I pre-ordered a Kindle Fire and I have been using it since it arrived a few weeks ago. I like it, but I can understand why others might not find it as easy to use.
Click through to learn what I think about what others might think.
"Evolve or die" doesn't preclude "evolve and die".
Facebook is, for better or worse, always evolving. Of course, MySpace evolved regularly, too, and it didn't do it a lot of good.
Facebook's new Subscription feature has a couple of interesting aspects...
Google+ is so hot right now. In the Phinney Bischoff offices and meetings, we keep bringing up Google+: what it is, what it can do, and what people are saying on it and about it.
Google+ has grown in an unprecedented fashion. Let's look at some of the reasons why and whether this early success will matter.
I know how to count, and I can even do simple arithmetic when the need arises. So why do services like Facebook and Google occasionally eschew actual numbers?
This week Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5b. Microsoft is sitting on some $50b in cash, and has been playing catch-up online, so spending big money for a loyal installed user base like Skype's makes sense.
Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer, though, said something that resonated with me...
In my time at SXSW last week, I saw three keynotes. Each of the speakers was interesting and spoke on topics that were very topical, but it struck me how unlike one another--at least as they presented themselves on stage--they were.
Click on the link to read who the speakers were and what I thought of them.
South by Southwest (or "South by" as the cool kids evidently call it, or "SXSW" as most people type it) Interactive "features five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders, the incredible new SXSW Trade Show and an unbeatable lineup of special programs showcasing the best new digital works, video games and innovative ideas the international community has to offer."
It's so good that the official website has the longest sentence I've read this year explaining it. I was lucky enough to be in Austin, TX, for most of this year's SXSW Interactive, and I've got some thoughts and themes.
The tag line at the end of a Microsoft spot for its upcoming Windows Phone 7 is "It's time for a phone to save us from our phones."
"Really?" asks another.
Is Microsoft zigging when it should be zagging? Or is launching its new product with a campaign that denigrates mobile phone usage a good idea?
Facebook is used by many people, and Facebook has many options. Many people, though, aren't aware of some straightforward ways to enrich the experience for themselves and their Facebook friends.
Is Google "Lost"? Are its failures part of a spaghetti-against the wall approach? Or is it an intra-company version of creative destruction? Let's look at three recent Google efforts that didn't end well and see what we can see...
I've gotta admit: I don't have an iPhone. Apple and I have some karmic disconnect, I've learned through the years, and every day that I wake up (or at least every time I grab my phone) I thank my lucky stars that Google exists. Because without Android, I might have an iPhone... and that just seems wrong.
Google's recent experiment of pushing aside its classic, simplistic white look for all users might have appeared to be a nod to Bing. In fact, it's the next step in an evolution that has been a long time coming and is a core component of Google's future.
Lala.com is gone. Or soon will be, as Apple decided to shut down the music service website on May 31.
I haven't used Lala.com that long, and I guess I should have known that Apple, after purchasing the company in December, would either wrap the site's functionality into future versions of iTunes or shut it down to stop it from competing with their existing service. I should have known it was doomed.
I'd only spent about $60 there, and I only had a few hundred songs in my online collection, but I had visions of Android running Flash 10.1 on my Nexus One, allowing me to access my music (including over-represented Scottish pop tunes) from anywhere at any time.
But it was not to be, and instead I find myself going through the seven stages of grief (albeit at an accelerated rate) over Lala's closing. To wit (based on the stages as articulated here):
1. SHOCK AND DENIAL
You will probably react to learning of the loss with numbed disbelief. You may deny the reality of the loss at some level, in order to avoid the pain. Shock provides emotional protection from being overwhelmed all at once.
I got the e-mail with the news last night. I was up late, and I saw the e-mail right before bed. I shook my head and couldn't believe what I was reading.
My sleep was fitful and non-restive.
2. PAIN AND GUILT
As the shock wears off, it is replaced with the suffering of unbelievable pain. Although excruciating and almost unbearable, it is important that you experience the pain fully, and not hide it, avoid it or escape from it with alcohol or drugs.
I woke up this morning with a pit in my stomach, thinking about how all my Web-based Dropkick songs were going to disappear into the ether.
3. ANGER AND BARGAINING
Frustration gives way to anger, and you may lash out and lay unwarranted blame for the death on someone else. Please try to control this, as permanent damage to your relationships may result. This is a time for the release of bottled up emotion.
As I walked to my car, I became furious at Apple. How dare they stop me from getting to MY music? How could they stop me from using the cloud-based service that I had encouraged so many of my friends to use? Why did this happen to me?
I angrily updated my Facebook status and drove to work.
4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS
Just when your friends may think you should be getting on with your life, a long period of sad reflection will likely overtake you. This is a normal stage of grief, so do not be "talked out of it" by well-meaning outsiders. Encouragement from others is not helpful to you during this stage of grieving.
I mentioned it to co-workers, who seemed largely indifferent. I received some Facebook status comments, but nothing seemed to help. I already missed Lala.com, and no one was going to make me feel better.
:(
5. THE UPWARD TURN
As you start to adjust to life without your dear one, your life becomes a little calmer and more organized. Your physical symptoms lessen, and your "depression" begins to lift slightly.
Lunch came around. I had tacos, and I felt a little better.
6. RECONSTRUCTION AND WORKING THROUGH
As you become more functional, your mind starts working again, and you will find yourself seeking realistic solutions to problems posed by life without your loved one.
There were other ways for me to listen to Teenage Fanclub. CDs. MP3s.
Maybe even... iTunes.
7. ACCEPTANCE AND HOPE
During this, the last of the seven stages in this grief model, you learn to accept and deal with the reality of your situation.
I deleted my angry Facebook status. It's OK. I will be OK.
Lala.com is gone, but the concept of my music living in the cloud is not. I have hope that, sometime soon, I will be able to buy Web songs for less than nine cents a song.
The intersection between "real life" and a Web presence can be subtle. To the general public, what, really, is Facebook other than Facebook.com? How is ESPN.com different from ESPN as a company?
With some clients, though, the difference is night and day.
Global Diving & Salvage, Inc., is, as the press releases note, "the largest diving contractor company on the West coast." It has an "international reach and a focus on marine construction, infrastructure support services and casualty response". All of that is well and good and impressive, but words alone struggle to capture the...reality... of what the company does. Divers spend hours and even days in cramped submersibles at depths that would crush an unprotected human body. They handle and clean up sensitive materials that can do serious damage to the environment. They work as a team in hazardous conditions every day.
Compare that to, say, me. I type quickly and I know some stuff about the Web. How do I help capture what Global does?
One of the ways PBDH tried to bring "real life" to a browser near you is by demonstrating the scope of Global's projects. Global's new Web site has advanced mapping features that highlight cross North America and even the world, allowing visitors to see highlighted projects as well as where Global is today.
And I do mean today.
Global Web admins have the ability to add and edit projects as progress is made through an easy content management system. Done with the job in New York? Upload some pictures and put it in the archives. Kicking off a new gig in Alaska? Link to a story from a news outlet or embed a video talking about the work. The Web site also pulls in the latitude and longitude information and uses that to accurately place the projects on the maps. Automatically.
This was pushing what we knew from a technical perspective and it was pushing what the available Web applications could do; we brought in a consultant who's been on the front lines of geomapping and he helped us create a custom-designed map that combines real GIS mapping data with project locations stored in the CMS.
The Web site didn't teach me how to weld underwater, but there's a bit more "real life" in this site than in most.
I remember a conversation I had with an acquaintance over a decade ago. "Amazon.com will never amount to anything," stated the man, a stock broker, "it's a company that captures market share by giving things away." Free shipping and discounts were helping Amazon get customers but not helping them make money and never would. (He was right for a few years, at least.)
Fast forward, then, to another conversation I had about other dot coms. "Yes, mom," I related over my land-based telephone, "I did get 70 pounds of kitty litter from Pets.com... and I'm waiting for HomeGrocer to deliver a bunch of heavy stuff, too. Why? Because it's cheap and there's no shipping! Those companies are doomed." (I was right, which was unfortunate given the number of Pets.com banners my agency was getting paid to produce at around that time. (HomeGrocer, interestingly enough, is now owned by Amazon.))
And, then, almost a year and a half ago, I had a conversation about Twitter. There is no single quote to sum up the chat I had with my friend, but it was about how Twitter might generate revenues and even, perhaps, make money. How the company can take the 20 characters in a txt message and convert them to dollars. How it can avoid losing money by giving things away: server space, bandwidth, and user experience improvements. There was no kitty litter albatross and there was no cut-throat competition with brick-and-mortars, but the underlying issue remained.
In December, things shifted, with Bing and Google paying Twitter $25m for its feed (known, fittingly, as the "Firehose"). Of course, a company like RealNetworks has managed to sign licensing deals, too. And that doesn't always end well.
Today, Twitter announced its @anywhere platform, which gives other sites access to the Firehose. Will this undermine the value of the deals Bing and Google made with Twitter? Will this be a big payday for Twitter, or will their efforts get snowed under by the Facebook juggernaut and/or nibbled to death by its innumerable, smaller competitors? Or something in between?
I'm not sure--no one is--but as I noticed that Amazon.com is an @Anywhere launch partner, I remembered that sometimes it's too early to write off a company with a strong market presence and no sock puppet mascot.
Life used to be simpler, didn't it? We could fix our own cars and milkshakes really had milk in them and content providers could generate revenues from content that people were interested in.
A good writer could publish a book that people would pay for. A band could write a hit song and make money without going on tour. Newspapers could break news (even if it was a day or a week or a month later than the event) and the public would snap it up on a daily basis to remain informed about their community, country and world.
Yes, there were issues of content control and distribution and there was a lack of choice for consumers... but good content seemed to "work" because people paid for information and services and entertainment, and that helped ensure that the pipeline for those things would remain full.
The Internet has brought many changes in our lives and how things work, and it has, essentially, broken this "pay for value" system. Users now log onto the Web with their computer and their browser and they expect to get everything. For free. Google can find it, right? And if it's behind one of the few bastions of "premium content" (think: ESPN Insider or the Wall Street Journal Professional Edition) a user only needs to know where to look to find the content she wants copied-and-pasted into a free form.
Content providers--from newspapers to music studios to television networks--know that once something is online, it's everywhere. If Google doesn't distribute it, something (or someone) else will. Rupert Murdoch has said, "free is too expensive" and reportedly plans to bring News Corporation content behind paywalls, and although I enjoy free stuff as much as the next guy, I can't say I blame him. Banner ads don't generate enough revenue to support the infrastructure of major organizations, and without that infrastructure, News Corp can't make content.
A paywall won't fix everything, even if it does cut Google off at the knees in terms of piggybacking on the content others provide. The content will still be out there, and content providers will be in a running battle with aggregators to capture the eyes (and wallets) of users. Users who expect to get on their browser and get stuff for free.
News Corp and other content providers technically have another option: create applications that act like browsers but are more locked-down. Take the Wall Street Journal off of the "Web" and only stream information to those who subscribe to it using a special News Corp app. I say it's "technically" possible because it is unlikely to work since goes against the grain of current personal computer use and trends.
The whole personal computer has gravitated towards browsers as the hub. The traditional World Wide Web is the clearest example, but Microsoft and Google and Facebook and a host of other companies are all about creating applications that supplant conventional desktop applications.
So... are content providers toast? Are users doomed to a universe of state-subsidized and/or user generate content?
Not necessarily.
Look at the iPhone and other app-based smartphones. Users' expectations there are markedly different than on laptops or desktop computers. Sure, they want to be able to hit up the Web, but they also are willing to purchase and use applications that are alternate data clients... ways to get content outside of a conventional browser.
The iPhone is limited, of course. Not many people are going to want to read the Wall Street Journal from front to back on a 3.5 inch screen.
But what about an Apple Tablet? Or Microsoft Courier? More pixels. Easier for those of us with fat fingers or particularly bad manual dexterity.
It also, even if it has a browser, will not have the "baggage" (from the perspective of content providers) associated with personal computers: that everything is free in a browser if you look hard enough.
Imagine Time, Inc. making a Sports Illustrated app, where a user pays for a year's worth of content up front, or authorizes a weekly or monthly payment. Without knowing its exact strategy, it seems clear based on this demo that SI is already thinking this way.
For users it might seem a step back. It might seem like the Web except not for free (like the bad ol' days of AOL). But it might turn out to be a great thing. Content providers that can provide content in a more controlled environment should be more willing to generate and distribute superior content because they will generate revenue from its consumption.
Yes, it might be a great thing. It might be the salvation of media as we know it without disrupting the social media/conversational Web that we have come to know and expect.
It is more and more obvious to businesses and individuals that technology allows for opinions to travel more quickly than ever. Every blog is a potential blessing or curse for a business, and any tweet may take the place of old school Consumer Reports magazine. We all know we can save money and improve our chances of getting a good value by looking to online sources that we trust.
In addition to the widespread and speedy dissemination of information, though, a recent survey points out another factor at work: cyberdisinhibition.
What is "cyberdisinhibition"? It is the reduction of the "public face" that each of us wears in real life. It is the willingness of people to be more extreme--in their opinions, in their (lack of) manners, in their abrasiveness--online. Anonymity and the low barriers to entry to contributing online logically make being especially loud and grouchy more likely; the consequences are fewer and the costs lower to complain (even in an over-the-top fashion) over a digital medium than in person.
What does cyberdisinhibition mean to businesses? It reinforces the need to be aware of how their brand and image is being communicated online. The days of controlling the message entirely are long gone, but an untended complaint (whether thanks to cyberdisinhibitionist forces or not) can snowball out of control quickly. Businesses should be aware of communities (blogs, forums, Twitter users) that use and discuss their products and be willing to communicate about issues.
Nip the problem in the bud before the Customer with the Keyboard starts typing in all caps.
Everyone likes their privacy, right? None of us want people peeking in our windows at home, watching us. Orwell gave us nightmares of the government watching us through our televisions.
As technology has advanced and so many of us have given more and more information (from names and addresses to credit card information), technology has also started to gather information about us that we don't explicitly offer. Safeway knows when I buy bread but not milk, and they know how much more likely I am to purchase milk when they put bread on sale. Amazon knows enough about my preferences to make recommendations in music and books based on purchases and what I've viewed. Google knows what I search for and where I've been online.
Of course, I know they know. But do I know how much they know? And does it matter to me if I do?
Google has become not just dominant (in that it's the search engine used almost 70% of the time) but pervasive. Google ads, powered by Google AdWords, are on seemingly every site. Google Analytics ties into Google AdSense, letting Web sites optimize and monetize. And the visitor sees ads that she actually is interested in, ideally, because of the use of data collected by Google about the user.
If we ignore privacy as a concern, it's a pretty good deal. A win-win-win for users, content providers and advertisers.
But we like our privacy, right? Are we afraid of what they know, or afraid of not knowing what they know?
Google has to make sure that there's no huge backlash against its market share, and it has come out with the Google Dashboard, which allows users to monitor settings and see what Google knows about them across its myriad of services (including YouTube, Google Docs, and others).
Is it enough? Is it too much? Will we even care enough to use Google Dashboard?
Two services that I use on a regular basis have been hit with service interruptions this week. T-Mobile has had ongoing problems with Sidekick services, and I've been personally affected/afflicted with an inability to use my phone's browser. I called customer service about 24 hours after it started happening and was greeted with a pre-recorded general "We know it's happening" message. Fortunately for me, I sit in front of a PC for most of my waking hours, so I can put up with the lack of service, especially since the company is going to be providing me a credit for an entire month's worth of service.
Facebook, too, has had its problems this week. An unknown number of users have been unable to access their accounts and they're not pleased by it. Facebook has some 300 million users, and if even one percent of users are locked out, that's a lot of potential anger.
People put so much of their lives--their contact information, their primary communication mechanism--into Facebook that when it's suddenly unavailable for an indefinite amount of time for an unknown (or at least uncommunicated-to-users) reason, frustration is natural. And, unlike T-Mobile, Facebook cannot simply refund user fees because (obviously) it's already free.
Facebook is, at some level, a victim of its own success and its users' high expectations. If it hopes to maintain its dominant position in the social networking universe, it needs to have plans in place to avoid emotionally isolating its users when technical snags arise.
Reporters do it. Shaq does it. The guy sipping on the $9 beer in the upper deck does it.
These people all attend sporting events, and they report on the game through social media. They Tweet, they take pictures, and they chat and txt in personal and professional capacities.
It seems inevitable, doesn't it? Technology has become so mobile that people are constantly pushing information, whether they're on a bus or their wife is in labor. When it comes to sports, though, it gets a bit trickier. Imagery and even some aspects of the reporting are intellectual property (IP), and the owners of that IP have a legal obligation to protect it, or else they risk losing whatever rights they've got in the IP.
The NBA is reportedly clamping down its players when it comes to Tweeting, and the NFL did something similar last month. Of course, the NFL (the league where the players wear helmets and they better not show too much personality unless they legally change their name) extended the guidelines to media members, too.
Media members may not, according to the NFL, use Twitter or any other medium to give play-by-play. That seems pretty obvious and fair. But what about the guy with the $9 beer in the upper deck? Can the NFL hope to stop him? Should their IP rights be threatened if they cannot?
It appeared, for a short time, that the Southeastern Conference (SEC) hoped to. After a big negative reaction last month, the SEC explained its new policies, which were primarily aimed at video feeds during games, rather than a Tweet about Tim Tebow's throwing motion in the third quarter.
Are these social media guidelines reactionary overreaching? Or are they a first step towards institutional limitations on what is commonly seen as a self-evident right to Tweet?
Imagine a hypothetical Web site that is ready to launch. It looks great, test users love it, the client loves it, and everyone is happy. Everyone, that is, except the SEO expert.
The SEO expert is, after all, responsible for guiding and delivering search engine optimization (SEO). SEO experts provide methods to drive a site up the Google results page, and because what they do often can be quantified quite easily as success or failure, SEO experts can be very specific about what changes are necessary to ensure that the site shows up when people want to find it.
Or, rather, they help ensure that the site shows up when people search for certain things. We’ll get to that why that difference matters in a moment.
An SEO expert might want the page titles changed. No biggie, right? They might want keywords integrated into site copy and image alt tags. Again: that’s cool. So far the great-looking, user-approved, client-adored site is intact, and the “under the hood” SEO adjustments don’t mean any concessions.
But what if the results aren’t good enough? What is the SEO expert to do?
Answer: they want more keywords. They want more and more keywords. They want links and other adjustments to the site that often not only spoil the aesthetic nor the way the client views the site, but the way that users experience it.
The stage has been set, then, for the classic SEO v. UX battle.
User experience (UX) encompasses how the users navigate a site, how they feel about a site, and how key features and messages are delivered. Good UX adds value and, when coupled with content users want, helps define the value of a site.
An argument for compromising UX in the name of SEO is relatively easy to make: if users cannot find the site, they cannot enjoy the experience. By giving a little on the experience front, the thinking goes, traffic will be generated and the site will be better off for being … worse.
In order to challenge this position, I think it’s necessary, first and foremost, to examine what SEO is at its most basic level. It is the manipulation of the difference between the value of a site and what search engines perceive to be the value.
Let’s deconstruct that quickly before we move on. A perfect search engine would know what the user wanted to find and give them the best possible value given that request. It would not be fooled by fake Web sites and it would be able to account for minor user error to point them in the right direction. No search engine is perfect, though, and because of the algorithms and logic used by the software of Google and Microsoft and others, inefficiencies exist: gaps between what the user wants and what the search site delivers. SEO manipulates that inefficiency by knowing (or guessing) at what search sites look for and “gaming the system” for positive results. If that perspective is too cynical for you, gentle reader/conscientious SEO expert, another way of looking at it might be that SEO strives to accurately convey the true value of a site given the search engine’s inability to correctly judge what the user wants when she searches.
SEO, then, is a cosmetic cover-up for the acne-riddled face of search sites.
The early days of search sites saw directories dominate. Microsoft and Yahoo employed teams of worker bees to review sites and classify and rate them, allowing users to have a virtual yellow pages. This didn’t scale, of course, as the number of Web pages exploded. Early attempt at user-updated directories were prone to severe levels of cheating and it was nearly impossible to trust ratings and/or believe that the directory was anything near complete.
The next step was the use of software to supplant directories with search engines. Bots would read pages and see what terms showed up and then spit out results for users on the search pages. Proto-SEO actors would game the system, search sites would adjust, and search engines evolved into what we have today: a reasonably fleshed-out coverage of many parts of the World Wide Web.
The good news is that as technology has improved the gap between search site perception of value and actual value has decreased. The bad news is that the gap is still relatively wide in many cases.
It is in this environment that the hypothetical Web site we’ve created finds itself. Search site placement can be very important, but sacrificing value to users in order to gather users can result in an inferior Web site.
Fortunately, the future might allow the best possible sites to exist with the most possible users. The future might have a superior search approach: one that combines technology with communal eyeballs and collective-approved expert opinion.
Earlier efforts at this sort of thing (by sites like Wikia) have fallen short, but hope is not lost. Zakta seeks to augment its search results by letting users edit, save and share the results for their search terms. A standard Google search for “best HDTVs” might have two pages of questionable or even unusable results—either because of SEO or because of the passage of time and weakness of the search algorithm. On Zakta, the same search may point to a user who has taken the time to build a top 10 list of HDTV review sites and five of his favorite online retailers. Eventually, the same search might result in a half-dozen similar lists, with the searcher able to differentiate between the quality of the lists and/or quality of the list-maker as rated by other users of the search site.
Zakta might not be the next step, but the next step is coming. It’s Wikipedia meets Digg meets Google. It encourages value over gaming and substance over style. And it might signal the end of SEO as we know it.