Microsoft courier

I just saw this concept video for "Microsoft Courier" and its pretty good. If it makes it out to market, and just based of this video it definitely kicks the iPad's ass! I was shocked that this is coming out of Microsoft; if this makes it out to market, then maybe Microsoft still has hope after all...

On advertising online. Be powerful, not desperate.

Okay, I'm giving Microsoft a break this time, so what could have been "why not microsoft (part 3 of many) turned to be quite a positive video from Microsoft...

This real life story is pretty good, there were no sneaky, below the belt punches. It showed how MS Office worked for this couple and helped them stay organized.

I don't mind witty commercials with side comments against competitors. What bugs me though is when the material is not entirely true and filled with FUD - fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Such commercials come out very weak and desperate.

Here are some examples of advertising that poke fun at competitors, but the difference is that they were powerful messages, and not desperate attempts.

And of course, we can't forget these excellent Mac vs PC ads on the NYT. This was my favorite.

Synchronized Cardioversion is print media's only chance

I just watched an interesting video posted on Mitch Joel's blog under the post "Print is Not Dead". The video is an attempt by some print magazine people to convince the rest of us that print magazines will still be around. Will they? 5 years from now? 10 years from now? I'm betting on no.

This video is exactly the problem with the current print industry. They are still in denial. And why wouldn't they be? It is not an easy to think about a technology killing another - especially when one works in the technology on the receiving end. Besides, what else could they have said? "Yes we are facing some challenges, but we are working on revolutionizing our model?" Yes that will work well for the advertising bottom line.

I absolutely agree with Mitch about the false thinking that Twitter or Facebook are challengers to print magazines. Those are not the technologies that will replace print. I'm surprised they didn't even mention mobile devices? The iPad? any other tablet? hello? However I disagree with the title.

On another blog, linked on Joel's. I read the following comment by "Jen":

If this story is best told in print, why are they telling it on a YouTube video?

Absolutely! Why? These print executive big wigs ought to reply.

So, why will print die? And by print I mean almost all variations of print media. National newspapers, books, national magazines, etc. I say national, because I still see some room for the local, neighborhood type of magazine/newspaper. Those serve the immediate community around them will still have a niche to fill.

1. Its not portable. Yes, yes I can carry it in my bag man-purse but I have to remember to take it with me of course, and I have to pick up the right one that had the article that I wanted to read on the train. So, it is not portable.
2. Its not searchable. You just can't do it with print. Gutenberg did not envision this when he started building the printing press. Way back then, the problem was copying and distributing books, not indexing them since there was no need for that. Unfortunately, these magazine executives are still stuck in the Gutenberg era.
3. I can't share it, I can't tweet it, I can't start a public discussion about it. I can't refer to it later. So I read an article in the latest Times. How do I share it? Well I can lend the magazine out. My dad used to cut out the articles he was interested in and would stick them in his own 1980s version of InstaPaper i.e. a filing cabinet living room floor. But then back to number (2), he couldn't search it, but he did however have an indexing system; that he only knew how to use. My dad would then photocopy that snippet and share it with whoever. Times have changed, and today's technologies simply do what generations before us have done; but better. I'm sure 10 years from now my beloved iPhone and InstaPaper will be prehistoric, so why is it hard to say that print is prehistoric? Its been around for hundreds of years.
4. Its not interactive. This is probably one of the things I have seen the print industry pay attention to. CBS apparently ran an video ad in a magazine in fall of 2009, and Esquire has an augmented reality edition of their magazine. I don't know how well these were received, did it work? well they do it again? who knows? But we know they tried to bring interactive material to a magazine. If you can say it with an interactive video then why just say it in words or pictures?
5. It doesn't know who I am. The last two points are close to me. I am an evangelist for personalized and location aware anything. I would be in fact very disappointed with technology if these two points don't become as main stream as a coffee lineup at Tim Hortons in 20 years. Serving ads blindly is retarded, just like crossing the street blind-folded is retarded. But, if you are being chased by Michael Myers downtown Toronto and you happen to be blind-folded and can't take them off, then sure I guess you have to cross the street blind. This is the state of print advertisement. I'm sure careful consideration is taken to match ads with content, but there is so much you can do when you know very little about who is actually reading.
6. It doesn't know where I am. This is an even bigger point with me. However, this one is not that far off from being realized - I think. The iPad whether it flops or succeeds will give this market the synchronized cardioversion it has been asking for. The ads will target me based on where I am. Advertisers will push their content to my device, and I will only see it if it matches certain criteria about me, my current location, or perhaps whereabouts, the time of day, weather, where I have been going, etc. In the crazy world between my ears I am able to subscribe to content I willingly publish on the Twitters, Facebooks, Foursquares, Flickrs, blog, etc. and present me with ads that match what I publish. If Foursquare shows I am bouncing between Cooksville and Union Station every day, maybe I'll see a Go Train ad when I'm reading an NYT article on an iPad? Or maybe when my kid loses their new cell phone and I go Kunfu Panda on Twitter I see an ad for someone selling the same phone on Kijiji - with the same serial number; then I'll see an ad for a new set of butcher knives on sale.

why not Microsoft (Part 2 of many)

Round 2 of this series. I'm about to gut this video and turn it inside out. Kids, cover your eyes, this will get ugly.

• Delegation of mail and calendar. Once upon a time, in a world when dinosaurs roamed freely on this Earth there was a need to do this. (Okay, it wasn't that long ago, but you get the point). However today, I don't think this is needed anymore. You get an e-mail invite, and you can quickly accept or reject it, find out if it conflicts with other meetings, etc. The need to delegate your mail and calendar is now obsolete. There is an exception to every thing, and some executives may still have a need for this, but come on, how many of these executives are there out there? This point is moot at best.
  
• Folders or labels. That is the question. Yes you can't create folders because the whole concept of organizing mail in folders is from that 'dinosaur era' I mentioned above. The problem with folders, is its one-to-one. How do I file an e-mail as "High priority, I'll lose my job if I don't get this sorted out ASAP" and "this is for project X". Then after completing this task, I want to tag it with my "followup" tag so that I remember to check in a month later. I don't want to lose the other tags. I haven't found a way. Again, once upon a time, when you got physical mail you had to file it somewhere, you can only file it once. E-mail is different, and if you haven't figured that one out yet, then yes you should get an assistant.
• Full corporate directory, and contact delegation. Ok you lost me here. There is an address book. I can search for people in it. Thats all most of us need.
  
• Folks, its called GMail, and not GRemoteWipePhone. If that is available via Outlook, then it shouldn't. Remember point #3 from the first part? A costly excess of tools for people who don't use them.
• Can't Manage Conference Rooms. These guys must be looking at the regular, public gmail and not the corporate google apps. You can manage conference rooms, and schedules. AND double booking still happens on Outlook. Don't blame the tools.
• Sure, lets say you do need to install all this stuff to hookup Outlook with GMail. Sounds like FUD to me, but for the sake of argument I will accept this. Here, the problem is really Outlook. The world is moving to web based applications, keep up. You only need a browser if you were using it via the web interface, which by the way does not contain a costly excess of tools for people that don't use them. On the other hand, if you are obsessed with Outlook or absolutely need it - for whatever reason - , then perhaps Google Apps and Gmail is not for you.

Judge for yourself.

Why not Microsoft (Part 1 of many)

I just saw this Microsoft channel on Youtube comparing Microsoft solutions with Google's. I couldn't resist writing this up.

1. If I need to mix different features in a blender then its not easy to manage. In fact it could very well turn out messy.
2. "Documents zip across back and forth without a hitch". Okay, but what usually happens when you have "documents zipping back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, and..." Think turning the blender on without closing the lid.
   I'm also not sure why the diagram above shows a "phone" between a "PC" and a "browser"? Are you seriously telling me to e-mail my 40MB powerpoint slide on dialup? back and forth..back and forth..back and forth?
3. "A costly excess of tools for people who don't use them" I just don't understand how the fool who approved this could have done so while keeping a straight face? Isn't MS Word and Outlook bloated beyond belief with tools that most people don't use?

Here's the video. Judge for yourself.

On the rise of social eCommerce

Deborah Collier published her five predictions for social e-commerce in 2010:

1. Goodbye to the Middleman
2. The Year of the Deliver Company
3. Creative Sponsored Advertising
4. Mobile Commerce Revolution
5. Free Culture Frenzy

Her predictions can't be anymore bang on, if these become a reality of 2010, then we are well on our way to reaching that stage of "Social eCommerce" in the first half of this decade.

As it stands today, our eCommerce networks are all rather isolated and built up silos. We have the Amazons, the Ebays, the Facebooks and the iTunes and App Stores to name a few. Social eCommerce requires these imaginary walls surrounding these walled gardens to come down - and I do expect them to. The reason they will is because as much revenue these networks generate, there is still much more left on the table. We just need to reach out for it.

The elimination of the middle man is a big step. Online applications that have carved themselves a small niche of the market have risen. Not surprisingly these bleeding edge, creative and unique applications are not operated by large corporations, but by the John and Jane Does that have operated them out of their home office or even basements. In today's online world a business does not need to provide a whole lot of services and products to corner the market - in fact focusing on your niche and a small set of products and services guarantees that you will provide better results. Amazon allows me to sell my books to other people, I can sell my old computer on eBay, or my music on iTunes. There is no middle man involved. I would say the middle man is mostly eliminated at this stage.

Delivery is an interesting service, as it increases with the growth of C2C markets, because the middle man does not exist. We are yet to see a creative, bleeding edge and unique process for delivery. Its a harder problem to tackle, but definitely still possible. I don't expect this advancement to come from the national postal services. Its tragic, but these creative solutions come out of the basements and dorm rooms of the World. The big corporations are too sluggish and paralyzed to move with the speed required for this sort of advancement.

Creative, seamless and relevant advertisement is a personal interest of mine. The future of online ads in the social eCommerce phase would be heavily wired with the abundance of data on today's and tomorrow's social networks. We have some creative advertisement solutions today such as AdSense that would push ads based on the content on the page. That was last decade's technology, the 2010s need something new that is even more seamless, more integrated, and finally more relevant to me. The only way I can see these advertising engines outdoing themselves is by personalizing these ads. The data to drive such personalization is present, just locked away in these individual silos.

Mobile. Mobile. Mobile. The iPhone has revolutionized this arena. When I went to highschool, not all the kids had cell phone, a good chunk did, but not everybody. I didn't get my first cellphone until grade 10 I think. Similarly with university, at least the earlier years. Slowly the mobile population grew, but at that time it was fairly uncommon to see a smart phone within the hands of a twenty year old. Today that is different. Now we spend more time with our iPhones, Blackberrys, and other smart phones than we do on our laptops or computers. This is just another bundle of cash waiting for someone to reach out. Those who don't keep up with these trends will surely suffer. Generation Y is closing in to their 30s and 40s, these are the future customers and they will naturally surround those that provide such services.

The freemium model. Another prediction that is directly tied to Generation Y. Unlike the preceding generation, this generation expects to get basic features for free. This generation does not tolerate the service charges and system access fees. I don't expect these old fashioned models to remain much longer. Take the service charge I pay to CIBC, what do I get in return for it? Absolutely nothing. On the other hand, they get to invest my hard earned money, make money off it, and then have the nerve to charge me a service charge or fee to take it out? They ought to be paying me a service charge! That model will change. On the other hand, I would gladly pay a service charge to get premium features for my online banking, as well as mobile banking - and by premium I don't mean printing my paper statement on my screen. Rogers mobile has slowly started introducing such free features to their customers. This includes the "My Account" Rogers iPhone app to monitor my usage, free Rogers OnDemand Online and the ability to tag phone numbers with names on my online billing. Not rocket science, but its an excellent step forward. Stop thinking of the web as e-paper.

In a perfect world, the data I publish on Facebook, could generate sales on Amazon, that will provide recommendations from Ebay along with tunes to match the occasion from iTunes in an experience that is seamless wrapped with personalized ads from Google.

Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world, but these visions and ideas can' t be that far fetched. However, such ideas are a dime a dozen, what is important is how these ideas are executed, and not who is the first to execute them.

iPad: Same Content, Different Form

After I got past the unfortunate branding fiasco of the latest and greatest from Apple, I can't wait to first get my hands on one (like millions of others) and then maybe even owning one (like millions of others will).

There are many pros and cons of this new device, just like there were many pros and cons of the first iPhone. When the first iPhone came out, all I thought back then was "Why?!" However, soon I realized that "because its Apple", and over the years - after the old colourful clamshell laptops were discontinued and the new generation PowerBooks came out, followed by the MacBooks - we became used to the idea that the latest and greatest will come first from Apple.

Back to these iPaddies...first I think they are a completely different breed of device, different from the Kindles. As far as I know, I can't have my pictures on a Kindle, nor can I browse the Internet, listen to music, play games, send/receive e-mails and pretty much everything else you can do on your iPhone except make phone calls. Sure you may ask yourself "So what? I can do that on my laptop" but there is a difference. Laptops are much bigger, heavier, and do far more than you may want to do lying on the couch.

The Kindle is an eBook/eNewspaper/blog reader; thats about it. If you have an iPhone, can you deny spending hours just fiddling around with it, browsing, reading, tweeting, listening to music, etc. ? Probably not. Now you can do the same but on a bigger screen, so what is the reason behind this public outcry?

Here's why I think that is. We - Apple's customers - became spoiled. We always expect Apple to release the greatest and latest, and we expect that to blow our minds away. For the most part, the majority seem to be undecided and equally amazed as frustrated due to the limitations. People expected it to be a full fledged tablet/laptop, but it couldn't have been. All the tablet PCs before it have so far failed. Why should Apple attempt going down that path? On top of that history, why should Apple create a product that would cannibalize their MacBook sales? Steve's diagram clearly set the expectation, it will be better than an iPhone without being an iPhone, but it also won't be a MacBook. Its a digital content reader.

The fact is, its just a new medium for content delivery, and it may be the holy grail for the newspaper industry. People don't pay for content, you can't own the content, but you can own the medium you purchased it on. Take the Davinci Code for example. I bought the book, I watched the movie, and I bought the DVD - others may have also bought the eBook. Each form has its benefits, and each form has its 'expiry date'. After reading the book once, I probably won't read it again, but what if I wanted to refer to a chapter later, how do I do that? how do I find it? Will I have the book on me to refer to that chapter?

You have a dinner party at home, and you want to share some photos with your guests. Either you load them up on your computer, or you plug your camera into your TV and show them. The content is exactly the same, the form is different. Showing them on your big screen is more convenient, but you need to find that silly cord first - which you can never find when you need it. You can huddle around your computer or laptop, but thats less convenient, and even less convenient is passing or rotating that laptop around. Oh wait, that iPad is on your coffee table. Same content. Different form.

Now we just wait, and see what happens between now and the launch. The use cases are endless, and are not just limited to content consumption. I definitely see use cases in at least education and healthcare, collaboration, and obviously entertainment. The Kindle and any other eBook reader just don't have this reach.