September 2008 Archives

Just read Richard Stallman's reaction to cloud computing here: Cloud Computing Is A Trap, Says Richard Stallman. Following shortly after Larry Ellison's rant against cloud computing, this made me think of the cloud computing opponents from the perspective of data ownership and/or privacy,which is what Stallman's position originates from.

Well, basically I think their position is untenable, because:

1. if we follow rms's proposal to stick to our local computers for all data processing, application usage, etc. then the whole Internet is useless; because we are leaving a "data trail" wherever we may roam online whether we like it or not. Not different from leaving a video trail as we browse through the brick and mortar aisles of say, Walmart. So this position is absurd, because by the same token, we should not use phones (in fact Stallman shunning cell phone usage personally for that same very reason), or any other technology since the Industrial Revolution (since really, the start of the use of data and statistics for demogrpahic purposes initially, but then expanded in all areas of life, started with the Industrial Revolution). So in other words, let's go back to the grotto.

2. The alternative is basically informational solipsism: stick to our own local version of the universe (read: computer), and own our own Internet. But wait! I am confused: then how does this go hand in hand with open source projects that are benefiting from Internet-enabled collaboration (e.g., Linux, Wikipedia, etc.)? This makes no sense. As many of rms's rants, they're more emotional than reasoned. Or maybe I am missing something.

3. There is nothing wrong with cloud computing, IMHO. No technology is "evil" per se, but only how it's used can potentially be (what are we, a bunch of luddites?). The fact that we leave a "data trail" behind us does not mean handing our data (is it really ours? more to come on this specific topic) to third parties, but it's an inexorable aspect/effect of the digital life. Can we do without? I don't think so. Here's a better alternative: own or co-own your own data (BYOD=bring your own data) as the Data Portability Project is doing (albeit with limited mass success mostly due to the lack of, and difficulty of a MASSive user/consumer advocacy campaign).

So, I will return to the aforementioned topics in the next posts because it's something i think passionately about myself, but here's something to have you "talk amongst yourselves" until I come back with more of my thoughts; I'll give you a topic:

A. How do we "take back" our data from those "evil" third parties? Answer please. And while you're at it, don't forget that it just so happens that the reason why it's so difficult, is that until the advent of the concept of Web 2.0 and 3.0, the data layer was ONE with the presentation layer, in other words, "our data" was glued to the channel/conduit in which it happened to appear/travel, etc. So, up until now, very difficult to "take it back". Now, not so much. More about this in my next posts, and a lot about these issues at the Web 3.0 Conference & Expo, October 16-17, Santa Clara, CA. Come see me there!

How many Web 2.0 applications are truly monetizing at a level that makes their businesses stand (financially) on their own? I have been thinking of how to define Web 3.0 in relation to Web 2.0 (I know there are many people who would either put 3 into 2.0, or deny Web 3.0 to begin with). Here's an answer, based on a very fruitful conversation with the folks at Peer 39:

Web 3.0 is/will REALLY monetize Web 2.0. Hear me right: I am not saying 2.0 is useless, it's quite useful actually, and I don't think 3.0 could really be successful on a grand scale without 2.0. Because 2.0 has provided access to data without which 3.0 cannot exist (of course we can all put semantic metadata on the entire Internet, but who will do that?).

Web 2.0 is great because it provides the data pool; I'm not so sure it will stand financially in and on its own; 3.0 is about developing smart apps that will do something to that data (more than "SELECT WHERE" and cool mashups that is). I mean, apps that will use this data to derive information/new data/ that was not there before; this is what I mean by Web 3.0 = web of serendipity.

That is, if Web 2.0 is 1 + 1 = 2, Web 3.0 = 1 + 1 =3. What do you think?

This is a follow up post from the one yesterday on advertising 3.0. Marta's comment made me think I almost forgot two key ingredients in the list I came up with:

1. brands and marketing 3.0 = "open API" brands. The "silver bullet" marketing that is still strong today (but not so much in the near future) upholds an "opaque" view of the brand, where "concealing knowledge from targeted consumers" is the tactic; the future (the one in which advertising as we know it will die in 5 years as I posted in my post yesterday) one of opening the API of brands: "the art of making money by improving decision flow for any stakeholder" (I am using Tim Kitchin's concepts that I stumbled on while doing Google searches on "VRM", "consumer democracy", etc. His presentation where he explains the concepts is at Transparent Marketing (a PPT). In other words, no more "we're the best/only one to fulfill your needs", and no more marketing as the behind-the-scenes-while-product-features-look-important approaches. Rather, opening the API of the marketing process as a humane activity, and making it transparent; humanizing it by creating consumer/user/person/social experiences, intimacy, and serendipity. A conversation with the consumer, rather than '50 era Milgram/Maslow-style communication/"persuasion" .

2. The second is the right combination of the social/humanity component with the "intelligent agent"/friend (as in the Your Data with Destiny" article in AdAge that I commented on yesterday. This post was actually inspired by Marta's comment to my post yesterday; she's right, I forgot about humanity ;-) That's probably because I am a data and analytics geek, and (almost) forgot the human and social factor. She's right, in that it's not just the intelligent data-driven app, but the mix of it with social components, where the first is really an enabler of the second.

Thanks, Marta for setting me straight.

Just came acros this AdAge article Your Data With Destiny. Read it carefully, then return to this blog. I will be waiting.


Ok, so you read it already? Well, that just proves my point that I've been making for the past 4 years, that the way we monetize content and the Internet today will not be how it's going to be done tomorrow. Content is not king, data (personal user data specifically) is! Which means that the entire reach/frequency model of flooding people with ad junk, the complete idea of bombarding content with more ads in the hopes that at least one of them will catch, is heading surely to the ground. Why?

As we'll talk about at the Web 3.0 Conference next month, the next Web is about data, serendipity, personalization (in ways that the early '90s didn't see yet when we first came up with this term). In an era where consumers are more in control than corporations (the era of VRM and not CRM), silver bullet strategies and technologies are gasping for air every day.

As marketers and/or businesses interested in making our companies viable in the marketplace, we ought to figure out how to co-interest the consumer/user/person/dude/dudette (I simply don't like to just use the concept of "consumer" because it's too limited, and by the way, people don't just consume all the time) to:

1. WANT to give access to their data because the exchange value for them has a direct and organic utility function;

2. Advertising will be more like smart-mini applications, rather than "slap-a-banner-everywhere".

3. Which means, in a world without reach/frequency and billions of banner ads, the boundaries between marketing messages/ads and useful content/information (about events, products, etc.) will be blurred. And they ought to be, as far as I am concerned: what difference does it make who it comes from, if it's useful and relevant for me?

4. I hope Internet companies are getting ready for this (companies beside Netflix, Amazon, Walmart,etc.) and do it SOON.

How do we do it? Suffice it to say that a lot of smart people are working on it (I humbly add myself to the group), and use combination of semantic meta-data (or hierarchically structured metadata) and machine learning: that is, logic and science combined. As a data mining guy, I can't but rejoice and grin with satisfaction.

What's your take? I will post more about this and an utopian idea of mine about how will advertising look like in the round-the-corner world, in my next post, so watch out!

I live and breathe the interactive advertising world. Or, otherwise put, the "martec" (marketing technology) world: the CRM, the DM, the database marketing, analytics, etc. etc. And if I hear one more time "the medium is the message", I think I am going to die at the wheel and right before doing so, on this cliff road I am driving fast speed, I will push the passenger door open and kick McLuhan into the void! There are too many ad, client/advertiser execs that repeat ad nausea the good old 50's.

Brace yourselves: with Web 2.0 (and even more so with Web 3.0), the medium is NOT (nor has it ever been) the message! Maslow's pyramid of needs and its close cousing, the inverted funnel, are void abstractions for reasons of making it easy for the average PPT listener to regurgitate easily pseudo-philosophical abstractions at the dinner table.

I am SO glad the web of the future is here: ever since data has started to open and thus separate from its container (the "medium") with SOA, Web Services, Web 2.0, mashups, etc. these good old friends have been proven wrong. But then again, they used to live in an era where newspapers were king. Now look at them! Newspapers are dying, big Content and Media are scrambling for reasons to live, and big Corp has started to spike its baldness in "cooler" colors while still not getting it.

I am happy the consumer is at last king (social networking, YouTube, Facebook, etc.), I am happy the consumer is NOT the consumer anymore but rather the consumer-user-person-individual (CUPI). The inherent "user model" and philosophy on top of which all martec has been built are WRONG: there is no silver bullet (the "awareness-consideration-purchase-loyalty" model is both too simplistic to model how  CUPI  reacts, and doesn't really work anyway); nothing is one-dimensional as both simplistic mental models of martec have us believe - it's rather an intricate relation of nodes moving in a brownian way; and the underlying infrastructure of all martec, the relational database, is dead - if you don't trust me, read Hank's post: Death of the Relational Database.

Everything's connected, but not in just one way; in a  myriad ways that renders the medium dead, and the message king. But the message is king today, in Web 2.0 and beyond, as knowledge composed or mashed-up from data inter-woven and re-woven in those myriad ways, and not hardcoded in the flat relational way, but outside of the data layer, by each and all of us.

As promised, I hereby am starting the LIST of Web3.0 definitions.

1. "Web 3.0 will complete my sentences. It will think ahead of me. In a sense, it will think for me. For example, if I write "I like..." a web 3.0 app will complete my sentence with "...big butts and I cannot lie." (Josh, from ReadWriteWeb's "What Is Web 3.0" contest held at Web 2.0 Expo last year, What is Web 3.0? - this one actually received an award for Humorous definition);

(I will keep this list open, and will in the next few days semanticize this post to open it up to outside comments/data). Until then, use the Reblog button at the end of the post or add your comment.

I have been tracking success in Web 3.0 companies, and for a movement/technology that is about to hit the big time but hasn't quite done so on a consistent basis, success in this case to me means "having been successfully funded at a pre-money stage above $2 MM". I have my own little database that keeps track of these or you can always use the semantic-based Crunchbase at Semantic CrunchBase, so every piece of news coming out is reason for both rejoicing (from me as Web 3.0 evangelist wanting to see this come to fruition) and raised eyebrows. The latest just a few days ago is SemantiNet, with the press release here: SemantiNet Raises $3.4 M in First Round.

If you look at their site, in private beta still, but read closely the "elevator pitch", it's all about serendipity, and NOT the "thinking" web, to refer to Hank Williams' post on the value prop of Web 3.0: The Power of Serendipity.

This is a great sign, one that shows that more and more startups are getting the right pitch: the value proposition (and also distinction from Web 2.0) is that it allows serendipitous/new information that was not available before (simply with force mashing different APIs). It's not about "killing Google", so therefore not competing with them, it's about a different positioning.

Promising story, congrats SemantiNet, and you've just earned a place at the Web 3.0 Conference & Expo in my books :-)

I have been constantly checking the blogosphere, press, discussions with various execs and technology experts on how they describe "Web 3.0". This by the way, relates to my earlier "Semantic Identity Crisis" post. I think it's time to give ourselves a homework:

Web 3.0 is for Web 2.0 what _______________ is for ___________________!

I would like to hear from you. In the next few days, I will open the fields above and connect my blog's backend to compose a tag/"Web 3.0 definition" tagcloud, to help my librarian interest in assembling what the public understands this term to be/should be. For now, the link above connects to my personal email, where you can send me your thoughts.

By the way, another avenue to do the same (but with more "coolness" in it), will be at the Web 3.0 Conference & Expo next month in Santa Clara, where the General Session: Venture Panel will include t-shirts, Sharpies, and bodily expression (on t-shirts designed as notebook paper) of your own thoughts. More on this later, but the idea is to galvanize and organize public commentary about it, in an effort to define ourselves in 25 words or less. Basically, if we can't express what Web 3.0 is/should be on a t-shirt, we won't be able to express that to either VC's, or the userbase at large.

Just out of curiosity, I did a search on Google Insights for Search (Google Insights for Search) to see the evolution or trends of usage of the "Web 3.0" versus "semantic web" meme. A couple of interesting facts:

1. Aug. 2006 seems to be the inflection point where both of them started to rise. I connect this to a certain number of articles in the mainstream/general press/media that started to show up right about then. (By the way, I commented about this two posts down).

2. If you look at the overall trend, from 2004 to 2006, while "Web 3.0" held steady/lacked growth, "semantic web" declined slowly but surely. After Aug. 2006, you see a sudden spike in "Web 3.0" and you really see it spiking up steadily, while "semantic web" continues to decline.

3. Interestingly, the first/most recent story associated with "Web 3.0" is a link to the Jupitermedia (who also maintains this blog) press release about the Web 3.0 Conference & Expo in Oct. in Santa Clara.

Two things come to mind: one, that we should really put some "meat" and energy behind using the "web 3.0" meme (as opposed to "semantic web"), and second, I wonder what caused the sudden spike in Aug. 2006?