The Business Web 2.0
As CEO of business-based social networking site WeCanDo.BIZ, read my take on the role Web 2.0 technologies can play helping businesses to grow.
Monday 23 June 2008, 1:22 PM
Will Web 2.0 kill industry associations and networking organisations?
It was only a few weeks ago I questioned whether search engines were offering much more than you could get from social networking websites. Offline I had some people agree, but the general feeling was that search engines are around for a while yet. Not least of all because use of them is on the increase as social networking establishes itself in popular culture.
Amongst the people I have been speaking with, however, there seems to be a feeling that industry associations and offline networking organisations could fall under the guilotine of Web 2.0, finding themselves at the blocks sooner.
WeCanDo.BIZ has membership of the Federation of Small Businesses, one of a number of industry bodies aimed at promoting the interests of UK-based small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), alongside things such as the Forum for Private Business, Business Links, Chambers of Commerce and others. As I see it there are two key benefits to being part of such organisations: one is discounted access to key business services (the FSB offers free banking, cheaper insurance etc.), the second is a forum to network and maybe do business with other members. Sure, the FSB also represents the interests of SMBs with the country's law makers, but as individuals we can probably do more by voting in enterprise friendly MPs when we are given the chance.
Sit back and think, however, and you soon realise that the things you value most from such bodies are available on the internet for free. Many forums exist in the UK for sharing ideas with other small business people, such as UK Sales & Marketing Forums and A1 Business Forums. There are networking sites, such as WeCanDo.BIZ, which actively promote trade between their members (who get to join free). All of these things can be done at any time, on line, and are not restricted to once a month networking events at unholy hours in local hotels. These sites promote contact between members all the time, so produce more leads more regularly.
Pure networking organisations offer questionable value next to their online counterparts too. Why would anyone join Business Networking International (BNI), The Athena Network, Business over Breakfast, Refer On or any other organisation charging, in many cases, hundreds of pounds a year to network once or twice a month when online business networking sites allow you to do it when you want, as frequently as you want for free?
I agree that nothing beats face to face contact for getting business done, but any sales or business person worth their salt will know that some level of qualification before you meet saves you wasting time. So why not network online and when you've found someone you really want to meet, do so face to face, one to one so you have their undivided attention? Get the hard work done online at a time that suits all parties and leave the time spent meeting to productive business conversation rather than never ending pleasantries?
I admit I do a lot online -- it's easy and cheap. And business are waking up to a world of possibilities online. Might this be to the detriment of those industry bodies and networking groups who aren't moving as fast as the rest of us?
I'd love to hear your views.
Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Amongst the people I have been speaking with, however, there seems to be a feeling that industry associations and offline networking organisations could fall under the guilotine of Web 2.0, finding themselves at the blocks sooner.
WeCanDo.BIZ has membership of the Federation of Small Businesses, one of a number of industry bodies aimed at promoting the interests of UK-based small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), alongside things such as the Forum for Private Business, Business Links, Chambers of Commerce and others. As I see it there are two key benefits to being part of such organisations: one is discounted access to key business services (the FSB offers free banking, cheaper insurance etc.), the second is a forum to network and maybe do business with other members. Sure, the FSB also represents the interests of SMBs with the country's law makers, but as individuals we can probably do more by voting in enterprise friendly MPs when we are given the chance.
Sit back and think, however, and you soon realise that the things you value most from such bodies are available on the internet for free. Many forums exist in the UK for sharing ideas with other small business people, such as UK Sales & Marketing Forums and A1 Business Forums. There are networking sites, such as WeCanDo.BIZ, which actively promote trade between their members (who get to join free). All of these things can be done at any time, on line, and are not restricted to once a month networking events at unholy hours in local hotels. These sites promote contact between members all the time, so produce more leads more regularly.
Pure networking organisations offer questionable value next to their online counterparts too. Why would anyone join Business Networking International (BNI), The Athena Network, Business over Breakfast, Refer On or any other organisation charging, in many cases, hundreds of pounds a year to network once or twice a month when online business networking sites allow you to do it when you want, as frequently as you want for free?
I agree that nothing beats face to face contact for getting business done, but any sales or business person worth their salt will know that some level of qualification before you meet saves you wasting time. So why not network online and when you've found someone you really want to meet, do so face to face, one to one so you have their undivided attention? Get the hard work done online at a time that suits all parties and leave the time spent meeting to productive business conversation rather than never ending pleasantries?
I admit I do a lot online -- it's easy and cheap. And business are waking up to a world of possibilities online. Might this be to the detriment of those industry bodies and networking groups who aren't moving as fast as the rest of us?
I'd love to hear your views.
Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Thursday 5 June 2008, 12:49 PM
Are search engines facing extinction?
It might seem odd to suggest that search engines are dead given Google's rude health and Microsoft's recent interest in acquiring Yahoo! to increase its presence in search, but it would seem a few people I have spoken to recently are starting to wonder if search engines are as useful as they once were.
The main point of contention seems to be the value of getting 67,000,000 responses to a search query when perhaps just a few would be more useful, especially if what is shown is very much more relevant -- and by my definition, not those who have spent a fortune on SEO. Like a social network profile if searching for a person; a business directory or network for a company; or a fact-based wiki for pretty much anything else.
And that's the thing, many people now know other web services they'd go to first when searching on something specific. Search engines could easily turn into a last resort if you can't find what you need elsewhere, or actively want to waste your time to scanning through a million results.
I had a forum debate with the managing director of a business directory recently about whose site was better: his directory or my business lead and referral site. I'll spare you the tittle tattle, but his assertion was that his site was better because if you typed "accountant" it came back with 22,000 entries. I said WeCanDo.BIZ was better because it came back with a handful, but within those you could see which of those was used and endorsed by your own business contacts. Few people need 22,000 accountants, but if they did then his site would be better (how you use that information is a moot point). I believe a person would be likely to choose one business over any of the 22,000 others if came with a recommendation from someone they know and trust. Not hard to do -- you just mash up a business listing with your social graph, as we have done at WeCanDo.BIZ.
And this got me thinking. If I search for a friend or a specific person, why do I need 714,000 responses with irrelevant content or many multiple entries referring only fleetingly to the person I am trying to find? Why would I not go to Facebook or LinkedIn -- or even Spock, which attempts to consolidate a person's profile on all -- instead? These days, it stands me in better stead for getting straight to who I want without having to read everything written about them by strangers.
And then there is everything else. So I want to know what happened to car maker TVR? Type that into Google and I get 18,000,000 entries. But the most reliable version of TVRs current status possibly sits on Wikipedia, with a link to the official website if I want the marketing version of why they aren't making cars any more.
We are all used to searching on Google but has finding information on teh web moved on under Web 2.0? Is Google actually the best resource for loacting information we can easily and arguably better get elsewhere? Google has grown massively on the back of companies spending money to get listed higher with their keywords, but this is an arms race from which there is ultimately only one winner - Google. No one can be first forever unless you are prepared to pay. And, interestingly, Google's search has hardly developed recently, with most of its efforts and money now going into new ventures such as Google Earth, Google Apps and the Android mobile operating system. Perhaps Google shares the same vision for the future of search engines as I do?
Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
The main point of contention seems to be the value of getting 67,000,000 responses to a search query when perhaps just a few would be more useful, especially if what is shown is very much more relevant -- and by my definition, not those who have spent a fortune on SEO. Like a social network profile if searching for a person; a business directory or network for a company; or a fact-based wiki for pretty much anything else.
And that's the thing, many people now know other web services they'd go to first when searching on something specific. Search engines could easily turn into a last resort if you can't find what you need elsewhere, or actively want to waste your time to scanning through a million results.
I had a forum debate with the managing director of a business directory recently about whose site was better: his directory or my business lead and referral site. I'll spare you the tittle tattle, but his assertion was that his site was better because if you typed "accountant" it came back with 22,000 entries. I said WeCanDo.BIZ was better because it came back with a handful, but within those you could see which of those was used and endorsed by your own business contacts. Few people need 22,000 accountants, but if they did then his site would be better (how you use that information is a moot point). I believe a person would be likely to choose one business over any of the 22,000 others if came with a recommendation from someone they know and trust. Not hard to do -- you just mash up a business listing with your social graph, as we have done at WeCanDo.BIZ.
And this got me thinking. If I search for a friend or a specific person, why do I need 714,000 responses with irrelevant content or many multiple entries referring only fleetingly to the person I am trying to find? Why would I not go to Facebook or LinkedIn -- or even Spock, which attempts to consolidate a person's profile on all -- instead? These days, it stands me in better stead for getting straight to who I want without having to read everything written about them by strangers.
And then there is everything else. So I want to know what happened to car maker TVR? Type that into Google and I get 18,000,000 entries. But the most reliable version of TVRs current status possibly sits on Wikipedia, with a link to the official website if I want the marketing version of why they aren't making cars any more.
We are all used to searching on Google but has finding information on teh web moved on under Web 2.0? Is Google actually the best resource for loacting information we can easily and arguably better get elsewhere? Google has grown massively on the back of companies spending money to get listed higher with their keywords, but this is an arms race from which there is ultimately only one winner - Google. No one can be first forever unless you are prepared to pay. And, interestingly, Google's search has hardly developed recently, with most of its efforts and money now going into new ventures such as Google Earth, Google Apps and the Android mobile operating system. Perhaps Google shares the same vision for the future of search engines as I do?
Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Wednesday 28 May 2008, 9:00 AM
Facebook confused about the way forward
Have a number of recent announcements reduced Facebook's usefulness to members and also derailed any prospects of realising its estimated value?
To date, you cannot deny Facebook's rise has meteoric. From a social network for Harvard students, the past 4 years have seen it grow to 70 million visitors a month with members from across the globe. It reached a peak last year with Microsoft paying $246 million for a stake of just 1.6%, valuing the company at $15 billion.
But a number of recent moves have shown the future to be less rosy for the Web 2.0 hero.
With Microsoft having failed in its efforts to acquire Yahoo! (for now at least), it was rumoured that our all dominant friends in Redmond had called Facebook to discuss increasing their investment. They were reportedly told that Facebook wasn't for sale (although I think any businessperson worth their salt would probably say yes to a $15 billion valuation on a turnover of $300 million annually in the current economic gloom).
This week, Facebook has announced that the Facebook Platform they revealed last year -- essentially a platform for developers to build those cruddy applications that drive you mad -- is soon to go Open Source.
Now to me this has a few important implications for Facebook moving forward and none of them is positive. Number 1 is that it will be yet easier for third party developers to build and deploy applications that clutter the experience for users and generate more spam, possible contributors to a recent dip in visitor numbers. Secondly, this seems to potentially undo the good expected from an interface redesign that Facebook has been promising for a few weeks now and which was aimed at going back to the "clean" Facebook appearance of old, to enhance the user experience. Thirdly, how attractive is a company with an Open Source platform for others to exploit to new investors, especially notorious enemy of the Open Source state Microsoft.
Facebook has recently been back out to the markets with cap in hand looking for additionaly investment to reinforce its infrastructure ($1 billion on new hardware - WOW!), but now that it would seem most of that will go towards building servers for other companies to use for free with no clear return for Facebook in the whole thing, you have to wonder what the future Grand Plan is.
Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
To date, you cannot deny Facebook's rise has meteoric. From a social network for Harvard students, the past 4 years have seen it grow to 70 million visitors a month with members from across the globe. It reached a peak last year with Microsoft paying $246 million for a stake of just 1.6%, valuing the company at $15 billion.
But a number of recent moves have shown the future to be less rosy for the Web 2.0 hero.
With Microsoft having failed in its efforts to acquire Yahoo! (for now at least), it was rumoured that our all dominant friends in Redmond had called Facebook to discuss increasing their investment. They were reportedly told that Facebook wasn't for sale (although I think any businessperson worth their salt would probably say yes to a $15 billion valuation on a turnover of $300 million annually in the current economic gloom).
This week, Facebook has announced that the Facebook Platform they revealed last year -- essentially a platform for developers to build those cruddy applications that drive you mad -- is soon to go Open Source.
Now to me this has a few important implications for Facebook moving forward and none of them is positive. Number 1 is that it will be yet easier for third party developers to build and deploy applications that clutter the experience for users and generate more spam, possible contributors to a recent dip in visitor numbers. Secondly, this seems to potentially undo the good expected from an interface redesign that Facebook has been promising for a few weeks now and which was aimed at going back to the "clean" Facebook appearance of old, to enhance the user experience. Thirdly, how attractive is a company with an Open Source platform for others to exploit to new investors, especially notorious enemy of the Open Source state Microsoft.
Facebook has recently been back out to the markets with cap in hand looking for additionaly investment to reinforce its infrastructure ($1 billion on new hardware - WOW!), but now that it would seem most of that will go towards building servers for other companies to use for free with no clear return for Facebook in the whole thing, you have to wonder what the future Grand Plan is.
Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Thursday 15 May 2008, 10:03 PM
Google Friend Connect already unravelling?
Just 3 days after Google seemed to have Web 2.0 enabled the whole WWW, it seems its plans for data portability have taken a knock-back. Facebook has written a blog post revealing they have banned Google Friend Connect from accessing its API and access to user data on its site.
TechCrunch has revealed that Facebook believes that Friend Connect breaches its Terms of Service by passing user data about without the user's knowledge:
"Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology. We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service. Just as we’ve been forced to do for other applications that redistribute data in a way users might not expect or understand, we’ve had to suspend Friend Connect’s access to Facebook user information until it comes into compliance. We’ve reached out to Google several times about this issue, and hope to work with them to enable users to share their data exactly when and where they choose."
Exactly how it thinks it violates its ToS is not very clear, as Google Friend Connect doesn't seem a whole lot different from Facebook Connect announced 3 days earlier.
The only way Facebook seems to have value as an organisation is from the number of people on its site and the advertising it is trying to make money from, so it seemed a little strange to me that it would allow others to take its prized assets and place them with others. The whole data portability thing feels too good to be true, although great news for other sites on the web that can benefit from Facebook's community dropping by.
I hope the matter gets resolved, although maybe it will keep the situation stalled for long enough for someone else to come along and present a better way of doing the whole thing -- such as an independent site holding user information and authorising social networks to use it, but it stays in the possession of the independent, chosen by the user...
I'll keep you posted.
Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
TechCrunch has revealed that Facebook believes that Friend Connect breaches its Terms of Service by passing user data about without the user's knowledge:
"Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology. We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service. Just as we’ve been forced to do for other applications that redistribute data in a way users might not expect or understand, we’ve had to suspend Friend Connect’s access to Facebook user information until it comes into compliance. We’ve reached out to Google several times about this issue, and hope to work with them to enable users to share their data exactly when and where they choose."
Exactly how it thinks it violates its ToS is not very clear, as Google Friend Connect doesn't seem a whole lot different from Facebook Connect announced 3 days earlier.
The only way Facebook seems to have value as an organisation is from the number of people on its site and the advertising it is trying to make money from, so it seemed a little strange to me that it would allow others to take its prized assets and place them with others. The whole data portability thing feels too good to be true, although great news for other sites on the web that can benefit from Facebook's community dropping by.
I hope the matter gets resolved, although maybe it will keep the situation stalled for long enough for someone else to come along and present a better way of doing the whole thing -- such as an independent site holding user information and authorising social networks to use it, but it stays in the possession of the independent, chosen by the user...
I'll keep you posted.
Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Tuesday 13 May 2008, 6:07 PM
Facebook, Google pave the way for the next wave of social networking
I have long believed that the next wave of social networking is the proliferation of smaller, more focused sites appealing to special interests or specific needs. With MySpace and Facebook having opened our eyes to what the medium can do, I expect it to evolve toward sites with much more niche, relevant content -- good for us and good for advertisers, the lifeblood of free web sites.
The fly in the ointment, however, was that each one of these interesting new socnets would require me registering, setting up a new profile, remembering a new password and establishing yet another network of contacts. All necessary to enjoy the benefits, but tedious nonetheless.
News of the past few days suggests a solution to this problem may already be at hand however. And from who? Facebook and MySpace -- the very sites I'd be less likely to use as a consequence or it being easier to use the new more relevant sites.
I'll skip over the specifics of the announcements, as they are well documented elsewhere on the web, but the upshot is that MySpace, Facebook and even Google users will be able to take their details with them -- that's mainly their profiles, pictures and friends -- anywhere else they go. Well, anywhere if you use your Facebook identity, but only a few other sites if you use the other two.
What it means is that sites like mine at WeCanDo.BIZ will be able to allow users to bring over a profile already configured on another site, and easily invite friends from the other network to come and join them on our network. Or at least that is how it seeems; much like the OpenSocial announcements earlier this year, this is currently all Powerpoint slides and flipchart diagrams rather than real live examples that we can use today.
All the same, it sounds great. But I can't help wondering what's in it for the guys who have announced it. I guess if the web is to open up to become one big connected place where any website will allow you to log in with one identity, either Facebook, MySpace or Google would be happy enough you are using the identity they gave you. But I can't see the reasons it would take me back to their site, which is surely their ultimate aim. And I especially can't see how they are going to make money from it, unless they place a condition on the other sites that they pay for access to the data or carry their advertising.
Can anyone else take a guess at how they make money from this?
Let me be clear, I welcome the news. But I do wonder whether some of these announcements were made in a hurry to keep up with The Joneses and that once the commercial realities of the initiative sink in we'll probably never see any of it come to light.
Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
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