MySpace Review & Ruperts Two Cents

It is late here in New York, but Spencer Reiss of Wired just posted his lenghty thoughts on News Corp, Mr. Murdoch, MySpace and a few personal commentaries from the media mogul himself. I recommend you will find the time to read it.

While reviewing the article I thought of a position I applied for at News Corp. For your amusement I have excerpted some of this application as I find it fitting for this particular discussion.

Late add: Om Malik on Ross Levinsohn from FOX and his Interactive venture in Business 2.0.
Even Later add: Robert Young - our favourite Social Networking specialist on Social Media.

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"To properly prepare for the future NEWS Corp require a strategic vision of the 21st century based on confluence of information across platforms, technologies, groups, borders and mediums. As the digital divide disappears and the next generation takes over innovation and consumerism and start dictating their demands to the information provider, NEWS Corp have to take a pro-active stand in the sea of change. To adopt and adapt is no longer just smart business, but vital to survival. The consumer is no longer content with getting what she wants - now she also dictates how, when and where she wants it. The increased demands on the content provider must be met and optimally anticipated - thus creating a pull effect based on known trends instead of a rush to meet changing demands. Thankfully, technology is an ally of companies willing to embrace change and has provided us with ever expanding tools of meeting and exceeding expectations. Most important of these are the internet and wireless / mobile technologies. Never has it been easier to categorize, itemize and customize information for the individual, the group or indeed the globe at large. And with emerging ideas this individualization becomes even more attractive as consumers are enabled to cherry-pick their experience from start to finish, individually selecting the content they desire, the method of digestion (delivery) and the time and place of consumption. It becomes the chief task of the provider to have the content available - and available to fit any of the requirements the consumer has as outlined in above.
The other side of individualization then is content creation. User Generated Content (UGC) has been a buzzword for months in many consumer-facing industries, but uptake has been limited to blogs and myspace web-site creation. A majority of consumers are simply not interested in spending their already limited time resources on creating amateur poetry, videos, commentary and such. That doesn't mean that UGC won't exist. As was witnessed in the blogosphere, technology has become an enabler of personal commentary, a tool for the subjective generation to be heard. For the media company this must be viewed as an opportunity to direct/control yet another source of information to be provided to the eager public. Never before has it been easier and less costly to publish content - as a media company NEWS Corp shall seek to control this flow through its existing channels while aggressively creating new channels to meet expectations and spur innovation instead of curbing it.
To properly harness this opportunity - and to pro-actively address the rising technological challenges NEWS Corp needs a VP of Digital Media & Wireless - complimentary to the call of FOX Interactive Media and FOX Mobile Entertainment and working closely with same, this position is established to enable the company to communicate across platforms, entities and borders to align a common path to success by utilizing emerging technologies; namely in internet and wireless/mobile - the latter being a medium where the true potential is just being spotted through the mist of ring-tones and other low-hanging fruits. The wireless medium will - if handled correctly - become the information channel of the next generation - challenges with screen-size, bandwidth and content-compatibility are being addressed at this very moment and will shortly no longer be barriers for a truly mobile life-style. The revenue opportunities - cross-promotional abilities and marketing aspects will lend significant power to NEWS Corp and allow pushing itself to the very top of information distribution / management. The core of the position would be to lead change - to embrace new opportunities and communicate/implement them throughout the organization. Through a global perspective this position will assemble and enhance the best strategies and technologies currently available and invite innovators to assist in paving the way for the optimal consumer experience.
With location-based services, mobile micro payments, mobile communities, the instant accessibility and flow of free information combined with total individuality, the future of technology in the hands of the knowledgeable media organization is the most powerful tool you will have next to human creativity.
NEWS Corp - because of its pro-active stance in technological application and its incredible foresight into new opportunities as directed by Mr. Murdoch himself and supported by a world-class team of innovators and executors - is not just at the forefront of the media landscape, but due to ability has the responsibility to pursue, engage and indeed instigate the change that by many industries is feared and viewed with petty suspicion."

The $$$$ Telecom Fraud .. no not that one, the other one ..

A very interesting analysis from a very dissatisfied telecom analyst..
Who said telecommunications was a boring business? We really don't need to go that far back to look at some fun numbers related to telco.. and how the authorities actually tried to and in some cases did something about it .. in other cases the defendants continued to prosper.
Now - as the Times finally pull off the silk-glove they show how the telco's are in danger of billion dollar suits - not for faulty reporting or unrealistic promises - but for passing on private information to the government.
We may need to call the Wolfman to come clean the back of our car before we drive on..

Woe for the MVNO

An indepth article from the WSJ last week outlines some of the key problems faced by the new entrants in the wireless space. Lack of interest appear to be a significant stumbling block, and as TechDirt points out - it is not enough to come up with something new and different in the mobile space. The ill-fated "3" venture under Li Ka Shing - that historically has done quite well in the wireless space - is still hemorrhaging cash. 3 as you may recall was scheduled to revolutionize the mobile industry with streaming video, music, video-messaging, live TV and all the other amazing things that the techies dreamt up and the consumer forgot about right after he finished reading the press release.
Similarly the argument is that the current 3G MVNOs in the US space are in trouble as they grossly overestimated the consumers interest in such services - as well as his interest in parting with significant coin to use them. Admittedly none of the companies mentioned in the article have been in business for more than a year - and it can take a long time to build a successful telecom company - a veeery long time if you're running on someone elses money. Question is - if we can't learn from the Europeans .. who can we learn from? The Koreans? I wonder how Dayton's Helio is doing these days .. the MySpace deal hasn't been marketed to heavily since the predator effect was touted on every morning show in America.
But hey - if it was that easy - everybody would be doing it..

Customade!

Following up on an on-going topic in this forum, the dutch business 3.0-tracker www.trendwatching.com has made a very in depth article on the effect and impact active customer interaction can have with companies, their products and their way of doing business. Aligning these comments with the fascinating Myspacevertising concept by Robert Young in GigaOM this Sunday you get a fascinating outlook on the world of customer-made or participated content. For starters I hope our friends at Ogilvy, WPP and surely some young start-ups are watching and putting extra fuel in the wagon for the next race.
In a separate followup the sister-company www.springwise.com describes the next logical step in the virtual world when American Apparel launched their Second Life store.

Late comment -Bambi Francisco add her thoughts about the virality of online video ads.

Lord of the Online Identity - One Tool to Rule them All ..

The web is indeed an abundant source of information - and the quality of this information is rising as we get better at using the power of search tools and understand what fits our interests.
My biggest consistent problem is storing the information - making it useful to myself and to people of like mind. We've previously discussed web 2.0 and the focus on personalizing content - a better way to share information and discoveries than sending out an email everytime I stumble on a cool site. In comes the blog - but as a human my interests far superceed the blogosphere. I could not possibly update this here forum on my love for 70s psychedelic rock anymore than I can pester restaurant-owning Italians pals with the latest from the tech world.
So how can I be myself, enjoy my interests, share my thoughts and discoveries with the appropriate parties and risk little in terms of wrongful information-sharing, wasted energy in distribution and communication or time management constraints (the number 1 issue for most today)?

It is time for the web to empower the human being. It is time for me to gather all my different outlets and inlets and feed them into one powerful aggregator and re-distributor. One tool that not only holds all of my information as well as anyone I am connected with, but has set rules for how each connection interacts / is 'plugged in' to me - what information is shared - which experiences are joint and which are separate. One tool to create me ..
Once I am created I can allow the tool to run my online life - it already knows what I want and how I want it - it also knows what to share with mom .. and what to share with the programmer friend. Oh - and whenever I sign up for yet another network I simply provide my tool handle and all information and connections are populated automatically. The idea though is for the tool itself to become the most powerful network operator I'll ever need.

Finally I am free .. to be me ..

Virtual World - Where Art Thou..

Tim O'Reilly has a very interesting discussion on the new Google Earth and what it is potentially becoming. In simple terms.. and with a little free extrapolation - we are looking at the creation of something mindbogglingly interesting. Google seem to be stepping away from merely amassing the worlds information and making it available to us all - they are now creating a world where you and I can add our own information. The implications are limited for the non-visionary, however if you add a touch of foresight - and look at how habbohotel and its many companions are starting to interest people - then add user generated content, throw in a mix of yelp, myspace, dodgeball (last one already google-owned) and maybe a little mobile community as well .. and you have a fully integrated on-line existence in the real world .. we will have marketing and advertising, products and services (millions of real dollars are changing hands in virtual worlds already), love and war, rich and poor - everything we know in our daily lives .. well, except this one lives on googles servers.

But hey - in the long run, that's where we'll all end up anyway. And then Googles charter will be complete.

... wake up, Neo ...

Is it yours or mine or ..

Whitelabel .. the ability to put a brand over an underlying product has been around for centuries. Mercenary armies would often take on the coat of arms of their local contractor to further the understanding that their war-lord indeed had a plentiful army. In the 60's the explosion of supermaket private brands (Fairway Olive Oil, Western Beef Coca Cola), electronics manufacturers seemingly indistinguishable products (the goods inside all came from the same factory), in the 90s phones and other communication devices took the same path and simply labelled the brand of the phone-company on top (as most techies know, this is now true of almost any brand out there).
Recently the whitelabel solution has come to its full right in the online space where platform developers enable a myriad of vendors to use the underlying platform in their own brand. Extreme examples are eBay and Amazon.com sellers - officially on the platform, but still operating a separate business. Many start-ups have historically been prone to white-label their ground-breaking, innovative, best-thing-since-molten-chocolate-cake the moment they realized no end-consumer found the offering attractive. However there is something to be said for creating a powerful platform or database and leveraging that information to other companies advantage. Three interesting examples are www.navteq.com, www.musicnet.com and www.spotrunner.com - each in their own vertical (and only one focusing on technology) - but leveraging their strength to enable other companies to perform their core business better. This is b2b at its finest .. "I will create a product that is not close to your core business. This product however will enable you to do much better in your core business." How's that for a mission statement?

SwapMeet 2.0

So user-generated content is not enough for the machinations of the web. Next up is user-owned items. Anything from CDs, books, DVDs, games etc are now all part of the global trading station known as the worldwide web. A new start-up SwapTree - currently in private Beta - is bringing you the physical peer-based network! Through 'complex algorithms' the site allows members to share at no cost their physical belongings (so far only small envelopable items, but the platform is surely scaleable). Swaptree are not the first to the market, but I must say the project has an attractive look and feel to it.
Other players in the physical / web community space include Fundable (we all team together to buy an item or fund a trip or .. you name it. Fundable has come a long way since its Beta in 2004), Stuffopolis (your online database and sharing platform. Not much activity seen recently).
Makes you wonder who will be the first to receive the Google acquisition call..
Bottomline - wonderful to see how the pendulum is swinging back from taking the off-line world online to taking the on-line world off-line.

I want my MT-Free

Are we willing to sacrifice time for free stuff? Virgin Mobile USA has jumped on the wagon of ad-supported 'free' services. Their new service aptly dubbed SugarMama allows for teenagers with too much time on their hands to watch ads on the mobile phone or over the web - reply to a few content related questions and receive free air-time in return for their rapt attention. This model has been launched before by the much discussed Gizmondo boys - later to be confused with XERO Mobile - both being based on free services supported by ad-revenue. As many tech-sources have discussed Xero Mobile seem like a poorly orchestrated attempt to re-invegorate the executives (prior with Gizmondo) poorly performing vehicles.. but that, as they say, is another story.
The interesting question here is - will the youth be interested in the ad-supported model (you get 1 minute for each minute of ads you've seen and replied correctly)? Will a black market of cliff-notes to get free airtime without watching the ads mushroom up on colleges? Time is rapidly becoming the most scarce resource on the planet .. that is not what these people are betting on.

A duel Sir, a duel to the death I say!

Ah. So the Game is on. Google officially acquiesced to the coming launch of the GBuy service - the ability for Google Base browsers to purchase directly through Google by storing their payment details with the search company. In the continued effort to store and make easily accessible all information known to man Google has taken on our financial details as the next topic. And what a topic it is. Paypal has for long been sitting (some would say resting on its laurels) comfortably on the online payment market. Thanks to its aggressive rates, easy automated sign-up and close affiliation with its parent-company, the eBay owned US organization has managed to sign-up a whopping 105 million users. After the recent much publized $2b++ acquisition of Skype, Paypal was rumoured to finally start tackling the beast that has for long been a sweet money-maker for banks - Electronic Funds Transfers (EFTs) . Nothing has come out of HQ since the purchase though leaving many wondering what eBay really wanted with a free VoIP provideer (a separate discussion altogether). EFT as it stands today is a cumbersome and slow process incurring heavy fees from most banks involved. As ebanking is taking off (many Europeans are now signed up with banks that don't have ANY physical branches) you can argue the flow of funds will start mirroring the flow of information (unhindered, free, global). That is at least what Google (and a lot of Columbians) are banking on.
And lets add to the mix the Mobile Wallet, ladies and gentlemen. A flickering mirage of many entrepreneurs - a feared and not little understood adversary (or partner?!) of the credit-card companies mobile payments could be as simple as texting, or downloading a quick app or .. something completely different? But we digress. Getting back to GBuy for a second it is widely held that to become succesful Google will need to gain consumer confidence and learn to navigate the tricky waters of consumer trust. They will need to police the Google Base forum quite aggressively, not necessarily a current strength of the company. They will have to slam down hard on transgressors, but still leave the forum wide open. They will have to seem totally impartial while trying to provide the most relevant experience to each user. This seem like a tall order for the Google engineers .. but then again, I am still blown away by Google Earth - so I will sit back and watch this duel play out.
Can't wait to see what skypebaypal will come out with..

Top 20 Things to know

A little off-topic, but this article has some very authoritive experts on each item (Larry King on "How to Listen", Dale DeGroef on "How to make a Martini").
In the spirit of user-generated content I'd love to see your own experiences added here..

The Stolen Sidekick Network

You've lost your phone. All numbers, SMS's and birthday reminders of your closest are gone. What are you to do? There is nothing worse than losing your mobile.. even your wallet can be replaced with new credit-cards, your keys can be remade and the lock changed .. but your mobile?
The sidekick II has an interesting feature allowing the user to back up all activity on a server (in realtime) so that even if you lose your handset, your records will be intact on the server, and your next phone, when logging into the account will be able to download all the information you thought gone for good. A brilliant feature. Especially if you end up with a stolen sidekick and decide to take some pictures and call your friends which the real owners of the phone easily can get from the server after they've notified T-Mobile (the only carrier with the Sidekick in the US) that the phone is stolen.
About 72 hours ago this actually happened right here in Manhattan - the viral effort of a clever financial programmer has led to a grassroots following going after the kids with the stolen handset. An interesting study in mobile, instant social networks, user-generated location based tagging and virality.
The morale of the story - You find a phone; please call the voicemail leaving a message with your contact or accept calls from other people telling them you have the phone and want to return it. The world will be a safer and happier place.

The Wikilution - Collecting and sharing information Web 2.0

Bambi Francisco of Marketwatch has a very in-depth commentary on all things information gathering and the web. Although I donot recall the origin, it has been said that the 21st century is back to our roots. Last century we were adventurers - pioneers, out to set the limits of humankind - and hopefully pass them. Today we are - once again - hunter / gatherers. Only this time we're chasing information and gathering it on Myspace, Wikipedia .. and soon Myweb, Google Co-op and a plethora of other information collector / community sites (HPBs Plum.com, Yelp, Gordon Ebanks' Customerforce.com) will assist you - the hapless consumer - in making a decision based on your friends and peers advice and experience - and if you happen to be a smart (wo)man - or at least value your own opinion enough to share it with other people (and I know very few in this country that do not) you can use these sites to collect all the information you've found and share with the world.
On one hand this makes a lot of sense and is a natural evolution in the world of the web (as Ms Francisco cleverly points out. First we had to create the web and overflow it with info .. then we had to collect it all into nice little bundles.. the moniker web 2.0 is very apt here). The question becomes whether people will find value in other peoples effort - or if they will stick with whatever google tells them? I personally think we will find certain sites become succesful (one big success is the review of digital camera space with millions of monthly hits) and others will forever be relegated to a visiting family-member every other week. I think I will still let professional auto-reviewers tell me which sports-car is the most bang for your buck.. there are some things that are better left to the (real) experts.

The Voes of Vonage

Just a quick mention of the Vonage debacle .. why ? because I get a kick out of under-handed tactics being exposed for what they are. The Citron vehicle is heading for certain legal disability as the VoIP pioneer has cornered itself with;
- a losing business proposition
- an alienated (EXPENSIVE) customer-base
- a class action lawsuit, from it's mom&pop investors (great publicity guys)
- a significant IPO scandal threatening to unravel into (yet another) SEC investigation for Jeff Citron (although he is no longer an active member of the executive committee - for that reason, perhaps?)

On the plus-side Vonage was the first VoIP service to take the challenge with the telcos. They fought a valiant battle and their marketing was definitely pointed towards the David v Goliath positioning that I am a great believer in. Too bad their acquisition cost is more than the lifetime value of their customer (Explain that one to your business school friends, mr CEO!)
Oh - and one other thing .. IF Vonage manage to escape the IPO situation without major upset .. they still have made significant coin to the original investors. You just have to get in before the suckers.
You gotta love capitalism..

Skype Suit

So here we go again. Yet another patent infringement case launching with Net2Phone, recently acquired by mega-corp IDT pursuing the Skype billions (and scarcely hidden marketing value - good or bad is for your to decide) claiming a computer-to-computer telephone patent is violated by the free Skype VoIP service. I have long been a fierce opponent of patent infringement cases in their current guise as most appear to be less succesful (or non-succesful) companies going after their betters as a way to reclaim their lost marketshare (share lost mainly due poorer-than-thou performance). To watch a monolith like IDT use the Net2Phone vehicle and try to curb the service that arguably put VoIP into the homes of millions of people years before anyone else would have .. just seems morally unjustifiable - makes me wonder how Howard Jones explains this one to the readers of his popular book on morally correct business management. They cannot reap much in terms of rewards as Skype is not charging money for their basic service - so going after eBay - for the pure purpose of milking the cow - leaves me with a decidedly bad taste and a sworn statement never to use an IDT product (since I'm not Hispanic I probably wouldn't have anyway - but you get my drift).
Looking back in telecoms and mobile services over the past 5-8 years it does strike one that the number of patent suits seem to have escalated significantly. Can anyone explain why this wasn't the case back in the dotcom boom? In the good ole days of irrational exuberance you had pets.com .. petfood.com .. food4pets.com .. etc. Noone was suing - everybody was busy trying to execute on their (sometimes questionable) business models. After having watched RIM fork over $612m, BCGi pay $128m and countless other well-performing companies have to yellowmail (I am to patent this term; coined to describe the exstautionary methods that patent-lawyers (yellow bxxxxrds) use to squeeze their go-away money from healthy businesses - i will wait from a friendly call from the chap who came up with greenmail - we'll see how that plays out). I am not alone in this call to arms. Many journalists have over the past 12-18 months been raising an increasingly consistent alarm. The US Patent office will have to be refreshed. And they will have to review their prior art and general patent grants at a much deeper level to curb this business pratice.
Your comments are welcomed as always.

Social Search - The Baidu Way

Bambi Franciscos newsletter had an interesting commentary on Social Search and how the Chinese Portal baidu was planning on staying ahead of the aggressive competition (yahoo & google). I am yet to fully grasp the possibilities in the Chinese market - seem like the forays by US companies into the Land in the Middle in the past have been less than stellar (no automotive or manufacturing company has yet to turn a profit on billion dollar investments). Therefore when a company like Baidu pulls 'a skype' and list on an american exchange as the single most succesful offering in more than 5 years I have to raise my danish brows a bit and wonder where this is going. Baidu's strength obviously is its local search ability and deep understanding of the local market, but it become clear that their real stand-out is in engines just beginning to be deployed by the American players: Social Search and using the power of the community in the portal. As you may know I have a bit of a thing for social networking and the interaction that the web - and soon to be mobile - enable you to have. Therefore when search-engines show a way to make the community relevant (the key to success; relevance - or scantily clad women) to search, we should start paying attention - because once we add location based services and communitize the interaction the searchengine become the global community and user-generated results like yelp.com all of a sudden gain significant power. I'd love to hear your comments on 1) China and Tech and 2)the location based local search debate - fact or fad?!

Brand Ambassadors

Had an interesting discussion on the creation of brand ambassadors and evangelists yesterday. In modern day society where communication thanks to blogs can becom incredibly viral incredibly fast.

If you have not read 'The Tipping Point' I suggest you browse through it this weekend. Cliff notes for Tipping Point: Keypoints involve how not just brand ambassadors make a brand - but are an integral part in a larger organism - the viral effect of an efficient network .. Part of which we can control - part of which we can only hope to guide.
I think it is important to understand that Brand Ambassadors are generally driven by a level of passion for and find a special usefulness in a product. This is often done through the paradigm changing (or at least suggested such)ability of the product. Skype gave you free voice.. eBay gave you n'th level more efficient trading... Starbucks gave you BETTER coffee .. JetBlue treated you better AND was cheaper.. The exercise should be to define how your company changes the world .. Makes it a better place - from two points of view;

1) your customer. Ok, so you help generate revenue .. or maybe your customer can communicate better with his end-user through your company .. But ... Is there 1 thing where your product stand out. Where you do things n times better, faster, more efficient?! If you can find that point you need to stress it.. I don't believe finances are a killing point for ambassadors .. But it might be good enough to land a deal - now you have to deliver.
2) the end-user. Why is your product(or the result of your product) so much better than the competition? There should be 1 single reason that any end-user can give to his peers as the; "you should switch because ...."
Without this one compelling reason you will have a hard time finding ambassadors.

Another way to assist the creation of Ambassadors is to make it easy to become one. This means 1) Give a good reason (as per above) and 2) ease of distribution (of the word). In simple terms - make it easy to share the experience with your peers. Skype - 'share with a friend' is on page 1. Again - simplicity and ease of use become integral to the spreading .. The 'most succesful' diseases are the ones that spread the easiest .. Not the ones that are the deadliest (the flu vs ebola: the flu kills millions of people each year - Ebola never get close)

One final aspect is your employees. Your employees are your first and last line of defense and must be enabled, empowered and evangelized to the extent that they can spread the gospel better than anyone else. I believe most succesful companies have a corp d'esprit that creates an almost cult-like following. I strongly recommend Jan Carlzons 'Moment of Truth' to learn more about what is required to attain employee empowerment to the level required for brand ambassador creation (ie; a customer has SUCH A GOOD EXPERIENCE that he simply must share with all his friends). Bottomline is - every time a customer comes in touch with your Company it is a Moment of Truth - a moment that will either have a positive or negative impact on the future relationship with your company. These moments of truth must be managed and optimized to ensure a positive experience at every juncture.

Social Networking Sites

An interesting article from Om Maliks Gigaom by Robert Young prompted this debate..

Bottomline - Social Networkings success will depend on its ability to enable you - the social networker - to express yourself in an interesting enough way and find success doing so (get dates, business opportunities, what have you). Arguably the success of myspace rests on it's users success (to get friends and meet people of the opposite sex) .. linkedin is slowing down because people don't get enough business out of it - they need to get better at enabling - which the InMail program is trying to address .. I have not heard any news on how succesful that product is though.

Similarly I would argue an MVNOs success in reaching it's core constituency will depend on it's success to enable you - the MVNO user - to express or empower yourself and reach your goals as a mobile user. Currently those goals are limited to .. making calls. As long as that is the prime deciding factor for choosing your provider it will be hard to stand out as most ways of making calls have been addressed today (prepaid, postpaid, cheap ILD, minutes galore, etc) and leave little wiggle room until VoWifi enables free voice (estimated time of arrival - 6-18 months, deployed nationwide in 3-4 years). So we have to give a more compelling reason to carry a handset .. and be good at it! Camera-phones .. why did that not catch on? The cameras were sub-grade quality and the sharing (the social) ability was hindered by lack of MMS interoperability. The cameraphone-people failed at delivering a compelling product therefore ruining a brilliant market opportunity for many years. True every phone has a camera today - but the functionality and usage it was designed for (and the revenue it was supposed to generate) must be disappointing to the most ardent supporters at the carrier-level.
Is social networking then the key to success in mobile? the answer should be gleaned in above: IF it is delivered in a compelling and efficient way, THAT allow the user to network effectively AND take advantage of the fact that she is mobile WHILE sticking to the KISS principle - she might be interested. Helio's recent launch of myspace mobile will potentially set the bar for social networking on mobile simply by being the first (if you don't ask dodgeball and a few others) - although I haven't seen the functionality, I understand we're talking about a dressed down version of the website - ie, NOT strong enough in addressing the mobile aspect (yet).