Web 2.0 market segment mashups
Mike Riversdale asked an interesting question
in the comments of my previous
post:
"What, in your (and others) opinion, is the difference (if any) between the "online desktop" (A) (I'm thinking Netvibes and the like) and the "Personal Content Network" (B)."
Actually I'm seeing a lot of crossover and cross-pollination in the market segments I'm tracking these days. The Web Office theme I'm exploring over on my ZDNet blog is very closely aligned to the WebOS (i.e. web-based OS services) market. Goowy is an example of a product that is both an office suite and an OS/desktop type application. I also noted a few posts ago that PeopleFeeds, 43Things and Suprglu could be classified as anything from a Content Management system, to a Social Networking Service or an RSS Reader.
Another example: the increasingly hard-to-tell difference between a modern RSS Reader and a Personalized News service like Tech.memeorandum. RSS Readers like Rojo and the Newsgator family are adding more filtering and social recommendation functionality - taking their cue from successful services like Digg and Memeorandum. Meanwhile the likes of Tailrank and Megite are attempting to make their News aggregators increasingly personalized (like an RSS Reader).
So there is a lot of cross-pollination going on, which gives industry analysts like me something to chew on! ;-)
But back to Mike's specific question: what's the difference between Ajax Homepages (e.g. Netvibes, Pageflakes, Live.com) and Microcontent Aggregators (e.g. Peoplefeeds, Suprglu)? Peter Cooper followed up with this comment:
"Mike: The primary difference from my POV is that you don't really share entire Netvibes pages, but Superglu is something that other people can look at and use rather than just you."
I'd add that Ajax Homepages are designed to be a home for your external content sources and web services (aka widgets, gadgets, modules -- whatever you want to call them). So an Ajax Homepage like Netvibes or Pageflakes is more focused on being a central place to store your favourite content (news, RSS feeds, etc), plus a place to access all of your web apps and personalized services (like for example access to your Writely account, or your tv schedule -- i.e. much more than just the weather and clock apps you mostly see today).
The Personal Content Network services (to use Dick Costolo's great phrase) are much more about organizing the content you created - and as Peter noted, making it easier for other people to subscribe to and/or filter your content.
But we're certainly seeing a lot of interbreeding of functionality and features between web 2.0 market segments, which is an encouraging sign that developers and startups are paying attention to the landscape and trying new things in order to evolve.
Pollination pic: libraryman
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Hmm, ok, that's cool - one is more about "me" and the other is more about "you" - ie, this is "my" calendar and I want to use it / this is my stack of blog readings and I'd like "you" to read them as well.
So why have two places to do that - why not a check box on 'content', "private/public"?
And then I would have one place to go for everything. One place for my feeds, one place for my own content (be it published web pages, blog entries, calendars ...) and one place to direct people that want to know about me. One source of truth and not multiple places (with the every gorgeous multiple logons, multiple URLs, multiple profiles, multiple contact lists, multiple look-and-feel's ... etc etc).
And "you" would get to see the same content that I think you (in the sense of the world) is fascinated to see.
I now see what the difference is (potentially) but not quite sure why ...
(PS: there's 2 "r"s in Riversdale ;-)
Thanks Mike. NB: I got the spelling of your name from your homepage ;-) So you better fix that up... :-)
What you're describing above is pretty much what a DLA does - Digital Lifestyle Aggregator, in the Marc Canter sense of the term. A DLA has private and public pages and aggregation/social networking functionality. It's basically a central place for aggregating all your content. In fact, Marc is building a product called People Aggregator that does all this (I do some work for his companny BBM).
For me (opinion only) it's the difference between any "platform" and "application" - and platform can be beyond hardware/OS combo -- it's a "food on the plate type of thing".
*blush", fixed up - and on the "Hire me" page as well, now that's sending the message I want is it!?!
A DLA, what a wonderful example of a TLA ;-)
I look forward to seeing the People Aggregator.
Be nice if others (Netvibes, Google Desktop, My Yahoo!) just allowed it though. Most of the these have a "public profile" and to add some 'content' as well wouldn't be technicaly that difficult.
"Platform" and "application" - I s'pose for me the platform is the Web (nominally via a browser but I'm not tied to that - via voice over a phone is good if it works) and that's it. Applications are things that I can use (they have functionality, the do something) and not just "show" content - an RSS reader merely "shows" stuff but a Calendar let's me add events, move stuff around and feed out for those that want to read my stuf.
For me all I want from the platform is the ability to get to my applications and content - everything else is up to the apps and the content. I also want (and here's the crunch) to be able to do that via anywhere and not jsut on the PC under my desk. That means I have to have a "lowest common denominator" platform - hence the Web (normally via a browser). How I get to the Web isn't thatr important - my pc, work computer, airport computer, pda ...
This morning I got the following email from Pageflakes:
"Until now, Pageflakes was your very own personalized start page. From now on you can also share your pages (with your friends or colleagues) or publish them for everyone to see!"
The line between what you read and what you (re)publish is, as you point out, becoming blurred. This is a complex design problem but everyone's thinking about it so we should see some interesting solutions in the next couple of months.
Hi Ian,
I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit more on the design problem that you mentioned. Did you mean that there is a potential risk in blurring too many features?
Thanks
Ole
p.s. fixed up your name Mike :-)
Thanks ... and so did I (*blush* one more time)