“The control the Web took from the vertically integrated, top-down media world can, with a little rethinking of the nature and the use of the Internet, be taken back.”

The main way we’re seeing this happen is through pay walls and locked down services, mostly in the form of apps and specialty devices that emphasize convenience over control. Most users aren’t savvy enough to dig into the nuts and bolts of technology—geeky techno-details be damned, they want what they want, immediately. Unfortunately, the consequence of this apathy towards technology is a future where a select few companies will control a significant portion of the content we consume. Apple would be the key culprit here with sleek must-have devices that, although tremendously well-designed (full disclosure: I own an iPad myself), lock users into a convenient, ‘black box’ mentality of computing.  Powered by iTunes, the App Store, and iDevices Apple controls the flow of content (the new TV network), monetizes the media you consume (the new record company and music store), has final say over which apps you can use on your devices (a new software monopoly), and controls the end user experience via extremely inflexible devices (recall Ma Bell owned all the actual telephones at one point as well).

Mobility is also a big factor. With more people creating and accessing data via mobile devices (e.g. smart phones, Kindles, and iPod Touches), we see more niche uses of the net that don’t include browsing and the open distribution of content. As the Wired article notes:

“Within five years, Morgan Stanley projects, the number of users accessing the Net from mobile devices will surpass the number who access it from PCs. Because the screens are smaller, such mobile traffic tends to be driven by specialty software, mostly apps, designed for a single purpose. For the sake of the optimized experience on mobile devices, users forgo the general-purpose browser. They use the Net, but not the Web. Fast beats flexible.”

The emphasis on convenience over control has built other media empires as well, including services that use templated experiences to simplify the web (think web presences on Facebook or even Blogger, as opposed to sites created by individuals and designers). Author and web pioneer Jaron Lanier derides many such efforts as dehumanizing and anti-intellectual, and cautions us against lock-in to design principles that were conceived by those more interested in advertising and data aggregation than people and intellectual property. His recent book, “You Are Not a Gadget” serves a manifesto for those unhappy with the current direction of most web 2.0 initiatives. He notes,

“Lock-in removes design options based on what is easiest to program, what is politically feasible, what is fashionable, or what is created by chance.”

It’s nice to think that lock-in and disempowerment is happening to help consumers and create better experiences, but it is also happening because it’s profitable. The ‘ease of access’ versus ‘freedom’ argument is a false dichotomy; you can have both, it’s just more work and more costly. But, it can (and should) be done. However, for companies, it’s easier to cite reliability and security concerns and far more profitable to keep things locked down. Lock-in allows for monetization via proprietary formats, advertizing, and device replacement. In a poignant, yet fairly targeted jab at Google, Lanier goes on to say:

“If you want to know what’s really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money. If money is flowing to advertising instead of musicians, journalists, and artists, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than truth or beauty.”

Herein lies the problem. Apple is creating its own walled garden, but has effectively created a way to monetize content and distribute money to artists and application creators. Google on the other hand has taken a much more open approach, but monetizes content via advertizing, which is not distributed to content creators. In both cases, the individual consumer feels cheated.

I wrote about much of this before in a Wikinomics post about Jonathan Zitrain’s book “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It.” The main issue: locked down appliances like the iPhone that could eliminate the PC, and with it the “test bed and distribution point of new, useful software from any corner of the globe,” and “the safety valve that keeps those information appliances honest.” The move towards appliances also dumbs-down the user experiences. When appliances break you don’t open them up yourself to fix them, you call the manufacturer. This is exactly how the Apple approach varies from the PC approach. The internet dystopia that Zittrain feared could be upon us, and most users (even tech savvy ones) don’t even perceive this as an issue. As one commenter to my Zittrain post mentioned:

“The death of the PC should not be an issue. It’s like caring about the death of the CD, who cares, something better has replaced it. There will probably always be PC’s for those who prefer optimal performance in certain hardware and want large visual displays. But the majority of the population makes a waste of all that good hardware just by only using a PC to go on Facebook or chat with friends. Let them have their mobile devices and gaming consoles.”

Ah, but PCs do matter and here’s why: Without PCs we lose control over how we experience media. Media that is streamed at us through apps and gamining consoles treats us as passive recipients in a similar way that TV or radio did; it hosts purely sanitized content, it is controlled by companies not individuals, and it’s infused with advertising. The reason we don’t notice (or don’t care) is that it is social and so gives us the perception of control and creation. But what we perceive as control is data entry into predefined fields and forms that limit our expression. We need PCs to truly create new content.

Social media has debased intellectual engagement and self representation by making it effort-free. The cognitive load required to type something on Facebook, comment on a blog post, or even post a video on YouTube is small because these sites are designed to mimic a stream of consciousness. Although little creative energy is expended to interact, time is still spent, and information is still created and consumed. Much of the content includes off-the-cuff remarks that would traditionally have dissolved the way idle chatter does; however, repurposed using social media they are often compared in the same light as actual article writing or high-quality productions. Most apps don’t encourage the thoughtful creation of content, whereas using a full blown desktop is all about creative freedom. In a fairly balanced response to the Wired piece, Shane Tilton from the Center for Society and Cyberstudies Journal says:

“Creation vs consumption: Most of the promoters of the death of the open web are looking at it from the viewpoint that we go online to get our information, check in with our friends and maybe post a picture or video. If this was the case, the closed web would have won years ago. However, we like the ability to do create works from time to time and love having a way to share it with a larger community. The app based system of uploading content is relatively simple, which is the good and the bad point about the system. You can share content as it is in the real world, however it is moderately hard to edit it and add a creative mark to the content. An open web system gives access to online editors and content creation tools. The close system, for the most part, lacks these qualities.”

The multi-billion dollar question is, are locked-down devices, apps, and internet pay walls the future? Or, will it be open devices powered by the likes of Android and Symbian, and supplied with open content via web search and peer-to-peer networks? As long as the web is free and open and accessible to all, companies like Google can index it and derive value from it. And, with the launch of Google Instant, it seems that Google is trying to move people away from integrated search bars back to the home page (where it can better monetize its ads). Whether it’s Google’s web or Apple’s apps, one thing is clear, the next phase of the internet will be monetized by a few key players and far less free than it used to be.

I’ve held off writing about Apple to avoid being yet another one of those bloggers who’s doing so, but this latest Fake Steve post bumps the discussion up to a new level. Yes, Apple products run the exact same hardware as PCs, but cost more. Yes, they are aesthetically very well designed. Yes, they tie plastic bags and coffee cups as first-rate examples of planned obsolescence. And yes, I should have a second point in favor of Macs here, but I can’t think of one. What’s going on with the iPhone and iPad ecosystem simultaneously empowers consumers–by giving them access to some powerful and easy to use technology, thanks to some very nicely designed apps–and disempowers them–by casting computers as non-technological sealed-boxes that do only which actions are on a neatly manicured whitelist. People seem to like it: and the devices are selling with little sign of slowing down.

Using the example of the recent signal issues with the iPhone 4 as an example, Fake Steve’s post cuts right to the core of why Apple’s doing so well. People are confused, sell them an answer:

Probably the biggest thing I’ve taught the team at Apple is that people never know what they’re supposed to think about anything. This is true in Hollywood, in the book business, in the art world, in politics. And especially in technology.

So we put out a new phone and everyone is sitting there wondering what they should think about it. What I realized many years ago — and honestly, it still amazes me — is that most people are so unsure of themselves that they will think whatever we tell them to think.

So we tell people that this new phone is not just an incremental upgrade, but rather is the biggest breakthrough since the original iPhone in 2007. We say it’s incredible, amazing, awesome, mind-blowing, overwhelming, magical, revolutionary. We use these words over and over.

It’s all patently ridiculous, of course. But people believe it.

I own a MacBook but won’t ever buy another. Because I own one, and am seen as a tech-savvy guy, it offers legitimacy to this idea “macs are better/safer/faster/more stable/easier to use.” They aren’t. Even still, I’ve had people who admit to knowing absolutely nothing about computers tell me about how macs really are better, and that Microsoft has no idea what it’s doing (Windows 7 is a great OS, really it is). What it amounts to is that the whole computer space is one that’s confusing and overcomplicated to most consumers, and Apple is in the middle of the market with attractive devices that work decently well, saying “we’re better” with confidence and the appearance of authority. People are responding to the message, strongly.

I’m kind of surprised actually that this strategy isn’t found in more places. Fake Steve points out that religions have done a great job honing the strategy, but that discussion is outside the scope of this post. How would consumers react if Toyota or Ford simply stated “We’re better. Buy us.”? In fact, the only example at the front of my mind where there’s such a strong chorus preaching that “the new way is better” is with the Web 2.0 space. Yes, there’s a lot of value in collaborating, but not every 2.0 tech is as world-changing as it is confusing. Many an analyst has made quite a living saying “this is the next big deal, you need to learn it and you need my help.” The truth is that for many companies traditional communications (face to face, phone, email) are still functional and and will continue to be; sometimes older technologies will continue to work just fine. In cases where collaboration technology is desired or beneficial, the purchasing decision doesn’t have to be rocket science.

There’s a lot of money to be made off confusion, I just question how sustainable the approach is. Or maybe I’m just being profoundly naive, and this is the way it’s always been.

Last month my colleague Laura Carrillo asked if it will be Apple or Google to own the third screen. Recent events have provided an opportunity for a third contender in the quest for the third screen: Microsoft.

Tentative talks have been underway for weeks now between rivals Microsoft and Apple to replace Google with Bing as the default search engine on all iPhones.  The last time something like this happened it was Microsoft allowing iTunes on the Windows platform in 2003.

“If you have to do deal with the devil,” says Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey, “you might as well deal with the one that needs you the most.”

From Apple’s ban of Google’s apps on its store to the departure of Eric Schmidt from Apple’s Board of Directors last August, it has been increasingly apparent that over the past couple of years that tensions in the relationship between Apple and Google have been emerging.  Finally on January 5, 2010, Google unveiled its phone, the Nexus One, and officially entered the mobile hardware market. On that very same day, Apple acquired Quattro Wireless (Apple’s second choice after Google outbid them to acquire AdMob in fall of 2009), and entered Google’s sphere of advertising. It’s now officially war.

All of this time, Microsoft has assumed the archetype of the forgotten middle child; exactly where it wants to be. With dwindling market share of its mobile OS, why would anyone expect the company to announce its entry into the mobile device market? Microsoft has also repeatedly denied any intention of entering this market, much like Apple did before it released the iPhone.

Back in 2006, Microsoft launched the Zune as an alternate and competing product to the iPod, albeit five years later. It has never come even close to touching Apple’s share in the portable media player market. In 2009, Microsoft only had an estimated 2% as compared to Apple’s 70%. With a five-year competitive advantage and Microsoft’s lack of experience in hardware, this came as no surprise to many. Windows Mobile OS also trails in market share behind Nokia, Apple, and RIM. Q3 2009 reports tell it only has roughly 8% of the global share.

Could Microsoft gain ground in these areas with a phone?

Back in 2008, Microsoft purchased Danger, the producers of the Sidekick for $500 million and subsequently formed the Microsoft Premium Mobile eXperiences (PMX) group. Mary Jo Foley also writes of the Pink Project, the codename for both the set of premium mobile services and one or more Windows Mobile phones aimed at the teen/twenty-something market.

In Q3 of last year, Microsoft launched the Zune marketplace (U.S. and Puerto Rico only) and announced in December the decision to form a new organization within the Server & Tools Business that combines the Windows Server & Solutions group and the Windows Azure group, into a single organization called the Server & Cloud Division (SCD).

Over at Engadget back in April of last year, Nilay Patel rumored that Microsoft was getting ready to launch Zune software on telephone handsets and those rumblings are still going on today.

Robbie Bach, President of Entertainment and Devices at MS, has even gone on record saying, “There are other places where Zune logically could go that we don’t get to talk about yet.” Interview transcript here.

It sounds like Microsoft has been steadily working on putting all of the pieces together.

The Microsoft user experience has come a long way. On the software side, Windows 7 OS has been touted as being even better than Snow Leopard; a far cry from Vista, which was only release worldwide three years ago. I will also personally attest to the quality of MS Surface, its tablet device, since I had the pleasure of testing it out myself at IDS10 this past weekend. Microsoft has definitely stepped up its game in the field of interaction design.

With Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft could still be a serious contender in the battle for the platform and ultimate user experience. It has almost every piece of the puzzle: an operating system, mobile hardware (potentially) to load it onto, a search engine (with an opportunity to cut Google off of an information source and subsequent revenue stream), and the marketplace to integrate everything together (even with Xbox Live).

Could it be a step towards a seamless and integrated complete user experience? Here’s hoping we’ll find out more about WinMo7 at the Mobile World Congress in Spain, beginning on February 15^th.

IMHO, I will make one recommendation to the folks at Microsoft. For Microsoft to acquire anything beyond a specialty niche in the mobile computing device market, it is going to require a concerted effort. With an ecosystem of 100,000 applications, and with over two-and-a-half years with a product already on the market, Apple has a big lead. There is a lot of ground to cover in the smartphone market. The Zune trailed the iPod by five years. Don’t let another five go by.

The Nexus One, made by HTC, is reportedly to be sold by Google to invited buyers only starting on January 5, 2010, Engadget believes.

Vertical integration was popular in the latter part of the 19^th century and the first half of the 20^th century as a means to assure consistent and predictable supply chains for large-scale enterprises. Andrew Carnegie coined the term in the late 1800s to describe the structure of his company, U.S. Steel, which owned virtually their entire supply and distribution chain — the inputs to production (ore and coal mines), the means of production (steel mills) and the means of product distribution (steamship and railroad lines) – ergo a completely vertically integrated company.

Vertical integration was one of the key inventions used by industrialists to manage the proliferation of transaction costs involved in the orchestration of a scale enterprise. Industrialists at the time did not have the Internet nor did they have well-developed global financial markets or global supply chains. As a consequence these early large producers had to create their own infrastructure and transaction cost deflators through vertical integration. Otherwise the coordination, collaboration, and transaction costs would have overwhelmed their enterprises. As the industrial economy developed, other industries followed suit with other vertically integrated firms in the petroleum, automotive, and newspaper / communications industries. However, as economies matured and suppliers and supply chains became more reliable, the model was largely abandoned in favor of a more distributed model with specialized firms serving segments of the supply chain and many vertically integrated companies divested.

All of that is history: today is different. While vertical integration may be on the rise, entrepreneurs and executives operate with many more tools in their strategic arsenal. Let’s look at two tools that help shed light on the new approach to “going vertical:” the Internet and collaborative business platforms.

1. The Internet. The Internet is now a euphemism for the reality of a highly-interconnected always-on business environment. More to the point, this highly connected world has radically reduced collaboration and transaction costs. When vertical integration is applied in this context, the purchase of an element of the value chain is not used to corner the market or reduce transaction costs, but rather but rather to solidify the company’s position relative to the business ecosystem. So for example, the acquisition of Sun by Oracle, enables Oracle to embed its software in a hardware platform, similar to the iPhone or to the Google Nexus One, that in turn provides more options to work with others and build growth through an interconnected ecosystem (for commentary on the pending handset war between Google and Apple, see Laura Carrillo’s post). With the hardware, Oracle has the potential to involve more partners and grow the business beyond the bounds of a software provider. Consider also that Oracle can also entice other developers to create add-ons (apps) for the Oracle tool. One other benefit: Oracle potentially opens new markets with smaller companies that desire industrial strength databases.
2. Collaborative Business Platforms. In a prior post, I noted an emerging “best practice combination” of a collaborative business platform + a business ecosystem. Google needed to remove itself from Apple’s Board and create their own handset and move into head-to-head competition with Apple, RIM and Nokia. Google has the world’s most powerful and extensible collaborative platform with 100′s of millions of users. But, without a handset (i.e. a mobile device) it cannot differentiate itself nor assure its place in the increasingly mobile marketplace. This inability to garner sustained loyalty of its customers was a key threat to Google’s ecosystem. Without a branded mobile device, Google is just another “app provider.” This vertical integration play allows Google to instantiate its brand in a physical mobile device. Why is this better than instantiating its brand in an iPhone or a Blackberry? Because, the device enables Google to offer a more extensive set of apps and offer functionality that is critically dependent on firmware integration. It also creates new options for Google, who has been largely dependent on the hardware manufactures for it innovation model. Now the Google innovation maven can drive innovation in hardware and firmware.

So the new form of “going vertical” is a merged strategy that will operate in concert with collaborative business platforms and robust business ecosystems. In the case of Oracle, Apple and Google, the addition of hardware assets to their respective business portfolios increases their competitive options, extends their brand, provide a closer connection with their customers, provides a new “sandbox” for innovation, and offers new ways for partners to contribute to their business ecosystems. In the new style of vertical integration, the goal is not to go it alone, but rather to set up the game, so that more partners can participate in the supply chain thereby enhancing Oracle’s, Apple’s and Google’s prognosis for growth.

Yesterday, a blog post on mashable.com outlined  four issues that Google and Apple will face. Below are my thoughts on those comments and a couple other considerations.

The Google Name – “Much like Apple, Google has its own huge pool of impassioned fans who could be easily converted into buyers…All signs are pointing to the Nexus One being released by Google with their branding, so we can count this as an advantage in Google’s favor.”

I agree that Google has an edge here based simply on the sheer number of people that are exposed to Google on a daily basis from any platform. While Apple has developed a large following, and claims over 17 million iPhone users,   if Google can convert most of its Google Apps users, estimated at 20 million, Apple is in for a battle. That battle could be difficult given the millions of other Google search users that could be open to adopt a Google device .

GSM Unlocked – “..users could insert a SIM card from their preferred wireless service provider…buyers wouldn’t have to lock themselves into a contract with one carrier over another simply to get the new Google phone.”

I agree that this has potential to be a substantial factor in Google phone sales. Given that Apple’s contract with AT&T is set to expire in 2010, Apple does have the opportunity to open up to more carriers, however this would require many carriers to switch to GSM networks or for Apple to add a chip to the iPhone to access CDMA networks (currently used by carriers like Verizon and Sprint). I wonder who is more apt to change? The carriers or Apple?

Price Point – “The iPhone continues to sell exceptionally well because AT&T subsidizes about half of the actual price tag, making it a cost-friendly device.”

There is still no information about what the price will be for the Nexus One, however based on what we know about the technology and what the phone offers, it will be difficult to compete with the iPhone on price. Would enough Google users be willing to pay a premium in this economic climate? I don’t think so. Google could look to partners to help defray costs, but Apple definitely has a leg up in that department.

App Advantage – “..now that they (Apple) have well over 100,000 apps, their slogan “there’s an app for that” rings true”

Google definitely has a ton of ground to make up here. The iPhone has grown a large and loyal developer base, focused on making new, exciting and useful apps for the iPhone. “Apple has clearly mastered the application experience.” I could not have said it better myself!

The other primary issue that Google will need to combat is Apple’s brilliant development of not only the iPhone as a product but the iPhone as a business platform. The iPhone is not just a smartphone it is a platform that Apple has leveraged to develop and launch other new products, improve it’s own existing products, as well as create entirely new markets and communities. As my colleague Nick Vitalari discussed, “Apple’s platform was so successful that competitors were forced to launch competitive products.” If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Apple has been taking that praise all the way to the bank. iPhone sales grew 245% in 2008.

While Google’s Nexus One sounds like it has some very promising attributes it still has some significant hurdles to clear to give Apple a run for its money. What do you think? Should Apple be concerned? Will the Nexus One be a game changer? Either way, it’ll be fun to watch!

In 2004, Walt DuLaney and I conducted a longitudinal examination of business growth and cumulative revenue performance.  Among the success factors, we found that companies with powerful business platforms outperformed peers in cumulative revenue growth over a 15 year period.  Our conclusion: business platforms can be a means for organizational renewal, continuous innovation, and sustainable success.

Since then, the sophistication of business platforms and their related ecosystems has expanded and other companies have found success. In the case of Apple, competitors were forced to launch competitive platforms in response (Google’s Android, Symbian Foundation, and RIM) while Apple collected competitive profits.  A growing body of experience indicates that business platforms coupled with an ecosystem of partners can produce superior economic value.  As those partners cooperate and work together they collectively learn, innovate and expand their options for new product features, additional partnerships, and new platform components.  The platform plus the ecosystem becomes a sustainable economic engine for growth and development.

Here are twelve success factors for business platforms based on our work at nGenera Insight.  The first seven are business-related success factors.  The second five are technology-success factors.  The list reflects current understanding and is far from comprehensive.  Nonetheless, it provides a starting point for companies interested in sustainable growth.

BUSINESS SUCCESS FACTORS

1. Leadership, Vision and Purpose – No surprise.  All successful platforms begin with leadership, vision and a clear persistent purpose.  Wal-Mart’s logistic system implemented in 1993, now over 16 years old established the foundation to manage an increasingly complex distribution model, provide a basis to involve partners in category management and drive sustainable efficiencies in the retail industry.  GE’s aircraft engine maintenance platform supported the collection of real-time in-flight engine telemetry data that in turn provided information to customers and ultimately supported concurrent design of their next generation engines.
2. A Vibrant Ecosystem – An ecosystem is an economic community.  An ecosystem thrives when all parties experience mutual economic benefit.  Apple’s iPhone ecosystem has produced 100,000 apps.  In an ecosystem, motivated, persistent participation and contribution is driven by enlightened self-interest which benefits the whole.  The business platform provides the architecture, policies, rules, transactional frameworks, and the information necessary for the ecosystem to operate.
3. Competitive Velocity – How does a company outcompete its rivals and grow?  Move faster.  Salesforce.com revolutionized the CRM business, not only providing a better deal, but also delivering more new functionality per unit time than their competitors like Siebel, Oracle and SAP.  IBM got platform and ecosystem fever with Linux.  By investing in the Linux platform, its world-wide development community, and its related ecosystem, IBM was able to grow a new operating system faster than it could do by itself and enlist more developers than it could possibly afford.
4. Extensible Business Architecture — Business platforms must be conceived, from the outset, as an unfinished masterpiece.  Extensibility means learning.  The difference between an applications project and a business platform is that a business platform is never finished.  When a platform is finished it is at the end of its life.  Learning creates new directions and options.  New options create new opportunities for growth, alternative futures and other avenues for competitive action.  Amazon’s original on-line retail platform evolved into other businesses such as Marketplace, Web Services, and most recently cloud computing with their Elastic Compute Cloud offering.
5. Transparency — Transparency fosters beneficial contagion and excitement among the ecosystem members and interested parties.  An examination of any successful business platform reveals alternative futures.  Alternative future means options.  Options can be valued and hence the investment community can estimate the expected value of such potential futures and model a resulting perpetuity calculation.  Transparency attracts new partners and helps existing ecosystem partners to co-create the future of business platform.  As momentum builds, transparency also strikes fear in the competitors.
6. Policies and Rules — Policies and rules are essential otherwise chaos reigns and the platform and related ecosystem dies.  The business platform becomes the repository and the enforcer of policies and rules.  The business platform also communicates changes in rules. Consider the rules propagated and enforced in the iPhone ecosystem, or the Android ecosystem through the hardware architecture, operating system architecture, the business architecture and the rules and policies for these respective ecosystems.
7. Analytics — Business platforms generate prodigious amount of data continuously.  One of the most powerful advantages of a business platform stems from the collection and analysis of strategic, situational, transactional and detailed usage data.  As the data is collected powerful visualization and analytic tools can provide a combination of real-time and longitudinal analyses.  The closed-loop nature of the data collection process inherent in the business platform enable the platform leaders and ecosystem partners to run experiments, continuously improve products and rapidly evaluate potential business strategies and directions.  It is very difficult to duplicate this type of analytic capability in a non-platform business model.

TECHNOLOGY SUCCESS FACTORS

1. Open technology architecture – Open architectures provide the basis for future options and business platform extensibility.  Open means that other technological standards can interface with the business platform, even technologies that have yet to be invented.  Remember, business value is ultimately determined by the market’s assessment of future viability and the promise of future value.  If the business platform is based only on a few proprietary or close technology architectures, future business options will be limited.
2. Component based – “assembly required.” Most business platforms consist of a collection of open, custom and proprietary application engines.  From a technological perspective, it is cheaper and more effective for a platform to be assembled from the evolving marketplace of technological components.  A component based approach in an open source, open architecture and cloud computing environment also means that companies can enter the business platform space for less cost and minimal proprietary software development.
3. Scalable – Google has scaled from it beginnings.  At the outset the Googleplex consisted of hundreds of servers.  Today the Googleplex is estimated to consist of over a million servers.  Google’s business platform and technology platform was designed from the outset to scale.
4. Sensing capability – Sensors in products (e.g. aircraft engines, cell phones, elevators) and sensing capabilities in key aspect of the business platform’s infrastructure provides a level of detailed data not possible in standard business models.  Almost all successful business platforms, whether product based, or service-based have a sophisticated network of sensors that collects real-time data.
5. Location agnostic – Business platforms operate to deliver their product or services to the customer at the right place, at the right time in the best possible way.  Successful business platforms eliminate the constraint of place.  Dion Hinchcliffe notes in a recent post that the popularity of mobile apps is transforming the Internet and replacing the web because they provide the right type of interaction for the user at the right time. Whether it is a mobile app or another delivery vehicle, smart business platforms live by being location agnostic.

Taken together these twelve factors provide a basis to begin a quest for sustainable growth.  What is your view?  Are business platforms a new basis for business growth and success?  Will all companies need to be a part of a platform or a platform leader?

Do you have plans for a business platform in your future?

Vendors such as Apple and Google are driving the consumerization of technology and hence the need to redefine employee computing. However, the majority of vendors, including providers of traditional “end-user services,” have vested interests in yesterday’s computing model and customer relationships. They may not be a source of progressive advice on how to transform employee computing, but you may nonetheless need to leverage their capabilities and adjust how you work with them.

As a first step, understand where vendors are coming from and how their strengths and directions fit (or don’t fit) your roadmap for employee computing in the future. For purposes of illustration, the figure below arrays selected major vendors on three important dimensions: Are they focused on the consumer or enterprise market? Do they primarily provide hardware or software? And are their offerings geared for the public cloud or private networks? The figure also includes generic buckets to represent the Web 2.0 and SaaS vendors. It shows the historical strengths of each vendor, but their placements are shifting. For example, Google is coming from the consumer space and moving more towards the enterprise.

Vendor Landscape

Technology Vendor Trends
Individual technology vendors may not be clear about how they want to play in tomorrow’s employee computing environment. However, we see positive trends among vendors generally. They tend to be:
• Appreciating the need to provide more open solutions, including software that is available from any device.
• Finding that their devices and applications are increasingly being put to both professional and personal uses as work and personal habits intertwine. The BlackBerry and iPhone are good examples.
• Developing more offerings in the cloud (though what may be free in the cloud for individuals may not be free to enterprises).
• Aware that consumerization of technology means individuals have more power.
• Building interfaces that are increasingly more intuitive and easy to use.
• Enabling mashups by letting progressive users configure the information and applications that they need.
• Offering more APIs (application programming interfaces) to developers. The iPhone is a good example.
• Admitting that current applications don’t always translate easily between global locations but they have to.
• Supporting small vendors offering innovative functionality (although we expect consolidation to occur at some point).
• Blurring boundaries as they expand beyond their historical strengths.

What Should You Be Asking Your Technology Partners?
As you work with your current and prospective vendors to evaluate and plan how they fit your employee computing plans, we recommend discussing all of the following issues. They cover not only functionality and cost, but also value and the ongoing viability of the vendor’s business model in the fast-changing technology services scene.

• Vision: What is your vision for how we might operate our employee computing environment?
• Architecture: What does you architecture look like, and how is it evolving? How scalable is it? What resides on your devices and ours? What’s in the cloud?
• Capabilities: What capabilities are available today and what is planned in next 12-18 months?
• Costs: What are my total costs, direct and indirect, immediate and ongoing?
• Openness: How do your products and services interoperate with other vendor solutions in the marketplace?
• Integration: How will your solutions tie to our infrastructure and employee computing roadmaps?
• Security: What is your security model? How do you make sure my company’s information is secure in your environment?
• Value: What value are your reference accounts seeing from your products? How is that measured, both quantitatively and qualitatively?
• Business model: What is your business model? How do you make money? How is your model changing, and why?

A free download of the Redefining Employee Computing management summary is now available. We welcome your comments and questions.

As reported on ArsTechnica.com, the computer gaming industry is not pleased with the response that AT&T filed with the FCC.  It suggested that online games should be relegated to the category of being nice but not essential. “For Americans who today have no terrestrial broadband service at all,” AT&T wrote the Commission, “the pressing concern is not the ability to engage in real-time, two-way gaming, but obtaining meaningful access to the Internet’s resources and to reliable email communications and other basic tools that most of the country has come to expect as a given.”

This did not sit well with the Entertainment Software Association.  Online video games “are no less important to the future of the Internet than email and web browsing were to the past and are today,” a senior ESA representative told the Commission on Wednesday.

They’re used for employee training and in schools, he noted. “Online video games are a meaningful part of our participative culture. They remove geographic barriers, connecting people from across the country and around the world. They teach cooperation, cultivate leadership skills, and empower users to express their creativity.”

Google’s submission took the most sensible approach. “Ultimately what interests us about broadband is not what it is, but what it enables,” the search engine giant wrote to the Commission. Broadband should be defined at speeds “that enable full utilization of broadband services and applications.” The connections should be “sufficiently robust” enough to let users “receive, generate and interact with voice, data, graphics and video, which will enable users to receive the maximum value of broadband.”

Google’s dream definition of broadband? “A high-quality, ‘always on,’ packet switched, technology-neutral, high speed communications transmission platform,” the company suggests. “This platform further should allow users to harness the Internet, access and upload content, and otherwise engage in high-speed two-way connectivity and interactivity.”

Apple understands that business platforms fundamentally change the rules of competition and accelerate cumulative business performance. Competitive business platforms drive and nurture the latest business innovations – mass collaboration, social networking, community formation, ecosystems, global cooperation, prosumerism, community branding, transparency, options portfolios and real time analytics to mention a few. And they also do the same for “old-fashioned” ones as well – things like business process management, customer intimacy, and supply chain management. We’ve studied business platforms extensively at nGenera Insight and Apple is not alone. But Apple has taken the approach and out-executed almost everyone else on the planet.

While many see Apple as enslaved to secrecy, unresponsive to external input, and obsessed with product control, the company has put many of those behaviors behind them. In fact, Apple is writing the book on 21^st Century style collaborative business models and continuous business strategy.Nokia and RIM became Apple students in the last 12 months – both have adopted a business platform approach. Ironically, RIM had the makings of a business platform long before Apple, but did not really exploit it. AT&T is being schooled again about business platforms as it copes with Apple’s latest generation iPhone 3Gs release (it seems that AT&T’s network can’t keep up with new iPhone features such as tethering and MMS messaging). Verizon is playing catch-up because it only recently saw the light – but rumors suggest it may have a deal with Apple on the “iTablet.” Meanwhile, it appears that Motorola still doesn’t get it.

But Motorola’s not alone. Almost 10 years after Apple’s launch of the iPod, iTunes and the iTunes Store, most corporations either stand in awe of Apple’s accomplishments, or see Apple’s approach as completely irrelevant to their businesses. They’re mistaken. These developments signal a new formula for business success that extends beyond the glitzy world of Hollywood or the high tech software and telecommunications industries. More importantly, leading firms in other industries have used the recession to put plans in place.

Let’s take a look at what the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone and the App Store really mean for business. A bit of history first. Apple Inc. launched iTunes, the now famous digital music application, on January 9, 2001 for the Macintosh computer. A little over 9 months later Apple launched the 1^st Generation iPod on October 23, 2001. About 2 years later Apple launched the iTunes Store on April 28, 2003. The iPhone was released 4 years later on June 29, 2007 after the runaway success of the iPod-iTunes-iTunes Store combo that revolutionized the retail music industry. The iPhone App Store was launched on July 8, 2008 with 500 applications, 125 of which were free. Today the iTunes Store is a digital media store encompassing all forms of digital media including music, games, software applications, podcasts, and a growing collection of video assets.

In the process, Apple sold in excess of 200 Million iPod units and over 40 Million iPhones. Apple sold more than 1 Million of the new 3Gs iPhones in the first weekend of its introduction in July. The iTunes store has sold 8 billion songs since inception, and is the undisputed leader in digital music sales. Moreover, Apple revealed in April of 2009 that the App Store introduced in July of 2008 had already hit the 1 Billion mark in downloaded applications. By late July of 2009, Apple reported that its extended community of iPhone developers, which split revenue with Apple on a 70/30 basis had produced over 65,000 applications that were approved by Apple and available for download on the App Store. At the end of 2001, Apple’s annual revenues were approximately $5.3 Billion USD. At the end of 2008, annual revenues had grown to approximately $32.4 Billion.

Here’s what Apple has learned and what I believe all companies should heed – the undeniable superiority of the 21^st Century business model:

1. Products must become business platforms that grow through collaboration. The iPhone, the iTouch, and iPod are not music players and multimedia phone – ergo products – so much as they are business platforms. A business platform is the totality of the physical product (e.g. iPhone), the embedded software inside the product (iPhone OS), the collaborative platform (iTunes+App Store), the economic community (the iPhone ecosystem which includes AT&T and other wireless providers, Google, Yahoo, the iPhone developers, related iPhone social networks and communities, and the iPhone global industrial complex (core manufacturers – e.g. Intel, accessory providers etc.).
2. Business platforms create superb externalities and a powerful ecosystem. Business platforms create a sort of lingua franca for all of the participants. In other words the business platform contains a common understanding for business transactions, business rules, business communication, technical specifications, interface standards and requirements. As a consequence transaction costs are minimized for all parties and efficiency results. For example, embedded in the iPhone OS, the iPhone SDK (systems development kit), the App Store and the iTunes store are the complete “rules of the road” for operating in the iPhone ecosystem. The result is a cumulative transparency that enables tens of thousands of participants to collaborate asynchronously and independently. In so doing they create economic value, a continuous wellspring of innovation and mutually extend the overall value of the economic community. They also rapidly extend the capabilities of Apple’s core product way beyond what Apple could ever do so on its own.
3. Business platforms create a learning platform that spawns communities of interest and communities of practice. A multitude of social networks and communities surrounding Apple’s iPhone business platform. Numerous Apple-sponsored and independent communities trade ideas, IP and practices daily and cajole and attempt to predict Apple’s next move.
4. Business platforms generate untold business analytics for the platform’s owner and participants. Because all elements of the business platform are networked, the platform generates a prodigious amount of valuable information about the product, the ecosystem, the participants, and the customers in realtime. Apple knows the score for each element of the platform and uses the information to fix, improve, extend and enhance the product and ultimately delight the customer.
5. Business platforms generate a superior portfolio of strategic options. The generation and management of options remains at the core of business strategy. Business growth depends upon the portfolio of business options available to the executive team. Traditional business models depend upon internal knowledge and internal innovation processes to generate new product ideas, new ventures and appropriate acquisition strategies for growth. Such traditional processes are anemic when compared to an enterprise armed with a 21^st Century collaborative business platform. Who has more options for the future, Apple or Motorola? Who has a richer options portfolio on potential products and services? Who has better information by which to value those options? For an investor looking to make an investment, which company has greater future value? The company with a business platform or a company with a 20^th Century, product-focused, internally driven innovation engine. I know my pick.

In subsequent blogs I will examine what we’ve learned about managing business platforms and dealing with negative and positional externalities, what traditional firms must do to change and embrace the rise of business platforms, the power of business platforms in Collaborative Enterprise Management, and the role that business platforms play in continuous business strategy.

To Apple I say: mega kudos, keep up the good work – it’s good for the economy and good for business. Thanks for letting the cat out of the bag.

The title, Snow Crash, comes from a 1999 essay that Stephenson wrote about the history of Operating Systems. The lengthy essay, titled In the Beginning… Was the Command Line (avaible for free download here), is one part history lesson, one part cultural critique, and one part personal narrative; Stephenson intertwines the fight between Microsoft and Apple with the development of the modern operating system and his own personal narrative in which he migrates from Apple to Linux.

Stephenson starts with the hacker (in the non-pejorative sense) view that since the operating system really nothing but information, the idea of paying for an operating system is a bit absurd, it’s just pieces of data processing other pieces of data; Bill Gates’ master move was convincing the world that they should pay for something that by its very nature should be free. Further to this, being a shrewd businessman, Gates only made Windows as good as it needed to be to sell; aesthetics just weren’t important. Apple, being a hardware company focused on providing seamless user experiences, took the time to make their OS shine — much to their own detriment.Superficial attractiveness and functionality aside, operating systems are all what Stephenson calls mediated experiences. The way that computers handle information is not readily useful for most users, so a layer of abstraction is inserted between the user and the machine, this layer is the operating system. In replacing the command line interface with the graphical interface, operating systems made computers more accessible, but sufficiently less powerful, as the designer of the OS got to decide what tools should be readily usable to users, and which ones are not. Open source operating systems give users the freedom to determine exactly what their level of abstraction (the GUI) allows them to do. Given that the body of open source technology was at the time exceeding the capabilities of commercial operating systems, it’s mostly just marketing that keeps people buying Windows and OSX.

I’ve gotten into this debate with friends before: should computers be made easy to use, so that anyone may use them? Should computers be “hard” to use, that is, should OS designers refuse to sacrifice power for friendliness? Or, is this a false dichotomy, and open source allowed users to customize their experiences to whatever degree they like (and are capable)? Where should the burden of computing lie, with the user, or with the computer?

I’ve glossed over a lot of the ground that Stephenson covers, if you find yourself so motivated and with some free time, I encourage you to check it out, I’d like to know what people think of this 10-year old view. (It’s worth noting that Stephenson has since abandoned Debian Linux in favour of OSX, does this damage his argument?)

The idea that a company would use costly TV ad spend to promote an iPhone app seems pretty novel to me, and yet at the same time completely natural. The bigger idea of an insurance company offering a mobile application is pretty cool as well. Nationwide’s app will:

• Call emergency services
• Help you collect and exchange accident info
• Store your insurance and vehicle info for easy lookup
• Locate Nationwide agents near you
• Take and store accident photos
• Convert your iPhone into a handy flashlight

If you happen to be a Nationwide customer, the app will also:

• Help connect you with towing services
• Help you start the Nationwide claims process
• Find Nationwide Blue Ribbon Repair Facilities

Depending on how viral this goes, my only question for Nationwide would be, ‘Do you have the back-end processes in place to fulfill the promises made by this new level of customer service?’ Meaning, if I am connected to a claims agent or repair facility on the spot, will I be able to seamlessly send my accident photos and vehicle/insurance information via my iPhone? Will the response rate be equally as ‘real-time’ as entering the information into the phone, or am I going to be standing on the side of the road, on hold, wishing I had waited to get home to file the claim? Will the towing services be vetted for the same friendly and easy service I am receiving via my mobile device? Hopefully Nationwide has thought about these questions when designing the end-to-end customer experience.

My advice for all companies: New Web 2.0 channels are cool, but if you open a new channel, there had better be someone on the other end (and the processes in place) to engage the individuals coming through that new channel.

Widely recognized for creating some of the most brand loyal customers around, Apple has designed an overwhelmingly popular in-store summer camp targeted at 8 – 12 year old children.  The camp features a series of four different workshops: Movies, Music, Photos, and Presentations.  Each is designed to give children exposure to Apple’s hardware and software suite.

While certainly not as exciting as the dinosaur camp that I attended in my childhood, I think that Apple is really onto something here, and all kidding aside, I know many adults  who could benefit from similar workshops.  Here is the ad for the Presentation Workshop: 

Replace kids with employees or executives and school with work and think about how many people you know who should probably be first in line for this workshop.

These sessions are being offered at all U.S. Apple retail locations free of charge and all technology required is to be supplied by Apple (unless you’d like to bring your own gear).  Of note is that if you’re looking to sign your litte one up, you’d better hurry as many sessions are already filling waiting lists and some have been closed for registration due to oversubscription.

I think this is an interesting example of industry creatively stepping in (albeit for self-motivated purposes and on a tiny scale) to help provide training in skill sets that our school systems may not be able to immediately address – advancing the technological skills and comfort level of some of our youngest scholars.

What’s your take on Apple’s attempt to create a little army of I’m a Mac evangelists?  Creative marketing combined with valuable skills training or targeting a market too young for comfort?

More people are reading the news, but fewer people are paying for it. There’s definitely a prosumer angle here, but it’s still one of those things that make you go “hmm” when you consider the amount of professional content being given away for free.

“There is, however, a striking and somewhat odd fact about this crisis. Newspapers have more readers than ever. Their content, as well as that of newsmagazines and other producers of traditional journalism, is more popular than ever — even (in fact, especially) among young people. The problem is that fewer of these consumers are paying. Instead, news organizations are merrily giving away their news. According to a Pew Research Center study, a tipping point occurred last year: more people in the U.S. got their news online for free than paid for it by buying newspapers and magazines.”

That’s not to say that people wouldn’t pay for the news. Isaacson derides Internet and phone service providers for failing to make available the technology to allow third parties to use their micro-payment system that works so effectively for text messages and ring tones. In reality, the Ma Bell’s of the world will probably miss the boat on this one.

“We have a world in which phone companies have accustomed kids to paying up to 20 cents when they send a text message but it seems technologically and psychologically impossible to get people to pay 10 cents for a magazine, newspaper or newscast.”

However, I do see a role for some innovative paid news service offered by someone like Apple. Maybe the established leader in mobile micro-payments can partner with one of the established news agencies to offer this type of functionality on the iPhone. Isaacson points out that companies like Apple and Amazon have shown us that micro-payments for content are not only possible, but can be transformational for a business. In fact, it almost seems stupid that newspapers should be suffering so.

“Steve Jobs got music consumers (of all people) comfortable with the concept of paying 99 cents for a tune instead of Napsterizing an entire industry, and Jeff Bezos with his Kindle showed that consumers would buy electronic versions of books, magazines and newspapers if purchases could be done simply.”

Finally, more than just a way to save the newspaper industry, Isaacson paints micro-payments for content as an obligation to save creative industries of all kinds.

“I say this not because I am “evil,” which is the description my daughter slings at those who want to charge for their Web content, music or apps. Instead, I say this because my daughter is very creative, and when she gets older, I want her to get paid for producing really neat stuff rather than come to me for money or decide that it makes more sense to be an investment banker.”

For more Wikinomics analysis of the newspaper industry, read previous posts here, here, and here.

What led me to this consideration was a conversation I recently had with a friend. Actually, it was more of a gleeful demonstration. In the midst of an ordinary conversation, my friend, holding his iPhone yells, “Oh yah check this out! 37 days, 17 minutes, and 5 seconds without smoking! Woo!” I’ve seen people excited about their phone’s latest trick, but this was different. And I’ve never shared in someone’s cell phone glee as much as I did on this occasion. It wasn’t because he had shown me the greatest or even most innovative app in the history of mankind/mobile communication. All he had shown me was a very simple app that read, “You have been a non-smoker for 37 days, 17 minutes, and 5 seconds.” This simple app had had a clear and profoundly positive effect on his life. Would he have had the same results had he written his goal to stop smoking on a post it note? I don’t think so.

This is a simple example, making use of some simple technology. But this story is a tidbit of evidence contrary to any notion that cell phones are nothing more than “annoying toys” (the readers of Wikinomics aren’t likely among those subscribing to this viewpoint, but we can all name 4 or 5 people who do).

Health care is already putting our digital companions into action in a number of innovative ways (the field of health informatics is a shining example). My friend has used a simple cell phone app to help him improve his health. The bottom line: thinking of cell phones as merely devices for playing ‘pointless games’ or calling loved ones from the grocery store completely limits their potential to be invaluable tools in areas like health informatics and health care.  

As humans, it’s difficult to separate what we see from what we think – it’s in our nature to use every incoming stimulus to interpret our environment, and then use that information in assessing and responding to a situation. Case in point: shopping has long been an exercise in ‘try before you buy’. You pick something up, turn it over on its side, hold it up for observation, and perhaps shake it like a Christmas present. The item’s weight, appearance, texture, and other variables affect the way in which we shape our judgement of that object. How then do you reproduce the real world shopping experience… online?

When the Internet first hit center stage, there was some doubt about its application for shopping – after all, how can you replace the experience of exploring down side streets, window shopping, and of course, flipping through, touching, and trying on clothing. Those concerns have thus far proven largely unfounded; the Internet has become a major battleground for sales, the virtual facing storefront that appeals to traditionalists as well as an entirely different demographic. According to Nielsen, approximately 85% of global Internet users have used the Internet to make a purchase, up 40% from two years ago. The most common Internet purchases are books, apparel, videos/DVDs/Games, airline tickets and electronics. With the exception of apparel (which one might expect to be a brick and mortar purchase only) I would argue that sales in each category are actually supplemented by access to information online, where you can conduct product related research, and where Web 2.0 communities provide strong feedback mechanisms through ratings, reviews, visual demos, and cost comparison shopping.

Enter Amazon Windowshop. In September, Amazon launched the BETA version of this virtual store, which is an initial bridge between physical-world product browsing and online shopping. The store is a fluid, interactive, and user friendly interface that lets you better interact with the items you’re interested in, creating a more sophisticated online shopping experience. Amazon uses Windowshop as a showcase for books, music, movies, TV shows, video games, and by categorizing products by new, bestselling, and editor’s picks items, the company has a good opportunity to put select, enticing, items in front of your face, similar to the supermarket corner aisle. What I like most about this interface is that it is entertaining – customers can approach this tool much in the same way they would a YouTube or a StumbleUpon – it’s a multimedia platform which enables serendipitous exploration and consumption of media … which you can buy. By providing an alternative outlet for people who want to browse and be entertained by the Internet, rather than simply shop, Amazon may be able to attract people to Windowshop simply to browse, which may in turn convert to a purchase – pulling people in rather than pushing content at them.

Where will Amazon and online shopping go from here?
The next step for Amazon Windowshop is to tie-in those aforementioned Web 2.0 community mechanisms that are already integrated into the main site. Internet users prefer to use other users’ experiences as a feedback mechanism that shapes their experience (Do I watch this? No, because 9/10 of previous viewers say it’s not worth it, just like an actual friend might tell me not to). Amazon must find a way to make Windowshop a place that people enjoy going to, to preview the latest hot media (music, movies, etc.), and which is built into their regular web-wanderings.  If the company is unable to integrate Windowshop into Internet users’ regular web-activities then they will not have any exposure, and therefore limited sales. A parallel is iTunes which uses an application platform, rather than Amazon’s web-based one, and which leverages users’ primary interest in music, to get people using the software, and once doing so, provide opportunities to entertain and purchase media from the e-store.

A website called Enjoy3D, despite being tacky, provides an initial look at 3D based shopping experiences. Going a step beyond Windowshop, Enjoy3D allows you to use your keyboard to navigate a three dimensional virtual space with ‘shelves’ full of from books, toys, T-shirts and more. By ‘walking around’ you are exposed to visual stimuli that may lead to further interest – upon clicking on an object, you are shown Amazon’s online store, including the Web 2.0 feedback tools mentioned above, and Amazon’s shopping cart.  Although the experience can never truly replace the physical-one, it doesn’t have to; the goal is not to replace physical-world shopping, it is to best enhance the Internet-based shopping experience, which has a different value proposition. Looking forward, I expect that we will see the integration of the interface shown by both websites, bringing a slick aesthetic, community orientation, and deep visual stimuli.

I have previously talked about SearchMe, the visual search engine that changes the search experience. Increasingly companies are understanding that the real world philosophy of “it’s not just what you sell but how you sell it” also applies to how companies engage with customers online. As Internet based programming, and computer hardware, becomes more sophisticated, a continuous stream of tools will become available to supplement this experience – imagine putting on your 3D web-connected goggles, walking around using brainwave signal-detection, and flipping through racks of clothes with the flip of a finger on a computer touchscreen. A whole virtual world of possibility.

My question for you then is, what would your ultimate virtual shopping experience look like?
What was the last thing you bought online and why?

Mine was a 28 inch monitor, bought last week (it’s awesome!). I did some research, found the best price at newegg.ca, checked to make sure other users and electronics reviewers have had good experiences, and had it shipped to my door 4 days later. Easy on the mind, easy on the legs, and easy on the wallet.

“The Obama campaign has released an application for the iPhone that cleverly sorts your address book, prioritizing which friends you should call to convince them to vote Obama.  (“Call Friends” sorts your friends by how close the race is in that state. So you can call your Ohio friends or Missouri friends and not bother with your California or NY friends.)  It’s a smart marrying of the fact that friends are much more likely to convince friends politically, coupled with the technology that helps you to easily see where your social networks may make the most political difference given battleground states and the electoral map.  The ‘Get Involved’ Button uses GPS to help you find the closest Obama campaign headquarters.

Another interesting part of the application is that it shows how many calls you have made using this application and how many have been made nation-wide, enabling one to feel a growing sense of momentum and part of a larger national cause.  (The software doesn’t transmit who you called, but records the number of calls made with the application so they can centrally keep track.)”

Apart from being a brilliant campaign tactic I can see this application being used outside of the political arena. I agree with the blog posting in that your friends are some of the most influential people in your social network. It is a relationship founded on the basis of trust and as such their opinions, recommendations or warnings carry a lot of weight. Would you eat at a restaurant where a friend said the food was terrible? Probably not, but you might be willing to try a product or rent a movie that came with a positive recommendation from the same individual. Marketers are constantly searching for new ways to convince people to test their products or switch from a competing brand and I think teamed with the right business this iPhone application could make a powerful impact. For instance, if this application could sync with my iTunes it would know who my favorite bands or musicians are based on the music I’ve purchased. Using this information it could notify me when a certain band or artist is performing in my area. That way if Coldplay was coming to town the application would inform me of the concert date and where I could purchase tickets. It could also prioritize my friends using the band’s concert schedule so I could call my friend Lauren in Boston and my cousin Murray in Seattle to let them know Coldplay would be performing in their town and encourage them to purchase tickets. It isn’t difficult to see why bands would want to support this application and have fans contacting fans from coast to coast sharing information and encouraging faster ticket sales. Prioritizing your contact list using geographic locations could also be an application that travel websites could use to entice users with discounted airfare. If this application was sponsored by Expedia or Travelocity it could tell me when there is a cheap flight to visit Kyle who goes to school in Madrid or Iris who lives in Paris. This Smartphone application has created the ultimate ripple effect in the sense that you aren’t just telling me about a concert, you are also using my relationships to notify my circle of friends. I’ve merely scratched the surface of how this application could provide some great word-of-mouth advertising or promote information-sharing across the globe but I’d love to hear some suggestions or ideas on where you think the iPhone could take this application.

It’s cute, but moreover, it shows that YouTube (and Google) understands that a number of video comments would have been better-off not posted (a point similar to my previous post, about the extent to which online systems should be designed to protect us from ourselves). Not just that, it shows a lot of personality, something that seems like something of an odd comment when talking about a website or large company. These personalities serve to “de-technologify” technology, making it easier to simply interact with it.

Some examples; things that made me smirk (or frown) as I tried out new software and websites:

• Google’s Chrome Browser — when something goes wrong in Chrome, you’re not presented with some snippet of code in HEX along with an error code. Instead, you get “Aw snap, something went wrong.” It catches you off guard the first time, and it’s not drab or boring like a typical application error.
• 404 pages — Things will go wrong and people will try to access pages that don’t exist, there are lots of ways that a webmaster can choose to let a visitor know that something isn’t right.
• Windows Vista’s Cancel or Continue — a good example of a complete lack of personality, especially on a prompt that shows up far more than is necessary, it ends up simply becoming a nuisance, making the software aggravating rather than useful.
• OSX’s bootup login prompt — when a mac boots up and requests a password, if you enter the wrong password, the window shakes. It’s simple and communicates that you typoed, all without the need for a popup asking you to try again.
• Winamp — I don’t think that many people use Winamp anymore, which is too bad, because it’s always been great software. Way back when I first loaded up Winamp, the software autoplays a clip “Winamp, it really whips the llama’s…” — backside. Nothing especially functional, but it still serves to set the software apart, and stayed in my memory to this day.

As we do more and more things with and through software, that software itself becomes the face of the company that designed it. For personable companies and applications, having a certain degree of transitivity between the personalities of the applications, and the personalities of the companies, becomes a very good thing.

Looping this back to the XKCD-YouTube example, I appreciate that Google/YouTube is able to recognize that there’s a lot of rubbish-comments on their site, and that they’re able to make light of the situation in a very public-facing way. This doens’t mean that my YouTube usage is going to go up (the only way that could happen is if more hours were added to the day), but it does serve to make the company a little more human, and a little more likeable — not a bad accomplishment if I’m trying to decide where I want to go to watch online video content.

My list above is far from exhaustive, are there any companies or applications that strike you as really having some personality of their own? Does it improve your experience, or detract from it? Or, are you just waiting for the day when most of our overt interactions with technology are intermediated through Turing-capable virtual people, complete with their own, robust personalities?

Fortunately, European traders had recourse in several new electronic exchanges, such as Chi-x and Turquoise. After imagining huddled masses of traders without their exchange, I took some solace that they had those alternatives (even though they come with their own liquidity issues).

Then I got to thinking: what about other mission critical functions that companies and people have come to rely on? Namely those with systems beyond the control of an IT manager just a four-digit extension away? SaaS comes with its well-documented benefits of low capital costs and more, but what about uptime and reliability? The LSE hiccup isn’t exactly SaaS, but it is an example of a centralized service that is crucial day-to-day going awry.

SaaS darlings, Google and Apple found themselves in the crosshairs when their email services Gmail and MobileMe went down for hours on August 11^th. And this was another misstep for Apple, since MobileMe was down for 11 days in July. Steve Jobs meted out his form of justice by canning the executives in charge of the program, but does that allay an IT manager’s concerns?

Seems like those managers are split on their future with SaaS. In an article on InfoWorld those managers who made the move to Google after choosing to leave their established infrastructure were concerned about future hiccups. One manager was especially concerned, as the crash came only days after he had migrated his company completely to Google. Suffice it to say he felt a little foolish. On the other end of the spectrum, the smaller start-ups (with no messy IT systems to divorce) were more than forgiving with Google.

So what’s the point? Regardless of the potential SaaS has for small companies that have never known a complicated IT infrastructure, those companies that make up the old vanguard are still the bulk of the market. SaaS has limitless potential; but with highly-public failures creating doubt in IT managers responsible for adopting these systems, it seems like Google and Apple will have to do more than just satisfy their armchair evangelists, and start appealing to those uneasy decision-makers: those with their fingers on the IT purse-strings.

Recently, BIC launched a mobile phone in France, seeking to extend their convenience-based brand into the telecom market. The phone, which shares the colour-scheme and appearance of the company’s razor line retails for 49€ and comes with a fully-charged battery and 60 minutes of airtime. The phone is available at grocers and retailers and is targeted at people with a short-term need for a second line such as when troubled by a battery-depleted device or selling a car/renting an apartment. (Not to mention the ability to take the prank call or movie-like “call me at this unassigned number” to a whole new level.)

At first, I questioned the value of a disposable mobile device (expensive, wasteful/environmental impact) but when considering the international roaming charges that apply on many carriers’ networks, I wonder if these phones will gain momentum, particularly among the cost-conscious business crowd.  Do such roaming alternatives have the power to encourage inter-telco agreements that can allow for legitimately unlocked devices to improve the customer experience and potentially lead to everyone gaining from a rising tide?

Aside: At launch, BIC leadership made sure to point out that their mobile device [remember: sub $100, disposable] would not be competing with the iPhone in terms of function and features. In related news, Justin Timberlake can share in Apple’s sense of relief in knowing that based on a conversation spurred by the BIC phone’s merit, Denis Hancock (the artist formerly known as the Dilbert Wikinomics guru) was quick to point out that despite having picked up some new dance moves recently, he will not be competing with the JT for the adoration of tweens worldwide.

Technology empowers users.  Apple’s GarageBand, for instance, enabled just about anyone to make professional sounding music (provided a certain level of musicianship).  A while ago, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails released his music as GarageBand files so that fans can remix them as they please (think open-source music).  GarageBand has been popular since the source of the music is standardized, people can send it around and collaborate with friends — basically “playing tennis” with works in progress.  However, the distribution of these edited files has effectively been limited to e-mailing music attachments back and forth. Very 1.0.

RiffWorks T4 solves this problem by making the music itself wiki based.  It lets four people work on the music at once, but there’s no upper limit to the number of potential collaborators.  It also synchronizes the piece across the computers of all of the contributors, and keeps a copy on the web that is always up to date and universally accessible.  RiffWorks T4 has wikified music. Because of its centralized, collaborative nature, for the first time ever we can have crowd created music,  I wonder what it will sound like.

As documented in The New York Times’ article about Urbanspoons, a free Apple iPhone application that helps users “find restaurants by neighborhood, cuisine or price,” reality may be quite different from what Urbanspoons tells you. The writer’s Urbanspoons search led him to a restaurant that had been closed for six months, yet it still appeared highly recommended in the application. Inconvenient at worst, Urbanspoons’ inaccuracy is easily forgotten over a glass of wine at a restaurant that is actually still open for business.

On a more sinister level, outdated materials can be damaging to one’s (or one’s neighborhood, and by extension, their property value) reputation. Take, for example, rottenneighbor.com, “the first real estate search engine of its kind allowing you to rate and review good and bad neighbors before and after you move so you can make a smart real estate decision.” From the get-go, many users walk a fine line between honest, albeit negative, reviews and pure defamation. So what happens to reviews of neighbors after they move? The reviews stay with the location, so the new neighbor moving in will turn up in a search as a bad neighbor. And some of these reviews are quite unsavory, think “cat killer.” In a search of my neighborhood, I found a review of a man who was a resident of an apartment in 1999. While it is highly unlikely either party still lives in the building, the building will turn up, nine years later, as the home of a “freaky porn addict and nudist.”

Users of online directory resources should beware of outdated reviews and content. It’s common sense, but that shiny new iPhone may cloud better judgment.  In the meantime, I will continue posting reviews of all of my least favorite neighbors and take reviews of others with a grain of salt. You never know, they may or may not still be there.

It’s pretty humorous (and either slightly sad given what doesn’t happen despite the available tools or slightly scary to think that Steve Jobs may be planning a coup).

My favourites:

• There would be a three hour wait to get the latest $5 bill. It would also feature a web 2.0 gradient.
• Instead of a Social Security number, all newborns would receive a free MobileMe account.
• The cabinet would add the Department for Ergonomic Design, including a new position called theSecretary of Feng Shui. The office would debate the merits of using Arial versus Helvetica on street signs. Additionally, the Lincoln Bedroom would be upgraded with a mini rock waterfall and tiny Bonsai trees.
• Steve Jobs’ face would inexplicably appear next to Roosevelt’s on Mt. Rushmore.
• “In God We Trust” would be changed to “Getting Things Done”.

I thought I’d take it one step further and theorize what would happen “if the United Nations were run by Google.”

• The Chinese and Russians would withdraw their vetoes against sanctions on Zimbabwe after Googling “Mugabe” ….
• The Millennium Development Goals would get crowdsourced.
• The Kyoto Protocol would be restructured with targets for member nations tied to the number of servers each country possesses.
• The Russians would attempt to buy Google with oil money.
• The Security Council would fail to come to agreement on “Don’t be evil” and would instead adopt “Google first, Act later.”

*Authors’ note: The Promethean Institute is a libertarian public policy think tank based in Orange County, California. I am neither libertarian nor Californian and by virtue of being Canadian, less good looking but definitely more in-touch with my socialist side.

The transition from being console software to desktop software brings about some advantages, support for HDTV, and support for new hardware… like the Nintendo Wiimote.

A bunch of strangers on the Internet found each other and collaborated to write new software for an old product, making the old XBOX a top-of-the-line media center, better than commercially available alternatives. The team grows, develops into a community, and the code gets ported over to new, more powerful platforms, allowing a competing Nintendo product to join the equation and make things better still. All of this is done by volunteers and released for free online. I think that’s really cool.