This is the perspective of a “skeptical, later early adopter”; the sort of person who Microsoft needs to retain and should have been able to retain easily. I don’t spend time on productivity tools that may at some date make me more productive, but which today are just a frustrating time sink. That describes the majority of people. MS Office can be annoying, but it does work. So any serious alternative has to offer a significant advantage and at the same time make adoption a total breeze.
I think Google Apps has reached that point. The significant advantage is collaboration.
Vertical Search is one of those confusing terms that means many different things, depending on where you are coming from. To most RWW readers, Vertical Search tends to mean “the search space that Google has not yet grabbed and that does not require a major technology breakthrough such as natural language search”. That’s a good enough definition from a start-up perspective. For traditional media, Vertical Search is also about creating a space that Google cannot simply steamroll over. Traditional media may call it Rich Data or Information Services or Data Products, but the end goal is the same.
According to Forrester Research, there will be "strong demand" for web 2.0 tools in the enterprise in 2008. Even though 42% of enterprises say adding web 2.0 tools is not on their agenda, according to a Q3 2007 survey, Forrester expects that half of those will change their mind and embrace web 2.0 tools by year end. In the report "Top Enterprise Web 2.0 Predictions For 2008," analyst Oliver Young gives three reasons why he thinks 2008 is the year that "IT departments will take their heads out of the sand and embrace web 2.0 technologies."
I first noticed eXpresso when they bought a little start-up called Xcellery that had a neat way to collaborate using Excel. I had used the product and it worked pretty well.
eXpresso was named as one of PC World's 25 Most Innovative Products of the Year for 2007. PC World succinctly summed the product up: "[it] allows Excel users to share their spreadsheets, online or off." eXpresso is different from the web office contenders that you normally hear about on ReadWriteWeb for three reasons:
Yesterday I attended a “Chalk talk on Global Innovation and Collaboration” in New York, hosted by BSG Alliance. I went because it was led by Don Tapscott who wrote one of my favorite business books - Wikinomics, How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. That book ranks up in my Top 10 Business Books of all time (and with 30 years in business, I have read quite a few).
Dan Tapscott is an example of what in my last post I called “consultants in a knowledge intensive space” who write to build their consulting business. He is clearly in the very elite category that writes books and not just Blogs (you can see others here). Since 1992 he has run a “think tank and strategy consulting” business called New Paradigm. The books clearly help him to a) think through major trends and b) increase visibility/credibility. At his level the book sales are probably meaningful as well.
Yesterday’s event was to publicise the fact that New Paradigm had been acquired by BSG Alliance, a company that has recently raised $20m and is on an acquisition spree, buying consulting firms that help Fortune 500 behemoths deal with what they characterise as a “category 6 perfect storm” brought on by Web 2.0 mass collaboration, Net Generation employees and globalization.
I call this “the business of teaching elephants to dance” after another one of my Top 10 Business Books, the epic tale of how Lou Gerstner took an IBM that was on the ropes in 1992 (having failed to adapt to a PC centric world) and made it great again, which he called “Who says Elephants Can’t Dance?”
A new Forrester report by Erica Driver and Ron Rogowski suggests that rich Internet applications (RIAs) may usurp Microsoft Office and enterprise portals as the front-end UIs for "decision-makers and task-oriented workers". The phrase Forrester uses for this front end is "Information Workplaces (IWs)".
RIAs in the enterprise; source: Forrester
The report states that today, enterprise portals and Microsoft Office are the most common front ends "through which content, collaboration, enterprise applications, and other services are delivered to workers in a seamless, contextual way." However, says Forrester, RIA technology is improving that user experience and is being increasingly used by mid to large enterprises. The report states:
I am the wrong age for Facebook or MySpace. But I happen to have a relative who is in the LA music scene, who gave me a tour from his perspective - and now I totally get it. A few decades ago that is where I would have hung out.
I am not looking for a social network. I cannot imagine choosing one single place as my only online hangout and I certainly don’t want the hassle of managing my identity and my relationships on multiple sites. However I am interested in how different tools give different pieces of the social networking puzzle; and what ties them together.
When I wrote about LinkedIn compared to Facebook, some Facebook enthusiasts pointed out that messaging within Facebook is better. I think that is true, but I don’t want to use messaging that is controlled by a site - and I think that is true for most people who grew up with the Internet before social networks evolved. It may be nothing more than habit, but habit matters a lot for adoption.
The reason that LinkedIn is so interesting is that it is the missing piece of the puzzle. We already have two good basic pieces:
1. Blogging tool - Wordpress, Typepad or Blogger.
2. Start page - Pageflakes, Netvibes or MyYahoo.
My online social/business network happens to be WordPress + PageFlakes. PageFlakes is where I consume content and Wordpress is where I create it. If you are interested in what I write you RSS it into your start page. It's not hard.
Sure, that could be MyYahoo, Netvibes or iGoogle instead of PageFlakes; and Typepad or Blogger instead of Wordpress. To update an old phrase: "you loan your attention you takes your choice." Choice really is the point. Unlike the all-in-one stereo system of Facebook, I get to mix and match my speakers and woofers as I want (yes I know, that analogy dates me). Switch PageFlakes for Netvibes? Sure, if it is different enough.
In the heyday of the Facebook hype (it seems so long ago now!), Facebook was going to eat LinkedIn’s lunch. Based on recent experience, I don’t think so.
I recently had reason to use LinkedIn seriously, using my existing network to tap into a market that I had not previously been exposed to. I had not used LinkedIn since the early days, so this was my first serious update.
I have NOT used Facebook seriously. I registered out of curiosity about the phenomenon and found that the only network I could join was based on zip code - and that was useless. Then Read/WriteWeb set up a group on Facebook, but I looked once and left. When I want the Read/WriteWeb network, I go to the site itself. So please take my comments on Facebook with a large lump of salt; but Fred Wilson too has made a more determined effort to use Facebook and he has been disappointed. If there are technology entrepreneurs on Facebook, you would think they would respond to an ad from one of the leading VCs in the social media space saying “be my friend”.
In Chongquing, China - the world‚Äôs fastest-growing metropolis - hundreds of small motorcycle firms are using a radical form of collaboration to triple output to 15 million motorbikes per year, which beats their giant Japanese competitors. That story was told in the book ‚ÄúWikinomics, how mass collaboration changes everything‚Ä?. It's is a deeply impressive book, because it relates the flurry of Web 2.0 innovation to real world economics.
The Chinese motorcycle story is not about an online network, but it illustrates a potential for Web 2.0 technologies that goes well beyond today’s relatively simple consumer applications. The motorcycle entrepreneurs build trust through lots of face-to-face time in coffee shops. China has a weak rule of law, making personal relationships even more important.
This is an ‚Äúemergent‚Ä? business network, because there is no centrally defined structure. The structure emerges from lots of little interactions that are designed to solve specific problems. There is no ‚Äúbig Daddy‚Ä? making the rules. These are not markets dominated by say Wal-Mart in retail or Microsoft in PCs.
Enterprises continue to adopt web technologies and 'web 2.0' trends, but there are two common threads to this adoption. One is that web technologies are step-by-step being adopted by enterprises, but they aren't yet ready to usurp many desktop software apps. The Google Apps vs Microsoft Office debate currently raging is proof of that. The second thread is that enterprises have a fear of web 2.0 tools being mis-used by their employees. I was recently in a TV news segment in my home country, answering the question: should Facebook be banned in the workplace? (for the record, my answer was no!).
Forrester Research has just released two reports that address this 'fear of Web 2.0' (my term, not theirs). The first report is entitled 'Web 2.0 Social Computing Dresses Up For Business'. The executive summary first neatly defines the value of Web 2.0 in the enterprise:
