links for 2005-12-31
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Phil has a list of top trends that he hopes we will not see 2007.
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December 2005
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Friday, December 30, 2005
2006 Trends to Watch Part VII: The Empire Strikes Back
Chris Anderson has a post describing a new collaboration between Wired magazine and Socialtext to track the number of Fortune 500 companies that are blogging. They found that only 4% are doing so. Studying the Fortune 500 is always important, but they're not the innovators in the blog world.
To date, most of the companies that have put points up on the blog scoreboard have been small to medium-sized firms. These are companies like Stormhoek, which saw its sales double from blogging. Perhaps the one notable exception is Microsoft.
In 2006 the Empire - e.g. large corporations - will strike back in a big way in an effort to make sure they don't lose the online word of mouth game to the small fries. Will they be successful? Some will, others definitely will not. The keys to success (and I'm borrowing a page from Seth Godin's book here) are to 1) find passionate audiences with a distinct world views, 2) to tell them stories in an authentic voice and 3) blog with a higher holy calling that provides consistent value and differentiates them from others.
2006 Trends to Watch Part VI: Features Creep
In the desktop software industry (and elsewhere) there's a common ailment known as “feature creep.” Wikipedia defines this as “a phrase used to describe software which over-emphasizes new features to the detriment of other design goals, such as simplicity, compactness, stability, or bug reduction.”
Today's web-based apps differ greatly from their evolutionary PC-bound cousins, notably in their social features. However, late this year to me it became apparent that the Web 2.0 world too is suffering from feature creep. The Web-app industry in 2005 resembled the space race in 1955. The focus has been on launching “cool stuff” quickly, rather than building a five-nine compliant businesses. The one shining star is 37 Signals, perhaps thanks to their Zen-like, Phil Jacksonesque philosophy of keeping things simple.
As Reuters noted today, our dependence on the Web 2.0 world is growing. Blogs and tagging sites exploded in popularity. However, as they also underscore, over the last several weeks there have been more than a number of major outages that left users stranded and frustrated.
In 2006 features will creep. In other words, the breakout Web 2.0 companies of 2005 will slow down in innovating ever so slightly as they make sure they have the infrastructure in place to grow. This build-out is not only critical for handling increased demands for their services, but more importantly to compete with Google, Yahoo and Microsofts who all live in “a five nines” world.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Marketer Blogs Tale from Distressed Jet
Jeremy Hermanns, who works at Tribal DDB in Los Angeles and co-created Blogebrity, was on Alaska Flight #536, which ran into trouble and had to make an emergency landing. He blogged it and the photos were used by the pros. Now it seems he's getting snippy comments from folks who allegedly have Alaska Airlines IP addresses. (Via Jeff Jarvis)
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Read Most of O'Reilly's Hacks Books for Free Using Google
I am taking a break from my 2006 trends series tonight because a) I found an awesome hack I just had to share, b) I am lazy this week and c) I am in the mood to get Digged.
O'Reilly publishes a great series of books called the Hacks series. I have wasted spent several afternoons in the bookstore soaking up these hacks. I am too cheap to buy the books (even online) because I know they'll be outdated tomorrow.
Anyway, I have found a way to read most of their terrific hacks for free using Google Book Search - at least for now. This trick, by the way, works for lots of books, like travel guides. See the end of this post for how I hacked the Frommer's travel series. Here's how it's done...
(Update 1 based on reader comments: This post is in no way meant to slight O'Reilly, Frommers
or their authors. It is meant to identify a significant hole nuance in the way publishers can opt to list their books on Google
Book Search. that puts millions of books at risk - including these
publishers who graciously opted into their program. This hole needs to be addressed and fast.)
(Update 2: Danny Sullivan points out here that this is a feature of Google Book Search, not really a hole. I've updated my post. Further, if someone from Google wants to weigh in, it would be welcome.)
Step 1: Find Your Book on Google Book Search
This step is easy. Simply go to Google Book Search and search for the title you're interested in. For example, Podcasting Hacks.
Step 2: Access the Book's Table of Contents
Simply choose the Hacks book you want to “read” and then click the “Table of Contents” on the left hand side navigation bar.
Step 3: Find Your Hack
Using the back and forth arrows, you can peruse the book's table of contents to view all of the different hacks in the book. When you find one you like, note its exact title and then search the book for this phrase in quotes. For example, let's say I want to read the hack #28 in this list - Build a Great Sports Podcast. I would then enter “great sports podcast” in the box at the top of the page and click “Search this book.” Be sure to note the page number (in this case, page 167).
Step #4: Read Your Hack
If you're lucky, you will get a page that looks like this that lists each page that references the specific phrase. Simply click on the page noted in the table of contents (in this case page 167) and you can read the entire section! I find this works for about 70% of the hacks in a given book. The shorter the hack, the more likely it is to work because Google blocks some pages.
So there you have it. By the way, this trick doesn't just work for the O'Reilly series. The hack can be used - for now - on virtually any book that publishes bits of information in series of say three to five pages. For example, here's a link to all of the books in Google Book Search from the Frommer's travel guide. One of the books listed is their 2004 Seattle guide. Well, darn it, when yo go to Seattle you have to go to the Snoqualmie Falls. Using Google Book Search, I found the section of the Frommer's book that features just the part on the attraction!
If you like this trick, be sure to add Google Book Search to your Firefox search plugins. Just hit this page to install it.
Technorati Tags: Books, Firefox, Google, Google Book Search, Google Print, Hack, Hacks, lifehacks, O'Reilly, O'Reilly Hacks
Monday, December 26, 2005
links for 2005-12-27
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An interesting new blog about RSS.
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At the intersection of Getting Things Done and building a micro-ISV. Live from Safari Software, Sonoma, CA, USA.
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One to One Interactive's blog.
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Fred Wilson is rounding up predictions for next year.
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Pete Blackshaw's key personal insights from 2005
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This site allows you to keep a social list of the books you read and/or recommend. After you sign up you can add books to your unique list. You can view anyone else's books and they can view yours.
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PR legend Michael Levine's bare bones blog. Michael, we love your books. We miss you. Come join the conversation.
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Download the audiobook or ebook for free.
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Podcast interview with Google's “Chief Internet Evangelist”
2006 Trends to Watch Part V: Crash 2.0
Spend some time reading Michael Arrington's terrific TechCrunch blog and you'll learn about one innovative Web 2.0 start-up after another after another. Most of them share three traits: they're social, they're built with Ajax and their business model is dependent on advertising.
The startups, however, aren't the only ones who are enthusiastic about free ad-supported Web apps. Take Microsoft. In November Microsoft unveiled Windows Live and Office Live. Both of these too will be primarily supported by advertising. They are designed to complement, rather than replace their desktop brethren. At the time Bill Gates said: “This advertising model has emerged as a very important thing.” That certainly made people stand up and take notice.
Unfortunately, the reality is that for all of the hype this year around online advertising, it is not growing as quickly as the Web 2.0 market hopes. In fact, just last week JupiterResearch projected that online display and search advertising spending will grow at an average annual rate of 10% between 2005 and 2010. This spells trouble for startups hoping to capitalize on online advertising. There won't be enough to go around - at least right now. Their window is closing.
The result is that we're going to see a shakeout among the startups that are hoping to build a business around online advertising. Those who have established a sizable audience footprint and have started monetizing it I am sure will be fine. I have no doubt Google, Yahoo and Microsoft - the axis known as GYM - will no doubt succeed. However, for everyone else planning to build a yet-to-be-launched business that's built on online advertising, the noose is tightening. VC investments in unproven ad-supported ventures next year I bet will slow and we'll discover the Long Tail -- at least as far as online advertising is concerned - is not growing as fast as we would like.
Technorati Tags: 2006, Advertising, Trends
Sunday, December 25, 2005
links for 2005-12-26
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PR Web is gearing up a site that makes it easy for the PR community to build, launch and maintain feeds. It's not functioning right now.
2006 Trends to Watch Part IV: The Talent Crunch
According to the most recent White House estimates, the U.S. economy should grow at a healthy rate of 3.4 percent amid tame inflation in 2006. Naturally, as the economy heats up, so may the job market. Employers could add two million or more new jobs in 2006, economists say, putting it roughly on par with this year. Of course these numbers apply to a swath of industries. However, when you consider what the market is like just in technology and marketing, I can tell you anecdotally that it's very tough to find talent.
In 2006 blogs will play a bigger role in how companies find and retain key talent. Smaller companies that might normally have a tough time positioning themselves as cutting edge places to work will use transparency to compete for top talent. At the same time, large company bloggers who establish a foothold as subject matter experts will find themselves increasingly wooed. Finally, a small group of companies will turn their talent loose in the blogopshere to keep them motivated and engaged... and visible.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
links for 2005-12-25
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If you received an iPod with video for the holidays, check out this list.
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New scripts for Gmail.
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"To ignore comments is like listening to a telephone conversation, but only hearing one end of it and not asking what the person on the other end said."
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browsr is a social directory that empowers you to easily add, categorize and share your directory of favorite sites with others
2006 Trends to Watch Part III: “RSS Inside”
One year from now, what will the state of the “feedospehere” look like? First, in order to look ahead we should look back.
In 2005 the number of Web users who said (notice emphasis) that they read RSS feeds rose, but very slowly. Forrester pegged feed readership at six percent in September, up barely from four percent of online users in 2004. One reason why feed reading has been slow to take off - and this is my speculating here - is that it's been too complicated. Or at least people think it is.
The reality is that millions of online users are already reading feeds. They're just not aware of it. This is because RSS has been seamlessly embedded into the core “foods” we consume every day as part of a healthy online diet. It's like our juice was spiked with RSS.
The credit of the RSSification of America goes to the top Web destinations. Not ironically these are the same Web sites that popularized the Internet back in the late 1990s. Yahoo is at the head of the class, followed by Google and Microsoft (this axis of do no evil is collectively known as GYM, for short).
Really Simple Syndication is central to GYM's mission to organize information. So far, these efforts are paying off. Yahoo, in fact, said that 27% of Internet users consume RSS syndicated content on personalized start pages without knowing that RSS is the enabling technology. Presumably many of these are My Yahoo users.
So where do we go from here? In 2006 feed reading will become even easier than it is now, especially if there is a groundswell of adoption around Windows Vista. It will bolted into all kinds of connected devices, from cell phones to Sling Boxes to point of purchase displays. In addition all kinds of new information will find its way into feeds, not just news and blogs.
Now that we are unified under one flag, RSS - as a term - will actually begin to fade. Sure, it will always be popular among us geeks. However, RSS will increasingly become, as Greg Reinacker at Newsgator believes, plumbing. We will talk about it the same way we from time to time lovingly espouse SMTP.
To sum up, “RSS Inside” is to 2006 what “Intel Inside” was to 1996 and that's why it will be an important trend to watch next year.
Technorati Tags: 2006, Google, Greg Reinacker, Microsoft, Trends, Yahoo
Most Blog Readers Are Very Tech Savvy
If you think the blogosphere has flattened and that millions of moms and dads are now reading blogs, think again. Take a look at these Boing Boing stats and keep in mind that they're the most well-read blog out there. A quick glance at Boing Boing's December site stats reveals that more of their visitors now use Firefox than any other web browser, including Microsoft's Internet Explorer. As much as I love Firefox, its fan base is still dominated by geeks. Does this mean blogs aren't important? Hardly. It's the tech savvy who influence everyone else in our society.
Technorati Tags: Boing Boing, Firefox
Friday, December 23, 2005
links for 2005-12-24
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Is there Hope for Journalism? Yes, there is.
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A new PR blog written by Michael Sommermeyer, Court Information Officer for the Eighth Judicial District Court in Las Vegas, Nevada
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Andrea Weckerle’s weblog about public relations, marketing, Internet communications and current events.
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Another great source for the standardized icon.
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The WQNB allows you to create a bookmarkable link which can be used to quickly add notes to any of your current Writely documents.
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Blog pundits in one uber feed.
What's On Your Reading List?
I love books. I devour them at a rate of one to two a week. This has accelerated since I have shifted most of my “reading” to listening to the audio versions on my iPod. One key reason for doing this is that it saves my shoulders! When I am commuting I find it's a lot easier easier to carry three books on my iPod or iPod nano than it is to schlep the physical copies. It also fills in lots of pockets of “unusable time,” such as workout time. My recent “reads” include The Google Story, The Big Moo, You the Owner's Manual (eat Omega threes!), The Education of a Coach, The Last Season and Nothing is Impossible (I like reading profiles of successful coaches in sports). The one downside? They shrink my podcast time dramatically.
So, just for the heck of it, here are the five books I plan to read next. I plan to plow through as many of these as I can before the year is up. (Warning - I am boring; I shun novels.) Three of them - Freakonomics, All Marketers are Liars and The Search - are written by bloggers. Another profiles Ben Franklin, who Rex Hammock calls a pre-bloghistoric blogger. By the way, did you know that Ben turns 300 next month? Some even say Ben foresaw Web 2.0. Finally the last book, Why Do Men Have Nipples, well it had such an interesting title that it made it hard to pass up. They're all available in audio format on iTunes or Audible or even on plain ol' CD or paper.
What else should I be “reading?” What's on your list?
Technorati Tags: Audible, Audiobooks, Books, iPod
Staples is a Blog Winner
An update to a prior post on Staples. Boing Boing has published Staples' side of the story. Good for them. It turns out the $2.49 charge in question is a “Raster Image Processing” fee, not a virus scanning fee.
Technorati Tags: Staples
2006 Trends to Watch Part II: Social Commerce
Lots of folks like to to talk about how advertising - particularly from Adsense and BlogAds - will be the primary DIY media revenue driver in a Long Tail world. Certainly this prophecy rings true for some. However, for most bloggers and podcasters, it won't. The reason is the advertising industry is still largely dominated by Short Tail thinking. Their yardstick is eyeballs. So I don't see ads generating more than pocket change for the majority of citizen's media projects, at least right now (more to come on this topic in a future trend).
Social commerce, however, is an area that I think holds a tremendous amount of promise as a way for bloggers to make money. It's a win-win for the bloggers, product marketers and existing e-commerce sites.
Social commerce can take several forms, but in sum it means creating places where people can collaborate online, get advice from trusted individuals, find goods and services and then purchase them. It shrinks the research and purchasing cycle by creating a single destination powered by the power of many.
One shining example of social commerce is Yahoo!'s Shoposphere. As David Beach from Yahoo describes it, the Shoposphere is a place to discover interesting and cool products thematically arranged into Pick Lists by other shoppers. However, this is just the beginning. Social commerce is not limited to the Web giants. It's open to all of us.
An even stronger example of how social commerce will evolve at the citizen level is the Treonauts blog. Treonauts provides rich tips, tricks, advice and news about the Treo smartphone. It is written and managed by Andrew Carton. According to Naked Conversations, Treonauts partnered with leading merchants to develop branded stores – one for software and another for phones and accessories. The commerce partner maintains and fulfills all orders. All Andrew needs to do is blog. As of earlier this year Treonauts was generating $8,000 per month in revenues. My educated guess is that a lot of this comes from commerce rather than advertising.
So where will this go in 2006? I think far.
Watch for sites like Amazon, Froogle and Yahoo to develop turnkey stores that can be integrated into blogs. This will take affiliate programs to the next level. It's also possible that some electronic commerce sites will partner with the major blogging platforms to make co-branded social commerce even easier. Let's not forget that startups are hard at work here too, as David Beisel notes. Finally, we may see bloggers who have built a following in certain subject matters, like Thomas Hawk who writes about photography, to go the Treonauts route as they become disenfranchised with e-commerce sites.
Technorati Tags: 2006, Shoposphere, Social Commerce, Trends, Treonauts, Yahoo
A New PR Search Engine
Shel Holtz is working on a PR Search Engine over on Swicki.
Technorati Tags: Shel Holtz, Swicki
Scoble, Steve and Mini Microsoft at the Movies!
Steve Jobs, there's someone out there who's the next Pixar and he's making funny movies about bloggers. It's Nathan Weinberg. This flick, which I think he created, features me, my friend Robert Scoble and mini Microsoft, and it is funny. Great going, Nathan! Other than the comb-over and the fact that I hurt Robert, it's realistic!
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Mini Microsoft, Robert Scoble
Thursday, December 22, 2005
New York Times Debuts Real Estate Blog
The New York Times continues its slow march to blogdom with a new weblog on real estate, called The Walk-Through.
Technorati Tags: blogs, new york times, nyt, nytimes
links for 2005-12-23
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Former QB is blogging. News to me. I missed this.
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These guys are looking for feedback on their blog.
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Though some 80,000 blogs are being created every day, 10-20 percent of them may be spam, according to Umbria Communications
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"My grandfather will actually understand what a blog is." I hope so!
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In the spirit of Craig's List comes...well, um, another classifieds site.
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Accor North America has launched the first podcast advertisement campaign for economy accommodation chain Motel 6.
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Steve Rubel works at Edelman. Everything posted on this blog is his personal opinion and does not necessarily represent the views of his employer or its clients.
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