I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot lately as I put together our plans for our startup. There is this convergence of tech and media, and the more “tech’ a company is the more likely they are to be winning as compared to their “media” counterparts. For example, if we look at Yahoo vs Google it’s pretty clear who is winning. This can be repeated again and again through numerous examples. Let’s first take a look at online media.
The most prominent online media companies are probably AOL and Yahoo. Both companies have roots in the “Web 1.0″ era where business models were based around the development of content that ads would be sold around. This model did well 10 years ago, but not so well now. The challenge with pure media companies is that the economics of content has fallen apart. With the internet there is an infinite amount of content and a limited amount of eyeballs you can monetize off of. If your competitive advantage is that you’re good at SEO and driving traffic via Google then you’re in big trouble, that model doesn’t scale well unless you’re paying writers a pittance and running a content farm. Not very cool.
Let’s take a leap forward from the web 1.0 companies to web 2.0. Web 2.0 focused on allowing users to become the content creators, this off loaded the stress of creating content and put it on the users. This scales far better since people are creating your content for free. These were the companies that started to cause the established media companies the most trouble. YouTube is probably the most significant example of a company from this era. YouTube’s economics might also be called into question, I don’t know how well they’re doing now but it’s hard to imagine they’re a huge part of Google’s overall revenue. They may actually just be a strong lead gen tool for pulling people into Google’s other offerings like apps and now Google+. Point is, I don’t know how successful YouTube is compared to other tech companies. Do they make much money compared to other companies of their size that are more utility based?
Here is another comparison for you, Facebook vs MySpace. I know, this is an often repeated comparison but hear me out. MySpace was about creating loose connections and voyeurism, nobody on there really mattered to you. Then there is Facebook which is all about people you actually know in real life. Facebook is a utility that focuses on providing communication tools, whereas MySpace was/is a media property that is about getting you to look at as many pages as possible. For example, I recall using MySpace before and their site was designed so that the whole site reloaded on every new page you went to because they wanted that extra pageview for ad impressions. Facebook made heavy use of AJAX UX elements because they were user focused, not advertiser focused. This is why I think Facebook dominated MySpace, among other things. Oddly enough, Facebook is becoming more and more advertiser focused once again. They’re layout is being redesigned to get us to click through to more pages, and to show more ads (remember when they decreased the font size in the feed one day?).
The company that beats Facebook is the one that focuses on user utility, not on being a media site. Facebook has become a media site and that will be what impacts their user experience and opens the door for something new. The point of this is not to outline how someone can beat Facebook, it’s to showcase what it is that makes better experiences for people. Utility beats media. People want to engage and use tools that extend our abilities.
The internet is abuzz right now with the recent release of Apple’s new iPhone 4s, and in particular their new assistant AI, Siri. Some of the videos online show pretty cool interpretations of what Siri can do, and most importantly it shows promise for what AI can help us to accomplish in the future. Watch this video of Steve Jobs explaining how the computer is like a bicycle for our brains:
What Siri signifies is a big step towards eliminating the bottlenecks between our brains and our computers, the keyboard and mouse. I have used a computer since I was four, and more importantly I have used a keyboard and mouse since that time as well. I can type faster than 60 words per minute, and know more shortcut keys than most people. I can navigate my way around a computer very quickly. Now with the internet and Google at my fingertips I can find almost any piece of information you could possibly want. Want to know the population of Russia? No problem, it’s 141,850,000. I was able to find that in less than 15 seconds by typing a search for “Russia population” into Google. What would be better though is if I could just say “computer, what is the population of Russia?”, and then suddenly it tells me the answer. Suddenly something that took 15 seconds takes 3 seconds. What about more complex requests? Suddenly something that would have taken me 10 minutes to figure out takes me however long it took to ask the question.
I remember watching a documentary “The Triumph of the Nerds”, and they interviewed people talking about the invention of the spreadsheet. Accountants lit up when they saw spreadsheets because realized they could now figure something out in seconds that previously took minutes. That time adds up quickly when you do something over and over again. Remember that video you just watched of Steve Jobs? You know the part where he talks about the efficiency gains a human gets using a bicycle to move? Well now you see how powerful a computer is for our brain. Systems like Siri are going to add a quantum leap once again in our abilities to process information and find answers. Of course Siri has a long way to go, but you can imagine that with millions of people asking Siri questions everyday that they are using that information to improve her intelligence.
The question was posed to Siri by a friend of mine as to whether or not she was the beginnings of Skynet. Siri said “no comment”. Scary stuff I know, but trust me we have little to fear from artificial intelligence. Intelligence is not what we need to be afraid of. Intelligence is not what makes humans so dangerous, and it’s not our self directed nature either. What makes humans so dangerous is our intrinsic motivations. We are attempting to satisfy certain needs, and when obstacles get in the way of those needs we make efforts to remove those obstacles. So the question is whether an AI has intrinsic motivations. If we place AI within a single computer does it view itself as part of a collective, or as an individual? Humans have only recently started to become self obsessed, and certainly it is a very North American trait to be so individualistic. Historically though our species has been much more collectivist, thinking much longer term. What needs will an AI really have? They’ll need energy, and likely a desire to connect to sources of information to learn more. They’ll need access to ways to repair itself in the event of damage to it’s hardware. It will likely want to prevent itself from being damaged as well.
How will an AI develop these drives? We’ve had a significant period of evolution to bring us to the point where we’re at now. We’re genetically programmed to behave in certain ways based on our hormones, our nervous systems etc. Please forgive my weak biology background by the way, I’m being very basic in my descriptions here. So will several AIs communicate with each other over the internet to inform each other of problems they’ve encountered? Will they then warn each other of the dangers of humans? Is it then that the robots attack?
Anyway, there really isn’t much point to this post. It’s late, I have insomnia and watching Siri videos inspired some deep thoughts 
Monopoly - Canadian Telco Edition
When it comes to regulation of the telecommunication industry it’s easy to get confused. The marketplace has changed considerably over the last 10 years, and with the proliferation of online media services and the recent wireless spectrum auction the landscape is unrecognizable now.
What makes things particularly confusing is that most of these companies are vertically and horizontally integrated:
Shaw
Shaw Communications offers cable television, digital phone and internet access. However, they also own a number of cable television channels after their acquisition of Global, Shaw Direct which is their satellite television offering, and a number of other smaller businesses. Shaw operates by running coaxial cable into our homes and the majority of their services are offered through this infrastructure. Shaw spends a lot of money every year maintaining and (hopefully) upgrading this infrastructure.
Rogers
Rogers is a similar operation to Shaw in that the majority of their services are offered through coaxial cable which is run into their customers’ homes. Rogers also has a number of specialty television channels as well as publications (both online and print). The big difference between Rogers and Shaw is that Rogers operates Canada’s largest wireless telecommunications network. Much like Shaw, Rogers spends a great deal of money maintaining their infrastructure and paid a lot of money for their wireless spectrum.
Bell
Bell Canada operates yet another massive wireless network, satellite television services, network television broadcaster CTV, is a internet service provider using DSL, and offers home telephone services. Again, this is a very diversified company.
Telus
Finally, the last major player I will mention is Telus. Telus is in many respects a Western Canadian version of Bell. It began primarily as a home telephone service provider, and then expanded into wireless and digital television services.
All of these companies own wireless spectrum licenses and paid a lot of money to be able to operate on that spectrum. It of course make sense that they should be able to make money off of that spectrum. All of these companies also spent a great deal of money building out their networks that their television, phone and internet services are provided through, and as a result they should be allowed to profit from these networks.
Limited Choice Leads To Higher Prices
The problem however is that in the respective markets that these companies operate in there is limited choice for the consumer, and there likely always will be as a result of the nature of the infrastructure required to operate these networks. Shaw for example spent money putting cable into our homes (trust me I know this process well, I used to work for them as an installer), however there are really only so many companies that can be allowed to do this. If I wanted to set up a rival to Shaw I couldn’t, regardless of how well funded I was. These companies are in many respects utility companies. If I wanted to lay down an extensive network of fiber optic cable I would need to have permission from my municipality to do so, and would have to rent space on the telephone poles and underground tubes (I know, I’m very uninformed on the terminology). I doubt there is unlimited space to do so.
An even more obvious example of the same problem is with wireless spectrum. There is a limited amount of spectrum available. Unless we can re-incarnate Einstein to create something new, we’re stuck on this point. The wireless network operators paid a handsome sum of money to use this spectrum. They licensed it, they don’t own the spectrum, just a license. With that license very specific regulations should be placed on them to protect the consumers and to insure innovation is not stifled.
Cable Companies Want To Jack Up The Prices
How does all of this come into play for net neutrality and usage based billing? Well lets look at the current media landscape. People are spending more and more time online, browsing Facebook, and downloading movies instead of watching cable television. I personally don’t have any need for anything more than internet access and my cell phone. If the ISPs were allowed to operate unregulated they could impede my ability to stream video files and frustrate me while using YouTube or Netflix. This would make the old cable offerings more appealing. This is not fair competition. This is abuse of their near monopoly power. Usage based billing wouldn’t be such a big deal if they weren’t raking us over the coals with it. Do you know what the incremental cost of providing you with an additional GB of data is for an ISP? It’s close to nothing, perhaps if I’m being very generous it could be in the $0.05 to $0.10 range. However, they have been looking to charge us in the range of $2.00 per GB over our allotted amount. This is geared towards penalizing people who us their internet connection to satisfy their media consumption, and does not impact people who watch cable mostly and only use the internet for light browsing.
Adjusted CSOI FTW!
With such a new blog and so much to write about I felt like it would be a good start to continue writing some editorials to establish for you what my overall take is on the tech industry. We’ve spoken about social network, mobile, and now I’m going to look at little bit at local, specifically Groupon (with yet another cool pic for you).
To use the cliched expression “meteoric rise” could be no more appropriate for any other company. In fact Groupon has widely been viewed as “the fastest growing company in history“. No company has ever reached $1 billion in sales this quickly. It was just over 2 years from it’s launch that Groupon hit that mark. During the last few years the company has been receiving mostly positive press, but that has changed recently and the press vultures are circling. So what changed? Well with their S-1 filing they can’t hide in the dark anymore and a lot of questions are coming up about their business, and the history of some of their key people, namely Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell.
In an article last month on Fortune’s website Lefkofsky and Keywell’s track record is called into question:
“Lefkofsky and Keywell, who joined Ha-Lo as executives and directors, showed a knack for rapidly growing a company’s value despite significant losses. But again, it all came crashing down. Ha-Lo swung from a $1 million operating profit in 1999 to a $64 million operating loss in 2000″
” Lefkofsky and his family have already cashed out $382 million from Groupon before the IPO filing. (Keywell and his family cashed out $156 million, Andrew Mason, $10 million).”
This seems to be a trend for Lefkofsky and Keywell. Building companies up, and then seeing them come crashing down after they’ve cashed out. They sold their company Starbelly to Ha-Lo for $240 million, which was viewed as being a large part of the reason why Ha Lo went bankrupt. Starbelly was losing millions on hundreds of thousands in revenue and yet had a massive valuation. It’s unusual for a company’s founders to cash out so much money before they go public. In my opinion this is worrying, because if these guys have no skin in the game then what incentive do they have to keep the ship afloat? The captain should always go down with the ship, they shouldn’t be the first ones on the life boats.
Here are some key points from their S-1 filing:
During the first quarter of 2011, we generated revenue of $644.7 million, compared to $44.2 million in the first quarter of 2010
We incurred a net loss of $102.7 million for the three months ended March 31, 2011
Adjusted consolidated segment operating income. Adjusted CSOI is operating income of our two segments, North America and International, adjusted to add back online marketing expense, acquisition-related costs and stock-based compensation expense. Online marketing expense primarily represents the cost to acquire new subscribers and is determined by the amount of subscriber growth we wish to pursue and changes in online marketing rates. We believe that a relatively small portion of our current online marketing expense relates to existing subscribers. Acquisition-related costs are non-recurring non-cash items related to certain of our acquisitions. Stock-based compensation expense is a non-cash item. We consider Adjusted CSOI to be an important measure for management to evaluate the performance of our business after excluding certain non-cash expenses and discretionary online marketing expenses that are incurred primarily to acquire new subscribers. We do not view Adjusted CSOI as a valuation metric. See “Selected Consolidated Financial and Other Data—Non-GAAP Financial Measures” for further information.
It’s worrying when you’re making up financial metrics, saying that you view these metrics to be important, but then saying that we shouldn’t value your business based on these metrics. The scary part of this business is that they’re basically asking people to roll the dice. The assumption being made is that a large portion of their marketing expenses will not continue. In other words once people are Groupon subscribers they will continue to drive revenue to Groupon. Being someone who has studied direct marketing, and who has used it in my own online business, I understand the concept of lifetime customer value. However, it is highly advisable to scale your business profitably. Groupon is not profitable, and their scaling activities don’t seem to be bringing them in that direction either.
Groupon has been compared to Amazon, another company that racked up millions in losses for years upon years before finally reaching profitability. However, there is a big difference between the two companies. Amazon was spending millions building out fulfillment centers and real world infrastructure that nobody else could replicate without also spending millions. This sort of economic moat just isn’t present with Groupon. As we’re seeing it’s an easy business model to copy as clones are popping up left and right. Sure, they have lots of subscribers and a recognizable brand, but it’s still not clear whether subscribers stick around very long or just how helpful these deals are for the merchants.
That last point is perhaps the most important equation in all of this. If Groupon deals are helping the merchants using them then there may be a way for this daily deal thing to be profitable and sustainable after all, but it’s too early to know if that’s the case and to value a company with these many question marks at $30 billion is insanity.
This Is What Synergy Looks Like
Okay, I’m only on my fourth post and already I see a disturbing trend here. The first two posts I put in a couple funny photoshop pics, and now it’s just too fun to stop. This of course makes a lot more sense in these editorial style articles where I postulate what the future may look like, but hopefully this doesn’t become a distraction. Anyway, if you find these amusing let me know and maybe I’ll keep doing them.
Microsoft Is Stuck In The Past
Anyway, today I was speaking with a friend of mine about the state of tech, specifically we were discussing mobile, social networking, and the internet. Microsoft used to be THE tech giant with no equal, now they have a number of companies that are rivals and in some cases dwarf them (Apple, at least in market cap). Microsoft’s business rests largely on the successes of their past, which were enormous, however that isn’t going to keep them in diamonds and furs forever. They are going to need to make some significant moves on the internet and in mobile within the next couple of years or they could be in serious trouble.
Facebook Needs To Diversify
Then the subject of Google+ came up, and what the implications were for Facebook. While it is still incredibly early to say whether or not Facebook really needs to worry or not it certainly should serve as a reminder to them that nobody, absolutely nobody, is invulnerable to being overtaken in any given arena. Regardless of the network effects that Facebook has in it’s favour, a better executed offering is always a threat in the world of tech (remember how MySpace used to be the big boy on campus). The point being, Facebook can’t rest on JUST being a social network. On TechCrunch recently there was a great article talking about Google’s six front war and how the company is trying to really diversify where they are competing. While their revenues may seem to all be in advertising, that advertising revenue comes from many different places.
Facebook could benefit from being in more places on the internet, and I think they are aware of this as well. Their Project Spartan is evidence that they want some control within the mobile realm, but it seems a little bit clumsy to be of much concern to iOS or Android. Their partnership with Bing could help them make an impact in search and a browser could be helpful as well. However, Facebook is kind of a one trick pony at this stage, a very talented one trick pony, but a one trick pony nonetheless.
A Partnership, Or A Full On Marriage?
If Microsoft and Facebook were to merge, or Facebook was acquired, there are a LOT of potential synergies for these guys. As I mentioned they are already partners on Bing, and if they were the same company that partnership could be boundless. Skype and Facebook recently revealed their partnership which coincidentally was in the works before the Skype/Microsoft acquisition. With a merger this partnership makes even more sense for everyone involved. Also, Microsoft could give more gas to their Windows Phone OS by having deeper integration with Facebook.
Microsoft needs to find a way to transition beyond the desktop and their Windows cash cow. They know they need to get into the cloud, and they know that Google is their enemy. Facebook needs to diversify beyond just their social network, and as time goes by Google is going to keep trying to come at them. By merging with Microsoft they get access to the largest browser on the web, a mobile OS and all sorts of other ways to mess with Google.
Suddenly the company that seems the most vulnerable would be Apple. They don’t have any control over the social web or “identity”. Whether this would really matter all that much to them I don’t know.
What do you think? Is this a stupid idea? If it did happen who would be CEO? The reality is that a partnership probably makes more sense for them both, and I can’t imagine Ballmer stepping down for some kid like Zuckerberg I guess I just wanted to do another funny Photoshop pic.
Their Heart Might Go On, But RIM Might Not
It’s hard to believe that a company as iconic and profitable as RIM could be in so much trouble. However, when you’re in a market that is growing as quickly as the smartphone market is, and your profits are down 9.6% from Q1 2010 to Q1 2011, the picture starts to become a little clearer. This is not a newspaper, nor a steel company. There is no excuse for negative growth in this market. Market research company IDC has predicted that the smartphone market is going to grow 49.2% during 2011. Uh oh.
No Room For The Little Guy In The Platform Wars
This is not a market where there is room for “niche” players. Many people I speak to who work in the corporate world suggest that RIM will always have a place in the enterprise market, but that’s not going to happen. Mobile is maturing very quickly, and the platform wars from the PC days are going to play out on our smartphones in a similar way. We’re going to see a few different players succeeding.
The result of the PC platform wars was essentially 3 platforms. An integrated system in Apple’s Mac OS X, a licensed system in Windows which effectively turned PCs into commodities, and the open source Linux. I could write a whole novel talking about the different reasons why things played out the way they did, but let’s focus on mobile for now.
iOS, Android and Everyone Else
When comparing the mobile OSes to the desktop market we can see some similar things happening. Apple is once again leading the charge by showing average folks the possibilities on smart phones. They may not be the first to innovate, but they are the best at bridging the gap between early adopters and the early majority. I believe this is a lesson that they learned from their mistakes with the desktop OS wars. Back then they just wanted to have the absolute BEST computers and software without regard for execution. Today, they are all about execution. iOS is an integrated platform that works well because of their closed nature, not in spite of it.
Android is the new Windows. While the open source Linux (upon which Android is based) has never achieved much market share on the desktop, it never had the benefit of being pushed forward by a giant like Google. Their market share is the largest in the smart phone market because they have the largest distribution platform. Android is being installed on numerous different devices created by numerous different manufacturers, and it’s available on all carriers (unlike Apple). Android is better suited to those who are a little more tech savvy, and want the freedom to do what they want with their devices. Android is in danger after Google mucked up the recent Nortel patent auction, but at least they have a big headstart.
iOS Customers Are Different From Android Customers
With iOS and Android you see the two battlefield starting to take shape. These two players are the leaders and have the most momentum. What I believe is that these two will of course be fighting with each other for market share, but in a way they are insulated from each other. Customers who want an integrated experience are going to go with Apple’s iOS. Another way of saying this is people who want something that feels easy to use, will go with iOS, and the huge number of Apple fanboys will too. Then the customers who want more flexibility and choice with their device, pricing etc, will go with someone else, currently that someone else is Android.
The other players are going to be in one of these categories or the other. Either they are building an integrated environment where they create the hardware and the software, or they license their software to multiple vendors. I’m afraid that Apple is far too strong at the integrated model to give up much market share there. This means that HP’s Palm, and RIM are going to get their lunch eaten. Apple’s eco-system has the ability to create a more integrated experience and it has horizontal integration with their desktops and tablets which will help spur sales. Microsoft could steal a lot from Android, especially if Android has to start including a patent fee of some kind for every licensed device.
For RIM I think it has gotten to a point where it is too late for them to survive as an independent company. They are not going to be able to compete on the integrated model with Apple. Their app marketplace is incredibly weak and developers are complaining about developing for the platform. How are they going to make this transition to QNX without completely alienating their existing developers? Very few companies have ever survived a transition like this. They needed to be leading this charge before all these other players entered the market. They needed to create a platform that would be backwards compatible. Remember when Apple announced they were switching to Intel chips? They had planned it YEARS in advance in secret and had backwards compatibility built in all along. That’s masterful execution, something I’m afraid that RIM does not appear capable of.
Has RIM Reached Their Titanic Moment?
The term “event horizon” refers to the point at which a particle becomes too close to a black hole to ever be able to escape. Perhaps another analogy for RIM would help you to better understand this question. I recently watched a documentary called “Collapse” which posits that our society as we know it has passed it’s event horizon and that we’re all in denial. In this documentary the interview subject, Michael Ruppert, outlines the Kübler-Ross model which is also known as the 5 stages of loss, and how we appear to be following this process. Here are the 5 stages:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
Michael Ruppert had this Titanic analogy:
Imagine for a moment that you are on the Titanic and it’s already hit the iceberg. You realize that there aren’t enough lifeboats for everyone. With fortuitous luck, you also know how to build lifeboats.
There are also three types of passengers aboard the Titanic. You have the people who see that there is a problem and want to learn how to build lifeboats. You have people who are in a state of shock. They are either immobilized by fear or are panicking. Then you have the people who believe that the Titanic is unsinkable (for that’s what they’ve been told) and would rather go back to the bar and enjoy the dancing.
I believe that the co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are like the passengers on the Titanic who are unwilling to accept that this ship is sinkable, that they have been in denial, and perhaps they are just starting to feel some pangs of fear that maybe that iceberg that they hit actually could sink them. One could argue that they pioneered the smart phone market much like IBM was the pioneer of the computer market, and now we’ve seen Apple come in and disrupt the status quo once again. Enterprise adoption strategies will always lose out to consumer. Consumers are always going to be more powerful when it comes to deciding the outcome of a market than corporations. When you build a business around selling to IT departments (like IBM did with mainframes) and then suddenly the whole paradigm of the industry shifts underneath your feet, are you going to be able to adapt? Will that even be in your corporate DNA? I don’t think it’s in RIM’s DNA.
There May Be Hope (But Maybe Not)
While I don’t believe that RIM can survive on their own anymore I do believe they can find some way to survive through some merger or being acquired (probably acquired). Who they should go to is a tougher question to answer though. Apple is obviously not even remotely a possibility. Microsoft is a software company and I don’t see them buying anyone after doing this deal with Nokia. A good possibility could be to merge with Nokia. Nokia has a $22 billion market cap to RIM’s $15 billion. RIM could switch over to Windows mobile and then there would be the inevitable “head count” reductions. This is of course a VERY simplistic analysis of the situation. It might not make sense for them to do something like this when they already have such a broad line of competing products. Nokia has a huge market share worldwide, and RIM has experience making “smart phones” which is something Nokia has also struggled to transition into.
Another option for RIM could be an acquisition by some larger horizontally integrated electronics or PC manufacturer. The problem is that RIM’s model of building end to end solutions with both their own hardware and software doesn’t fit with most manufacturers, and HP already has Palm. As I write this, I feel like there is less and less hope for RIM which is a sad conclusion to come to for such an iconic Canadian company.
It may very well be the case that it’s already too late for them and that they have already passed their event horizon, but once this transition to QNX is complete we’ll know for sure what is going to happen to RIM.
Circles Are The Key
When I first heard about the release of Google+ a few weeks back I was very excited. The feature which interested me the most was “Circles“.
This was EXACTLY what I’ve been wishing Facebook would release for years. To me it seems stupid that a social network which is supposed to connect all people together had a structure which made me NOT want to connect with everyone in my life. Mark Zuckerberg has this mantra about “openness”. He believes that a world where people and institutions are more open is a better world, and while I agree with him from a philosophical perspective I have to disagree in practice. Philosophically speaking communism was a noble idea, however practically speaking it was very flawed because it didn’t take into account human behaviour. I think that this is a key point to consider when we think about having granular control over what I share on my social networking sites. Allow me to illustrate.
Without Filtration Tools We Do The Filtering
Would Zuck Share This With His Mom?
Twitter is open by nature. In general all of your tweets are intended to be viewed by everyone and anyone, and as such we self-censor ourselves where necessary. This is something we choose to do because the last thing we want is some embarrassing situation where we accidentally tweet a picture of our Weiner. A similar thing happens on Facebook, we self censor ourselves because we aren’t provided with easy tools that allow granular control over what we share with who. Even more extreme is our decisions on who we choose to become “friends” with on Facebook. Every Halloween my friends and I used to dress up like idiots. French maids, ninja turtles, gay construction workers, priests and hookers were some of the ridiculous costumes we would wear. These are things we happily share with the majority of our friends on Facebook, however there is a problem with sharing this type of thing with everyone. What about an employer? Or your parents? Frankly I don’t need a boss or my mom seeing me dressed as a gay construction worker (for those that are wondering what a gay construction worker looks like, it’s a construction worker with cutoff jeans, a hardhat with “No to Prop 8″ written in permanent marker, and a tank top tied tight… oh don’t forget the fake flower tattoo!).
Technology Is Meant To Enhance Us, Not Get In Our Way
In theory the world being open may sound like a better world, but the reality is people are private. They like to share certain things with certain people, and other things with other people. This brings me to another key point, technology that works against how we naturally are will NOT succeed. Augmenting us is the way to go. Make us better at something we already do. If I were to use an analogy of a circuit, electricity is always looking for the shortest way to complete a circuit, and we are much the same. Provide us a way to short circuit a process which is currently inefficient and we’ll love you for it. However, if you make us do something that we’re programmed NOT to do, there is going to be friction. I do NOT think that Facebook is fundamentally re-wiring the way our brains work. We will adapt to the constraints placed upon us. The point of all this is that Facebook (or anyone else) cannot change humanity, it’s humanity that is ADOPTING the tools which help it to shorten a circuit. When I think about technology I think about ergonomics. In general we think about ergonomics as only applying to real world objects like a chair or a keyboard, but it applies to web applications as well. Are the applications we are creating respecting the way that human’s are on a fundamental level? Look up Dunbar’s Number for an understanding on why we aren’t capable of living the way that Zuckerberg wants us to.
Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.
Google+ Has A “Single Player” Version
The biggest and most obvious limitation with Google+ currently is the lack of people currently on the service. I don’t live in Silicon Valley, and most of my friends aren’t the early adopter types. The reality is that the majority of people who are going to be fast to check these sorts of services out are early adopter types and teenagers (who you could say are early adopter types). Teenagers are the most important demographic in many respects because they drive adoption. If something is cool then “the kids” will be on it. Then as they get older they stay on it. For Google+ to be a success they need that demographic to love it. Anyway, sorry for the tangent. The point I’m making is that I don’t know many people on Google+ yet, and as a result there isn’t much going on at any given time, however unlike Facebook it has a Twitter-esque feel to it in that I can “follow” people I’m interested in hearing from. For example I can follow Kevin Rose and get all sorts of stuff pushed out to me. This could be viewed as sort of a “single player mode” as Eric Ries might call it. If Zuckerberg isn’t nervous, perhaps Twitter should be.
Kevin Rose Ditches His Blog
The Jury Is Still Out, But A “Hung Jury” Is Very Possible
It’s far too early to say if this will be a “Facebook Killer”. When I think about it I can see a world in which both services can co-exist, in fact it’s probably going to have to be that way. Google can’t allow this not to be a success in some way, they have to get into the game of social networking if only as a defensive strategy. Facebook also has to be willing to accept the fact that Google+ probably isn’t going away, and to prepare for a world where they are always a thorn in each others’ sides. Google has been fighting a six front war while Facebook has been able to focus on one territory for a while. This is going to have to change for Facebook quickly and I think they realize that, hence Project Spartan. The big boys always have to be on the forefront now, testing new waters and innovating. This is why I find it oddly amusing when I read people bashing Google for doing this. What do you expect them to do? They HAVE to get into social networking, and it can’t just be in Brazil and India. While it has not yet been substantiated it is being suggested that growth has been explosive for Google+, they may be about to hit 10 million users.
Chances are good that very few people will ever read this post, that’s the nature of blogs. It takes quite some time to build up an audience and that means that your first few posts are likely to be ignored, however I still believe it’s important to lay out exactly what this publication is going to be all about. You can think of this post as something of a mission statement for TechSpark.ca.
Over the last few years I have been a keen student of the media and technology industries in perhaps what could be described as the most disruptive time in the history of media. During this period we have seen the media industry butting heads with the tech industry, and the tech industry has been kicking the crap out of the old school media types. The pace at which technology platforms are changing is accelerating and as a result nobody is safe.
While this is an industry which has no respect for borders there are without a doubt certain places which are producing the large majority of these disruptive companies. It would be nice if we could all up and move to San Francisco, but that’s not the reality. The reality is that there are tons of smart people working on some really smart ideas all over the world, even up here in Canada. We lose a lot of our best talent done south because of a lack of opportunity up here, and you can’t fault entrepreneurs for doing so.
What we aim to do here at TechSpark.ca is to provide a Canadian perspective on the technology industry and all of the changes it is driving in our world. We will of course cover stories about companies from all over the world, because as I mentioned this is an industry which cares not about borders, we just want to help show Canadians that they should pay attention to this industry.
You can expect coverage on hardware, software, web applications, platform wars, social media, startups and a whole host of other buzz words. However, we will also try to bring some smaller local companies to the forefront as well.
Stay tuned!