REVISED AGAIN:
Alek informs me that he really is up to amazing X10 cam tricks with lights and inflating Homers despite the fact that it was a hoax back in 2002. It really is amazing then.
REVISED:
Alek Komarnitsky has (not!?) set up a remarkable use of remote online control at his house for Halloween, with 3 webcams, light switches, and inflatables controlled by the viewers. Amazing. NOT Amazing.
Amazing!
Washington Post piece suggests Myspace may be in trouble as teens migrate from there to Facebook, which until a month ago was a college socializing website but now covers the globe. I’m not sure Facebook will be the endpoint though. Seems to me that the ‘need’ for a social network separate from the internet network is a transitional thing. What we’ll see eventually are socializing applications/gadgets/routines that will collect information from everybody’s online activities and disperse the info in ways over which we will have a fair amount of control.
For example as I write this blog entry (or do anything online) I should be able to click a button and have all the content dump into all my other web “spaces”. (This actually happens at Facebook already and kudos to them for the blog import feature).
Seems that any writing I want to make public should be placed in any and all appropriate places and be completely searchable from many search engines within minutes. We are a long way from that but I see social networks as a transitional form, not a final form, of online socializing, content creation, and content distribution.
Complicating the commercial analysis of the migration is the fact that users of Myspace are getting older, and probably are less likely to shift once they have established themselves on a social network.
However, it would seem to me that the most profound aspect of social networking has not really surfaced yet and that’s the fact that people will become increasingly frustrated with the fact that their Myspace / Facebook web pages and web views are primarily and overwhelmingly benefiting those companies rather than the content producers.
Heavy online users often don’t even realize that simply surfing around online and composing new and original content is a key component of all those juicy ad dollars flowing to many in the food chain like Google and Myspace and Facebook, but not to the owner of a Facebook or Myspace page.
Wow, Microsoft Vista has a very slick looking blog up here that mimics the look and feel of the new Vista which, for reasons I don’t understand, really had a great look at MIX06. I think it was simply the use of very appealing full screen pix in a copycat move on the new MAC Operating Systems. Dropping in MS LIVE sidebar gadgets (and hopefully Google and Yahoo gadgetry as well) will allow a user to have a wonderfully customized and functional desktop – looking forward to that.
I also really want to give them kudos for making registration (needed to comment) very simple (name and email). MS registrations tend to be so complex I actually almost left thinking “I’m not going to go through a 5 minute registration just to leave a comment!”.
Robert Scoble’s got the Zune Scoop direct from Microsoft in the video over at Scobleizer.
Assuming that the Zune is as good or somewhat better than the IPOD, as appears to be the case, this is shaping up to be a very interesting test of whether Microsoft can overcome the branding “momentum” of Apple and IPOD, nothing short of a spectacular success.
I’d think timing will matter a lot. If Zunes, coming out November 14, sweep into the Christmas scene with a bang and lots of positive press it’ll bode well for the long term prospects.
If the Zune song sharing feature takes off it could signal a turning point in how the big players change the way they integrate the consumer into the process of selling to other people. I predict that the company that most effectively integrates user content and user revenue sharing will be the big winner this decade, and that it’s still anybody’s game.
Rumor has it that Zune will encourage song sharing with revenue share to the “user song promoter” who sends a song to friends to listen to free and then gets some money if they buy it. MS certainly would be wise to cut the users in on the profits.
As I recently noted it’s surprising how users still don’t demand more of a piece of the action, though not surprising how Google, YouTube, Myspace, Yahoo, MSN, and other user content collection points, the key beneficiaries of this arrangement, have not done much to innovate in that direction.
Good for MS to break that ice. Users, collectively, hold all the *future* revenue streams in their wallets. Therefore they could hold most of the power. It’s about time they used it.
More at CrunchGear
A nice ZDnet interview with Google’s Adam Sah suggests the increasing importance gadgets will play in the online landscape. I met a brilliantly enthusiastic Adam at Mashup Camp back in February when all this was just starting to take off and it’s great to see Google is now allowing the gadgets to be used on any website.
In March, at Microsoft’s MIX06, the innovative LIVE team was also very bullish on their LIVE Gadgets which clearly are destined to become a major focus over there as well.
Gadgets create some very interesting complications in terms of website stats and monetization. Google has not focused on monetizing this environment yet and it will be interesting to see how they approach that, though it’s easy to predict they’ll create some revenue share with the gadget publisher to keep everybody happy.
The legal fun may come from compatibility issues with IE7 and Vista. Microsoft would have some incentive to prefer their own sidebar gadgets, which will run on the Vista Desktop, to whatever Google gadgets are developed for that same niche. Yet Google as always is ahead of the marketing curve. Pushing gadgets to be compatible with websites, and not just those with Google desktop installed, may diminish what would have been a big MS advantage with Vista.
Hey – that’s a bit too cynical on my part – I think as they often have done Google is just expanding on a great concept that happens to be a good marketing route as well.
It’s great to see Adam Sah’s Google Gadgetry project move ahead with today’s announcement that Gadgets can be created to work on any website. Adam was at both Mashup Camp 1 and Mashup Camp 2 and it was neat to see how a little project had become a big project over a period of only 4 months. It’s likely now to become a gigantic project as Yahoo, Google, and MSN vie to maximize their online presence on, within, and interacting with other websites.
This announcement suggests to me even more strongly that the browser and desktop are going to move in the direction of becoming a place populated by many different gadgets – basically mini applications – and users will organize their offline and online experience using them.
This bodes significant changes in our typical website model as people slice and dice their sites and gadgets in the coming web 2.0 world where information flows freely and according to the needs, demands, the stupid and the smart whims of the users.
Matt was pointing out something I’m noticing about using the computer to find information you *used to find* by going to yellow pages, a calculator, or other gadgets.
We broke our outdoor thermometer painting the house, and just a few minutes ago this forced me to look online for the temperature. I’d assumed I’d have to settle for the temp in larger cities of Medford or Ashland which are each about 6 miles away, but even here in rural Oregon there is a weather station less than a mile away from my house reporting continuously.
Thus I no longer need a thermometer at the house to know the temp to within 0.1 degrees and by using that virtual tool I get other info I could only have with a weather station (and meteorologist!) in my yard such as precipitation, humidity and forecasts.
Claudia Mitchell lost her arm in a Motorcycle Accident, but the Rehabilitation institute of Chicago has created a prosthetic arm for Claudia that moves, *controlled by her own thoughts*. This is done by implanting the arm nerve endings in her chest wall where she can control them using her mind. Incredible.
So, what happens when we can start to control a computer cursor with our mind and have web browser enabled eyeglasses? Wow, we’d be …. smart.
Note to middle sized companies that have exhibit staff – you’d probably be surprised to see them in action. Although I’m usually impressed by the people from Google and Yahoo who are typically well informed, enthusiastic, and polite, many of the technology exhibit folks seem poorly informed about the marketplace and too focused on their own pitch and “sale”.
I’d guess that the return on investment is negative for all but a few exhibitors, though perhaps the leads they get at an event like SES San Jose – the world’s top Search related conference – are golden and therefore hugely valuable?
The good news for me is that I now understand *very* clearly that outsourcing any search optimization I want to do would probably be a waste. Some of these places don’t even keep up with the freshest SEO news from Matt , WMW , or even SES. There are some exceptions to this SEO ignorance by SEO companies. I’m always very impressed with Bruce Clay . His approaches reflect recent SEO information. Bruce is always very well informed and helpful even to non-clients. Another exception would be freelance guys like Aaron Wall of SEObook fame. However, I’d say there are only a few hundred people in the world who know enough about SEO to make their insight more valuable than, for example, a clever high schooler who spends a few days absorbing information from Matt Cutts, the Google Guidelines, and Danny Sullivan posts. I’m increasingly skeptical that time spent at WMW and SES forums does more than create noise and confusion. This idea was supported even at a conference party by comments from the real engineers at MSN and Google who post at WMW as “MSNdude” and “GoogleGuy”.
Joe Duck 