Ten23 - Development of Connection

Clutch Concrete Receives MIP Award

It's been a while since my last post, we've been busy finalizing the SpotKast consumer alpha and deploying our vehicle tracking and mobile BI solutions. I'm hoping to write about CTIA, the NAVTEQ Challenge, etc, in the near future. For now, just wanted to quickly mention that Jonel Engineering has received an MIP 2007 award (Most Innovative Product) from World of Concrete for their mobile tools. Congrats! Jonel uses the SpotKast platform to mobilize their software, giving their customers cell phone-based vehicle tracking and BI functionality.

Making Your Blog Location-Aware

SpotKast now enables bloggers to geo-tag their posts simply by embedding a latitude/longitude tag. Let's use this blog as an example. Next week, we will be in Orlando for CTIA, which is being held at the Orange County Convention Center. If I want this post to appear to any SpotKast user as they walk by the Convention Center, all I need to do is place the following anywhere within the body of the post:

spotkast [ latlon = 28.4264 -81.4696 ]

The latlon is the latitude/longitude location of the OCCC building. Within 15 minutes, it will be viewable at that location. If you don't like the aesthetics of the spotkast tags, you can place them at the end of your post in small letters, or with no color. Pretty simple, eh?  Sure beats having to mess with the XML. Do you happen to be near the OCCC? Check out your SpotKast Local Web section....

GigaGood

Pay a visit to GigaOM and check out some of the latest posts; very relevant to those in the social networking and mobile space. That blog should definitely be amongst your subscribed feeds.

The first I would check out is a great post on partnering with Sprint. When I spoke at the Web 2.0 conference, I noted that mobile development was a risky venture when a company has not partnered with a carrier. Can it be done? Sure. There are many off-deck apps out there. But because many carriers are still very much a walled garden, there is the risk of them wanting a piece of the pie later on...or else. Remember Cingular v. PayPal? At CTIA, I talked with some Sprint Nextel biz dev folks, and they are making a push to open up and be very accommodating to developers (the opposite of Verizon, who expects to add another layer to the wall). Are they serious about it? I believe so, and Sprint Nextel has already been very active in the location-based services space. Check out what Katie Fehrenbacher has to say about partnering with Sprint over at GigaOM. When you're done reading that, check out her post on mobile user generated content.

Next, Six Apart launches Vox, a blogging platform with a lot of social networking goodies. This was a natural move to bring blogging to the masses, and a great way for people to get involved with online journaling. They held their launch party at Bimbo's in San Francisco, which some of you may have seen featured in Chris Isaak's past Showtime series. I saw Coldplay there a day before their "Rush" launch....great place.

Another post looks at the landscape of social networking sites, and how many fail to focus their product, resulting in missed success. It's clear that Web 2.0 / social networking / participatory media / user generated content is all the rage (as Tina Exarhos of MTV emphasizes in the latest edition of Red Herring, which features Kevin Rose on the cover with the caption: Almost Famous, Why Hollywood is Hot for New Internet Stars), but that means much more competition....much of it looking the same.

Lastly, take a peak at the post about YouTube. Good information in there about the changes it incorporated to become viral.

Web 2.0

After several protests of "too much work and not enough time", my friend Michael Bonfils finally talked me into being a panelist for the TechBiz Connection Web 2.0 event. I benefited from his persistence; the conversation was good, and I met some great people. Rodney Rumford, also a panelist, assembled a list of resources on his blog for the attendees.

The question was, "What is Web 2.0?" Surprisingly, in an era where the buzzword seems extremely over hyped, many in the audience were still unfamiliar with the term. But should we be surprised? Not really. We techies are notorious for embracing great technology and then overselling it. Java was going to deliver truly portable applications in a couple years from its inception. Companies were going to quickly adopt web services and hurdle all of their connectivity woes. It was the breakout year of location-based services every year since 1999. Now, the web desktop will bring down the mighty Microsoft Windows.

Right.

I do believe many of these things will come to pass; but its the optimistic time frame that I often find myself shaking my head at. We tend to expect everyone to see the technology as we see it, for all of its shining glory and life changing merit. But this is not so. And the biggest problem with watching through this lens? Its not the optimistic expectations...its that we tend to also design our software with this world-view.

We design software with the expectation that the user should catch up - that they should "get it" - rather than crafting the software around the user. Consider the enterprise application where the operator needs to visit 16 screens to perform a simple task (in this case, the interface probably fit 1-to-1 with the database structure). Or, consider RSS feeds. Simple technology. Great technology. But...

Ask a random sample group what an RSS feed is, and you'll probably get 5-8% recognition. Why? Because it is not yet seamless. Its a tiny orange button with the words "RSS" or "XML" that sits off in the corner of some browsers. Now consider podcasting, and look how the same technology is widely adopted. Tech friendly v. consumer friendly. Why can 21 year olds now start their own million (billion!) dollar companies? Because its not just about tech know-how anymore. The competitive advantage is in the design (good book: A Whole New Mind).

Sidebar: I haven't defined Web 2.0 in my own words yet, have I? I believe the principle element of Web 2.0 is that it is a movement that equips everybody with a voice. Robert Scoble shares his opinion (voice) through his blog and now tops Google for the keyword "Robert". Users can rate and comment on their favorite stories at digg. People can share their art or casual captures on Flickr and YouTube. Furthermore, I can find other voices - whether they are in agreement or in opposition - easier than ever before, and the co-mingling of these diverse voices creates one great conversation.

Return: And so if Web 2.0 is about equipping users with a voice, it only stands to reason that a well designed site will do more equipping. And thats what Web 2.0 is also all about, isn't it - large communities, with founders salivating at the potential advertising revenue? :)

Coincidently, there is another competitive advantage for a Web 2.0 site, and its contrary to what most investors (underplays first mover, but still a great read). are telling you....there is a first mover advantage. Mind you, you can't come out with crap and expect to win. But if you debut early and listen to the feedback, using the wisdom of the crowd, you have a great head start at building a large, vibrant community. As the founder of LinkedIn said, "If you are not thoroughly embarrassed with your first release, you've waited too long."