Mobile, Social & Cloud – How will these three trends of 2010 do in 2011? Part-II Social

Mobile Computing, Social Networking and Cloud Computing have been driving tech industry for 2010 and will likely continue to be the driver for this year. What differences, if any, will be felt in evolution of these trends this year. Here are some of my opinions and I sure would like to hear yours on these topics. Part-I of this blog dealt with Mobile issues while Part-II deals with Social Networking issues while Part-III will deal with Cloud Computing.

Social Networking Trends

The three big trends in social networking are:

• Social Everything
• Revenue models of social networking companies
• Social media analytics

Social Everything

First it was about social networking and then it was about social gaming and now it is about social everything including social CRM, social media, social politics and social shopping. Social concepts will become part of every application whether consumer facing or enterprise focused. Will it even be a stand-alone market longer term or just become part of every application? What new social trends will emerge next?

Revenue models

Facebook will go public and after initial euphoria, its valuation will become realistic. Facebook revenue model will continue to butt heads with governments and users’ privacy issues as Facebook becomes the darling of media agencies to precisely target everyone of us. Twitter will finally invent a new business model realizing that its value is in being a hub rather than a content site. Will Groupon become the fastest $1B revenue company in 2011?

Social media engagement and analytics

Every company that didn’t get on the bandwagon of social media will have no choice but to join the party and hopefully learn beyond passive Facebook fans and likes. Companies will learn to build communities and relationships with their users on social networks. Traditional market research will find a friend or foe in social media data as it will move from passive monitoring to detailed analytics. Social media analytics will likely help in predicting various product and services future in a real time fashion. What is your organization doing with social media data?

Conclusion

Unlike the past, Tech industry trends now start in consumer markets. Social media and its use is moving from consumer market into enterprise market and companies will have no choice but to embrace, adopt and analyze social media.

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Can you survive going back to Blackberry after iPhone?

I liked my iPhone, but for reasons that belong in a different blog, I switched back to Blackberry after almost a year. First, it was difficult but having been used to Applications, I started discovery of app store on Blackberry and was pleasantly surprised and somewhat disappointed. This blog is about my journey back to Blackberry for now.

Gmail Integration

First positive change was recognition of Gmail by Blackberry in the form of a Gmail connector that made it easier to use. On the other hand, native Gmail app from Google still doesn’t work well on Blackberry as delete keys don’t work, it is slow, doesn’t do push and consumes more battery. Similarly, contact and calendar sync work fairly well.

User Interface

Lots of nice icons have been created on Blackberry Curve but their usability is poor especially after working with beautifully designed icons of iPhone. Most of the time you have to read the description of the icons to understand what they mean – case in point Application, Games, Downloads, Setup just look so similar. Finding App Store on your Blackberry is a challenge – It has Applications and then Downloads menus. App Store is hidden under Downloads and that is where Apps come before you decide to move it elsewhere.  I just wish Blackberry pays attention to these details as much as it has paid attention to Email and the curves on its keyboard.

How many Apps does one need?

Coming from Apple iPhone experience, one needs lots and lots of apps and I had over 30 when I switched. However, Blackberry made me realize that I only really used less than 10 apps and so I came looking for applications that I really needed.

Communication/Social Applications

Besides Email, IM, and Facebook, Twitter was the missing piece and Blackberry just released a native app for Twitter that takes advantage of its push technology. It crashes sometimes but does work very well.

Navigation Applications

Google Maps is available and works well except that it drains battery if left on for a long time. Needless to say it is not as intuitive as Google Maps on iPhone. There is a good new app called Poynt that gives you neighborhood restaurants, movie theatres, gas stations and white/yellow pages.

Games Applications

Needless to say, there is no match here between iPhone and Blackberry and a lot of it has to do with the touch interface, developers’ focus and the target users. Blackberry now has many more native games besides Brick Breaker and a whole lot of third party apps are also available in their store.

Entertainment Applications

Pandora and Stitcher radio applications are both available on Blackberry and work well. The missing piece is an ability to have Apple’ iPod like functionality that can play the music from my iTunes library.

Conclusion

I am comfortable using Blackberry with my repertoire of  applications but just wish that browser experience was better on Blackberry; a feature I sorely missed in switching from iPhone.

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Twitterization of our culture – Its Pluses and Minus and Lessons for Businesses

We all know what Twitter is but I couldn’t find a clear cut definition of Twitterization – a phenomena that is permeating cultures everywhere especially among the younger population. Twitterization, like Twitter, is real time but rather than just being limited to 140 characters (VoIP pioneer Jeff Pulver even has a conference dedicated to that), I would call it a byte sized communication whether it is 140 words or a short message or a picture or a video. Most dieticians recommend smaller but more frequent meals for weight loss kind of like what happens in twitter land.

Therefore, Twitterization is

• Real Time Communication
• Byte Sized Communication
• More frequent Communication
• Communication whose purpose is to build & support community

So let us see its impact on various segments of business and share your opinions:

• Twitterization of Media
• Twitterization of Marketing
• Twitterization of Customer Support
• Twitterization of Software Development

Twitterization of Media – Getting to news is fast and seeing the same article many times in your twitter feeds in a matter of seconds is common. We are well informed at least on the headlines, if not on the details. Media has adopted that culture very fast but in a race to be real time, the quality of communication has suffered. Grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and lack of fact checking have become commonplace; these problems are sometimes corrected but often aggravated by crowd sourcing. How has this affected our consumption of different types of media?

Twitterization of Marketing – Product development for companies can be done much more efficiently, but the down side is that people participating in your twitterization efforts will be self-selected. Therefore, one has to apply the right filters in selecting the right group in order to attract the most intended audiences. A product or company can rise fast but can easily fall faster too. So what are your experiences in twitterization of marketing at your companies?

Twitterization of Customer Support – This is one area that can be revolutionized for good if the companies are honest and supportive of these efforts; Comcast and Southwest serve as good examples. I have seen many a company fail at it or adopt it too late in the game. What is your experience with twitterization of customer support at places you used to call for support?

Twitterization of Software Development – The rise of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android apps stores is creating a culture of software development that calls for churning out quick applications with ephemeral popularity. Just as developers are quick to churn out new applications, users are just as quick to use and toss them as well. Vivek Wadhwa wrote an article on “What’s better – Saving the world or Building another facebook app” and this may provide one of the answers to his questions.

While Twitterization undoubtedly has its benefits, one of the main concerns I have about it is the current and future impacts on the younger generation. The new byte-sized real-time culture that they are embracing with increasing frequency may have the effect of upsetting advancements in science and research, as these are avenues that require extended focus and concentration (the antithesis of twitterization).  Tell me what you think?

R. Paul Singh

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In this decade, what changed us the most? Terrorism, Social Networking or Mobile?

When I reflect upon this decade which started with a dotcom bust followed by a terrorist attack  that changed all of our lives, I wonder what is one thing that changed us the most this decade. So, I came up with this list of 5 candidates and my conclusion. I invite you to come up with your list and reasoning.

No. 5 – Rise of China and India – China with its low cost manufacturing impacted the whole world in various ways and changed not just the face of China but many other countries. Y2K started India on a path to providing software outsourcing and made India a force to reckon with in software business.

No. 4 – Ecommerce – With well publicized failures like webvan and pets.com, Ecommerce finally became mainstream with Amazon leading the pack and brick and mortar merchants like Walmart fighting that battle.

No. 3 – Social Networking – Friendster may have been an early leader of the social networking phenomena but Facebook now is the new king of this hill and that changed all of our lives in many ways. Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace remain distant challengers.

No. 2 – Terrorism – The decade started  and ended with terrorist attacks in the US and terrorism continued its attack on other countries including UK and India.

No. 1 – Mobile Computing/Phone – If there is one thing that impacted us all worldwide the most and changed our lives this decade, mobile phone will take that honor this decade.

What do you think and Why? Share your opinions here.

R. Paul Singh

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Which platform have you made more money on – Facebook, iPhone or Twitter?

Have you ever stop to think why Microsoft’s platform has a larger market share than Apple’s despite Apple having a better product? Why did Google gain market share compared to Yahoo and Microsoft? The answer is the same – Microsoft and Google made money for themselves but also created opportunities for developers to make money off of their platforms.

The rules of the game have not changed. Let us look at three popular platforms of today – Facebook, iPhone and Twitter. Facebook made money for itself while iPhone made money not just for itself but for its developers while Twitter makes money for its developers without making any money for itself.

Monetization on facebook, iPhone and twitter

Facebook was the first social networking site with an open platform, which attracted many developers; this increased Facebook’s popularity at the cost of then popular myspace. Facebook made money for itself but didn’t offer an opportunity for developers to make money directly off of its platform even though many developers have managed to use it as a good indirect channel for marketing and sales. It still remains popular, but is not the most preferred platform for the developer community anymore. So unless the Facebook platform offers a direct monetization opportunity for developers, it will not stay the most popular social networking site.

Apple’s iPhone platform was the first mobile platform that enabled software developers to easily make money with a clear 70-30 monetization model; this increased its popularity. Now, with a long waiting list of developers trying to get their applications certified, I hope Apple does something before other platforms start to gain the attention of developers.

Twitter is the only platform that has never made money for itself but offers many opportunities for its developer community to make money. Twitter’s altruistic behavior is one of the many reasons for its popularity; I just hope Twitter itself soon figures out a way to make money lest others that depend on its existence for revenue may have to look elsewhere.

What is your experience? Share your stories on which platform have you made more money on? Which platform is the most monetization friendly?

R. Paul Singh

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