zondag 26 februari 2006

Flirtalicious

Posting has been slow lately, and it won't really be any better the next few weeks, because of this thing called flirtalicious...

Flirtalicious

Ik heb de laatste tijd helaas niet veel tijd gehad om te bloggen, en dat zal helaas ook nog wel even zo blijven, dit heeft te maken met iets genaamd flirtalicious...

maandag 13 februari 2006

Centralized vs. decentralized marketplaces

On the Dutch version of this weblog, Ymerce, there was a short discussion on whether (and why) Edgeio would actually be used. Pete Cashmore explains it in English...

"I really can’t fault it. It ties in with so much of the stuff that I’ve been thinking about recently - essentially that blogs are becoming the submit form for the web and that the centralized models (read: walled gardens) of old are about to be disrupted in a big way by smart aggregators. Think of Riffs vs iNods. Which will have more content - a fairly closed review site that requires a signup to post content, or an aggregator that will grab content from wherever it’s created, be it on Riffs or one of the hundreds of thousands of blogs out there? Clearly, the aggregator wins - it’s simply a better place to go if you want to find a review."

Gedecentraliseerde marktplaatsen beter?

Naar aanleiding van mijn laatste post over Edgeio was er een korte discussie over de vraag of Edgeio ook echt gebruikt zou gaan worden. Pete Cashmore legt helder uit waarom het model van Edgeio zoveel beter is dan de tradiotionele gecentraliseerde modellen. En waarom het ook voor de gebruiker (aanbieder & vrager) beter en makkelijker is.

"I really can’t fault it. It ties in with so much of the stuff that I’ve been thinking about recently - essentially that blogs are becoming the submit form for the web and that the centralized models (read: walled gardens) of old are about to be disrupted in a big way by smart aggregators. Think of Riffs vs iNods. Which will have more content - a fairly closed review site that requires a signup to post content, or an aggregator that will grab content from wherever it’s created, be it on Riffs or one of the hundreds of thousands of blogs out there? Clearly, the aggregator wins - it’s simply a better place to go if you want to find a review."

zondag 12 februari 2006

Use your API

APIs, with which external developers can build applications on top of existing functionality and data, are becoming an important element of many new companies and services on the web. New business and revenue models arise from this trend. But too often APIs are thought of as 'just another interface'. Therefore it's good to see things are changing.

"I was surprised to hear, though, how many of these companies build their own public-facing web sites second, by building on top of a web services API they develop first. The act of developing a public API, then, is not one of designing and testing various API calls -- instead, all they have to decide is which of their existing method calls they want to expose to the public. They already know the methods work, because if they didn't, the public web app wouldn't work, either."

We will be releasing a public API for Eccky soon, and are already using it for the mobile Eccky client, but I often wondered why we did not use the API for our website (and more) for the exact same reason as given above. And yes, I already know the answer to that question, we don't have to because we're not external developers, but I feel that's the wrong answer from a (future) business point of view.

zaterdag 11 februari 2006

Broadcast flag? DRM? Let's have it!

I don't like DRM or broadcast flags or any other system that limits users in how they want to consume digital content. It should go away, it should never be there in the first place. But wait, may be it should be there. May be it's good. Let them dig their own graves. Let them ruin their profitable businesses, let them make room for new ones. After reading about HBO's effort to use a sort of broadcast flag to ban viewers from recording any of its programming on DVRs, I can't help but think that we should just let them go ahead. What will happen is that people will increasingly start finding and liking other content with less restrictions more than HBO's. This content will be supported by new commercial models, hopefully enabling the same level of quality as HBO's programming today. These models should gain from having no restrictions on distribution and copying. Which ones? I don't know yet for sure, but I do know that introducing a kind of broadcast flag system will speed up innovation in that area. So may be it's a good idea to have more broadcast flags, more DRM, more perceived protection of existing revenue sources. The sooner the better.

"They’ve recently filed a motion with the FCC to enable the broadcast flag on all programming, which would basically disable you from recording the show via Tivo or another DVR device. Even if you’re a subscriber to HBO programming, you’ll still be barred from recording the show."

vrijdag 10 februari 2006

Edgeio?

What is Edgeio?

"The way Edgeio works is that bloggers would post items they want to sell right on their blogs, tagging them with the word "listing" (and eventually other descriptive tags). Then, Edgeio will pluck them as it constantly crawls millions of blogs looking for the "listing" tag and index them on Edgeio.com."

I think this is the model of the future. A mix of decentralized and centralized, working with standards. As opposed to (paid-listing) sites like eBay, Craigslist, Monsterboard, Match.com and Google Base where everything is centralized. Structured blogging and microformats are other examples of this trend, there's more to come...

Edgeio, m/Marktplaats van de toekomst(?)

Wat is Edgeio?

"The way Edgeio works is that bloggers would post items they want to sell right on their blogs, tagging them with the word "listing" (and eventually other descriptive tags). Then, Edgeio will pluck them as it constantly crawls millions of blogs looking for the "listing" tag and index them on Edgeio.com."

Wat mij betreft is dit het model van de toekomst. Een mix van decentraal en centraal, werkend op basis van standaarden. Dit in tegenstelling tot ('paid-listing') sites als eBay, Craigslist, Monsterboard, Match.com en Google Base waarbij alles gecentraliseerd is. Structured blogging en microformats zijn ook een voorbeeld van deze trend, meer zullen snel volgen.

dinsdag 7 februari 2006

Eccky interactieve marketingflop 2005

Emerce schrijft vandaag over een onderzoek van de VEA naar de toppers en floppers op het gebied van interactieve marketing in 2005. Eccky, waar ik en vele anderen al twee jaar aan werken, komt uit de bus als de flop van 2005. Om eerlijk te zijn kan ik me bij die uitkomst wel iets voorstellen. Sinds December 2004 hebben we Eccky natuurlijk aangekondigd als een mooi en vernieuwend 'medium' waarmee een jonge doelgroep te bereiken is. En gedurende 2005 is die boodschap veelvuldig opgepakt door de pers en dat heeft de nodige verwachtingen geschept. Maar goed, Eccky is (in beta) pas live gegaan op 26 Oktober 2005 en de eerste campagnes met adverteerders beginnen deze maand. Dus misschien is 2005 niet echt het juiste jaar om te beoordelen of Eccky, als marketing vehikel, een top of flop is... Wie weet maken we over een jaar een leuke comeback, van flop naar top;-)

zondag 5 februari 2006

The 'conversational index'

Comments on weblogs could be a useful instrument for identifying relevant weblogs or websites. Stowe Boyd calls it the 'conversational index'. However, I think the focus is too much on quantity instead of quality of comments. Something Michael Parekh notices as well. Comment and trackback spam will become an even bigger problem in the future if the quality dimension is not included. And it's not that hard to do it. A commenter's authority is a good predictor for quality. Using services like Technorati will allow us to check this authority, assuming (for the moment) the commenter has a blog of course...

"...successful blogs -- ones that were currently viable and vibrant, and those that were on a growth trajectory from their start -- shared a common characteristic: The ratio between posts and comments+trackbacks (posts/comments + trackbacks) was less than one. Meaning that there was more conversation -- as indicated by the number of comments and track backs offered by readers -- than posting articles."

Stamped email

Email senders will soon have to pay in order to be sure their email is delivered to the recipient's inbox. This is great news, primarily because it's such a bad idea. The good thing is that it will speed up the adoption of RSS as a replacement for email....

"AOL and Yahoo will still accept e-mail from senders who have not paid, but the paid messages will be given special treatment. On AOL, for example, they will go straight to users' main mailboxes, and will not have to pass the gantlet of spam filters that could divert them to a junk-mail folder or strip them of images and Web links. As is the case now, mail arriving from addresses that users have added to their AOL address books will not be treated as spam."

De 'conversational index'

Reacties op websites kunnen een belangrijk instrument zijn in het identificeren van relevante weblogs of websites. Stowe Boyd noemt het de 'conversational index'. Echter, ik denk dat de focus hiermee teveel op kwantiteit ligt. Het is belangrijk om ook kwaliteit als factor toe te voegen, iets dat ook Michael Parekh opmerkt. Anders gaat comment en trackback spam nog een veel grotere vlucht nemen. En op zich is het niet lastig om dit te doen. De authoriteit van iemand die een reactie plaatst is een redelijke voorspeller voor kwaliteit, middels Technorati en soortgelijke partijen kan die redelijk goed vastgesteld worden, ervan uitgaande dat deze persoon ook een blog heeft...

"...successful blogs -- ones that were currently viable and vibrant, and those that were on a growth trajectory from their start -- shared a common characteristic: The ratio between posts and comments+trackbacks (posts/comments + trackbacks) was less than one. Meaning that there was more conversation -- as indicated by the number of comments and track backs offered by readers -- than posting articles."

Postzegels op email

Verzenders van email moeten straks betalen om zeker te weten dat de emails ook echt in de inbox van gebruikers gaan komen. Dat is goed nieuws, maar vooral omdat het zo'n slecht idee is. Het goede ervan is namelijk dat het de adoptie van RSS als vervanging voor email zeer zal versnellen....

"AOL and Yahoo will still accept e-mail from senders who have not paid, but the paid messages will be given special treatment. On AOL, for example, they will go straight to users' main mailboxes, and will not have to pass the gantlet of spam filters that could divert them to a junk-mail folder or strip them of images and Web links. As is the case now, mail arriving from addresses that users have added to their AOL address books will not be treated as spam."