June 18th, 2010
When a feature is adopted by everyone it’s no longer a feature. This is how it will be for social, location and rewards. Technological innovation is not taking a trending topic and applying it to your project. Innovation is when you see the trend before it even exists and create that trend.
Making anything social at this point isn’t innovative; it’s a part of the product. Pretty soon the same will go for location and rewards. Let’s go one step further – if you make your product based solely on the above features then you’re shooting for the middle.
If you’re not adding social features to your new app then you’re behind the times. People expect your new thing to include social features. If you’re creating a location based service (LBS) application then rewards of some sort are a given. In fact, if you can’t greatly improve on the current market leaders then you shouldn’t be making a LBS app.
Innovation doesn’t come from reiteration. It comes from iteration. Case in point: Friendster. Friendster got to the social network game early but didn’t iterate often enough. When they were having bandwidth troubles & couldn’t scale fast enough people jumped ship for Myspace, who took advantage of Friendster’s woes.
Now Friendster’s co-founder has a new project called Place Pop. It’s an LBS with a rewards structure – that’s it. The badge system isn’t even compelling enough to compete with the top contenders. You can earn bronze, silver, gold and platinum badges based on your checkins.
In order to beat the market leader your product needs to be more compelling. You need to have a better product with more features put together in a new and innovative way. If you’re not doing that then you’re creating an ‘also ran as’.
The lesson we can learn here is this:
timing + planning + improvement = success
Pretty soon everything will be social, include location and give you rewards. As more and more companies include these features the public expects every product to have them. It’s up to you as an innovative entrepreneur to look beyond the horizon to what is next.
What do people need? What will they need? These are some of the questions you should be asking yourself when creating. If you’re just going to a competitor then you’re only going to rise to the middle. If you don’t care about making people’s lives better then how are they supposed to care about your product?
Tags: entrepreneur, Friendster, LBS, Place Pop, rewards, social media
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April 26th, 2010
Relationships are built over time from first encounter to the present. I emphasize “built” because to build something you must put active effort in with your own two hands. When building something you must put the proper energy into laying the foundation and constructing the supporting framework.
While many people may intrinsically understand this they forget one thing: you can’t just build a house and forget about it. A house needs upkeep just like relationships do. That’s where many people assume they still have the same relationship when in fact it has changed over time.
Everything thrives and deteriorates in the right conditions, physical or not. Relationships are special because humans act as a magnifying glass to amplify the situation. In this way they’re even more fragile that rare tempermental flowers. Flowers can and will thrive once again next season. Once damaged, human relationships can be beyond the point of no return because of hard feelings.
So how do we assume relationships? Think of people you have affinities to and for some reason or another communications lapse. Now picture this: the only time now that one person contacts the other is for a favor. To the other person it could come across over time that the contactor is just using the contacted. At first this communication is welcomed and the contacted will go out of their way to help their long lost friend.
Relationships take work from both parties, individual or business. Before you ask anything of anyone else ask them about themselves. Even if you’ve let your house deteriorate for a while just doing a little housekeeping before you decide to have a huge party makes the biggest of difference when it’s all said and done.
Tags: first encounter, hard feelings, human relationships, laying the foundation, long lost friend
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April 8th, 2010
You may not need an Apple iPad right now or think you’ll need it this year but mark my words, you will need it in one year. People aren’t quite sure what they do with it and to them I say wait and see. Time and early adopters will show you its many uses and how it fits into your life.
The iPad is definitely a pure consumption product, right now. As time goes on we will see more and more apps that are full-featured utilities. These will end up augmenting your day to day routines as you find yourself wanting to spend more time on such a compelling device.
Apple does an amazing thing for the computing industry and consumers in general. It sets the pace and tells you not what you want but what you will want. Apple creates demand and then effectively supplies it. A different way of doing things but Apple’s old motto is Think Differently.
They aren’t without their detractors. I definitely hear what detractors are saying. Yes the iPad doesn’t have a camera, video camera or support flash amongst other things. I also see that Apple is incremental with their firmware and hardware updates. This is to essentially milk as much money out of you as possible and keep you in the renewable consumption game. Essentially there’s no difference between the first iPhone and the latest iPhone if you really think about it.
My friend Carl put it keenly in a comment he made on my last post. Apple isn’t revolutionary; they’re evolutionary. Modernism has been going on since the 50′s. Nothing new here. They just took someone else’s style and applied it to their industry. Great artists steal.
Carl also had another great point that goes back to why you’ll need an iPad in a year. The major news services are essentially providing free advertising for the iPad, further fueling the feeding frenzy and stoking the fires of consumers. All this talk will drive you into an Apple store, you’ll play with the iPad, then you’ll want it. Even if you don’t understand or don’t want it right now you’re still curious and you’ll eventually come into contact with it. Call it the Puppy Effect.
As far as why you’ll really need an iPad a year down the road goes back to my previous point about how Apple sets the pace. Competitors may have had tablet pc’s before the iPad just like they had mp3 players before the iPod. What Apple does is to signal to consumers and competitors that a certain type of product is now a part of your life.
What will end up happening a year down the road is that consumers will have found all the little ways that the iPad makes their lives easier and better. Competitors will start creating competing products in droves to fuel the market even more. Technology and non-technology product creators will start creating accessories. Designers will start molding their creations to fit the iPad. Thus the iPad will become a part of your world one way or another.
You may not need an iPad a year or two years from now. What will eventually happen is that technology will advance so much that physical keyboards will become a thing of the past and the iPad will seem like a logical choice. If you think Apple doesn’t have plans on your entire life you’re dead wrong. If you think Apple isn’t already a part of your whole life then you’re sadly mistaken.
Tags: Apple, early adopters, feeding frenzy, iPad, stoking the fires
Posted in analysis, featured, life, media, technology | 4 Comments »
April 4th, 2010
Science fiction helps us to dream beyond today. This can be both good and bad. Good in that it gets ideas flowing that may have some practical applications towards today. Bad in that it allows many to stay in a far off place with too many high minded ideas that can’t be created for a while if not ever.
Science fiction is dangerous, for everyone. It’s dangerous for do nothing laggards and those who would get rich off of monotony. It’s dangerous for society, for the thoughts it brings can be life changing and earth shattering. It’s dangerous for everyone because eventually it will coopt your job your paycheck your life and force you to adapt to new circumstances.
At one point space rockets and underwater submarine ships were a thing of a wild man’s imagination yet Jules Verne had the foresight to envision one of them. While far fetched science fiction plays a huge role in revolutionizing our lives I’m more interested in the science fiction that blends reality with possible actionable results in the near future. I like to call this science faction.
This area can easily be related to, envisioned as a possible future and people can actually put steps in place to create said creations. The more something is closer to reality the more tangible it is for someone to bring it in to reality. Movies like Minority Report and books that Cory Doctorow write all have futuristic machine elements woven into everyday life in a palatable manner. It’s not too hard for a layman to envision a not too distant future with them and the devices in it. When average everyday people can see themselves in the plot of a science faction story then it’s that much easier for your inventors to create and market similar items onto the same public.
So how does this affect us? Dreamers need to keep on dreaming and creators creating. In fact the artists – your writers, directors etc – need to team up with inventors and entrepreneurs to amplify each others messages into an augmented reality. No I’m not talking about AR. That’s unactionable playtime that the average lazy man won’t use until they fully understand it, it’s easy to use and it passes the tipping point in society.
That’s the crux of all of this. Apple works so brilliantly because they release futuristic looking devices that slightly improve on your everyday life. Apple isn’t looking to give you a hoverboard or teleportation device, although someday they may. People buy the familiar improvement. They consume the 1.1.2. They think the 3.0 is cool but push it too early and it flips big time. As much as people want to innovate their lives they still need to make your crazy contraption fit seamlessly into the rest of their boring mundane existence. If your device can’t integrate with their reality you’ve just moved yourself from science faction to science fiction to oblivion.
Tags: actionable results, machine elements, point space, science faction, space rockets
Posted in analysis, business, featured, technology | 1 Comment »
March 26th, 2010
I gave a talk at SXSW at Social Media Club Austin entitled how Social Media is Like Porn. I crowdsourced the quotes and attributed everyone who contributed. There was much more to my talk (you had to be there to truly know). Some may have been offended by the visuals included but I say this to them, social media is offensive, it doesn’t cater to everyone and if you aren’t offended then you’re consuming too much of your own dogma. Get offended, get riled up, challenge others. Social media is a discussion and a fight at times. If everything felt good all the time then we’d be drinking the kool-aid. Enough of that, on with the show:
Tags: kool aid, presentation, social media, social network, social networking
Posted in analysis, featured, social media | 1 Comment »
March 21st, 2010
(Originally published on Lunch: How @anywhere became @everywhere.)
Know how you’re really excited to hook up with the smoking hot girl in the corner only to realize that she kisses like a wet fish? That’s exactly how Evan Williams’ interview by Umair Hague went. The session started off with much tension hanging in the air as whispers of Twitter announcing a new product swept through the Austin Convention Center halls. The main keynote room quickly became packed and rooms all over the convention center were being turned into overflow rooms. I happened to get ushered in to the main room and find a seat pretty close up front.
And so the talk begins. Ev starts out by announcing @anywhere, which is Twitter profile rollovers enabled outside of Twitter on the rest of the internet. Exciting! At least it was to most of the attendees there. Our minds started reeling – what are the implications of this? what does the implementation for businesses look like? what are the analytics? can i customize it? what else can it do? Unfortunately none of those questions were answered and neither did they delve into @anywhere any deeper than just announcing it. From there they went to talking about Twitter ad nauseum.
I like Twitter as much as the next person but let’s be honest – your average person who has never heard of how Twitter was used in Haiti or other newsworthy situations will not be attending SXSW. SXSW is for tech-savvy people who want to learn about things on a deeper level. I knew early on that their conversation was not heading back to @anywhere, hence it went @everywhere. Some others knew this too as they started filing out of the main keynote room. At this point this was not the mass exodus everyone experienced. I’m not exactly sure what tipped other people off but I experienced it firsthand. I happened to sit down right opposite of the exit because my friend Lane was charging his phone by the Pepsi Podcast lounge. All of a sudden about 10 minutes later mass amounts of people started filing out of the auditorium. No, the talk wasn’t over – there was still 10 minutes left.
I’m not sure exactly what triggered the mass exodus but my guess is that it’s the old adage ‘nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd’. Here’s the bottom line: when you have a group of savvy internet people in one large room don’t tell them about your service that they’ve been using for a while already. Go into details about the new announcement. Doing so makes them feel special as they are witnessing history. Rehashing history live makes them feel like they’re wasting their time and ultimately they did. That’s why many people walked out. People vote with their feet and if your presentation isn’t up to their standards they will decide very quickly.
Tags: friend lane, mass exodus, overflow rooms, wet fish, williams interview
Posted in analysis, social media | 1 Comment »
February 10th, 2010
A node is a point where many points meet. While this may seem like a linchpin, a supernode connects seemingly disparate topics and brings those groups together in a new group.
Supernodes can be found in many different areas – people, places and things. One place that’s a supernode is Rice.
Rice is a small chain restaurant in NYC known for their varied dishes. All of the dishes center on – you guessed it – rice. What makes this important is that instead of focusing on the traditional way of dining based on a culture (Italian) or a food (cupcakes) they unify multiple cultures around a single ingredient.
What comes from this is a new and unique experience. Your taste buds are allowed to intermingle many different flavors at once that they may have not been privvy to before. The conversation that’s created around the supernode is priceless. That’s what a supernode does.
A supernode is a trailblazer more often than not. A supernode also may take center stage because of the sheer fact that it is center and a point of congregation. What the supernode does best naturally is act as a conduit for many different streams to converge. It allows the different nodes to be on center stage and come together because it is by nature the center.
So what does all this mean to you? These supernodes are changing reality. We’re all more enriched and emboldened because of them. They turn the impossible into I’m possible.
Tags: flavors, linchpin, sheer fact, supernode, taste buds
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January 31st, 2010
Why do people gather? For that matter why does anything gather? To be around like minds?
To not be alone. As much as someone says they want to be alone they don’t. We all need others to define ourselves.
Online and offline you’ll see people gathering naturally:
Chat rooms
Discussion boards
Social networks
Microblogging platforms
Special events
Clubs
Concerts
Museums
These are places where people naturally come together around one centralized topic. If you look closer there are overlapping subtopics that look like many Venn Diagrams overlaid at once. They may have differing opinions and views on what they’re consuming but the one thing that remains constant is what they are there for.
Some ways people gather are apparent while others are more subtle. One thing is for sure – we gather and we gather often.
Tags: clubs concerts, social networks, subtle one, subtopics, venn diagrams
Posted in analysis, business, featured, life | 2 Comments »
October 16th, 2009
Recent reports have shown social media sites to be female concentrated. What about the rest of the internet? Women may be using social networks more but that still doesn’t account for all the other types of websites.
While social networks may be big with females, internet usage in the United States seems to be split about 50/50 with men and women:
- News outlets are the primary focus with males.
- CNet, Reuters, IGN, Time, Drudgereport are all predominantly male.
- Shopping destinations are the primary focus with females.
- JCPenney, CBS, Pronto, Pogo, Overstock are all predominantly female.
*All stats from Quantcast except for MTV, BBC.co.uk, Simplyhired, Pronto, Newsweek and Fancast which come from Google Ad Planner.
Tags: analysis, analytics, bbc, cbs, demographics, drudgereport, fancast, females, gender demographics, Google, ign, internet women, jcpenney, meatsurement, men and women, mtv, newsweek, quantcast, reuters, shopping, simplyhired, statistical analysis, statistics, stats, using social networks
Posted in analysis, featured, technology | No Comments »
October 14th, 2009
It’s quite interesting that while Google gives in depth information about many other websites around the world with Google Ad Planner yet it gives no information on its own site. That’s not exactly the case below as we can see Quantcast gives full data on Google.com:
Why doesn’t Google want you to know about their data? Is it because their traffic is flat and has been flat for the last 6 months?:
As you can see below in depth demographics data IS available, just not from Google:
Some quick demographics from Google:
- 67% of users are between 18-49 and is above the Internet average.
- 78% are Caucasian but this is below the Internet average.
- 15% are Asian, Hispanic and Other. This may seem small but their usage of Google is higher than normal.
- 58% make $60K+, so Google’s usage amongst monetary classes is split pretty evenly.
- 58% have attended College and Grad School. What’s interesting here is that as education goes up the concentration of users in the more educated groups goes up as well.
Whatever Google’s reasoning is, the fact of the matter is that their data is out there yet they don’t want you to have it via their tools.
Tags: analysis, business, consumer, consumer demographics, consumers, data, data traffic, demographic data, demographics, depth demographics, gender demographics, Google, google ad planner, internet average, knowledge, marketing, measurement, selling, Value
Posted in analysis, business, featured | 1 Comment »
