Feb

What I learnt this week..

I have been reading Clay Christensen’s book ‘How will you measure your life?’. The book could not have come to me at a better time, there is tonnes of valuable advice for those who are looking to re-define or re architect their life around balancing personal and professional life. I spent most of my last two years among highly ambitious and driven people and these qualities have had quite an infectious effect on me.

According to Clay Christensen; high potential individuals generally tend to pour personal resources like time and energy in projects that yield most tangible benefit in shortest amount of time like that promotion at workplace, or the special bonus etc. while ignoring those projects that yield highest returns in long term i.e. relationships, family and friends. Generally the relationships we have with family and close friends are going to be the most important sources of happiness in our lives. And when everything seems to be going fine, we have a tendency to put investments (time and effort) in these relationships onto a back burner while working on other seemingly important tasks and by the time serious problems arrive in those relationships, it is often too late to mend them. And rightly so, quite a few times in my life I personally have been guilty of ignoring my family, girl friend, friends cause I have been lured by the prospect of learning the next greatest theory or solving the next biggest challenge. Arguably spending time with friends or family didn’t yield me the intellectual kick that reading or learning gives me.

Most of us aspire to see ourselves as someone with a happy family, good set of close friends, responsible kids etc. When we think about all the choices we have made with our time in a week, does our family seem to come out on top? Because if the decisions we make about where we invest our blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person we aspire to be, we’ll never become that person.

The book has tons of good advice, most of which has been explained with excellent business analogies. And best part is that the book is not preachy at any level, and it is for people wanting to think about how to help themselves. A must read!

105 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

Is Social Web Threatening The Idea Of Open Web?

Since long has the web been left to itself, few rules and open access to information to everyone. Come Facebook and Twitter, there arrived a new set of rules, they have built huge information empires that only they have access to. They weren’t willing to open up this information for discovery to third parties at least for free. Consider this- Social traffic is becoming very dominant when compared to the web as a whole. Which also means the amount of information that Google is having to stay away from is mind numbing. This caught the likes of Google totally off guard, the situation is getting bad, Google would no longer be having access to highly relevant and precise social information. Google stands at a risk of becoming irrelevant as they no longer have the keys to information that keeps internet busy. This is precisely why Google was forced to build their own social garden, so as to own the social information for its search engine, while at the same time not having to be at the mercy of these new age networks. Another motivation for Google to enter social is the highly targeted advertising, which is not the subject of my discussion now.

But the worry some trend is not Google getting into social, but its the idea of web. If each of these web companies from Facebook, Twitter, Google start building their own walled gardens All the information and wealth of knowledge the millions of us create, stays with in the closed ecosystem. Each of the these networks might turn out to be huge intranets or sorts within the internet, thus controlling the access to this information. My fear is that the idea of open web is slowly, but certainly being challenged.

One might argue that the market place and competition will decide the fate of these companies in cases of abuse of their power. I would say that this is a ingenious way of looking at the issue, if each of these companies have greater incentive to keep the system closed than to keep open. How would competition address this issue? Because the whole market sees more money in closed web.

I understand this article doesn’t make as much sense with out trying to understand what a closed web will mean for all of us. I will try and write my thoughts on Open Web in my next blog.

496 days ago Short URL Comments

Blogroll/Technology

Facebook/google/internet/Open Web/Social Network/Social Web/twitter

Jan

Can Social Media’s Envy Effect Drive Innovation?

Recently I came across couple of articles on Fast Company which talk about something I have been thinking for quite some time.

The Envy Effect: How Friendly Competition Spurs Innovation
Social Media’s Envy Effect

The writer’s theory is that Social Media channels like Twitter, Facebook etc. enable a new level of transparency which allow users to constantly compare and evaluate oneself against another while Human nature’s competitiveness will eventually spur innovation, because each one of us will try to out do each other by bettering oneself. Though this seems an interesting theory, I have quite a few disagreements. The competitive nature could at best spur a debate or challenge of ideas, according to me social media envy leading to innovation is a too much of an ask.

It would be helpful to understand the nature of content on Social Media-

1. Most of the interactions that happen through social media channels are just tidbits or news, viral content or content that has engagement, amusement value etc.

2. Most of the content shared by users on these networks is not their own content, the users merely share and consume content which is created by someone else.

3. Social Media is no measure of either Performance or Quality. All the likes, comments, followers, re-tweets are more similar to TRP ratings than any measure of genuinity.

4. Social media shouts at best can at best be about attention and eye balls, so it cannot really be a scale of sophistication of a person.

My theory is that since most users are content consumers, the envy effect if it exists, drives competitive consumption rather than innovation. When I say competitive consumption, I mean users tendency to out do each in spending other say Check-in’g to expensive places, look rich etc. I believe the envy effect leads to unhealthy competitive consumption rather than friendly competition.

Any healthy competition between two people might at best lead to marginal improvement in creative user engagement and marketing tactics than innovation.

P.S: You might want to read my previous blog on Is Facebook driving Celebritization of our lives?

500 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Blogroll/Technology

consumption/envy effect/Facebook/innovate/Social/social media/twitter

Jan

Is Facebook driving Celebritization of our lives?

Humans are in competition with one other for respect/credibility which is gained through experiences, achievements & associations.

My theory is that this innate humans behavior is what is majorly driving Facebook usage. I would like to focus here on the association aspect of it.

The cleverness of Facebook’s design is that Facebook becomes a story telling exercise that glorifies consumption. Think of Facebook profile as a glossy celebrity lifestyle magazine, the only difference here is that that you create, filter, promote and sell your story/life in exchange for comments and likes.

A celebrity just broke up, this story finds it way into the gossip magazine. You get a new boyfriend, this goes on your Time line. You are found pubbing in some bar, the pictures will find its way through Facebook time line including when, who all and where. The relationship between you and your Facebook profile is similar to that of a celebrity and a Tabloid magazine.

The essential components of any celebrity lifestyle culture is

a. Celebrities
b. Brands

And Facebook is no alien to Brands, while it already has celebrities which are its users. Facebook’s UI display and content creation features make is possible to associate oneself with powerful brands like Going to ‘Starbucks’, attending ‘Coldplay’ concert, buying an expensive ‘MacBook’, Updating FB status with an ‘Android’ device etc.

Normally one wouldn’t care what phone is being used to Facebook. But this constant bombardment of details as to weather someone is using and iPhone or Windows Phone is subconsciously embedding the idea of brands and brand consciousness to users psyche. Similar to what celebrity endorsements do.

How else could one explain why people ‘check-in to places’ or ‘share what they bought’. For instance, the fact “You met your friends at Starbucks” takes precedence to “You met your friends for Coffee” is a testament to how brilliantly Facebook was designed. Facebook exploits the “Power of Brand” which I believe is what will drive their business model.

Though at its heart Facebook is deigned to network with the people you know. It is a Trojan horse, which gives an illusion of promoting your self, while in reality you are promoting the brands you are associated with. Humans constantly evaluate ”What do the things I do/own/use tell about me?” which is quite natural even in real life. Here you can easily replace things with brands, that is what Facebook is all about.

From how I see it, Facebook is a very competitive domain which thrives on promoting consumption of experiences and consumerism. On Facebook it just gets more more competitive than in real life because-

1. Scale of Social Graph
2. Nature of Facebook’s UI design
3. Human Nature

I believe extended Facebook usage will, eventually turn each one of us into a Brand Ambassadors, much like the celebrities. The only difference here none of us would be paid, while Facebook and Brands will continue to thrive at the expense of competitive consumerism aggrandized by Facebook culture.

P.S: I haven’t had time to explore and polish the whole idea much more deeply, but I will try evolve and develop this as I get to think about it more.

506 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

Why Zune failed?

Microsoft is probably one of the few companies which can not just get away with couple of bad products like Vista, they also can manage to get a stellar and solid product like Zune to never take off.

When Zune launched, people were quite excited about the whole prospect of music being social. Other than Zune, I haven’t heard any product/service talk of taking music to social experience. They came up with the whole idea of sharing 3 tracks per day from Zune to a Zune device, a social graph for music etc. The focus was too much on hardware sales and promotion than execution on social front. They tried to differentiate from Apple iTunes/iPod but didn’t work enough on execution of that differentiation. Having said that Zune as a software experience is solid.

When I look at Spotify now, it just blows my mind off, as to how well it is executed. They have the social graph of Facebook, solid web to client experience. Their ability to extend it to a Platform. On an other note isn’t it very interesting, an application that heavily relies Facebook’s platform itself is positioning itself to become a platform.

In fact there was nothing that stopped Zune from becoming another Spotify, other than Microsoft. Microsoft should have done well considering how well connected they were to Facebook.

Microsoft is weak on the web, weak when it comes to networks (of course XBox Live is an exception). When you try to build a product which was meant to be social on a weak online identity system like Live ID, it is but for obvious that the product will never gather steam. A machine with rusted part can never achieve its full potential.

In fact they have made a royal mess out of Zune now. So what exactly is Zune now?

1. Zune is a device: Not any more, they have stopped making these devices.
2. Zune is an app: It really is an app, its free on Windows Phone 7 and Windows but needs a XBox Live Gold (paid subscription) just to access the app.
3. Zune is a streaming service: This is a subscription based service. But if one wants this experience on XBox 360, you need to pay double subscription, one for Xbox Live Gold and the other for Zune pass.

MS should not have have used Zune software for Windows Phone 7 at first place. Just because Apple used iTunes for Phones, doesn’t mean that MS should also use Zune for Windows Phone 7. Apple has a successful product in iTunes and it makes sense for them to build on that. But in comparison Zune is no match for iTunes in any way to leverage it for another platform like Windows Phone 7.

We have Zune, but we also have Windows Media Player for Windows but is unavailable in Windows Phone or Xbox. And not to forget we also have Windows Media Centre which over laps with some of the functions of Zune and Media Player, WMC is available on PC and XBox, but not on Windows Phone.

Microsoft needs keep 3 things in mind while designing and building future products

1. Stop building products on systems which are weak
2. Avoid duplication of products which have similar function
3. When in need, start from scratch while scrapping or streamlining old products.

537 days ago Short URL Comments

Facebook- What it Can be! (Part 2)

They say Industrial revolution is one of a kind of an event which toppled both the economic and social structures that have been deep rooted in our societies since medieval age. If there is another event which is equally far reaching and equally impactful to world events, it is the digitization of our lives. Digitization has started as started since the age of computers and internet have transcended our lives. Art (Music, Movies, Books, Photography), Relationships (Communication, Social Interactions, Communities), Productivity (Work, Data Intelligence, Education). I cant possibly think of any aspect modern human life which hasn’t been affected or changed by the digitization.

If we look at our lives, we are being more digitally entrenched with every passing day. We communicate & connect to people digitally more often than in the past. As important as an ‘Identity’ is to a person in real world, it is equally central to a person’s digital life. Sharing of experiences, thoughts and ideas is central to humans social living. When I look at Facebook, it amazes as to what this thing is really cpable of. Facebook should try be the portal or gateway for all digital activities and interaction involving groups.

From emailing to messaging, chatting to video conferencing, sharing files to organizing your daily life (calender), online shopping to online research. Facebook has potential to solve/enhance all inter-personal or groups related activities online. Facebook with its social graph is best positioned to master the art of connecting digitally.

Here are few of the things which I think Facebook should do:

Video Conferencing: This is sort of most obvious thing for facebook to do. Video chat is a more intimate way to connect with your friends. Just think of it Facebook page covers almost everybody, you can ever think of chatting with. Next time when you want video chat with your friend, you don’t have to ask them sign up or ask your friend’s Skype Login.

File Sharing: Sharing files is one heck of a social thing. It puzzles me that, we haven’t seen a single file sharing standard emerge to become a defacto standard in the internet age. People use all sorts of tools from email to messenger, file sharing sites to torrents etc. Facebook should try to get something similar to Dropbox to make it easier for users to share files with their friends.

Messenger Client: This too like video chat is quite an obvious thing to do.

Social Music\Movie Experience: Make music & movie experiences to become more social. Like collectively watching movies and listening similar play lists. Ability to broadcast music, enable podcasting as well.

Hub for Knowledge Exchange: Facebook should top itself to be this. I would be disappointed if Facebook doesn’t go on be something more than a mere fun site to while away time. They should try to push the barrier higher, they should make it easier for people to do things like knowledge sharing, collaboration, archiving, research etc. What good is a social graph if we cant harness its power to make value creation a possibility. Few of these can actually be developed on Facebook Platform as opposed to being delivered directly by Facebook.

History tell us that online properties rise and fall more quickly than traditional software companies. The likes of AOL, Yahoo!, Orkut, MySpace are no where near their past greatness. Facebook might end up just being a fad which might just fade off. To avoid being another MySpace, Facebook continuously should add these newer experiences onto its platform to keep their audience hooked. A word of caution, Facebook should not try to be every thing for everybody, cause they run risk of users forgetting what Facebook is all about.

Also Read
Facebook- What it Can be! (Part 1)

722 days ago Short URL Comments

Blogroll/Technology

Facebook/future/Integration/internet/Social

May

Did the Age of Integrated Experience Arrive?

As much as I found Microsoft’s approach towards Windows Phone 7 refreshing, I was skeptical of such a bold approach toward its Phone OS. Since its launch Windows Phone 7 has evolved, its impressive to see a pattern of consistency while it scaled up the feature set (from the No-Do update to Mango Update). The biggest revelation of Windows Phone 7 for me is

Its not the Operating System but its what one does with it and how elegantly one can get things done.
Windows Phone 7 is less about the OS and more about how you tie all the experiences/services into a unique flow events to achieve a task.
App Connect, The People Hub, The Live tiles, Threads, Groups, Local Scouts, Games Hub, Music+Video Hub are unique to WP7.

The uniqueness of the above features is that all of them are focused on a task at hand. If we look closely, its interesting to see that WP7 has partnered tightly with services like Facebook, Twitter to bring those experiences to the core of Operating System experience. I don’t want to get into the details of how each of these features work, but just think of it as a bringing down the richness available in each of these services to the heart of Operating System. (unlike throwing in 10 different apps/services with out any logical connection between them)

The more closely I look at Windows Phone 7 and the design philosophy behind it, the more similarities I see between WP7 and Bing! Yes that right Bing search engine. So lets try to understand Bing Search, what exactly is Bing’s approach to search?

Its not about which search engine one uses, Its not about the 10 blue links returned by the search engine to a query. Its about what you do with those results to get things done.
Bing search engine is less about site results and more about how the search engine ties in unique services/web experiences into a quick summary or collective intelligence of aggregated data, to achieve a purpose.
Bing’s Flight Price Predictor, Visual Search, Bing Places, Bing Social Search (Facebook Integration), Bing’s Live Tiles (in association with web partners)

If we take a holistic view of Bing search engine, it has been about Search Experience and partnerships. Just like Windows Phone 7, Bing search has been about services and collective intelligence of richness over the web baked into core search experience (unlike the 10 blue links on screen approach) . In way Bing & Windows Phone 7 are quite similar, both of them are task focused. On the phone it was a melange of applications/services tied together, on the search engine it was services/partner data fused closely. Considering how both similar both the design philosophies are, its only natural to see them being fused to give a unique central smart phone experience .

We have not seen such an approach towards Web Search or Phone Operating system (like Bing or WP7) often in the past. I think this is one such example of bold experimentation, if proven successful could force us to rethink the design principles & philosophies of other products like operating systems etc.

So did the Age of Integrated Experience of Services/Applications Arrive?

728 days ago Short URL Comments

Blogroll/Technology

Bing/Facebook/microsoft/Phone/Windows Phone 7

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