Archive for the 'Web x.0' Category

On support for free apps and independence or otherwise…

Published by Ben Kepes on June 26, 2008 in Business, Design, Efficiency, IT, SaaS, Society, Strategy and Web x.0.

I posted last week about Etelos, the company creating a viable business by doing much of the heavy lifting for web-apps - they host, install, package and support the apps, leaving the users to concentrate on what is core. My post generated a few comments one of which questioned the value of paying for something that was otherwise free;

$60/years you get an enterprise grade blogging service … seems a lot when compared to a zero cost for say Blogger.

In an “almost the same but not quite” situation, I stumbled across this post by Garett Rogers bemoaning the fact that personal support for Google’s offerings is virtually non-existent, even with the premium-paid for Google apps offerings. Garett pointed to Google’s Website Optimizer service plans which provide for a number of different (and charged) support scenarios;

    1. $250/hour: Designed for specific questions and quick answers. Maximum 1 call per hour. No commitment, no obligation.
    2. $600/3hours (in increments of 30 min): Designed for more complex issues at discounted hourly rates. Must be used within 6 months after first hour of service is used.
    3. $1,200/8hours (in increments of 30 min): Purchase this plan and use for an entire year. Must be used within 12 months after first hour of service is used.

This seems to be a similar situation that the Etelos suite of offerings solves, helping users by removing impedimenta to the use of the products. Doing anything and, hopefully, everything that isn’t related to core usage of the product.

Another comment to my original post questioned the necessity of these types of services;

I’m just not so comfortable with the underlying assumption you’re making that without someone holding your hand, you can’t do this on your own

It’s a good comment but it misunderstood my viewpoint - I don’t believe that it is impossible to do this stuff (stuff being install, upkeep, support etc) on your own, rather I believe that Web 2.0 tools are equally applicable to mass users as they are to the digerati among us. As such anything that is a barrier to their adoption should be removed. I would class the need to update PHP to run the latest WordPress install (for example) along with not being able to contact Google to ask about setting up hosted apps for your domain.

For another example witness the success of Mobile Mentor, the business that aims to train busy people in the use of their Mobile phones. While at first blush the idea of someone needing a personal coach to use their phone was a little bizarre - at the end of the day though it’s about ensuring that people have the tools they need to achieve the outcomes they desire. If the tool requirement includes a techy mobile phone, and the user doesn’t have the time or inclination to learn how to use said mobile phone - then Mobile Mentor fulfils a valid and necessary need.

Horses for courses and all that….

(And by the way - this post is the illustrious 1000th post since the inception of this blog - champagne and party poppers to all!)

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FriendsReunited - a little too late

Published by Ben Kepes on June 24, 2008 in Business, Design, IT, SaaS, SocialMedia and Web x.0.

News this morning that FriendsReunited, formerly the FindaKiwi locale, has re-branded, dropped subscription fees and put in place a whole heap of social media functionality. Reading between the lines I take it that there were nowhere near enough subscriptions to make the site viable (paying to join a generic social media offering - I don’t think so) and the backers want to to play Facebook catch up. Of course their reasons are different;

We have removed the single greatest barrier to increased communication between our members.

As many as 87 per cent of messages on the old Friends Reunited were never sent because of the cost of membership and we thought that was a great shame, so we have dropped the fee to encourage greater interaction between members but still with the same level of privacy that they enjoyed before.

Please be assured that, unlike other social networks, we will still never reveal you personal email address.

Sorry but it won’t work;

  • The horse has left the stable - those who have joined social networks already will view this offering as a down grade, those yet to join will go for the big players
  • I can even get a taste of the offering without registering - sorry but I don’t want to fill in lots of forms to check the flavour of a social networking site

FriendsReunited pitches their point of difference as;

We now have the timeline which is a way for you to record your life story - some events will already be added there for you such as the information from your My Places listings and you can choose to add your own personal events there which you can add comments and photos to and invite your friends to do the same.

You can also now create your own friends list by adding existing Friends Reunited members or by using our email address book uploader. You can then use your friends list to keep in contact with new and old friends more easily and to share certain parts of your profile with people who are close to you rather than every Friends Reunited Member

It is now free to use Friends Reunited, including the sending of all messages, making it far more interactive so you can truly connect with all the important people in your life and find people who were always listed but were harder to find. 

We now have a Privacy Settings section so that yo can choose who sees every part of your profile and you can even categorise people on your friends list from being ‘Friends and Family’ or ‘Acquaintances’ so that yo can differentiate which parts of your profile they can see.

Yawn!

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What do we really need in an Cloudbook?

Published by Ben Kepes on June 23, 2008 in Business, Design, IT, SaaS and Web x.0.

 

Om posted about his requirements for an UMPC, netbook, handheld or whatever else you want to call it. Me I’ll always call it a cloudbook for in my definition this is a device that is poised to leverage external applications and storage. Anyway, Om’s wishlist went like this;

  1. Instant On
  2. Doesn’t generate too much heat.
  3. Minimum 5 hours of battery life.
  4. Must feature at least four communications options: WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth & Wireless Wide Area Network connection to, say, an EVDO or HSPA Network.
  5. Less than three pounds (Batteries included).
  6. Screen size of 3.5 to 8 inches (wide-screen proportioned)
  7. The primary function of the computer should be cloud-based activities that can include everything from listening to live music, reading blogs and watching videos. Writing research reports or cranking out spreadsheets isn’t the primary purpose of these machines.
  8. It should cost no more than $300. This isn’t a computer; it’s a communications device. It should really be an on-the-go device. It is a device for the moments when your cellphone isn’t enough, and laptop is too much. An iPhone should qualify.
  9. Its innards, ports should be geared for Internet-based activities — from making calls on Skype to consuming RSS feeds — though it should be able to handle external peripherals.
  10. In the future it should move away from the keyboard and have a touchscreen interface that allows one to sift through large amounts of data (or web pages) quickly, as cramped keyboards and touchpads can be hard to use.

    There’s also an interesting Dell presentation over on endgadget which looks at the why’s and wherefore’s of their cloudbook strategy.

    While I like Om’s ideas, for me this sort of device, and the way diverse technologies seem to be going, call for a more ambitious wishlist. So in that spirit here is my wanna-have list;

    1. Instant on
    2. Integrated operating system with web browser (or integrated web browser with OS - I’m not fussed either way)
    3. No heat
    4. No practical limit to battery life - solar panels in screen and a rough ratio of 1 hour sun exposure to 8 hours plus working life
    5. All communications options built-in is a given
    6. 1kg or less
    7. Full touch screen functionality (and up to the iJesusPhone loveliness)
    8. No installed apps (it’s a cloudbook FFS!)
    9. A few USB ports but everything else (peripheral wise) can be via comms

    What other wishes do people have?

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    Reid Hoffman on Web 2.0

    Published by Ben Kepes on June 20, 2008 in Business, IT, New business, Strategy and Web x.0.

    Sarah Lacy interviews Reid Hoffman to get his read on Web 2.0 business. The interview was recorded on the same day that LinkedIn had an outage so Sarah asks the obvious questions around outages and the harm they can do to a start-up.

    Sarah also asked Reid who he thought would be the survivors out of the Web 2.0 pool. Reid’s take was that there will be 3-6 players that survive this cycle, and they’ll M&A the promising others. Obviously he put LinkedIn in the survivor pool. A commentator left what could be described as the “emperors new clothes” comment par excellence when he said;

    What could stop Web 2.0 is when advertisers come to the realization that nobody actually clicks on the advertisements on these social networking sites because people are too busy networking to click an ad. How does a social networking company make money without advertising? They charge a fee to use it that’s how, then what will happen?

    Reid’s tip for the next wave of successful web companies? Lightweight social gaming!

    My tip to Reid? Stop social gaming and get out and do some exercise buddy

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