Thu 11 Dec 2008
It's fun to play with others! Um, that sounded dirty. But I must thank Isaac for giving me a heads up about a "programming is like sex" meme on Twitter. 'Twas quite fun!
And I think this phrase originated from Peter Harkins way back in 2006. Funny stuff! (For geeks, mostly. Everybody else is going, "these guys really gotta get laid.")
I think I'm starting to enjoy this Twitter thing…
Mon 8 Dec 2008
Hop! Onto the Twitter bandwagon I go. I just created a Twitter account.
Well, I actually created it a while ago, but just decided to follow a bunch of friends and tech industry professionals last night. Partly to understand the potential of this new technology and social media/communication method, and partly to see what the heck my friends are up to.
Then, suddenly, amidst a few reciprocal follows from friends, I got a bunch from strangers. Wow. And I haven't even made a single tweet yet! I feel so… faux importante!
I wonder what makes a person blindly follow another person? Especially when that person hasn't made a single tweet yet?
Well, I suppose I answered my own question by following these "tech industry professionals." But then, I took a peek at each of their twitter streams to see if they mostly made insightful industry-specific tweets, or random personal junk. (It was a mix of both.) I did see a friend who only made three or four tweets ever, so I didn't bother following him.
Who are you, my new Twitter follower strangers?
Wed 19 Nov 2008
Yea, okay, so that title is a little dramatic. Blame Douglas MacMillan on it.
He recently penned an article for BusinessWeek (MHP) entitled, "The End of Instant Messaging (As We Know It)" that discussed the rise of in-browser instant messaging clients like those used on Facebook and Gmail (GOOG).
These IM clients differ from traditional IM clients in that they are, well, in the web browser. Embedded in a website, so to speak. As you type on your friends' Walls and Facebook Stalk your secret crushes, you can get a little message in the bottom-right corner of the page. It only exists while you're on the Facebook website though. If you go check your stock quotes on another site, that little message in the bottom-right corner will disappear.
Also, you don't have to download anything. Or sign up with another account. It's just there for you automatically, as long as you have a Facebook account.
With traditional IM clients like AOL (TWX) Instant Messenger and Yahoo! (YHOO) Messenger, you have to download some software and create an account. It's a little more tedious, but lots of people have done it already. Plus, it doesn't go away as you check out different websites.
So what's the big deal? MacMillan pointed out that traditional IM clients have been seeing a decline in usage. "Instead of spending time with these old-fashioned chat windows," he writes, "Web users are flocking to sites like Facebook and Google's Gmail, where instant messaging tools are more closely embedded in what they are doing."
That's a good point. Sites like Facebook already have a person's attention. Instead of asking my friend, who's using AIM to download YM so I can chat with him, why not just send him an instant message via Facebook (assuming he's got a Facebook account, of course)?
MacMillan doesn't supply any data to back up the claim that the decline of traditional IM usage is due to in-browser IM usage, but anecdotally, I have seen an increase in friends using in-browser IMs. The first time I received a Facebook IM, I thought it was some kind of ad. Nowadays, I receive lots of Facebook IMs, some from friends already on my traditional IM lists, others from friends not on my lists.
Those latter messages I've grown to appreciate. Since I don't have them on my traditional IM lists, Facebook has given me an easy way to chat with them. In addition to connecting me with long-lost friends whom I can now email, I can also chat with them in real-time without needing their YM or AIM username.
(Sure, I could call them up too. And I have in a few cases. But sometimes the spontaneity of a random IM chat is kinda nice too.)
Which brings me to an issue that concerns me greatly. I am a power user of IMs. I use IMs frequently for work purposes. Since I work with people across different geographies, IM has become an important business tool for immediate conversations. Phone is just as good, but when you need to share a URL, IM is much better.
Also, IMs offer a log of chat history. I faithfully archive all of my conversations in case I need to refer to information shared over past IMs. In order to do this, I need a client that has archive ability.
Yahoo! Messenger does. And since it allows MSN (MSFT) Messenger contacts to be added, I get to archive conversations with users of both clients. Gtalk does too. And since it allows AIM contacts to be added, I get to archive conversations from both of them.
Unfortunately, Facebook does not archive conversations. I haven't had any business-related conversations on Facebook yet, so that hasn't been a problem. But what if I do? What if a client is available on Facebook and decides to chat me over there. How can I keep a record of that conversation without having to copy & paste it? And what about other websites? If they incorporate in-browser IM, will they have archives?
That's just one problem. Another is having chat archives all over the place. Already, I have one with YM and another with Gtalk. 37signals has a great collaboration tool for small businesses called Campfire which contains its own archives as well. While it's nice that they all keep a record of my conversations, searching through all of these sources is a major pain in the patootey.
What I need is an IM archive aggregator of some sort. Not more in-browser or out-of-browser IM archives. But a way to search through all of one's IM archives.
Attached to this suggestion is the natural idea of an IM aggregator - a central IM client that allows you to sign in to multiple services in one place. That, fortunately, has been addressed. On the traditional IM client side, there's Pidgin, Jabber, Trillian, and tons more.
On the in-browser side, there's Meebo, Soashable, ILoveIM.com, and tons more. (Not to be left behind, traditional IM clients have also created in-browser versions: AIM Express, Yahoo! Web Messenger, and MSN Web Messenger. Gtalk was released as a downloadable client and in-browser app at the same time.).
That's a whole lotta choices. A whole lotta. Looking at them all is kind of like going through the cereal aisle of the supermarket, except that these require login accounts and passwords and no milk or bowls or… ah, nevermind, bad analogy.
That's a whole lotta choices. All of them solve the problem of having multiple IM accounts. But now that Facebook and other companies are releasing their own IM systems, we're going to run into the problem of having multiple IM accounts again. Great. Thanks Facebook.
Having a proliferation of choices isn't uncommon though, especially not for new markets. Over time, leaders will emerge. Hopefully, global standards too. The current leader, Meebo, is already doing something that I hope will continue:
They just got Flixster to offer Meebo's in-browser IM client as a feature. This means Meebo is moving into the IM provider business. Since they already offer an archive, any in-browser IMs I get from Flixster will appear in my Meebo account too. Neat!
Now if Facebook integrated Meebo, how cool would that be? Or - even better - if Facebook integrated Gtalk, then I'd be able to combine my Facebook chats with my existing Gtalk & AIM archives. Oh what a happy day that would be.
And not just for me, but perhaps for Facebook and others as well. They'd be able to outsource all of their IM development & maintenance to a IM provider. Sort of like a Disqus for IM, perhaps? (Not sure if that analogy works either, but you know what I mean.)
I'm guessing the folks at Meebo are already thinking about this. I wonder if the Gtalk people are too. If not, I hope so. An IM aggregator that works both in-browser and as a downloadable client, and can be leveraged on third-party websites, and has a common, searchable archive would be totally awesome. And I'd feel fine…
Fri 29 Aug 2008
Oh well, had to happen sooner or later. Yahoo!'s (YHOO) second experiment with social networking, Yahoo! Mash, is officially shutting down on September 29, 2008.
The first experiment, Yahoo! 360, has already shut down. Sort of. It still exists at its URL. But Yahoo isn't actively developing it anymore and is quietly transitioning it to "a more integrated Yahoo! 'profile' experience."
I know the developers on both projects. Even managed some of them once. It's kind of sad to see this happen. Not surprising at all, just a little sad, because I know how much hard work these developers (and the entire teams) put into these projects.
Unfortunately, the market just didn't take to them. Both arrived late onto the social networking scene. Both didn't do everything the market wanted, and did too much of the things the market didn't want. And both carried the Yahoo brand, which was good and bad. Good in that thousands of Yahoo fans jumped on and loved its fledgling integration with the rest of the Yahoo network. Bad in that Yahoo didn't seem as cool to the MySpace (NWS) and Facebook crowds.
It was great that the management team green lighted these two products originally. Too bad they didn't green light them sooner or give them more resources to make better products. Both had big dreams. Seeing their full visions materialize would have been pretty cool. But alas, they were not to be.
Rest in Peace, Yahoo! Mash - and Yahoo! 360. You were interesting experiments. I hope somebody learned something from them.
Wed 30 Jul 2008
I'm sad. The makers of Scrabulous have decided to disable their game for all North American users. Sniff.
This is the result of a struggle with Hasbro (HAS) and a suit filed against the Brothers Agarwalla—Scrabulous' founders—for violating copyright law under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Fans of Scrabulous are now in an uproar. Don Reisinger of Masable says this move makes Hasbro look stupid. The official SCRABBLE® Facebook app is littered with comments like, "Boo, hiss. Way to alienate your corporation!" and "I'm going to extend my boycott to all Hasbro toys, etc." And a campaign has been started on The Point, calling for Hasbro to work with Scrabulous instead of shutting it down (though there only 6 members as of this post).
This has led to a great deal of negative PR, especially in the blogosphere. At a quick glance, I see a "RIP Scrabulous", a "No, I Do Not Want to Play Scrabble", and a "F U, Hasbro. F U."
On the other side of the equation are people defending Hasbro's actions. Or at least raising the issue of copyright infringement as a business benefit: is it "worthwhile to go after pirates, thieves, and copyright-infringers, or… simply let them be and consider it free advertising", writes Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb.
And… I don't see that many other bloggers supporting Hasbro in my Technorati search. Oh well.
All of this drama makes you wonder why Hasbro didn't just offer to buy Scrabulous, right? Well, apparently they did. While Hasbro and Electronic Arts (ERTS) collaborated to build the new SCRABBLE® app, RealNetworks (RNWK)—another company given the rights to create online Hasbro games—has been working with Scrabulous to "bring the official Scrabble game to Facebook users", writes Heather Timmons of the NY Times. (Funny, I thought that's what Hasbro and EA just did.) Furthermore, according to Peter Kafka of Silicon Valley Insider, an offer has been put out to & rejected by the Scrabulific Duo:
The hold up? Money. A source familiar with the negotiations say Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla want too much.
What's the gap? The brothers say they're generating $25,000 a month, or $300,000 a year in revenue. A 10x-20x multiple on that would make Scrabulous worth $3-$6 million, but for argument's sake let's say they'll have a hockey stick growth curve, and that their game project could be worth more than $10 million.
Sound fair? Maybe. But our source says the brothers want a "multiple of several times that" $10 million, and the four corporations they're negotiating with think that's ridiculous.
If that's true, then that's perhaps a bit optimistically presumptuous of the Brothers Agarwalla. $10M is a tidy sum for what is technically a copyright infringement.
In the meantime, to satisfy your Scrabble fix, you'll need to add the new SCRABBLE® Facebook app (or the SCRABBLE beta Facebook app; I'm not quite sure which one is the official official one). Unfortunately—oops—the app isn't working. Instead, you're slapped with a big fat "We'll be back up shortly. We're working on some tech problems and Scrabble will be ready to play as soon as possible!" message. This isn't their fault though. Alex Pham of the Los Angeles Times reports that this is the result of a hacker attack. (Perhaps from some die-hard Scrabulous fans?)
All of this amounts to a major catch-22 for Hasbro. Fighting against Scrabulous means loads of negative PR and possible damage to their business. Aligning with Scrabulous means setting a potentially damaging precedent to their business. (Yossarian lives!)
The Discussion Boards of both SCRABBLE apps are full of rants and more rants. And just how many pro-Scrabulous Facebook groups are there? Over 500, with Save Scrabulous clocking in at over 47 thousand members so far (including me). Wow.
The Scrabble board game may have enjoyed a surge in popularity due to Scrabulous, though it's impossible to confirm this since Hasbro isn't releasing their sales figures. I wonder if those sales will drop with this negative fallout.
However, I totally understand Hasbro's actions against Scrabulous. If they supported Scrabulous, they may unleash a disastrous tidal wave. Say Hasbro purchased Scrabulous for $10M, this web business formula could have emerged:
And if you didn't gain spectacular popularity, the offline game's parent company would probably just ignore you, like Hasbro has of dozens of Scrabble knock-offs already on the web. Lots of upside for very little downside! Dollars galore!
Either way, Hasbro is sure in a pickle. In that context, I can see why they'd opt to shut down Scrabulous. Months from now, as the public backlash dies down, Facebook users may begin adding the new SCRABBLE apps to quench their Scrabble thirst, and perhaps forget about this whole ordeal. It's possible. Take jetBlue, for example. Back in February 2007, a severe ice storm took down over a thousand of their flights, leading to a major PR black-eye. Since then, they've rebounded from that episode. And if that's not a great example, take Martha Stewart and the ImClone scandal in 2004. Despite being jailed, she's back and arguably as strong as ever.
Hasbro could have handled the situation a little smoother though. But I doubt they had a web-savvy/social-media-savvy team of PR specialists on board (and if they did, WTF?). I would have recommended that they reach out to the community in some way. Maybe to solicit suggestions, maybe to implore an understanding. Even if people argued against them, just having a genuine public voice can sometimes earn a lot of empathy. At the very least, it could have softened the blow. This could have also come from Electronic Arts and RealNetworks, the makers of the online SCRABBLE apps.
Personally, I'm bummed as hell that Scrabulous is gone. I had quite a few games going there. I wish a compromise could have been reached, though I wouldn't have the foggiest how that would have looked.
R.I.P., Scrabulous.
Wed 9 Jul 2008
You know what reminds me of that clueless little kid who always gets the joke after everyone else has gotten it, laughed, and moved on to another topic?
Hasbro (HAS) and Electronic Arts (ERTS). (No offense, guys.)
They just announced that they are going to be launching a Scrabble Facebook application later this month. Too bad everyone's been playing Scrabulous for the last year.
"Millions of Facebook users who have been playing it are unlikely to make the switch," writes Caroline McCarthy of CNet. "Who says they'll even notice the presence of the new game?" Too true, too true.
Technically, Electronic Arts is going to be the one actually building this app, since they own the rights to the digital versions of the board game. The rights to the board game seem to be a bit convoluted. While Hasbro owns it here in the US, Mattel owns it elsewhere. Weird.
To be fair, the dynamics of large publically-traded companies make them slower to react to new phenomenon like this. They probably already have a wish list of a thousand things they want to, and need to do. And a Facebook Scrabble game just wasn't on that list.
That doesn't change my opinion that they missed a really cool social media marketing opportunity though. They missed it, and a smaller player—Scrabulous—beat them to it.
Thu 12 Jun 2008
To the non-web marketers out there: If you have any teenagers in the house, you can bet they're on Facebook or MySpace (NWS). But did you know that, for the sake of your business, perhaps you should be too?
This past February, Entrepreneur Magazine included a piece about one small business owner's unexpected findings through Facebook:
After Alicia Rockmore's Ann Arbor, Michigan-based organizational products company, Buttoned Up Inc. scored shelf space at Target, Rockmore began doing research to keep the big red bull's-eye happy. A friend invited her to join social networking site Facebook, so she created an individual profile touting her business. She hit pay dirt when she found an existing group of Target customers on Facebook.
"They talk about what they like, what they hear is coming from Target," says Rockmore, 42. "It's like free market research."
That's my favorite price. Free. Aw yea.
This is part of a new phenomenon called "social media marketing", where you use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to reach out to current and potential customers. Sites like this aren't just for teenagers anymore. If used correctly, they can augment the power of word-of-mouth marketing and make your brand louder and stronger.
It's a tricky new field though. If you come across too corporate and have no personality, or have a truly awful product, it can backfire. Some companies have faced harsh criticism and negative publicity doing this.
That's why Rockmore's approach is a safe middle ground. Even though she created a profile to promote her business (which can attract loyal fans as well as competitors and detractors), she didn't see the value of Facebook until she found a group of consumers similar to the demographic she was trying to reach.
There are hundreds of groups on Facebook. All are formed by motivated people covering any number of topics, hobbies, and interests, such as:
There's bound to be a group that fits your target demographic on Facebook. Once you create an account and find a few relevant groups, join them and monitor their discussions for a couple of weeks. Get a feel for the temperament of the participants. You may be able to gleam lots of information just by reading their rants and raves.
When it comes time for more direct information, you can be more proactive and write a message to the group. Ask them for their opinion or suggestions. Be careful not to come across too corporate though, or you might be labeled as working for "The Man." Also keep in mind basic netiquette, which are a set of informal do's and don'ts in online communication.
You may be thinking, "That's great for Rockmore, but my customers don't use Facebook." If that's true, then you're right, don't waste your time or brain cells. But if there are potential customers sitting there right now, tweaking their Facebook profiles and complaining about your products, then maybe it's worth it.
Currently, about 84% of Facebook's members are between 14 and 26 years of age, according to MarketingHub.info. About 30% of their members have a household income of over $100,000, according to iMedia Connection. There's some more data on Emergence Media too.
Does that sound like a demographic you want to reach? If so, then perhaps, for the sake of your business, you should get an account. And if you're not sure how, just ask that teenager of yours.
Wed 12 Mar 2008
Thoughts about business, technology, the web, & entrepreneurship from Mike Lee.