest of the West, even though a lot of them claim to need a vacation!

I guess Amishia doesn't make it as they don't have the Interenetz

Not only can one tell a lot about you by the searches you make, seems a lot can also be deduced from the search engine we use, as a WPP survey of 17,000 US internet users shows - Ad Age:

What does your search engine say about you? Well, if it's Bing, you're probably an early adopter, but you also visit, shop and ultimately make purchases from Walmart more than other search-engine users. Google searchers, on the other hand, are partial to Target and Amazon, and Yahoo searchers have a strong preference for wireless service from AT&T and Sprint.

Google users are more likely to book a flight online at JetBlue or make a reservation on Hotwire. They are also more likely to do research on a Lexus, while Bing users tend more toward Toyota. Aside from uncovering the research and purchasing habits of consumers, the study claims to have identified a host of demographic and psychographic information on search-engine users.

For instance, AOL customers feel less intellectual than their peers, are 55 and older, spend their money more responsibly, want to blend in to the crowd, feel like they've gotten a raw deal out of life, expect less from their future and, believe it or not, still use dial-up modems. Bing users are middle-aged, highly educated tech-savvy individuals who consider themselves to be average and spend more than 10 hours a week online.

Googlers tend to be the average internet Joe, according to the study. The search leader's loyalists are conventional people yet open to trying new things, believe in following rules and don't consider themselves any smarter or less intelligent than the person next to them. Yahoo users tend to be 55-plus, reserved and a less-independent group with little faith in imagination. They feel they have little control over their future and are skeptical and cautious of new or untried ideas.

Fascinating. I've used Dogpile for nigh on 10 years, it searches all the other engines and aggregates their result for you. I love the "parasite search engine" design (I wonder what that says about me ). Interesting that it hasn't really taken off though.

Update - realised there is a bigger story here. In an age where we see Google moving to mainstream advertising at the Superbowl (while Pepsi eschews it), clearly which search engine you use is becoming as much a branding battle as for any other commodity product - ie there is little inherent technical differentiation left. Increasingly search engines will try and identify demographics they want for Advertising purposes, and set out their brands to recruit them. Next step is diversofoed brands for different segments - Google Lite, Bing Premier etc - and celebrity sponsorship. Oh joy.....

Forrester is cutting back on the ability of its analysts to create Personal MicroBrands, says Sage Circle:

Forrester CEO George Colony is well aware that savvy analysts can build their personal brands via their positions as Forrester analysts amplified by social media (see the post on “Altimeter Envy”). As a consequence, a Forrester policy that tries to restrict analysts’ personally-branded research blogs works to reduce the possibility that the analysts will build a valuable personal brand leading to their departure. In addition, forcing analysts to only blog on Forrester-branded blogs concentrates intellectual property onto Forrester properties increasing the value of the Forrester brand.

Dennis Howlett notes (that's where I read this) that Forrester may not have their Econometer correctly tuned:

I won’t discuss the precise numbers here but let’s say that neither the people I mention [Jeremiah Owyang, Ray Wang] were benefiting more than 5% of the revenue they brought in, often with zero support from sales. In other words, Forrester had 90-95% margin on the back of personal blogs but against which it was not prepared to compensate two hard workers. The same was true for Charlene Li the year before. Given what Ray and Jeremiah were doing, that should have sent a loud red flag signal to Forrester exec. Apparently not.

Possibly, but the IP ownership issues go deep - expect more of this in future. I await the Forrester Report on the topic with Eager Anticipation

Update - not a Forrester Report, but a response of sorts on the Forrester blog Groundswell, which was started by one of those who have left (Charlene Li). Anyway, it says:

But for Forrester, it serves our clients better to be able to get to all our blogs from one place, and to know the opinions of analysts that they see are part of the other opinions they read in our reports, in press quotes, and in everywhere else we talk.

Forrester does not yet have individual analyst blogs on our site, but that's coming quite soon. This is why it's so ironic to read comments that "We don't let analysts have individual blogs" or "Forrester should read Groundswell." I cowrote Groundswell, and I believe our policy is the right one. Groundswell says that your employees will be blogging -- it doesn't say that content companies should have their content creators blog anywhere they want. If you're creating content for a content company, that company ought to host your blog.

So, byelines on the company blog then. Seems like the best solution over all, after all newspapers and magazines have used it for many, many years.

Amidst news that Foursquare is growing like Topsy, (I don't get it - clunky UI, minimal user benefits, but hey...) interesting thoughts re the tradeoff of User Experience vs Privacy.....Venture Blog's David Hornik:

Over the last few weeks I've started to suffer from Four Square fatigue. After all, Four Square is a lot of work. To get the benefits of Four Square, you need to proactively check in wherever you go. And, while each checkin requires a relatively small amount of work, in the aggregate, it takes real effort to make the most of the Four Square experience.

Which leads to this interesting thought:

Would it be better if Four Square just checked you in automatically any time you lingered at a location for more than 15 or 20 minutes? Or does that cross the privacy line for most of us?

The challenges of Four Square have gotten me thinking more broadly about privacy on the web. On the one hand, the less proactive input a service requires, the less friction there is in maintaining its usefulness. Automatic Four Square naturally will produce more data, on average, than does a Four Square that requires proactive behavior. And, for many, the Four Square experience would be greatly enhanced. On the other hand, when data is being passively collected by a service, there are natural privacy concerns that come with that data collection. How many of us want our every daily stop published to the Web? So perhaps automatic Four Square would turn away more users than it would attract.

This maps to some research we did last year on location privacy (see chart above). In a nutshell, the best interests of the user are not aligned to the best interests of teh service provider and thus we can predict an assault on user privacy - game based LBS services being one of the most effective ways (see our original discussion here). Now, the VentureBlog author isn't worried:

We have all seen that consumers are willing -- often times happy -- to trade privacy for utility. I know that I am. And, while Mark Zuckerburg's statement that privacy is a generational concern was controversial, I think he is absolutely right about that. The coming generations of consumers may not abandon the idea of privacy in its entirety, but they will certainly have very different views of the appropriate balance between privacy and utility. That balance has already clearly shifted in the direction of utility and I believe the trend will continue.

To some this will be viewed as a warning -- a cry of the coming privacy apocalypse. I don't see it that way. As technologies and standards evolve, doors open to new products and services. We are on the verge of an explosion of new ideas.
Automatic Four Square and its progeny are coming. And I, for one, am excited about that.

This Brave New Worldview is very naive, and possibly even irresponsible as worse still it plays into the hands of those who wish to control by monitoring or who wish to use these systems illegally/criminally. As Bruce Shneier has pointed out, the huge privacy defects in Social Media systems guarantee a requirement for strong privacy and anonymity.

We await the first cases of serious LBS privacy abuse in 2010, and the inevitable outcry will make the Phorm brouhaha look like a Phunfair

Aspirant Tory Politicians shall not say anything on Social Media Sites unless The Party has approved it first - Daily Mail:

David Cameron has ordered his party's candidates to submit their online utterances for vetting.

The strict edict issued to every Tory candidate across the country covers updates on social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as Internet blogs and websites.

The move aims to cut the number of gaffes in the run-up to the General Election when would-be MPs will face intense scrutiny.

No doubt the aim is to turn the individual MP's into online Politicobots, parroting the party line with absolute fidelity online. This is in effect what Labour did in 1997 via the technology of the day. One wonders why not just set up a Twitter and Facebook account in each MP's name and broadcast to it each day if this is the aim.

Problem is, it won't work as social media is, well, social - you converse. As Labour MP Kerry McCarthy ( named last year as 'Twitter Tsar'), said:

'The whole thing about new media is that you can't have this spin operation and control without destroying the spirit of it,' she said.

'You may put your foot in it from time to time but if you try to control it, it just becomes sterile.

This one looks like it's going to be fun to watch......

Gawker on a TechCrunch Teen Journoblogger who said he'd write about a startup in exchange for a MacBook Air:

Now, before we all castigate a 16-year-old, let's note that "asking for shit in exchange for publicity" is incredibly common on the internet. No less an internet legend than Julia Allison will tell you how far "asking for a MacBook Air" can take you. Most flacks know that bloggers are basically fine with bribery—you just have to be discreet about it! And Daniel, on at least one other occasion, apparently did get a computer in exchange for a post.

Quite - prizes for pimping is a well established rule in the Noo Meedja as in the Olde (just follow the hooha about Mommyblogger swag), and - one may suspect - it's not entirely rare among the big tech blogs. Or was he the Obligatory Bad Intern in the Barrel and made it up all on his own?

TechCrunch is shocked, shocked, I tell you.

Soon after Bo Peabody explained why Consumer Social Media will never make much money comes news that FrienfFinder Networks has pulled its IPO - TechCrunch:

With this short statement, FriendFinder Networks has canceled its IPO plans, following a widely reported delay in trading earlier this week.

Investors are analysts were wary of the company’s plans to go public (on the New York Stock Exchange, under the symbol “FFN.”) in order to repay debt – it was reportedly paying $75 million in interest on operating profit of $45 million last year and carries a massive debt load of $471 million.

The internet holding company reported net revenue of $244.4 million in the nine months ended 30 September 2009, compared with $243.9 million in the same period a year ago. Even with this small revenue increase, filings showed sales were flat.

Its a sad day in the frothy world of Social Media when even the Adult end of it can't, er, raise anything, especially given that the FFN systems already use the Freemium model so beloved of Social Media Evangelists today. However, eyeballing the financials one can see why there may have been investor reluctance in the current climate, which is far from frothy.

FriendFinder has been going a long time, I recall looking at it in 2005 when were were analyzing designs of different Social network systems. We covered the IPO initially in 2008 over here) - one of the interesting facts from the IPO documents was that Freemium customers were c 75% of revenues and c 3% of all customers.

Interesting little snippet about Google's patents signalling what Google is up to:

Google updated a series of patent filings in January that could suggest the search giant plans to dig deeper into behavioral targeting, video content, and might also roll out dynamic advertising in its mapping applications.

The patents range from a method to deliver, target and measure advertising over networks to an overlay for advertisements in video content.

Advertising is king, then.....across all Googlemedia.

My Broadsight colleague Paul Lancefield designed a patent search engine a few years ago, and it's fascinating watching a company's patents group around areas. Its a very nice look ahead to their future technology strategy.

What is more saddening is watching the sheer volume of defensive patents the large technology corporates push out every year.

Very interesting discussion going on about a NYT article on Microsoft's inability to innovate vs Apple:

But the much more important question is why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it’s tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon’s Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter.

The NYT offer up:

Good old silo sieges....

When we were building the tablet PC in 2001, the vice president in charge of Office at the time decided he didn’t like the concept. The tablet required a stylus, and he much preferred keyboards to pens and thought our efforts doomed. To guarantee they were, he refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet. So if you wanted to enter a number into a spreadsheet or correct a word in an e-mail message, you had to write it in a special pop-up box, which then transferred the information to Office. Annoying, clumsy and slow.

...but you get those in every company, thats a given. What you need is something in the knitting that stops the legacy business silos (which have the big budgets) from squashing the New Things.

Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.

But even then its not a Microsoft thing only, and its not enough just to squish the Barons - Apple was in the Doldrums after Jobs left, and perked up when he came back. Ballmer is no Jobs (nor a Gates, for that matter), he's an excellent Operator of What Is, but not a Visionary of What Is Not. Ozzie has not had enough impact (Vista, anyone?). Excellently executing the Status Quo makes not much issue over 2 years but makes a big difference over 10 years (to paraphrase Bill Gates), which is why share price has been falling for years. Take the endgame of that tablet story:

...even though our tablet had the enthusiastic support of top management and had cost hundreds of millions to develop, it was essentially allowed to be sabotaged. To this day, you still can’t use Office directly on a Tablet PC. And despite the certainty that an Apple tablet was coming this year, the tablet group at Microsoft was eliminated.

Thats not the fault of silos, thats an inability of top management to get the big battalion barons off the pot. That can only be solved by the absolutely resolute Top Management - ie the CEO.

I think this one is also a key point:

Part of the problem is a historic preference to develop (highly profitable) software without undertaking (highly risky) hardware. This made economic sense when the company was founded in 1975, but now makes it far more difficult to create tightly integrated, beautifully designed products like an iPhone or TiVo. And, yes, part of the problem has been an understandable caution in the wake of the antitrust settlement. Timing has also been poor — too soon on Web TV, too late on iPods.

The value chain is now far more integrated. Its not clear to me that Microsoft needs to own the hardware (like Gates, I agree its very risky) but what they do need to do is be able to do is build great software as a fast follower.

Why is it Android, not a Microsoft OS in the competing smartphones to the iPhone? Where are they in lightweight e-Readers and tablets? As Stowe Boyd points out, they should (and could) have done a lot better in the Social Media tools arena.

No, I think this is Microsoft's top management being too keen on keeping the fat profits of the existing products but forgetting to watch the disruptive stuff closely enough. The irony is that Microsoft (and Sun et al) profited from the last generation of IT companies falling into the same trap. IBM and the BUNCH (Burroughs, Univac, NCR, etc), DEC et al were so wedded to the margins of their existing mini and mainframes they just couldn't bring themselves to invest (and cannibalise) their own revenues with DOS and UNIX boxes and got nailed. IBM had a cathartic shift - a Creative Destruction Moment if ever there was one- and the rest went to the wall. Microsoft now faces that challenge, and doesn't have a Jobs it can recall. Who will play Gerstner for Microsoft then?

And before anyone praises Google too much, that's them in 10 years or so - we are already seeing their inability to make money and great products outside of their core competence of search Ads.

(Incidentally, re Disruption Management, I spent some time last year working with Adriana Lukas (one of the other contributors to the Social Media in Enterprises event this week) trying to piece together how companies might manage themselves through all this. More Later, as they say.