Relevance and Escalation

I saw some articles on the RSS delivery tool, Rasasa.

The interesting part of this application is not its ability to send RSS messages to IM or Email or even SMS. That's all been done before, several times, verging on the ad nauseam.
What is newish, is the features that allow filters to be defined to escalate the attempt to reach you through IM to SMS. As the escalation level increases, the cost increases (well, it costs to send SMS!)
This will allow the user to specify which news/messages they really want to get as quickly as possible, and which they can wait for.

I would have to question whether there is much value in the email delivery channel, as I can get access via an RSS feed reader if I am at my PC or even on my mobile.
As internet access becomes more pervasive, the advantage of SMS over IM will diminish, but right now the most likely way to reach someone immediately is to call or SMS them.

If you combined Rasasa with Iotum's ability to determine the relevance of a communication to what the user is doing or interested in, and their relationships in the real world, you can (hopefully) start to see why attention is so important in the future of the internet. (n.b. Iotum can probably do a lot of what Rasasa can do, but it's not their key marketing message)

If I am interested in buying a car then I might not mind certain types of marketing communication getting through, because it's relevant to my current needs. If my needs are urgent, e.g. I want to rent a car now, then I might be prepared to escalate relevant incoming messages so that they reach me by the fastest possible delivery channel, regardless of whether it costs me money.

If I am an advertiser I might decide that my messages are only relevant to a specific need or type of consumer. Thus the relevance of the recipient can also be used.

An environment where the needs of the consumer and the aims of the vendor can be reconciled into an attention transaction, would benefit both parties.

But I digress, go try Rasasa, I wonder what happens with an SMS post greater than 160 chars?

It's all a crapshoot...

Seth Godin's Alexaholic Web 2.0 list was interesting, especially given all the different stats analyses that have been posted around the blogosphere related to Alexa. I'm inclined to think Alexa stats are a pile of crap, but who knows, it could be that everyone elses stats are a pile of crap too.

I had a look at some of the sites in the list that I hadn't seen before, and in my ultra-cynical mood this morning, I did some pico-reviews (i.e. I looked at their webpage and gauged if I liked what I saw).
As my opinion is hardly worth anything anyway, I can jump to as many conclusions as I want.

46 (up from 81)	4shared.com - Looks like a pile of crap, I wouldn't put my files there, unless I really wanted to lose them or have them viewed by the whole world
51	userplane.com - Interesting, though it only seemed to do fairly basic things. So long as it does them well, no problem, otherwise - crap!
73 (up from 128)	esnips.com - Hosting with tagging, link your crap with other peoples crap - all crap welcome!
78 (up from 130)	imvu.com - Couldn't even access the site! redefines crap!
92 (up from 149)	kopete.kde.org - Crap name, but useful, if dull, application. I was looking for 1 piece of new, innovative functionality, but didn't find any. However, not as crap as PeopleAggregator (which didn't even make the list!)
109 (up from 161)	pageflakes.com - like cornflakes only not as tasty!
123	Fckeditor.com - Like the name, but lost interest after that.
154 (up from 503)	Qype.com - Leider kann ich kein deutsch, aber scheint ein bisschen intressant - gibt aber viele sites wie dieser, also bin ich scheiss-egal!
159 (up from 303)	Stylehive.com - How many more of these 'Post my crap and see if anyone looks' sites are there?!
226 (up from 527)	Gliffy.com - Basic but looks good, if they give it a BPMN stencil I'll probably use it!
270 (up from 480)	turnhere.com - Initially I thought "another f***ing video site", but they have at least made an effort to differentiate
527 (up from 765)	RedToucan.com - Close, very close but will probably struggle to get traction (requires yet another Id, for building a network)

Someone else said (Paul Kedrosky, I think) that there is a huge gap between the good Web2.0 applications and the rest. Looking at the list of applications here, I would have to agree. It's not so much the lack of quality in design and coding as the lack of innovative, useful functionality.

There seems to only be about 5 different applications (or if I'm generous, categories) out there. Even the slightly interesting ones are fairly unimaginative.

The categories are:

• File sharing (be it video, photo, pod, mp3, business data etc) - generally involves a player of sorts and pervasive tagging, great for porn!
• Aggregator (combines information from lots of different sites into a personalised page, making it less interesting in the process)
• Forum (collect up a lot of posts and discussions and pretend that they're valuable)
• Office Online (I know, let's take a standard desktop application and put it online, reduce functionality, increase unreliability and try to sell it to Google)
• Auction/Shopping (not that different from Forum, but more focussed on e-commerce.)

I get the feeling we're on a plateau, where the real innovation has, at least temporarily, been obscured by the multitude of 'me-too' applications funded by over-eager VCs with too much money to burn!
Don't they remember Boo.com?? (incidentally I looked at the site and became very afraid!)

What's the equivalent of Selective Weedkiller for Web2.0 apps?

The Universal Controller...

Something I'd like to do, but doubt if I'll ever get around to it until it's already been done...

Set up a Desktop PC with TV card, large disk, internet connection, analogue controller for those hard-to-reach devices, wifi router to connect speakers, clocks, printers, fridges and other (spuriously) connected appliances.

Then, set up a web server and write a pile of Ruby or PHP to get control of everything. Have a screen(s) with a bunch of buttons to change channel, switch off lights, play music, increase/decrease volume, make/answer a voip call, record a show etc, etc.

Access the whole lot through my Nokia 770, season with Bluetooth keyboard and headset to taste.

Mind you, I haven't lost my Nokia 770 yet, if I make it a controller, it would disappear into the twilight zone like all the others...

Windows hegemony...

There are dozens of PDAs/Smartphones around nowadays, I recently saw Lenovo offering a new example. They all run Windows CE or Windows Mobile.
I'm beginning to wonder if the MS machine is not going to succeed in dominating the mobile market as completely as it does the PC market.
To me, to only real contender in the long term is Linux.

But what about Symbian? Well, who is offering Symbian phones? Look at the new products coming to market...they are predominantly Nokia; and Nokia is kind of hedging its bets and dabbling with other operating systems (e.g. the 770)

So I would say Symbian is on a flattening trend at best, Palm will never extend very far and all the other proprietary systems will gradually be replaced with Windows or Linux.
Windows is in a prime position because it is currently so prevalent in use in the broader PC market, i.e. the applications already use Windows.
It becomes the safe choice for a product developer to make, when choosing an operating system, because no-one will challenge the decision.

The Maemo Linux distribution is pretty good on the Nokia 770, and is certainly capable of providing a good user experience, but I fear that the Linux market will become fragmented for mobile (as it is for PCs) and it will take time for a clear Windows-contender to appear. Think about the product development dilemma again if the choice is between Windows or 1-of-10 Linux distros!

If I had more time, I would have done the journalist thing and made up researched some statistics on how Windows devices are proliferating faster than anything else, but you'll have to be content with a gut-feel.

In Corpore sano...

Having seen a few Corporate blogs around, some are good and some are very bad. It's a risky medium and getting it wrong is worse than not doing it at all...

I remember working for a company that set up a forum for employees in which it promised to discuss real issues with no censorship. In the end it became a management mouthpiece that no-one believed because all negative opinion was censored. Moral of that story is 'Don't expect your readers to agree with you!'.

Ten things that Corporate blogs should attempt to do:

- Engage the audience in a dialog (but not in controversy)
- Tell the truth and make it visceral, personal (let the audience know you)
- Acknowledge your peers and show some 'link love' (peers being others blogging about your company or subject)
- Listen as well as speak (i.e. read and comment on other blogs)
- Answer questions posed in comments!
- Avoid the temptation to be self-congratulatory (see BBC blogs as an example of what not to do!)
- Don't post press releases, link to them as part of a real post
- Assume your readers are very smart and treat them accordingly - no need to spell things out
- Controversy and argument will happen; hire an editor/negotiator to help make sure they don't escalate beyond control
- Use the Long Tail; build the relationships that will improve your hit rate. (A blog post is for life, not just for Christmas)

The goal of the blog should be clear as well, and I think there are definitely different types of blog for different goals.
- The Community Builder
- The Support/Information provider
- The "Look at me" cheerleading blog (don't try this at home, kids!)
- The "Humanizer" (we're not all grey-suits and ties)
- etc

Given the amount of press and advice that seems to be around, it's surprising how many corporate blogs are either just plain dull, or self-congratulatory.

"Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." -- Mark Twain

Hmmm, perhaps I should refrain from commenting on Corporate blogging....Ooops, too late..