The Business Web 2.0

Google has turned each of the one million plus Google Apps customer domains into an OpenID provider, enabling millions of people to sign in to OpenID-supporting websites with their work, school or organization identity.

Good news, you'd think? Well, not all are reacting that way.

The way Google has achieved this is by extending their Google OpenID Federated Login API to refer to Google Apps custom domains if a "valid" OpenID identity -- in essence, an URL to a profile with an OpenID provider -- isn't found.

An example of how this looks can be found in my company's press release on the subject at http://wecandobiz.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/press-release/.

Although this feature usefully extends OpenID, it adds a "proprietary" feature to the way that OpenID sign in occurs on a site if the user is to be able to login using their Google Apps custom domain. It's this that has got members of the OpenID Foundation worried (see the OpenID discussion pages at http://openid.net/pipermail/board/2009-July/).

OpenID always sounded great and I've blogged before on the race for adoption between it and Facebook Connect as the most dominant identity for shared sign in. A year or more further on, I can see a role for both -- and later entrant Twitter OAuth -- as people typically maintain several identities when using the web (e.g. Facebook for personal use, OpenID for business use) and so support of all leading shared identity systems is important.

But speaking as someone who support 6 different methods of sign in on his (business focused) website other than the native sign in, OpenID identities currently make up some 2% of third party sign ins. Twitter sign ins account for nearly 50% of sign ins (the full breakdown can be found at http://wecandobiz.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/which-identities-people-use-to-sign-in-to-wecando-biz/).

EDIT: I should point out that 2% of sign ins are using an OpenID URL sign in, whereas Yahoo and Google e-mail address sign ins, which also use OpenID underneath, account for another 22% of sign ins. Thanks to Tore Steen of JanRain for reminding me I should make the disinction.

Google's move may indeed add some proprietary elements to an open standard, but they make it a lot more usable and also bring more clout to an initiative that deserves to succeed because it benefits everyone.

I can understand the frustrations of the "purists", but use of the Google API is optional and doesn't stop standard implementations from working; it just means a whole bunch of sites may opt to make it easier for the millions of Google Apps users to sign in.

We've been happy to add it to our site using JanRain's RPX solution and I'll be reporting back in due course on whether Google's move has given OpenID the boost I hope it does. With the excitement surrounding Google Wave -- part of Google Apps remember -- promising a further boost to numbers, OpenID may have a great future ahead, even though not all OpenID Foundation members may appreciate it.

As ever, I welcome your comments.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

Google's new Wave service is billed as revolutionising e-mail. But it might not be existing e-mail and messaging vendors that feel the pinch first.

You've probably heard about Google Wave. Revealed at the Google I/O developer conference in May, it demos Google's evolution of e-mail, a method of communication that hasn't really moved on any in 40 years. The techies were cock-a-hoop and quite a few of those who've seen videos of the demo are just as excited.

(Here's a great 10 minute breakdown of the key features:

I fall into the camp labelled "Excited" as it genuinely seems to bring together the best of e-mail, instant messaging and newer initiatives like Twitter. Move to Wave and you could have all three working in harmony in your browser. So who will fear Google Wave most? Microsoft, which dominates the e-mail client market? Companies like Yahoo, AOL and Skype who depend on instant messaging for users? Or even Twitter for taking its concept and integrating it as just one form of conversation?

Well, probably none of these as much as traditional forums, which I would elect are likely to be first in the firing line.

Now not everyone uses forums. They seem strangely old fashioned, being evolutions, as they are, of bulletin boards which have been around as long as the internet has. But they are also a great example of User Generated Content and all that Web 2.0 is about.

As a big fan of social media I should love forums; and I am active on quite a few, which I won't name here. But I also hate them, because in amongst the useful posts is inevitably hundreds of contributions from people who have an opinion on a topic and know enough to be dangerous. If you're looking for value, you need to spend some time separating the wheat from the chaff.

And this is where Google Wave could come in. Imagine a web-based forum where you can attach yourself to specific topics, because you are interested or have expertise. The topic may be born on the forums site, mainly in order that anyone can start it and watch the thread evolve; but what if your contribution could be done within Wave? As your input is needed, so the Wave flashes to let you know. Contributions from others add to the Wave; and because each contribution comes from a "real person" rather than a masked identity on a website there is a chance their input will be a little better considered. You get what you need without ever needing to leave your Wave browser window.

And that's the thing: if this was a way to tap the thoughts of others, en masse as it were, why would people ever spend time on forums wading through the rubbish to try and find the stuff Wave could easily locate for them with a widget and a ready method of reading and contributing to the thread?

Forums could already be considered a speciality interest lacking the fashion of Twitter or, now, Wave. But could Google Wave kill them stone dead?

I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams’ Google Apps account getting hacked has got a lot of coverage this week. And it’s reaised a lot of questions about just how secure The Cloud, hosted business applications and Web 2.0 services are.

I write this as the former managing director of an information security company, long time hosted applications user and founder of a Web 2.0 company -- and I have to say, the biggest threat to online security is ignorance and laziness!

First off, let’s be clear, it was not Twitter the Application that was hacked in this affair, but Twitter the Staff -- it was actually Williams’ Gogle Apps password that was compromised, giving access to the documents now in circulation. Twitter staff got targeted because they are high profile and the hacker knew the press would be interested in the story.

How did this happen? Simple: Williams’ password was guessed. Or to put it another way, he simply didn’t set a strong enough password and has now paid the price.

There are very obvious benefits to using web based services, not least of all in their convenience and availability. Because they are web based, so available to any member of the public, they are at greater risk that an application or data store on a stand alone server in a locked office that you need to walk over to to use; but that isn’t very convenient. Broadly speaking, the risks of attack are offset by the convenience of the services -- there is risk, but it’s worth taking for the upside.

But whether you use Cloud based applications or on-premise, it pays to follow these basic rules on password security:

1. NEVER write your passwords down — make them easy to remember but personal to you so you don’t need to write them down

2. Use a password system no one could ever guess. Here’s a suggestion: take the first letters of a sentence you can easily remember, e.g. Ian Watches Formula 1 Every Other Sunday would become IWF1EOS — who is ever going to guess that as a password? Factor in that the sentence could be about ANY aspect of your life and it becomes harder still for anyone to guess

3. Never use the same password on more than one website — introduce just the smallest change between them, inspired by something about the site or service, e.g. add BA at the start or end for your online Barclays account, HO for Hotmail, WE for your WeCanDo.BIZ login etc.

4. If you are asked to set a password reminder question, make it the most obscure option offered (things like your date of birth or mother’s maiden name may not be hard to find out) — make it something very few, if any people at all, know about you. You might even want to lie about the answer, but if you do make the answer memorable!

Your comments and questions welcomed, just post below.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

The CRM 2.0 train is gaining steam, but most of its first uses are of little relevance to small businesses. Might they get looked over by one of the most exciting business web iniatives ever?

Anyone who reads my blog posts will know I'm a big advocate of Social CRM: the coming together of social networks with Customer Realtionship Management system to provide businesses with a wealth of data never before available. I've called the union 'The Perfect Business Application'.

So it's been very exciting for me to watch an increasing number of established CRM vendors -- the latest of which is Microsoft with its Dynamics CRM offering -- start to offer various degrees of integration with social networks and other social media. Micosoft's announcement comes within a week of Salesforce.com and Social Media Monitoring experts Radian6 announcing a tie-up to help bring a view of the Social Web into the leading cloud-based CRM system.

In addition to these established CRM players making their applications more "socially aware" there are also companies coming at the challenge from the other end; CoTweet is an application that enables workflow and task assignment to be attached to Twitter activity, making it easier for a team of people to 'tweet' through a single corporate Twitter account. It could provide particularly useful making Twitter-based enquiry handling scalable.

But I have concerns. Most of the ways I hear the benefits of Social CRM being discussed is in the context of helping to drive conversation about brands, either from a marketing or customer service perspective. The idea of most of these unions is that you can be there when people across the Social Web discuss your company and products, helping to drive the conversation or manage negative publicity.

I understand these benefits, but I just don't believe many small businesses find conversations being had about their company or products -- that's the problem. They're too small for this to be a problem; the real opportunity for them with Social Media is as much about winning new customers as it is serving existing ones. Their "brands" aren't known, so what is it they use Social CRM to follow exactly?

And that's when I get frustrated, because I just don't hear enough being said of how Social CRM might help companies market better and sell more. Rather than searching for conversations that might be going on across the web that could affect reputation, how about using the wealth of free specific customer insight that's being shared to better market to those customers online and offline?

Think about this: as much as you might ask your customers or target market what they like and what they want, few ever answer and those that do can give you skewed answers. But that sort of information is available across the Social Web as those same customers update their profiles; post, tweet, StumbleUpon and Digg. Your customers are revealing aspects of their needs that they'd never bother sharing with you directly, but by knowing where they are online a whole heap of additional information can be at your fingertips before you contact them; helping to drive the dialogue you have before they've even started thinking about your company, let alone discussing it.

By attaching CRM records to social identities, you can build a profile that sigificantly advances what you know about your customers and how you market to them. Using all the contact methods at your disposal, not just social media, you can build a need rather than wait for them to chirp up online before you chip in and interrupt their conversation in attempt to ensure they say only nice things about you.

This is the sort of use of Social CRM that small companies can most benefit from, as most simply won't find their companies being discussed -- they just aren't well known enough.

Why aren't we hearing more about this use or the opportunities in Social CRM for SMEs?

Your thoughts and comments are always very welcome.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

I read with interest an article on TechCrunch revealing that the free Google Apps that everyone was so excited about a couple of years back have now been hidden to new users, who are now channeled towards the paid for version of the same if they visit the Google Apps website (more at http://ow.ly/gEST).

The "freemium" model, where users get access to most of a web services features for free, but where the best bits have to be paid for, is getting a lot of coverage currently as the way in which the web can make money where advertising isn't working -- read most social networks. It's worked well for porn sites in the past; business social network XING makes its money that way; Plaxo is moving to the same model by charging users for its useful Outlook contacts sync feature from the end of this month. It's been mooted -- and denied -- as a model for Twitter too.

So it comes as no surprise that Google has always made the all singing, all dancing version of Google Apps, the internet giant's equivalent of Microsoft Office, available under the freemium model. But should we be surprised that they're now doing their bit to conceal the fact that the free version still exists (here: http://ow.ly/gETX)?

Well perhaps not. But the whole thing got me thinking about what's likely to come after freemium...

Anyone who has been using the internet for any length of time will remember that we started off paying for each minute we were connected to the internet over dial up access. Then people like AOL changed that to a fixed fee every month for unlimited access. Then Freeserve came along and offered it free. Then broadband appeared and we went back to a fixed fee but up to a point, over which if you used it more you got charged. This will exists, but many other providers over a fixed fee for an unlimited service.

Home phone bills have followed the same sort of pattern; and mobile phones the same. It's not a million miles off the model used for cable/satellite TV subscriptions. It's something we all accept and are used to. I am questioning whether, as more and more sites look to charge their users a fee for premium access to features, the potential exists to pay a single fee for premium web usage which would give unlimited access to all subscription/fee-based websites?

How would it work? Well, one could log in through a single site which handles the billing and then provides direct access to the services we've paid for. If we stray outside of the sites we've paid for unlimited access to to other chargeable sites then we could be prompted to add that to our sub service for a small additional premium (or if we upgrade to the next level and open up access to a collective of other sites too). As such models exist away from the web, it's not beyond the wit of man to deploy a system for ensuring each of the destination sites offering the premium services get their share of the single subscription fee.

Hey, I could even imagine site owners doing deals on the margin that "portal" site would make if it directed users towards their services.

All we need is a company that is already used as an web point of entry; can handle taking payments; knows about redirected traffic to other sites; and has a method for enabling a single identity to be use across the rest of the web. Something like the Google supported OpenID or Facebook Connect for example...

Google could do this in an instant of course, but it's Facebook that is keener to turn revenue from its membership and the fact that so many of its 200 million users have it as their homepage.

Have I unearthed a revenue model for them that's win/win?

Your comments welcome, as ever.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz