LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner has been quoted in the Business Insider, stating that users won't find time for Google+.
It would stop at that, I would call him a fool. But then, later in the article, he mentions that, for Google+ to work, another social platform will have to fall.  Let me tell you who will fall and what to get from it.

 

Let's start with the cool stuff: video, chat, mobile, and yeah... the circles.

The circles are one of the smartest dumb idea I have seen so far: A graphic version of Facebook lists. Nothing innovative, it's just easy to use.
You hear, Facebook? E.a.s.y.

Video and chats come next, while FB chat is heavy and erratic, Google serves us with their excellent implementation of the XMPP protocol we all know via gTalk. On the interface level, the chat is not intrusive and actually lets you CHOSE when you want to discuss. And it does it with video.

Where it surprises: 'sparks' and 'incoming', or the end of friending.

Sparks are a good way to get the information you need based on your interest, while 'incoming' will show you the streams of people who're following you but you're not yet following.
These features are already powerful when looked at individually, supported by the Google's long experience in feed reading and struggles with privacy and/or data relevance. When combined, they simply mean the end of Friending. Which is not a bad thing.

Where it bites: integration.

Google has everything: Search engine, e-mail, chat, apps, browser, calendar, maps and places, news reader, document viewers and more...
Now, that would be really stupid not to take advantage of all this pre-existing material, right?
What you can be sure of, is that Google+ intends to become a full fledged OS and Web integrated platform, stretching from enterprise integration to social gaming.
Just take a minute to look at their already killer notification system, accessible from their search engine or from gMail, you'll see what I mean.

Where it hurts: mobile

One circle to bring them all and into the darkness bind them.
One little mobile application, a framework to link G+ to android apps and there you go, you've got yourself an all in one solution.

Facebook and Twitter: punched in the face.

You don't need friending on Twitter, but the looking for relevant data is a brain torture. You like your good old Facebook, but not only it's getting more crowded with adds everyday, it also gets more complicated and, come on, it's so 2007.
The truth is, Google+ has the potential to do everything Twitter and Facebook do, but better, with a cleaner interface and all the additions listed above.

The coutdown: RIP, RIM.

Research In Motions has been launching betas of his social framework for BBM for a while now, and we're not seeing anything consitant yet.
This is too bad for them, since they don't have anything to offer save their 'exclusive' enterprise and messaging services.
Their primary mistake was trying to do it alone, sticking to their own closed systems and proprietary hardware. While they were trying to reinvent the wheel with the Playbook and their new not-so-innovative-anymore social feats, they jumped-in way too late, with too little to offer. Google just went around their strategy and did the exact opposite, offering a comprehensive app suite available for everyone.

I don't see them getting out of that situation unless they do something drastic, such as opening BBM or porting it to other platforms.

Collective Asses given a life lesson:

Trial and error. That's about it. We've been repeatedly laughing while pointing at Orkut, Wave and Buzz while big G was jubilating, watching the critics pile up in the shape of a nice how-to for there future product.
My skeptical self still believes (as, apparently, they do) in the 'wait and see' approach, but G+ is adding a million users a day and has a surprising level of maturity for a product so new. I see a huge success, cake for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

For those who don't know, an API is a kind of middle-man interface between to programs, so they can communicate with each other.
For instance,  a Facebook app for iPhone and the Facebook website communicate via Facebook API.

RIM announced during the last Devcon Asia they would open Blackberry Messenger API later this February.

Here is why I think it could be game changing:

Let's start with some facts and figures:

• The key features of BlackBerry services are push email, integration with enterprise services and instant messaging
• BBM offers features pretty similar to social media services (photo sharing, calendar, etc...)

• BBM is used by more than 33 millions users worldwide
• RIM, by now, ties with apple when it comes to the amount of sales (behind Nokia with ± 14 millions units end 2010)
• The brand is available from approximately 565 carriers and distribution partners in 175 countries

Now with the crystal ball.

A daring bet

Where will the new users register, and how?
Through BES (paid) only, that would mean they would allow a one way only communication, potentially discouraging potential buyers who would have opted for their products for the IM service.
Making it free would mean even more potential loss, and the possibility for the BBM protocol to fall into oblivion.

Both methods are risky. Why taking this risk?

RIM could be the new Yahoo!

If now yahoo claims to have around 260 millions users, we all know where they're at.
Their innovation strategy toward the public as a disaster, and they are resting on their main services awaiting an epiphany that might as well never come.

RIM, though,  is in a similar situation as the early Yahoo!, with a powerful e-mail service (even if only push) and a fast growing IM protocol, but with the enormous advantage of being already well implemented in the mobile market and enterprise culture.

So yes, RIM could very well be the new Yahoo!, leading IM and e-mail for the next decade.

RIM can take on Apple and Google, frontally.

RIM can go where Apple and Google can't.

On the mobile market, they tie with Apple and best Google, that's no secret already.
But when you think about it, they have an advantage on one decisive aspect: the social factor of their user base.
Google has been desperately trying to get social with the failed Wave and Buzz experiments, and Yahoo! as done... practically nothing about it.
RIM has integrated many social features in their messenger already, statuses, media sharing and commenting, message broadcasting, and, of course, groups.
That is to say, BBM user base is social-media ready by nature, and already has a platform.

What could they do with it?

At that point, everything is but speculations. But there are some possibilities:

Opening the API in an OAuth kind of way (single shared log-in for several services) would provide a centralized and portable ID to access multiple services. Data monitoring, from that point on, looks like a logical source of revenue/information.

Setting up a persistent social platform based on BBM features has a lot of potential.
With their e-mail client, RIM has shown its expertise as an content aggregator, and with such a user base the occasion is golden for them to become both a provider and a connector in the social media field, especially since they already have a whole ecosystem ready to sprout around it.

2011 promises to be very exciting.

I have already introduced the topic with that post. But I think that through all my perusing, musing and meditation, I have found some more factors to why the SNS trend can actually be seen as a bubble ready to burst. Here:

Wrong values and unqualified ROI

From the top of my skull, that's the very first thing coming in, and the topic about which I am the most vehement.

Wrong values because now everything seems to be quantified by either the amount of followers, likes, or facebook friends you get.
The numbers have to be huge, since the bet is  "if you are visible to many, some might buy"; unfortunately I barely believe in that approach, and I'm probably not the only one.
It was probably true a couple of years ago, but now so many have jumped in the bandwagon it derails at every turn, being visible to many means taking part in an infomercial flood invading too many time lines.

Now, I see a huge bunch of consultants and experts wanting to jump at my throat, screaming that the results are quantifiable if you know where to start.
Indeed they are. We hear from the revenue generated from online campaigns. Generated by the ads agencies.
The ROI of the actual advertisers though, is unknown.
I'm not talking about isolated cases, I'm talking about a global survey and real figures; what I want to read is " n% of of the companies advertising on Twitter experienced a ROI of n% during the last 6 month"

Too much snake oil

I'm not saying that every SNS consultant is a fake, but many are still pretty inexperienced, or plain useless.
As a result, many companies are lured into thinking that:

- They can sell online without previous authority (not everyone is called Starbucks)
- They can sell absolutely everything online ( PR is different from sales)
- Having lots of followers/likes/friends is a proof of success (you can buy followers in some forums)

Then, confusing talks about the results come into the game, and mess it up a little more. Take this article for instance.

What do they mean by "countless donations",  "increased their traffic by 300%" or "sales bump of 20%" ?
If I have 1 visitor, having 3 by the next day will be a 300% increase.  Be specific!

What kind of trust do you want to build with these stats? Seriously?
What is economy based on, by the way? Oh yeah, trust.

The balance is fragile

Platforms, users, advertisers and third parties are tied in a very tight way.
The platform depends on the users, drives its traffic through third parties, and exposes it to the advertisers.

If the platform fails, everything is muted
If the users get bored, everybody loses interest in the platform (no content generated)
It third parties are not competitive enough, users will get bored (but then again, what if the platform fails them?)
If the advertisers stop advertising, the platform can't maintain itself (and in the other hand if the "lesser" and noisy ads smother the users, they will get bored)

The not so funny fact being that Facebook and Twitter are in a position of quasi monopole. There is nowhere else to go right now.
Does it mean that investors and companies will keep on pumping in money and effort until someone panics? I hope not.

The topic is being discussed

As I said earlier, economy is based on trust.
You'll always find a base of skeptics being grumpy about mostly every topic you can imagine, that's given. But in the middle of the current SNS fever, articles about disappointments and doubt about the real value of the system (like this one) are becoming more common, and that's not really a good sign.

What can we do so it doesn't burst?

What I have in mind is pretty simple. Diversify, leave more space to the competition, stop advertising stuff no one care about, and start treating social media like, yes, media and not like some universal solution to all advertising problems.
The internet is not limited to Twitter and Facebook, it is a mine of innovation, it's time to remember it and get back to making stuff.

Burstingly yours.
Danny.

Now, we're seriously stepping in a phase where the mobile broadband integration has become a sine qua non requirement, and we're hearing about the war between Google and Apple to milk the biggest jug out of mobile customers. But I wonder... is the traditional ad system worth it when going mobile or is there an alternative?
Location based advertising and partnerships are the sanest answer coming to my mind, here is why:

Ads in a matchbox?

In all my browsing experience, the only time I have clicked on ads were accidental. But it never turned out to be a real problem, tabbed navigation, mouse, big screen... all these help when you get tricked into visiting that awesome money-making-twitting-towel's website.
Now, on a mobile, that's pretty different, the screen is small, the fonts are small, and as long as I admire the efforts put into mobile web browsers I can't really say it's the best way to enjoy the web...

What about ROI?

When you try googling anything about the topic, you end up with a huge amount of articles describing how Facebook and Google are making money out selling ads and even more money out of selling even more ads for mobile. What about the return on investment of those who actually buy the ad space?
Please send me a link, I have yet to find anything that's realistic about advertiser's ROI.

Ads through apps?

That's another thing. I've seen ads embedded in apps I use for my mobile. I will never click on them simply because doing so would open my browser. I don't need more lag than I already have, thank you very much, and then again, the small screen would make it as comfortable as gnawing on my toes.
I won't worry about it too much though, Twitter has announced they wouldn't allow ads from their third party apps anymore. Nice for them to secure their own channel (tweetup), but not so  nice for many a developer's business plan.

Back to the real world, sns advertisers could choke on the red pill.

What seems to be profitable, then? Coupons. Location based advertisement.
Where does it bring us back to? Traditional advertising.
Will it work? Yes, Yes and YES.

Why?

1) It brings direct rewards to the consumer
2) It's directly relevant to the user
3) It's less intrusive

Am I the only one to think that? No.

Apple did forbid developers to implement location based ads, they want to keep the candies for themselves.
Google battled and won over location based ads.
Yahoo! is so desperate to enter the battle it offered to buy foursquare, and just bought Koprol.

I'm peeping at the crystal ball again, and here is a forecast for the month to come.
Of course I could be completely wrong, but at least that's good discussion material.

Look at what the others are doing:

I've written about it already in my chapters about the "Internet Wars" (there is a tag for it, if you want to dig in).
Here is, again, how can today's web giant's "estate" can be summed up:

The three main actors are now Apple, Google and Facebook. While Apple doesn't do social yet (and it would be wise for them to keep it this way unless they want to become the next OVI network) , Google is trying hard.
Google is also, of course, engaged in the "real world" market race with Android, Chrome OS and , in fact, since Chrome Browser.

Facebook is still 100% online, but it might not last long. When you see that Facebook's search is topping Google's, you can think that they got the job pretty much done with, and it's time to think about expending.

Who said Palm? Perfect timing?

Speaking of who goes down and who goes up, Palm is not really having fun lately. They are selling. it's not a news anymore.
Not everybody want them, but someone could be more than interested...guess who?

So, Facebook OS or Facebook Hardware?

Maybe both, actually. Why not? A Facebook OS on a Facebook branded hardware, with GPS and Camera, so you can upload everything about yourself without effort, and with, for Facebook, the greatest control over their API.

That's another chapter about the internet wars, stay tuned, this year is definitely interesting.

A lot of news this week... it made me think: with all these new features announced from the three web giants, we might forget they are competing. What could happen next in the "I buy you" game? Google has all the reasons to buy Twitter.

Facebook is updating like crazy

Unlike Twitter, who's upsetting the developers and taking all the time it wants to air a new version of its web interface, Facebook forces the users to adapt to its new layouts and functions. The risk is minimum, try remembering what it was like two years ago...yeah, me neither.
Now, two major moves have been publicized, the security page and the Question feature.

The security FAQ shows a positive response to the user's worries. Not much to say about that but "kudos".

Now, the question feature appears to be a direct competitor to Aardvark.com. Who just bought Aardvark? Google.

Twitter has more ties to Google than you think

• Twitter is build with several components from Google: maps, analytic (statistics) and Ajax (key framework for web development).
• You can search tweets from Google.
• You can tweet from Buzz.
• Yesterday, Google launched a Twitter timeline feature.
• Today, Google launches a the Follow Finder feature.

Apparently they are really good at "filling holes" or they have something else in the back of their mind.

Google can't do social, is slow with mobile.

Orkut, Waves and Buzz are two examples of big G trying to get social, and failing.
Which is too bad since, if they had a good, well known framework to begin with they would be able to port it to the exec level, along with Google docs.
Which is too bad, since they could play a little bit more with their adds through real time web.

Facebook mobile VS Google search mobile? You bet, Facebook wins. And now Tweetie is the official Twitter app, who's left behind in mobile traffic ?

Twitter takes on the add market

Now Twitter launches sponsored tweets. Everybody is wondering what it's going to look like, but one thing is sure: advertising benefiting to Twitter may show in Google search.
I wonder if they are going to like it much.
Until now, real time search has been a good way to collect more data about our googling habits, and the new features are for sure a consistent addition to it.

Google can't buy Facebook.

No they can't. But they can invest in/buy Twitter, and it wouldn't surprise me it happens if the sponsored add campaign is successful.

Wait and see...

Seen on TechCrunch: Facebook is about to release a "like" button for the whole internet.

Facebook want's to deploy its "Like" button. I have seen various comments about that, ranging from "they want to copy Digg" to "That's awesome", and none makes me really happy. I don't think you guys really get it.

Hidden meaning

Just because the button is labeled "Like", which has a very strong positive connotation, doesn't mean it's only meant for you to tell your friend you like it.
What's hidden behind the "Like" label is a much longer sentence: "Redirect the content to our website and diffuse it, it's a win-win, you get to communicate and we get a metric ton of data to mine in a single click and tons of traffic, plus the content and all your friend's comments."

Comments: get them and you'll be everywhere

We are currently facing the problem of multiple entry point for online content. If you share to five websites, you will have to monitor them all to reply to the comments.
I have discussed this issue here, while wondering:

And there is no way I can aggregate that. Or is there one? After having thought about it for a little while, the ideal solution would be a unique ID and/or entry point for curated data, something ressemblig Disqus, but for all uploaded content. If we could link single pieces of curated info to a unique ID, all metadata reffering to it would become easy to access.

I have already written about this topic here, I self-quote :

The knee-jerk reflex of sharing content and point of view through a status update could be the perfect vector of a web-wide comment gathering system. In 140 characters, native, and in Twitter's database, of course.

Facebook as more or less exactly the same approach about comment gathering, and goes even further with Open Graph. In short, it does all the things I've stated earlier, and the unique entry point is, of course, Facebook itself, via its API. That is: from anywhere there is a discussion, now mostly everywhere on the web.

What being everywhere means

Every piece of shared content is redirected to your site, if people want to comment it, they need to do it with your tools. It means more content, more comment, more data to mine, more people joining in and... more exposures to your adds and games, the money has to come from somewhere.

Why is it bad?

Whoever believes in open standards and whoever not liking being tracked online already know what I am going to write:

I do not want my online identity/behavior to be owned by a non neutral entity that can, if it get the monopole, just tell me "Use us or cease to exist online"

The generalization of proprietary standards is dangerous for the openness of the web. An example? Facebook's now patented news stream is based on the open protocol Activity Stream .

So what solution, then?

The salmon protocol and PuSH are two systems ready to be integrated, relatively simple to understand, that could give birth to some independent services allowing us to unify comments. Coupled to OpenID, if handled correctly, there is a possibility for all of us to have an identity that's independent from any commercial service.