When I signed up for a Twitter account last year, I had trouble understanding why we needed another place to post our thoughts. Just the same I felt it worthwhile to give it a try. My early fears seemed to be well-founded as I followed some people who made inane posts about what they were eating for dinner or the cute smile from their baby.
Since then though, I have found some interesting people to follow, and have begun to see the value of the service. Here are the top five reasons why I like Twitter, and why I will continue to use it regularly.
- New updates are interesting and topical, provided one follows the right people. These updates are proving to be a more compelling source of information than my RSS feeds.
- The 140 character limit forces people to come right to the point. With the addition of Tiny URL links, the Twitter micro blogs can point to the source documents. What is less helpful is a “tweet” with a pointer to a web site, with no mention of topic or why it is worth seeing.
- I can choose whom to follow. That gives me a great deal of control. And I do not have to wait for the people I follow to make me a “Friend”; it is a pure news and information feed.
- The hash tags (e.g. #Saas) provide a valuable indexing tool. I can search for a specific tag, as I did recently with #Linux, and find helpful recent commentary, links to important resources, and names of people I can follow to stay current on the topic. Similarly, I can mark my posts with a hash tag to link to my blog or good articles I found, and perhaps “market” myself to new followers.
- Twitter facilitates “snacking” on my iPhone or computer. It is like dipping a cup in the river to draw a drink of water. I get what I want and care little about the water that flowed past me down the river. And if my time is short, I can “favorite” items to follow up later when I have more time or a larger screen on which to read it.
I continue to support moving more of our work to the cloud, using more Software As A Service (SaaS) such as salesforce.com, Google apps, Basecamp, etc. At the same time, as I warned in my post from last summer when Google had a significant outage, the cloud services must show high levels of reliability and data security if they are to earn the trust of skeptics.
The recent Google privacy blunder is another setback for the Cloud. Web Services operators must hold themselves to a higher standard than enterprise data centers. More stories like this, and we might see the trend reversing itself.
Amazon surprised many people when they launched Kindle for iPhone yesterday. As you might expect, many analysts worried about how that move would harm sales of the Kindle 2. BusinessWeek was on top of the story on the first day with a good analysis of the pros and cons.
I believe Jeff Bezos and Amazon got it exactly right and are positioning Amazon to be the leader in the next generation of reading. Yes, I am pleased as a consumer that they did this because I enjoy reading books on my iPhone and have been disappointed by the limited selection from Stanza and ShortCovers. But also as an industry strategist, I applaud Amazon for knowing it requires a whole system effect to accelerate the adoption of something new such as ebooks. The Kindle alone, although I hear it is great, would be insufficient to build the momentum.
I further applaud Amazon for supporting the interactivity of the reading platforms, knowing that someone might read part of a book on their Kindle at home, but then pick up the reading at a train station on their iPhone. The more I get into ebooks, the more likely I will want a Kindle for more serious reading enjoyment. Apple also got it right to add this application and allow Amazon to drive this category. I can imagine there must have been debates within Apple about whether to extend iTunes to ebooks.
In the short run this move might cannibalize some Kindle sales. But in the long run it will accelerate the growth of ebooks and place Amazon on the leading edge for ebooks. It is realistic and a compliment to both Amazon and Apple to say that “Amazon is the iTunes of books”.
I am a fan of reading books on my iPhone, among other things. Unfortunately that restricted me to out-of-copyright books and personal books until recently. But I got excited when I learned about the impending launch of Shortcovers for iPhone.
What a disappointment! The iPhone app is fine for a first generation. And I can understand that it will take some time to broaden the catalogue. But they have made the classic mistake of losing their focus in their effort to make the catalogue seem bigger.
They have loaded their catalogue with first chapters of a wide range of books, often for free. But if you want to read the full book you must order it in paper form. And there is no way to restrict searches to those books available in full ebook form.
I cannot see the value of reading first chapters on my iPhone then order it in book form later. If I start out reading as an ebook I want to continue reading it as an ebook.
Shortcovers has lost their focus right out of the starting gate. They are more of a book sampler than an ebook source.
As I continue to work with companies, discuss business plans and strategies, I have realized I have an aversion to the word “could”. I am hearing it more and more, especially as economic times get tougher and and more companies are rethinking their business strategy.
The problem is that I am hearing it at the point in the discussion when executives need to define their path forward. Strategy is all about making clear choices, then executing well on them. The strategy is the strategy until there is new information that require a change in direction and a new strategy.
There is no room for the word “could” in the definition of strategy. In fact, the use of the word signals to me a lack of strategy, a failure to make clear choices, because it leaves many pathways open for consideration. It is difficult for a company to execute effectively and efficiently on a strategy that has multiple pathways. Just because a product “could do this function” or a company “could go in this direction” does not mean it should.
With that said, there are still good applications for the use of “could” in the strategy process:
- It is necessary to open up new options and possibilities in the brainstorming or idea phase. What could the company build? What go-to-market approaches could they follow? But once the brainstorming is done, it is time to close down the number of possibilities.
- It is often helpful to consider what external events could happen over the next few years - in the areas of competitive moves, economy, customer tastes, or technology developments - to ensure the company has a response to these events. But each of these are external factors, rather than undecided choices for the company.
- It is fine within limits to keep some options open for further down the road in the strategy. For example, it is fine to use “could” to define several exit options for the company 3-5 years down the road. Lots can happen in that time, and it is less necessary to nail down the specifics right up front. But watch out for applying this logic to choices in the next 6 months or a year, because every option left open has a cost in execution.
Listen to the discussions in your business planning sessions. Are you comfortable with how the word “could” is used? Or do you need to put a ban on the word to force some important choices about your direction?
Whitney Hess, on the Mashable site, has an excellent post addressing the 10 Most Common MisConceptions About User Experience Design. This is one of the best, brief, comprehensive treatments of this topic I have seen. Her post also has links to great sources for more indepth investigation.
Few companies know how well or poorly they are doing with their current user experience. And thus they are unaware of the indirect costs (lost revenue, lapsed customers, increase support costs, etc.) of their current implementation. I especially like her reference (in #7) “A trap that a lot of companies fall into is in thinking that they are their own end users.”
I urge everyone to check their current processes against Whitney’s checklist. While the payoff will be indirect, it will exist.
Most discussions about the future of mobile networking — in the U.S. or elsewhere — revolves around beliefs about three big, hairy questions. Whether the discussion addresses these directly or makes implicit assumptions, these questions are at the root of all business models for the wireless communications industry.
I present them here, with my own views. Feel free to challenge.
- Will demand for mobile data rise slowly or steeply? Most agree demand for data will rise, but the real question is whether it will rise slowly — perhaps because of the economy or over-saturation — or will it rise steeply? My bet is that we will actually see an acceleration. We are passing through the “tipping point” with fast-enough networks (3G and Wi-Fi where we need it), great new devices (iPhone now joined by all the “iPhone killers” from the other manufacturers), and explosion of online applications.
- What network technologies will support mobile data needs best? There is plenty of debate about 3G versus 4G, short- or long-term role of Wi-Fi, WiMax versus LTE, and others. My personal bet is we will see stuttered and fragmented progress for 3G services, WiMax, and LTE; it will become a matter of “right horse for the course” rather than “winner take all”. At the same time, we will see Wi-Fi solidify its position as the Lingua Franca of wireless data. The ubiquity of the signal (sometimes relayed from one of the other technologies), low cost of the BOM, simplicity of use, etc. will mean that most devices will have Wi-Fi built in, even if the device supports other network technology. Take note of how many of the EDGE, HSDPA, EV-DO and other devices offer Wi-Fi as an alternate today. In the case of the iPhone, Wi-Fi accounts for the majority of the internet access.
- Will we see a consolidation and concentration of service providers and networks, or a mixed bag? This was a big question for wired networks in the 1990s, when so many C-LECs showed great promise, but instead we saw the re aggregation of much of the old AT&T along with the concentration of market power in a few hands. I think this time though we will see a mix of providers, and there is room for the little guy. Big service providers are focused on free cash flow, which is causing them to outsource much of their network build to reduce the need for capital. IP travels well across different types of networks and providers, so there is less need to own the end-to-end network. And Reed Hundt, the former FCC Chairman who fostered the spirit of entrepreneurship in the 1990s is on the Obama FCC transition team.
Those are my predictions. I promise to revisit them each year and report on how much of this came true.
I have ranted about my belief that mobile TV will be a bust for the mobile service providers. The evidence of slow consumer take-up continues to mount.
Now we have the news that MediaFLO will offer the Victoria’s Secret channel on mobile TV (MediaFLO USA turns on Victoria’s Secret TV). From my vantage point this looks like a desperation move to invigorate a failing service. And it is a short step away from offering mobile porn — which might be successful after all.
So, what will be the next announcement in about 3 months? Introduction of a porn channel, or termination of the mobile TV service?
More evidence of the inexorable growth of mobile messaging. FierceMobileContent shares a report from VeriSign that the number of global messages rose by over 10% in Q3 versus Q2 2008, and the number of messages rose by over 126% year-over-year.
This reminds me of the tech bubble burst of 2000, where the volume of Internet traffic, page views, email messages, etc. kept growing rapidly even though the stock prices plummeted. Similarly for this recession economy — or maybe as a result of the economy — many of the mobility volume indicators are still pointing up. Way up.
I also find it interesting that the types of messages are changing, from mostly personal communications to more transactional and information type messages. That is a sign of mobile messaging becoming a more fundamental part of our lives, that we are willing to count on it for banking, business information, and dental appointment reminders.
A recent article in ZDNet, iPhone 2.0 vying with BlackBerry in the enterprise, describes the tangible though limited progress iPhone is making with enterprise adoption. 33% of Fortune 500 businesses participated in the beta trial, and 10% support the iPhone. Of course, BlackBerry still leads with 65% of North American businesses supporting it, and 22% for Windows Mobile devices.
That should seem natural, given that iPhone became the best-selling handset in the U.S. in Q3 2008. It is significant progress in the enterprise, given that the 2.0 iPhone release in July 2008 was the first that tried to address corporate concerns for security, privacy, and Outlook Exchange integration.
I still believe the headlines should read more like “iPhone continues to overcome enterprise resistance to adoption”. The data suggests that a large number of individual users prefer the iPhone, with the ZDNet article referring to “younger workers who move seamlessly between their personal and business lives”. At the same time, enterprise CIOs are trying to manage costs and would prefer to support fewer devices for security, asset management, and help desk.
My long run bet is on the iPhone. I have watched corporations try to manage the selection of devices and carriers for years, with reams of cost-benefit analyses. But in the end the individual user preference wins out.