Erick SchonfeldofTechCrunch suggests a new possible scenario for your online identity. Google and Facebook may soon be the only companies controlling the way most of you are going to identify yourself on the Web.
Facebook ConnectandGoogle Friend Connect are two new and competing services which provide you with the ability to login into your favorite social network, as well as to access an increasing number of your preferred content publication and distribution services: from YouTube to Delicious and more.
The key new thing here, is that by adopting one of these online identification systems you can log into all of these web-based services by using always the same credentials.
For example: popular site TechCrunch has already started using both Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect to allow its readers to login into the site social community by using their own Facebook and Google credentials. Similarly, the commenting system Disqus has also been thinking about integrating these two same services by the end of the year.
But is this really a cool thing, from all standpoints?
As George Siemenspoints out in this Media Literacy digest issue, Facebook and Google already own the majority of the digital content you share on the Web. Your e-mail, photos, music, contacts, are all mostly stored on their servers. Given this situation, how smart is it to allow these two companies to be able to also start monitoring all of your moves and actions online? Should they be the ones to control your access to your social network, blog comments, and to everything else you do online?
This, along with other hot technology issues and new interesting media and education-related resources, makes up for another rich media literacy digest, showcasing the deep and disruptive changes new media technologies are bringing into your lives, and the good questions you should ask yourself before fully embracing them.
Here all the details:
Intro by Robin Good
eLearning Resources and News
learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends
by George Siemens
Facebook vs. Google
Earlier this year, the short term future of the internet included a four company race:
Since that time, Yahoo has managed to successfully exclude itself. They are now best seen as an acquisition opportunity.
Microsoft is still trying to figure out how it can apply a similar lock to the internet that it has (had?) on the desktop. They’re current philosophy is “innovation through blatant duplication” – revealed by the Zune and a rumoured Zune phone.
Microsoft’s internet strategy is confused at best, retaining too much of the desktop model. They are trying to innovate, and given their financial resources and market presence, they shouldn’t be ruled out. Which leaves Google and Facebook as the two prominent companies fighting to define the future of the internet.
Google is stable and consistent, reporting continued growth in their share of the search market and regular innovations (with odd, slightly embarrassing missteps such as Lively).
It appears that Facebook has all the momentum right now.
Facebook is where Google was five years ago – innovative, redefining the game, and operating on a different set of premises from its competitors. Most companies launching widely disliked platforms such as Beacon would be punished by loss of users. Not Facebook. They keep growing – Facebook is challenging Google for the amount of time visitors spend with the service.
Balance Between Individual and Group-genius
Science and art have been historically defined by individual genius. In the 50’s, individual invention gave way to group / institutional invention (i.e. Bell Labs).
Now it appears that loosely connected networks of specialized expertise (such as pharmaceutical networks or the network that was formed to research SARS at the height of the crisis in 2003) are providing answers to the most challenging questions of our era.
At the heart of the transition from individual to institution to network innovation is obviously the role of the individual.
“”Successful research groups are those that grow and evolve on their own over time,” he says. “For example, an individual comes up with a good idea, gets funding, and new group begins to form around that good idea. This creates a framework where many smaller groups contribute to the whole.”“
Grades: Evaluation Without Context
Malcolm Gladwell is busy promoting his new book about the systemic (sometimes circumstantial) causes for success – Outliers.
“There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they’ll do once they’re hired. So how do we know whom to choose in cases like that? In recent years, a number of fields have begun to wrestle with this problem, but none with such profound social consequences as the profession of teaching.”
There are many angles to consider in the article as Gladwell runs a parallel discussion of teacher success and quarterback success. I found the discussion of the limitations of tradition metrics most valuable (p. 5). We simply do not know who will be a good teacher by the ways we currently measure. Grades are essentially evaluation without context. The process of ‘becoming’ a teacher (or carpenter, plumber, or doctor) requires activities – and evaluation – to be situated in a real context.
Let’s Talk Systemic Change
In recent presentations / discussions, I’ve been making the point that grassroots level approaches to reform in education are being hampered by systemic barriers.
The structure of systems of education impedes future innovation. What is required, of course, is a reformulation of educational institutions. As is often the case, we are not entirely without examples.
“Today, a network of councils and boards empowered to launch new businesses, plus an evolving set of Web 2.0 gizmos — not to mention a new financial incentive system — encourage executives to work together like never before.
Pull back the tent flaps and Cisco citizens are blogging, vlogging, and virtualizing, using social-networking tools that they’ve made themselves and that, in many cases, far exceed the capabilities of the commercially available wikis, YouTubes, and Facebooks created by the kids up the road in Palo Alto… ”Without changing the structure of your organization,” Chambers told the analysts in September, “I would argue that [innovation] will not work.”
“
Who Owns My Thoughts?
It’s been a year or so (I think) sincemybloglog introduced the concept of having our identity (and network) trail behind us as we visited different websites. A site that set up mybloglog would allow visitors to connect with each other beyond simply comments. Not much happened with the concept after the launch. A few blogs added the widget, but I haven’t seen significant adoption.
Of course, as Google has learned from Facebook, relationships are more important than content in determining loyalty and commitment to a site or service. While I can happily post on my site, the real value for readers is in the connections they form with other people.
Google has to date monetized content with services like adwords. But what do you do to monetize relationships?
How do you get people to use your service as a source for forming relationships?
Facebook answers with Facebook Connect and Google responds with Friend Connect (their marketing department wasn’t involved in the “let’s give this thing a creative name” discussion).
What does this mean?
Doall of our comments belong to Facebook? or Google? I’m personally less concerned with these companies owning my content than I am with their knowledge of my relationships / connections. Facebook in particular is very good at mining data based on relatedness (oh, look, many of George’s friends list these topics of interest…or this political orientation…or religion).
Both Facebook and Google desire to know us, not just our content. That’s what doesn’t sit well with me. Oops, gotta go login to Google mail…then off to check my Facebook account.
CRS’ are used for faculty to poll students – asking questions related to course content and, based on responses, re-teach key points or clarify misconceptions. While it sounds simple, writing questions that reveal misconceptions students have about curriculum is difficult. CRS are usually fairly affordable for students (except when they lose their clickers).
I always wondered why we were building separate systems for response when many students already have mobile phones. Why not just use phones and texting for feedback?
The title of his presentation was “Love Entrepreneurship: Your Own Way” and his focus was specifically on what key points you MUST follow if you want to start your own online business. Many startuppers fail because they do not pay attention to some very fundamental strategic rules of good entreprenurship and dive into their projects without thinking of the consequences of their initial, time-pressed decisions.
Being an entrepreneur it’s not all fun and games. If you want to become your own boss, you have to make sure first that you do make the right choices.
So which are the successful steps to self-employment?
Becoming independent and self-employed is like a chess game. It’s cool to start playing the game and have other people under you doing what you ask, but if you don’t play smart and make the correct moves, things may not exactly go the way you may have expected.
If you, like me, didn’t have the chance to see John Buckman live at LeWeb, this is something you don’t want to miss. Here for you his great talk recorded on stage at LeWeb, and a full English transcription:
Intro by Daniele Bazzano
Love Entrepreneurship Your Own Way
Duration: 9′
Full English Text Transcription
John Buckman: Here are the quick steps that I see for self-employment.
1) Think of Lots of Ideas
The very first thing is: just start thinking of lots of ideas. Starts reading a science fiction, futurism, start watching TED… just start writing ideas down.
2) Do Nothing
And then, this is the crucial step: do nothing. Don’t do anything with those ideas.
Just keep thinking of ideas and writing them down, and the reason is that in three months most of those ideas are going to be shit. And it’s going to take you at least three months, if not six to nine months to get those ideas together.
Too many people jump on the first ideas they have and start doing them, and they shut their brain down and they stop thinking of other clever things.
This is my own personal test, I called it the pub-test. I spent half the year in England and Brits are well-educated, which means they’re a very tough audience for new ideas.
I go to a pub with a friend, it’s noisy, we’re having a beer, and then about 15 seconds I explain my idea. If they don’t stop drinking their beer and pay attention, my idea is not good enough.
It’s very simple. It’s because a noisy pub, with beer, lots of queue other people around… it’s what the Internet is like: there are tons of distractions, there are tons of things pulling people away.
If you’re not interesting enough to get someone to look up from their beer, it’s not gonna happen. Try again.
3) The Elevator Pitch
Now, think about your product: what this really comes down to, it’s some sort of elevator pitch, some sort of very simple explanation.
It’s called an elevator pitch because if you’re stuck in an elevator with someone famous, let’s say Chris Anderson of TED, and you want to speak at TED.
What would you say in those fifteen seconds that would excite him, that would make him take your card, and call you back?
4) Write The First Line of Your Press Release
I can’t stress this enough: before you do any work, write the first line of your press release.
So many companies leave this still later.
They make the product, they get it to ship and then they write the press release, and they realize that the first line of their press release is boring.
The product is already made, there’s nothing you can do: you have a boring product.
You need to work the other way around. How is that first line of that press release going to get people interested?
5) Write The First Paragraph of Your Homepage
Next, write the first paragraph of your homepage. This is the follow one.
Someone says, “Uh, that sounds interesting, tell me more“. You have three or four sentences to get them excited.
Make the homepage finally hunt for unique names.
This is actually not nearly as important as you would think. A lot of companies like my own Magnatune, or even ones like Seesmic, are not the best names in the world, but if they’re really good ideas and they’re memorable, that’s fine. It’s not a problem.
6) Don’t Borrow Money
This is really crucial. Don’t borrow money. Figure out how to do the idea extremely cheaply.
7) Make a Mock-up
Next finally, make a mock-up. Show it to people. Again, see if they’re are really excited.
Launch Before You Are Ready
And this is crucial. Lunch way before you’re ready.
Get it out there. start getting feedback. See if the idea is any good, because you might be really wrong.
After you pitch at the bloggers, if no-one cared, if you didn’t borrow money, you don’t have anything invested in it, other than a few months’ work. Kill it, start over.
You just learned something, you just learned why the idea was bad. Start again.
9) Don’t Quit Your Day Job
This is also crucial: don’t quit your day job.
A lot of people think they need to get funding, quit their day jobs, start with a bunch of partners, and go off.
What you really need to do, is get that salary and find time on the weekends, on the evenings, to work on your project, and gradually lower your time commitment to your job. But only quit it once you have enough money.
10) Salespeople Are a Bad Idea
You also discover that salespeople are an extremely bad idea.
The reason is that salespeople require capital and they also generally mean that your idea isn’t that good. Your idea isn’t that good because it requires salespeople to convince people it’s good. If it’s good it should convince people on their own.
Great products build word of mouth.
11) Pitch The Bloggers
Another fallacy is that if we just had a big PR and marketing campaign, that everyone would know about our product that would be great.
That’s not true either. Because if you can convince just a few bloggers that it’s interesting, and a few early users, that is something really unusual, then it will happen on its own.
John’s Secrets
I got a few case studies here. This is my secret, it’s really really simple.
The secret to getting massive press, and I have got massive press for my project, so the first one is the hardest:
a) Be Interesting
Be really damned interesting.
Guy Kawasaki in his famous books says: “If you’re not getting press, get better reality“.
That’s a more clever way of saying what I’m saying, but find something really interesting.
b) Convince Influential Bloggers
And then you just need to convince two influential bloggers that it’s really interesting. That will get you the stage.
If it’s not that interesting it won’t go anywhere.
c) Focus on Freelancers
Another secret, this is for traditional print media, is focus on freelancers, not on staff writers.
Freelancers will write about small people, generally staff writers won’t. And the reason is that staff writers get stories from editors, whereas freelancers have to find stories and pitch to the editor.
Become a cause that freelancer would personally like they have personally invested in.
It’s just a cascade. Each media watches the next media and it happens automatically.
Here some of the story angles. You had to download this to read us more, but think of as many edgy stories as you can. Especially when what’s happened has been written about. So, when a journalist contacts you can give them something really juicy to think about.
Click above to enlarge image
This is the Magnatune homepage, this is my elevator pitch, “we are not evil“, It’s very cute, it makes people laugh, and then there is this massive paragraph.
What people see is “we are not evil“, bla bla bla bla bla.
Final Tips
Okay, some final tips.
Dedibox
Those of you who are French, you need to look at Dedibox.
For a thirty euros a month you can have a machine of a 100 megabits. It’s only available to French people, and it’s a wonderful thing.
Use PHP
I recommend you usePHP, because it’s a simple technology. You can hire people cheaply.
Make Your Homepage Pretty
Don’t skimp on graphics.
Do Everything Yourself
Do everything yourself. And if you’re not technical, sorry, you’re going to to have to be technical.
You’re going have to learn technology at some level. Otherwise it’s not going to happen.
You’re going have to read a lot of books. You got to to learn everything out running a company, but it’s going to be a lot of fun. And if it is successful, you get all the percents.
You can’t lead people if you don’t know how to do their job.
Don’t Borrow Money
Don’t borrow money, because if you fail, you can just start again next week.
That is all I wanted to say, thank you very much for listening. Bye-bye!
One of the main concerns of every online publisher is money. If you start publishing your stuff online and you get some traffic, you’d probably want to earn something from your blog as soon as possible.
Immediately plastering your site with ads, just won’t do. Your first concern should be questioning again the content niche you have selected and see whether you can improve and define better its specific traits and characteristics. The more you define it and identify your niche profile the easier it becomes to serve your audience with content and advertising offers that can match your readers expectations.
Next step up is traffic. Once you have clearly identified your niche it’s time to focus on getting qualified traffic to your site. The more relevant and interested in your topics, the more your web readers are likely to enjoy your content, click on some ads and bookmark your site to come back for more.
According to Robin though, if you cannot make at least 500 or more visitors per day, you should not start planning to send your present boss a resignation letter any time soon. Yes, even with a small, but highly targeted traffic stream, you could start seeing an interesting revenue stream coming your way, but you need to make sure that your ads and sponsor are highly relevant to your readers interests and that they do not alienate or distract them from what they are really interested into.
Here his short video and tips on how you too, can start looking at your site as a potential source of additional income:
How Much Money Can You Earn With Your Blog
Duration: 5′
Full English Text Transcription
Hi guys this is Robin Good for MasterNewMedia, and I have more and more questions coming in from you at my email inbox at Robin.Good(at)masternewmedia.org
Let’s see what I’ve selected today to answer. You write: “Let’s talk about money! How much am I supposed to earn with my own blog, and how much will it cost me to keep it fully functional?”
That’s a good question, and not an easy one to answer!
“How much are you supposed to earn with your blog?” As much possible I would say!
There isn’t really an official figure for how much you’re supposed to earn, but let me give you some indications of what may be useful for you.
What To Do Before Thinking of Money
You should considermonetizing your blog only after you’ve established your blog in some way.
If you’ve just opened your blog and your plastering it with ads from Google or from affiliate products, or other things, I think you’re just wasting your time. I think you shouldn’t do that.
I think you should first, find out for yourself:
if you like what you’re doing,
if you can do it well if you get few comments from people, or from your friends after they read what you got out there,
That is: “if you write the topic of your latest article, can you find yourself in Google in one of the first few pages?“, and so on.
Once that happens, and once therefore you start having real traffic, you can then think about advertising.
And then, if you have, at least, I would say a 500 to 1000 visitors per day, and you talk about a very specific topic, for which there is a number of products and services, and companies that want to advertise out there and you can find out these much earlier before you even start publishing your blog site, you should see some revenue coming in the amount of…
…if you are on a specific niche that has a good value you could be making a few tens of dollars per day. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 dollars per day, or more.
Some topics are worth much more than others because the products and the services that are sold after the people click on your ads are worth much more money and revenue to those companies than other products.
A Coca-Cola bottle has only little revenue margin. A mortgage on a house has a huge margin for a very long time for whoever sells it, just to give you a general idea.
Money = Effort
The reason, the specific amount.
I would say that a properly prepared blog that works on a specific niche, and builds some authority before plastering ads in the correct and best positions out there, should be making at least 500 to a 1000 dollars per month to justify spending on it the three-four hours per day that it may require.
Maybe a lot less in some cases, maybe a bit more in some others. But that’s the type of number that would indicate me if it’s worth spending more time on it or not.
If you don’t make that 500-1000 either you’re doing something wrong in the way you’re publishing your site, or your niche is not worth enough, or you need to understand better how to work your content, then titles, and the general look of the site so that your Google search bots will come and index you better, and you can be found by people who search that topic.
That’s what can I say. There isn’t a specific set of rules and figures, but I would say that the threshold to make some money is above 500 visitors on a specific niche. There you should start making some (money), and you should be making a few hundred to a thousand or more if you’re doing your things well.
Hope that helps.
Ciao from Robin, talk to you soon!
Do you have more questions you want Robin Good to answer? Post them here below inside the comments area.
Do you want to learn more about other key strategies in professional web publishing? Check out POP, a new video blog site where Robin Good shares his expertise with “in-depth” video tutorials to help professional online publishers to monetize their sites.
Are you looking for an effective way tocollaborate and organize ideas with other people? If you’re still into voice and text chat, you might want to give mind mapping a try. Mind mapping is a cool way to share your ideas in total freedom, without the need to follow a structured approach, but just shooting your best thoughts as they come out of your head. And the good news is that there are many tools online that let you draw your own mindmaps. Today, I scouted the Web to suggest you the best ones.
SinceRobin Good introduced me to mindmaps a few months ago, I don’t grab a piece of paper or open a text document anymore to plan what I need to do. I just open my favorite mindmap tool and start scattering ideas around.
What I like best about mindmaps are the ease and freedom with which you can visualize your ideas, and clearly understand the relationships between them. You set a core idea, which could be expressed by a sentence, a word, or an image, and then you start adding other ideas around this core concept. You can then see all your ideas at once and re-arrange them visually creating links between ideas and concepts that may be / appear initially unrelated.
Curious? Do you want to know more about mindmaps and how to organize your ideas more effectively?
In this new Sharewood Guide I have collected the best services out there on the Web to draw a mindmap.
Here below the set of key basic characteristics that I have utilized to compare these selection tools to draw your own mindmaps, so that you can easily find the best fit for your needs:
Price: Evaluate if you prefer a free service or a more complete solution with additional features.
Software / Web-based: Specifies if you can use the tool inside your browser or you have to download and install a software on your hard-disk.
Platform: Check if you can run the service on your operating system.
Free trial: Indicates if the service allows you to evaluate it for free during a limited period.
Collaborative working: Not all mind mapping services allows you to collaborate in real-time with your teammates. Find the ones that does.
*Please refer to individual vendors sites for additional pricing solutions.
Draw Your Own MindMaps
MindMeister
MindMeister is a free web-based tool to draw mindmpas and share them with your team. Instead of taking advantage of fancy animations, MeindMeister provides a clean working environment: the interface is very simple, and it’s easy to add nodes to your core idea. Mindmeister is Ajax-based, so the service doesn’t require any third-party player to run inside your browser, resulting to be very light and fast to utilize. Interesting feature is the possibility to export your mindmpas in a number of file formats, including .rtf, .pdf, and .jpg. Free to use up to six mindmaps, MindMeister offers different pricing solutions. http://www.mindmeister.com
Mindomo
Mindomo is perhaps one of the best free web-based mind mapping applications. Mindomo comes with a very elegant interface which mimics Microsoft Office. Flash-based, the service offers many different export options and formats, alongside a rich choice of layouts to arrange your ideas. Mindomo supports multimedia files and image uploading, as well as organic style maps. The free version is ad-supported but you can switch to one of the available pricing solutions. http://www.mindomo.com
MindManager
MindManager is one of the best mind mapping software on the market. Easy to use and fully-featured, this tool is a must-have for enterprise and personal use of mindmaps. Mindmanager allows you and your team to collaborate on the same mindmap making it easy and fast to have a brainstorming session over the Web. MindManager works on both Pc and Mac platforms, and it is priced at $299 for Pc users and $129 for Mac users. You can try and evaluate the service for 30 days (Pc version) or 21 days (Mac solution). http://www.mindjet.com/
iMindMap
iMindMap is the “official mindmap software“, created under the guidance of Tony Buzan, mindmap evangelist. Available for both Windows and Mac machines, iMindMap lets you draw rich and full-featured mindmaps, adding nodes and arranging them in a very natural way. Collaboration with other users is not allowed. Starting price is set at $99. iMindMap offers a seven-day trial period to test out the service before buying it. http://www.imindmap.com/
bubbl.us
Bubbl.us offers a simple, efficient way to draw a mindmap. Still at an early stage of its development, bubbl.us is a free flash-based online tool that works directly in your browser, so you don’t need to install any additional software to your computer. Enhanced with animated effects, unlike other solutions bubbl.us does support collaborative working for sharing a brainstorming session with your team. http://www.bubbl.us/
FreeMind
FreeMind is an open source, free mind-mapping software written in Java. The service offers a minimalist interface and covers the basics of mindmaps drawing like hyperlinking and retractable branches. Perhaps the most popular solution on the Web, FreeMind takes advantage from being a cross-platform solution that works seamlessly on your machine independently of which operating system it runs. FreeMind does not support collaborative creation of mindmaps. http://freemind.sourceforge.net/
Topicscape
Topicscape is an information organizer complementing Mindmanager by taking mindmaps to a 3D landscape. The application uses a three-dimensional interface to help you draw 3D mindmaps for better organization and planning procedures. Topicscape requires a bit of practice to use, but is definitely worth taking the effort because of its stunning mind mapping approach. Topiscape offers different pricing solutions starting at $69, and you can test the software with no charge for 30 days. http://www.topicscape.com/
PersonalBrain
PersonalBrain is a cross-platform solution to draw mindmaps. PersonalBrain goes beyond the traditional concept of organizing ideas by adding a built-in calendar feature for events you add to your mindmap. Enriched by other features like zoomable image icons, transparencies, and integration with Microsoft Outlook, PersonalBrain is tailored to professionals who wants to get the best out of mind mapping possibilities. Free to use in its light edition, the tool provides different commercial solutions. Collaborative working on mindmaps is not supported. http://www.thebrain.com
Mind42
Mind42 is a free web-based mind mapping application that runs inside your browser. Very user-friendly, the tool lets you share your mindmaps with your teammates or publish your mindmaps on the Web. The interface is very simple and you can add images to your nodes, as well as hyperlinking them. Export to .rtf files is allowed. Mind42 offers also different commercial solutions to access more possibilities to create your projects. http://www.mind42.com
Mapul
Mapul is a simple, web-based solution that lets you draw your own mindmaps. Based on Microsoft Silverlight technology, Mapul offers many different features like image-adding, and an efficient arrangement of branches, tailored to a better mindmap handling. Unlike other similar tools, Mapul has support for Russian and Arabic languages. The service is offered at $7 / month, and offers the possibility for a free trial before buying it. http://www.mapul.com
Kidspiration
Kidspiration is a mind mapping software tailored for Educators and students. Tailored for K-5 learners, Kidspiration enhances thinking, literacy and numeracy skills using visual learning principles. In reading and writing, Kidspiration strengthens word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension and written expression. Not suitable for real-time collaboration with other users, Kidspiration is available for Windows and Mac platforms,with a starting price of $69. You can try the software for 30 days before buying it. http://www.inspiration.com/Kidspiration
Gliffy
Gliffy is a free web-based solution to draw diagrams and flowcharts. It is not specifically designed to create mindmaps but the style of arranging ideas and organizing branches is just the same. Gliffy does not allow real-time collaboration, but the service keeps tracks of all the changing made by collaborators, just like a wiki. The free version has limited features, but iyou can upgrade to the Premium account for a monthly fee of $5 which is intended to last at least three months. http://www.gliffy.com/
Here below you can see two videos. One is the original recording from my LeWeb presentation and the other one extends and completes what I did not say on stage.
I contend that we are about to see a deep change in how we look at education and learning in the coming years.
The deep changes we have been witnessing in the worlds of mass media, advertising, marketing and communication in general, and much of what we have been labeling under the 2.0 title needs to be harmonized with our educational approach to schooling inside society.
If we have come to appreciate the value of collaboration, sharing, co-creation, mashing up, bottom-up contributions and grassroots media creation, as well as those of listening to customers, of starting true conversations, of opening to critical feedback, and to suggestions from all your clients, we must also be able to see that these same principles and approaches can be transposed and utilized effectively in delivering a more valuable educational experience to our kids.
a) Teaching is not learning, b) What are the things we really need to learn, c) What is the context and resources in which a new educational paradigm can emerge, are the key issues that I bring forward in this video presentation.
I must thank once more LeWeb organizers Loic and Geraldine LeMeur for having provided me with this great opportunity.
Here the video:
Love of Education – A Shifting Paradigm
and here is the continuation of the first part I presented at LeWeb:
In the coming days I will publish an article that further explains and corroborates, via the use of several other video interviews I had recorded for this event, my full view on the future of education and what it is going to take to get to it.
I must acknowledge also, which I had no time to do on stage, that my ideas were strongly influenced and inspired by the extensive work done by Ivan Illich in the 70’s, and by Seymour Papert in the ’80s. I also utilized ideas developed by Stephen Downes to whom I owe great respect for the extensive research work on the future of education he has already done.
Further thanks go to Howard Rheingold, Nancy White, Gerd Leonhard, Jay Cross, Teemu Arina and George Siemens who have provided me with invaluable feedback and video material on this very topic and which I will shortly publish here on MasterNewMedia.
Collaboration tools is going to soon become a misnomer. The more mainstream, standard office applications and productivity tools start adding collaboration facilities to their apps the more collaboration will become part of what is expected by any digital work tool.
Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Communication – Graph credit: Ramius
This Sharewood Picnic contains a new collection of selected collaboration tools that I, and Nico Canali De Rossi have uncovered during our weekly searches for Kolabora. It includes tools to send large files to anyone, instant messenger gateways allowing you to connect simultaneously to all your favorite instant messaging networks and a couple of interesting tool to draw, annotate and share web page markups.
Here the list:
PipeBytes: Send files of any dimensions with no upload process
Globe7:VoIP software allows you to text-chat, video conference and transfer files
DrawHere: Draw on web-pages and share your annotated page via email
JKN: Online annotation tool allows you to add notes to web-pages and share them with people
TeamWork Live: Manage projects, share documents and collaborate with people online
IM History: Save your instant messaging conversation history online
Messenger FX: Web-based instant messenger lets you access MSN IM network
BigFileBox: Web-based file hosting service allows you to share files with others
PipeBytes
PipeBytes in a web-based tool that anyone can use to share files, with no size limitation. If you want to send a file, just click the “Send” button, browse for you file, and click “Upload”. You will be provided with a pick-up code, or simply with a pick-up URL, that will connect your and your friend’s computer to send the file directly, with no uploading process. Free to use, no registration needed. http://www.pipebytes.com/
Globe7
Globe7 is a free downloadable VoIP application that allows you to chat and talk with people. After you download it and register to the service, you can start adding other people to your contact list: you can chat, have video and audio calls, share pictures, transfer files, save the chat history, and also call landline phones at really cheap rates. Completely free to use, it is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux herehttp://www.globe7.com/downloadg7.php. http://www.globe7.com/
DrawHere
DrawHere takes a slightly different twist on the website annotation paradigm by allowing users to literally draw directly onto a website that they are visiting. Clicking on the bookmarklet opens up an image editing palette to the side of the screen. This palette features layers, opacity, brush size and a color spectrum. Annotated pages can be saved and shared by email or embedded into your blog. Different users annotations can be browsed through from a separate window. DrawHere can be activated via a bookmarklet, from the DrawHere website by entering the URL you want to draw on, and can even be included as a button on your web-page. Free http://drawhere.com/
JKN
JKN is a web-site that allows you to add notes on a web-page and to share them with anyone. After you insert the URL you want to annotate, you can decide how you want to share your notes with others (link, email or blog), and start typing on the selected page as it was a normal blank page. Then, depending on the sharing method you chose, you will be given a URL to share or you will be asked for your contacts’ emails. It is free to use and requires no registration. Beta. http://info.jkn.com/
TeamWork Live
TeamWork Live is a web-based project management and project collaboration tool that helps you run your projects more efficiently. All you need to get started is a web browser and an internet connection: you can manage projects, track tasks, share documents and files, collaborate with clients and remote teams. Completely free to use, requires registration. https://www.teamworklive.com/
IM History
IM History is a downloadable program that allows you to store all of your instant messaging conversations online, supporting AIM, MSN, Windows Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Skype and Miranda networks. All conversations will be saved and uploaded on a web-server that can be accessed through any web-browser. Free to download and use. http://www.im-history.com/
Messenger FX
Messenger FX is a web-based service that lets you access the MSN instant messaging network without having to install anything on your computer. The access is protected through encryption and the interface is available in multiple languages. There is no possibility to talk to contacts that are on other IM networks. Free to use. http://www.messengerfx.com
BigFileBox
BibFileBox is a web-based file hosting service that you can use to upload and share your files with other people. After you choose whether you want to upload a file using the Java drag-and-drop facility or the click-to-upload interface, you can upload as many files as you want and, when done, you can create “tokens” to give people permission to browse/edit your files. You can also choose the duration of the token. Free for up to 50 MB or see plan comparison. http://www.bigfilebox.com/
Last night I tried to catch some of the action going on at Seesmic, one of the most innovative and promising new web services out there.
Labelled as a “Twitter with video”, Seesmic hasn’t yet defined a strong application personality for itself yet, but, and that may be as valuable as having defined one, has been listening with true open ears to everything its first few hundred users have been telling it.
By using a true bottom up approach Seesmic has created a true conversational platform to help, refine and steer the very direction of the company that makes the same platform available.
But is that enough to dive a web company to success?
Is it enough to have enough money, visibility and technical resources to put together a Twitter-like tool with video and then try to get as big as possible to then see where money can be made, or would it be better to have a vision before everything else and then shape it with the help of your community?
Hard to say, as your audience could be driving you a thousand different directions at the same time, unless you have already well figured out where you want to go.
That is also what one of the digerati of the web thinks, when providing his own view on the success potential of the bottom-up drive-approach of the Seesmic community.
Bottom-Up Driven Social Media – Always A Winning Strategy?
Yes, you have got it right. The cool thing about Seesmic is that it allows you to shoot out short video messages to the community while generating a wide, always in-flux, extended party-like visual conversation, where topics and people move in and out almost just like in the real world.
I find the Seesmic conversations truly genuine, often engaging, sometimes dull and superficial, just like in real life.
And it is this genuinity, this final rise of the personal voice in all of its splendor, uncensored and unpackaged for delivery, that makes this content so incredibly compelling.
Compelling for those participating in it because it is very real and extends significantly the number and quality of discussion mates you can have. Compelling for those watching it only because there is often a great deal of personal learning and insight that is normally shared inside these conversations. Compelling for the publisher hosting this community because it creates a true virtual space in which to support the interests and passions of your readers. Bye bye forums, Seesmic is here.
Compelling for advertiser and marketers which could find in the very community members some of the best endorsers and promoters of their own tools and products. Without needing to become all shills.
But Seesmic has still a long way to go even in developing some of what should be its basic features, such as the lack of more powerful threading capabilities. These would allow one to follow and engage in specific conversations at her own time while providing a wealth of valuable content that could be re-sued elsewhere.
Not only.
Seesmic requires still too much of a compulsive, redundant interaction reduced to its very minimum terms. Clicking on the next video to see what the next person said. And next. That gets tiring. An “autoplay” feature which would allow you to follow your favorite friends or conversation threads is all I am hoping for.
Why Distributed Social Media Is Better Than Centralized Social Media
So, let aside the excitement for what Seesmic could be, what appears to me still enigmatic is the apparent focus, a-la Facebook on having another centralized community, which as a consequence requires everyone to go to Seesmic to have a conversation with the people they like.
Is this really needed?
Aren’t we in the age of distributed (social) media?
Why should I go to engage in a conversation at Seesmic when I have already built a community of friends at my own site or elsewhere?
I love to have conversations and I love to meet new and interesting people, but I don’t think I need to throw myself into a super-busy party where everyone has a micro-span of attention for me and where topic changes every moment?
My friends are not at Seesmic.
My friends are where I have met and invited them before. At my place. Not at some downtown disco where all of our group intimacy and “feel” is lot or where I need to be forced out of any conversation simply because we are a million and one.
Virtual space is infinite, let’s use it.
A month ago I posted this short video comment to Loic on Seesmic.
Robin Good on Seesmic
duration: 40″
“MySeesmic” is in fact my own idea Seesmic. I want to have Seesmic on my site, for my readers, with my own lokk and feel. That’s what I want: a distributable version of Seesmic that any site can embed and integrate in its pages.
Just asNing and many of the other Open Social partners, I would love to see Seesmic adopt this new standard and leverage the best from both the distribution potential as well as from aggregating and providing access to all these communities from a centralized space.
To my surprise, last night, Loic LeMeur posted a fresh new clip he has just recorded with Patrick Chanezon of the Google Open Social team, and where Patrick provides some interesting suggestions and ideas to get Seesmic into the Open Social game. If you haven’t yet read about Open Social, this is a new standard that allows easy distribution and integration of social media services into other sites.
Loic LeMeur and Patrick Chanezon
duration: 15′:05″
Advertising on Seesmic?
But outside of the core implementation strategy Seesmic will use, one of the fascinating aspects of these new innovative social media tools is how they will survive.
What will be Seesmic business model?
Advertising on Seesmic?
Well, the bottom-up video conversational approach worked greatly here as well with Seesmic users spontaneously brainstorming alternative advertising strategies and providing free creative input to Loic and his (and others) future investors.
Check out this great video compilation from Seesmic where not only you get a sense of what it is like to be inside this video conversational platform but where you can also hear some interesting ideas about the possible alternative potential advertising opportunities ramping up for Seesmic and for similar social media destinations.
Seesmic compilation
a) conversational style
b) brainstorming on advertising opportunities (from 3:05″)
c) community spirit, tradition and peer pressure at work on Seesmic – you gotta dance! (from 5:51″)
duration: 7′:41″
Just watching those few video clips gave me in turn a bunch of ideas and as social media wants, I shared back:
Robin Good
duration: 1′:51″
Conclusions – What I see Ahead for Seesmic
Seesmic has great potential. Of this I am sure as I saw firsthand by using it the power that this new format, conversational video can have in terms of supporting and energizing online communities, while providing them with an excellent tool to brainstorm, discuss and develop new ideas.
From my own viewpoint, as an online publisher, Seesmic does not have yet any of the key features that would make it a killer app in my eyes. These are:
a) Threading – find easily specific conversation threads o any topic or author you select
b) Autoplay – watch it like TV by selecting the conversation themes or authors or time periods you are interested in most
c) Distribution – allow Seesmic to be built around communities that already exist by making it highly distributable and easy to integrate into any existing web site (like Ning does).
Seesmic bottom-up approach in transparently leveraging user ideas and comments is something rare to be seen and should be great matter of research and study for media students.
Loic, its CEO, is, whether you like him or not, a man larger than life, positive, optimistic, and very determined (and aware) of the role he has chosen to play for himself. He seems to be able attract lots of attention and press coverage but he has definitely an interesting story to tell.
Overall this is a hot mix to keep watching close for a while. It may be pan out to become nothing I would waste any time on, as much as becoming the next truly social media marketing platform I would really bet my best cards on.
One thing appears now sure. Even if it ain’t Seesmic doing it, the time is ripe for the real, uncensored conversations to start.
What do you think?
Written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on Thursday January 3rd 2008 as “Social Media And Conversational Marketing: Seesmic Bottom-Up Approach And Advertising Opportunity Insights”
Where would you like to see Master New Media going next?
It is the start of a new year and nonetheless I have started making new editorial plans since this past 2007 summer, it is only now that some of them will start to see the light of the day.
Among them is first of all a greater focus on cultivating an open and direct dialogue with each one of you.
This is why today I open Master New Media to you, my reader to openly suggest, criticize, push through your own ideas to make Master New Media more of the site you have always wanted.
For a long time, the content and the editorial style I have chosen to use have left little or no space to the open conversation with which so much of the good web is made up today. Unless I can learn something from you, there is little hope I can go in the right direction next.
So, whether you are a fan or long time supporter of this site or someone that has only recently discovered Master New Media, I gently invite you to start this new year by telling me straight and openly what you like and don’t like about this site. Don’t hold any shot, say everything you feel and more than everything contribute something that can help me see things you think I haven’t realized so far and should pay more attention to.
Here is some guiding questions if you feel overwhelmed by your own ideas:
a) What is the feature or the trait that do you like the most about MNM (MasterNewMedia) ?
b) Which is the one that you like the least?
c) If you were to add a feature or editorial component what would it be?
d) What bothers you the most on this site?
e) What is something you would like to see more of?
I am fully listening! Peruse the “Readers Comments” link here below and let me hear what you have to say.
As 2008 will bring greater focus on professional online publishing for Master New Media, here is the second part of my anticipations and predictions for this new year that has just started.
2007 has been in many ways a record year for online collaboration tools with literally dozens of new tools having joined these fast growing group. Screen-sharing, video-conferencing solutions based on Flash as well as new innovative solutions have been all over the news thrughout 2007. Will it stop? Absolutely not.
You are going to see more real-time and asynchronous collaboration tools entering the space as well as notable innovation from many of the existing players. Screen-sharing will become a standard integrated OS or application integrated feature in an increasing number of cases.
Adobe is one of the key companies now setting the benchmarks in this space nonetheless the broad installation base of WebEx and other enterprise conferencing systems still own the numbers. But Adobe has set a long term strategy for the development of its next line of collaboration tools and characterized by a light footprint, cross-platform compatibility, easy to use and feature-rich approach. Connect and Brio are two brilliant examples of this successful strategy. Adobe is not my sponsor, but when a company does well over and over again, one should have no shame of saying it.
What to expect? I think that if Brio and the last iterations of Connect are any indication, you are in for some serious good surprises from these guys which means easier to use and more effective collaboration tools at your disposal.
Mobile
For online independent publishers, mobile is the next frontier, as more and more people log, search and read news while on the move on their mobile phones and PDAs.
Better integration of monetization and advertising opportunities, as well as more sophisticated tools to easily convert your standard web site in one that can be accessed by any mobile device will show up during 2008.
Cooler than cool a new mobile application will allow you to post to your site or blog using your voice and the images / video you capture on the move. The great thing is that your voice is converted into text and published as written content along your mp3 downloadable podcast.
In 2008 you will also be able to access remotely all of your tools, music, data and multimedia content, while being able to play it back on any television set or computer you will find available. Thanks to tools like Mojopac, Orb, Slingbox and TakeTV you will be able to access all of your tools and music / video content from just about anyhwere.
Mobile Live Video
Yes, I have already written about web tv yesterday in my first part of new media predictions, but live video will be a technological innovation that will affect not only web television channels but a much broader set of application and uses.
While accessible andcost-free live video streaming has been here for a good year now, the ability to stream live video from anywhere you may be without having to open your whole notebook is the new video-casting frontier. Two companies (Wwigo and QIK) have already introduced tools and services that allow anyone to broadcast real-time video from their Nokia cellular phones and in 2008 you should see a breakthrough announcements in this field from some top international brand names.
Online Marketing
SEO and SEM are not enough anymore to do a good, comprehensive job of promoting your content or specific products online. The online marketing mix now requires a great deal more understanding of how Google expects you to publish and architect your content, plus it helps a great deal if you are fully active in using social media destinations and in leveraging the power of social networks.
In 2008, I expect a new wave of services and tools that can help you simplify and manage more efficiently all of these chores. From pushing your new content to the best most relevant social media destinations for your target audience (Digg, Reddit, Sphinxx, Delicious, etc.), to creating your own mini network of supporters and fans that will proactively help you give visibility to it.
It is likely that you may see also the expansion and diversification of borderline services like Subvert and Profit which have aggregated a large team of individuals to push, for a price, selected content on major social media destinations like Digg and YouTube. As you may have learned recently from Techcrunch, getting video clips to get viral is not really a matter of having a particular talent at shooting video but rather the consequence of a very well orchestrated operation borderline marketing in which ethics and rules get easily subverted to achieve phenomenal popularity in the arc of a few days.
APML is coming and with it a possible wonderful and pretty scary innovations. As advertising is here to stay on the web, wouldn’t be better if the ads you saw were tailor-made to your interests?
Think of this as the next step forward from the AdSense contextual advertising you can see appearing in this article. Contextual advertising services such as Google Adsense attempt to serve relevant advertising based on the content of the article that they appear in. As such, you have a greater chance of seeing ads that will appeal to your tastes than you might through mainstream, mass media advertising, which simply sends out the same message almost regardless of context, and hopes that some small percentage of viewers will be interested.
If the APML standard takes hold, however, content providers and advertisers will have a much better chance to serve you with relevant information, so that ads become useful rather than something that interrupts what you came to see in the first place.
P2P
2008 is going to be the year for P2P to take the front stage for publishing and sharing contents in ways that need not be underground or illegal in any way. Radio, film and video distribution, and to a large degree live television can so greatly benefit from P2P distribution approaches that further delaying the understanding of the key benefits P2P can bring must the highest priority for any commercial television.
BeyondJoost, Babelgum and Hulu there is a yet uncovered world of classic mainstream television channels which haven’t seen yet the light of the day on the Internet. Why? There is no good reason for this. Only ignorance.
Zattoo and Livestation seem among the few ones so far to have sniffed the meal asvia what should be called P2PTV major broadcasters and TV networks can not only reach a much broader public without needing extra expensive broadcasting hardware and without needing to give up any of their advertising or sponsorship components, but they can also track and monitor with much greater accuracy what viewers are really watching.
P2P has many things going in its favour, but more than other innovative new media technologies it may best represent the tip of iceberg of a deep paradigm change we are not ready to dive into just yet. I invite you to look at the fascinating ideas of P2P as a way of living that Michel Bauwens and his network have been bringing forward. This is the stuff we should be looking into, and if you want to be really innovative while helping others tangibly to create a vision for the future Michel Bauwens may be the best lecturer to invite at your next media related conference.
Conversational Tools – Microblogging
If you haven’t yet given yourself the treat of using a microblogging tool, now is the time. Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku and many others offers the simplest interface and command set for any online publishing tool you may have encountered so far, while providing you with a truly effective way of shooting out rapid fire news, information, call for action, updates and even personal stuff for your friends, if that’s all you care about communicating.
In 2008, some microblogging tools will start to integrate audio and video functionalities using an approach similar to Seesmic, the new still in Beta service which allows individuals to shoot out short video messages while forming their own personalized social network.
On this front there is still a lot to go, but it appears evident to me that these tools are absolutely powerful and hugely powerful radars to allow you to stay in touch with hundreds of unique sources at once as well as providing a great publishing assets for any serious online blogger, trainer or independent reporter.
Microblogging tools have moved the online conversation paradigm a step further beyond blog comments. They are still a bit rough around the corners, offering little control over “grading” the incoming sources and news in different ways, while being able to better categorize and group them according to your needs. The conversational aspect will also need to be refined a lot more before we can gain a true conversational experience even when using these asynchronous tools.
But the above should likely be the innovative areas in which these tools will be making their next steps during 2008.
Widgets
This is the dream of any online publisher. Write once and publish your content to multiple media outlets at once. And thanks to RSS, the steady growth of widget use, the recent introduction of Open Social and of cross-media publishing tools the original dream has been actually surpassed by the reality we have been able to create so far.
Publishing all of your content via one or multiple RSS feeds is one of the strategic keys that allows you to get highly enhanced distribution. But widgets, who are built on RSS, are increasingly a more effective strategy to get extra exposure, visibility and traction while possibly being able also to extract some monetization opportunities from them.
In 2008, look for further innovation and new content publishing tools that allow you and your readers to package and distribute your content in multiple ways. If you want then to make the best of such opportunities, follow these great recommendations from Fred Wilson:
“1 – Microchunk it – Reduce the content to its simplest form.
2 – Free it – Put it out there without walls around it or strings on it.
3 – Syndicate it – Let anyone take it and run with it.
4 – Monetize it – Put the monetization and tracking systems into the microchunk.
Widgets are a syndication tool and a tracking tool. And hopefully they’ll become a monetization tool as well.”
Open ID
How do you love having a tens of different usernames and credentials to log into the different services you have signed up to? OpenID comes to the rescue and in 2008 you should see larger adoption of this new identification standard which is free, non-proprietary and which can be integrated in most any web-based service out there.
While OpenID is largely still in the adoption phase it is becoming increasingly more popular, as big organizations like Microsoft, AOL, Sun and Novell are starting to adopt and support the use of OpenIDs on their web-based services.
This is why if you are an online publisher looking to expand your membership-only services you may want to consider learning more about OpenID and the unique benefits it may bring to your customers and readers
“For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.
OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins.
AsBrad Fitzpatrick (the father of OpenID) said, “Nobody should own this. Nobody’s planning on making any money from this. The goal is to release every part of this under the most liberal licenses possible, so there’s no money or licensing or registering required to play. It benefits the community as a whole if something like this exists, and we’re all a part of the community.”
Offline web-based applications were in my new media predictions for 2007 as well, but nonetheless the interesting progress made by Socialtext, Zoho and Google Gears on this front, major advances that would allow mainstream adoption of this functionality are yet to come.
Offline web apps represent a new capability for traditional online-only web services which now allow you to go offline and be able keep working until you re-connect next.
In 2008 you will see off-line web apps going mainstream and leveraging this unique feature as a critical competitive selling point to significantly increase their user base.
X-Events
This is an idea whose time may not have come yet but it remains firmly on my radar for what you should start preparing for.
X-Events are events which are planned and carried out in a continuous experience that merges offline physical events and online activities.
The best way to explain this is a physical conference for which a community site is built before hand and in which participants, lecturers and sponsors start interacting and actively engaging with each other way before the physical event starts. Nonetheless the core event takes place in physical space it is also re-broadcast and made accessible in multiple ways, while numerous forums and post event showcases are set-up after the physical event is over.
A truly eXtended event in these terms would guarantee much greater success to the physical venue, extended exposure and visibility for all commercial partners, much greater opportunities for engagement and social networking for participants as well as an infinitely more capable platform for including presentations and shows from a greater number of people.
Even though most of the tools that would be needed to set-up an effective X-event have been out there for a while now, the true challenge is not only in integrating these into a coherent whole but having individuals who can see this vision and bring it to a plan that is certainly more challenging and complex than the typical tech conference. But so would be the success and rewards, I believe.
Whether X-events will become more of a reality in 2008 it is hard to say, but given the popularity and revenue streams that these conferences can carry I think it is only a matter of time before we see someone starting to properly ride this valuable horse.
Online professional independent publishers rejoyce! 2008 promises to be a year of great innovation for everyone publishing online as opportunities to expand or start your own micro publishing company will only increase.
New powerful publishing and content distribution tools will make their debut in 2008 while some of the existing technologies and services will greatly refine, consolidate and expand their present offerings.
Change is the name of the game, meaning that in as much as you can’t follow, participate and understand fully the logic of today’s web, the changes search engines are going through, the rise of social media, it is going to be increasingly hard for new publishers to successfully enter and survive in this extended marketplace.
As opportunities and tools to do better as an online publisher will dramatically increase, also the number of independent web publishers failing will skyrocket due to many having come late to the game and not having really understood fully how things are changing.
This is why as we progress it becomes increasingly critical to leverage pivotal business opportunities situated not exclusively in the creation and re-distribution of fresh news and information but rather more in the direction of aggregating, contextualizing, explaining and “making-sense” of all this information effectively.
For however this may appear simple and obvious to the non-expert mind, these are truly the crucial innovation areas in which I expect to see major innovations and changes coming next: Making sense of things in new highly effective, interactive, just-in-time, informal and entertaining formats.
Isn’t that promise of the Semantic web anyhow?
So, what has 2008 in store for you?
Here’s in a two-part summary report, check out at a glance, what I see ahead:
2008 Media Predictions – Part 1
Here below the areas that I believe you should pay most attention to in the upcoming 12 months. I expect these areas to be very live with announcements and useful innovation. Since there are over twenty personal publishing-related areas I personally follow I am structuring these predictions in two parts. Eleven areas today and the rest tomorrow, January 1st inside my Part 2 of these New Media Predictions 2008.
Social Networks
The number of social networks will keep increasing though only few will consolidate as key social hubs worth investing serious time into. MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, you know the names, though new ones will keep showing up. For many of you, joining these networks will mean maintaining one profile on a major social network among those above along with a presence in one specialized niche social/business network in the specific areas / industries you are most interested into. Especially for those just starting up or wanting to gain an extra visibility edge in a reduced time, social networks may indeed offer a viable short-term solution.
One of the key revolutionary advances in social networking tools of 2008 will be the ability for you to update all of your multiple social profiles across different networks from one interface (lifestreaming).This is something many have been waiting for as the implications, efficiencies and opportunities this creates are rather impressive. See the next point for more detail.
Lifestreaming
Lifestreaming offers you a single solution for gathering and publishing to all of your various online identities from a single social media space.
Let’s say you useTwitter for short messages to friends, Flickr for photo-sharing, YouTube for uploading video, Google Reader for your RSS feeds, del.icio.us for social bookmarking, and on and on. Sooner or later you might start suffering from social networking fatigue, dreading the prospect of signing into these various accounts to check up on or produce content.
Add to this the ability to create various profiles for friends, work, and even lovers, depending on what you want to share with each of them, and you have not only a powerful aggregation and authoring tool but also an excellent way to control what you share with your different online social media contacts.
Search
Search will continue to be one of the critical pivot points around which we find, discover and access specific information online. But search engines are changing and deeply so. Starting with Google all of the major search engines will continue to adopt new algorithms and technical solutions that take into larger account user views and preferences especially when these come from a trusted group of selected friends.
Greater availability of simple to use solutions that will allow you to create and customize your own public search engine(s) will further grow while becoming more integrated with advertising and sponsorship tools. Widget-based search will also gain more traction as online publishers will start to create mini-custom-search boxes focused to specific issues as an integrated content inside their most valuable articles.
PageRank: if you haven’t yet realized does not have any more significant value and your level of visibility inside Google search engine result pages is not connected to it anymore.
Live Blogging
Live blogging is a fast-growing trend as more and more web reporters cover live events and demand specialized tools to support them in this challenging task.
In 2008 I expect to see more tools and services appearing in this space and a stronger adoption of dedicated live reporting tools versus “adapted” live blogging solutions like chat rooms, blogs and social conversation tools like twitter and jaiku.
Web video – Net TV
Web television channels, net tv and other independent web-based television offerings will keep growing in number and quality also during 2008 with interesting innovations and changes to be expected.
On the front of content production you should expect to see lots of failures and super-hyped shows that will last only a limited time before folding. Watch out for the unique traits that pioneer web tv producers will use in creating some of the first successful net tv shows.
On the front ofweb-casting platforms some of the few existing players will consolidate their position or get bought up while some others will fold.
There will also be some unexpected big new entries in this space that will solidly redefine the profile of an independent web television channel. The best of Mogulus and Ustream will come together in a package that offers greater ease of use, better quality, and much greater reliability.
Newsmastering
What’s this Robin? I know most of you haven’t heard this word before but this is definitely something you have seen the results of in front of your eyes without realizing it. Newsmastering, at least in my own definition, is the art of aggregating and splicing together a large number of source news feeds, persistent searches and other information sources from which one manually selects, edits and publishes a curated digest with a specific editorial style or focus.
With the continuous increase in the amount of news sources and content being published daily there is no escape from having to rely on some intermediary and trusted news filterers or to succumb in an ocean of feeds that take hours to skim through.
This is where newsmastering plays a key vital role among the online news publishers of all kinds as well as among those that are always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to provide a greater service to the readers while creating a new effective opportunity for sponsorship/ monetization.
Since there are still very few tools covering this area I do expect new entries in this arena and a positive growth for the few players that will innovate and market themselves intelligently in the coming months.
Online Advertising
As in most of the areas I analyze here, while I am not an insider in any, my position of online publisher and external observer allows me at times to notice things that may not be so obvious and evident to those working in my same direction.
As a web publisher I see an increase in advertising and monetization opportunities becoming available. New solutions will offer more controls and features to test and optimize, sometimes in real-time, your ad selections.
Google AdSense will likely gain further in quality and revenue while losing many online publishers discouraged by its lack of transparency and open policies when it comes to penalizing sites, or establishing ethical rules that Google itself does not respect, or having to deal with a rapidly losing value of the dollar which significantly impacts non-US based AdSense publishers.
In fact I expect many small online publishers to move away from AdSense and to invest larger amounts of time and resources in alternative monetization and advertising solutions. This may likely be a win-win evolutionary step for both sides, as Google AdSense may be able to strengthen its weak points while relying on a more selective network of sites and small publishers may find unexpected monetization nirvana in directions they had not even considered until now.
Entertainment Meets Education
Sounds like something I have heard before. The news here is that just-in-time, informal learning and connectivism are all getting together and providing smart online independent publishers with a first killer set of tools that will allow many to gain much greater success and revenue than contextual advertising ever did.
What do I mean? Awareness and some rare examples are appearing showcasing the huge value and vast demand that there is from professionals wanting to learn and keeping themselves updated in new, enticing ways.
No-body wants to read another 220-page book to learn something. On the other hand many enjoy watching short video tutorials, listening to interesting podcasts, reading through link-rich and well-illustrated article-guides or better yet by discussing the matter with other interested individuals, as all these approaches offer multiple and redundant ways to understand something from a number of different perspectives and learning styles.
It is in this direction that talented communicators, established online publishers and niche experts will move next to further capitalize their knowledge assets.
Google and SEO
Whether you like it or not Google has given a very strong shake to the minimum requirements necessary to independently host a web site without incurring in any of its severe penalizations.
This makes it next to impossible for non-expert webmasters to maintain control of their web sites reach and visibility within Google search results as the amount of know-how and technical expertise required is not anymore in anyone’s reach as it used to be until mid-2007.
This will force online publishers to become more knowledgeable and aware of lots of things ethical, editorial and technical they have been ignoring until now. There will be an evident increase in those seeking to publish their content via “trusted” platforms which are already integrated within a larger system. Content publishing networks such as Mochila or Blogburst, Squidoo, Google Knol and similar solutions may provide to be initial solutions to this trend.
The overall result should be a general and sharp increase in the overall quality level of content and information web sites that will leave behind the neophyte phase of hippy blogging to those who are indeed there exclusively for the sheer passion of sharing their personal stories, to extend and broaden the personal publishing panorama with a more varied spectrum of highly focused and well-planned online content publishing solutions.
Presentation Tools
After one explosive year ofnew web-based presentation tools and services you have seen nothing yet of what it is to come in this direction. The metaphor adopted is so far is the one of replicating while simplifying the existing PowerPoint presentation paradigm. Unfortunately the PowerPoint approach loses water from all sides and it is also a bad foundation approach for those needing to develop better visual communication skills.
But a small army of newcross-media presentation tools is coming to serve you in 2008. Not only will you be able to easily sync and match your selected slides to music and narration in an online slideshow, but you will start to get better tools to put together truly engaging visual presentations. For those who have seen Animoto or Splashcast and have already gotten very excited, let me tell you you haven’t seen anything yet.
Originally written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on December 31st 2007 as “New Media Predictions 2008: What Online Independent Publishers Should Expect From The Future – Part 1″
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