Web 2.0 Discussion

Posted on October 16, 2007 by marc meyer

So I’m talking to my friend Randy who works at an inventory optimization software company called Smartops (simple name for a mouthfull of an explanation) about a site of called Howzitsound that really needs in no particular order ….angel investors, a face lift, some marketing, and some people to do the heavy lifting. I mentioned that the site needs to be pushed into the Web 2.0 stratosphere, and in saying that, I asked,”you do know what web 2.0 is don’t you?” Below is our email conversation.

Me:

“on a locallized level… i.e www.howzitsound/pittsburgh.htm Myspace was developed for bands and music fans but morphed into a major big ass social networking site predominantly because of the cool tools associated with creating…”your space” 200 million users and going strong

Randy:

Is this a quiz? From what I know, Web 2.0 is a next step in online networking, where the users create much of the content ie- MySpace, wikipedia, etc. It’s a wave I have not ridden. I know it’s enormously pervasive and popular since everyone seems to have a myspace, but frankly I still feel like it’s a teenager phenomenon and I don’t care to follow. Not to say that I wouldn’t like to have some of the myspace $$

Me:

well you’re somewhat right, but where you are wrong is thinking its a teenager phenomenon, what you will eventually see is that content and content creation will become more interactive and robust than it already has. web 2.0 is more about the tools and apps used as well as the sites that have evolved from it such as a myspace. web 2.0 is more about getting your information and sharing your information and creating it as well, through social networking sites but also individually as well i.e. blogs.

What you will eventually see is that social networking will evolve onto enterprise levels, it already has in some aspects. What it does is, it creates better communication between entities working on a project, or collaboration on a contract, or temporary virtual communities, etc etc. So the easier the tools are, the more apt are the client to embrace the notion. Think Ajax, and xtml..

Him:

Interesting take on it and a valid point. I think your point on it developing to an enterprise level is where more focus needs to be placed. I tend to ignore a lot of the “real” applications because I’m sick to death of everyone talking about their myspace or their blog as if they’re someone who I should be paying attention to just because they have a webpage. Everyone wants to be a celebrity now, and it frustrates the hell out of me.

Sorry for the rant, I think there is tremendous application for the content development tools, I just wish it was limited to people that actually have something to say

Me:

Yea I guess everyone is a pundit and a builder of web pages now even if it is with wizards and what not. so having said all of that, howzitsound/pittsburgh for example would not be totally user generated but could be user driven. i think on a local level a branded sight that i knew i could go to that had THE places to go for live music and possible just cool clubs would far outweigh fucking doing a local search and ending up on myspace or about.com….

Him:

Exactly, if I wanted people’s opinions I’d give it to them. Ha.

I’m still a big fan of the howzitsound concept. keep me in the loop for it

So that’s where we left it. What do you think? Did we get it right? Someone out there needs to give me the definitive explnantion of what web 2.0 will be, or what it is and what form it will eventually take as we go forward.

Social Networks meet Mobile Networks

Posted on October 16, 2007 by marc meyer

As mobile networks and devices continue to evolve and converge into all things digitally possible, doesn’t it make sense that the next big thing should be a social network that is solely dedicated to a mobile network?

It was a matter of time before social networks were destined to leave the confines of the pc. But with the advent of powerful new mobile devices, the ability to to send round-the-clock updates about what you’re eating, who you’re talking to, and what you just bought seemed inevitable. And of course, why not? These things are important in the fabric of our every day lives. We need to know these things.

Jaiku is one of the many sites that is now geared towards mobile social networks. What might make Jaiku formidable is that it is owned by Google. So it probably has a better than average chance at success.

Jaiku’s main goal is to bring people closer together by enabling them to share their activity streams. An activity stream is a log of everyday things as they happen: your status messages, recommendations, events you’re attending, photos you’ve taken – anything you post directly to Jaiku or add using Web feeds. Perhaps one of the most popular right now is Twitter, which allows users to let people broadcast short text messages from their phones and computers to those of friends and strangers. The gist of these networks is to offer a way to connect with the people you care about by sharing your activities with them via the Web, IM, and SMS – as well as through a slew of cool third-party applications built by other developers using propriatary API’s.

Another one that seems more geared towards a younger demo is Kyte. the difference is Kyte allows anybody to create their own interactive TV channel on their website, blog, social network or mobile phone

With kyte, you create your own live TV shows and broadcast them on your own interactive channel, on your website, blog, social network or mobile phone. You can share your kyte channel with your friends and collaborate with them so that they can also be a part of your shows, by adding their own content, by voting and by chatting live with other viewers. With kyte, you can share your experiences live with the world and be the star, director and producer of your own live TV channel, wherever you are and however you want.

At this point we need to coin a new phrase, “digital voyeuristic exhibitionism”. Where do you think we are headed as social networks converge with all things electronic and media related? Is any aspect of our personal lives off limits now with the broad acceptance of reality based programming? Where do we go from here?

Do social networks make us less social?

Posted on October 9, 2007 by marc meyer

So I use Facebook and Linkedin, and to a lesser degree even MySpace. I’ve even started to Twitter. I’ve connected with former Co-workers and even some classmates from high school and college. But now what? None of my former classmates from high school live in my town and so there won’t be any connection there. My college classmates have even splintered more. So now what? I made the effort to connect, so I guess now it’s time to network with strangers. How do I feel about this? My first inclination is, what do I hope to get out of it? I might as well cold call people and introduce myself and ask them if they want to be my friend. Well maybe that’s where the beauty of social networking kicks in. I can hide behind the screen and type away without really uttering a word. Pretty social huh?

I’m thinking that there are more people like me out there. We have been drawn to the light of the flame, or by others who have touted it as the NBG(next big thing) and once we got there, we’re like, “Ok, now what”? I don’t want to work “That” hard to connect with people that a) I barely remember b) I barely knew and c) I hardly liked. So what is there to do with my newfound social network?

I think what would be more fun is to have a site that does then and now pics. Now that would be social. We could sit around and do what everyone does at reunions. Whisper behind their backs about how fat and bald they all are, how messed up they are, how much they changed, etc etc. That’s social isn’t it? It’s also a form of networking.

Truthfully, I’m still trying to figure out what to do next. I suppose that I need to maybe elaborate more on my profiles and make them even more accessible than they already are. Which in reality, I’m not wild about, because I really don’t want my data passed around like a church collection plate. But I think I’m a little too far down that road. I suppose it does have networking possibilities, but that will have to be something that I continue to evaluate. To me, networking is of 2 forms: Can you help me get a job or Can I get some business out of you?

Now, I’m not saying that the social networks don’t work on certain levels, it’s just that it might work better on large scale enterprise lavels rather than former classmates and workmates trying to connect after x amount of years apart. In fact for high school and college and large organizations, social networks totally make sense. The question is do the social networks create online social clicks similar to what you might have offline? The data is still out but I would be curious to hear from someone who is knee deep in one to give us their impressions and feedback as to how it has affected them negatively or in a positive way. There has to be some twisted slant already brewing from the advent of these. We don’t need to address the stalkers, the lurkers, and the usual freaks that go to these. Don’t forget the internet is a reflection of our society. To that end, to bad we can’t be made aware of these people online. Picture some type of nondescript, dirty white conversion van as an icon or avatar. That would be sufficient warning.

The bottom line is social networks are here to stay. They just need to be more socially accepting to the average lay person who might not swim in the same circles as everyone else. But still would like to be accepted, would like to enjoy and utilize these networks to some degree. Sort of mirrors life doesn’t it?

DRM, The music business has to change, again.

Posted on October 8, 2007 by marc meyer

I have a friend who has a site called Howzitsound. He wants to change the way we listen to music. But he wants to be unlike all of the others… Where have we heard that before? If you must know, I’m still in favor of changing the way we listen to, access, and share music, as it stands today. But by no means do I think the current model works. The system is still flawed. In fact there is a great blog post about it right here by Ian Rogers, who seems to understand that, we as listeners and purveyors of music are tired of being played<—pun intended.

What my friend wants to do is open up Howzitsound to the best and the brightest, to build the model that works best for them. He wants Howzitsound to contribute something positive to the music industry. Something sustainable. His problem is, he just doesn’t know what it is. What that ideal model is. I got news for him, neither does anyone else. Think things are ok? tell that to the woman who just lost a court case against the RIAA to the tune of<—pun intended, $200,000! Thats right she was made the poster child for anyone who has downloaded music illegally. Oh and she has 2 children too. I’m thinking the 10-20-life law might apply here, what do you think? What message did they send by doing that? Was it necessary?

So back to what would a viable web 2.0 music model look like? What would it need to have in regards to having a large scale buy in<—-pun intended, from all of the labels as well as the current keepers of the keys to the kingdom?

What do users want? What I do know is that what they want, is to play their music on any device, access the music from any site, and have it be compatible with anything; Car, house, device, you name it. They don’t want to have to jump through hoops time and time again, and they want access to the largest catalogue possible. I hear you led Zep and Radiohead fans!

Now I’m getting excited, look how it’s now we and not they… 🙂 We want widgets, we want contextual apps, so that we can listen to similar music, we want to be able to share our playlists and we want it to be affordable. The only problem with that limited wish list is, that like Ian Rogers said, we’ll have to wait, roughly 8 years for even the smallest of miracles in regards to headway.

Tell me what we need to do!!! Lets help my friend at Howzitsound. Someone turn him on to someone else…and lets change the music business again, lets let the users decide for a change!

It’s not about Google, It’s Yahoo… Sorry MySpace..

Posted on October 8, 2007 by marc meyer

Raise your hand if you use or access all three of the aformentioned. Ok, I know we all use Google for something, and we all probably have a Yahoo mail account for some reason, and well MySpace… It’s something all together different, But I bet you have vistied a couple of MySpace pages. Hell, you might even have a MySpace page! If so…My bad..

You see the first 2 sites have a specific purpose whereas MySpace is more “me-time” oriented. The simple fact that we talk about MySpace in the same breath as a Yahoo mail or Google, is in and of itself an amazing phenomenon. Given it’s realtively short history.

As a social network app., MySpace doesn’t appeal to me that much. The technology that surrounds it does, but thats because I’m sorta “tech-y-geeky”. But we need to look at the demographic for MySpace to fully understand the impact of it. It’s geared towards 18-24 year olds, but it extends in either direction as well. i.e. 50 year olds use it and so do 15 year olds. But what it tells you, is that people are starved for self expression. Starved to meet someone or with the hopes that someone wants to meet them. They should call MySpace a Viral network thats connected by social norms. MyViralSpace.

I heard a comment last night on 60 minutes, that the internet is a direct reflection of society. I always knew it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it is so true. We want to meet other people, we want to be with those people and we want to be rich and we are motivated by things that will pleasure us and we dont want to work for our money, we want to slack off and and we want to have fun. All of the motivators of our off line world transposed online. As if our lives our now 2-D. the online life and the offline. See–>Second Life.

So Yahoo seems to cover it best. Just compare the Google interface with Yahoo. Yahoo is a portal, Google is not. Google is search, Yahoo is more like the place you stop to get your coffee, grab the paper, talk to someone real quick, read your mail, pay a bill, check a score and find out who is sleeping with who before you head to work or start work. Google is for checking for George Clooney’s house pics in Italy, seeing if your old college roomate is in jail, and researching for jobs in a bigger city than the one your currently in. Google is a tool. Yahoo is a resource and MySpace is a nightclub. MySpace is where people go to cruise for others and share their sense of wannabe coolness.

Can all three exist? You betcha, but where they all will stumble is when they think they can do something that the other is doing, and do it better. Google as a portal? Maybe. Google as a social network, no chance in hell. Yahoo as search, holding their own, Yahoo Mash? The jury is still out. MySpace as a search tool, uhhhhh no. MySpace as a portal, well it sorta is, but not in the literal sense.

Ultimately, as they say content is king and thus Yahoo has prevailed up to this point because the content changes daily, hourly etc. MySpace may have some value in it’s ability to mine the data, but as a destination location, not gonna happen. And Google, well Google is as Google was. The bottom line, they all serve an audience that wont’ be going away anytime soon. At least for the next 12 months

Technology. Is it making our lives easier? Or does it complicate them?

Posted on October 1, 2007 by marc meyer

While thinking of what to write about this morning I thought that some questions should be asked.

Does technology serve a broad audience? Or a broad enough audience? In other words, are we serving enough people, with what technology brings to the table? What do people who happen to have a computer, who have no more than a high school education, and possibly less, use the computer for? Do they use it to look at porn? Do they use it to set up My Space? Is it for Flickr? Music? Email? Is the computer user friendly enough for people who might be learning challenged? If it’s not, then what do they do with it?

Who do we as marketers and web masters gear our websites to? What is the demographic? Do we even consider the number of people using a computer who don’t really fit the audience that we THINK we are attracting? Do we even TRY to speak to that segment?

Is the cell phone and it’s current capabilities the “dumb’ed down” version of the PC? Is what is on the phone from a spec standpoint what all users en masse want? Or what we think will sell more phones? Do we not give the people that use any type of technology on a day to day basis, enough credit for what they want? and how they might want to utilize it?

When does any type of app, fly completely over someone’s head? What is the level, when someone just shuts it down and says,”this is too difficult”? Will all generations from here on out be so technically gifted, and knowledgable that nothing will be impossible for them to grasp? Regardless of educational levels?

What does user friendly really imply? Does everyone need a computer? If so why? If not, how come? Does anyone use a fax machine anymore? Why is YouTube so popular? Why is MySpace the same? Does anyone care about social networking? DO I really want my friends to know what I’m doing at all times? How can I find really cool web sites? Without having to put up with google ads?

And speaking of Google, should I care about what they do? and how they do it? Does Google make my life easier? Does Microsoft? Does technology make my life easier, or does it complicate it because of updates and licences and fees and subscriptions and user names and passwords and security threats and viruses and hackers and…..???

Do we know what we want? Do you know what we want? Do we know what you want? We all think we do, but you know what? No you don’t, and neither do we..

Digital Narcissism and The “Me-Brand”,

Posted on September 26, 2007 by marc meyer

One of the more facinating aspects of Web 2.0 these days, is the emergence of self made online stars, and social media experts. Or for that matter, self-created personas. Not that it’s something that has appeard overnight, but it is something that seems to be growing at an exponential rate.

Let me explain. Part of the reason that YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, to name a few, have become so popular is the freedom to express oneself in creative ways. The tools that these sites provide empower the user. 7 years ago we wanted to package these tools and sell them as “content managment solutions”. Someone beat everyone to the point and said, why don’t we just release these tools as a free web service that users can use to communicate and share and interact with others.

What this has fostered though, is the desire for people to show the world or their web audience what they’re all about. In some cases, with all it’s flaws, cracks, and boorish moments. It’s their way of creating their own star vehicles without the assistance of PR companies, 8×10 glossies and breakout movie roles. All it takes is for someone to virally pass the message, the image, the words or whatever of that person on to another, and it spreads faster than dead grass burning in the summer. It will appeal to someone. In some cases, it will appeal to a lot of people.

If that happens, some web savvy individuals take that to the next level and parlay their instant web street cred stardom in dollars.

It’s perpetuated though by the users, the audience and the readers who for whatever reason have this voyeuristic thirst for this type of content. Amateur content if you will, thrives online because it’s real. Why do you think Americas funniest videos was able to thrive? Because, we were seeing people as they really were. In their worst and best moments. That same premise exists today currently with the social networking sites, and historically with online chat. The package isn’t packaged, it’s not watered down, it’s real. Real to the extent, that who we are watching or what we are reading is who they really are. Or what they want us to think.

Lets not forget that the Net has a way of distorting things, even when it comes to social networking. We can create a version of who we are, and we can step into that skin and be that person, even to the extent that that person can go on a webcam and be someone that they are not. Why? Digital narcissim. A desire to be something that we are not. To enjoy the exposure of our nameless and faceless peers to the extent that we are willing to go farther online then we would ever go in our real world lives.

It’s almost as if the 20 minutes of fame can be extended online indefinitely. Because the lights never go off online, there is always an audience somewhere for your brand. Even communication has taken on a new meaning online. A new universal language is spoken online. TTYL, BBL, OMG. Your brand, as niche-like as it can possibly be, has an audience somewhere. Because of the diverse nature and universal appeal of everything digital, you can feed the habit, grow your brand and extend it as far as you can, merely by finding your clan. Your pack. Your tribe.

Once you find it, you can be whoever you want to be and market and package yourself, whatever way you want to be perceived; and people, Your people, have no choice but to buy what you are selling, because you have found each other. You’re the brand they were looking for. My only other question would be, How cannibalistic are these tribes? Do they eat their own? My guess is that there are unspoken and unwritten rules that are played out time and time again. If the rules are violated, regardless of your brand. You can flame out pretty quickly. So my guess is yes, the web does eat its own.

Yahoo Mash.

Posted on September 18, 2007 by marc meyer

Yahoo recently began beta testing Mash, the company’s experimental social networking web site that will allow Yahoo users to share information with one another. Mash is Yahoo’s latest attempt at social networking after failing with Yahoo 360 and its bid to purchase Facebook.

Yahoo aims to implement features that will differentiate Mash from other services, but exact details remain unknown. One perk already known is the ability for users to edit profiles that belong to their friends. I can see the value of possibly editing a profile if it’s so you can segment your friends or business aquaintences, but personally, I were Yahoo, I’d try harder to buy soemthing that is more established. Look at how 360 bombed..

Yahoo started inviting a small number of testers to the service late last week. Users who have not been invited to the service are unable to view the site, however; the head of the Mash team has a public blog which details the current status of the project.

I came across a company that seems to know where social networking needs to go. The company is called Neighborhood America, Neighborhood America provides enterprise-level social networking solutions to media, business and government customers. That is where social networking can best be utilized. Right now, the landscape is littered with wanna-be’s and variations of the Myspace and Facebook model.

Think about it. How do they make money? Through Ad dollars, and that’s it. These do serve a “social” function, but purely from a social standpoint.

What Neighborhood America strives to do, is enable and empower companies and organizations to create better lines of communication and a better exchange of ideas and resources to best achieve enterprise goals, expectations, and deliverables. Now that is a solid business objective that best utilizes the power of social networking. Plus it makes money. Isn’t that what we are all trying to do? Yahoo Mash has a big mountain to climb. Maybe they should call Neigborhood America?