Author: manu prasad

  • Converse

    A few days back, I read on RWW that Google Wave has released Wave Elements, which allow waves to be embedded on any website. Despite what might seem a ‘never took off’ status, I still thought Wave had potential. Buzz did confuse me in this context, and I wondered about Google’s strategy – whether they’re simultaneously developing the two products for consumer/enterprise users, or using one as a stepping stone for the other etc. My usage of Google Wave was limited to the first few weeks and Buzz faded out in a few days.

    My primary issue with Buzz was that rather than new conversations, my contacts mostly had feed imports from Reader, Twitter etc, with little value addition. Buzz never gave me the option of removing specific feeds of users. Also, I couldn’t export the conversation which happened inside Buzz to the blog. The latitude-buzz based ideas remain complicated. All this, in addition to all the criticism that came their way right after the launch. It just made a mess of all my contexts.

    But when I implemented the Facebook ‘Like’ button last week, I wondered whether I should implement the ‘Buzz’ button too. Like I’ve said before, I think most offices can’t afford to block GMail, so Buzz might help in the sharing better. 😉 Still thinking about it. Meanwhile, what I did try, is to add Facebook Insights to this domain. I stopped at six ‘Bad Request’ responses. Now, if I have shared my blogs with FB, I can’t see why they can’t make it easier for me to add Insights. They seem to be prompting me for a dozen other things these days!! With all the other plugins, this could really help.

    I had hopes on a similar line for Buzz too. Simplistically put, if i shared my blogs with Buzz as a publisher, could they automatically assign a shortened goo.gl url to it, and notify me when it was shared? While at it, also tie it to my Analytics, for even more details.

    The thought is pretty simple. Someone ‘likes’ this post, shares it on FB/Buzz, a discussion happens around it, and a reader here might not even know about it. Hell, I might not even know about it, if I haven’t implemented a few tools.  Can that be rectified? Also, can FB/Buzz help export the conversations from there and (also) show it on my blog,  because it provides the reader an easy way to know different perspectives on the matter, even though discussions have been happening on other platforms, and perhaps even discover people with similar interests. (There is at least one FB comments plugin that pulls comments from Notes, but I was looking at something that would identify the url irrespective of who shared it)  I’d say the same for Twitter too, except I don’t think they even have threaded conversations completely right.

    until next time, scaling walls

    PS. I don’t think Disqus is there.. yet

  • Early Bird Rewards

    At least two major virtual happenings, one that has massive implications on the future of the web, and the other, slightly more subdued, but not lacking in potential. The latter – Twitter Annotations, announced at Chirp, allowing developers to “add any arbitrary metadata to any tweet in the system.” You can take a look at the various possibilities here, here and here. The former – Facebook’s  Open Graph, unveiled at the f8 conference, and aimed at making itself the centre of everything that happens on the www. A  combination of  plugins, developer tools, new markups which can make the user experience on any site that plays along increasingly personal, social, semantic, from plain hyperlinks to layered information. Already, one small manifestation can  be seen at the bottom of this post – a Facebook ‘Like’ button, which will carry your liking of this post into your activity stream on Facebook. More and more data, not just what you do on FB, but outside as well, across the web. From what I read, smells like Google, perhaps worse, because the flow of information seems possible only through the Facebook conduit. A good round up of implications here.

    When I returned from he break, and read up on these developments, my first thought, which i also tweeted was

    1

    And that’s the point of the post. During the break, the only network I was hooked on to was Foursquare. One of the things that happened, thanks to long waiting times in the Kolkata airport was that I became mayor of the neat CCD outlet just outside the airport complex.

    CCD has completed the re-branding at this outlet (unlike the one inside the airport) and has done a decent job at establishing ‘conversations’ as the prime focus area, in terms of in-store design. The feedback posters, ‘snippets’ at each table and the ‘quotes’ design on the roof were nice touches. When I got back, I found a CCD account following me on Twitter. Seemed like a more synergistic effort after the earlier snafu.

    It made me think once again about how alert brands need to be in such a dynamic scenario. If CCD were an early adopter, would they have braved the earlier storm better? What if they become active on Foursquare now, experiment with the new services being built on top of it – friendticker, snacksquare etc, still in their nascent stages. Or at least acknowledge their outlets on Foursquare and engaging the users. “@xyz congrats on becoming the mayor of our abc outlet”, and then build on top of that relationship. Won’t that help them gain some crucial evangelists in a new medium? If not evangelists, at least someone who will listen to their side of the story when something nasty happens? Wouldn’t they get a headstart on ‘authority’ by being an early bird?

    Even the era of quick responses being a reasonable expectation seems to be blurring by fast. Perhaps brands are now required to have an advance scout mechanism, to test out new services, features, changes, understand the implications and see whether/how business and objectives needs to be realigned. Page Rank, Social Platforms at consumer and enterprise level, Social CRM, Location based services, tools and platforms keep shifting. Early adoption and balancing objectives with diverse ways and platforms of engagement may become an imperative. Multiple options, two way communication manifestos, its all changing real time. Hold on tight.

    until next time, service level disagreements

  • Endurance Models

    I’d ended last week’s post wondering about the role of durability in the design of communication and organisational structures. Dina has continued the discussion on her blog, adding on some very pertinent questions. Do visit and add on to this very interesting thought flow.

    I got myself three threads of thought in her post. One, the dependency (of one product on another’s durability) factor, highlighted by the classic example of Twitter, where app developers have been flummoxed by recent events. (Twitter buying out Atebits and making Tweetie a free app for iPhone). Two, brands needing to create enduring, sustainable relationships, and being agile and flexible, because neither consumers nor their relationships are ‘static’. And therefore, three, durability is morphing.

    Before we dig into all of them, a small point of view. While one one hand, Twitter buying out services/competing with them could be seen as very Google like, and something that kills innovation in my book, I do have faith in Twitter and believe it won’t go the way Google has. (Simplistically) Unlike Google, which practically kills (eg. Dodgeball, jaiku), Twitter has just removed one entry barrier (paying for the service) for Tweetie’s adoption. As for Fred Wilson’s post, i can only remind you (again) of Godin’s description of Twitter – a protocol, and that’s why I completely buy the argument in the post on creating something entirely new on top of Twitter. (a contra view on Twitter being a protocol, informative read)

    This, you would notice, is a thought that continues from Dina’s point on dependency. But there’s a link to the second point as well – creating enduring, sustaining relationships and being flexible. The services which (to quote Fred Wilson) were ‘filling holes’ were (IMO) way too dependent on twitter. They were only providing a value, which Twitter had not deemed as a priority at a particular point in time. Not sustainable.

    Now, social gaming is one of the opportunities that Fred Wilson notes. So, look at Zynga. Their creations acquired massive adoption because of Facebook. They keep making more games, running them on Facebook, but simultaneously, also made farmville.com, with integrated FB Connect, and offers them more flexibility to provide more value. More importantly, the genre is perhaps not something FB is likely to get its hands dirty in anytime soon. Slightly more sustainable. Look at Foursquare. Standalone, but with Twitter and Facebook integrated very well. A level higher on sustainability. So the point is, the durability would be a function of how these platforms are used, dependency is proportional to the value provided.

    Morphing. Though the usage of social media by organisations is a subject that is discussed often (including on this blog), I thought this post by Tac Anderson articulated it extremely well. He discusses three strategies used by the enterprise – the one off approach that isn’t integrated with any existing system/process; optimising social media for business – with clear resources, roles and responsibilities; optimising business for social media. The first and second areas are where most companies operate. The third is a business organisation optimised for social media (technology and culture). He points out that Netflix, Google, Amazon have built businesses optimised for the web, and doesn’t see a business that has successfully implemented it wrt social media. He does say that it may not make sense for a company to throw out an existing strategy and build another around social media, but the ones with the third approach will be the next Google/Amazon. Another good read on the subject is Tom Fishburne’s ‘The new product waterfall‘.

    It is debatable whether an organisation can move from approach 2 towards 3.  But I do think that the morphed versions of durability will emerge from business structures that are built to be comfortable with and are therefore in a position to take advantage of the tools and platforms of social media. That is most likely the way to create enduring, sustainable relationships in a scenario of changing consumer and communication dynamics.

    until next time, the durability of this thread on the blog ends here 🙂

    PS: Won’t have to endure a post next week. Back in a fortnight 😉

  • In duress

    A few days back, when I met Balu and Conall, we happened to talk about the lifecycles of services (Twitter and Foursquare was the context) and then discuss whether product lifecycles were being compressed too. It is interesting because let’s say an organisation has invested in a new technology and brought out a product. If they price it high, adoption will be slow, and it may never become mainstream. If they subsidise and price it low, they may lose out if a better technology arrives before they  break even. Mobile phones (feature compatibility and obsolescence), content storage devices (VHS to Blu-Ray) were some of the examples discussed.

    Dina wrote a couple of good posts (Part One, Two) recently on durability,and whether it is losing its power as a consumer driver. The plethora of brands advertising in the youth category would seem to agree (best expressed in Fastrack’s ‘Move On’ campaign), but as pointed out by Goutam Jain in the post, in many cases it would be intrinsic to the brand’s value. The rise of ‘good enough’ in the real time era is not helping the durability cause either. We could go from fidelity in devices to that in human relationships and the cause/effects in consumption, but maybe we should get Dina to do it later. 🙂

    The second post is also a great read and is based on the comments on the first, and introduces some excellent dimensions to the original thought.  Convenience + cost of exit, opportunity cost of not entering the next ‘upgrade’ are things that I’d like to add to that.

    Brand equity is something that falls naturally into the scope of this discussion. But what i was more interested in its impact on the content that brands create, including their communication. Look at say, print ads, whose physical durability is perhaps one day (equity created might probably last longer), or radio jingles and television commercials., with a slightly larger shelf life. On the internet, it can exist ‘forever’. But there are costs involved in all of these, and in terms of durability, they might not really deliver in this era of content abundance, fleeting attention spans, and the constant search for the next ‘wow’. Also, on a smaller scale, what happens when you design say, applications for a particular platform/device like a Facebook/ iPad, and it doesn’t prove to be durable? It is many ways, a gamble.

    So, when I read Clay Shirky’s amazing post ‘The collapse of complex business models‘, I sensed a tangential connection. To broadly summarise, the post uses Joseph Tainter’s ‘The Collapse of Complex Societies’, in the context of TV content producers’ inability to cut expenses below revenues, and explains how at some point, the level of complexity added to a system fails to add to the output, and becomes just a cost, because the different levels extract more value than the total output. Also, by this time, the system is too large and too interlocked for it to adapt quickly and change. Then ‘collapse is simply the last remaining method of simplification.’

    The post throws light on what is most likely the ‘tripping point’ for contemporary media. With increased connectivity between individuals thanks to various platforms, more ideas are being formed and honed. As new products and services arise, consumption patterns change, new needs are discovered and a disruption (which is perhaps another way of  describing simplification) always seems around the corner. I see this as a message to brands, many of whom have evolved their organisations, products and services on the basis of older ways of communication. How much has durability of products been a factor in the design and structure of communication and organisational processes? Or was it a result?  As durability ceases to be a major factor, is the new imperative flexibility?

    until next time, we still call it consumer durables 🙂

  • Of Social Media Baubles

    I read Umair Haque’s post – The Social Media Bubble, through the prism of  ‘interesting’ vs ‘popular‘, the subject of my last post. In the post, Haque’s biggest gripe with social media, the way it is now, is the low quality of ties between the people who are connected. Thin relationships, he calls them and he has five supporting arguments – the disproportionate rise in the average number of ‘friends’ vs trust, the creation of more intermediaries rather than removal of old ones, hate (and I keep ranting about this on the other blog – trigger happiness), exclusion (again, something from the other blog – the clique friendly web), and lack of intrinsic value (and therefore the need to monetise, perhaps by ‘extractive, ethically questionable ways’). He also sees three major casualties because of this – inefficient attention allocation, investment in low quality content, and the weakening of the Internet as a force for good.

    Now, the archives of posts here and on the other blog would show that I am sometimes frustrated and disappointed with a lot of activities on the social web, its usage, and therefore the direction in which it is going. But then again, I still have faith in the social web, and believe what we’re going through is the phase of transition, a time between fundamental shifts in the way we interact, and I’d be naive to expect it to be smooth. Also, unlike the earlier forms of media and communication, the web (and mobile) seem to have a much smaller gestation time between disruptions. I now tend to believe that this IS the way its going to be for quite a long time, because we’ve only started exploring avenues and possibilities. So, extrapolating current usage patterns to the future in a disruptive scenario looks flawed to me. But yes, like any other ardent faithful, I too am looking for signs.. and thoughts.

    So while I did agree a lot with what was written in the post, and considered it a very good read, I was even more happy to read two replies to that post – “Rethinking Thin: Social Relationships in Social Media“, by Adrian Chan, and “Umair Haque is another new spatialist” by Stowe Boyd.

    Adrian Chan does a great job in deconstructing Haque’s post. He first argues that the logic and analytic of social network analysis cannot be based on the attributes and qualities of human relationships and social organization. He maintains that in the former, the tie (and its not the same as a relationship) is more significant than the node. (person) The (sometimes) asynchronous and unequal communication facilitated by the medium is also a point well made. The semantics of “social”, when explored through the meanings of ties, interactions, communication and relationships is something I found very enlightening. On the whole, I agree that these tools are modes and means of producing communication, and offer us means to form ties, interact, possibly communicate and then over a period of time, even establish a relationship. But the ties can be just that, and remain to be re-used in other contexts and at other times too, by people I may not have a relationship with, until then. Its a post you really must read, and I must confess that I’m still (re) reading it to truly grasp all the arguments.

    Stowe Boyd argues that Haque is ‘undervaluing the utility of weak ties’ and then brings in three of his own thoughts – ‘social has not gone far enough’, whatever is there has been ‘commoditized by the corporate types’, and a worry about the governance of the social web. The common thread that I sensed (with the paragraph above) was how the dynamics of broadcast media have been brought into play in blogging and microblogging. (attributes of one system forced on another). The other wrong attribution, with respect to Haque’s post, is perhaps looking at it through just an economic framework. The New Urbanism and New Spatialism notes are really fascinating, and that’s an understatement.

    Very honestly, and it most probably is because of my levels of understanding, the two ‘rebuttals’ and the thoughts therein, are quantum leaps that are required, which will take time. In the short-medium term, I think it will be an evolution (as opposed to a revolution). We might end up with better social media structures and frameworks of understanding or we could become a set of gated communities within a world wild web with controlled experiences suited to our likes and dislikes. The latter is not something I’d like since we’ll just be trading one set of walls and gatekeepers for another. In either case, I hope the medium term will see better tools for managing our ties and relationships, and will help us streamline our creation, and consumption. A good note on that curation by Robert Scoble.

    Meanwhile, I’m also thinking of the implication for brands. The no-brainer is an approach that goes beyond tools and looks at basic changes required within and without. The other part is setting the expectations right on metrics and ROI, when using the social web?

    until next time, echosystems, I hope not..