In this issue

Updates

Happy New Year.  This month I thought I would update a few issues we talked about in 2007.

Golden question

Back in January I started a series of newsletters about the bidding process and project management. The key issue we come up against over and over again is the difficulty of identifying the real needs of the customer before bidding the project. A page and a half of A4, mostly padding is a standard brief in this business and yet the client's needs are often quite complex. The result is that each agency bids for a different project and the customer is often dissatisfied with the result.

Last month I read an interesting piece from Rebecca Caroe. Do you know about the 'golden question'? This is a question which reveals much more than is apparent. For example 'Do you buy your pet a christmas gift' will tell you much more about a person's relationship to their dog, and therefore about their desire to purchase (say) premium dog food, than a question about dog food ever would. 

Examples given by Rebecca relevant to our business:

What was the date of your first website?
How many times since then have you re-launched or substantially revised it?
Have you got your requirements document written?
Are you happy with your user numbers?

These questions require apparent factual answers, but reveal the degree to which the customer is serious and knowledgeable about their web presence. I am sure you can think of many more. 

Internet TV

In the summer I ran some pieces about Internet TV. I pointed out that Joost was different to other online stations because it

didn't run to a schedule and
used a peer to peer method of distribution.

Well, they are not alone now. The video on demand players for the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky are all using peer to peer technology from Kontiki (owned by US corporation Network Solutions who interestingly advertise it as an internal corporate distribution tool.)

So what?

It means that when you have downloaded and watched a program, your computer becomes a broadcasting station sending the program to other users. This is happening in the background and using up PC cycles and your bandwidth. If you are on a limited bandwidth deal with your service provider you might want to think twice before running this software. If you do run it, then (in the case of the BBC iplayer at least) you can control the peer to peer sharing. This includes stopping it from participating and stopping it being run when you start the computer.

Social networking for business

Are you a member of LinkedIn? How about Plaxo? Or Spok? Facebook? Xing? Naymz? Ryze? Zoominfo? How many business social networking websites with funny names (sorry naymz) do we need? I would suggest one. And Linkedin has been doing this for as long as I can remember and has 17 million registered users. I have a large network and it is a pretty useful site. Plaxo has always done a very useful job of keeping my address book up to date, so as far as I am concerned 'Job Done'!.

However with social networking becoming cool, a bandwagon has started.  But most are destined for the scrap heap.

 In this regard I have heard two stories.

Venture capitalists are gasping to invest in social networking sites and if you can dress yours up in this way the odds on getting funding are drastically improved. 
Don't even think of mentioning the word social networking because VCs have figured out that there is actually no money in it and will drop you like a hot potatoe.

I suspect (1) is 2007 and (2) is 2008.

From my blog

e-enablement, e-government and e-nonsense

There is a planning document issued by the land registry aimed at solicitors preparing for e-conveyancing. Section 3 goes like this

"Our preparatory research has identified that there are five possible stages in the development of IT systems in organisations.

1. You have PCs on desks which are not yet linked to each other
2. The PCs on your desks are networked to each other
3. Your business processes have been redesigned to benefit from networked PCs
4. Your system plugs into a network external to your organisation
5. You have redesigned your business to reflect the interaction of networks"

The "Realisation of potential benefits" is identified as going from low to high as you progress from 1 to 5.

This is not the first time I have seen nonsense like this coming out of government. It is misleading on so many levels, and I would like to know what sort of work they did that could be glorified by the name 'research'.

How can you assume that connecting your internal systems to an external network (i.e. the Internet) is a 'good thing'? Actually it is something to be done only if there are business benefits that over-ride the huge risks - which are not mentioned anywhere in this document. As this is aimed at conveyancers whose systems control millions of pounds of their customer's money this becomes a far from trivial issue.

News

Linkedin is opening up its network to outside developers, starting with BusinessWeek magazine.  LinkedIn is also participating in Google Inc's OpenSocial developer network that seeks to create a way for all developers to write software that will work on all platforms.

Meantime, Plaxo, which has been trying to re-invent itself as a social networking site is up for sale.

Software as a Service is a very important concept. I plan to write an issue devoted to this subject next month. Does this concept apply to office applications such as word processing? I am not convinced. But Microsoft has decided to offer something in this area - very much a hybrid as I understand it.

A lot of money is being spent trying to figure out web users interests, so appropriate ads can be targetted at them. Facebook can do it easily because it has all the data, but in a somewhat spooky development, a startup is planning to install equipment in Internet Service Providers' facilities to see what their customers are doing online. Nasty. 

Microsoft has bought MultiMap.

Google is working on an on-line encyclopedia. Another Wikipedia? Somehow I doubt it.   Wikipedia in the meantime has a problem. Its new COO has convictions for theft, drunken driving and fleeing a car accident!

China is stopping its citizens from downloading any videos from the internet, other than from state-run websites. This is the last in a long line of restrictions on freedom to come out of that regime. Never mind - let's send our prime minister out to kowtow to them - we like their cheap TVs and Clothing.

In the internet TV area, Netflix is developing a set top box to stream (maybe) HD movies direct to TV sets.

Is there nothing the guys at Google are not getting in to? In a potentially very exciting development, Google is working with Panasonic to develop an "Internet TV".  What is an "Internet TV"? I guess a stripped down PC with a good screen. Youtube is mentioned, but watching Youtube clips on your TV? 

The long-awaited search engine from Wikipedia is live.  Somehow I expected to find  its USP on the home page (http://www.wikia.com/) but all I can find out is "Wikia Search will start to change search from being proprietary, top-down, and closed. Login to learn more! ". You have to do more than that to get my demographic information, guys.