Hack of the Day: Stronger Wording by Script or Click
RWH Level: Beginner
When you are writing Web applications it is easy to be terse, obtuse or just plain devoid of reasonable text that conveys what a user is expected to do. Worse, a support page or even the humble README can leave fellow developers wondering what you were thinking or drinking. As with any problem, the solution involves more software!
With that in mind, it makes sense to take a look at some interesting approaches that will give you a leg up the next time you craft an epic INSTALL file.
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A Very Small Shell Script
One interesting collection of shell scripts from @mattmight seeks to mimize so-called weasel words. If you are into command line options you'll enjoy this collection as you prepare your own bodies of text.
For the more visually inclined, Yahoo Pipes provides methods to examine some of your favorite RSS feeds for words known to make you stop reading. In the following example, the regular RWW feed is drawn down in and filtered for some of those same weasel words.
The result is a shorter list of articles that might make you less prone to curse at your screen. In this case, only a subset of the articles in the RSS feed are returned due to the filtering on specific weasel words.
This is a simple example but you could easily expand this for your own needs. Harsh? Yes. Effective? You bet.
What are words and phrases that you'd consider weasel words? Are you using any scripts or techniques to avoid using them?
Let us know in the comments below!
DiscussNew Apps for Your Mobile Phone: September Edition
There are now some 250,000 mobile applications for Apple's iPhone and iPad, and over 70,000 for Android. How on earth do you find ones that are actually worth using? You could use a recommendation engine or website, an app that recommends apps or ask a friend.
But every now and then, we like to round up a few of our favorites and share them with you. This latest edition of our favorite mobile apps includes some newer ones for you to try along with us, as well as some which have received notable updates. This month, we're focusing on apps that make your life easier.
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iPhone Apps
LucyPhone: LucyPhone is free service designed to wait on hold for customer service and then call you back when the rep finally picks up. The iPhone app offers the same functionality as the Web service, allowing mobile users to search a company database or enter a toll-free number and monitor how long they've been on hold. Download from iTunes here.
ScanBizCards & CardMunch: ScanBizCards digitizes business cards using the iPhone's camera. The app can recognize the text on the card, including the person's name, email address and phone number. It then imports it directly into your contacts. When the contact is saved, you also have the option of sending a follow-up email. The cards can be flipped through cover-flow style and are clickable, too, allowing you to tap the contact to add them to your LinkedIn connections list, for example. (For more on this another other digital business card solutions, check out this article from July).
CardMunch does much of the same, but offers a free app download where ScanBizCards is $6.99. CardMunch uses credits (e.g. 40 credits = 40 cards, price= $10.00) and ScanBizCards offers in-app purchases for Web-based backup (1 year=$9.99).
imo.im: Imo.in is a multi-protocol, Web-based IM service that supports AIM, Facebook, GTalk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, MySpace, Skype, and Yahoo. The app lets you maintain concurrent sessions, allowing you to be logged into imo.im with multiple computers, iPhone apps and Chrome extensions. The new iPhone app keeps you signed in, even when the app is closed, for up to 72 hours, while still letting you receive push notifications. It also provides a searchable interface to your chat history for when you're on the go. Download from iTunes here.
Blancspot: Blancspot is another news reader application in the style of similar apps like Pulse and Flipboard that delivers the headlines along with visually compelling images and then allows you to share them with friends via Facebook and Twitter. The goal of the app is to boil down complex topics into easily digestible sections that maintain the essence of a story. It's great for browsing the latest headlines on the go, but with one fatal flaw: there's no "off" switch for the accompanying music. Download from iTunes here.
iHound: Parents will like iHound's new "geofencing" feature in its iPhone application. The app can now send push notifications when kids arrive or leave school and/or other after-school activities. It also allows you to broadcast your status to others, integrates with Foursquare for check-ins and can push other types of notifications to your phone, like reviews of local restaurants when you arrive at your vacation destination or a shopping list when you arrive at the store. Download from iTunes here.
iPhone/Android Apps
SpringPad: This Evernote competitor, already available as a Web service and iPhone app, recently arrived on the Android, allowing you to easily save info you need to remember. With SpringPad, you can save notes, tasks, lists, scan barcodes, take photos and geolocate nearby businesses. The app automatically organizes and enhances all this "saved stuff" for you and syncs it with the Web service springpadit.com, for access when you return to your computer.
ProOnGo: This expense-tracking app lets you create expense reports by taking pictures of your receipts. Although not brand-new to iPhone, the Android version of the app was recently updated with a two-way sync feature between the servers and the device. Now Android users can email receipt images to ProOnGo's Receipt Reader, use custom categories for expenses and backup expenses when moving between devices.
DiscussPARC Releases New Semantic Technology (in Form of an Outlook Plugin)
The Palo Alto Research Center is releasing new semantic technology, based on Xerox PARC IP, in the form of an Outlook plugin called Meshin. At first glance, Meshin looks like the ugly stepsister to a similar Outlook tool called Xobni, as it also loads into an email sidebar window, displaying sections dedicated to recent conversations and a summary of attachments shared back and forth via email, among other things. But what makes Meshin different is the engine powering it underneath: a semantic technology that uses "natural language processing" to understand entities, how they connect and what they mean.
Invites available! Click through for link.
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The engineers freely admit that Meshin's user interface (UI) is currently the Achilles' Heel of the app. It's nowhere near as polished and put together as competitor Xobni's, for example. But they'll fix that, they promise. "We're hiring a UI designer," they tell us.
Focusing on the looks, though, is missing the big picture. Meshin is different from other email-based contact management systems including not only Xobni, but analysis engines like Gist, too. Where those companies hinge on the person - here's their title, where they work, their emails, attachments, their blog posts, their last Twitter update, etc. - Meshin actually analyzes the information found in the information streams it examines. It then extracts related conversations, related messages, related people and other semantically understood data. And it does so by looking beyond keywords. It knows what things mean. It knows if a word is referring to a person, place or thing. It can also surface related links and news from the Web for any given entity.
Read More about Xobni and Gist.
Already, the engine behind Meshin isn't limited to email messages alone. For example, if you subscribe to RSS feeds within Outlook, those are also understood as being a part of the relationship map with another person. If you subscribe to Twitter feeds within Outlook, again, those are analyzed, along with the other streams.
Meshin arose from a Xerox-funded project inside PARC whose goal is to commercialize older PARC IP for a broader audience. The project has been in development for only a year, with a small core team and support from PARC researchers. The long-term goal for Meshin is to extend itself beyond Outlook, in order to connect other types of information streams together.
The researchers are contemplating where they should take the technology next - another email platform? An RSS reader? A standalone product? Should they open up Meshin APIs (application programming interfaces) for developers to use within their own applications and services? All these models are a possibility, but first the engineers wanted to just get the technology out there, in the hands of users.
We're helping them with that by distributing invites to the private beta. For access, click here.
Remote Work: Pitfalls and How to Avoid them
One big theme to emerge out of our conversation last week about the future of the workplace was remote working. I thought it would be beneficial to start this week off by thinking about the disadvantages of remote work and the technologies and policies that may be able to mitigate some of those problems.
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Productivity remains a concern for managers unwilling to give their employees a chance, but according to telecommute advocacy groups like Undress for Success and The American Telecommuting Association, research shows those concerns are mostly unwarranted. However, there are some other problems. Here are some of the issues I've witnessed in organizations of all sizes, and some ideas about what to do to fix these issues.
Please leave your own gripes and solutions in the comments, or e-mail klint@readwriteweb.com, and we'll highlight the best responses in a follow-up on Friday.
Missing Out On "Hallway Meetings"
Anti-meeting commentators, such as those from 37signals often point out how unproductive meetings are, and how little hallway conversations are usually where the most important conversations take place. This is probably true, but it creates a communication problem: those important conversations and decisions have to communicated to everyone who needs to know about them.
This can be hard enough when everyone works in the same space. But when employees aren't physically present, keeping everyone in the loop can be even more difficult.
Solution: This is what e-mail and intranets are for. Managers need to be dililgant about documenting and communicating decisions, and making sure that information is easily accessible to employees.
Lack of Responsiveness During Work Hours
One of the proposed advantages of teleworking is the ability to minimize interruptions from co-workers. However, sometimes co-workers have important needs and questions and not being able to get in touch with a remote working employee can damage everyone else's productivity.
This is exacerbated by flex time, especially when flex time overlaps with telecommuting.
Solution: Communicate virtual "office hours," and set standards for timeliness of responses. Instant messaing has proved to be a good medium for communication remote workers, but can be a distracting productivity killer. Setting "IM hours" could be a happy medium.
Being diligent about entering useful information into the organization's intranet will reduce the necessity to be contacted directly. Using Q&A sites like MindQuilt could also help employees find answers to questions.
Morale
Jealousy can impact the morale of workers who can't or aren't allowed to work from home. Also, while managers can track the productivity of employees who work from home, co-workers might be less privy to that information and harbor doubts about their remote co-workers accomplishments.
Solutions: Undress for Success recommends the following for dealing with telecommute-envy in the workplace:
- Employees need to understand why they were or were not chosen for telework.
- Employees should see telework as a benefit that is earned, not given.
- Standards of selection should be uniform.
Photo by Richard
Discuss7 Ways to Increase User Participation
Running a site doesn't only require Web development skills. Any site where the users can add content and communicate with each other requires a great deal of care and attention if it's going to be a success.
Increasing user participation on your site is achievable if you aim for the old adage KISS, or keep it simple, stupid. Beyond that, there are a few things you can do to get more people to interact with your site. Here are seven tips to set you on that path.
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1. Enable Social Logins
I'd suggest losing registration altogether if you can. But if your site requires registration, best to make it as simple as possible. A quick click here, a quick click there, and hey presto - one registered user without the barrier of a signup form.
Check out our guide to JanRain Engage and you'll be setting up social logins in no time.
2. Clearly Signpost the Forums
Got a forum on your site? Good! Now make sure it's easy to find. Forums are not a great deal of use if nobody can find them. Put a link to the forums in the main navigation bar - don't bury it on a sub-page.
3. Show Avatars Everywhere
I've always found forum software to be rather plain and boring. Avatars are shown when you view a post, but on the topic listing, not so much.
Something like this seems much more appealing:
This is a layout I developed for a site with built-in forum functionality. Displaying avatars at this level helps when differentiating between the topics in the list.
4. Highlight Recent Activity
People are much more likely to participate in a site if they can quickly find what's new and updated across the site. Whether it's recent blog comments, replies in the forums, new members or site upgrades, some people will be interested to see what's going on. Let them find that information.
5. Talk To Them!
If you're building a site for someone else, there may be limits to what you can do in this area. But if it's your site, or you're contributing to a site where it's acceptable for the developers to get involved, do so. Being approachable is a very good character trait for a developer to possess - it shows you care.
6. Run Member Polls
If a lot of people have something to say, particularly about new or proposed features, it can be useful to distil this information into a member poll. Running a poll from time to time gives you a good insight into the general views of the community, while simultaneously sharing the same information with members.
7. Reward Top Contributors
Do you have a few people who stand out as being helpful, resourceful or good at keeping the peace? Depending on the goals of your site, giving out small tokens of appreciation can be a big help. Be careful not to alienate the less frequent contributors though.
Photo by JamieL.WilliamsPhotography
DiscussDebate Around Password Security Overlooks Universal Logins
Must include at least one number. Must be longer than six characters. Cannot have more than four sequential characters from your previous seven passwords. The rules for password creation vary wildly from site to site, an effort to protect users from those who would hack their identities.
These protective measures don't go very far, according to the New York Times, because hackers can get ahold of passwords with software that remotely tracks keystrokes, or by tricking users into typing them in. The story touches on a range of issues around the problem, but neglects to mention the obvious: the march toward a centralized login for multiple sites.
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A universal login could solve a lot of the issues around password security, from keylogging to the problem of users having their passwords discovered after writing them down.
It would also solve the problem of password-overload. Managing logins for all the Web sites that require registration is a pain, and any frequent Web user who says differently is either lying or has a photographic memory. Browsers have taken some of the pain away by remembering passwords for us, but clear your browser's history and suddenly you have to answer secret questions and email your username to yourself for umpteen different sites.
A handy chart to help you create secure passwords, from Microsoft.
One or more options for a universal login is inevitable and progress is well underway. More and more sites are supporting the easy-to-use Facebook Connect, which lets users register for a site with their Facebook profile instead of creating a site-specific username and password. As of last year, there were more than nine million websites using OpenID, the openly-developed standard that users can use to log in across multiple sites.
Standards like OpenID carry their own security problems (and other problems - see The Troubles With OpenID 2.0), the obvious being that a successful hacker can gain access to all the sites and services you use at once. But the convenience of a universal login is irresistible, especially for the myriad sites where there's no danger if your password is hacked, such as news sites. Users who try it won't want to go back - which is why it's important to talk about the security issues around these new protocols for users and the sites that implement them.
How do you manage your logins?
DiscussJourno Writes 1,000+ Word Story on Twitter After Media Missed Major Breaking News
There were no reporters present in Laurel, Miss. when a jury handed down a $131 million verdict against Ford after an Explorer rolled over, killing a young man who was on track to play baseball for the New York Mets. Hours after the verdict, there was no coverage of a case that involved a high profile victim, a major corporation, and the possibility that more than four million Ford Explorers are dangerously unstable.
Adam Penenberg heard about the verdict immediately from the defense lawyer. Hours later, he was amazed to see there had been no major media coverage at all. So he turned to Twitter.
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Firing off more than 50 tweets in two hours, Penenberg related the entire story of the fatal accident, the case and the verdict. The result reads like an entry from Simple English Wikipedia, interspersed with tweets pleading reporters to pick up the story.
"Miss. jury awards $131 million in damages to family of Brian Cole, killed in Ford Explorer rollover accident. No news media there," he wrote. Then, "C'mon reporters. Am I only one who thinks $131 MILLION verdict against FORD in a product liability suit is news??"
-Adam Penenberg
Penenberg is a contributing writer for the magazine Fast Company who wrote a book about the dangers of SUVs. He knew about the verdict immediately from the lawyer in the Ford case, but had no venue for breaking the news where people would see it - other than Twitter, where he has more than 2,800 followers.
The story eventually emerged in the major news media. But Penenberg's tweetstream was longer than many of the stories. He even corrected an Associated Press story in a tweet.
Penenberg had an advantage over other reporters covering the case because he has written a book about the subject. A journalist who gets a complex, multi-million dollar unlawful death suit dropped in her lap is going to produce less robust coverage than one who already knows the history and the players.
That combination of better coverage, faster, is the exception rather than the rule. Every media outlet strives for both. But more often than not, the quality of an article is inversely related to the amount of time it took to create.
The Internet has made it possible to break news faster than ever, and Twitter epitomizes this. Typing 140 characters is faster than TV and much faster than blogging - especially if you can do it from your phone.
Penenberg said the experiment taught him how efficient Twitter is for breaking news, and he plans to use it from now on. What do you think - do you like your breaking news live-blogged from Twitter? Or do you think Twitter has potential for dumbing down the news by upping the emphasis on speed over quality?
DiscussCartoon: Happy Labor Day!
Heading outside this Labor Day weekend? (Or, as we spell it in Canada, "Labour Dauy"?)
Well, enjoy - provided you aren't being hit by New Zealand earthquakes (hi, Richard!), Eastern Seaboard hurricanes, Russian forest fires, or the global outbreak of Duke Nukem fever.
Of course, in most of the world - including ReadWriteWeb's headquarters in Wellington, New Zealand - it isn't labor day at all. But please don't let that stop you. Break out the barbecue, put a few burgers (beef, tofu or unicorn, depending on your tastes) on the grill, have some friends over, and relax.
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And if you happen to sneak a peek at the Twitter app your smartphone, or slip inside to check up on your newsfeeds, or check in somewhere on FourSquare or Gowalla, so much the better. Maybe this has been the season of the digital fast... but for a lot of us, it's also a time to connect with friends and family. Consider this permission to do that however you want this weekend: over blogs or beers; HootSuite or horseshoes; Facebook or Frisbees.
Using a Virtual Personal Assistant for Your Startup
ReadWriteWeb Co-Editor Marshall Kirkpatrick recently extolled the virtues of Amazon's Mechanical Turk for "rocking conference blogging." He's not the only person who's seeing some real benefits from outsourcing small tasks to the service, as I've noticed a number of people talk about the ways in which they use - or could envision using - Mechanical Turk to help them. Ewan McIntosh, for example, wonders if teachers could utilize the service to outsource some of the "larger scale time suckers" in education -- entering attendance records, generating letters to parents, and so on.
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Lindsey Harper recently wrote about her experiences using Mechanical Turk to validate her startup idea. Noting that friends and family are unlikely to be objective when assessing whether or not your idea is viable, she spent $28 on the Amazon service in order to poll 200 people on her concept. Her survey asked whether or not they'd use the service, example of how they might use it. In addition to asking for general feedback on the idea, she also captured gender and age demographics, so she could have a better idea of who her market might be.
"The information I got back for my $27.50 was INVALUABLE," she writes. "I found from that 1 survey, how to basically build my product for launch. What features I had to have based on how users would use the service. I also realized I could basically cut my current feature set in 1/2 because what I thought people would want, wasn't even mentioned."
Rob Walling had a guest post on Jason Cohen's blog last week that goes into more details about some of the other ways startups can use Mechanical Turk and other virtual personal assistants. The post is an excerpt from Walling's new book Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup.
As Walling notes, "The value proposition of a VA deals with how you monetize your time. If you monetize it at $50/hour and you can pay a VA $6/hour to handle administrative tasks, this frees up time for you to create real value in your business by developing new features or expanding marketing efforts. Performing tasks you could pay someone else $6 to accomplish is a foolish use of an entrepreneur's time."
Echoing Harper's use of Mechanical Turk, Walling argues that virtual assistants can be useful for startups to develop proof of concept. But they can also be utilized following launch to handle small administrative tasks.
Walling offers a lot of great tips on how to find and evaluate virtual assistants, noting that "My first piece of advice is to avoid spending too much time worrying about screening your VA before you hire them. In the end, how well they work out depends entirely on how well they accomplish their tasks." Hiring someone will help you judge their efficiency and reliability, and Walling suggests these steps for the first task you assign:
- Back everything up
- Provide detailed instructions. Even better, provide screenshots.
- Timebox your requests, but assume that the virtual assistant will not be as fast as you are.
- Be clear with the timeline you establish for the work.
If the first virtual assistant you hire doesn't work out, find another one. But don't give up on the whole process after one go, says Walling, as it takes time as an entrepreneur to find how to best utilize this sort of service.
Have you utilized a virtual personal assistant for your startup? How so? And what have your experiences been?
DiscussCheck Out the Companies That Make ReadWriteWeb Possible
Our readers know ReadWriteWeb as the blog that's ahead of the technology curve. Our sponsors know us as that, too. Once a week we introduce our sponsors to our readers and let them know a little more about who they are and what they do. You can say thanks to the companies that make ReadWriteWeb happen by tweeting them (see the link below each sponsor) or following them using our Twitter list.
Interested in being a ReadWriteWeb sponsor? Our readers are smart, tech-savvy decision makers; 40% have a graduate degree or PhD, and over 45% play a key role in information technology purchasing decisions. More than 1 million people on Twitter follow us to stay abreast of the latest Web technology trends from around the globe. To find out more about our sponsor packages, visit our advertising page or email our COO.
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Skip to info about: Medill School of Journalism: Digital journalism programs | MindTouch: Strategic Documentation and Enterprise Collaboration Platforms | Mashery: API management services | Tableau : Data visualization | Conduit: Customized components | Alcatel-Lucent: Application developer platform | TransFS: Comparison shopping for credit card processing | Toopia: Our iPhone app developer
Medill School of Journalism
The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University offers programs that combine the enduring skills and values of journalism with new techniques and knowledge that are essential to thrive in a digital world. You might have a passion for creating finely crafted prose, or for telling stories using visual tools. Maybe you are invigorated by the possibilities of interactive publishing, or by videography for the small screen. Maybe you are an experienced professional looking to renew and retool your multimedia skills. You can find your niche in Medill's graduate journalism program.
Thank the Medill School of Journalism on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.
MindTouch
MindTouch assembles your organization's genius into strategic content: MindTouch is built on the belief that enterprise software must be scalable, agile and extensible. Our product, MindTouch 2010, transforms the way organizations author, discover and curate strategic content to achieve measurable results with customers, partners and colleagues. Our open source project, MindTouch Core, is used by over 18 million people and is supported by one of world's most active communities.
Founded in 2005, MindTouch is headquartered in San Diego, California and is privately held. Many of the world's most respected brands rely on MindTouch. Our more than 1,000 customers include NASA, SAIC, Booz Allen, Microsoft, Cisco, Washington Post, Viacom, the New York Times, AXA, Timberland and HCA.
Thank MindTouch on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.
Mashery
Mashery is a platform for Web services, allowing companies to manage their APIs using Mashery's expertise. At the "Business of APIs" conference, Mashery CEO Oren Michels explained to the audience that while APIs are a technology, their use is a business decision. He went on to say that Mashery has helped customers such as WhitePages.com, Thumbplay, Compete.com, and Calais. Check out the white paper "Five steps to scaling your business development using Web services" to discover how you can use APIs for your business.
You can find out more about APIs and their business use at www.mashery.com.
Thank Mashery on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.
Tableau
Tableau Public is a free service that lets anyone publish interactive data to the web in interesting and compelling graphs. Download Tableau Public and in minutes, you can create interactive graphs, dashboards, maps and tables from virtually any data and embed them on your website or blog in minutes. Anyone can do it. You don't need to be a programmer or hire one - no language to learn, no plug-ins, no API. Your blog or website will stand out with colorful, interactive data visualizations. Bloggers using Tableau Public are averaging 3 times more reader comments.
And, once on the web, anyone can interact with your graph and the data. They can re-embed your work, download the data, or create their own visualizations. Check out our gallery to see some of the cool graphs bloggers have created. Or learn how in our 5 minute video.
Thank Tableau on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.
Conduit
Conduit enables Web publishers to distribute their offerings both directly and through its global network of 250,000 publishers and their 170 million users. The Conduit platform is a powerful marketing tool that allows you to offer the best of your site through apps or a Community Toolbar, sending desktop alerts to your users, and much more.
The Conduit platform opens a new world of content sharing. Your site visitors can add your content right to their browser by clicking on a branded 2go button that you place on your site. You can also share your content in the Conduit App Marketplace where all the publishers and users in the Conduit network can grab it.
The platform has been adopted by major brands such as Fox News, iWin, Major League Baseball, TechCrunch, and Travelocity, as well as thousands of small and medium organizations in 120 countries.
If you would like to Conduit your website, go to www.conduit.com.
Thank Conduit on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.
Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry, is turning the network into a powerful platform for developers.
With the launch of the Alcatel-Lucent Developer Platform, the company provides service providers and enterprises with tools that enable third-party developers to build, test, manage and distribute applications across networks, including television, broadband Internet and mobile. Alcatel-Lucent's introduction of a radical new business model combines network APIs with other third-party APIs, and opens revenue sharing opportunities to support developers in their pre-revenue wallets and provides an additional revenue channel for service providers.
The developer platform is part of a larger push by the company to combine the trusted capabilities of service providers with the speed and innovation of the Web.
Thank Alcatel-Lucent on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.
TransFS
Accepting payments is hard and more complicated than it should be - many businesses are paying too much for their credit card processing or using a provider that is not optimal for their needs.
TransFS lets you shop between credit card processors and gateways to get the lowest fees with no catches. You can screen on price, terms, api features and customer satisfaction ratings to get the best deal for your business.
We make shopping for a merchant account as easy as buying a plane ticket online. Our blog at transfs.com/blog is full of geeky payments information.
Thank TransFS on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.
Toopia
Nicolas Koenig is the developer who made our beautiful iPhone app a reality. He runs an iPhone development shop from the Netherlands called Toopia. Toopia also created the Thermometer iPhone app, which enables your iPhone or iPod touch to get the current temperature based on your location. The RWW app lets you read us on the go, follow us on Twitter, share stories on Facebook and Twitter, and browse at your leasure using Read it Later and Instapaper. Download the ReadWriteWeb iPhone application here.
Thank Toopia on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.
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Thanks to all our sponsors and our readers for your support!
Discuss6 SaaS Metrics You Should Track
As you work to develop your product - before and after launch, it's important that you use more than just "gut feelings" to ascertain what's working and what's not. Along those lines, last week, Ryan Carson, co-founder of Carsonified offered a list of six key metrics for your web app and how to track them.
It's a great list - with definitions, calculation methods, examples, and even a link to a Google spreadsheet (see below for link) that you can use to input your own data.
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1. Churn
Definition: Churn is the % of customers that cancel each month.
Calculation: number_cancellations_this_month / total_number_paying_customers
As Carson notes, churn will vary depending on the kind of app you offer. If your app is something that's crucial to others' businesses, such as an invoicing app, then your churn will likely be lower than an entertainment app, something that may be the first to be canceled when budgets are tight.
Using Churn, you can calculate the Average Customer Lifetime - the average number of months that a customer stays with you before canceling. The calcuation is 100 / churn_percentage.
2. CMRR
Definition: CMRR is "Contracted Monthly Recurring Revenue."
Calculation: (total_number_paying_accounts - number_cancelled_paying_accounts_this_month) * monthly_price
Carson suggests you aim for a monthly growth of around 5% ater Churn in your CMRR. You need to be sure your CMRR keeps pace with your Churn, otherwise you will start losing money.
3. Cash
Definition: Money in the bank.
Calculation: cash_at_end_of_last_month + (CMRR - total_monthly_costs)
Likely negative for the first several months as you work towards profitability, Carson says that at , he's aiming to be cashflow positive on a monthly basis after six months.
4. LPC
Definition: LPC is "Lifetime Profit per Customer."
Calculation: See the Google Spreadsheet
Carson admits this is a "pretty tricky number to compute," adding that "essentially this helps you understand how much profit each customer brings you, after all your costs." The figure takes into account things like Churn and Average Customer Lifetime.
Carson argues that, while this number should grow, if it's too high then it may be an indication you're not investing enough back into the product. He says that typical numbers for SaaS apps range from 50-70% net profit.
5. CACR
Definition: CACR is "Customer Acquisition Cost Ratio."
Calculation : See the Google Spreadsheet
This is a ratio that will tell you how long it will take for you to recover your customer acquisition costs. According to Carson, this is a useful number to gauge how much your are re-investing back into the product in order to grow the customer base (and by extension, revenue). "If it's too low, then you're not making enough profit. Too high, then you're not spending enough on marketing."
6. CPA
Definition: CPA is "Cost per Acquisition."
Calculation: marketing_costs_this_month / number_new_paying_users_this_month
Carson contends that companies are often told to spend more on customer acquisition than they need to, and he says that he's aiming for around 1-2 months of customer revenue to acquire a new customer.
Carson offers a Google spreadsheet for anyone to use and asks for feedback and opinions. Are there any additional metrics you think SaaS companies should track?
Photo credit: Flickr user Horia Varlan
DiscussNo Crackdown but Questions in Europe About Data Protection and the Cloud
German authorities have recently expressed skepticism about cloud computing and the potential it has for breaking data protection laws.
According to the Information Law Group, there is no imminent danger of a European crackdown but legal experts are advising international companies to address the potential concerns in their planning and operations.
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The controversy stems from Dr. Thilo Weichert, head of the data protection commission in the northernmost German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Weichert is calling for the abolition of the Safe Harbor framework and doubts the ability of companies to protect the rights of Europeans, who enjoy some of the strongest personal privacy laws in the world.
According to the Information Law Group, the Safe Harbor Framework was "developed jointly by the European Commission and the US Department of Commerce, under which American companies can publicly certify compliance with a standard set of Safe Harbor Privacy Principles approved by the European Commission and enforced by American regulators, predominantly the Federal Trade Commission."
The concerns about data privacy are also felt across Europe. Most of the tension arise from how personal data is stored in the Untied States, where privacy laws are less comprehensive.
European law is fairly meticulous on the matter of data privacy. There are a number of ways that a customer needs to be notified about how their information is being processed. The belief is that on many occasions, customers are not informed at all when using SaaS services and cloud computing services. Still, there have been no formal complaints issued against cloud computing providers.
The concerns from Germany do come at a time when Europe is beginning to review data protection laws that have been on the books for the past 15 years. Comments have been submitted to the European Commission, which has decided to push back any ruling until mid-2011 due to the varying approaches European countries have been taking about data privacy enforcement. According to the Information Law Group, the commission also want to examine how best to apply the general principles of the law in an "increasingly global, networked, and distributed computing environment."
The law group advises companies to make sure they are compliant by "handling European employee data in centralized enterprise resource management systems or outsourced applications."
Outsourced applications could be any variety of services. But due to the general tone in Europe right now, companies need to make sure cloud computing providers can prove they are compliant. This can be difficult at times as providers are sometimes hesitant about disclosing locations or sub-contractors. If they can't, then it's time to start looking at other options.
Further, the Information Law Group says it's important that customers check to see if United States vendors, including cloud service providers, "are Safe Harbor certified, or alternatively use EU-approved standard contract clauses."
This issue shows again why transparency and standardized policies will be increasingly important to develop in the cloud computing market. European authorities have a reputation for strict data protection requirements. That's not going to change. It's a just a question what effect the law will have on the technology itself as privacy takes center stage.
DiscussStarCraft For Startups
I recently had an urge to pick up an MMORPG again, but after checking on the profile for my favorite Everquest 2 character - clocking in at over 138 days played - it's probably best I not devote myself to the life of hardcore raiding at particular juncture. That being said, as a self-described gamer, I'm pretty sympathetic to any argument made that playing MMOs makes you a better person.
And perhaps Koichi feels the same way, making the strong case on his blog that "Startups Should Only Hire Good StarCraft Players."
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His (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) list includes:
- Good StarCraft Players Are Obsessed with Improving
- Good StarCraft Players Can Wear a Lot of Hats
- Good StarCraft Players Know How To Micro (Use Resources Efficiently)
- Good StarCraft Players Make Quick, Good Decisions
- Good StarCraft Players Don't Forget To Scout (And Don't Obsess Over Scouting)
- Good StarCraft Players Know When To Say GG ("Good Game") and Quit
- Good StarCraft Players Have A High APM (Actions Per Minute)
- Good StarCraft Players Do Something Besides Work
The argument that you can hone a variety of skills via MMOs isn't new (See the Guild CIO for a long list that guild leadership teaches, including conflict resolution, talent recruitment and retention, and strategic planning and vision.) And I'm not sure StarCraft holds a monopoly on startup skill-building. (I'd love to write a comparison between StarCraft and Angry Birds for entrepreneurs, but I can imagine the outraged Letters to the Editor in response.)
Koichi's post was inspired in part by an announcement for StartupCraft, a StarCraft II Tournament for tech startups to be held October 2 in San Francisco. There'll be 2v2 and 4v4 brackets. A $50 donation is recommended per team, 100% of which will be donated to Child's Play. The tournament will be broadcast live via Justin.tv, who is hosting the tournament in its San Francisco office. 14 companies have already registered their teams.
DiscussReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 4 Sept. 2010
We're always on the lookout for upcoming Web tech events from around world. Know of something taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or email us.
You can import individual events in the Events Guide into Google Calendar using the link beside each entry, or download the entire thing as an iCal file (which is importable into Google Calendar, Outlook, Windows Live Calendar, etc.) or even view it as a world map.
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13 September 2010: Moffett Field, California
Singularity University Grand Challenges Unveiling
This summer, 80 students from 35 nations were challenged to apply innovations in exponentially advancing technologies to solve some of the world's "grand challenges" with a focus on food, water, energy, upcycle, and space industries. On Sept. 13 at 9:30 a.m. Pacific, Singularity University co-founders Dr. Ray Kurzweil, Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, and faculty head Dr. Dan Barry will unveil for the first time multiple solutions in each problem space, each aiming to impact a billion people within ten years. A Q&A session will follow the briefing. For more information, visit http://briefing.singularityu.org
Singularity University is an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies in order to address humanity's grand challenges. Visit them at www.singularityu.org.
13 - 14 September 2010: San Francisco
APPNATION is an ambitious and bold new thought leadership conference and exposition focusing exclusively on the burgeoning consumer applications revolution and global app economy. The inaugural APPNATION event is scheduled for September 13-14, 2010 at the Moscone Convention Center in downtown San Francisco and will feature speakers and exhibitors from leading companies from across the app economy including Google, Fox, Zynga, Microsoft, The North Face, AT&T, GetJar, Mediabrands, Major League Baseball, General Electric, The Wall Street Journal, AKQA, Smule, eBuddy, Distimo, Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, Symbian, PepsiCo, JP Morgan Chase, Ogilvy, Lima Sky and dozens of others. Developers: Win big cash prizes in the "Pimp My App" contest! Learn more at www.appnationconference.com. ReadWriteWeb readers get 25% off full conference registration by using code MHFC25!
13 - 14 September 2010: Sydney, Australia
Open Source Software Pacific-Asia Conference
OSSPAC is focused on helping enterprises of all sizes - businesses and government - learn how open source software can be used to reduce costs and increase efficiency in a scalable, reliable, and cost-effective way. Even though it provides plenty of technical sessions, the main audience for OSSPAC is IT managers, project leads, and executive management who are looking at leveraging open source in their organizations. We're offering over 30 sessions on
topics ranging from Cloud Computing to the Economics of Open Source. For more information, please visit www.osspac.com.
13 - 15 September 2010: Las Vegas, Nevada
Hosting & Cloud Transformation Summit - North America
For the sixth consecutive year, HCTS-NA will bring together industry leaders, including C-level and other senior executives from hosting and colocation service providers, independent software vendors and SaaS (software-as-a-service) providers, investors and investment bankers, as well as an increasing number of enterprise customers.
16 - 17 September 2010: Boston
As the global economy recovers in 2010, Security & Risk professionals must continue to balance tactical and technical responsibilities with the long-term strategic objectives of the business. To achieve this goal, you must aspire to transform your security organization from a reactive silo of technical security expertise to a proactive information risk management team. You must also adopt the same objectives and measures of success as the business.
This year's Security Forum Forum 2010 will focus on: 1) evaluating the maturity and effectiveness of the security organization; 2) laying out a road map for architectural optimization and innovation; and 3) ensuring that the right skills, incentives, and metrics are in place for the long-term success of the security program.
Key questions that this forum will answer:
- How do you measure the maturity and the effectiveness of the security and risk management practice and build a road map for the future?
- How do you build a data security architecture to protect information no matter who has it and where it rests?
- How can you apply enterprise risk management disciplines to information security?
- How do you embed security throughout the network, not just on the perimeter?
21 September 2010: Chicago
New Marketing Experience - Chicago
Imagine a world where you can take your One Big Idea and tap over 100 other participating conference attendees and experts and each of their One Big Ideas. All of this in a structured, fast-paced and highly interactive one-day program under the direction of Chris Brogan, Justin Levy and the team from New Marketing Labs. New Marketing Experience is that world. Through six key discussion sessions this program will help you analyze and draw the best of what you need form these Big Ideas.
On Sept. 21, the New Marketing Labs team will be invading Chicago to hold our New Marketing Experience event. For more information, visit us at: http://nmlevents.com. Use source code "RWW50" for a 50% off discount.
21 September 2010: Waltham, Massachusetts
The September EntreTech Forum presents Computing: Coder-Jammed? Helping non-technical early-stage CEOs and founders make sense of the software development process. We will bring together local software developers and the professionals who manage them to distill and provide a lay-person's view into the jargon-riddled word of software development. The panel discussion will deliver a general overview of the software development process, will provide a perspective on how software developers view the world and what motivates them, and then will dive into specific decision components.
For more information, visit www.entretechforum.org or follow us on Twitter: @entretech
22 September 2010: Washington, D.C.
2010 Location Intelligence Conference
The 2010 Location Intelligence Conference will focus entirely on geospatial technology for cloud computing, aka LI GeoCloud, and will be held on Sept. 22 in downtown Washington, D.C., at the Newseum's Knight Conference Center. Now in its seventh year, the Location Intelligence conference provides a forum to discuss how enterprise computing solutions can leverage location technology. And on the horizon for location technology is the potential for hosting applications using a cloud computing solution. LI GeoCloud will present sessions on SaaS business models and applications.
Keynoters include senior executives from Pitney Bowes Business Insight, Google and Salesforce.com. The conference will be held in a single track executive forum and includes presentations from private industry as well as those involved in supporting the federal government's cloud computing strategy. Register here.
22 - 23 September 2010: Singapore
Social Media World Forum Asia is back for 2010. The event will be taking place at the larger venue - The Suntec Conference Centre - before the F1 Singapore night race. Two days of interactive and engaging conference featuring leading key figure keynotes, brand case studies, topical Q&A and debates, exhibition hall, workshops and networking. Speakers include:
23 September, 2010: San Francisco, California
Think Mobile, produced by Mediabistro, SocialTimes, and AllFacebook, is a one-day conference that explores the broadening mobile ecosystem, marketing opportunities, and the innovation that drives the industry. Mobile business leaders will discuss monetizing content, apps, advertising, and more, as well as best practices for developing and monetizing location services, targeted content, and augmented reality. Speakers include Starbucks CIO Stephen GIllett, Heart Magazines Digital Media Executive Director Kimberly Lau, Microsoft Sr. Product Manager Anand Iyer, Evernote CEO Phil Libin, Nielsen Global SVP of Mobile Media & Marketing Kanishka Agarwal, and more. Save 15% with discount code TMRWW.
24 September, 2010: San Francisco
Smartphone Games Summit
The Smartphone Games Summit is a single day conference produced by Charles Hudson and mediabistro.com, focused on the emerging smartphone games space. As new developments emerge such as the iPhone Game Center, is it game over for a number of gaming companies, or does it open an even larger opportunity? How do newer technologies like the iPad change the game? The conference will bring together leading developers, investors, and executives from around the globe to share their collective wisdom on what's working today and where this exciting industry is heading. The Smartphone Games Summit will touch on a number of key trends, including international trends in smartphone games, engaging smartphone game design, lessons from leaders, mobile social games, keys to successful monetization, and building and executing a successful distribution strategy. Save 15% with discount code SPRWW.
25 September 2010: Seattle, Washington
Come learn from successful entrepreneurs - founders of companies like LinkedIn, Posterous, SlideShare, Twilio, Cozi, Blue Nile and more at StartupDay 2010 on Sept. 25 in Seattle, Washington.
Learn what's important to do to create a tech business from scratch from people who've done it. Meet one-on-one with advisors like attorneys, angel investors, experienced startup founders and more. Learn how to pick the right idea, build your team, fund the business, build your product, bring it to market and make a profit. Get more details at http://www.seattle20.com/startupday.
29 - 30 September 2010: New York City
Location-Based Marketing Summit
Location-Based Marketing Summit is the leading event for Fortune 1000 companies seeking to maximize marketing, commerce and business strategies using location-based services. Attendees receive focused, practical and valuable industry insight that can be immediately utilized in developing a location-based strategy.
We give you an inside look at the location based marketing activities of major brands. Hear from companies who've made the journey and learn from their experiments and activities. Location-Based Marketing Summit helps you cut through the hype and separate buzz from success. Speakers include VaynerMedia, New Jersey Nets, Tasti D-lite, Deep Focus, Adweek, Where.com, Yelp, SimpleGeo, Geodelic, and more.
Use our special ReadWriteWeb promo code RWWVIP to save an extra $100 off registration.
30 September - 1 October 2010: Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Tahoe Tech Talk is not just about assembling an outstanding lineup of speakers (though we've done that, including Digg founder Kevin Rose, Twitter adviser/investor Chris Sacca, and former Facebook strategist Dave Morin). It's about creating an opportunity for true discussion. Each speaker will return to the stage for a massive interactive session, taking questions from the audience about the technology sphere in 2010 and beyond. Conference registration includes a complimentary night's stay at Harrah's Lake Tahoe Resort and Casino - all for just $399! Space is extremely limited, so reserve your spot today! For more details, visit http://tahoetechtalkconf.com.
2 October 2010: Portland, Oregon
CyborgCamp is a conversation about the future of technology, and how humans fit in. Attendees will discuss topics such as social media, design, code, inventions, Web 2.0, Twitter, the future of communication, cyborg technology, anthropology, psychology and philosophy. There will be additional speakers as well as unconference sessions that deal with the future of entertainment, business, social media and the relationship between humans and computers. Twitter: @cyborgcamp. Register here.
2 - 3 October 2010: Seattle
InfoCamp is an unconference for the information community. It features an egalitarian, community-driven format in which the agenda is created during the event - so anyone can sign up to lead a session! Join us at InfoCamp Seattle 2010 for an exciting weekend of talking and learning about:
- user experience
- information architecture
- user-centered design
- interaction design
- library & information science
- online search
- information management
- informatics
- taxonomy
- content strategy
- anything relating to the intersection of information, people and/or technology!
As always, InfoCamp will feature fantastic speakers, rich discussions, and an agenda that you help create. And, of course, plenty of coffee! This year, the venue is just steps away from transit, lodging, and some of the city's best restaurants and bars. We'll convene in the
Pigott Building on Seattle University's campus in the exciting Capitol Hill/First Hill area, only a mile from downtown. For more information, check out http://infocampseattle2010.eventbrite.com.
5 October 2010: New York City
FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology from established leaders and hot young companies. The Fall event is the original and largest Finovate and features a single day packed with our special blend of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) and intimate networking time with top executives from the innovative demoing companies.
FinovateFall is a unique chance to see the future of finance and banking before your competition and find the edge you need in today's market. Early bird registration rates are available.
6 - 7 October 2010: Boston
The Inbound Marketing Summit is where the online marketing community gathers to solve today's marketing and business communications challenges. This event features the brightest minds in the business, including world-renowned authors and practitioners, as well as leaders from some of the companies already using the new tools and strategies. This fast-paced and information-packed event is your check-up on your existing business communications strategies, and your prescription for the coming months.
On October 6 and 7 join Chris Brogan, Justin Levy and the entire New Marketing Labs team along with hundreds of marketers like yourself and 60-plus speakers and sponsors at Gillette Stadium for two days of fast-paced, highly interactive actionable content. For more information, visit us at: http://inboundmarketingsummit.com. Use source code "RWW50" for a 50% off discount.
7 - 8 October 2010: Washington, D.C.
Business Process And Application Delivery Forum 2010
As an Application Development & Delivery or Business Process professional, your efforts not only serve the business but also empower your business to succeed despite rapid change. But every day brings faster-changing business dynamics. Business Process And Application Delivery Forum 2010 will arm you with the knowledge, insight, and practices you need to meet demanding expectations from your CEOs, COOs, CxOs, agency heads, and directors and deliver the kind of breakthrough and sustainable business value you know your organization must achieve.
Application Development & Delivery professionals will learn to:
- Transform delivery organizations. See how organizations apply Lean and Agile to rethink how they align with and deliver against current and anticipated business strategies and demands.
- Drive innovation. Learn how to improve delivery flow and drive software innovation to bring greater business differentiation and higher customer and constituent satisfaction.
- Thrive in a dynamic business and technology world. Identify new practices and technologies that organizations use to design, deliver, and measure breakthrough and sustainable business value.
- Drive business process management into the organization. See how organizations embrace business process management (BPM) to deliver sustainable business value.
- Empower employees to make change. Learn what skills, disciplines, and technologies organizations utilize to accelerate innovation and change.
- Differentiate customer and constituent service experiences. Discover how organizations put the customer first to design and deliver breakthrough customer service and support processes.
7 - 8 October 2010: Washington, D.C.
Content & Collaboration Forum 2010
Today, the people in your organization have unprecedented expectations for driving better, faster business outcomes using content and collaboration technologies. Harnessing the trends that underlie those expectations in order to drive real business outcomes -- like revenue growth, reduced operating expense, and improved return on assets -- requires IT to assume a new leadership position. On top of building engaging Web experiences to drive revenue and reduce service costs, Content & Collaboration (CC) Professionals must optimize portal, search, collaboration, and eDiscovery strategies that enhance employee productivity while mitigating risks. CC professionals require a new set of skills to address the culture, process, and technology changes amid this groundswell of business technology expectations.
To capitalize on these changes, CC professionals at the Content & Collaboration Forum 2010 will learn to:
- Engage customers across emerging channels. Learn how empowered employees can better serve customers using social, cloud, mobile, and video technologies.
- Innovate by harnessing the power of collaboration. See how leading organizations are using organizational models, tool sets, and new skills to accelerate innovation with collaboration platforms and tools like social networks.
- Accelerate your strategy while balancing risk and return. Learn to optimize processes and tools like enterprise content management, eDiscovery, search, and intranet portals to mitigate risks and maximize information discovery, use, and re-use.
13 - 16 October 2010: Seoul, Korea
The International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality
The International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (COEX, Seoul, Korea) is the annual meeting of academic and corporate researchers and developers who are advancing the fields of Mixed and Augmented Reality. Presentations will showcase the latest breakthroughs in signal processing, computer vision, computer graphics (3D), user interfaces, human factors, wearable computing, mobile computing, displays, and all types of sensors for detecting context. Posters and demonstrations foster first hand discussions with developers and researchers. Workshops on October 13 provide an open and flexible environment suitable for multi-disciplinary information and knowledge sharing. Integrated with the Science & Technology Program, the Arts, Media and Humanities Program covers the creative advancements in the application of Mixed and Augmented Reality.
14 October 2010: Palo Alto
Silicon Valley VC & Angel Event
FundingPost has hosted 170+ sold-out venture events in 19 cities over the past eight years. At our next Silicon Valley event, the panel of investors will focus on Early-Stage Venture Investing - how to meet investors, pitch them, and what it really takes to get them to write you a check - especially in this economy! We will be discussing trends in early-stage investing, hot sectors, sectors that these VCs look at, things that are most important to them when they are considering an investment, the best and worst things an entrepreneur can do to get their attention, additional advice for entrepreneurs, and, of course, the best ways to reach these and other Investors. There will be plenty of time for networking with the investor panelists, both before the panel & afterwards at the cocktail party.
As an additional benefit, entrepreneur 1/4 page summaries will be given to the investor speakers and attendees. All of the Investors will get your company description and contact info! Register today, as this event will sell-out! Additionally, there will be an optional Pitching Workshop Lunch from 10:45am-1pm. To register, or for location and speaker information, click here.
14 October 2010: Palo Alto
Silicon Valley VC & Angel Event
FundingPost has hosted 170-plus sold-out venture events in 19 cities over the past eight years. At our next Silicon Valley event, the panel of investors will focus on Early-Stage Venture Investing - how to meet investors, pitch them, and what it really takes to get them to write you a check - Especially in this economy! We will be discussing trends in Early-Stage Investing, hot sectors, sectors that these VCs look at, things that are most important to them when they are considering an Investment, the best and worst things an entrepreneur can do to get their attention, additional advice for entrepreneurs, and, of course, the best ways to reach these and other Investors. There will be plenty of time for networking with the Investor panelists, both before the panel & afterwards at the cocktail party.
14 - 15 October 2010: St. Louis
The Strange Loop developer conference brings together developers working on the leading edge of applied computer science. This year's conference features tracks covering emerging languages, alternative database technologies (aka "nosql" stores), machine learning, large scale web applications, semantic web, and mobile applications. Keynote speakers include programming language guru Guy Steele (Oracle), Javascript expert Douglas Crockford (Yahoo!), machine learning expert Hilary Mason (bit.ly), and grid computing expert Billy Newport (IBM). Other speakers include experts from Flightcaster, Geloearning, eBay, Opscode, 10gen, Square, Twitter, Google, and more. Register here.
18 October 2010: Washington D.C.
DE10 will feature over 50 leading industry speakers addressing best practices on topics including Social Media, Online Advertising, E-commerce, Cloud Computing, Web Analytics, Search, Email and more. When registering, use the code RWW50m for 20% off.
25 - 27 October 2010: Beijing
The China Mega-Forum for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
China Entrepreneurs presents The China Mega-Forum for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Gathering more than 1000 professionals over the course of three days, this forum will place attendees at the heart of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in China. Joined by more than 400 elite high growth ventures, 200 prominent investment firms, and 60 premier-level speakers, attendees will be immersed into a full schedule of high-level content and unparalleled networking. Highlights include:
- High-level Panel Sessions on important topics encompassing China's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
- The Morning Market, giving firms the opportunity to showcase their businesses
- Over 20 unique entrepreneurship workshops
- Gala Dinner and Award Ceremony for the CE Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Awards
- Over 45 investor presentations and one-on-one meetings with VC's, PE's and Angel Investors
For further information, visit www.chinamegaforum.com.
26 - 27 October 2010: San Francisco
PayPal X Innovate 2010 Developer Conference
The only developer conference dedicated to payments, the PayPal X Innovate 2010 Developer Conference invites developers to explore new ways to integrate payments into web pages, applications, and products using PayPal's open, global APIs. Developers get the chance to code live with PayPal engineers; attend hands-on technical sessions; and network with 2000 peers. Register by September 15th and save $100. Register now.
Participate in the PayPal X Developer Challenge: The PayPal X Developer Challenge is offering a $100,000 grand prize for the most innovative application that integrates the PayPal X Platform. The Challenge also includes X Awards, additional prizes of $10,000 each, in addition to the grand prize in specified categories like mobile, cross-border payments, and integration with Yahoo technologies or eBay. Learn more and submit ideas at x.com.
28 - 29 October 2010: Chicago
More than 10 years ago, just a few industries scrambled to cope with new Web-based, consumer-empowering tools like comparison shopping engines and direct banks. Now it's Twitter, YouTube, and foursquare. These tools have put more power in the hands of individuals than ever before.
Whether you are running an online-only firm or one business unit of a global firm, Forrester's Consumer Forum 2010 will provide specific answers to the critical issues of consumer change and empowerment that are confronting all consumer-facing companies today. The time to unleash your employees and transform your company is now, and this event will showcase ideas, best practices, and case studies to help you do it. As an exciting addition to this year's Consumer Forum, we'll be featuring content and ideas from Forrester's new book, Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business, by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler, slated for release just weeks before the event.
Key questions this forum will answer:
- How has the rise of empowered consumers changed customer relationships with B2C firms?
- What kinds of leaders do you need at your firm that can help unleash employees to solve customer problems?
- Which firms have best tapped into the creativity of employees to serve empowered consumers?
- How are consumers using their mobile devices for product research and decisions?
- What is the role of social media in engaging customers across channels?
- What impact will pervasive video and connectivity have on customers?
- What new opportunities exist for firms to connect with empowered consumers?
- How do firms create metrics and incentives that measure and promote employee empowerment?
- What new organizational models best empower employees to serve customers?
8 - 11 November 2010: Las Vegas
PubCon, the premier search and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. On November 8-11, 2010 PubCon Las Vegas will be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. PubCon holds cutting edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the world's top keynote speakers.
PubCon Las Vegas will also hold a one day two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search professionals. For more information visit pubcon.com.
9 - 10 November, 2010: Chicago
Forrester's Sourcing & Vendor Management Forum
Unprecedented changes are under way in how business identifies, sources, and manages the technologies that drive innovation, growth, and competitive advantage. SVM pros must embrace a new set of skills and commit to getting ahead of technology and market innovations to ensure that their organizations achieve business value from these changes. This Forum will arm you with the knowledge, insight, and practices that you need to:
- Empower the business. Learn how to empower employees and embrace self-provisioned technologies like SaaS and social media.
- Drive innovation. Explore how to take your firm to the next level of innovation through next-generation vendor governance models like multisourcing.
- Sustain competitive advantage. See how leading organizations continue to drive increased value from their suppliers through new service delivery models.
For additional details please see: http://www.forrester.com/sourcingforum
16 November 2010: Dallas
New Marketing Experience - Dallas
Imagine a world where you can take your One Big Idea and tap over 100 other participating conference attendees and experts and each of their One Big Ideas. All of this in a structured, fast-paced and highly interactive one-day program under the direction of Chris Brogan, Justin Levy and the team from New Marketing Labs. New Marketing Experience is that world. Through six key discussion sessions this program will help you analyze and draw the best of what you need form these Big Ideas.
On Nov. 16, the New Marketing Labs team will be invading Dallas to hold our New Marketing Experience event. For more information, visit us at: http://nmlevents.com. Use source code "RWW50" for a 50% off discount.
17-18 November 2010: Lausanne & Geneva, Switzerland
The European Tech Tour Association is launching its newest vertical event with its inaugural Cloud & ICT 2.0 Summit, the Catalyst of the Cloud Computing Industry in Europe. Its focus is on celebrating entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe and on raising global awareness for the top 25+ European start-up companies in the cloud computing field that are making their mark in the industry.
The Cloud ICT & 2.0 Summit is interested in European Cloud Computing companies with the potential to become global leaders in their market. The deadline for company applications is September 3, 2010. Register here now.
17 - 18 November 2010: Raleigh
Join over 1,000 Internet executives, senior marketers, entrepreneurs and investors at Internet Summit 2010 for expert content on opportunities and trends created by Web innovation. Learn from dozens of industry leaders and innovators on topics such as Social Media, Mobile, Online Video, Cloud Computing, Real-time, Analytics, Online Advertising, Ecommerce and much more!
Innovation, intelligence and forward thinking converge in Forbes magazine's most Wired City - Raleigh, NC from November 17-18, 2010 for the third annual Internet Summit.
23 - 25 November 2010: Beijing
Global Internet of Things Technology Conference
GIOTC & CIOTE are hosted by China Council For The Promotion Of International Trade, and are mainly open to the leaders of government, experts and scholar in higher education institutes and researching departments, domestic and international Internet of Things institutions and associations, and users and investors in the field of RFID application.
Topics at the Global Internet of Things Technology Conference will range from the status and trend of global Internet of Things to talent exchanges, technology application, industry standard, smart cities and investing opportunities. As the unique international exhibition in internet of things, the 2010 China Internet of Things Technology Application Exhibition over the same period will provide a platform of meeting, presentation,communication and cooperation for the manufactures, suppliers, distributors and application services in the whole Internet of Things Chain.
For more information, please visit www.giotc.com.
1 December: London
Mobile Cloud Computing World Forum
Mobile Cloud Computing World Forum will provide a full perspective of mobile cloud computing and SaaS from business value through integration and implementation and to the emergent trends in the industry. Get the scoop on the latest products, meet with clients and drum up new business with valuable leads. Meet some of the best known mobile cloud computing and SaaS professionals in person and exchange your experiences.
Show Highlights include:
- 1 day conference and exhibition on Enterprise Mobile Cloud Computing and Enterprise Apps
- Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated mobile into their working practices
- Learn from the key players offering Mobile products and services
- Benefit from our pre-show online meeting planner
- Network in our combined exhibition and catering area
- Evening networking party for all attendees
To book now or for more information visit www.mobilecloudcomputingforum.com.
6 December 2010: Los Angeles
The Mobile Excellence Awards offers invaluable exposure, PR, branding and networking with the who's who in mobile entertainment, media, & technology. The event has become one of the most influential and prestigious in the industry - which has acquired a new partnership with NAB - and honors the best in mobile entertainment, technology, marketing and media. Attendees represent the entire mobile ecosystem, including execs from all major studios, entertainment companies, brands, content providers, industry influencers and press.
Deadline for submissions is Sept. 20. We are proud to have corporate sponsors such as YouTube Fuji FIlm, Open First, PlayPhone, GoTV and United Future on board upon our launch, all being held at the Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, CA. For more information please go to http:www.mobilexawards.com.
6 -7 December 2010: Los Angeles
LA Mobile Entertainment Summit
The LA Mobile Entertainment Summit is brought to you by the producers of the widely acclaimed 3D Entertainment Summit. This high level strategy and networking event will explore all facets of the mobile entertainment industry. This event will be presented in association with Variety and in partnership with the Mobile Excellence Awards, the industry's most prestigious awards program for the mobile industry. Located in the heart of the entertainment industry, the summit will attract the brightest minds in the mobile ecosystem. Delivering two days of packed in-depth discussions, the summit will deliver strategies to capitalize on this rapidly changing landscape, attracting senior level decision makers, leading press and market analysts.
For more information regarding sponsorships and speaking opportunities please contact Gloria Lombardo at glombardo@unicomm.org or lamobilesummit.com.
29 - 30 March 2011: London
Social Media World Forum Europe
Social Media World Forum Europe: Two days of interactive & engaging conference featuring leading key figure keynotes, brand case studies, topical Q&A and debates, exhibition hall, workshops and networking.
Social Media World Forum Europe is continuing to evolve and deliver an event which is second to none, ensuring our audience receive the maximum potential from attending our shows. New for 2011 we have introduced interactive panel discussions, live streamed debate sessions, collaborative learning, break-out group discussions, open Q&A portions in every session, open workshops, with group discussions and interactive zones within the exhibition hall. We have introduced the Online Marketing Toolbox Workshops, educating in all elements of the online marketing mix, such as SEO, Paid Search, Affiliate, Mobile & Apps. The perfect toolbox to complete your online marketing strategy.
Download this entire events calendar in iCal format.
DiscussWeekly Wrap-up: New CEO For Digg, Sue Me Paul Allen, Apple's Fall Event, And More...
For the second week in a row, Digg topped our most-read-stories list. Also this week we launched a brand new channel - ReadWriteHack - and continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010: We learned how to use the Internet of Things to hack Nike+ to do automatic Foursquare check-ins; augmented reality helped tennis fans "see through walls"; and Google Docs got real-time collaborative highlighting. Read on for more.
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Top Stories of the Week
- Digg: Amazon Manager Will Take the Helm, Try to Save Site From Tides of History
- Digg User Rebellion Continues: Reddit Now Rules the Front Page
- Cartoon: So Sue Me
- Live Blog: Apple's Fall Event (New iPods, iOS 4.1, iTunes 10, Apple TV)
- 5 Ways Tech Startups Can Disrupt the Education System
More coverage and analysis from ReadWriteWeb
Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App
As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we've made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook using the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.
Real-Time Web
Internet of Things
More Internet of Things coverage
Augmented Reality
- IBM Helps Tennis Fans "See Through Walls" with Augmented Reality
- Augmented Reality Coming to DC Bus Stops Today (Photo)
More Augmented Reality coverage
Mobile Web
ReadWriteStart
ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is a resource for startups and entrepreneurs.
- 5 Ways Tech Startups Can Disrupt the Education System
- Never Mind the Valley: Here's Paris
- Developing Your Business By Marketing Your API
ReadWriteCloud
ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.
- How Facebook Scales with Open Source
- The Big Data Explosion and the Demand for the Statistical Tools to Analyze It
- What Cloud Providers Can Learn From Google Buzz and its Downward Slide
ReadWriteEnterprise
ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to enterprise 2.0 and using social software inside organizations.
- 5 Plugins for Outlook Users with Gmail Envy
- Top 10 Most Important Features for Enterprise Smartphone Management Solutions
- What Do You Think the Future of the Workplace Will Look Like?
ReadWriteBiz
ReadWriteBiz is a resource and guide for small to medium businesses.
- Get Quick Answers to Your Small Biz Questions on Focus.com
- 4 Must-Attend Small Biz Tech Conferences in September
- Get Pro SEO Insight For Dirt Cheap With the New SEOMoz
ReadWriteHack
ReadWriteHack is a resource and guide for developers.
- CSS Tip: Class or ID?
- 5 Great YQL One-Liners
- Hack of the Day: Use PHP's List Function to Quickly Transform Arrays to Variables
Enjoy your weekend everyone!
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Discuss
Java - It's not Dead, Folks - It's Doing Just Fine
Java gets a bad rap. It's considered old-school. People say that young developers prefer Ruby-on-Rails and other Web-based hot stuff. True - but these are not bad times for Java at all.
James Governor of RedMonk wrote a post that provides several good reasons why Java is really doing quite well.
Elance shows the current demand for people with Google App Engine skills is greater than those knowledgeable about Amazon Web Services. Audrey Watters of ReadWriteCloud saw the news and posted on the topic of IT Jobs as the question for our weekly poll.
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The reason why Google App Engine is doing so well? It's all about the enterprise. VMware's Spring Platform is based upon SpringSource, which has become the dominant platform for launching Java-based apps. It now integrates with Google App Engine, a primary reason for the growing success of the platform.
Governor makes some points that are worth noting:
NoSQL is one of the hottest trends in tech right now. Many of the technologies built on the platform are written in Java. It was born on the Web but will eventually move to the enterprise.
MapReduce? It's what Google and Yahoo! use to get fast responses over large data sets. It is built on Java. Hadoop is based on MapReduce. It has its own ecosystem developing around the technology.
And then there's this from Governor:
Of course we're also seeing innovation from the new hotness - thus Erlang underpins CouchDB and RIAK. But Java is certainly core to the innovation. Lets look at RabbitMQ for example - which though written in Erlang was acquired by SpringSource as a messaging engine to underpin a Java-based programming model.
Governor goes on to provide a number of other examples to make his point.
And we have to agree. Java is not dead. it still has plenty of room for innovation.
DiscussChina's Baidu Refocuses on Mobile and Apps
Baidu is the most-visited website in China and has captured 70% of search revenue in that country. Alexa's Top 500 Global Sites list puts it at number 6. But with virtually no penetration outside Asia, can it really be considered a global company at all, or just an awfully big one?
Until it reaches beyond its shores in an appreciable and sustained fashion, it probably won't be considered a global player of consequence. But its latest move may do just that. It is refocusing a great deal of its enormous resources into the mobile and app markets.
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At the annual Baidu developers conference yesterday, CFO Jennifer Li reiterated the company's dedication to the mobile space. The 10-year-old company started focusing on mobile last year with the development of a texting language and mobile mapping. At that point it also established a dedicated mobile department.
As for apps, last night its Box Computing Open Platform went live. The BCOP allows users to run apps, including games, videos and e-books, through the Baidu website using any platform.
A lot of our coverage of China focuses on Google's issues there. Among those issues are the lack of stability: what can a company or developer expect, day to day? With China's shifting censorship regime, it is hard to anticipate what might be disallowed. Mobile apps are dependent on the robustness of their developer community.
Will non-Chinese developers be willing to put time and money into developing on Baidu's platform? Can Chinese developers develop on Baidu for Western users compellingly enough to attract them? Or will the future of China's global influence be on the Internet of Things, leaving Baidu a strictly Chinese concern?
This isn't a rhetorical question. We sent it to a couple of our friends with first-hand knowledge of the Chinese web industry. But if you've got knowledge of your own, share it why not?
DiscussIBM at the US Open - Analyzing Every Volley, Serve and Overhead Smash
One quote from an IBM executive stands out in the post that Chris Cameron wrote today about IBM's augmented reality app for the U.S. Open.
Rick Singer, IBM's Vice President of Sports Technology Partnerships said it all comes down tthe information generated with every tennis stroke, volley and serve:
"This is all about data. It's about how you take data, aggregate it and make it simpler to use," says Singer. "This is like having your best friend with you that knows everything about the Open right by your side because you can take all of that data and you can make better decisions."
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IBM is using the U.S. Open to demonstrate its commitment to cloud computing.
For example, according to eWeek, IBM implemented its analytics platform to use real-time and historical information to deploy services to "media organizations, tournament officials, the public, tennis players on different platforms such as broadcast, the Web, mobile devices and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
At the U.S. Open, IBM has deployed sensors to the radar guns, the umpire chairs and throughout the tennis grounds to collect data that can be analyzed and visualized.
It has partnered with the U.S. Tennis Association to provide its PointStream technology, which pull intelligence from the data around scores and match statistics. It is supposed to then present that information in real-time.
According to MediaPost, online viewers may also use IBM's Momentum Meter to see which player has a statistical edge. That provides a range of different possibilities for viewers. They can watch the matches on television and get stats from their smartphone, iPad or laptop. Images can be seen visually, which makes sense as following charts and graphs can be a bit cumbersome.
Analytics provide a different viewing experience for people watching the U.S. Open. The experience also provides a view of what we can expect as more "TV" plays venture online. For example, Google TV will be offering its own ways to analyze data to provide contextual information.
What we are seeing really is the start of a technology match that will last far longer than the last smash and volley at the U.S. Open.
DiscussOregon Tribes Make Huge Rural Broadband Investment
The Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Central Oregon have made a commitment to broadband for its largely rural population. Taking advantage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's broadband funding, the Tribes will spend $5.4 million in extending broadband infrastructure throughout the reservation and making it affordable for tribal users.
Warm Springs has always been a forward-thinking community. A decade ago it started a business incubator and venture capital firm, welcoming and even buying tech companies, including GIS companies. To further its drive for independence, it needs its people, and client companies, to be able to connect with each other and the world at large.
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Led by the newly-formed Warm Springs Telecommunications Company, the project, a half-and-half grant and loan package, will blanket the 1,000-square mile reservation with a network that combines fiber and wireless; 1,800 people, 18 businesses and 22 institutions users, including tribal government and schools, health care facilities, police and fire will benefit.
For a long time the Warm Springs tribal corporation was Central Oregon's number one business in terms of revenue; it remains an important economic engine of the area, though its distance from population areas still make unemployment a chronic problem.
As Robert White noted in his book "Tribal Assets," Indian tribal polities that create wealth also push out into the surrounding areas, adding to the economic health of their area. Those who don't produce often act as a vacuum, absorbing state and local money. If Warm Springs' historical business acumen is any indication, the benefits of the broadband project will not stop at borders of the rez.
DiscussTumblr's Improved Attribution is Good News for Publishers
Tumblr is quickly becoming one of the Web's most popular and unique platforms on which to share and discover interesting content of all media. According to Tumblr, over 5.3 million posts are made each day by the service's over 7.5 million users. Posts are passed on over and over through Tumblr's "reblog" feature, but at such a high volume it's easy to lose track of where content originated. Tumblr hopes to solve this dilemma with some new attribution functionality launched earlier today.
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Whenever someone reblogs a post on Tumblr, text is generated automatically that produces a "via" link to the user it came from. As users reblog other reblogged posts, an ugly daisy-chain of these links clogs up the caption area, causing most users to simply delete it, breaking the chain of attribution.
Now, Tumblr has made is easy for users to add attribution metadata to posts just as they would tags and other information. This is great for users who want to credit where they found an interesting photo, quote or article, but this feature is a huge benefit to publishers.
As we mentioned earlier this summer, many popular publishers - including Newsweek, Huffington Post and The New Yorker - have flocked to Tumblr to share content in a new way. With this new attribution feature, they can rest assured that their content will be properly attributed as it is shared throughout the community.
This kind of publisher-friendly feature is likely a direct result of Tumblr's latest talent grab, Mark Coatney, formerly an editor at Newsweek. Coatney's new position is to serve as a liaison between Tumblr and media publications who want to leverage the platform, so it's likely Tumblr will continue to add features that will make publishers happy.
DiscussStrategy Roundtable: Find High Velocity Channels
First up at this week's Strategy Roundtable was Cheryl Yeoh presenting CityPockets, an online destination, and an app for managing daily deals across a wide range of sites. The daily deal and group buying market has really heated up, with numerous sites offering variations on the basic value proposition. But for Cheryl, the problem is that she needs critical mass.
I asked her not to assume that investors will be investing in this business idea, at least not until she can acquire some level of validation, which means tens, if not hundreds of thousands of customers, and several partnerships with daily deal sites.
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Venture capitalists today don't exactly practice venture capital. Investors are investing in proven concepts - they call those "momentum investments." As a result, the expectation is that you have to figure out a way to get to some level of momentum on your own (by bootstrapping) or with small doses of angel money - "drip financing" so to speak. To be successful, you need to understand this basic philosophy, and work within its constraints.
Gnosis India
Next Anuj Mishra with Gnosis India presented an idea of doing highly technical workshops (CAD, Robotics) for students all around India, including rural India. I asked Anuj who would be teaching these workshops, and who would be paying for them. In today's India, people with high-end engineering skills are in high demand. They make a lot of money, and nothing in Anuj's business model convinced me that these people have any interest or incentive to go around teaching, especially in rural India. I asked him to abandon this idea and find a better one.
Solution for E-commerce Vendors
Last up was Manish Jha pitching his inventory management, fulfillment and customer service solution for e-commerce vendors, with which he has already built a $500,000 a year business. Manish wants to explore how to get to $2 to $3 million in a couple of years. I advised him to strike OEM partnerships with the e-commerce shopping cart vendors like Volusion, BigCommerce, etc. Such OEM deals may cost him 50% of his product revenue, but would be the fastest way to reach a large number of customers, nonetheless.
I started doing my free Online Strategy Roundtables for entrepreneurs in the fall of 2008. These roundtables are the cornerstone programming of a global initiative that I have started called One Million by One Million (1M/1M). Its mission is to help a million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond, build $1 trillion in sustainable global GDP, and create 10 million jobs. In 1M/1M, I teach the EJ Methodology which is based on my Entrepreneur Journeys research, and emphasize bootstrapping, idea validation, and crisp positioning as some of the core principles of building strong fundamentals in early stage ventures. In addition, we are offering entrepreneurs access to investors and customers through our recently launched our 1M/1M Incubation Radar series. You can pitch to be featured on my blog following these instructions. Recordings of previous roundtables are all available here. You can register for the next roundtable here.
In addition, we also have a Deal Radar series in which we profile entrepreneurs who have successfully reached $1M in revenue. Many investors monitor this series as a source of fundable businesses that have achieved a certain level of validation, and we encourage you to pitch [following these instructions] to be featured in the series as well. Some recently featured companies include Appssavvy, MobileIron, Mashery, Clickfree, BullionVault, 3dcart, BrightEdge, FootzyRolls, LendingClub, Blacksocks, Merkle.
The recording of this roundtable can be found here. Recordings of previous roundtables are all available here. You can register for the next roundtable here.
Sramana Mitra is a technology entrepreneur and strategy consultant in Silicon Valley. She has founded three companies, writes a business blog, Sramana Mitra on Strategy, and runs the 1M/1M initiative. She has a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her Entrepreneur Journeys book series, Entrepreneur Journeys, Bootstrapping: Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction, Positioning: How To Test, Validate, and Bring Your Idea To Market Innovation: Need Of The Hour, as well as Vision India 2020, are all available from Amazon.
Photo by wax115
DiscussIBM Helps Tennis Fans "See Through Walls" with Augmented Reality
It may come as a surprise to some but augmented reality and the wide world of sports go way back. Glowing hockey pucks and yellow first-down lines on the football field are just a few of the early examples, but today AR is a part of every-day sports broadcasts. More recently, however, AR has begun to make its way into the live sports experience, and an app recently developed by IBM for the U.S. Open Tennis Championships is an excellent example of this transition.
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The app is only available on the iPhone and features functionality one would expect for a major sports event. Scores, news, videos, schedules, tweets, maps, etc. - the traditional sports fare is present and accounted for. This year, however, IBM has upped the ante by incorporating augmented reality into the app to let users "see through walls," as they describe it.
By holding the phone up and looking around with the camera, users can view information about the tournament - including live scores, food menus, transportation, first-aid and restroom locations - in real-time AR perspective. Fans of augmented reality may not be blown away by this implementation, but the exposure for the technology from the tournament and from IBM is significant.
Rick Singer, IBM's Vice President of Sports Technology Partnerships, was interviewed recently (see embedded video below) by Fox Business's Brian Sullivan who asked, "What's in it for IBM?" Singer notes that IBM can show to its clients that the company is on the cutting edge and experimenting with new technologies, but he also very succinctly summed up why AR is important.
"This is all about data. It's about how you take data, aggregate it and make it simpler to use," says Singer. "This is like having your best friend with you that knows everything about the Open right by your side because you can take all of that data and you can make better decisions."
Making better decisions with more useful aggregation and presentation of data. Now that's a great slogan for augmented reality!
DiscussFacebook Adds News Search
Facebook has begun surfacing widely "liked" news stories from independent media organizations in its basic search bar today, it appears. First reported by watchdog blog AllFacebook, the change is something that seems likely to be understood as a challenge to Google. It's early days for the feature, but something to watch for sure.
Search for a phrase that's appearing in the news in the main Facebook search box and you'll see off-site links to news stories. "It's an interesting extension of what they did before in terms of off-site links," Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand told us by phone today. "It's not clear how exactly these stories are being chosen and it clearly needs more work. It could work like Google's Social Search, displaying items shared by your friends, but this remains something to watch and see rather than 'oh the revolution is here.'"
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Earlier this year, Facebook put up a blog post urging people to "Like" the pages of major news organizations, so that they would receive stories posted by those media outlets in their Facebook Newsfeeds . Yesterday the company began experimenting with a new method of subscribing to updates from high priority friends, family and other people.
Clearly when you put together 500 million people, their friend connections, their "like" affinities (on and off-site) - then there are a whole lot of permutations that can be analyzed and surfaced in various contexts. Facebook search and subscription are likely to be very interesting for some time.
This particular search feature may be of limited impact, though. Presumably the vast majority of searches that go on in that search box are for peoples' names - not topics in the news. Perhaps that will change, as Facebook tries to extend itself.
DiscussHow Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM Fits Into the New World of Messaging Platforms
Salesorce.com acquired Jigsaw earlier this year. This past week, Salesforce.com unveiled the integration.
The service integrates Chatter, the Salesforce.com microblogging platform. When a contact is updated through Jigsaw, the subscriber gets an update in their Chatter feed.
Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM is an example of how microblogging services are becoming message platforms for crowdsourcing tools. Microblogging tools are serving as social middleware technologies that surface information from enterprise applications.
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It reminds us of services such as Socialtext Connect, which launched in June. The Socialtext service uses the Twitter Annotation spec to connect legacy apps by surfacing events that appear in an activity stream.
Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM also shows how combining services changes the ways applications update people. In the process, the UX transforms as new filtering is required and different systems for updating. Contacts or companies are identified in the Chatter feed as opposed to traditional methods such as an email about an update.
Spreadsheets are traded for business intelligence tools to some degree as the contact data is packaged with an analytics platform.
We are more interested in how Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM serves as an example of how microblogging is emerging as a platform for surfacing events. But in this case, we also have questions about how the contacts are developed in the first place.
Anyone can add contacts to Jigsaw. That's the power of the crowdsource model. But in some respects, privacy can be compromised. Salesforce.com maintains that contacts are contacted when they are added to the Jigsaw platform. They may opt out by going into Jigsaw and removing themselves from the database.
Contacts are also notified once a year about their inclusion in Jigsaw.
We wonder if that is enough and what other measures should be put in place when contacts are added to a service like Jigsaw. Salesforce.com does not notify contacts via Twitter or through other services. That would seem like a respectful measure to take but perhaps that is where things will go as we get deeper into the ways crowdsourcing is used for developing contact networks.