Web 2.0 Presentations

This semester, we had a number of presenters come to class and enlighten us with the work they do with respect to web 2.0 technologies. The subject varied from security to legal issues to even the future of marketing. It was really interesting to get an “inside” perspective on how companies in today markets are implementing web 2.0 technologies. In my opinion, one presentation stood out from the rest though. Eric Bosco, from Platform-A, gave us a good overview of advertising web 2.0 styles. He provided a nice history of media evolution and how we ended up with today’s extensive global internet. Eric introduced concept which were new to me. First, he informed us that his company was a media broker. What is that? I had no idea what this was. Eric informed us that advertisers don’t have the time or energy to select every website they may want to put ads on, thus a media broker collects sites for the advertiser. To do this, there is a lot involved but basically a number of factors will result in the optimal place for an ad to be placed. Another term he introduced me to is rich media. Rich media is basically interactive advertising. One way to think of it is banner ads made 10 times better. Rich media has proven more affective versus traditional ads. Being a media broker, there are a few different ways to charge your customers. One way to do so is based on CPM (Cost per thousand). This concept basically estimates the dollar value associated with displaying the ad to 1,000 views. For example, $40 CPM means that it costs $40 to show the banner on 1000 page views. The other two ways to charge are CPC where you get paid on the basis of cost per click and the last one is cost per action where you dont get paid unless the person performs some type of action such as buying or registering. This presentation was very interesting. I provided me with a good understanding of advertising and all of the various intricacies that I was unaware of before. Advertising is a simple concept but involves very complex algorithms for the determinations of where ads should be places, what colors to use, image size, how often to change an ad, etc. Additionally, advertising is a new market place for even individuals looking to make some money on the side. Any given person can start a blog, if it gains momentum, using applications such as adsense..there is always money to be made!!

Ashton versus CNN

Recently, Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN on twitter to reach over 1 million followers on Twitter. Kutcher won!! This event was the first of its kind. Kutcher did not even spend a single cent and was able to reach an amazing number of people, increase awareness for a good cause, and show that a single voice can have power. The cause was malaria awareness. Since he won, Kutcher will be donating 10,000 bet nets for the cause. Since its inception, Twitter can be considered “the ultimate ego drive” as some would call it. This could be the case if someone is simply providing self-motivating updates such as “I am still great!” But Kutcher wanted to really point out that even with an ego driven sites, egos can be channeled into good causes such as raising malaria awareness. More importantly, Kutcher wanted to show that a single voice has the power to beat a multi-media network such as CNN. It’s only been in recent times that such things are possible! Apparently, other celebs want to use the site to really reach their fans. For example, Sean Combs (P Diddy), utilizes twitter so fans can get a sense of who he really is. He claims his image is always related to the flashy lifestyle and he wants to get away from that. Thus using tweets, he can reach his fans in a new way and show his real personality. Oprah Winfrey is also a twitter user these days although I am not sure what he angle is. With all of the celeb hype, some twitter fans are fearful of what it means for twitter.First and foremost, with increased usage, can twitter handle the traffic? This remains to be seen. Also, loyal users are afraid that it will become a fad which will quickly become yesterday’s news. Loyal users want twitter to remain about the masses and not become all about following the celebs. I understand this point of view but doubt it will become simply a means to follow your favorite celeb. Honestly, shame on celebs whose intent is to monopolize twitter for their own means. But if you are doing things that promote a good cause…well…I would say tweet away! What do you think? Should celebs like Kutcher tweet? Why or why not?

Can you ROI this?

Being a part-time MBA student, one of the things drilled into our heads is the importance of ROI and its basic use when making tough business decisions. When we start a new project or start to even consider taking on a new initiative, as business people, we often times look at the return on investment (ROI) associated with taking on the new project. The ROI gives the company and business managers an idea on what to expect as far as returns are concerned for the business. ROIs are meticulously evaluated and analyzed. The basic formula for ROI is as follows:

ROI = (Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment)/Cost of Investment.

Risk factors play an important role in determining whether or not to start a project. For example, if the risk is high if project, and ROI is relatively low, a company will most likely not take on the project due to the large possibility the project will fail.

As new web 2.0 technologies are being introduced, companies have to once again engage in trying to assign an ROI to web 2.0 technologies. I initially thought that ROI could be applied to a web 2.0 technology such as a blog, but I have learned this is far from the truth. Its hard to measure the true value a blog has on a companies marketing effort. Any VP or CEO can implement a blog and post discussions but does anyone care? On one hand you may have an engaging blog while another is barely even noticed. The one that commands a following is truly instrumental in connecting with the masses. Given that web 2.0 technologies are highly dealing with user generating content and experiences, its hard to say that a given web 2.0 technology will hold “X” amount of value. So question is, how does a company place value on a web 2.0 technology? This question is hard to answer since web 2.0 technologies affect many “soft” areas such as loyalty and customer engagement. In my opinion, here are some factors you may want to look at:

Estimating the number of customer interactions (such as blog posts, downloads, surveys, product sales coming from the web 2.0 site, etc. )
Time required to set-up the web 2.0 technology
Time to learn the technology.
Maintenance of the site
Affect on other company processes (i.e. is your blog answers certain product related questions, this may in turn reduce customer service calls.)
Customer satisfaction

Can you think of any others?

Lets share...

Being a consultant often times means being on the road to various client sites. We stay in hotels throughout the week and try out best to stay connected. Staying connected to our teams is extremely important but its hard to accomplish, especially if your team is a lot of people. For example, lets say you are a team of 5 and you are all spit up to do simultaneous installs at five different locations. But at the same time, you are all trying to work on another project that needs collaboration amongst the group. Usually, a share drive would do that trick but now…you are away from your companies network and getting access may complicate things. Well…now there is an easier solution. In a previous class, we had discussed cloud computing. The following is a specific example. A new website called box.net is solving problems such as the one described above. This solution provides a shared workspace for teams where they can have one copy of each document that is secure and accessible by all members. This allows for version control, making the configuration managers job a little easier. This site can even be used for discussions for traveling teams. Some other cool features are that when a document is downloaded, you are able to see when this was done and by whom, making auditing easier as well. This site allows users to view files using any browser-enabled mobile device and use Box’s apps on the iPhone and Blackberry. Pretty cool. Additionally, when someone makes an update to a group document, you can get an update. It is similar to a news feed for your groups shared workspace. So if you are in a meeting and are wondering when your boss will review a given document so you can deliver it, you will get an update once its complete, making it available for whatever purpose you choose. Access control is well thought-out in the site as you have control over data access and use. It is customizable. And for those of you security minded people, you can set levels of view and edit permissions, times for auto-deleting a file or removing a link, and of course password protect files. The cost of this app is relatively small and training is virtually zero when compared to other methods. Since everything is in the cloud, there is no software and hardware cost and start up time is in minutes!!!

what time is it? ...5pm

In today's workplace, team work is pretty unavoidable. Very rarely do we see places where you can work by yourself and get things accomplished. For example, one area people may say that solitude is good is that of research. I agree that while doing focused research is probably better done by a subject matter expert, at some point, this topic has to be published and then adopted to be turned into something useful. Even technology transfers require teams. Teams today are dynamic and require a lot of planning and coordination. As teams grow and budgets shrink due to the lovely economy, group dynamics has to be well-coordinated as increasingly complicated tasks now have to be accomplished quicker and more efficiently than ever before. On web app that assists teams in setting and then successfully meeting deadlines is 5pm. This website is awesome!

5pm offers a variety of tools to help manage both short and long term tasks. Being centrally accessible allows all members of the team access to useful data concerning with project planning. 5pm offers a customizeable interface that displays a gantt chart outlining project sub tasks and deadlines. There is a section called “My stuff” that provides each member of the team their own space where they can keep tabs on items that are related to themselves. The site offers RSS support so when a project manager moves a deadline out another week, each affected member is now informed and can relax knowing they have more time to complete their specific task. Project leads can even export reports to CSV. This app is able to link into various calendar applications such as Apple iCal, Google calendar, and any other that supports iCalendar format. The auto-archive options is also a useful features as tasks which were at some point taken off the table are suddenly required again.

The cost of adopting 5pm in your work place depends a number of factors such as the number of people in the group, number of projects the site will manage, and your file storage requirements. The cheapest plan starts at $18/month for 5 users, 10 projects, and 300Mb of storage space. The most expensive plan is $175/month for unlimited users, projects and data storage requirements. As with another app I reviewed, 5pm also requires no infrastructure. All maintenance is taken off your hands and handled by 5pm….now can you find a better deal!!

Aviary

Today was a beautiful day…so we decided to head out to DC. While visiting the National Cherry Blossoms this afternoon, I noticed how many people have digital cameras, including myself. A lot of people will probably go home and leave the images on their cameras until the memory if full at which point they will download the images and burn it onto a DVD for storage purposes. Some images may be uploaded so they can be purchased but a majority will be stored away in some shelf. Well, now we have another option. Web 2.0 technology sites like Aviary now offer people like us some useful photo editing tools. Websites like these offer a lot of options not just for photo editing. This website promotes creativities in many different ways through its various tools. Below each is described but I recommend visiting the site itself…some are just so cool you have to try them yourself (at least check out the images some users have created).

One tool available to users is one that would be expected at a site like this, photo editing capability called Phoenix. This includes things such as touching up an image to more complex options. The next tool is called “Raven” and provides the ability for the user to create scalable vector art appropriate for things like logos and tee shirts. The next tool is called Toucan and allows users to use various color palettes so they can enhance the color quality of their images. The next one, Peacock has so many features that a wiki has been dedicated to it to help users understand all of the features and capabilities of this toolbox. It is describes as a “ hub (node) based effect/pattern generating application.” The images some have created are pretty nice…see below.

There are other products offered as well and various blogs and wikis associated with the site to promote collaboration and community knowledge dissemination. This site seems to be attracting a lot of foot traffic as seen through the various comments and topics written about. If you become found of the site, you can receive RSS feeds on things like Product updates and twitter updates.

CrossLoop

When was the last time your computer acted up and you needed help? Have you ever reached out to geek squad for help. If you are like a lot of people, you probably have. Or maybe have had to stop by your parents place on your way home so you could fix a bug for them? Well…there is a new way to get help. CrossLoop is here to save your day! CrossLoop is an internet company that offers people help with their computer problems. You can reach out to trusted and qualified service providers who are able to provide support quickly and effectively. CrossLoop is not like any other company. Instead of taking your computer to some big store and wait in a long line, you can get help while just sitting on your coach. Additionally, you don’t have to let someone into your house but rather you log onto the internet and connect with a service provider over the internet. Then the service provider is able to view you desktop and fix your problem or provide support/advice on how to fix the problem at hand.

The unique thing about CrossLoop is that people of any technical level of expertise can now provide support to those of us who are a little less knowledgeable. This introduces a new level of collaboration on the internet. There is a tremendous amount of information known by people who log onto the internet everyday. Being able to tap into this wealth of knowledge could help solve many computer related problems more easily and quickly. What will help result in more collaboration is that CrossLoop is available in 21 languages and is used by people/companies in over 150 countries. Areas for which CrossLoop provides support include technical support, training, and collaboration. Some popular categories in which CrossLoop has provided support include: antivirus, home networks, spyware, outlook, digital photos, iTunes/iPod and iPhones.

The last two here make me wonder though…why would you not go to apple for support with their products? It would be interesting to see why people prefer coming to CrossLoop for assistance. I am guessing it’s the ease of getting help from your own laptop versus taking you device to the apple store. I have stood in those lines before….not fun!!!