DISQUS

For me, as Twitter is almost the bellweather of Social Media Retail (man on the street), GetSatisfaction is for me the Bellweather of E2.0 (surprise). And they still "have to crack it", IMHO. But is the business model innovation there that is compelling, not the technology, as you point out.

for my money TinyTwitter has been excellent on my Blackberry Storm. Does anyone have any feedback on using Truphone on Storm? After Ken Kamp's rage on it, I am a little hesitant.

How did online boards make money?

That's the second time I've come across this point: see Telco2 & The Long Tail re-examined for use of log-scale.http://www.telco2.net/blog/2008/11/exclusive_interview_will_page.html#more

nice point about the "showing the comparitors" as a way of undermining scale of reach in branding as a differentiator. I'd love to see a scaled model of traditional brand creation/ distribution and one that uses "click-visibility" or some such value.

That's the problem with Market Research into "intent". people don't always know how or why they act in particular ways. Some interesting analogies in how people pick their life-partners :)

By changing error messages from "failed delivery" to much more specific messages telling the user what kind of failure it was, and why it probably happened, we actually surfaced areas of benefit that we didn't previously know about. By being specific, and using specific language, we were able to position ourselves even further ahead of competing offers. I like the follow language, because it is "collegial".

There is such an awful lot to say about "communities dominate brands" and "good vs evil", etc., but as someone who studied Transaction and Interaction economics, there is an awful lot of deep change to be enacted in the very theory of the firm itself. Umair attracts some swipes for being "too naive" about the way google realy competes, but people don't seem to be addressing the key issues of "what are companies for", "what role to they perform in a market", and "how do markets work when you remove information asymmetries".

Great post from martin above. Actually I've been hearing great things about Africa, and SA in particular, around the use of innovative use of "machine to machine wireless solutions", and general 2.0 adoption.

Nic, I can see the challenge in that. But look at this post from Fergus Burns, at Web2Ireland today http://www.web2ireland.org/2008/07/04/irish-gov...

Think of the $100m spent on an integration hub for government services so that people could get access to government information by "life stage". This is a societal block screaming out for redesign.

I've been fascinated by how real estate has been not so much disintermediated, but re-mediated, and "exposed" by the internet. If Boris in London wants to expose crime data by area, so that citizens can perhaps make grounded suggestions as to how their areas might be better policed etc, then that is genuine redesign. If companies like Qik can let citizens record in real time, then car accidents, bad driving, evidence of social misconduct are immediate, mappable, findable, and "valuable".

I love the question "are you solving a real problem", but here's another question for you "is this a problem really worth solving"?

Perhaps for traffic to flow through the city, they had to take care of illegally parked cars? However, it doesn't win over "public confidence" in the force. Doing things that are helpful and useful does.

Again, I am reminded of Umair's point: solve something socially meaningful and you will reap the just rewards. The second point I'd like to make, is that "the net" hasn't really reached into devices, and between devices. We are in the early stages of the the People As Network, but this will be augmented by the Objects As Network. Sounds hi-filluten, but hey, your phone, your car, your house, your office all linked to social and physical infrastructure could make dramatic differences. The Irish Health service just rolled out a Web2.0 infrastructure (http://www.enn.ie/article/10124268.html) The old "top down approach" cost a fortune and failed (http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?sto...)

Ah, came to this late, but would go with "grab this" or similar: However, I would give some thought to the positioning of the button. If I "consume" the widget by browsing down it, may I not want it bottom right? then (I usually) really like a little drop down ajax a la "book mark it to here" type apps.

Just an update: today from trendwatching on "conspicious consumption" in what I think is a related point: http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/statusstori...

Gee, I was hoping to get to leave your site today, but just had to comment. I agree with everything you've said here. Here is one more example that hit me this morning: on twitter, people are saying things like "sitting down at Cafe Crust to have delicious Free Trade Coffee". Its like a "personal beacon". The concept behind beacon was fine (IMHO), it was the implementation that screwed the pooch. Commenting and recommendations are incredibly powerful, but so are commentaries about actual consumption.

I think elements of this point are true, but not all of it. Yes, selling benefit will beat out selling "applications"; yes, holding back on the cash investment into the start up will help them to sharpen heir proposition and their business model (out of necessity), but for companies that have addressed these issues and are now ready for the big internationalisation heave, the money is still required for marketing and sales. I would posit that not all SaaS is the same: horizontal, vertical, focus etc. will all influence how the lack of investment will hit. But here's my take away: if you are selling incremental benefits through SaaS then this downturn will hurt you; if you are selling ten fold benefit that can be measured, its not going to hurt you. There is also value in gaining market leadership in any segment by investing when it is proven that the money will be well spent, and that the management is capable of spending that money well. IMHO.

Nic, I've spoken with a couple of the leading online real estate intermediaries, and its all about charging the agent for leads. What ever way it adds up, that is the current model. The problem for the last few years was that the market was so hot, the agent could just sit back and not invest all that much in developing capability. The only thing that mattered (seriously) is that the Agent looks like they are doing the best job possible for the seller, and that was measured by how high their property appeared on google search. If your house appeared on the first page of a search, hey your agent knows what he is doing.

In terms of selling your house, it seems to me that the the "final hook" for the agent, is that they are better at showing people around your home, and that people buy a "depersonalised home" + "a lifestyle" (I think).

Here's a a thought (and an off beat one at that), "if you could hire, "professional presenters", as opposed to estate agents, would you then be able to break the grip of the old guard"? So why not a "zillow market" for professional presentation talent?

And because now I can't shut up, here's another point, "how long do you think it took the new 2.0 real estate plays to build the level of eyeballs that the old 1.0 Real Estate intermediaries had"? HINT: not as long as you might think. That means the API/OPEN/Social dimensions might be more powerful in this space than people give credit, at least for audience building.

Yeah, I've just gone back to using them. It really is a very easy way of blogging/commenting on the page that the browser tab is open on. It would also have made a great early commenting system... oh well,....

Great Linking article. Thought it might be interesting to see how social studies people are viewing the societal changes, and also if their sociology guys can throw new lens over the whole "market-companies-society" triad. Also just a FYI, the new site doesn't allow you leave a comment from a mobile device (blackberry pearl) because it doesn't present the antispam word.

in 1995 I had a lecturer in UL (University of Limerick) who was all on about "clubs, societies, and communities" as the new company, as the new branding. Some of the examples he had were Churches, Manchester United (OK, we could use Chelsea), and Harley. When you look into it though, they all have a "founding event", or "place-belonging", "place-belief-identity". How many new propositions have or can create this? The recent mantra of "don't start a company, start a movement" comes to mind. Building the audience with a view that an actual money making model will emerge is founded on near zero cost customer acquisition and support, near zero cost infrastructure, and "network effects" data generation, all with a view that it will somehow create "better context". Perhaps, these near-zero baselines aren't here to stay. Cast your eyes over Jaxtr, Jangle, and jajah and we can see this model play out in micro.

Good post. Informative. Might be a nice follow on post from someone to point out the "true cost of viral marketing". There have been a few nice posts on Free-to-Fee (freemium) models out there, disperson patterns, etc., but it would be good to have someone with actual hands on experience from the "big player" point of view, point out the True Cost of marketing in a start up's plans. I guess you are looking at some of these issues with Mowser.....

OK nic, might be a bit off point here, but I presume you did the research on this: what camera did you buy?

Hi There. Just thought you might like to know that I had to get up at 04.30 in the morning, to get a cab at 5.00 to be at their airport at 5.30 to be on a flight at 6.30. I had meetings in London at 12.00 and 15.00 so with a meeting length of aprox 90mins I would be finished my last meeting at 16.30, with a 15 minute trip to get to the tube that put me back in Liverpool St. station at about 16.45. One hour, yes, one hour on stanstead express brings you to 17.45. Flight time, 18.15. Too tight to book in and risk missing flight, and being stranded, so had to phone up during the day and change my already confirmed 18.15 time to 21.45 flight. So, I got home at about 12.00 midnight. A take away lesson, if you have a meeting in London, you just cannot book it for anything later than 14.00-14.30 if you want to make the 18.15 flight home. Remember, you are already up 1t circa 4.30 in the morning. If you travel to London every week, as I have to do this takes chunks out of three days and leaves employees tired and unproductive. The problem with "infratstructure" such as good electricity supply, water, and sunshine (sic) is that it is very difficult to tie them empirically to the conditions ideal for growing nice green plants. We will leach the soil under us unless we make it convienient for one city to do business with another.

This may sound a bit stupid, but one of the things they might need is a reason to exist ! I use jaiku and plazes, and have been contributing to both for over a year. I access via my mobile to "broadcast" where I am, and what I might be thinking about. But is there any real benefit to being mobile, or location aware (at the moment?). In the "early user echo chamber" there is some value in knowing things quickly, thus the amount of journos on the sites. Facebook on mobile (blackberry) does roughly the same thing by broadcasting my "status update".

OK Count me Inn. :)