Tim Bauer’s Running Thoughts

Semi-daily webcast summaries/insights

Jive Software (Collaboration): Ruth’s Chris vs. Raman Noodles

Ask yourself this question …

  • Is there an ROI to collaboration?

because when you start looking at collaboration products like Jive Software your aren’t talking chump change. They face the same hurdles as any efficiency based initiative. The executives want to see hard dollars have have either the word INCREASED REVENUE in them or REDUCED COST.  If you can’t show it they will give you a $1 to buy a six pack of Top Raman.  If you can, they money is there.

So with images of Raman dancing in my head I clicked on play and got to running.

Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

Duration:

  • ~60m

Speakers:

  • Adam Mertz
    • Product Marketing Manager
  • Clay Moore
    • Product Manager

Recommend to Watch? Perhaps

  • If you are curious on the UI and look and feel I would watch this. Early on they were trying to set the stage for why the product is needed but I think the message was blurry. However, the tail end feature review was good to see. In addition, they use Adobe’s Presenter7 so you can zoom to any segment rather easily (broken down by slide).
 1. Raman Noodles vs. Eating Out

  • This wasn’t in the presentation but its implied when looking at any 3rd party collaboration solution. Should you just wire together a variety of free solutions and focus on cost (ala Raman Noodles) or pay someone for an integrated one and focus on experience (ala Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse). Either approach will probably get you a full belly … and it will be hard (from an ROI perspective) to tell the difference initially. Crunching up the raman you see a solution based on Google Sites (wiki), Blogger (blog), PHPBB3 (free forums), and Friendfeed and/or Twitter (real time conversation/status). This drives, in pieces, a pretty robust feature set when compared to Jive. Problem is when you get to large scale usage the operational headaches of managing all those Raman Noodles fragments. The manual processes that tie them all together will begin to be a burden.

2. Very focused on business buyer … where is the IT buyer angle?

  • Jive pointed out the collaboration needs of a variety of roles in the org … which was interesting … in that they focused on the business. Valid angle. One aspect I noticed they are missing is the collaboration medium for the technical roles. In organizations I have served those groups tend to collaborate around tools that have the features of Jive BUT integrate to the build process. Pre-built solutions like Confluence/JIRA do a better job than JIVE here. However you could integrate your build toolset to JIVE and achieve the same.

3. Subscribing via Tagging … Good Idea … Will Implode In Practice

  • There was some commentary around tagging of content in the Jive stack being able to drive subscriptions. This is good but in the Enterprise people will want a centralized meta tag management solution in short order (ala ECM). So I wouldn’t build processes on adhoc tags that are too ornate. Wait for the centralized model and keep it simple in the interim.

3. Brand Solution Is Weak

  • They showed how Jive could drive branded solutions (like Product sites) but in reality other solutions that come from a business angle (not a technology basis like Jive) are better. Look at Powered for example. Excellent marketing focused product. When they talk about the ROI of social commerce (collaboration between you and your customers) you get it.

4. That “Sizzle” you hear is widgets cooking …

  • Widgets on the homepage was next. Jive is all fired up that they are the only ones providing this. Really? Seems to be alot like WordPress widgets to me. But I guess that is comparing Raman Noodles and Ruth’s Chris again.

5. Hey … Twitter … someone stole your battery …

  • I loved that skit by Eddie Murphy where he has a conversation with his car computer after someone stole the battery. “Hey man, someone stole your battery … I say we go get the mother ..” Classic. Anyway, seems Jive stole Twitter’s battery as they integrated status updates into the profile of people. Steve Jobs would be proud of their Piracy. I might be giving credit to Twitter when someone else came up w/ the concept 1st … but that is how people referred to the function in Q&A as well. “So, that feature … it’s like Twitter … right?”

All and all, I see two things:

  1. The ROI of collaboration is STILL not clear
  2. Jive is a great choice when you have a large, complex, internally business focused group. There are better options for IT and External uses.

Personally? In my business we eat Raman Noodles. Free is appealing for a startup … at least till the adoption warrants re-assessing the maintenance headache of disparate systems. I was close though .. the shiny package of Jive was tempting. I would do it over Sharepoint that is for sure.

Would be curious on your thoughts … as always.

* START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

• https://admin.acrobat.com/_a773188684/p96493791/
• Enterprise Collaboration & Community Software
• 4/28/2008, 6:05 AM - 2:02 in still doing housekeeping
• 7 years … 15% of Fortune 500 … 2000 customers
• Internal and External communities (hit both)
• Products
……………○ Clearspace
……………○ Clearspace community (external)
• Unique of Jive - Adhoc Conversation
……………○ Not document centric
……………○ Bauer comment - So they avoid the wiki, sharepoint angle of penetration
• 4/28/2008, 6:09 AM
• Some graph proving collaboration was largest impact to business
……………○ Bauer comment - a word smithing point? I mean doesn’t that mean people talking hits all pieces?
• 4/28/2008, 6:10 AM
• External community keys
……………○ Talk about products
……………○ More than support
……………○ Feedback, sentiment, learning, story telling, associations
• Web help is more effective than call center
……………○ Supporting stats
……………○ Bauer comment - not very targetted examples … rather high level
• 4/28/2008, 6:12 AM
• Poll - What communities are you looking to create to drive value in your business
……………○ Primary response was collaboration in the enterprise (71%)
……………○ Service & Support (45%)
……………○ Developer & Partner community (36%)
• 4/28/2008, 6:14 AM
• Examples of customer implementations
……………○ PC World, Sprint, VMWare, Net App, Bank of America, John Deer
……………○ Enterprise Collab, BrandAffinity, etc are solutions
• 4/28/2008, 6:15 AM
• Focus on Enterprise Collaboration
……………○ Slide on communication flows (Bubbles, typical questions)
…………………………§ Bauer comment - still not crystallizing a core message for me. Might be they are moving across a lot of topics very lightly.
……………○ Service Tech
…………………………§ Ideas shared by networking / meeting
…………………………§ R&D getting feedback
…………………………§ Without clearspace doesn’t get widely leveraged
……………○ Make captured conversation easily visible
…………………………§ Discussion
…………………………§ Document
…………………………§ Content management (Sharepoint integration)
…………………………§ Finding the right SME in an org around a question search
……………○ Bauer comment - its interesting they don’t talk to how different roles want different tools to interact w/ the collab stack. Wiki is typically not a biz user preference (not powerful enough in formatting and other functions)
• 4/28/2008, 6:19 AM
• Example of capture of info
……………○ Bauer comment .. Like a blog post or a forum post
……………○ Anyone watching space or tags on post get auto email notification
…………………………§ Bauer comment this is somewhat notable (how to make people aware efficiently) but then the debate of how to effectively tag in an org becomes the riddle (ala ECM meta tagging from years back)
• 4/28/2008, 6:21 AM
• External collaboration example
……………○ Brand and peer to peer support community (excellent example per them)
…………………………§ Bauer comment - I would say the example is weak. Powered does a much better job (given their marketing focus/background) on how to use tools like Jive CS 2.0 to drive brand
……………○ Shows a ton of discussions (forum)
…………………………§ Company mines and watches these threads
……………○ Bauer comment - interesting how they are focusing on the ‘build it they will come’ when really your partner and recurring customers would prefer a decentralized model that aggregates to their preferred reader (don’t assume your external user only does the role that works w/ you)
• 4/28/2008, 6:24 AM
• Poll - Biggest Driver of Success
……………○ Ease of Use - 58%
……………○ All in one system - Wiki, Blog, Forum, etc - 10%
…………………………§ Bauer comment - This isn’t a concern until users get in an realize integration (or lack of) breaks the workflows across the various collab environments
• 4/28/2008, 6:28 AM New features
……………○ Personalization on homepage
…………………………§ Widgets ala how wordpress feels
…………………………§ No other competitor does this
…………………………§ Bauer comment - Wouldn’t WordPress local do similar? Make homepage style a blog model (posts and pages)
…………………………§ One homepage example - Calendar (bauer - pick your favorite), recent content (bauer - live mesh), Status update (bauer - twitter), tasks ( bauer - remember the milk)
………………………………………□ Bauer comment - They spent 1-2m on status sharing being important in the enterprise … hello twitter (in private mode)
…………………………§ Another homepage example - 2-3 people you are tracking (bauer - hello friendfeed), product tracking (bauer - document change via mesh), external rss feeds (techcrunch)
……………○ Visibility of org relationships / profiles
…………………………§ 4/28/2008, 6:34 AM
…………………………§ LDAP and AD integration … pull into clearspace … populate the system
……………○ Projects
…………………………§ 4/28/2008, 6:35 AM
…………………………§ Self organize
…………………………§ Configure like homepage … tasks, discussions, blogs tied to project
……………○ Sharepoint integration
…………………………§ 4/28/2008, 6:36 AM
…………………………§ 1st Goal making it part of the enterprise footprint of documentation
…………………………§ Enhance link functionality to tie to what exists in SP sites
………………………………………□ So if you hit link button there is a SP tab that allows you to pull content from sites in SP
…………………………§ Bauer comment - interesting how we are not talking to the collaboration style that the dev team wants / needs versus what functional roles want/need … and how the two work together.
…………………………§ Bauer comment - Its ‘free’ footprint continues to keep it in the game (at least the starting version is free)
…………………………§ Sharepoint is also tied to search results
……………○ Document sharing
…………………………§ Users can share content outside of clearspace (collaboration)
…………………………§ Partners, contractors … secure and managable
………………………………………□ Give access to partners @ discussion and/or document level
……………○ Admin console Auditing
…………………………§ 4/28/2008, 6:40 AM
…………………………§ Visibility and control of any change in admin (bauer comment phpBB3 does this default)
……………○ Additional items
…………………………§ Rich text editor
…………………………§ Widget framework
…………………………§ Core arch - better API, REST, Spring/Struts based upgrade
• 4/28/2008, 6:41 AM
• Demo
……………○ Login as VP OPS
……………○ Homepage Widgets
…………………………§ Watching tags
…………………………§ Watching people activity
………………………………………□ Bauer comment that is a nice widget
…………………………§ Discussions
…………………………§ His Tasks
………………………………………□ Not clear if this is a one-off project tool or tied to a Proj Mgmt Sys
…………………………§ Blog posts
…………………………§ Your Projects
…………………………§ You Colleagues
…………………………§ 4/28/2008, 6:44 AM (still going on homepage)
………………………………………□ Bauer comment - would agree the innovation area is how to bubble up the activity from the raw areas
……………○ Search
…………………………§ Search for online marketing
…………………………§ Ability to expand to detail search results in search result pane
…………………………§ Profile
…………………………§ Actions - Email, Private Message, etc
…………………………§ See reporting relationships
…………………………§ Mini profile (on mouseover of names - shows what they are working on)
………………………………………□ Bauer comment - Amusing the ongoing ’status’ play
……………○ Project Calendar customization
…………………………§ 4/28/2008, 6:48 AM
…………………………§ Mention of how this isn’t the core system the PM is using … goal is one calendar, doc repos, discussion area
• End
……………○ Bauer comment - Collaboration (JIVE): Pick Your Flavor or Flounder (like JIVE)
• 4/28/2008, 6:51 AM
• Q&A
……………○ 4/28/2008, 6:51 AM
……………○ Differences in CS 2.0 Ent vs CS 2.0 Community
…………………………§ Personalization, projects are bundled in enterprise. Can turn on (for a fee?)
…………………………§ Nuances for external versus internal communities
…………………………§ Next release has a bunch more of features focused on social networking
……………○ Status update like twitter?
…………………………§ Yes. Can see in ’status widget’ or ‘my colleague widget’
……………○ Plugin for video
…………………………§ Yes. I.e. Youtube.
…………………………§ Jive Space (Deverloper space) can help build custom widgets
……………○ Internal Calendar (Jotlet) can synch to Outlook
…………………………§ Yes
……………○ Printable
…………………………§ Yes
……………○ Profile integrate w/ 3rd party HR systems
…………………………§ LDAP focused
…………………………§ Can choose some fields that come out of CS
…………………………§ Bauer comment - So no
……………○ Admin, shut off ability to customize?
…………………………§ Yes
……………○ Guest access
…………………………§ Yes, by feature
……………○ Sharing and watching … what is that
…………………………§ You watch their activity (stream)
…………………………§ Bauer comment - Why wouldn’t small companies just do Friendfeed private?
……………○ Questions around integration
……………○ Abuse flagging?
…………………………§ Yes certain types … go to moderation
……………○ Project available in CS Community?
…………………………§ Yes off by default.
…………………………§ Can turn on (made it sound free)
……………○ Blog
…………………………§ President — www.jivesoftware.com/community/blogs/jivetalks
…………………………§ Dave hirsh

** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

May 9, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 2-Perhaps (what floats your boat?) | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Twitter: Utility or Also Ran?

Twitter. It doesn’t make much sense unless (a) you are following thought leaders who share their creative process or (b) you are following your friends and their normal stupid process.

Being interested in both, I took a gander at an interview FastCompany (Shel Isreal) did with the Twitter team a few weeks back. As usual my raw notes are below, but here are the thoughts that jumped out at me as I ran (i.e. jogged) along.

Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

Duration:

  • ~20m

Speakers:

Recommend to Watch? No

  • The probing questions were a bit lacking to warrant a 20 minute sit down unless you want to get a sense of the players at Twitter.
 1. Twitter Is A Utility

  • Well they want to be a utility. At the tail end Biz (nice name) threw that out as the model that will drive their revenue when they worry about that. Interesting. So, are we all going to get a bill each month with two fees (see the book Big Switch)? One fee for the twitter infrastructure and another for our usage of it? I assume Twitter is thinking of the Enterprise space when they say ‘we’ll be a utility’. The downside of that model is that there are a ton of players producing “Twitter like” support as part of their social platforms. Jive software just released it in their software.

2. No barrier to entry.

  • What is the barrier to entry for others cloning twitter? On one hand they admit most people are tweeting in a group of 10 people (their large user base, ala facebook, is not required). On the other hand they have the big boys studying what they are doing and have far more robust stacks to deploy it with (Live Mesh).

3. Friendfeed is Killing Twitter?

  • Why is Friendfeed gaining usage at the cost of twitter? Easy, twitter is a manual sharing of my movements. Friendfeed is easier … more automated. I just share stuff, digg it, recommend it, and it shows up on Friendfeed where I can comment on items that warrant it. In addition, I can push those items back into the twitter space. Sounds like checkmate to me. Granted twitter will stick around for certain things (like conference IM channels) but the primary social networking role might be changing.

4. Get to use it at work … by positioning it correctly

  • Biz points out that Twitter (and other social tools) can be embraced by corporations if positioned correctly. They aren’t ’social networking’ tools. They are lightweight inter office memo’s or dispatch services. They are IM’s with a memory. Think about it. Corporate hates IM because they can’t see what you are talking about. A twitter style IM is somewhat like campfire. At any time you can come in and see what was said since your last visit to the campfire (IM space). Better yet, you know your boss is one of those viewers … and he knows you know … which creates auto policing … on second thought .. you might not want to suggest this.

It’s interesting to watch the movement of how technologies like Twitter are trying to enable interaction between people. Even more so when you consider the daily conversations that happen in corporate environments. I am going to do a writeup on Jive software (one of the major Enterprise social networking stacks) in a bit … you will see strong similarities between it and the ‘free web’ tools like Twitter.

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/a-talk-with-twitter-guys

……………..○ 4/29/2008, 6:12 AM

……………..○ Biz Stone

…………………………….§ Story of how he went from seeing a txt to vision

……………..○ Twitter Users

……………..○ Jason Goldman

…………………………….§ 3 is average updates a day

…………………………….§ Program Mgr

……………..○ Stats

…………………………….§ API traffic is 20* web

…………………………….§ Web traffic 20% is non US

…………………………….§ Japan market is largest after US

……………………………………………□ They use a twitter app to talk to their virtual pet

……………..○ Use of twitter to build a follower set

…………………………….§ Scoble is only 5% of their use case

…………………………….§ 50% of twitter users .. Follow 10, have 10

…………………………….§ Real friends

…………………………….§ Interesting to hear about those you know.

…………………………….§ Mapped twitter activity versus superbowl and super Tuesday

…………………………….§ Match sxsw activity … Mark Zuckerburg keynote

……………..○ Odeo

…………………………….§ Started to thing beyond Odeo

…………………………….§ Realized they were not helping Odeo (podcasting) … plus they were not passionate about

…………………………….§ Told investors to look for a buyer … couldn’t come through

…………………………….§ Created Obvious company … they acquired Odeo (which had twitter)

…………………………….§ Twitter took off

…………………………….§ Side projects were killed

……………..○ Team

…………………………….§ 17 people, 5 are engineers

…………………………….§ Get ahead of curve … so they can build ahead not at capacity

……………..○ Pushback from business, not a fit

…………………………….§ Evan … not designed for that

…………………………….§ Bauer comment - Jive think it fits

…………………………….§ Biz … visited Nike … they wanted to know about tools

…………………………….§ Its just SMS or some client … no big deal like MySpace … fade in / out of focus of the employee … so its not as much of a risk of continual distraction

……………………………………………□ Bauer comment - true after the initial period ..

……………..○ 4/29/2008, 6:22 AM

……………..○ Example of remote teams

…………………………….§ Using this to keep the remote team together

…………………………….§ Check in for work

…………………………….§ Asking for help

…………………………….§ So great tool for distributed team

…………………………….§ Positioning is key for enterprise … how it is seen … not social … more of lightweight memmo dispatch … IM client w/ a memory

……………..○ 4/29/2008, 6:24 AM

……………..○ Jet Blue

…………………………….§ Was on twitter watching people talk about SXSW

…………………………….§ Added flights from AUS to SF … when all flights were booked … drove availability

……………..○ 4/29/2008, 6:25 AM

……………..○ How make $

…………………………….§ Realibility is core concern (TP99)

…………………………….§ Some success (per him) recently

…………………………….§ Super reliable

…………………………….§ Global utiliity (of IM w/ a memory) … so they want to centralize and provide at cost

** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

April 29, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 3-No Go (unless you are bored) | , , , , | No Comments

Live Mesh: Goodbye Facebook & Friendfeed?

Ask 3 people what Live Mesh is you’ll get three answers. Ask 97 more and you’ll get blank looks. Good thing innovation is not a democracy.

Live Mesh was put to a ‘technical release’ last week to perhaps 20,000 of your closest friends. The interesting thing was as you listened to the jabber they all portrayed it differently. Some boring and some hinting at what could be. It was the latter that got my interest but it took three different webcasts (raw scribble from each below) to boil it down for me.

Details Notable Points
Webcast(s)

Duration(s) Respectively:

  • ~40m, ~10m, ~35m

Speaker(s) Repectively:

  • Vid 1 - Who knows. Guys on Mesh Team.
  • Vid 2 - Amit Mital. Faceman on Mesh for MSFT.
  • Vid 3 - Ray Ozzie. Head man @ MSFT (came from Groove).

Recommend to Watch? Depends.

  • Each one is a different audience. Vid 1is for the average consumer, vid 2 is for the companies that are in similar spaces (ISVs, partners of MSFT), and vid 3 is more of a strategist view.
 1. The Basics - A very transparent file share, remote PC control

  • For those looking for the quick answer. The features that are here and now is a very transparent sharing of files between your devices (phone, laptops, tower) AND friends (email em and they get a virtual folder of your folder). Plus you can login to that rig similar to remote desktop but via the mesh. Through firewalls (DOH! I just logged into my work PC without my RSA / VPN login - can you say security breach).

2. Now add some spice - Updates native with the folder view.

  • So the first thing isn’t too exciting (sharing folders) unless you are in charge of security (then its a headache). For those not grabbing aspirin, you more spice from the seamless injection of Mesh into typical tasks (excellent usability after MSFT’s Ribbon debacle). An example is how the any folder shared by mesh shows you automatically what changes your ‘mesh’ of friends have done to the folder at a document level. Holy smokes. Now we are starting to enable very nicely basic, document centric collaboration. This is like automatic twitters (I’m timbauer on twitter by the way) to the group you are collaborating on documents with. “Hey, I changed this file”, “I added this one”, “I nuked that one”

3. Now add some sizzle - You Become Facebook.

  • People in the blogsphere get their panties in a bind over the aggregation sites taking advantage of their pieces of content. Like the debate (nicely written by Louis Gray) around aggregation sites allowing conversations on content produced elsewhere (they lose potential visibility and traffic revenue). What if your comments on XYZ thing were shared to all people in your mesh peer-to-peer? Instead of a central site like Twitter or Facebook or Friendfeed … you just had a backbone like Live Mesh? The development style would shift to consuming peer to peer facades … facades that pulled from the mesh and synch your thoughts (basically files of data) back to the originating peers. You, in short, become facebook without facebook as it is today. All you need is your favorite “Live Mesh” facade on the local device. Presto.

3. MSFT Strategery - Use What They Have (Documents) To Get What They Don’t (Marketplace/Search).

  • MSFT is losing at this time the battle in search and social networks. The beauty of live mesh is the strategy it enables for them. They have always controlled a large share of the desktops and with it the digital assets that reside there. What they have realized (I think) is that if they can rebuild the social network into a social PEER-to-PEER network (where they provide the ‘to’ infrastructure) they can regain control or at least relevance. Ozzie’s tenure w/ Groove has to be behind this mindshift. Enable people share the chunks of social network activity (files, posts, articles, comments, etc) in a peer-to-peer synch model … not some push to a central site concept like Facebook. In doing so MSFTs software plays a central role. And with a central role they can inject things like … say … how to do an AdSense on the stuff you share on the mesh that gets views leading to commerce. I wonder what Google thinks about that … hehe.

In summary, Live Mesh is worth pondering. What you see now is misleading. It is NOT is just a repackaging of what has been around for awhile (synching files between PCs, remote desktop connectivity). If what is hinted at above is realized it could become the platform for transparency of sharing all files … links, tweets, comments, images, blog posts, docs … across all devices … pcs, phones, OTHER SYSTEMS. If you ponder that prior sentence you can see how it disrupts the current centralized model (sites like MySpace, Facebook, Friendfeed) for social networking. There is no facebook or friendfeed required. All the pieces are pushed around … peer to peer … via live mesh. All you need is your favorite “Mesh” reader to see all the ‘file data’ being synch’d to you and rolled up the way you want it. And MSFT has leverage in that market (PC devices per consumer).

Consider me sold. MSFT’s vision of peer-to-peer when fully baked will trump the current centralized sites that drive it today.

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

***********************************************
******** 1st VID - HANDS ON WITH LIVE MESH **********
***********************************************
• http://on10.net/blogs/nic/Hands-on-with-Live-Mesh/
• 4/24/2008, 6:13 AM
………………○ Live Mesh Team
………………………………§ Noah
………………………………§ George
………………○ Referenced at MIX a few months back
• 4/24/2008, 6:14 AM
• Goal put you at center of your computers and stuff
………………○ Data
………………○ Application / Computer access
• Use cases
………………○ Tie to your rigs
………………○ Data synch
………………○ Remote Desktop (Bauer words)
• BAUER COMMENT - ISNT THIS A FANCY UI ON EXISTING FUNCTIONS?
• 4/24/2008, 6:16 AM
• Demo
………………○ Blue folders allow synch and share across mesh
………………○ BAUER COMMENT - Team file sharing?
………………○ Uses remote desktops (through firewalls and NATs)
………………○ BAUER COMMENT - Might press AMZN’s AMI model … relative to vendor play of on demand usage … but AMZN has payment engine behind usage .. Not clear here if they can
………………○ Through a browser
• 4/24/2008, 6:19 AM
• Browser
………………○ Browser experience is slower
………………○ Also have client experience
• 4/24/2008, 6:19 AM
• Folders
………………○ Live on ALL machines
………………○ Auto replication?
………………○ INCLUDING VIRTUAL DEVICE
………………○ Bauer comment — So they are pushing to virtual storage (backup) …
• Timeline
………………○ See members
………………○ See timeline
………………○ See presence
………………○ Bauer comment - Looks like office live
• 4/24/2008, 6:21 AM
• Data
………………○ See anywhere
………………○ BAUER COMMENT - Might be a killer for sharepoint … alfresco … for users that use those tools soley around document share
………………○ BAUER QUESTION - File locking … edit conflicts
• 4/24/2008, 6:23 AM
• How hard to add device to mesh
………………○ Add piece of software … connects to cloud
………………○ BAUER ? - can you connect to multiple mesh’s
………………○ Not on mobile and Mac yet
………………………………§ Working on it
• 4/24/2008, 6:25 AM
• Roadmap
………………○ They say this is the 1st step to putting users in center of all their stuff
• How convert folders to mesh
………………○ Simple right click ‘add to mesh’
………………○ Choose what machines get the ‘push’ (versus pull) and force immediate
• Sharing to friends
………………○ Use LiveID … but to invite just send via email
………………○ Share (bauer ? - not edit)
• Location of files
………………○ In the cloud … right now … for sharing outside of mesh
………………○ You can synch to your mesh machines
………………○ So they do push down to devices AND the cloud (offline file)
• 4/24/2008, 6:29 AM
• File types supported, size limits
………………○ None
………………○ Initial release is 5GB of data in cloud
• 4/24/2008, 6:30 AM
• How did this come about / fit into SaaS vision of MSFT
………………○ Everyone has many devices
………………○ How make work as one
………………○ Bauer comment - Kills (depending if not tied to workflow, tagging, etc functions) the salesforce ‘content management’ play … why would you do that .. Create a mesh for you company and put the files there
• 4/24/2008, 6:32 AM
• Products and Solutions that Work Now
………………○ Windows Live … exists and augments
………………○ This is a platform to bring together data and devices
………………○ Then build from there
………………○ Easier file / data sharing platform
• 4/24/2008, 6:33 AM
• Platform .. Will we see different solutions making products from it
………………○ Live Mesh based on synch feeds (ATOM, RSS, etc)
………………○ Other people can plug in and store data in feeds
………………○ App to synch favorites
………………○ App to store todo lists
………………○ App to track stuff
………………○ Could have apps in their UI (Bauer comment - requires MSFT) or as an API (Bauer Comment - like AMZN)
• 4/24/2008, 6:36 AM
• How get access
………………○ Mesh.com … invitation only
• 4/24/2008, 6:38 AM
………………○ SkyDrive / Foldershare
………………………………§ They are all one group
………………○ Bauer comment - If they are all one group it is unlikely this is a free play (pricing not mentioned … key in what isn’t said). However office live is free (but its in beta) and does a similar function (w/o synch local, provides cloud).
***********************************************
******** 1st VID - END — *************** **********
***********************************************
**
**
***********************************************
******** 2nd VID - AMIT KEYNOTE ******************
***********************************************
http://blip.tv/file/854328/
Web 2.0 Expo
10m
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:30 AM
…………..○ Bauer comment - how about that pump up music at the start [wink]
…………..○ Amit
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:31 AM
……………………….§ Web is center
……………………….§ We connect via many devices
……………………….§ How to keep those devices in synch
……………………….§ Ours
……………………….§ And our trusted friends
…………..○ Settings and local favorites
…………..○ Device types - picture frames, macs, phones, laptops, towers, etc
……………………….§ Bauer comment - how many of those devices are on the web?
…………..○ Unified Device management
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:34 AM
…………..○ Feeds
……………………….§ Unified feeds
…………..○ Apps
……………………….§ Web based app management
……………………….§ Apps know devices and their capabilities
…………..○ Drop dead simple
……………………….§ Bauer comment - doesn’t jive w/ commentary so far on blog space
…………..○ Demo
……………………….§ Capture video of kid w/ phone
……………………….§ Dad sees on laptop real time on airport
……………………….§ Ims back
……………………….§ Shares a song to his daughter … next second
……………………….§ While kids next room are gaming
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:36 AM
…………..○ Everyone gets access to tech preview that is @ Web 2.0 Expo
…………..○ Device Ring is Core Metaphor
……………………….§ On windows PC
……………………….§ Mac / Mobile Next
……………………….§ Future more devices
……………………….§ Folder for anywhere access
……………………………………□ Bauer comment - interesting play … mesh compatible play on device sales like picture frames, touch tables, etc … fully compatible you get more features … becomes an iphone/ipod angle / barrier for MSFT devices
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:39 AM
…………..○ Mesh Bar
……………………….§ Single view of devices
……………………….§ Members in folder
……………………….§ News and events in the folder
……………………….§ Notifier lives on task bar … all up view of action on mesh
……………………….§ Also avail on live desktop to get webview
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:39 AM
…………..○ Use case shown is just ONE scenario
…………..○ Their focus is PLATFORM
……………………….§ Define model digital relationship between devices, people, assets
……………………….§ OpenAPI
……………………………………□ Yes, MSFT is about Open
……………………………………□ Shows Datamodel browser for Livemesh … dev can mesh format (xml, rss, atom, etc) … so you choose lang/tools … how you interact w/ live mesh
……Bauer comment - How is different than friendfeed?
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******** 2nd VID - END ***************************
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**
***********************************************
******** 3rd VID - AMIT KEYNOTE *******************
***********************************************
Channel9
John Udell Interviews
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=399578
4/23
36m
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:43 AM
…………..○ Whats it like to be @ MSFT (3yrs now)
……………………….§ Was @ IBM. Tremendous on potential impact
……………………….§ He does business, product strategy … intersection
……………………….§ So great job for him
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:45 AM
…………..○ What like taking over Gates role
……………………….§ SKIP
…………..○ GOTO 7:30 IN (MESH STARTS)
…………..○ Talk about environment MSFT faces
……………………….§ Mainframe was todays sexy utility. Timesharing. All was there in 70’s.
……………………….§ PC revolution was empowerment to consumer.
……………………….§ Swing of pendulum
……………………….§ Web grew in era of dialup … so built for that … force decentralized .. Thin terminal
……………………….§ Broadband penetration allows fatter clients
……………………….§ Both sides have good power (CPU, Storage) now
……………………….§ What design patterns work for backend and frontend
……………………….§ PC started for one computer for a subset
……………………….§ Moving now to not just one pc person … multiple devices per user … how to tie together … data … personal and cloud … MSFT wants to enable those solutions that balance leverage both
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:51 AM
…………..○ Internet OP SYS Space (AMZN, Google). How does MSFT history enable or drive action for them.
……………………….§ MSFT’s Approach.
……………………….§ Knew Bill / Steve since 1981
……………………….§ DNA of MSFT is a platform company … so need ISV community
……………………….§ Platform
……………………….§ Discussions of what different industry models will look like, be built like … given cloud computing … no specifics
……………………….§ MSFT wants to just enable that building … not be the buildings
……………………….§ AMZN. Ground up. Make raw resources (VMs, AMIs) to the developer. Power play.
……………………….§ Google. Tries to simplify cloud w/ constraints. So they serve a niche
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 6:55 AM
…………..○ 16:30 in
…………..○ LIVE MESH … folder share … screen share … can confuse true vision
……………………….§ MSFT core environment — multi device environment
……………………….§ Enterprise side … solved by MSFT via SMS
……………………….§ Now solve for consumer (device management)
……………………….§ So that is one path
……………………….§ 2nd is devices don’t / aren’t built well to work together
……………………………………□ Bauer comment - Is this their trump of OPENID … or could they push to use mesh to push data to various devices (including SYSTEMS)
……………………….§ Data flow … like feeds
……………………….§ Applications … be configured and liscensed
……………………………………□ Bauer comment … again … is this a slow entry to single user
……………………………………□ Bauer comment … msft takes what they have (user content, consumer) and uses mesh to push into systems they don’t control … devices they don’t control … they maintain relevance by owning/channelling the user profile
……………………….§ 4/25/2008, 7:01 AM
……………………….§ File and folder synch gives user a taste of power
……………………………………□ Bauer comment - I think it just allows the user to dismiss … now if the goal is to addict and get them using it (fits theories above) … then this is smart
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 7:02 AM
…………..○ Go beyond files/machines … bring people into the equation … Less obvious … connection to the web … How to optimize … spell that out
……………………….§ Two things (1) rich apps enable on PCs to share settings across devices (2) also websites extend their function to the world of devices
……………………….§ Groove reference … stumbled on … centralized websites … provision workspaces .. Invite users in … users want to take offline … wanted website to go offline … groove was peer sharing … so it do that well
……………………….§ Live mesh fills void of groove … infra … one service … manage synch to devices … data might be peer-to-peer or encrypted or through the cloud … but devices don’t care … developers don’t care … use infra … to push to devices
……………………………………□ Bauer comment - This is alert thingy on steriods … if all apps are synching real time … you go to your mesh console to see the same activity
……………………………………□ Bauer comment - majority of consumers are not sharing over web … in theory … msft has high ground if they can convert that user base via mesh
……………………….§ Use that simple tech … website … device … website … cloud
……………………….§ A feed of feeds … one thing a “mesh object” … represents a site … an element of that feed is other feeds … so an app can have many feeds … members, news, calendar, etc … or custom ones (transactions, recommended links, comments on a site)
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 7:08 AM
……………………….§ Folder is a mesh enabled Object
……………………….§ Item in feed is sub feed
……………………….§ Standard schema by item
……………………….§ News feed off a folder … see to right of folder … item by entry
……………………………………□ Bauer comment — So it would be like alertthingy or twitter offline
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 7:10 AM
…………..○ Banking example …
……………………….§ Local host and do stuff w/ an offline app
……………………….§ Developers want one way of working w/ mesh
……………………….§ Web version of live mesh … and client … same code
……………………………………□ Bauer comment — like AIR
……………………….§ Called MOE (mesh operating environment) … cloud MOE or client MOE same one
…………..○ 4/25/2008, 7:11 AM
…………..○ Synch problems .. How evolved from mistakes of groove
……………………….§ New team … he sponsored
……………………….§ There is a DNA trail … playdoh, lotus notes, groove, live mesh
……………………….§ More work w/ them during his CTO tenure not as much lately
……………………….§ Basic synch, interaction … that is similar
……………………….§ Groove power of adhoc invites … bypass centralized security … so groove users will get that part of mesh
……………………….§ Hope people feel that mesh is very lightweight … notthing there … works across firewalls, nats, double nats … few knobs to turn
……………………….§ Developer kit is NOT on mesh.com right now
***********************************************
******** 3rd VID - END ***************************
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** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

April 26, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 1-Definitely Watch This | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Social Networks: The New Age Drug Dealers?

Social networks want to portray themselves as your friend in ‘discovery’. Your wingman in serendipity. However, aren’t they really more like new age Drug Dealers? I say that because all of their models for making money from their service (ads) incent them to create addicts. So, in their view, a daily touch isn’t enough. Forget that. How about hourly? Minute to minute? Ok. Maybe I am being a bit harsh. I got this idea as I watched this presentation from the Graphing Social Patterns (GSP) conference in March. I initially was intrigued because it was a panel of faces I knew and some I didn’t on an area that ties to my thoughts as of late. As usual my raw notes are below, but here are the thoughts that jumped out at me as I ran (i.e. jogged) along.

Webcast Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

Duration:

  • 40m

Speakers:

  • Ian Kennedy
    • MyBlogLog
  • Kevin Marks.
    • Google Open Social
  • David Recordion.
    • SixApart
  • Bret Taylor.
    • Friendfeed

Recommend to Watch? No

  • Their back and forth banter was interesting enough but the notable insights that were new (to me) were limited.
 1. Boiling Down the Mess of the Mass

  • They made a comment something to this effect early on. Basically that the masses all have an activity stream of shares, posts, etc … but if you try to look at it just few one let alone a few of your friends it becomes a mess of sites, logins, etc. Their goal is to unify that to one UI. So its still a bit of a mess … but one mess. Like your kids room that you wander into only for amusement every now and then.

2. Move from organization by friend, topic … to topic, friend

  • They talked about how they needed to boil universal streams of activity and thought to common topics (a photo, a post, a product, etc). Then show people this from that view. Really that isn’t that insightful given TechMeme kinda does it for blogs already. However for companies it is interesting if they are thinking about collaboration models (a nuance of design people might miss).

3. Then I Had the Drug Dealer Perception (Google starts it, FriendFeed pushes back)

  • So there was a brief exchange between Bret and Kevin around Monetization models. Of course that is all Ad based. Kevin (Google) pushed out that the framework (Google) should enable relevant ads to the stream (top down, drug lord). While Bret countered the users that own the stream should control what ads come in if not select them by the very post they do (some of that my expansion of his comment).

4. Niche Feeds, Niche Example for Drug Lord Case

  • At the end there was a question from the audience around how they enable niche consumers so they can get the feed of posts they want (minority) and not ones they don’t (majority). Subscribing to 10,000 feeds each picking a tag or sub-category group off reader XYZ isn’t viable. Which got me thinking, isn’t the real issue that niche consumers feel is that off-topic chatter comes/interrupts too often. However, if the social networks moved to a less frequent (daily/weekly?) interruption style with organization styles ala TechMeme and FriendFeed the human at the other end could scan the net activity and hit what interested them. Why isn’t this model being pursued heavily? It seems some are (e.g. Feedburner’s weekly feed promise for this year and FriendFeed). I believe some of the lack of focus on less frequent design puzzles is because most Social Networks make money on attention and interaction. If they focused on a model that was more efficient for you … they might only pull you in for 1/10 of the ad views. Amusing. If I am right (one could debate my premise, granted), I think they are being short sighted. Not catering to the Niche AND infrequent consumer is not catering to the majority consumer. Most people are infrequent consumers of blogs. They try em out and then stop due to the feeling of being spammed (via friends or not).

Basically it boils down to insight that the social networks aren’t enabling true usability on average in the use case of searching for insight. They are really focused on a use case that maximizes views and interaction. At least most of them are. A weekly feed by topic, friend (trusted source) is what they need. ** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

A panel discussion at GSP West with Ian Kennedy (MyBlogLog), Bret Taylor (FriendFeed), Kevin Marks (Google) and David Recordon (Six Apart) on the rollout of shared activity streams as part of the latest revolution in social networks • 4/11/2008, 6:08 AM • Fred Wilson - Facilitator
…………..○ Single search box.
…………..○ Front page. Genius. Wallstreet newsfeed at facebook drove facebook success.
…………..○ Commentary feeds and aggregation is key • 4/11/2008, 6:09 AM Ian Kennedy - MyBlogLog
…………..○ Goto othersites and pull information • 4/11/2008, 6:10 AM Kevin Marks - Google Open Social
…………..○ Activity streams
…………..○ Bauer comment - Much more technical, buzz wordish
…………..○ Was at technorati for 3.5 yrs prior • 4/11/2008, 6:10 AM david recordion - six apart
…………..○ Api focus for him
…………..○ How interact social networks • 4/11/2008, 6:11 AM Bret Taylor - FriendFeed
…………..○ Share stuff from web
…………..○ UI of their system is key for their growth … info discovery tool • What is the benefit to early adopters
…………..○ Rebroadcast what you are doing
………………………..§ Flickr
………………………..§ Twitter
………………………..§ Mass of links
…………..○ Bauer — Each person you know has the ‘mass’ and ‘mess’
………………………..§ Make it dynamic
…………..○ DR - enable your posse to follow you in more richly
………………………..§ Digg, flickr, etc
…………..○ BT - Not lifestreaming … content discovery
………………………..§ Too much information on stuff
………………………..§ See all these angles on an event
………………………..§ Use people you know for a filter on an event
………………………..§ So they reverse to an event rollup … then your posse’ view on that event
………………………..§ Bauer comment - techmeme but filtered to your trust network
…………..○ KM - agrees w/ BT
………………………..§ River of news • 4/11/2008, 6:16 AM • Lifestream
. Public versus Private … commenting
…………..○ BT -
………………………..§ APIs, Feeds
. Give information that is public … too obscure to be relevant … flickr default is public for photos
. Most people don’t care to shut off
……………………………………..□ Bauer comment - security through obscurity is what he is saying goes away due to APIs
………………………..§ Risk of exposing friend private responses to a broader group … their view of your posse vs your view of the posse
…………..○ DR - Public to Not Public Hard
………………………..§ Doesn’t have a method to share Facebooks activity out
………………………..§ Vote on sharing activity stream on facebook
…………..○ BT - Moveable type plugin
………………………..§ His photos in facebook are blackhole for now but expect them to change
…………..○ IK - SSB
………………………..§ Aggregation layers was hard on security … change of relationship impacts what you will or wont share
………………………..§ So they simplified to public only
…………..○ DR - Feeds
………………………..§ Super secret URL feeds get posted anywhere so that doesn’t work
………………………..§ Don’t give other applications PW to your blog • 4/11/2008, 6:24 AM • Need for microformats on blog?
…………..○ KM - Microformats to mark up a feed (RDF knock off?)
…………..○ IK - Add feed from friendfeed
………………………..§ Creates duplications
………………………..§ Use microformat … get UID for event … source item by publisher so various feeds don’t replicate the same item by author • 4/11/2008, 6:25 AM • Duplication - Twitter is an example
…………..○ BT - Atom is a good fix
………………………..§ So they are working on it
………………………..§ Work around to hide 1/2 the twitters (days before mailing list)
…………..○ DR - De-Dup how presented to users, consistent appearance
………………………..§ Flickr feed, giant photo
………………………..§ Talks about aspects of aspects of a noun … blog, abstract, thumbnails
…………..○ BT -
………………………..§ GEO RSS is an example
………………………..§ ATOM Summary is another
………………………..§ Fragmented right now, become ubiqutos • 4/11/2008, 6:29 AM • How do you monetize … both agregators and publishers
…………..○ BT -
………………………..§ Focusing on user base
………………………..§ See a lot of ad $ potential with actual content and social context
…………..○ IK - Affiliate Links
………………………..§ Netflicks
………………………..§ BT - Pieces of content by users ok. But ad affliate links drive conflicts of interest. Want to make the view for the user decides … allow users to choose.
………………………..§ IK - 3rd party though
………………………..§ Bauer comment - nice push by google rebuffed by BT on ads pushed down versus bubble up
…………..○ IK - Sends traffic to core sites that hold people • 4/11/2008, 6:33 AM • What seeing when building open social apps, desire to be in activity streams
…………..○ KW - Very aware. Abstraction There is Important
………………………..§ Competition over next few years how to makes sense of flows of info
…………..○ IK - Drive back to creator site is key
………………………..§ Drive down traffic to creator site kills off creators (who live on ad $?)
………………………..§ Google moving to engagement not presentment
………………………..§ Move away from mashup to interaction to websites … so 10 people that put together the content on a page … get paid
…………..○ BT - Traffic They Use For Redirect
………………………..§ Do you provide enough value for a net win. Driving growth
………………………..§ Blog publisher wants reaction on blog BUT people want to talk wherever they go … so they go to a aggregator site … FF distributes link among friends and talks at friendfeed
………………………..§ Bauer Thought - It is key to be able to pull threads on your product if possible … question is would the conversation occur if they couldn’t move into a non-public blog forum
…………..○ IK -
………………………..§ Googlenews getting blocked back and forth so debate continues by audience. • 4/11/2008, 6:40 AM • Viral Loop To Generate Activity. Pushing Apps To Get Activity. Sponsorship opp?
…………..○ KW -
………………………..§ Risk of being seen as a spammer. Viral apps that is. Feeds like flickr etc is interesting.
………………………..§ Think about ad ad person … how get product awareness via an associated conversation around the product
……………………………………..□ Bauer comment - key point … how companies can market in this model … sponsoring social networks / conversation that lead to their product potentially.
…………..○ DR - Sharing my flight info / Beacon • 4/11/2008, 6:44 AM • Goto Audience
…………..○ When feeds from myspace / facebook
………………………..§ IK - Going to avail now … not invited to
………………………..§ KM - No clear answer. Activity streams are core. • BAUER COMMENT - Only one question - DOH! • 4/11/2008, 6:45 AM • Will the Social Networks Be The filters of attention streams or tools that create and filter (so what choice?)
…………..○ BT -
………………………..§ Facebook announced plan to pull in information
………………………..§ Key is they have a solid graph
………………………..§ Problem @ Facebook is the proper tagging (relationship) of network … dating focus of its past will be a struggle for them
…………..○ DR -
………………………..§ Task of filtering will be the next ‘war’ … how filtering / aggregation is done
………………………………………□ BAUER CoMMENT - vhs/BETAMAX wars
…………………………§ 12 companies are going after FF
………………………..§ Yahoo w/ myBlogLog
………………………..§ Google w/ OpenSocial / Orchid
………………………..§ Plaxo
………………………..§ Etc • 4/11/2008, 6:49 AM • Niche feeds. Wider set of people, different trust levels, only with people w/ this aspect (kids, bachelor, work skill xyz). May choose to ignore niche feed. How to filter.
…………..○ BAUER COMMENT - let the humans do it … weekly feed summary……………○ BAUER COMMENT - They (they players in this) are not incented to do this although feedburner says they are working on it

** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

April 11, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 2-Perhaps (what floats your boat?) | , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Friendfeed: Enabling Drip Marketing 2.0?

I have always appreciated the concept of drip marketing. Unlike carpet bombing where you run ad campaigns in high volume forums with the hopes just 1% might be in the mood for buying your ’stuff’ … drip marketing is all about trying to stay top of mind with a CONFIRMED buyer in a long sales cycle. So instead of the lottery approach to top of funnel sales you are just a determined fisherman … casting your bait at the spot you know that bass is hiding … over and over again … every day … if not more. Presenting your lure in 10,000 different ways hoping one cast will get all the variables right (e.g. depth, speed, color, temperature, etc)

Friendfeed, more importantly, and Scoble’s plan to redesign his web presence around FriendFeed is really (in my view) an example of the next generation of marketing. A model where the drips occur so frequently, are so small, are so innocent you don’t even notice their interruption or what they are building to. You look for them. You want them.

You can read the running thoughts below but here are my initial thoughts around this “Drip Marketing 2.0″ angle.

Webcast Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

Duration:

  • ~45 minutes (Scoble)
  • ~5 minutes (Webware)

Speaker:

  • Paul Buchheit - Ex Googler. #23. Key player in Gmail, Adsense, etc.
  • Bret Taylor. Ex Googler. Key player in Google Maps JavaScript front end and the Google Maps API.

Recommend to Watch? Yes.

  • Always makes sense to take a listen and get a a sense of people that had the adoption of gmail and google maps.
 1. Why not just stick with email or blogs? Ask Burma-Shave.

  • Email and blogs are typically are stand alone bullets. The start of a story and an end of a story (be it words or images) triggers the aspect of your ego that wants that thing … regardless of medium. In and out. Impression made. Burma-Shave on the other hand didn’t try to tie it all up for you. They would draw the reader in with its pauses and builds between messages letting the consumer imagine the plotline they expected. You became a fly in the web. Jumping with Burma to the final realization of whatever the points were. Far more immersing. You didn’t tell the buyer. They discovered your point on thier own.

2. Burma-Shave & FriendFeed. Come on Bauer. Thats a stretch.

  • Well, if you look at Friendfeed as a tool for the consumer … it is. But if you look at it in the manner that Scoble is considering you can see something. What is more immersive and more of a relationship between content producer and consumer? A conversation stream that is 80% tidbits and morsels you can research and ponder with them followed by a wallop of a big gun blog post … or just a blog post? A really tight video How-To on your product segment … or a trickle of links showing your research trail on those products followed by that video? Which one does the consumer engage with more? Seth Goodin hinted to the same in his posts Little Scraps (how we are evolving to decisions made on scraps of data).

3. You have to be unbiased to play this game.

  • This model of trickling out your research before a summary blog emerges on point XYZ is perfect for anyone that is unbiased and/or covering a product segment. If you are a product evangelist for one product you will struggle to leverage it as you are perceived to be a shill. But if you are a distributor of multiple products … like Scobe’s research of all companies tech … or a retailer distributing the goods of any manufacturer in a segment … the consumer will consider your point.

4. It almost makes the product evangelist role viable

  • Many of product companies are toying with a full time product evangelist but struggle with the ROI. This style makes it viable. You get more content from the resource out because their daily research is shared (ala Beacon) to the consumers. You get better depth of contact with the consumers as they are researching it with you. And you get better marketing intelligence (unlike Burma-Shave) as they can (and will) comment back as the pieces of your daily FriendFeed build to something.

5. So what’s the role of FriendFeed? Aggregation of your tidbits.

  • Back to the webcast. FriendFeed is interesting in this conversation as it enables the evangelist to efficiently share out their research. An article on google reader at 8:30 a.m. A few relevant images from Flickr at 9:00 a.m. Twitter blathering from (9:30 to 10:30). A good quote from a book at 11. Some relevant blog posts on XYZ reader at 1. A webcast you recorded on QIK at 3. All tidbits leading to something (or nothing) in the form of a more formal statement (your blog?). Your power consumers will love the access you can provide them (and in turn spread more Burma-Shave tidbits .. covering highways you don’t even travel). You will love that all you need to do to pull your activity on XYZ social site to your blog is call FriendFeed’s API and pull it down (they do all the heavy lifting).

Overall, I agree with Scoble’s strategy. If you are a full time analyst (like him) or a full time evangelist for a B2C distribution, tools and techniques like the above will add notable value to your role. Definitely something to consider if you are in that position as an individual or a head of marketing considering such an investment.

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE SITTING **
……………○ Brett Taylor
……………○ Paul G
……………○ Polyvor (fashion site) sits with them
……………○ Team of 5 it looks like
……………○ Started 10/1/07
……………○ All prog (4) + anna (non prog)
……………○ Emacs
……………○ Friendfeed links to all sites you use … stream of things from people you like
…………………………§ Information discovery
…………………………§ BAUER COMMENT - isn’t this just like Facebook beacon in a way
…………………………§ BAUER COMMENT - Its like an RSS feed but micro bursts on favoriting of something or actions that are feed enabled (like comments, favoriting, shared, rated) that typically people wouldn’t put on their specific blog
…………………………§ Fragment conversations to social groups .. So you know people in the friend feed segment .. Discussions are more like a dinner party
…………………………§ Blog is a radio show … take callers who like hearing their voice … not listening
…………………………§ RS - blog trolls show up to get attention from attendance
…………………………§ Can have a private feed … huge % of usage
………………………………………□ BAUER - IM?
……………○ 4/2/2008, 6:13 AM
……………○ How make $
…………………………§ User base focus now
…………………………§ Monetization is early (ads maybe)
…………………………§ Netflix recommendation …
………………………………………□ BAUER COMMENT - Again beacon difference is it can be private (will channels be broad enough ? Perhaps in aggregate)
……………○ Why not at google?
…………………………§ Google is good for large investment initiatives (ie android)
…………………………§ Small gigs work well alone
…………………………§ Google forces users too quickly … can focus the company on growth / infra too early
……………○ 4/2/2008, 6:16 AM
……………○ Whats next
…………………………§ Information engineering (info overload) … UX
…………………………§ Honing that is hard
……………○ Filtering example … watch for XYZ term
…………………………§ They can filter out types of feed threads
…………………………§ Filters by word is good … done … filter make into rss feed
…………………………§ Give me what people I know (BAUER COMMENT — TRUST FACTOR)
……………○ 4/2/2008, 6:19 AM
……………○ Not trying to be facebook (profiles / linkages)
…………………………§ Most requested (profile) but they are resisting it
…………………………§ Looking at it as an information discovery problem NOT a socialization problem or TECH problem
…………………………§ Facebook is about listing friends … vs … tracking friends and what they share
……………○ 4/2/2008, 6:22 AM
……………○ Comments = Posts = Readers = Social Gestures of Value
…………………………§ Family dynamic is the model … interaction w/ people you know about content
…………………………§ Picture conference interaction … dynamic of pondering a shared item out ‘there’
……………○ Multi site aggregation
…………………………§ 19 services on friendfeed (rs) … flickr, upcoming.org, videos on youtube, etc
…………………………§ Needs glue
…………………………§ Original vision - entre’s in residence at VC benchmark capital
…………………………§ Example of how his sharing of songs on last.fm spread to his family
…………………………§ Ie smugmug … see the photos … might switch over
…………………………§ All rides on RSS and ATOM
…………………………§ Photos are good problem … they make it human readable (not spammed by 30 photos, or 58 comments)
……………○ 4/2/2008, 6:33 AM
……………○ How choose services glue in
…………………………§ Goal is to enable service to add themselves to friend feed
…………………………§ Today its request and popularity
…………………………§ yCombinator … easy to scale a webservice
…………………………§ Facebook but … provide for any website
……………○ Titles
…………………………§ No titles. Make decisions as a team
…………………………§ They all saw @ Google that went well and didn’t go well re: org growth … build company where everyone has opp to make big opp … not by first joiner
…………………………§ BAUER COMMENT - look for
……………○ Google can’t ship stuff
…………………………§ Right people get things done
…………………………§ But if not … could be slow
…………………………§ So how do you create a non-title fighting … contributions and achievements
…………………………§ Litmus test … engineer .. Choose to work here (friendfeed)
…………………………§ Leverage collective intelligence … but if you add layers … strategy comes top down not from the collective
…………………………§ Paul was #20 at google
…………………………§ BAUER COMMENT - needs idea model like that one site … that did voting and I mailed to mark johnson
…………………………§ Anti roles … interested in everything .. Google was role based to some degree it sounds like
………………………………………□ BAUER COMMENT - but isnt that size related
…………………………§ Challenge is how to scale small teams … org different … not hierarchy structure
……………○ 4/2/2008, 6:39 AM
……………○ They are building an offline app (AIR based)
…………………………§ You can post to twitter and pounce is a competitor
……………○ They are working things like
…………………………§ Experiments to make homepage of FF the perfect place
…………………………§ BAUER COMMENT - So they aspire to be a starting place over the web … vs Googlesearch or Facebook
…………………………§ Key is user driven filters of feeds by user (person A you want blogs, person X you want all, person Y you want photos, etc)
……………○ Ability to match people based on sharing of common items or types
…………………………§ Yes will consider it
…………………………§ Look at tracking geo location …
…………………………§ Pull off Doppler where you are
…………………………§ Friend feed could track people …
…………………………§ Key is api … do interesting but esoteric things w/ FF … so people can make friendfeed what they want
……………○ 4/2/2008, 6:45 AM
……………○ API
…………………………§ Publish to friend feed
…………………………§ Read from friend feed
…………………………§ Mobile devices (doesn’t work as well as it should) … API could help mobile developers
…………………………§ Desktop apps … AIR app coming (like an IM client)
…………………………§ Upload images via API
…………………………§ Take a photo on your photo and send it to someone
……………○ MP3 files … can display
…………………………§ Fred Wilson … wants to play inline from tumbler accounts
…………………………§ Blogtalk radio … call # w/ cell phone … auto record … to RSS feed
……………○ Whats the plan on mobile
…………………………§ Info on FF works well on mobile
…………………………§ Trouble is a lot of phone factors / platforms
…………………………§ Do their iPhone app
…………………………§ Twitter … full blown … hard to type to it … readable
…………………………§ Likes reading FF format
…………………………§ Try to be fast in response … performance
………………………………………□ Drives UI clean? Socialspark … ? … competitor
………………………………………□ Google guys is not flashy
……………○ Usability w/o Atheistics
…………………………§ Fast, usable w/o sizzle
……………○ They are ramping better than twitter
…………………………§ Experience of large user platforms
…………………………§ Paul/Sanjey … Gmail designers
…………………………§ Jim … Googlemaps
…………………………§ Acquiring hardware is hardware
……………○ AWS?
…………………………§ Occasionally … but moved to their stuff for more control … arch is python 100% … standard open source … mysql … linux …
…………………………§ Hard scaling is the architecture … use db … right chunking on db … what capacity … cache what … reduce load …
…………………………§ Great page on slide share … shows how they scale … opensource … live journal … memcast … shows how he scaled … 1st they read .. More open on how to scale sites … more information sharing … harder in past because load wasn’t the issue
……………○ OpenID
…………………………§ Supporting OpenID
…………………………§ Take it as login an provide
……………○ 4/2/2008, 6:58 AM
…………………………§ Close out
…………………………§ BAUER COMMENT - 2nd half was no notable stuff

WEBWARE NOTES

……….problem … getting people to setup on FF …

……….discussions is growth … limited to group on item …

……….people known … people subscribe

……….people known …

……….blog … take in callers … hear themselves talk

……….private discussion on friend feed of article

……….competitors do … add twitter account … can’t interact

……….shared you tube ….

……….make it people that use friend feed easier to use

** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE SITTING **

April 7, 2008 Posted by bauertim | 1-Definitely Watch This | , , , | 6 Comments

Salesforce.com - Fashionably Late to the ECM Party?

Not really a ‘running thoughts’ post … more of a sitting bull (watched this webcast over lunch).

Housekeeping aside, clearly Salesforce.com (SFDC) has a good shot that existing SFDC customers will consider using them for ECM. The integration of Koral to their stack (see this article from 04/07) has, based on the looks of what they are showing today, been successful.

You can read the running thoughts below (or in the attached PDF) but here are the keys I saw.

Webcast Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

  • Salesforce.com - Content Management

    • no link. not recorded. live each Wednesday.

Duration:

  • ~40 minutes

Speaker:

  • Gregg Johnson

    Not sure what Gregg’s past is but he seemed to be articulate in the ECM space and what SFDC is up to at this time

Recommend to Watch? Maybe.

  • If you are taking lunch at your desk and want some background insight and/or if you have live questions you want to push to the Content Management team this is a good medium. They answered all 3 of my questions on the spot.
 1. Earth to SFDC … Who Charges Per User?

  • While the functionality is pretty good the pricing model is a question mark for me. While competitors like MSFT and ORCL base ECM pricing on CPU and scope (internal or external) SFDC is sticking with a per user charge for anyone. I think it was an incremental $50/month/user but I could be wrong (I’ll post an update if I get it). Regardless, SFDC should consider the successful pricing structure that players like Stellent did. You pay, per user, for contributors while consumers are free. That works far better. Until they do that the scope of potential application is rather limited (see below). On the flip side, to get similar ‘internal only access’ functionality from Sharepoint you have to layout $7k for one server … add on costs to support and run it you are probably looking at around $20 to $30k. If getting SFDC content management turned on is $600/user/yr you might have a better pricing at lower user count levels.

2. Niche Doc Families Tied To CRM Users Make Sense

  • Given the point above, the right use of SFDC (as its priced now) is niche doc types that tie to the user roles that leverage SFDC heavily already. For example, if you are doing professional services in SFDC then resumes make sense to store out there and legal contracts around each gig as they are part of the transaction flow. I wouldn’t go too far past that however.

3. The fish that got away - Group Subscribe

  • One design consideration I think they left on the table but shouldn’t have was the ability for an admin to subscribe groups / roles. They didn’t enable this due to, according to them, too much noise on the update alerts if people were subscribed to a large volume of things by default. I think they need to consider the models being formulated to managed high volume ‘alerts’ in tools like Friendfeed. Using techniques like that (boiling down 25 alerts of the same type to a single line, filters of alerts by author, etc) you get the control they are looking for.

Since this webcast was only available live I snapped screenshots periodically while I took notes. Take a look at the Notes / Screenshots from Webcast to get a sense of the snapshots coupled with the notes.

Overall, I liked what I saw and probably will use the service … just for limited document types in the organization (around transactions that SFDC serves by default).

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE SITTING **

…………..○ Most business data is unstructured
……………………….§
…………..○ Features from field
……………………….§ Hard to find content
……………………….§ Sales creates materials (recreates)
……………………….§ Chaos when content changes
……………………………………□ BAUER ? - Universal URL
……………………….§ No feedback loop
…………..○ ? From me
……………………….§ To handle versions due you have the concept of a ‘universal’ URL for a asset? Similar to Stellent? So i can use that URL and always get the most recent version.
…………..○ Costs of Poor Content management
……………………….§
…………..○ Using Consumer Web to Business Model
……………………….§ Google - keyword search
……………………….§ AMZN - Reviews - rate books
……………………….§ Flickr - tagging
……………………….§ RSS - Subscriptions
……………………….§ Etc
……………………….§
…………..○ Extend Collaboration for Every Employee
……………………….§ Use for profession services around knowledge mgmt
……………………….§ Product is built for use cases
……………………….
…………..○ 13M in
…………..○ Demo
……………………….§ 4/2/2008, 12:13 PM
……………………….§ ? From me
……………………………………□ So can the content manager assets be used to in place of document fields that are default available in various things like ‘cases’ or ‘opps’
……………………….§ Content Workspace Overview
……………………………………□
……………………………………□ Tag clouds discussed
……………………………………□ Content not in folders
……………………………………□ Based on tags instead
………………………………………………..® BAUER COMMENT - Good Idea
……………………………………□ Flickr analogy
……………………….§ Example of search on router
……………………………………□
……………………………………□ Searches tags
……………………………………□ Searches doc attributes (like title)
……………………………………□ Searches full text of document
……………………………………□ Relevancy ranked
……………………………………□ Show ability to filter documents by tags in repository
……………………………………□ BAUER ?
………………………………………………..® can you save to SFDC repository from Office suite? Is there a plugin?
……………………….§ Sort results on high ratings or downloads
……………………………………□ Use feedback on what the best documents are
……………………….§ Preview mode prior to download
……………………………………□
……………………….§ Subscribe power
……………………………………□ Updates on change
……………………………………□ Bauer - ?
………………………………………………..® can you assign subscribe to roles in SFDC (so a forced subscribe on a group)
……………………………………□ Can subscribe by … tag … author … etc … similar to RSS feed
……………………….§ Ratings on doc (thumbs up / down)
……………………….§ Comments on document
……………………………………□ Get notified when comments happen
……&