The new digg-like Netscape has gone out of beta and is now on the main netscape.com domain.
I'm currently seeing some great comments coming through on my initial post about the new Netscape. Seems like the existing Netscape user base is not overly impressed - and remember there were some 811 million page views per month on the old netscape.com. This comment on my blog by Susan Kramss is indicative:
"I've been a loyal Netscape member for years. Lately my patience has been seriously tried. First I went three weeks without access to my mail because the "servers were down" and no one could say if or when they would be up and running or if my mail would still be on file.
Now this change to Digg! It's absolute garbage. Even if I wanted to give it a try, I've gone in on three occasions now, changing my password using their update password link and each time it comes back saying the system does not recognize my password. I couldn't use this new format if I tried due to the poor technical management behind the scenes. It's time for a change. And I strongly reccomend it to the many of you out there who are unhappy with this change because you know damn well this kids running the show don't give a crap about what the public wants."
I wonder if this is just the initial shock, or will Jason Calacanis and his team have a big challenge on their hands to convert the old netscape users across to the new community news "2.0" model. Thoughts?
The trouble with business trips is they play havoc with my blogging rhythms, so I've not been able to post much 'professional' content while I've been in the valley. But if you'll bear with me, I've got some great stuff coming up. Including a re-design of Read/WriteWeb which I hope to go-live with soon.
In the meantime I'm currently sitting in Marc Canter's living room, about to jet off to Seattle for the Gnomedex conference. Marc's company Broadband Mechanics (which I do freelance work for) has just released People Aggregator and the team is busy at work with that right now. Below is a pic taken last night (by Paolo) of me inbetween two of PeepAgg's development team, Ashish and Gaurav. It looks like we're all hard at work, but actually I think we were just checking our email :-) But seriously, I know Ashish and Gaurav have been putting in a lot of hours on PeepAgg. More soon from me, once I reach Seattle....
The latest comScore stats for May 2006 show how
fast social networking sites are growing, but YouTube in particular is displaying spectacular
growth. As comScore noted in its monthly report:
"There seems to be no end in sight when it comes to the popularity of social networking sites. Myspace.com surpassed the 50 million unique visitor-mark in May, an increase of seven percent since April. In addition, Youtube nearly doubled its traffic in May, reaching 12.6 million visitors, while Classmates.com reached 14.7 million visitors, and Facebook.com captured just over 14 million visitors."
(emphasis mine)
According to comScore YouTube had 12.6 million unique visitors in May (up from 6.6M and so putting it just outside the top 50 properties on the Web), Google Video 7M, and Yahoo! Video 4.2M. YouTube was in fact the fifth most "Gaining Property" across all the sites comScore tracks, by percentage change in unique visitors, from April to May! Here's the trend chart, comparing YouTube's success with the far more static growth of Yahoo Videos and Google Videos:
Alexa.com shows a similar trend, but suspiciously their stats have YouTube with the same reach as MySpace (which obviously isn't right):
I'd be interested to see Hitwise's chart for May 06, because last time they did one (in December 05) they had Yahoo way out in front - but at that time YouTube was just starting it's big push:
So in the space of just 6 months YouTube has not only overtaken Yahoo Video as the most popular Web video-sharing service on the planet, but it's now approx 3 times as big as Yahoo's product! That just shows (once again) how quickly the status quo can change on the Web.
At the Supernova conference last week I had the pleasure of interviewing two of Yahoo's rising stars, VP of Product Strategy Bradley Horowitz and leader of the Technology Development Group Caterina Fake (one of the co-founders of Flickr). They are both part of what is loosely termed an R&D team, which other Yahoo business units can tap into. We discussed a variety of Yahoo's products and the general product strategy of Yahoo going forward.
Bradley said that Yahoo
these days is all about open platforms - and discovering what people do with all the data
that comes from that. Caterina said that the real interesting stuff comes from the
creativity and invention this unleashes in people external to Yahoo. The phrase "Opening
up Yahoo" was one Bradley mentioned in his speech to the Supernova attendees.
One of the recent success stories of Yahoo has been Yahoo! Hack Day, an internal developers project at Yahoo led by Chad Dickerson. The spirit of Hack Day is now being transferred to the Yahoo Developer Network, Yahoo's external development resource. Chad has recently taken the reins of YDN to make that happen.
We discussed a little about the recent re-design of the yahoo.com homepage, a story which I covered extensively on Read/WriteWeb (at that time I interviewed Bradley's boss, Chief Product Officer Ash Patel). Bradley noted that the yahoo.com homepage re-design was a step towards the functionality of MyYahoo - i.e. it's moving from a page model to a more interactive model. I asked if video and television-like content will increase on yahoo.com and Bradley responded by pointing to Yahoo! Video, which is getting more and more uptake. Also the new Yahoo.com homepage has video (and Ajax) elements.
I can't recall how I got on to this topic, but I mentioned how Gmail was a new email
paradigm and that I loved how Google had changed the concept of web email. Bradley made a
good point in response: that the new Yahoo Mail (even though it sticks with the existing paradigm) now integrates RSS and there are more PIM
features coming. With Yahoo, because they have such a mainstream user base, it's a case
of doing a deliberate switchover of functionality - rather than changing the ballgame as
Google is wont to do. The same response was given when I mentioned my current hobby
horse, widgets. i.e. MyYahoo will make more use of widgets when it makes sense to
transition their mainstream users over to that kind of functionality.
One of the more interesting topics of discussion was how Yahoo Search is evolving into a more social construct. We're seeing evidence of it now, with Y! Answers - which allows users to search for things that don't yet have an answer. Also when you are logged in, there are options for Yahoo My Web results and IM integration. I asked how many Y! Answers were in the database so far and I was told approximately 10 Million, although this isn't a confirmed figure.
The goal in general for Yahoo products is to achieve
organic growth via social relationships. Flickr is a great example of this - it's how
Flickr grew and will continue to grow, via the larger Yahoo network they're now a part
of. Caterina pointed out that if Flickr did a Superbowl ad, then users that came to
Flickr via the ads probably wouldn't understand the product. But if users come to Flickr
via their social network, then they will have a better understanding of the product and
hence there's a better chance they'll use it. I think Caterina made a similar point (from
a different angle) in a recent
post when she said "the sociality is definitely part of the ecosystem" for
Flickr.
All in all I'm always impressed by the number of smart people Yahoo has working for them now - and how open they are to tapping the tech community for ideas and inspiration (and vice versa!). I wish Google was more like this, but I guess they have their reasons.
Photos: freshelectrons and geodog
This is a personal/work post, to
explain one of my current projects Micro Media Corporation. It's a corporate blogging and
podcasting program that aims to give business people insights into the Web20 and new
media worlds. We're currently looking for more contributers for the
blogging and podcasting, so if you're interested - please read on. Or if you don't want
to read a self-promotion post, then move on to the next RSS feed in your aggregator
:-)
The name of the program is TransMission and our target audience is management in media, technology or marketing. Transmission was conceived and is run by London-based The Rights Marketing Company. I run the blogging part of the program and have a stake in the company Micro Media Corp. The first major subscriber to TransMission is British Telecom.
Our target customers are probably already engaging with new Web and/or media technologies - but are looking for expert guidance, news and commentary on these topics. TransMission provides 3 blog bulletins every week (this may increase as more contributers come on board) and also regular podcasts. Topics are the kind of things you'd find on techmeme.com or IWantMedia.com, so it's a lot of fun to produce! There are also other initiatives as part of our program - explained in an introductory powerpoint which I'm happy to send to anyone interested.
So who are the initial contributers (i.e. bloggers/podcasters)? Well there's myself, Michael Bayler and Jonathan Lakin from The Rights Marketing Company, Scott Karp, Taewoo Danny Kim, David Stoughton (a UK consultant), Dan Grossman, Tom de Zengotita (author of the book 'Mediated'), plus other occasional contributers. We're looking to expand our contributer program - so if you're a thought leader in the Web20 and/or new media topics, then do send me an email. What's in it for you? We pay for blogging and podcasting contributions and there is a stock options program, but just as importantly there are networking opportunities and you'll raise your profile in the business community - especially as our customer base expands.
Also if you think your company may be interested in becoming a Transmission subscriber, please send me an email too.
Earlier this week I noted that widget services are really ramping up now. Indeed over the past couple of days I've noticed lots of action in the burgeoning widgets industry, plus some excellent commentary.
At the Connected Innovators program at Supernova last night PostApp revealed the high level of WidgetBox, its "web widget marketplace". It's basically a marketplace for developing and managing widgets (i.e. small web-based apps). It aims to bring together the programmatic and participative Webs, in the words of CEO Ed Anuff. In other words, it's a marketplace between developers and regular Web users - where WidgetBox sits in the middle. TechCrunch has a review, plus profiles another company called GoodStorm which is doing e-commerce within widgets.
There are other services popping up to manage widgets too, e.g. Snipperoo which I mentioned in my prior post. The possibilities of widgets seems endless right now. Susan Mernit mentioned another angle on this, that the intersection of widgets with structured data is an area ripe with opportunity:
"Widgets could be flavor of the moment, but the ways that some widgets intersect with structured data (as opposed to intersecting with flashy, AJAX DHTML fancy effects) is one of the things I find compelling (Yes, I am fascinated by microformats, in particular)."
Susan says this opens up the ability to embed mini-apps in hugely popular platforms like MySpace. Over time I expect the big media companies will enable this kind of functionality in their platforms too - e.g. BBC, Yahoo (who already have all pieces of the puzzle, with its Konfabulator product and media platforms). For a taste of what Yahoo can do on a large scale, check out the NewsGator Podcasts & Buzz app - which searches RSS feeds to find video and audio podcasts, plus buzzworthy stories, and allows you to view that within Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. That kind of mini-app within an app is where all this is headed, from a product perspective. The bigger picture is that it opens up more opportunities for developers to leverage others platforms, and users to get more and varied sources of content.
This post was written by Ryan Stewart, a Read/WriteWeb guest blogger. Note that Adobe's use of the terms 'Read/Write Web' and 'kiwi' is not associated with this blog.
There is an interesting project going on over at Adobe that
aims to combine the power of Flex 2
with the potential of the Read/Write Web. The project is codenamed Kiwi and they have
already started showing how Flex 2 and the concept of a Read/Write Web can be combined to
create a fantastic experience and bring about innovative ideas for interacting with
data.
The Kiwi project was born out of Macromedia's Contribute, which put the web into the hands of normal people. You didn't have to be a techie to publish on the web - Contribute made it easy to manipulate a website and add your own content to it. The idea was that website management could be done by anyone. When the Contribute team saw the potential of Flex 2, they started thinking about ways to apply their knowledge of interacting with content on the web to the world of Rich Internet Applications - and the Kiwi project was born.
Their first major release is NoteTag, which was built as a proof-of-concept to show the potential of RSS, Flex 2 and the Read/Write Web. Currently, the application requires installation on a server - but the team assures me that a public working version is on the way (they have a demo of the application in action here). NoteTag allows users in a meeting to extract notes from the meeting and assign tasks from those notes to individuals. NoteTag actually stores the notes as blog entries and the task data as microformats, using del.icio.us and Blogger/Typepad. It uses RSS data and the open web services from del.icio.us to link tasks to specific notes. The NoteTag team built an Atom Protocol library, a Tag Server Protocol library and what they call an extended RSSRW (RSS Read/Write) library, which is what builds the RSS feed from the note/task data.
The idea of combining Flex 2 and the Read/Write Web is one that has a lot of potential. Because Flash is cross-platform and can run on a variety of devices, it isn't hard to imagine a Read/Write Web application being written for the web and then being easily ported to mobile devices - so that you can interact and manipulate your data from anywhere.
The Read/Write Web is powerful precisely because it takes the web and puts it into manageable bits. If you think of the web as a river of data, then the ideal should be to allow users to take parts of data from that river, interact with it, and then put them back for others to see. Flex 2 provides the engine with which to deliver a rich user experience, while manipulating that data. The data is the most important part, but if the user experience is perfected then more and more people will be drawn into the mix and we will all be better off. The river will get a lot bigger!
Putting a great experience on top of the Read/Write Web also opens up other verticals. Imagine companies being able to actually engage with their customers instead of just pushing ideas at them. With experience at the forefront, companies can be encouraged to share more and their customers will be inclined to participate - eventually becoming stakeholders in the brand and products. RIAs allow for an incredible level of branding, that when combined with content, makes for an enticing place for customers to share ideas. Currently you see high-experience flash websites for things like movies and cars, but there is no "write" component to them. Take that branding, add the write component and you will be able to engage with customers in revolutionary ways.
The Kiwi project aims to harness all of the potential of the Flex 2 experience and show how beneficial incorporating the Read/Write Web can be. Taking the vast amounts of data that exists on the web and providing a rich, cross-platform way to interact with it could be a gigantic step towards bringing more people on board. Experience and engagement can be an immense draw for the regular user.
This Monday Digg will release the next version of the enormously popular community news site digg.com. Mike Arrington and I did a TalkCrunch podcast with Digg's co-founder and Chief Architect Kevin Rose and CEO Jay Adelson, in which we discussed Digg's evolution and what the new product (which they refer to as "Version 3") offers. Below are some sneak peak screenshots, to whet your appetite for Monday's big launch. Mike has a Techcrunch post up about it too.
The main new feature is 5 new categories - they called them 'containers' in our podcast. In addition to Technology, the new categories are: Science, World & Business, Entertainment, Video, and Gaming. This expands Digg beyond merely being a technology-focused site. However in the podcast Kevin and Jay told us that the core audience will still be the Technology community - who they think will participate in the other 5 communities. But Digg hopes to expand its user base too, to include more mainstream people. However I get the sense that the core tech crowd will be crucial in gaining momentum for the 5 new containers - because without user participation, the new (sub)communities will languish. As the digg press release itself recognizes, the success of the new categories relies on getting the network effects going:
"As the community grows, the efficacy of the digg prioritization process increases, giving a true snapshot of public opinion and the ability to watch news move up the digg hierarchy as it breaks."
Another new feature is that users can select and de-select topics. So for example if you're not interested in the Celebrity topic in the Entertainment container, you can easily filter that out. Also new is the application of the digg concept to videos - which the press release says is "the first ever use of the digg methodology in areas outside of news." The friends section of digg has been upgraded too - you can now be alerted to content that friends have "agreed on", plus you can list people who have added you as a friend.
Digg gets 8 Million Unique Monthly Visitors and has more than 300,000 active registered users, so this expansion outside of tech news will be seen as a way to build on that large and heavily participative user base. The key will be if they can get the existing users to support the new categories, which will in turn help drive new - more mainstream - users onto the site. Obviously this represents a challenge to Netscape's new digg-like site, which right off the bat was aimed at less technically-inclined people. Should be interesting to watch!
Digg logged out
Digg logged in
Topic selected
Add and remove topics
My friends list
Friends agreed on
Panelists: Craig Newmark (Craigslist), Saul Klein (Skype), Tina Sharkey (AOL), Mena Trott (Six Apart), Gil Penchina (Wikia)
Pic: Dan Farber; from left-to-right: Tina, Mena, Saul (doing a very good Robert Di Niro impression), Gil, Craig
Panel Blurb: "Users are becoming active co-creators of their media, commerce, entertainment, and communications experiences. Just how significant, though, is this phenomenon? How are business and social interactions likely to change in the era of peer production, and what are the implications for both newcomers and existing industries?"
Discussion:
Tina from AOL says opening up APIs is key now to get users to co-create. Mena from SixApart says people using their tools [MT, Typepad, etc] is key. Saul from Skype says Skype is focusing on enabling people to have conversations - voice is central, but video, sms and other things are built around that. Mentions SkypeCasts is "a new way for people to engage in public conversations on the Web". Gil from Wikia - "trust the users", a lot of their content is "controlled by users". Says users control the site and what's on it. Craig from craigslist says his site aims to engage the people on his site.
Both Mena and Tina say that people want their communities to be intimate, rather than e.g. 1000 people. Kevin notes that there is value in scale though. Tina says that AIM is a good example - has 42M users, but everybody has small communities. Gil says larger projects inspire people on Wikia, so in that sense large communities work. Tina says that would work with topic-based communities (rather than social ones). Mena says wikis have a lot of "observers", but if you want to participate then people like their community numbers to be smaller.
Saul says Skype is aiming to enable conversations and is bringing voice to the Web, across national boundaries and connecting to tools like blogs. Says Skype is at the beginning of bringing this kind of rich conversational functionality to the Web platform.
Craig says he sometimes fantasizes about bringing voice to craigslist, but is for future and not now. Doesn't want to be distracted from his core business. Tina from AOL says voice online is a complement to IM or telephone etc - giving more options to communities of interest. Mena says little audio snippets is adding something to blogging (but she doesn't like podcasting). Saul says Skype deals in live communications (incl IM etc), but being able to record conversations and publish that is interesting to Skype over the next 12 months.
Kevin asks how to make the 'markets are conversations' idea real? Craig says: [companies should] just get out of the way.
Kevin brings up Nick Carr attack on Wikipedia. Gil says they are a participative democracy, but only a small percentage participate. There is a hierarchy that makes decisions over conflicts, but people do have the opportunity to participate. There will be "bad people", but this is natural in large complex communities.
There was more discussion after this, with lots of references to UGC (user generated content), participation, etc. But I've covered the main bits of the panel, so I'll wrap this post up.
This workshop, moderated by Tara Hunt, split into 4 different groups for discussions. This format worked well and the group I joined, about little companies competing against big companies (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) was an interesting one. The premise: you're a startup launching a product, but just as this happens you find out a Google or Apple releases a similar product. What can you do? The example Tara used in her intro was 30Boxes, whose online calendar product was trumped by Google Calendar soon after it had launched.
A suggestion to begin our group was to leverage the strength of the bigco brands, to validate the space you're in. eg konfabulator originally released mac os widgets, then apple came in with the same product. So Konfabular changed to do windows widgets, but leveraging Apple's success in the widgets market. Of course Konfabulator was ultimately successful in (and led to an acquisition by Yahoo).
Mitch Ratcliffe brought up the metaphor of amoebas vs 800-pound gorillas. But he said another issue is amoebas vs 70-pound chimps - and the example he used is his own company vs Technorati.
Other suggestions from the group:
There was an interesting sub-theme that arose due to something Peter Pham from Photobucket brought up. He said his company started out doing something unique - direct linking - which didn't exist a few years ago. Now 3 yrs later they have 18M users. So his lesson is to pick something that is unique / serves a need. Differentiate was a word the group used.
Somewhat controversially Peter then said that Photobucket isn't going to open up to allow users to export their photos - because they server mainstream users and see no need to do this. I'll address that in a future post!
Someone (JP) said that photobucket should listen to "the community element of the individual". For example if he's a Photobucket user, he'll want to continue to use photobucket, but not lock out his community of users (who may not use photobucket). So that was an interesting angle on the lock-in area.
JP: small cos should "solve unknown problems for unknown groups of customers" - instead of solving known problems for known customers (big cos - y!, aol etc); Big weapons require big targets. David Weinberger then repeated: people attracted to companies that are "on our side"; so don't use their ' weapons' against them!
There was some talk about focusing on real business values, instead of web 2.0 fuzziness. Won't repeat that here, because it's all obvious stuff (serve user needs etc).
Distribution qst: big cos have huge advantage; Hans Peter from Plum -- his main focus is solving user problems and distribution; finding the nodes (with shared/competitive needs) in the game and playing within that system; e.g. co-branding opportunites. Axel mentioned that word-of-mouth is key here. Robert Scoble had a good quote right at the start of the workshop which sums that up: "The word-of-mouth networks have become hyper-efficient."
All in all, an excellent discussion. This post is just a hurried re-cap, so may tidy it up later on. In the meantime if you have any further tips for small companies (like a 30Boxes) competing with a Google or Microsoft, please feel free to leave a comment here.
