Piers Jones

Essential strategies for creating a successful web product from Dion Hinchcliffe

There is some excellent advice from Dion Hinchcliffe in this article outlining '50 essential strategies for creating a successful web 2.0 product'

Although web 2.0 is mentioned in the title I think these ideas could apply to most online products, especially "start by solving a simple problem".

I have a feeling that this is one of those reference articles that I may have to come back to from time to time. Its a great checklist.

The history of the internet video

Apologies if you have seen this already, but this 'history of the internet' video is well worth a look and very nicely animated.

I had never realised that the evolution of the internet owes so much to the cold war.

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

via information aesthetics

RSS adoption rates still low according to Forrester report

There was some debate overnight in content of my googlereader inbox about the implications of a recent Forrester report saying that adoption of RSS stands at around 11% of internet users. Apparently the full report calls on marketers to make more efforts to explain the benefits of this technology to consumers if usage is to grow (I haven't read the full report, it's $279 and although I was interested I am going to make do with what I can get for free).

Steve Rubel feels that usage may have peaked there since "According to the research, of the 89% of those who don't use feeds only 17% say they're interested in using them" . Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins of Mashable counters that usage is in fact much higher than 11% since so many sites and features rely on RSS to provide content and users are already using these tools without realising it.

Whatever the true figure may be if you ask the average person in the street about RSS people rarely have a clue what you are talking about and why should they? I'm of the opinion that most of the 89% have no real interest in a piece of technology for the sake of it, they'll become interested if someone explains something interesting that they can do with it, easily.

The name, RSS explains the format if you are geeky enough to know what it stands for but it doesn't explain the benefits to anyone of actually using it. Feeds, feed readers, news feeds are all a much better explanation, we should choose a better name and then stick with it. News feeds are probably the best that I have seen so far.

Despite some tutorials that explain the principles of RSS just like the eco-kettle in the office where I work, if you need an instruction manual to understand it, its just too complicated. Even if you like the idea of an eco-kettle, when you want a cup of tea you just want to press a single button and for it to work. Yes I have learnt to use the kettle over time but it was a barrier to adoption.

We haven't quite got there yet with the usability of news feeds (or of eco kettles for that matter). Just because the technology has been invented it doesn't mean that we can stop there. RSS still has a long way to go in the way that it is explained to the non-technical user, concentrating on the benefits rather than the features and by supplying tools that are ridiculously easy to use. And of course finding a better name.

If that were done successfully I think the adoption rates of news feeds would be much higher than 11%.

An anthropological introduction to YouTube

A really excellent and fun video on the ethnography of YouTube
from Michael Wesh who apparently is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University.

His original machine is using us video:

From: Johnnie Moore's blog

What is cloud computing?

Its all in the cloud going forward ! Ten minutes well spent listening to various definitions of cloud computing from the leading thinkers in the industry. Thanks Jas.

Twitter: are you an information source, friend or information seeker?

Quite an interesting report on why people use microblogging platforms like Twitter. Apparently users are divided into 3 main types, Information sources like Scoble who are often 'hubs' for the networks of people around them, friends who like to chat or information seekers finding out what interests them.

No major surprises and if anyone could leave an explanation of the 'Clique Percolation Method' used to indentify communites in networks that I can actually understand I would be most grateful.

(Picked up somehow from twitterfacts which must have been in someone's shared items)

Web 2.0 detox week

I'm planning a week off from all things technology related starting tomorrow. A widget free diet for 7 whole days. A web 2.0 detox.

See you on the other side.....

Testing the Particls RSS tool

After write-ups from Daniela Barbosa and Ross Dawson I thought I had better give this Particls product a whirl. Anything that asks

Q: got an RSS overload? on the front page has immediately got my attention

(A: Yes!!)

First off I had a little trouble working out what Particls actually is. This makes sense as I had the very same problem with RSS when I first started out with feeds. So at Daniela's suggestion I imported my OPML file from google reader to get me going, there are some how-to steps at the end of this post.

From a first glance Particls does the following;

- a nifty rolling news ticker made from all your RSS feeds that sits on your desktop
- alerts me when a story that really needs my attention comes in via email or SMS
- sifting through my 100's of feeds and monitors my attention on authors and topics,  alerting me when an important new story arrives in my inbox.

That has got to be really useful going forward the number of feeds in my inbox are steadily climbing.

So this wont replace google reader as my feed reader of choice but looks like a useful supplementary tool, especially the news ticker.

Getting started with the OPML file

First go into the 'manage subscriptions' page and select  'Import /Export', then you need to select  'Export  your subscriptions as an OPML file'. Finally go to the Particls 'Manage my feeds' page and add your OPML file there.

Then import the OPML file on the Particls 'common tasks' menu.

Mashups, it pays to be a big or a small fish

A couple of interesting articles that I picked up today on the subject of mashups. The first from Dion Hinchcliff looking at Mashups as the future of software development, the second from Janko Roettgers at GigaOM on whether the ability to create a new site using a mashup would be a useful litmus test to assess startups against.

It seems likely that the use of mashups will vary according to the size and resources of the people or groups involved. The smaller you are the easier they will be to set up, being bigger means you have the resources to create data sets that no one else has. Maybe being in the middle is a problem? as Nat mentions there is no thing as a free API.

Individuals - may want to create mashups using Yahoo pipes and widgets to create very light weight and flexible services either for themselves or their community

Small companies - may want to mashup as a way of getting quick to market with a new product, by mashing up data and services from larger providers.

Large companies - are still working out how to use mashups for themselves but may want to concentrate on opening out their large and hard to re-create data sets via APIs, RSS or as SaaS (software as a service) so that other smaller companies or individuals can mashup their data for them. The innovation (or mashup) can then take place elsewhere using their data. If they are really smart then they will be gathering more intelligence from the collective use of their data by many individuals to further enhance what they have.

If you are the one mashing up someone else's data then the question to ask would be 'what value am I adding for the user?' and 'what stops someone else doing the same?'. It's not hard to envisage lots and lots of small companies that could make a good business out of repackaging data for someone else if they are providing good services which meet user needs. Of course if you are doing it, then it's pretty easy for someone else to do the same thing.

Chad Hurley from YouTube presents to the US congress

Picked up from Scoble a very interesting video of Chad Hurley (the CEO and one of the co-founders of YouTube) presenting to the US congress on the subject of online video.

I wonder if Chad imagined some few years ago as a startup that he would one day end up talking to congress?

Chad states 3 objectives of YouTube as;

- Promoting community
- Advancing democracy and
- Driving economic growth

Although they sound like quite grand ambitions he has some pretty powerful use cases to back that up. Chad used his opportunity in front of congress to promote the idea of an open internet.

The future of online video? According to Chad;

1) More originally created content
2) A critical mass of content from small providers
3) Empowering users to create and consume media in different ways
4) Enhance understanding between different countries through the power of video!