How Microsoft Can Beat Google on the Web: Take User Data to the Bank
Feb 26, 2008 Read/Write Web
The times are changing, Microsoft is losing and Google has won as computing moves to the web – right? That’s not necessarily the case. In fact, Microsoft has a clear opportunity to come from behind online and dominate the future, albeit in a radically different way than they dominated the past.
Look to the bank, as metaphor, for one vision of how it could go down. Microsoft could beat Google by embracing services the same way Google has but simultaneously building a strong bond of trust with users around protection and proper use of user data. Like a bank, for user data. I’d call this an emerging theory that not only I hold – what do you think?
Recent Context
Microsoft announced last week that it is making what it called a major paradigm shift towards openness and APIs. The company will monetize commercial use of those APIs, but it claimed that pricing would not be prohibitive.
I didn’t think a whole lot about the Microsoft announcement until I heard the latest episode of the Newsgang podcast (skip to second half for this part of the discussion) where Steve Gillmor made an argument similar to the one I make here. Gillmor argued that Google is loosing credibility fast around privacy and user data concerns, leading to a big opportunity for Microsoft or someone else.
Specifically, Gillmor has been calling out Google for weeks over its failure to reply to user complaints about GMail contacts being ported into Google Reader as friends whose shared items are served up to you automatically. On face it seems like a small issue, perhaps, but Gillmor says that the company’s refusal to respond to this important-in-principal infraction of the contract with users is reminiscent of Nixon’s early handling of Watergate’s discovery. I didn’t understand for weeks why he was making this argument, but now I think I do.
This is really a story about how anyone could beat Google by focusing on creating a trustworthy environment in online services. Microsoft has a particular opportunity to do so, especially if it buys Yahoo! The following are my thoughts, so don’t blame them too much on Gilmor.
The Plan
Here’s four steps Microsoft could take to overcome Google in the fast-approaching era of user data online.
1. Offer great services.
Who says Microsoft can’t compete with the anemic Google Office services and a host of web apps that are little more than “good enough” today?
Yahoo! Mail already rivals GMail, Upcoming is a great social calendar that could be expanded upon, everyone loves Flickr (just don’t kill it) and Live.com is a good search engine that could fill the gap if people grow displeased with the Google brand and experience. Virtual Earth and Live Maps are good products and there’s plenty of market share already among traditional Microsoft services. Office Live is a Rich Internet Application waiting to happen, throw in some Silverlight and the cross platform/RIA snazzieness just won’t quit.
2. Buy Super bowl ads selling Microsoft services as the “banking experience” of the emerging era.
Seriously, if Microsoft puts privacy and consumer data protection at the center of their promotional efforts that would work wonders to grow the above services. Tell people they can get business-level security for their documents, photos, email and search history. They use Microsoft at work and would happily choose continuity of trust over the one-hit search-wonder from Mountain View. Other than search, Google’s flagship product today is YouTube. Do people want to perform their basic operations, quickly moving online, in the house of YouTube? No.
Mass market consumers trust Microsoft, are used to giving them money and would be happy to get their online “wow” and day-to-day safe computing in a one-stop shopping experience. Tell them that virus control is all centralized on servers in Redmond instead of blowing in the winds of porn on their local browsers and they’ll jump at the opportunity.
The unspoken understanding is that “the other Guys” (Google) cut their teeth in the insecure Wild West of the Web’s early days and still haven’t grown up. How hard would it be to paint Google as an irresponsible greenhorn that may have blazed the trail for online services but can’t be trusted to take good care of your vital data assets? It wouldn’t be hard at all.
3. Monetize those services
Everyone buying ads is waiting for Google to get beat, or at least face a strong challenger. No one wants to buy Google print or radio ads – those products are going nowhere. Microsoft could make a tidy sum just growing their own (Overture+AdCenter) ad revenues against the above services.
Don’t just let Yahoo! Mail read peoples’ emails and run directly contextual ads, tell people that their data is analyzed in anonymous aggregate – or just in-house by the trusted Microsoft brand.
Beyond traditional advertising, Microsoft could make a killing from offering appropriate product and service recommendations based on user data. As Dr. Rick Hangartner, Chief Scientist at recommendation engine MyStrands, wrote in a post for the ages last year – sophisticated recommendation engines are going to make a big impact in the near-term future because “…while search engines help you find things you know you are looking for, discovery helps you find the rest.”
At every appropriate pause in the aforementioned high-quality service experiences, Microsoft can make a recommendation, or up-sell, based on the data they acquired through a trust-based relationship with users.
4. Pay the users interest
Banking is the key metaphor in questions of user control over data. When users give up temporary control over their data to an institution (a service provider) they have to have an acceptable amount of knowledge regarding what’s being done with it, faith that it is being used in their interests (at least short term, investment in ecological imbalance be damned to follow the metaphor) and tangible, if small rewards for allowing said service provider to hold in trust and use their data.
Money is being made with user data, user data can be withdrawn and spent like cash at other service providers and so users deserve some small compensation like interest as a result. Free software, premium services after a certain period of use, outright cash – whatever the case may be.
Crazy? Google’s got an army of users buying, selling and publishing their ads on user-owned real estate in exchange for a relatively small portion of the revenue in question. I don’t think the above scenario is crazy at all.
Or cut that last step out if you’d like. I think steps one through three could come together on their own and paying users interest may be the weakest link here – but I don’t think it’s that weak. I think the banking metaphor is going to be a compelling one for mass market users, too.
Conclusion
All of the above could happen. Crazier things have happened. If not Microsoft, someone else could do the same thing. Google can’t rest easily on its laurels and improved respect for the huge mass of user data it’s beginning to collect will prove essential for the company’s long term viability.
Popularity: 5% [?]
How To Manage Your Online Reputation
Feb 26, 2008 Read/Write Web
You’ve spent a lot of time building up your reputation and image both online and off, so it’s important to make sure that someone isn’t out there dragging it through the mud. The latest tool for reputation management is Trackur, but its bottom-level price is $88/month, so the question on my mind, is: “Is it worth it?” There are already many different ways to monitor your online reputation as it is. Let’s see how they stack up.
Trackur
To begin with, we’ll look at Trackur. This new tool scours blogs, news sites, images, and videos for you to track your name, company brands, industry trends, or even news about your competitor. The tool allows you to search for a keyword or keywords, but also allows you to filter that search to include only instances where that keyword is coupled with other words and/or filter out instances where certain other keywords are present. Once the search has been customized, it can be saved and then subscribed to via an RSS feed or email. The items Trackur finds can also be bookmarked or emailed.
Google Alerts
One of the simplest and easiest ways to track something on the way, your reputation or otherwise, is to use Google Alerts. With this free service, you can search either all of Google’s properties, or you can specify that only News, Blogs, Web, Video, or Groups is searched. You can then configure the Alerts results to be emailed to you either as it happens, once a day, or once a week. There is also a page where you can edit the alerts once they are created or delete them when they are no longer in use.
Technorati
The blog search engine Technorati is also a good free resource for tracking what’s being said in the blogosphere. The service indexes posts as they are published and with any search you do on the site, there is an RSS button that you can use to subscribe to the search. When viewing the results on the web site, you can click between tabs to see just the Posts, Blogs, Photos, or Videos containing your search terms.
MonitorThis
A simple online tool called MonitorThis lets you subscribe to results of a search from 22 different search engine feeds at the same time. The engines searched include the main search engines like Google, MSN, and Yahoo, as well as smaller engines like Plazoo, Blogmarks, and Topix. The results are provided in OPML format. Although you have to copy and paste the code into a file you create on your computer in order to subscribe, it’s still worth checking out as the list of engines searched makes this a good resource.
Naymz
Naymz is a web profile aggregator and reputation metrics service. Naymz’s primary goal is to make sure you are in control of your name on the internet. To do this, it allows you to configure your profile with links to your other online profiles, contact info, endorsements, recent web activity, tags, and more. The service also buys your name as a keyword on Google to make sure people can find you. Naymz is free, but premium features are available for $9.95/month offering things like comprehensive search engine promotion and custom domains. However, even members using the free service have access to the Reputation Monitor section. This section searches for recent references to your name on the web and allows you to subscribe to an RSS feed of this information. If you find your reputation is not so good, you can subscribe to the Online Reputation Repair service, one of the premium offerings, to get it cleaned up. Naymz is a great alternative to the new Trackur service and much more affordable as even its premium features are a fraction of Trackur’s price.
Rapleaf
Rapleaf is an online reputation lookup service that lets you look up someone by their email in order to view their reputation info on social networks, as well as profile stats and related info. The service returns a score and allows others to rate you as either positive, negative or neutral. By creating an account and claiming your Rapleaf profile page, you can take control of your information to build your reputation and manage your privacy.
Software
Although it seems counterintuitive to purchase and install software to monitor conversations on the web, at $49.95, the copernic tracker program is still much more affordable than one month of Trakur’s service, so it’s worth a look. The program looks for new content as often as you like and can provide notification either via email, desktop alert, or mobile alert. Both the tracking and the alerts can be scheduled and different versions of web pages can be saved. The program also offers integration options that allow commands to be integrated into the browser and the OS itself, if desired.
Create Your Own Custom Search
Use either Google’s Custom Search or a service like Rollyo to create your own search engine to track not just the web, but specific web sites. This can be useful for companies, too, as something like Rollyo would allow you to you set up a custom search to just search sites where just companies and their behavior are mentioned, like the BBB and Planet Feedback.
Search Tags
A service from Keotag is a great tool for bloggers and those researching a topic in the blogosphere. The site lets you just search for items that are tagged with a particular keyword. To use the service, you enter in your keyword and then select the search engine to use. The engines available are Technorati, Blinklist, Del.icio.us, twitter, Google, Icerocket, BlogDigger, Tailrank, MSN, Bluedot, Newsvine, Blogpulse, Blogdimension, Bloglines, Digg, Reddit, Yahoo, and YouTube. Those results can then be subscribed to as an RSS feed or saved as an OPML file.
Conclusion
That’s just a smattering of ways you can use the web and various applications to stay on top of your online reputation or track any keyword of your choosing without having to shell out a large, monthly fee.
However, if you are, in fact, looking for a professional reputation management service, you would do best to shop around before just jumping on board with the latest and greatest offering. Companies like Umbria, Advanced Media Productions, biz360, Visible Technologies, and more can go beyond simple reputation tracking to provide thorough and comprehensive reputation and trends analysis that can bring insight into not only your brand, but your consumers and market intelligence, too.
And for a great introduction on working with feeds for reputation tracking, check out this post from the Viper Chill web site on how to work with various online readers and this post on 5 feeds to get started with.
Popularity: 6% [?]
eBay Listings Down 13% During Seller Strike
Feb 26, 2008 Read/Write Web
Last week we wrote about a boycott of online auction site eBay that was organized by sellers angry over recent fee and policy changes. We noted that the full effect of the boycott wouldn’t be evident until today, when the consumer action was scheduled to come to an end. “If [eBay's listings total] falls below 12 million we’ve made a pretty good impact,” eBay PowerSeller Nancy Baughman told Fortune Small Business last week. Listings didn’t fall quite that much, but almost.
USA Today reports that eBay’s listings were down 13% over the week to 13 million, according to third party tracking firms. Though eBay officially denies the dip, analysts see the seller strike as a harbinger for tough times to come for eBay.
eBay is facing stiff competition, especially from Amazon who unabashedly admits it wants eBay sellers for its Sell Your Stuff service. But more interesting than the success or failure of the boycott and what it means for the online auction industry, is why this action had a more significant impact than similar eBay boycotts in the past.
USA Today theorizes that the reason this seller strike was able to work where others in the past have barely made a dent was that organizers used social media sites to quickly bring people together on the issue. Boycott organizers created a YouTube video that has been viewed over 140,000 times, and they used MySpace to spread the word about the boycott and sign people up to their cause. (A Facebook group had much less traction.)
We’ve seen social networking sites be used to organize protests in the past. Earlier this month a massive political protest in Colombia that attracted as many as 2 million people was organized in large part via Facebook. While the eBay boycott was far smaller, the same dynamics are at play. Social networking and social media sites let people get ideas out very quickly, and allow people organize around a common goal without much lead time.
This sort of nearly spontaneous organization is a perfect demonstration of the utility that social networking and media has the potential to provide. More than just a place for people to super poke each other and share party photos, social networking has the ability to organize people to effect change. Have you ever used social media to organize some sort of social, political, or consumer action? Let us know about it in the comments.
Popularity: 5% [?]
6 Adobe AIR Apps to Check Out
Feb 26, 2008 Read/Write Web
Adobe’s AIR platform allows developers to create web applications that run on your desktop without the need of a web browser. Now that AIR has dropped the beta tag (see our previous coverage), it’s time to look at some of the AIR apps you can use today. And if you want to know why we here at Read Write Web are so excited about AIR, read more of our analysis about the platform to get caught up. Did your favorite app make the list?
Twhirl
It goes without saying that one of the most popular AIR applications is the Twitter client, Twhirl. Although it never got a write-up by any top blogs, it seems that everyone discovered this app on their own anyway. One of the best things about Twhirl is that it can be used to connect to multiple Twitter accounts. This is very useful for those that keep a Twitter account for personal use and a separate one for a business or service that they run. The Twhirl app demonstrates how AIR apps bring the web to the desktop, as it can dock in the system tray, just like a real desktop application does. You can search Twitter users, view their timelines, and choose to follow or unfollow them as you like. You can also search the public timeline in a feature that is powered by another web service, terraminds. Twhirl automatically fetches your friends’ status updates, direct messages, and replies, while color-coding different types of messages. You’ll receive both visual and audible notifications of tweets, with new messages displaying in a preview pop-up. Within Twhirl, you can easily post links via the URL-shortening feature provided by snurl.com. The app is skinnable and comes with multiple color schemes built-in that you can choose from. Overall, Twhirl is one of the best Twitter clients, and one of the best AIR apps, too. Download it here.
Google Analytics
For web site owners, measuring traffic and visitor stats are crucial tasks to managing the site and improving performance. With the Google Analytics AIR application, those who use Google’s free analytics software can now view those stats without needing to log in using a web browser. This robust application allows for multiple profiles from different Analytics accounts. Within the app, all the visitors, traffic, and content reports are available, just as they are online. A tabbed interface allows you to easily switch between the various reports. Within each area, you can drilldown into the data to view things like goal values and data segmentation. The app provides animated, interactive graphs, making viewing the data just as useful, if not more so, than when you view it online. You can also quickly swich between the interactive reports to viewing them in a PDF format instead. These reports can then be saved or printed, just like any online PDF. Alternately, reports can be exported to PDF, Excel, or XML formats. Download it here.
RichFLV
RichFLV is an AIR app that lets you edit Flash Video (FLV) files. The app reads FLV metadata – while importing the video, the app outputs the number and types of tags found for video, sound, keyframe (Keyframe Tags), and data (DataTags). With RichFLV, you can read, edit, modify, or delete cuepoints and cut FLV files. You can also use the app as a conversion tool, and convert the FLV files to SWF (Shockwave Flash) format. The sound in the FLV can be converted to an MP3, as well. Although serving a niche audience, this popular app has already been downloaded 654 times from the AIR Marketplace. Download it here.
AgileAgenda
AgileAgenda is a project scheduling utility which lets project managers enter data about tasks. The app, an Adobe AIR Derby Best in Show winner, dynamically adjusts to the changing conditions of a project. It knows today’s date and it will automatically adjust tasks that are or aren’t complete based on that. Tasks can be moved, extended, or split as needed. A light table lets you view the tasks, reassign them, change their priority, or change the durations. And like most project scheduling utilities, a GANTT view is available as well. Your data can either be stored locally, or even better, on AgileAgenda’s web service. AgileAgenda supports data sharing via XML or PDF exports and/or a web-based view on their web service. Download it here.
AOL Top 100 Videos
For some fun with AIR, check out the AOL Top 100 Videos application. This desktop widget lets you view the latest music videos, related artist videos, and special features provided by AOL. The music videos are sorted into various genres, like “Rock & Alternative,” “Hip Hop,” “Pop,” “Country,” “Latin,” and there is also a category for the “Most Watched” videos. The Top 100 app offers three different views – a Standard View, which is just a normal window, a Full Screen View, and a cool, sidebar-like Docked View. You can bookmark your favorite videos and via the related info sections, you can purchase the album, download ring tones and more, while reading up on your favorite artists. Download it here.
Xdrive Lite
Xdrive Lite is a new AIR app that was just launched today, but it certainly has potential to be one of the better apps. With the AIR client app, Xdrive users can upload files and folders to the online Xdrive web storage service right from the desktop. When logged into the Xdrive Lite app, everything in your Xdrive folder is shown within the app in the upper portion of the window, and below this is a local browser. Uploading files and folders is as easy as dragging and dropping them from one pane to the other. A Transfers section allows you to view the progress of the uploads and downloads. The app can also be used to share files with your friends through email, or by grabbing the embed code or file link. Download it here.
That’s just a brief look at some of the apps Adobe AIR currently offers, though I am sure there are many more that you might find just as good or even better. Do you agree with the list? In the comments, let us know who would be in your favorites!
(Note: some of these apps still require the beta version of AIR to run).
Popularity: 1% [?]
Pulse of Open Source: A Look at Niche Conversations
Feb 26, 2008 Read/Write Web
Pulse of Open Source is a new site that aggregates the Twitter messages of thought leaders and participants in the Open Source Software community. It’s a great example of the value that can be added on top of a simple aggregation of dynamic niche content. It’s also a good example of how you can find value in Twitter without even having an account of your own.
Inspired by the site Pulse of PDX, an aggregation of Twitter messages from users in the tech-rich town of Portland, Oregon (where I live) – these Pulse sites provide a model that could be used to create a central location for live discussions on any topic.
At Pulse of Open Source, anyone who follows Twitter user pulseofoss and send a direct message requesting inclusion in the site is added.
There’s a bio page where you can learn about who is included on the site. Participants at launch include people like Ross Turk, Community Manager at SourceForge, Amanda McPherson, the Marketing Director at The Linux Foundation, Greg Stein, the Founding developer of Subversion, and many other people who are vendors, analysts and reporters on Open Source. Does that sound like a site worth checking out? I think it does.
These sites also have a mobile version and an RSS feed. It’s a great way to check in on the day to day of the Open Source community.
With a little editorial judgment, this model could work well for any number of niche topics. Integration to display recent bookmarks on social bookmarking sites and blog posts wouldn’t be difficult either. Think of it as an industry-centric version of social lifestreaming, instead of a user centric one as is more common these days. I think both models are fascinating.
What community would you like to see the Pulse of? News reporters, political campaigners and graphic designers come to mind for me.
Popularity: 2% [?]
