by Jon Husband
February 10, 2008 at 11:18 am · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Blue Monster, Business Model, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Hugh McLeod, Microsoft, SOA, Social Computing, Web 2.0, Web Services, enterprise software, mashups
Mashups for the business world are a promising outcome of the application of design and development principles coming from the consumer application and web services arena to the business environment.
As noted in the excerpt from the NY Times below, Microsoft has for the most part been regarded as a laggard, or essentially a reluctant participant in the Web 2.0 world to date because of its focus on operating systems (though its Blue Monster initiative was created in order to address that perception, I believe).
While it’s Popfly initiative and a team of 17 programmers does not represent a wholesale shift in strategic direction for Microsoft, it’s an interesting signal.
While most readers of this blog will no doubt be familiar with Web 2.0 and mashups, here’s a bit of context. Generally, Web 2.0 refers to a "second generation" of web sites whereon visitors / users can contribute information for purposes of sharing and collaboration. Web 2.0 applications use Web services - most commonly Flash, Ajax, Silverlight or JavaFX user interfaces, Web syndication, blogs, and wikis. There are no set standards for Web 2.0, and generally it has come into existence through the work of designers and programmers building upon existing web server architecture and adding / stitching together web services. It can be said that Web 2.0 shares some principles and characteristics with SOA.
Mashups are often thought of as Web 2.0 applications. "Enterprise mashup" describes Web applications that combine content from multiple sources into an integrated user experience. Enterprise mashups are application hybrids combining content and functions from more than one existing source to create powerful Web applications, integrated Web experiences and to expand customer value networks. They are created when different application program interfaces (APIs) are combined or ‘mashed’ such that the functions from the combined applications come together to create an entirely new application.
As noted in the NY Times article, "Microsoft has long been a software engineering culture in which huge projects like Windows Vista are developed and tested by teams of hundreds, and whose completion time is measured in a large fraction of decades.
Although it is not yet widely visible to the outside world, some people inside Microsoft are beginning to break that mold."
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Mashups Are Breaking the Mold at Microsoft
[ Snip … ]
Mr. Montgomery, a veteran product manager who has also worked as a computer industry writer and editor, is an example of how it just might be possible to teach dinosaurs to dance.
Last fall, his team introduced an intriguing software Web service called Popfly that is intended to make it possible for nonprogrammers to plug together Web components and data sources quickly to create useful new Web services. For example, news feeds could be added to digital images, or data lists to maps.
Introduced at the Web 2.0 conference last year by Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, Popfly was picked by PC World magazine as one of the most innovative computing and consumer electronics products of 2007. It has garnered more than 100,000 users — the company says the exact number is confidential — and now has a library of more than 50,000 “mashups”: new components or Web pages that have been created in a visual snap-together fashion, like Lego blocks.
The mashup is at the heart of a generation of Lego-style software that is emblematic of the second generation of the Internet. Both Google and Yahoo have developed tools to help Web users display apartment rentals on maps, or build complicated Web sites like
The Popfly programmers, however, have gone a step further in an effort to design a tool that is intended for a generation of Web users who are familiar with the Internet but are not skilled programmers.
A user might take Popfly and mash up his list of Amazon book recommendations with the Seattle Library book catalog on the Web, he said, and receive a notification when the waiting list for a particular book was down to zero.
“This is not just a passive experience,” Mr. Montgomery said. “You can take this stuff and use it in new ways.”
He now sees his target audience as people who are not professional developers, but who work with information.
Popfly, he said, is for “the 21- to 27-year-old crowd who grew up on the Web.”
“They have never known a world without eBay, Amazon, or Google,” he added. “They assume that when you create a piece of software it will be Internet-connected and it will have an innate sense of who your friends are.”
Microsoft is certainly not alone in seeing this kind of an opportunity. Yahoo offers a widely used tool call Yahoo Pipes that offers some of the same capabilities as Popfly, and Google has designed a “mashup editor” for more skilled programmers.
But Mr. Montgomery sees Popfly as a more ambitious and comprehensive effort. He also thinks that it could turn into a general educational tool for nonprogrammers.
[ Snip … ]
The largest challenge facing the Microsoft team of Popfly developers will be to gain the acceptance of the broader Web world. Because the company chose to design Popfly using a Microsoft Web graphics and animation technology called Silverlight, it will be treated with suspicion by an Internet universe that is increasingly committed to open standards.
Silverlight is an alternative developed by Microsoft to compete against Adobe’s Flash and, more recently, Flex systems, that are now used ubiquitously by Web developers.
Mr. Montgomery will also have to overcome the skepticism with which many Internet veterans now view Microsoft.
“Popfly shows me that Microsoft still thinks this is all about software, rather than about accumulating data via network effects, which to me is the core of Web 2.0,” said Tim O’Reilly, the founder and chief executive of O’Reilly Media, a print and online publisher. “They are using Popfly to push Silverlight, rather than really trying to get into the mashup game.”
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I’m sure we’ll find out how serious Microsoft is …
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by Rob Paterson
January 3, 2008 at 1:18 pm · Filed under
Hugh McLeod, Netflix, Public Media, Social Media, Social Objects, TV, Video
Netflix are making a big move to a direct model.
Netflix and LG Electronics will deliver rental movies and TV series directly to TV sets, sidestepping the well-known red envelopes used by the DVD rental company.The companies announced Thursday that they will develop a set-top box that will allow users to stream movies and other content from the Internet to HDTV sets.
Netflix, which began to allow users to stream content to their PCs via the Internet last year, said the new system would bypass PCs. The companies said a networked LG player will be released to market by the second half of this year.
“Internet to the TV is a huge opportunity,” said Reed Hastings, Netflix’s founder, chairman, and CEO, in the announcement. “Netflix explored also offering its own Netflix-branded set-top boxes, but we concluded that familiar consumer electronics
devices from industry leaders like LG Electronics are a better consumer solution for getting the Internet to the TV.”
Netflix said the move reflects its larger strategy to offer customers a variety of ways to rent and view movies and television programs. Those who buy the hardware will be able to rent titles cataloged on the Internet. Netflix already offers more than 6,000 titles via the Internet, and the company said it plans to expand its online catalog. The company offers more than 90,000 titles on DVD.
“Consumers crave compelling and immediate content, and the Netflix online streaming movie feature can provide instant gratification,” Ki Kwon, president of the consumer electronics division of LG Electronics USA, said in the announcement.
LG Electronics said the partnership will improve its position in the U.S. digital television marketplace.
I have no opinion about whether this will work but it is part of a mass of innovation that will somehow bear fruit soon. One of my predictions for 2008 is that we will see a moment when it finally becomes easy to both find and access Movies and High End TV Shows without having to wait for the show to air on a schedule. We will be able to have TV and Movies when we want - We will have it our way!
There seems to be an inevitability here that most agree with. Where I differ with some friends in TV is how quickly this will occur.
I think that enough progress will take place in 2008 to make 2009 the Annus Horribilis for Traditional TV that uses the artificial scarcity of its broadcast area and schedule as its economic model. TV will suffer as Newspapers are suffering.
So in a world where there is masses of great content to be had at any time, where is the value?
I think that it is in making it easy to find what you want - Navigation. Maybe just Google - But I doubt it - Maybe a series of Hubs that house niches - The Military Channel - The Opera Channel etc
These Channels would make it easy to find the good stuff - and also have a lot more information linked to the film and reviews.
Here it would be easy to share what you like and to comments on it. John Wayne fans unite and talk to each other about the Duke -
Films and Shows become the Social Objects that Hugh Talks about.
So what then will be left for the local TV stations - both private and public? I think that their domain is to leverage the national content and to win the hyper local wars. More on this as 2008 unfolds as some of my clients do the world to solve this challenge.
by Rob Paterson
December 2, 2007 at 11:00 am · Filed under
Blogging, Dave Pollard, Enterprise 2.0, Hugh McLeod, MicroBrand
Hugh has been thinking a lot recently about the value of blogging and MicroBrands - not the least the MicroBrand that is Hugh himself.
If you have something to say, then a blog offers a cheap, easy global medium in which to express yourself. This is as true now as it was three years ago.
Whether you have the time and the talent for it, “i.e. the skill and the will”, is another matter altogether. Also, whether other people will want to read it, is something one has little control over. But in both cases, the same is true for all other media.
So whether the now-famous Mark Zuckerberg sells Facebook for $15billion or $5billion, the fact remains, we all have our own lives, our own bills to pay. And that means interacting in the adult world of commerce somehow. Everyone has to get paid.
And it’s much easier to do the latter if one is good at building one’s own personal brand, independent of one’s job title.
Me? I prefer my brand to be a “global microbrand”. It’s easy and it’s flexible. It’s not tied down to one geographical locale, which I’ve always found to be financially unreliable. So business is a bit slow around here in England. No matter. I’ll head over to Redmond, Washington, and do a gig for Microsoft if I have to. New York? Sure. Houston? If they pay me enough.
So that’s why I have a blog, I suppose. I like the control. I write something, I post it, it gets read, hopefully good things happen as a result, somewhere on this small blue planet of ours. Unlike a book or a movie or a TV commercial, there’s no waiting around for somebody else to greenlight it. The only light is the greenlight.
Sure, I hear you saying, “But the scale is so small.” I don’t know about that. At last count [and this was a couple of years ago] the “How To Be Creative” page had been downloaded a quarter of a million times. And Lord knows how many copies of the “ChangeThis” PDF version were printed out and circulated. Most hardbacks are lucky if they sell three thousand copies. Granted, movies get seen by a lot of people, but only for a week or two.Then they leave the cinema and are mostly consigned to a lonely life on the DVD rack. And they’re expensive and take years to make. They have a lot, I mean A LOT of downtime. Whereas a blog is constantly working, constantly growing. I like that.
I guess my point is, if you’re one of these people considering giving up on blogging in exchange for paying more attention to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, bear in mind you are giving up on something rather unique and wonderful. But I would say that.
I will be going public on Monday with a surprising new client. I became involved directly because of the relationships that I have developed from my own blogging. My earlier work with NPR had the same genesis. In fact nearly all my work is derived directly from the MicroBrand that is me, Rob. I can live in a beautiful place like PEI, walk the dogs, feed the fire, mow the lawn and still be in the wider world.
Nearly all the people I work with both as clients and as co workers on projects also come from my blogging community. My long suffering wife, Robin, has finally seen that all this time in my PJ’s is worth it.
I have also got something beyond price - a whole new group of friends that have become very precious.
So when people say they have no time to blog, they risk cutting themselves off from much good in the world. Facebook is fun, but with blogging, there is the opportunity to discover another person.
Transformation is possible - you don’t believe me - then look at Dave
Dave is passionately exploring how social media may shift another institution - the idea of an exclusive property based bond between only one man and one woman. I think that maybe an entire new site about social media may be needed to go there.
by Rob Paterson
October 29, 2007 at 9:15 am · Filed under
Blue Monster, Chris Anderson, Enterprise 2.0, Fox, Gaping Void, Hugh McLeod, Hulu.com, Long Tail, NBC, NPR, News Corporation, PBS, Public Media, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Objects, Web Advertising, Wired
Hulu.com is an important experiment for how TV will shift from being available only when the broadcaster schedules it to when we want it - Having it My Way!
(From the NYT) Hulu is the new-media creation of two old-media rivals, NBC, which is owned by General Electric, and Fox, owned by the News Corporation. Since March, when the broadcasters announced their joint effort to bring free, ad-supported television shows to the Web, critics have pounced, predicting the venture would be doomed by diverging agendas, technical challenges and an all-powerful enemy: YouTube.
Skeptical bloggers even slapped Hulu with a derisive moniker: “Clown Co.”
Now the defense is ready to present its case.
Today, Hulu, now an independent company with more than a hundred employees and its own offices in Los Angeles, will begin privately testing its new service with select users at Hulu.com. It will also begin sending its videos to the sites of five distribution partners, Microsoft, AOL, MySpace, Yahoo and Comcast.
Hulu is presenting select episodes of some 90 television shows, including new and old programs from NBC (“The Office,” “The A-Team”), Fox (“24” and “The Simpsons”) and an assortment of smaller broadcasters like USA Networks. It has also added two new partners, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which distributes programs like “Chapelle’s Show” and “Reno 911,” and Sony Pictures Television, which will make selections in its archives like “I Dream of Jeannie,” available on Hulu.com.
All the shows are viewable inside a Web browser and festooned with advertisements.
However Hulu works out - they are on a track that is clear - people want video as they ant their music:
- Easy to find
- Available in chunks
- Available ON THE WEB - when they want it and usable on a variety of platforms such as an iPod and a 50inch HD LCD screen
Who pays and how will still be settled.
Also what I think Hulu has missed is the value of creating community around a show - this is Hugh’s great insight about Social Objects - it is the Conversation around the object that is more important than the object.
3. The Blue Monster wine is also part of the “Smarter Wine” conversation. The main thesis is that it’s not the wine per se that is interesting, it’s the conversations that happen around the wine that is interesting. And that is true for all social objects. People matter. Objects don’t.
The advertising money is shifting to the web - so will the content - it will go there faster than we imagine. For the laws of exponetial growth are in force. I think that the Tipping point is here:
I think that Broadcast TV is now in the Titanic Mode - It is large and feels unsinkable - BUT - the ship has grazed the ice - at the moment no one feels anything - but the wound is fatal and it is only a matter of time before the ship sinks.
The Iceberg is the weight of money that is leaving conventional media and going to the web. My forecast is that 2008 will be the year - 2008 will be the year where the web/digital will become where the ad money will go - the work for all providers of all types of content then will be to reset their universe.
Today most people in TV and radio see the web as a growing and important channel. In 2008, the smart people will see the web as the primary channel and that their old channel is now the supporting channel. Of course most will not see this and they will be lucky to find a life boat.
You think I exaggerate? Here is Chris Anderson on the “Music Industry” I quote him in full:
At a speech last week I was asked a question that has come up every day since the Radiohead (and Madonna, NIN, Prince, etc, etc) announcement: What’s going to happen to the music industry?
To which I answered “Which music industry?” You don’t mean just the one that sells CDs, do you? Because it’s a big mistake to equate the major labels and their plastic disc business with the industry as a whole. Indeed, when you stand back and look at all of music, things don’t look so bad at all.
Indeed, it appears that every single part of the music industry except the sale of compact discs is up.
- Concerts and merchandise: UP (+4%)
- Digital tracks: UP (+46%)
- Ringtones: UP (+86% last year, but probably just single-digit percent this year)
- Licensing for commercials, TV shows, movies and videogames: UP (Warner Music saw licensing grow by about $20 million over the past year)
- Even vinyl singles (think DJs): UP (more than doubled in the UK)
- And, if you include the iPod in the music industry, as I’d argue a fair-minded analysis would: UP, UP, UP! (+31% this year)
Only CDs are down (-18%). They’re around 60% of the industry not including the MP3 players, but just around 25% if you do include them.
So the problem with the music labels is not that music is an industry in decline, but that they have a too-narrow view of what business they’re in. Madonna’s switch from a label to a concert promoter should be a clue. This quote from an excellent article (it’s worth reading it all) in Entertainment Weekly says it all:
”Soon a lot of these companies won’t define themselves as record companies,” says Steve Greenberg, the former head of Columbia Records who now runs the independent record company S-Curve. ”They’ll define themselves as artist development companies. If you’re involved in an entire career with an artist, then everyone’s interests can be aligned.”
I think most music will soon be free, as artists give away the product as marketing for their performances and licensing, and as a celebrity accelerant that creates more opportunities to make money than just from the sale of a record.
And for those who say that this avenue is only available to artists at the head of the curve, such as Madonna and Radiohead, I’d point out that the other group poorly served by the labels are those at the bottom of the curve, the many thousands of bands who fall below the radar of the hit-driven majors. I’d argue that they, too, have nothing to lose by letting their music go free, nothing to lose but the prospect of becoming indentured to companies stuck in last century’s model of monetizing music.
Most people see TV and Radio like the people who make CD’s. All the forces that are turning the music industry upside down are coming to TV and Radio - for after all - a video and an audio file are the same as music - they are in reality all digital now.
