Recently I was invited by JupiterResearch VP & Research Director Michael Gartenberg to be a part of their new blogging program. The deal: I get a free copy of an analyst report relevant to my specialty and in return I will offer my own blog-style analysis of it. What this means is that a respected analyst firm, JupiterResearch, is reaching out to bloggers and engaging in two-way conversations.
It's a good deal all round - JupiterResearch gets some free open source analysis out of bloggers who are passionate and knowledgeable about the topics, the chosen bloggers get a chance to enhance their reputations and get their voices heard by influential people, and readers find out some valuable information too (from both the JupiterResearch analysts and the bloggers).
The approach I'll take with my 'blog analysis' (I don't know how else to describe this) is to spread out my comments over about 3-4 posts. The reason for doing it this way is that hopefully it encourages an ongoing conversation with not only the JupiterResearch analysts, but also people in the blogosphere. So here goes with Part 1...
The report I'm going to write about is called RSS Readers: Addressing Market Opportunities with an Innovative News Medium. It's dated March 11, 2005 and was written by Lead Analysts Michael Gartenberg and Andrea Wood, with Contributing Analyst Joe Wilcox. So it's a fairly recent report. At 5 pages long, it wasn't as lengthy as I expected it to be. But it's crammed full of useful information. The target audience for the report seems to be business managers and executives - decision-makers and not necessarily technical people (although some probably are).
The subtitle of the report is a hint to what the report will deliver: advice on what the market opportunities are for RSS and RSS Readers. The opening page of the report summarizes the key questions and findings. The key questions revolve around finding out what RSS is, which demographic to target, and what obstacles (and opportunities) there are. I'll look at the key findings in a later post, because in this post I want to focus on how this report defines RSS.
That was the exact title on page 2 and here's how it panned out. They begin by framing the evolution of RSS in the context of the Microsoft / Netscape browser battle during the late 90's, saying that RSS was "a competitive response [from Netscape] to Internet Explorer’s Active Channels". Dave Winer's UserLand Software is also cited as one of the inventors, so he gets his due in this report.
One thing that stood out for me in the opening paragraph on pg 2 was the last sentence: "Incidentally, RSS grew in popularity as a byproduct of the weblog phenomenon." At this point I wondered if weblogs would be merely a footnote in this analysis of RSS. Hmmm, more on that shortly.
The report then describes what an RSS feed is and how to read it. RSS is specifically referenced as an alternative to web surfing and email newsletters:
"With programs that can read and aggregate different RSS feeds, called RSS readers, users access content relevant to them without surfing the Web or subscribing to e-mail newsletters."
This is putting RSS in a context that most business people are familiar with - browsing and emailing. I'm fine with this, but I was a little perturbed by the sentence that followed it:
"While RSS once was relegated to the collection and aggregation of weblogs, today’s RSS feeds commonly include feeds from mainstream content providers."
The word "relegated" is pretty dismissive of blogs and the quality of content that can be found on the best of them. However I can see why it's necessary to assure readers of the report that "mainstream content providers" use RSS too - because it does show that RSS is being taken seriously by mainstream media. I've used that argument myself when trying to convince business people at my work to adopt RSS - specifically I cited the NY Times and BBC. Nevertheless, in tandem with the "incidentally" remark in the first paragraph, the overall attitude towards blogs in the report is a little worrying. They don't use the word "pajamas", but I was looking out for it. Maybe it just goes with the territory of trying to sell RSS to conservative business folk...
Finally on page 2, the two types of RSS Readers are described: Web-based services and standalone PC applications. I normally refer to them as a) browser-based RSS Aggregators and b) desktop / PC apps. But I like the way the word "services" is specifically used to describe the former - very Web 2.0 ;-) Here is the description of the two types:
"Web-based services provide either a personalized Web page that retrieves content based on user preferences, such as MyYahoo!, or a searchable Web page, like Feedster. Standalone newsreaders include NewsGator, an application that is integrated with Microsoft Outlook. These readers send content directly to a user’s inbox, where it is sorted into folders. RSS applications and services are available in both free and paid varieties."
It's interesting they use Feedster as an example of "a searchable Web page". As I mentioned in a recent post, I believe the RSS Aggregation/search integration strategy is going to be a keenly fought one this year between the big guns: Microsoft, Google, Bloglines/Ask Jeeves (not totally sure whether Yahoo will go in this direction as well as their portal strategy). So will Feedster be able to keep competing if that happens?
Also no mention of Bloglines by JupiterResearch - they cite MyYahoo instead. This reminded me of my post the other day about MyYahoo being much more popular than Bloglines with readers of the Fanblogs College Football Blog (who the owner Kevin Donahue described as "Joe American" and "non-geek"). The majority of the audience for this JupiterResearch report are probably not geeks either, so MyYahoo gets the nod in the report - ahead of Bloglines.
Also noteworthy that Newsgator got mentioned in the desktop agg section, primarily because their product integrates with Microsoft Outlook. Again it's a case of JupiterResearch putting the analysis into a context the target audience is familiar with - email and specifically Outlook.
I'll leave Part 1 of my report analysis there. I'll pick it up on page 3 tomorrow.
I got an invite to Yahoo! 360°, the new blogging/social networking app from Yahoo. Here is my 360 blog, which has hardly anything in it right now. I'll probably only use it for experimentation, but if I end up liking it then maybe I'll use it for social networking. First impressions are positive and it'll be even better when they integrate MyYahoo. Is this going to redefine that 90's staple of web design, the portal? I think Yahoo 360 is on its way to doing that.
It's certainly bringing the read/write web closer to mainstream and that's a good thing! A read/write portal... yes I like that idea (of course Marc Canter calls it a DLA).
NB: I see they haven't connected Flickr to it yet - when I tried to add some photos it sent me to something called Yahoo! Photos. I'll wait for Flickr thanks...
Anyways, if you're a regular reader of Read/Write Web and you'd like an invite - let me know (readwriteweb AT gmail.com). If we haven't communicated before via email or phone, then tell me a bit about why you read my blog. I don't mean to be an invite snob, it's just that I'd like to at least know who you are before I invite you onto my friends list. :-)
Oh and p.s., expect a delay before you receive an invite - Yahoo 360 isn't aknowledging my email address update and verification, so right now it prevents me from sending out invites! This is a beta, so I'll forgive them :-)
Update, the next day: I still can't send out any invites, because the "unverified" email address bug hasn't been fixed yet (I've now verified it 3 times, tried changing my address again, etc). So sorry to those waiting for an invite from me, I'll send one out as soon as I can. [fixed now] Also I'm not sure whether my Yahoo 360 blog is viewable to the outside world...
Kevin Donahue posts some RSS Aggregator stats for his FanBlogs network of sites - and I was taken aback to see who is number 1, by a long shot. No it's not Bloglines, as it is for most of the geek set. For football fans, a staggering 64.8% of FanBlogs.com readers are subscribed using MyYahoo. Kevin writes:
"Since Fanblogs has over 100 college football feeds, I took the top conference feeds, combined, and got the averages below. This may not be the best method, but I think it's a fair representation."
My Yahoo 64.8%
FeedDemon 16.2%
Bloglines 14.8%
SharpReader 3.1%
Firefox Live Bookmarks 0.8%
and the rest
Kevin goes on to say that "Fanblogs users are (IMHO) Joe American. The audience is tilted towards the non-geek. My Yahoo is winning with that set."
NB: I'm not sure how many subscribers FanBlogs has, but judging by a sample subscription I did of the main feed in Bloglines (49 Bloglines subscribers to that particular feed) it's probably not a small number.
Now Kevin doesn't sound all that surprised, but frankly I'm amazed at how much MyYahoo is ahead by. Here in the geek part of the blogosphere, we all assume that Bloglines rules and is the dominant RSS Aggregator. My stats back in December proved that and Feedburner's own stats (with a very large data set) confirmed it - Bloglines has over 50% of the RSS Aggregator market.
Well not for US football fans, it seems. For them, MyYahoo is like the New England Patriots of RSS Aggregators and Bloglines is more like the Buffalo Bills (no offence to Bills fans). Mind you, it helps that MyYahoo buttons are plastered all over the Fanblogs syndication page ;-)
This week: ETech notes, Yahoo love-in, Web 2.0 acquisition deals continue, Hacking Web 2.0, ubiquitous storage.
I was on holiday the week ETech occurred, so I've been spending the past week catching up. My food-themed notes are here. Also during that week the next Web 2.0 conference was announced - October in San Francisco. I'm aiming to make it to that one!
I called Yahoo the Teacher's Pet a few weeks ago and now Om Malik has likened Yahoo to a mojo-rejuvenated Austin Powers! Om still thinks Yahoo's future is "broadband and mobile" and he is a tad dismissive of the developments that have caused Yahoo to become the "new darling of the chattering classes" - e.g. the Flickr purchase. However I'd suggest all of Yahoo's Web 2.0 changes and innovations are (re)building a firm foundation for their media strategies. In fact I wrote about that at the beginning of March: How Yahoo's Web Services Support Their Media Strategy.
So... what was new at Yahoo this week? Well the Creative Commons Search Engine beta had geeks salivating - including yours truly - because it's an enabling tool for the Remix Culture. People can use it to find content to "modify, adapt, or build upon". At this time probably only bloggers will use it, but in future it may become be a key component of Yahoo's search engine (remember the Remix Culture is still in its infancy).
Oh and Yahoo also announced Yahoo 360°, a social networking blogging service. Silicon Valley Watcher suggested that Yahoo will incorporate Flickr into 360, which makes sense to me. NB: Charlene Li has the first real look at 360.
OK, enough about Yahoo (you may be beginning to think I'm one of their employees...I wish!).
It may only be a mini, blogosphere-oriented, bubble. But there are a ton of acquisitions happening right now (and even more rumours!). The latest: Topix.net got bought by a newspaper JV and IAC made a mammoth offer for Ask Jeeves.
PaidContent.org has a fun Buyout Countdown List, speculating about which other Web 2.0 companies are ripe for purchase. My suggestions were del.icio.us, 43Things and Blogdigger. Steve Gillmor suggested PaidContent.org, which isn't a bad rumour to start ;-) Of course, Read/Write Web would also be a good new media investment - any offers? :-)
Looks like there was a great convention over in Taiwan recently: YAPC::Taipei (YAPC means Yet Another Perl Conference). While I'm by no means a Perl developer, there was one session that caught my eye - a talk entitled "Random Hacks" by Tatsuhiko Miyagawa. Thanks to Journal of acme for the link. The presentation (pdf) includes a section about "Web 2.0 Hacking" and there are some excellent tips in there about how to use blog APIs.
Tatsuhiko Miyagawa has also written an O'Reilly book, only available in Japanese, called Blog Hacks. Question: will it be translated into English? I'd love to read it.
Daniel Lemire wrote a thought-provoking post about ubiquitous storage. This is his prediction for the next phase of the Web:
"I bet it is going to be ubiquitous massive storage. Very soon, in 5 years, we will reach the point where individuals will have access to infinite storage."
I immediately thought of OurMedia (and I noticed Seb Paquet left a comment saying the same thing). The next point that grabbed me was this:
"Smart indexing and aggregating techniques are going to become extremely important."
My view: infinite storage of course means huge amounts of data, so I agree that smart indexing and aggregation are key to Web 2.0. Some of the companies already doing this include PubSub, Findory, Rojo. Not to mention the bigco's, including Bloglines now that it's owned by Ask Jeeves. As I wrote in a post this week, RSS Aggregation + Search is going to be a winning strategy for whoever executes it best.
Plenty to chew on in coverage of the recent ETech conference. Here are some ETech tidbits that I snacked on over the past week and found to be rather tasty...
- the whole Remix theme. For Silicon Valley legend Danny Hillis, the remix theme begins at the breakfast table: "For him, it had begun experimenting with combinations of oatmeal, Rice Crispies, and Froot Loops. Remixing, at its core, is this combination of artistic design and problem solving. It's taking products that are fine on their own and considering the possibilities if you don't use them according to the pictures on the side of the box."
- Yahoo's new Tech Buzz Game sounds yum: "a fantasy prediction market for high-tech products, concepts, and trends." NB: I haven't had time to sign-up yet, but sounds like the kind of thing I'd relish...
- Amazon's new OpenSearch aims "to do for search what RSS has done for content." Ambitious and the first innovative RSS thing Amazon has announced for a while (just to remind us they're still one of the Web 2.0 bigco's). BusinessWeek describes it as "eliciting the denizens of the Web to contribute their own sources of specialized information that searchers can subscribe to much like they can subscribe to blogs."
OpenSearch seems to be in the same game as PubSub, Feedster, et al - future search. Interesting... I must devour all the details later.
- Firefox as a Remix Vehicle. I hadn't really considered this before, but it's a viable way to market Firefox as the Web 2.0 browser of choice. As Robert Kaye described it: "Firefox by itself is a fairly bare-bones browser and when the user installs extensions, the user remixes the browser by plugging in the various add-ons that they would like to use. Instead of shipping a huge browser that does everything, the Firefox team chose to keep things simple by shipping a stripped down browser that is expected to be remixed by the user."
- Web Services Mash-up (p.s. check out the fantastic resources page compiled by Alan Taylor)
- HOWTO make a VC pitch in PowerPoint (see also Mark Taylor's notes)
- Mark Fletcher: Lessons Learned Birthing and Building Web Start-ups (see also)
- Danny Hillis, Applied Minds. ZDNet quote: "He sees the world of publishing (blogs, wikis, APIs) evolving into the MetaWeb where information is contained in sharable public databases, ushering in the era of remix culture."
- O'Reilly radar speech. Here's one delicious piece of advice from Tim O'Reilly and Rael Dornfest: "architect your software or service in such a way as to be used easily as a component of a larger system: keep it modular, document your interfaces, and use a license that doesn't hinder recombination."
- Salesforce.com and utility computing. As reported by Ian Pringle: "Salesforce.com’s view is for continued abstraction and a separation of the definition and deployment of applications to create utility computing."
And a little further on... "In effect utility computing is here already in the style of the ‘Website as a platform’. It was suggested that the next step would ‘On demand Application Development’. At a stretch it is possible to see the personalisation capabilities of ‘My Yahoo’ as a nascent example of this idea."
Lots of ideas to digest. I'll leave you with this excellent quote from Tim O'Reilly, as reported by reemer.com: "Remix: when content is digital, it lends itself to being broken down and remixed. Build your business model so as to make your living from the smallest atomic unit. e.g. SafariU".
A couple of weeks ago Microsoft's new web-based RSS Aggregator prototype was discovered. I wrote then (also in my weekly wrap-up) that even though technically the prototype wasn't that special, it did reveal Microsoft's business strategy for RSS. Which is that Microsoft intends to integrate RSS Aggregation with its MSN Search product.
To summarise my view, I think search is going to be the platform from which Microsoft will challenge its main rivals in the RSS space. And one of those rivals will be Bloglines/Ask Jeeves. More on that in a momemt...
In an email exchange with someone today I speculated that start.com will give Microsoft an advantage over its traditional rivals Google and Yahoo - at least until Google reveals what it's going to do with its Blogger technology. Or whatever else they are cooking up with Google News and similar customization products. Yahoo is also enhancing its My Yahoo platform by making RSS a key component.
The one player that hasn't been talked about much yet, in this context, is Bloglines/Ask Jeeves. But they are definitely positioning themselves to join in the RSS aggregation/search integration game. Take a look at the new Bloglines homepage - notice anything different? Well it appears that search now gets top billing on the page, ahead of blog reading and subscription. The search box is at the centre-top of the page, the search component of the circular graphic is at the top of the circle, and most of all the introductory statement mentions search first:
"Bloglines is the most comprehensive, integrated service for searching, subscribing, publishing and sharing news feeds, blogs, and rich Web content. It's free and easy-to-use."
The interesting thing is they don't even mention the word "read" in that paragraph. I also think the word "integrated" is a key...
Now take a look at the Bloglines homepage from a year ago, c/o the wonderful archive.org. It's from January 2004 and this was the introductory paragraph back then:
"Bloglines is a free service that makes it easy to keep up with your favorite blogs and newsfeeds. With Bloglines, you can subscribe to the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs, and Bloglines will monitor updates to those sites. You can read the latest entries easily within Bloglines."
Notice that the word "search" didn't even rate a mention one year ago. In 2003/04 Bloglines was a service to "keep up with" blogs. Subscription and blog-reading was the focus, not search.
None of this is a great surprise. Ask Jeeves is a search company after all and they bought Bloglines in order to use it. It's natural that Bloglines is being influenced by the coach yelling in the dugouts.
But I think it's more than just Bloglines utilising Jeeves' search strength in its product. It's clear that Bloglines/Ask Jeeves is doing this in order to position itself to take on The Big 3 of Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. Because RSS Aggregation + Search is going to be a winning strategy when competing in the big leagues.
At the risk of going off-topic, I'm currently deeply into IMHO the best album I've heard in years - Green Day's American Idiot. It's a concept album and I often wonder how such a thing could be done in blogging. It's common wisdom that a focused blog is the best way to gain a following in the 'sphere. But I reckon bloggers could complement their chosen topic by producing concept-driven 'blog albums' from time to time. I wrote about this a year and a half ago, in a post comparing blogs to albums. While my position has changed on a couple of points in that Sept 2003 post, this extract illustrates what I mean:
"...in the tech blogging world, Don Park has recently written an album full of posts about Wikis, Dave Winer is in the midst of recording his thoughts on political blogs, Jon Udell has written a variety of classics on topics such as Universal Canvas. There are even the blogging equivalent of Unplugged albums - check out Mark Pilgrim's These Days."
While I encourage ambitious bloggers to be topic-focused, variety is the spice of life. An excellent way to keep things interesting is to explore a different concept every week or month (or whatever time period suits you). I have to keep reminding myself of this too. As I said in the Sept 03 post:
"Perhaps I'll start writing weblog "albums" - there'll be about 10 posts per album and each album will have a different unifying theme."
Hmmm. I have some ideas about how to do this in my Web 2.0-focused blog. Stay tuned ;-)
bonus link: Wikipedia list of concept albums. Includes this description of the Green Day album: "A Bay Area suburbanite named Jesus of Suburbia flees his broken home to experience city life, transforming into the rebellious St. Jimmy. Notable as a punk rock opera." More here (I heart Wikipedia).
I'm just back from sunny Gold Coast, all theme-parked out, and already I'm planning my family's next trip. I'd love to make it to the next Web 2.0 conference, October 5-7 in San Francisco. It'll be my first ever trip to America. Of course, the conference ticket price will be an issue. Hopefully my blog whuffie will come in useful on that count (I'm Mr Unsubtle today...)
Here's John Battelle's description of the recently announced 2005 Web 2.0 conference:
"Our initial thinking behind this year's event reflects an evolution of Web 2.0's original theme, which was "the Web as Platform." This year we take that as a given, and focus on what the opportunities and challenges are in this new web ecology, in particular services and businesses which run over the platform. Hence the tagline "revving the Web" - both adding power and features, as well as the idea of building the Web's next iteration."
And I like this precise description over at the official Web 2.0 website:
"The Web 2.0 Conference explores the ongoing evolution of the Web as a business platform..."
The full skinny is in the press release:
""Revving the Web" is the theme for the 2005 Web 2.0 Conference, reflecting the conviction that the web is being transformed into a new application and business platform. [...] The content of the 2005 Web 2.0 Conference will focus on three major areas that are likely to change both technology and business models: innovations in infrastructure and interfaces for web-based applications; media and entertainment; and communications and mobile technology."
All I can say is: Brrrm Brrrm!!
p.s. due to my holiday, the Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-Up takes a break till next week.
I'm excited to be involved in the Jupiter Research blogging project, as described by Michael Gartenberg:
"It wasn't easy but we've just sent the the first three bloggers their invites to join us. Will Wagner and Thomas Hawk will be taking a look at our stance on standalone and PC Based DVRs and Richard MacManus will be looking at our latest report on RSS Readers. We'll be linking directly to what they write and of course, engage in a few comments of our own as well."
I only found out today, so I'll be reading the Jupiter Research report on RSS Readers over the next couple of days. Expect a post from me about it by end of this week.
Seb Paquet notes from Information Architecture Summit in Montreal, March 2005. This from Brett Lider:
"Defining the Future - The Web 2.0 article on Wikipedia was clearly written by an engineer. Look at those acronyms!
Some components of Web 2.0. Social networks, desktop information, browser history, tastes and preferences - getting them documented and un-siloed, analog information."
Quite right. Although I like the Wikipedia definition, Brett makes a great point. Web 2.0 is just as much about the business effects as the technical underpinnings.
Web 2.0 is also about the people aspects. Josh Petersen from 43 Things puts it well:
"Part of what is happening on the web today, through folksonomies, blogs, social networks, link sharing and photo sharing are new ways for people to disclose their personalities in public and new ways to develop a digital identity that might augment who we are as people, offline."
Don't get me started on avatars! :-)
NB: it seems the techy Wikipedia definition of Web 2.0 is under debate. Boris Mann takes issue with the "implementation" section pointing to companies - he says "let's not have this page be a commercial advertisement, but rather an evolving definition of Web 2.0." Then Aaron Swartz weighs in by saying it's "a vague article promoting a bunch of the author's favorite technologies and psuedo-tech-blabber."
Both reasonable objections, although I'd like to see the author of the original definition respond. Also I'd like to see a more business-focused definition added, to complement the techy one. If I get any free time in the coming weeks (unlikely!) I may even pen it myself.
