Modern Idea

Do you remember way back in the mid 90’s when television commercials would advertise AOL keywords?  AOL held such a dominant influence over the online space that this was a necessity. By the late 90’s AOL keywords were being advertised along with the actual URL. AOL loathed the growing popularity of this thing Al Gore created called the Internet. They built their business on a closed platform and were able to control the user experience. Even as the Internet gained in popularity, millions of users preferred to stay within the familiar walls of AOL. Yet in the end, a closed system could not compete with the combined contribution of hundreds of millions of people. You no longer see AOL keywords being advertised in commercials.

Facebook (r)evolution

A few long years later Facebook has grown into a platform that is similar to the shell of what AOL once was, and what they could have been. Facebook has done this through the systematic addition of new capabilities and by maintaining the familiarity of the blue and white structured interface. When things get out of line they reign in control and shift to a new format. This is how Facebook recently kept their system from resembling MySpace through as users were installing countless apps.

A recent addition to Facebook is Pages. Now a bands, companies, products and services can enjoy a presence similar to an individual within the Facebook closed system. Today, a Facebook Pages page can share notes/photos/videos/music about them as well as install applications. The ability to add custom applications allows an organization to build any functionality they require into their page in a manner that leverages the social interactions and demographic information available through the API. The NY Times has leveraged an existing application to promote stories on their page. This is a natural evolution of capabilities within the confines of the Facebook platform. It won’t be long before custom applications are built specifically for Pages. Modea has a Facebook Page providing a behind the scenes glimpse into our company culture. Check it out and while we’re at it, go ahead and Fan us!

The Future of E-Commerce

Major websites are now integrating with Google Checkout. Amazon has recently countered with Checkout by Amazon and Amazon Simple Pay. Why would businesses dis-integrate their system to open up other payment options? A: To lower the barrier to a sale.

Facebook has some issues to work out with respect to how organizations are able to monetize applications within their gates. In time, Facebook will provide a solution that fits within the concept of what they have established. So too will they introduce commerce.  The next major announcement from Facebook may be the introduction of commerce features into their API similar to what Google and Amazon provide today.

Conclusion

As users are able to get news, read blogs, research companies and products, explore bands and shop from their favorite stores they will have little need to venture outside Facebook. That doesn’t mean the Internet is going away, but the direction of Facebook has been to reduce the frequency for that quick hop over to Google (read: the Internet).

AOL pulled a coup by purchasing one of the most significant traditional news media companies, yet they were unable to keep the Internet at bay. Will Facebook be able reduce Internet traffic of its users to a trickle?  The push for data portability and open APIs presents both an obstacle and an opportunity for Facebook.

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Last month Richard Hammer, Modea’s Director of Web Application Development presented at our local software development forum. His talk was on Agile Methodologies and outlines the many flavors of agile with pros/cons of each.

The PowerPoint deck may be found here.

Enjoy!

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (buy it at Amazon)

I read this book a few weeks ago on my way to my brother’s wedding in San Antonio. I had the luxury of Internet access the entire time I read so I livebloged my notes using a service called ScribbleLive. Liveblogging is typically reserved for things like reporting at the WWDC. Why liveblog a book? I don’t know, seemed like a good idea at the time…

How to use this synopsis:

This synopsis doesn’t contain great insight gleaned from the book. It also is not intended to be a simple summary whereby relieving you from the need to read the book—if in fact, you feel that you must read it. I would suggest that you print this out and read it along with the book. The author goes into very detailed stories to reinforce the messages. Sometime I found myself lost from the overall point. If you find yourself often interrupted then I would suggest that you have this printed as a reference. I have tried to summarize the key points in each section and provided page numbers so you can match up what I have summarized with what you’ve read. So, without further adieu… Read more »

My blog: she might be ugly but she’s got a great personality. And by personality, I mean technology set.

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You can’t fault them, really. Nearly every large company is paying “Web 2.0 consultants” to develop a strategy to profit off the captive audiences found on Facebook and other lesser social networking sites. Thus far, this has consisted of transparent attempts to persuade people to add commercials to their profile pages. A successful widget strategy must keep in mind that there are 27,977 Facebook applications as of the time of this writing. Guess how many of the top 100 applications are made by traditional product or service companies? Just one—two if you count Hot or Not as a traditional company. Do you?

A successful widget strategy must either provide value or entertain its users—or it will go nowhere. Product marketers and brand managers must put as much effort into one of these two areas as they do their self-serving interests such as determining how to increase the brand impact. Read more »

When are interstitial ads OK? Never…?

In general I concur. Interstitials are considered a form of disruptive advertising and have proven a mainstay due to their relatively good performance. Since the concept was ported from television, the interstitial ad has annoyed hundreds of millions of people. If you have ever seen a full page ad displayed between the time you clicked a link and when the intended website was displayed—that’s an interstitial ad.

A few days ago I was on DownloadSquad’s website looking for a browser plug-in. When I clicked over to the del.icio.us blog I was presented with an interstitial advertisement. Most sites such as c|net display these ads upon arrival. DownloadSquad displayed the ad only after they provided value. They found the information I needed and were then awarded with a set of eyeballs as I went out the door. In my mind this difference makes the interstitial ad OK.

Last week Google made a subtle change that may signal a big shift in their branding. The change was to a simple 16 pixel-wide icon that appears in the address bar.

Can Google Own the Letter “g”? Are they trying to? According to Search Engine Land, the change is meant to represent a “simple, playful and unique brand.” Google wouldn’t admit they are set on owning a single letter, even if that is exactly what they are attempting to do. So let’s look into what it would take for them to do so. Read more »

After a long hiatus I am going to get back into blogging on a regular basis. In the past I’ve blogged about a wide assortment of things which is why my old blog eklektos was named just that. Moving forward you can find personal posts on my facebook profile page. Bear with me as I find my blogging voice. It’s been awhile since I’ve written on a regular basis.