*michael parekh on IT*

ON THE NEED FOR FACEBOOK ETIQUETTE

DEFINING LIMITS

I don't know about you, but I'm finding that increasingly, the bulk of the inbox and notification messages I get on Facebook are what seem to be "mass-mail" invitations to various events to attend, groups to join, or applications to install.  And most of these "applications" seem to be games, fun-walls, killing zombies and other relatively light distractions.

It takes 10-15 minutes every day to sort through this stuff, before one can get anything useful out of Facebook at all.

At any other time, one might dismiss these as spam, but I'm finding that a lot of these are from friends (mostly real ones, not just Facebook acquaintances).

Call it friendly spam, for lack of a better term.

I guess it's no different than getting a deluge of emails from friends in the mid-nineties when email was new to mainstream users, with some witty joke to read, or photo to peruse.  And of course there was always this encouragement to pass it on and share the joy.

In that sense, the Facebook version of this experience is a bit of deja vu.

The difference is that unlike with email, that one could just ignore and not read, every one of these messages asks for an action by the user before being dismissed.  You know, "attending", "maybe attending", "not attending" for events, "join"/"don't join" for groups, and "install"/"don't install" for applications.

A couple of physical clicks are required to dismiss and navigate away from them, and even then, you're never sure if the friend that sent them is going to get a message saying "your so-called friend dismissed your invitation to such and such group, event or application".

With over 50 million Facebook users now, it may be time for a Facebook etiquette book, not unlike Emily Post's "Etiquette" book published in 1922.  It'd lay down the proper etiquette for both senders and receivers of communications on Facebook. 

Any violation would be punishable by having to clear out the inbox of a Facebook whale for a week.  A Facebook whale, of course, is someone like Robert Scoble or Mark Cuban, who've reached the Facebook max of 5000 friends.  Clearing those inboxes every day has got to be a chore that'd make a good deterrent.

The book would also need to cover what the heck to do if you're getting "pokes" from people on a regular basis, and you're over 30 and have never experienced the joys of Facebook poking in your twenties.

I guess I should poke someone back if they poke me, but what does one do if they poke back again? Do you poke back again?  What to do when they poke back again and again?  When does it stop?  Or does it ever stop?

The same question of course applies to zombie bites.

Then there's the issue of those invitations to play Scrabulous or online poker or some such thing, most of them coming during working hours in a workday.  I mean do economists now need to factor in the effect of Facebook games on productivity growth in the economy in coming quarters?

Now I know people have tried to write one or two pages of Facebook etiquette for some time now.  You can find lots of them with a Google search.

There's even a blog called Proper Facebook Etiquette.

What I'm talking about here though, is a hefty, meaty, beefy tome.  At least a couple of hundred pages and a few pictures (color preferably).

Something with a real-life publisher.  Something someone would need to shell out good money for.

And not a Kindle only version either.

Something someone can then physically grab and throw* at a real life friend in real life for having spammed you that morning with an invitation to install yet another Facebook funwall.

Damn, I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.

* Throw to miss of course.  This blog would never condone actual attacks that may result in physical injury**.

**Is that enough fine print?

ON REPUTATIONAL MORTALITY FOR ALL OF US

ALL HANG OUT

Given the on-going discussion around Facebook's privacy policies, here's a priceless bit from an article in the UK's Guardian on online privacy:

"A survey found that although 71% of 14- to 21-year-olds did not want their future employers to look at their profiles on social networking sites, only 40% realised that their online activities could be traced indefinitely."

And this is the "net-savvy" generation, the one that's supposed to know how it all works.

I talked about how the MySpace and the original Facebook generation needs to take their online privacy more seriously, a year and a half ago, emphasizing that:

"...it's not just about their behavior on services like MySpace and Facebook, but their conduct all across the web, including services like instant messaging, SMS texting and the like. 

They are leaving reputational footprints that in many cases will be a matter of permanent record, potentially increasing their reputational mortality."

Ironically, just as these "young 'uns" are getting more concerned about their online reputations, the older fogies like myself are emulating them and throwing their traditional caution to the wind. 

They're embracing social networking and new communications services like Twitter, sharing the minutiae of their lives with strangers and near-strangers.

And services like Facebook are signing on partners across the web with services like Beacon to transmit your daily activities across the web to your mini news feed on Facebook.  I've written about this a few days ago, and Dare Obasanjo just had a good post on how this works.

We've all heard the arguments on why the traditional privacy concerns don't matter and why it's really different this time.  Any one want to crack at guessing the odds?

ON AN APPLE AND GOOGLE COLLABORATION

LOCK-STEP

I found myself nodding in agreement reading this piece from Wired, mostly because it's something I've felt made sense for a long time:

"On Monday Jobs is taking the stage at Apple's worldwide developers conference in San Francisco to do what he does best - tell us all about Apple's latest products and reinforce his place as the most charismatic CEO on the planet.

He'll probably announced a new Ipod, tell us more about the iPhone  etc etc. One announcement I'm almost sure of, however : A far reaching, cloud computing partnership with Google. Both companies have been hinting about it for months, and it makes perfect sense.

Cloud computing is the hot new thing in the world of technology right now; Apple is a complete laggard; and it knows it needs to fix it. Apple makes beautiful hardware, but it hasn't improved on .Mac, its cloud based storage offering, in years. You get 1GB of storage on .Mac for $100. That's laughable in an era where you can get double that for nothing. 

Meanwhile, Google runs cloud based hardware and software better and cheaper than anyone in the world right now. How does it make money?

By getting as many people as possible looking at advertising alongside search and other various software offerings. Imagine all the traffic from the following: You buy a Mac and you automatically get a free Google account."

I've complained previously about Apple's lacking presence online, including the meager services offered with a .Mac subscription.

The Wired piece goes on to report anecdotal pieces of supporting signs of this possibility, including statements by Apple board member, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt:

"We're a perfect back end to the problems that they're trying to solve," Schmidt told me. "They have very good judgment on user interface and people. But they don't have this supercomputer (that Google has), which is the data centers. What they have is a manufacturing business that's doing quite well."

What about Steve Jobs?

"Jobs' response to .Mac's whithered state? In response to a question last week he actually agreed, adding "stay tuned."

Apple and Google, could go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Disclosure:  I hold shares in both companies.

ON GOOGLE CPC, PPA & OTSOG

SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING GOO...

The top discussion thread on Techmeme today, is on Google's announcement that they're adding a pay-per action (PPA) model to their juggernaut of a business model based on cost-per-click (CPC).  There are a fair number of good pieces on the importance of these, and I'd point to the TechCrunch, Valleywag and New York Times ones in particular.

What caught my note particularly, is this observation by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch in his write-up on the announcement:

"Like CPC ads, PPA advertising wasn’t invented by Google. Search engine Snap has been selling ads this way for some time, for example."

For you tech history buffs, Snap is the brain-child of Bill Gross, of Idealab fame, who was also the brains behind GoTo.com (later renamed Overture, and sold to Yahoo!).

It's well-documented amongst Google historians (particularly by John Battelle in his book "The Search"), how the company innovated around the CPC model pioneered by GoTo.com, with it's own twist, and made it the best business model in the tech industry, well, since Microsoft.

One of my favorite phrases is the term OTSOG, which stands for "On the Shoulders of Giants".  It has many origins, but the most famous one is Isaac Newton.  As his Wikipedia entry notes:

"Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676

"If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of giants"

Seems OTSOG could be paraphrased in a different way. 

Google has, and hopefully continues to achieve great things by standing On the Shoulders of Gross.

It'll be interesting to see how they innovate around PPA as they have around CPC.

ON INTEGRATION OF iPHONE WITH BMW CARS

EYES ON THE ROAD

AppleInsider reports that BMW may have scored a bit of a coup with Apple's new iPhone.  Specifically,

"According to a blurb published by AutoSpies this week, the German auto maker will be the first to announce multi-level connectivity with the Apple device in an upcoming version of its high-end 7-Series sedan.
The otherwise unenlightening report offers readers no additional detail aside from mentioning that the rumored integration will go beyond "just Bluetooth..."
...BMW was the first major auto maker to team with Apple on seamless integration between iPods and a car audio systems back in 2004, when it unveiled a car battery-powered iPod hookup that tucked the players safely in the glove compartment.
The solution, which was revealed exclusively by AppleInsider, introduced a way for drivers to enjoy high fidelity sound through their car's stereo system while controlling their iPod using buttons on the BMW steering wheel."

As a long time fan of BMW's flagship 7-series, this is obviously of interest to this observer.  However, at a time when most new cars can integrate almost any new phone/PDA via Bluetooth, it's not entirely clear what integration BMW and Apple may be planning, that takes them beyond "Just Bluetooth".

This is pure speculation on my part, but BMW is rumored to be incorporating an updated version of a Heads-Up Display (aka HUD), in the new 7-series either this year or next. 

This feature is something various auto makers like BMW, Cadillac and others have been deploying in the last couple of years, with the notion being to provide more information to the driver without him/her taking eyes off the road. 

The technology was originally developed for fighter pilots, who were the primary beneficiaries of these HUD systems over the last few decades.  It's already available from BMW in certain 5 and 6-series models.

One can imagine being able to navigate through one's contacts in the iPhone, along with the unique "Visual Voicemail system" via the Heads up display, using voice recognition.

Curious if others can think up additional ways an iPhone could be integrated with a car "beyond Bluetooth".

ON CUSTOMER SERVICE IN CHAOTIC TIMES

SERVICE UNDER PRESSURE

Rod Boothby of the blog Innovation Creators had an interesting post up regarding his changed travel plans on the day the London terror plot was revealed a couple of days ago.  I'd like to highlight the following:

"Today's news out of England (Plot to Bomb Jets Is Thwarted in Britain) has changed my plans.   Or, to put it more accurately, after she heard the news, my wife asked me to change my plans.  ;)

I'm writing this post because I figure that just as bloggers sometimes use their blogs to highlight bad customer service, we also have an obligation to highlight great customer service.

After making my decision not to go, I called Continental, and asked them to change my flight to a later date. I was helped by a customer service agent who said her name was Phillis. She was great. Kind, understanding and really helpful. She worked quickly to both get me another flight (in November) and to make sure that I would not be charged a change fee.

I'm not sure what the innovation is in all this.   

Regardless, Continental Airlines took great care of me today."

Couple of thoughts as I was reading this...Rod's right, we bloggers don't shout out when we get good or great service as often as we complain when we don't.

In that vein, I thought I'd share a couple of "better than expected" service experiences I had on the "day of travel days". 

They both had to do with my wife, who was on a multi-city business trip on the east coast this past week.  She had one of her worst travel days in recent memory that day, compared to my relative walk in the park travel day on the west coast.

Specifically, she was flying from Atlanta to Charlotte that day, to be followed by a flight to Pittsburgh.

Long story short, she was delayed a number of hours in Atlanta both due to the terror situation and local weather.  Finally, after waiting over four hours through the evening, she got word that her flight to Charlotte was canceled.  It was the last flight out that way that night.

Luckily, after a bit of scrambling, she managed to get on a midnight flight to Pittsburgh.  She managed to call me just as the plane was pushing off the gate to let me know of the change, and asked me to cancel her hotel in Charlotte and book one in Pittsburgh. 

Her checked roller bag of course was still booked to go to Charlotte, and she just didn't have time to get it out.  Ironically, the only reason it was checked was that the rules had changed and toiletries and cosmetics weren't allowed as carry-on bags. 

Upon calling the Hilton hotel in Charlotte, I got a desk clerk who was very sympathetic and helpful as he heard the story.  Being past midnight there, he informed me that he was the night security clerk, and that he would relay the info to the front desk ASAP, and make sure that the reservation guarantee charge would be reversed and canceled due to the circumstances.

He then called me back an hour later to confirm that the charge had been canceled.  That was a better than expected service moment.

Similarly, when I called the Hyatt hotel at Pittsburgh airport, the gentleman at the front desk patiently heard out my wife's plight.  He had no rooms at all for the night, but then after a pause offered me the "Premier suite" at half price.  It was the only thing left at that time.

Needless to say, given my limited choices that night, I took him up on his offer.  Given that he had other guests in front of him at the front desk just then, he just took down my wife's name and assured me that she'd have a room, and that no other info (credit card etc.), was necessary to hold the room.

That too was a better than expected service moment.

Almost two days later, my wife is still trying to track down the status of her luggage via Delta.  The airline is still not sure whether it's in Atlanta or in Charlotte.  We're hoping it will some day make it's way back to California.

That, I regret to report, is very much an "As Expected" service moment.

ON JEANS WITH INTERACTIVE MESSAGES

RAISING THE ANTE

A few weeks ago I posted about new license plate holders with the capability to display your own message to the world via built-in LED text displays.

A French company, Uranium Jeans is doing that one better, by applying the same idea to personal clothing, in this case, hip designer jeans.

From Gizmodo:

"While many young ladies can make blue jeans talk by just walking down the street, others may need technological help, and that’s where Uranium Jeans can spell it out right there across their asses.

The scrolling LED text, displayed by an embedded flexible micro screen, can be changed via text messaging from a cellphone, or stock messages can be downloaded from the Uranium Jeans web site. A Uranium Jeans store just opened in St. Tropez this week, and there’s a store coming to L.A. late this summer."

You think they may sell a few of these in L.A.?

And what about road rage on the freeways being supplemented by sidewalk rages as folks react to messages designed to provoke a reaction?

It does make one think as to what might be next? 

Equipping jeans with a local bluetooth network so one can share the LED text messages wirelessly?

Your thoughts are welcome as usual.

ON BILL GATES' MUSINGS AT "D"

TELL IT LIKE IT IS

Dan Farber at ZDNet has a good piece summarizing Bill Gates' kick-off interview with Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the fourth annual Wall Street Journal "D" Conference in California.

It's always good to hear Bill Gates speak even on generally familiar topics since he adds nuanced insights through his extemporaneous and sometimes candid comments.

The "D" session is no different.  Here are my takes on the "nuanced insights" from the Farber summary:

1.  ON RADICALLY DIFFERENT OFFICE 2007:

"Gates described the new UI as a "scary step" and as "risky." The crowd was impressed, as were Walt and Kara, by the improvements to the user experience. They are significant, and one of the first times Microsoft has taken a substantial leap–at least five years in the making–in altering the user experience.

The geeky crowd clamored for a look at Outlook 2007, but it wasn't forthcoming."

To get a sense of just how "scary" the next version of Office is, take a look at this comprehensive tour of the beta by ComputerWorld.  For one thing, the familiar menus and toolbars in all the applications have been replaced with contextual "ribbons" that provide task-specific functionality when and where needed (that's the hope anyway).  And that's just the beginning.

2.  ON A MICROSOFT iPOD KILLER:

"Gates was asked about a rumored portable media player (iPod competitor) that the Xbox group is reportedly working on. "I have no announcement to make today," Gates said. "We are looking at various ways to bring more to that space. There is a lot yet that hasn't been done."

Good stuff...we like to see new stuff that hasn't yet been done...but hopefully Microsoft has internalized one of Apple's key rules of product designs:  "Less is More".

3.   ON OFFICE FUNCTIONALITY IN THE CLOUD:

There's no question that Bill Gates gets the vision of how much of today's Office functionality could be made available via the Internet, either by competitors and/or through Microsoft's own efforts.  Case in point:

"Gates was asked about the profusion of Web-based applications, specially Writely, which as acquired by Google this year...

"More storage is going to be in the cloud, a lot for free and what's not will be very inexpensive. Office connects up with Office Live or other cloud storage efforts to have your documents wherever you want to have them," Gates said..."

"...Gates also talked about Microsoft's cloud storage ambitions, which called "petabytes in the sky." Drives are getting faster and cheaper, and Microsoft will have a variety of services that will connect to petabytes in the sky, including synchronization and backup services."

The question though is how Microsoft addresses this opportunity not just technically, but also with the least negative impact to it's existing business model. 

It was also gratifying that Bill also finds the name "Office Live" lacking:

"When I spoke to Gates before the interview, he was extolling the virtues of Office Live (which he admitted is misnamed, since it doesn't replicate the functionality of the Office suite) and SharePoint Server 2007, which he has said will be looked upon as the most revolutionary aspect of Office 2007."

ComputerWorld agrees on the SharePoint Server:

"Microsoft's direction is clear: sharing, collaborating, searching. You can post PowerPoint slides to a SharePoint server, and your colleagues can select which ones to use in building their own presentations.

Enterprises today typically put entire presentation files on a shared network drive; using SharePoint lets users select individual slides in what Microsoft calls a SharePoint Slide Library. And users can be automatically notified when a shared slide is changed (so you'll know when a slide you've incorporated has been updated with the new company logo, for example)."

SharePoint obviously is most helpful in a corporate, group-sharing context.

4.  ON BEING EARLY WITH XBOX 360:  Gates offered another benefit from the massive investment in the XBOX initiative,

"He singled out Xbox Live as a success story, saying that 5 million pieces of content were download from the service last week. "The stickiness of the product is radically different,  so there is an advantage to an early mover," Gates said."

Maybe, maybe not.  To be continued.

5.  ON DARING COMPETITORS TO COMPETE:  At times, Gates revealed his feisty, competitive spirit,

"...next generation UI (speech, ink and vision, which will take  billions in research and dared anyone with an operating system to compete on that front)."

Google's got it's own seemingly Quixotic areas that it's spending oodles of money on.  It remains to be seen on which of who's made the right bets at the right time.

6.  ON MOST PITHY QUOTE:  The best Bill Gates line in the article, for me anyway, was this one in the context of the media industry trying to cope with the tectonic changes wrought by technology:

"He noted that the broadcast networks are trying to have their cake and eat it, trying to keep affiliates and advertisers happy at the same time they are pushing a la carte programming and feeling the impact of IPTV.

"There is a difference between what technology enables and what historical business practices enable."

Amen.

Great rundown by Dan Farber.  Look for more from the "D" conference over the next few days.

ON WEB 2.0 LOGOS JUST LIKE WEB 1.0

"THE MORE THINGS CHANGE..."

The image  below from Flickr of Web 2.0 logos has been getting a fair amount of discussion over the last few days.  I first saw it on Russell Beattie's blog a few days ago (click for larger image).

As a "Web 1.0" old-timer, what struck me most looking at this was how indistinguishable these logos IN AGGREGATE seem to be from ones over half a decade ago. 

Talk about Deja vu.

Of course there was no Flickr back then to catalog the logos, so we're making progress in substance if not form.

And the only way to see a lot of Internet company logos in one place was to spread out all the IPO prospectus books out on a big table. 

The second and third pictures below have some of the logos from those days to jog your memory.

But the bright colors, the "happy" fonts, and the loopy names are the same.

For once it'd be cool to see a consumer Internet company logo that wasn't trying to emote a Yahoo!, eBay or Google.

So I guess it's like the acting business.  Every new thespian wants to emulate the standards.  Kind of like every actor yelling "Stella" a la Marlon Brando, playing Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar named Desire".

ON "WHERE'S THE BEEF?" FROM CES TABLET PC MEETUP

MAY WE HAVE MORE, PLEASE?

Apparently, almost 50 Tablet PC enthusiasts and movers & shakers met up for a $1000 plus burger dinner at CES, and had a great time.

I'm glad for them.

A number of them even posted on how great it all was...here are some of the posts (via memeorandum:

• Loren of Incremental Blogger (most detailed post on the "atmospherics" of the event)
• jkontherun took names, rank and serial numbers, along with pictures, of some of the folks there...
• "What is New" blog has some quotes from the folks there on how great it all was...
• Robert Scoble mentions how he commendably got the ball rolling on the various companies paying for the shin ding in an impromptu sort of way...
• Rob Bushway had an aside comment on the event...

But what gets me is that none of the folks who were there posted on WHAT WAS ACTUALLY DISCUSSED about TABLET PCs at the event.

For instance,

• What burning questions/issues did people have on the evolution of Tablet PCs into 2006 and beyond?
• What were the general observations/impressions of some of the stuff showed at CES by folks like Motion Computing, OQO, DualCor cPc etc.? (incidentally, JK has a SEPARATE post on the DualCor cPc that's pretty good).
• After having seen Motion's LS800 "slate" compact Tablet PC and OQO's +! with the Tablet PC OS installed, what did folks think of the two side by side?
• What were Tablet PC apps/utilities/software most folks there excited about? Used most?
• Any other general insights into buying/using/evaluating/contemplating Tablet PCs going forward?

Anything beyond how great it was, and how much fun everybody had...share the joy with the rest of us Tablet PC crazies who weren't there. 

Not ranting here folks, just asking for a little more beef.