Industry Standard Unique Content

Second Life Enterprise to bring security, enterprise apps to virtual meetings

Ian Lamont — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:55:57 -0800

Big news from Linden Lab: The company has officially launched an open beta for Second Life Enterprise, and says it is planning a marketplace for enterprise applications and virtual goods such as collaboration tools and business environments.

Linden Lab says the services can be used for events, product prototyping, and simulations. But one of the most interesting aspect of the announcement relates to security. Second Life Enterprise lets companies run the virtual world on their own network, much like a corporate intranet. Companies which had previously shied away from the virtual world because of concerns about proprietary data or 3D models living on Second Life's public-facing servers can now host the world within their own security perimeter, and according to their own technical and work policies -- for instance, the service offers LDAP integration and administrators can have employees use their real names for avatars.

Justin Bovington, the CEO of Rivers Run Red, was positive about the open beta. His company operates Immersive Workspaces, a turnkey corporate meeting and training service that has been part of the Second Life Enterprise private beta. In an email to the Standard, Bovington said:

We see the behind-the-firewall solution as a very important next step. It's giving the market what they've wanted: security, privacy and the ability, working with people like Rivers Run Red, to develop bespoke applications. This was the main point picked up and highlighted by LL's competitors. We're going to see a greater adoption level now, as it was one of the main things that would derail the corporate buy-in. We also think that Corporates will create a mixture of hybrid behind-the-firewall closed-off spaces on their Intranets and a private, gated Internet-accessible space for their partners and collaborators.

However, Bovington sounded a note of caution on the Second Life Work Marketplace. "It has be less Xstreet, more Wall Street. It has to reflect relevance, rather than drowning us all in deluge of content: clothing, furniture and avatars," he wrote, adding "if [Linden Lab] attracts the right people to develop these apps, this could be the tipping point."

Linden Lab says pricing for Second Life Enterprise starts at $55,000. The beta will run through Q4 of 2009, with general availability expected during the first half of 2010. The company said the Second Life Work Marketplace has a closed alpha planned for the end of Q1 2010, and the product launch expected in the first half of 2010.

Image: Linden Lab

Sources and research: Metanomics.net, Second Life Enterprise website, Linden Lab/Second Life press release, email interview with Rivers Run Red.

Comment below, or email Ian at ian@thestandard.com. Follow Ian on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ilamont. Ian's bio and disclosures are located here. Industry Standard updates and asides are available at twitter.com/the_standard and in our newsletters, and you can join our Industry Standard Facebook page and LinkedIn group.

Tweeting at the office: Have you checked your work contract lately?

Ian Lamont — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:07:45 -0700

Hey you -- the developer sitting in that suburban cube farm, happily twittering away about going to lunch, the bug report you're filing, and that startup idea that's been bouncing around your head lately. We hate to break it to you, but the work contract that you signed gives your company ownership of those tweets ... not to mention any Facebook posts, LinkedIn profile updates, and YouTube videos that you may have worked on or uploaded from a work machine or over your company's network.

Don't believe us, or think that those clauses are like EULAs and website terms of service that no one pays attention to? Well, we'd like to think so too, but this post by analyst Jeremiah Owyang outlines the issues. The part that really made us pay attention was a comment that Owyang cited from Attorney Lisa Borodkin relating to the role email already plays in trials and lawsuits:

"By now I hope everyone realizes that thousands of lawyers every day are fully employed in reviewing millions of company emails that have been subpoenaed in lawsuits all over the world. As long as a company reminds everyone that they have no right of privacy in anything that goes through the company's computer systems, and that this extends beyond email to social networks, then employers and employees can undertake these activities mutually aware of the risks and rewards. The hope is that both will find shared value in mixing social media with work and allocate the potential economic rewards in an equitable manner."

Click through to Owyang's post to see a list of recommendations for employees and employers. Some of them may be hard to follow through, but in light of the increasingly large role of social media and user-generated content networks and the continuing blurring of work and personal time, they are well worth considering.

Sources and research: www.web-strategist.com, lisaborodkin.com, www.callahan-law.com

Image: Moresheth/flickr (creative commons license, commercial use)

Net Views: Collaboration around files vs. collaboration with people

Net Views — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:03:56 -0700

"Users who have spent years primarily working with PC-based office automation suites such as Microsoft Office, tend to favour the file orientation and can find it unnerving to work in a Web 2.0 environment where people can be editing the same page at the same time. ... Similarly, users accustomed to free-flowing wikis and blogs can stumble over the process and the more-structured requirements when using document repositories. It is this mismatch between expectations and working styles that lies at the heart of many projects facing issues with user adoption."

– Jeff Mann, Gartner, "Gartner Says 80 Per Cent of Enterprise Collaboration Platforms Will Primarily Be Based on Web 2.0 Techniques by 2013"

Video: Google stresses "transparency," public content in Social Search results

Ian Lamont — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:24:36 -0700

Google has rolled out its new Social Search experiment with an eye toward mitigating the type of criticism that envelops Facebook whenever it updates its news feed or other basic services. In the two-minute, 51-second video below, Google engineer Maureen Heymans patiently explains how Social Search works, and is careful to stress the service's "transparency" (cited four times) and user control/choice (also mentioned four times). The second video, featuring Matt Cutts, also emphasizes that the results are from peoples' public social media content, such as Twitter and blogs, as opposed to private content, such as instant messages.

Note, however, that you may not even notice Social Search; you need to be registered for Google services such as Gmail or Google Docs and signed in to see the results, and it's still being rolled out (we had to manually activate it from the link on the official blog post about the launch). In addition, the results appear at the bottom of the page, meaning those people who don't scroll down the first page of search results will not be aware of Social Search.

Video: Social Search demonstration

Video: How Google Social Search works

Image: Matt Cutts, YouTube screen capture

Sources and research: Explanatory video by Google's Maureen Heymans, Official Google Blog, Google, VentureBeat

Amazon Relational Database Service hits the cloud, but users wonder what will happen to SimpleDB

Ian Lamont — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:09:11 -0700

(Updated with comments from Amazon) Users of Amazon's cloud computing services are buzzing about yesterday's announcement of Amazon's Relational Database Service. Through the official press release and an Amazon Web Services blog post by Jeff Barr, the company described the service as a "fully featured" MySQL 5.1 database, with 20 databases per AWS account, 1 TB of storage per database, and metrics (CPU utilization, free space, etc.) provided by Amazon's CloudWatch. Rates are charged by the DB instance hour, plus additional costs for data transfers, provisioned storage, and I/O requests. According to Amazon Web Services Vice President Adam Selipsky, the launch of RDS provides customers with another database option, besides the existing SimpleDB product and enterprise-grade database engines running on Amazon's EC2 service.

Clearly, the Amazon RDS announcement is a big deal for developers and DBAs familiar with relational databases and MySQL-based applications, as well as those who were critical of SimpleDB's limitations. But some SimpleDB supporters are wondering how the service will be affected by the introduction of Amazon RDS. The press release makes an effort to portray SimpleDB as a popular offering, and Barr's blog post describes the two services as complimentary, but users on the AWS forum have begun to question the long-term outlook for SimpleDB. "One has to wonder if it was worth the investment to learn how to build applications totally in the cloud with SimpleDB," said a user identified as Roger Moffat. "Will SimpleDB still be around in two years time?" Developer Mitch Garnaat, responding on the thread and his own blog, said Amazon Web Services treated SimpleDB as "a bit of a red-headed stepchild" without a clear or consistent strategy. However, Garnaat, who has been using SimpleDB and Amazon RDS since both products were in private beta, also believes that the two services are complimentary. "There are a lot of applications out there that can benefit from the lightweight, super-scalable, and easy to use qualities of SimpleDB," he said on his blog post. "MySQL simply can't compete on those dimensions."

In a follow-up phone call, Garnaat told the Standard that "there's been some tension within SimpleDB to make it more SQL-like," but he added that the introduction of RDS gives Amazon an opportunity to differentiate between the two offerings. Garnaat also said he believes there is a bigger potential market for RDS than SimpleDB, because so many applications are already built on top of MySQL and less coding is required to bring them into Amazon's cloud using RDS.

When asked by The Standard whether Amazon planned to change the SimpleDB service, Selipsky said no. He also stated that Amazon intended to "keep on investing" in SimpleDB.

Sources and research: Amazon Web Services forums, Amazon Web Services blog and press release, HighScalability.com, Elastician.com, phone call and emails with Mitch Garnaat, blog.rightscale.com, phone call with Adam Selipsky and Kay Kinton of Amazon.

If your company uses social media, videoconferencing, collaboration software or other tools to better connect with employees, partners, or customers, The Industry Standard wants to hear about it! Comment below, or email Ian at ian@thestandard.com if you are interested in being featured on The Standard.

Ian's bio and disclosures are located here. Follow Ian on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ilamont. Industry Standard updates and asides are available at twitter.com/the_standard and in our newsletters. You can also join our Industry Standard Facebook page and LinkedIn group.

Facebook users react to the updated news feed: Change it back!

Ian Lamont — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:22:00 -0700

Approximately 14,000 people per hour. That's the rate of new registrations for the Facebook group "Change Facebook back to normal!" As of noon on Monday, the group had 1,019,216 members, many of opposed to the design and functionality changes introduced on Friday. The main sticking point, besides the fact that it's different than what people were used to, is the way the default News Feed of friends' updates gives more prominence to items that have been liked or commented. There is a link right at the top of the screen that lets people switch to the "Live Feed" of all updates, but that's enough for many users. "Do not like the live feed news feed at all!" was one typical comment spotted on the protest group's wall. "I don't have time to go back and forth plus I might miss something!" However, others noted that it's possible to switch back to the old feed setup by clicking on "More" in Facebook's left navigation and dragging "Status Updates" to the top of the list, over "News Feed" and everything else.

Despite the size of the protest, The Standard doesn't think Zuckerberg et al will actually revert the default feed appearance to what it looked like before last Friday's update. Unlike anger over terms of service or privacy-related issues, protests over minor design changes don't seem to sway the company, as previous protest efforts have shown.

Sources and research: Facebook, TheStandard.com

ProtonMedia CEO touts Windows 7, SharePoint integration for ProtoSphere virtual meetings

Ian Lamont — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:35:03 -0700

This month's Windows 7 launch is seen as an opportunity by thousands of enterprise software vendors to update their own offerings and gain an edge on the competition. Among the growing number of virtual meetings platforms, ProtonMedia is touting the integration of its ProtoSphere virtual meetings and training service (see video, below) with the larger Microsoft applications ecosystem, including SharePoint, the collaboration platform which Microsoft claims may have as many as 130 million users. The Standard asked ProtonMedia CEO Ron Burns about how his company sees the virtual meetings landscape changing as Windows 7 and other software tools gain a larger enterprise profile.

The Industry Standard: How does the current version of ProtoSphere integrate with SharePoint and other enterprise collaboration tools?

Ron Burns: Among the several collaboration tools available in ProtoSphere, SharePoint is our newest, and it may at this point be the most pervasive tool already available in enterprise infrastructure worldwide. Teams can securely bring content from their company's SharePoint infrastructure into ProtoSphere's 3-D world through the use of our Media Carousel functionality. Once there, the virtual teams can share the documents with each other, edit, modify, change, and write the content back to their SharePoint infrastructure. The Media Carousels support any file type that can be added to a SharePoint site such as MS Office document and media files such as audio and video. All uploads from the users to ProtoSphere are fully encrypted, and those assets are then passed to SharePoint through the use of single sign-on. Any document changes/additions that are performed solely through SharePoint are automatically updated for those users who are in the environment.

As far as other collaboration tools, ProtoSphere integrates various social networking and knowledge sharing tools that most employees have become used to over the last couple years. Blogs, wikis and other tools allow users to engage information and each other at a higher level in engaging virtual environments.

TIS: How will new features in Windows 7 or its SharePoint connections change enterprise collaboration, and what opportunities do you see for virtual environments like yours?

Burns: Enterprise adoption of Windows 7 is as important a measure of success as any other. Windows 7 essentially is meeting a pent-up demand among enterprises. For several years now, ProtonMedia has been selling ProtoSphere into a large enterprise customer base. We have often seen a desire of the CIO or CTO level buyer for our product, but large legacy installation of operating systems as old as Windows 2000 have slowed adoption. ProtoSphere runs wonderfully well on Windows 7, and we see the enterprise adoption of Windows 7 to be a real opportunity for us to increase the use of enterprise virtual environments.

TIS: What other text or Web-based collaboration tools do you think have potential to improve the virtual meeting experience, either through direct integration or by being used in concert?

Burns: We've always seen the addition of blogs, wikis, and other social applications as being a valuable asset to people working within virtual environments. That's why we added those kinds of tools to ProtoSphere from the very beginning. The feedback we've received from customers is that social networking tools such as these enhance the user experience and level of engagement inside a virtual environment like ProtoSphere. They allow for a level of persistence and continuous exchange of knowledge within the space .... For example, if a series of events held in the environment are centered around a particular topic, users are able to share their own relevant knowledge with each other in a persistent way, that goes beyond those time bound events. ProtoSphere is becoming a convergent space, that securely links both behind the firewall enterprise applications, and internet applications that offer the enterprise user additional functionality.

Video: Basic navigation in ProtoSphere

Sources and research: Emails with Ron Burns and PR, ProtonMedia/ProtoSphere case study, ProtonMedia.com, YouTube. Attempted ProtoSphere trial but was unable to log on.

Image: ProtoSphere screenshot (ProtonMedia)

Collaboration suite from IBM, Canonical targets potential Windows 7 customers

Ian Lamont — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:48:19 -0700

Apple isn't the only company hijacking Microsoft's Windows 7 launch. IBM and Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, also announced this week a cloud- and Linux-based collaboration package that they say is cheaper than Microsoft-based alternatives.

The IBM Client for Smart Work is available for Ubuntu and Red Hat for government. It includes Lotus Notes and other Lotus applications such as Symphony and LotusLive.com, an online collaboration suite which lets distributed groups manage activities and tasks, share documents, network, and hold Web meetings with up to 1,000 participants. The companies say that since the package is based on Eclipse, Linux and Web standards, it can integrate with "any" third-party software.

The press release claims that Microsoft shops considering a Windows 7 migration face costs of up to $2,000 for many users, owing in part to added hardware requirements for Microsoft's new operating system. By contrast, IBM and Canonical state that their package can run on companies' existing PCs, as well as low-cost client machines and even netbooks. The companies claim that the IBM Client for Smart Work package can reduce total costs of ownership by 50%. However, specific pricing options (see below) as well as additional professional services muddy the TCO waters. The Standard also asked IBM how the companies calculated TCO, and whether they took into account specific features found in Microsoft's Office or SharePoint collaboration suites, but did not receive a reply.

Interestingly, the IBM Client for Smart Work package was designed for customers in West and South Africa. But IBM told the Standard it is also being sold in the United States after "media, analysts, customers and partners around the world" pressured the company to sell it outside of emerging markets.

When asked about pricing, IBM sent this response:

Option A: A Starting Point
$3 LotusLive iNotes/user/month
(email, calendaring)
$0 Symphony web download
$0 Canonical Ubuntu web download
TOTAL: $ 36 per user per year

Option B: Add Social software capabilities to Option A
$9.75 LotusLive Connections /user/month
(dashboard, file sharing, personal profile
networking, contact management, groups,
project management, instant messaging)
TOTAL: $ 153/user/year

Option C: Typical Solution
$74.5 Lotus Notes/iNotes (email, calendar, todo, contacts), Lotus Sametime entry (Instant messaging, chat, presence awareness), Lotus Quickr entry (file sharing) / user first year, $25.75 maintenance subsequent years
$0 Lotus Symphony
TOTAL: $74.50 per user first year
.....$25.75 per user each additional year for the IBM Lotus software

Option D: Add virtual desktop capabilities
(supports windows and linux guests) @ $49 per user first year. $10/user/year for subsequent years.

Option E: Add Canonical support costs

In addition, IBM is offering professional services from IBM Global Technology Services and IBM Business Partners to aid with installation and other integration tasks.

Sources and research: LotusLive.com, IBM.com, IBM/Canonical press release, Canonical.com, email with IBM Communications.

Image: LotusLive.com

Comment below, or email Ian at ian@thestandard.com. Follow Ian on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ilamont. Standard updates and asides are available at twitter.com/the_standard and in our newsletters, and you can join our Industry Standard Facebook page and LinkedIn group.

#w2s: We follow Twitter on the final day of the Web 2.0 Summit, so you don't have to

Ian Lamont — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:05:35 -0700

We have to hand it to John Battelle, Tim O'Reilly and the other folks behind the Web 2.0 Summit: They really know how to put on a show. The presentations, names and news breaking from the floor of the Westin San Francisco this week were enough to give attendees serious whiplash, and the tech press and analysts will be digesting the developments revealed at the summit for months.

The Standard couldn't make it, but we wanted to share some of the highlights from the final day of the summit, including reports, analysis and interpretations of the talks by Paul Ottelini, Tim Armstrong, Sergey Brin, and Adobe's Shantanu Narayen. We can't confirm the accuracy of any tweeted quotes, but be sure to check out some of the videos from all three days of the show which contain many of the talks in their entirety. To understand what the summit is about, see Battelle's and O'Reilly's opening remarks at the bottom of this post.

Here are the #w2s tweets that stood out, presented in no particular order:

@RodCrawford: Bing party seems to have wiped out a lot of the attendees this morning (where are they all?) #w2s

@moyalynne: I may just make it through the morning @web2summit. Though it's be hard to top yesterday at #w2s. http://pic.gd/c8674

@BarbaraKrasnoff: RT @sgaudin: Otellini at #w2s: Netbooks will look more like smartphones, getting smaller, adding GPS. Me: Then they won't be netbooks.

@jobsworth: Otellini: We have prototype devices going four years out that are not silicon based. And no, we won't tell you what they're based on. #w2s

@moyalynne: Paul Otellini / Intel cites lack of US government incentives as reason it costs 4x as much to build a factory here. #w2s

@ckawa: Um, safe but boring Otellini interview. Liked last year's energy and peek into the future better. #w2s

@mensogi: Has #w2s always been so product centric? More insights and inspirational concepts and less product announcements please.

@kitson: Ow. RT @jobsworth Otellini: Speech recognition has been 5yrs away for the last 30yrs. Still 5yrs away. #w2s #speech #speechrec

@RodCrawford: I wonder if Paul Otellini has ever been to Japan where most people browse the net using smartphones not PC's today? #w2s #web2

@juliocd: Battelle: "you refused my invitations to previous editions", Sergey Brin "no, I just didn't answered your emails" #w2s

@dberlind: Google founder sergey Brin @ #w2s: "Yahoo had a number of interesting innovations and I wish they'd continue to innovate in search"

@ginablaber: S Brin: I dispute the claim that Google dominates the economy of attention. People don't spend all their time in the Search box. #w2s

@stacyo: Google founder Sergey Brin on stage at #w2s "I use all search engines out there." http://twitpic.com/mimjw

@jimroth: no comment from sergey on whether google will come out with their own hardware device @ #w2s

@UberShoeDiva: @johnbattelle "Man you should go to Washington" after several non-answer answers Brin's given so far ;) #w2s

@glubbert: Sergey: I am using Chrome for Mac. The release is one of the disappointments of the Chrome project. #w2s

@Bianca_IABmx: Tom Hale from Lindenlab tells how 2nd Life survived the hype curve at #w2s. And yes, curiously they are still around http://pic.gd/843ad6

@dberlind: AOL CEO Tim Armstrong @ #w2s: "profitability and revenue growth [for AOL] is the tricky part.... AOL is actually very profitable"

@soolara: Fantastic, AOL is looking at taking a content management system seriously in new platform to support 5k journalists, etc. #w2s

@dberlind: AOL CEO Tim Armstrong @ #w2s: When invited to join AOL, realized there were a lot of assets that AOL had that he didn't realize it had.

@ginablaber: John Hegel/Deloitte: trend is long-term erosion of corporate profitability. Web2.0 tools reduce transactn time, improve data sourcing #w2s

@Ilana221: CEO of Adobe #w2s "print isn't dead by any stretch of the imagination" but it has to be relevant and personalized

@mchui: Shantanu Narayen: "In emerging markets, Adobe's market share is great but revenues suck (because of piracy)" #w2s

@moyalynne: Another window into why Omniture: "Print business models moving online; question is how do we transform to targeting relevant info." #w2s

@jobsworth: battelle: [to narayen] Why did you quietly bring in VoIP into the Flash stack? #w2s

@corinneurotic: adobe wants to offer flash in the iphone browser, defers to steve jobs. #w2s #apple #adobe

@web2summit: Narayen: 19 of the top 20 mobile platform companies working with Adobe to ship with flash. The company he didn't mention? Apple. #w2s

@JustinMclean: Adobe has no deal or announcment to do with Twitter unlike anyone else here :-) #w2s

@moyalynne: Narayen - "Approx 90% of Web moves over within a year to use each new version of Flash" - that's hundreds of millions of people ... #w2s

@jimroth: wordnik is pretty cool - an online dictionary with APIs #w2s not sure there is a business model here - like the font on the website

@moyalynne: Erin McKean ROCKS her tetris dress -- AND wordnik at @web2summit #w2s http://pic.gd/a35152

@AdoMatic: Bre Pettis who just presented "I make things" is bringing his robot (3D Printer) up to the MS Lounge to make stuff! Roxors! #w2s

@lwaldal: Please don't show the makerbot to my kid. She'd beg beg beg for one :) #w2s

@kraneland: The "fail whale" logo was created by a woman - Yiying Lu - not a man, as previously mentioned on stage: http://bit.ly/164fWj #w2s

@ckawa: Digital Globe's Walter Scott: Collects nearly 5x more raw data collected per day vs. Facebook for satellite imagery #w2

@jcb123: Learning a LOT about algae for energy. Still a ways off, but definitely seems practical. I guess the question is whether we can wait. #w2s

@muldrow: I'm going to go grow some algae in my hotel room. #w2s

@moyalynne: When Pichai talks about Chrome OS it sounds synonymous with the cloud: "Every app is a web app. You don't install/maintain software." #w2s

@Rathbone: 30 Million use Chrome as their primary browser #W2S

@harrymccracken: I was hoping we'd actually see Chrome OS during Google session this morning at #w2s. No such luck.

@lwaldal: Pichai "browsers are hot again" <-- like they weren't hot a decade ago? yet another browser can be a web dev compatibility headache #w2s

@muldrow: Remember when Microsoft got slammed for tightly integrating browser with operating system? #w2s

@jhagel: Sign of the maturing of the IT industry? @timoreilly wore suit 2 days in a row #w2s - bad sign

@ginablaber: Tim: Are we, as a society,mathematically savvy enough to understand today's economics? A Goolsbee: No. Need to change that in schools. #w2s

@optian: RT @rwang0: finding #w2s heavy on news releases. cntnt still good but not as cutting edge as year's past. | attendace lighter too I hear ...

@marissac: Using cell phones for microscopy and health diagnosis? It's coming accoring to lab at UC Berkeley #w2s

@jimroth: #w2s berkely guy is a great presenter. reminds me of larry lessig - cellscope on your cell phone - crazy!

@peteryugray: Funny that the webstream for #w2s keeps going back to the "what's the revenue model?" question for Twitter

@MasonJaclyn: #w2s - tough choices re Ignite winner but Cellscope could absolutely make a difference in developing markets

@UberShoeDiva: Military using Second Life world as a way for returning soldiers to get the emotional & mental help they need to reintegrate. #w2s

@lwaldal: if so then maybe the way to keep capitalism alive is to buy matching shoes at zappos before sitting together on a panel #w2s

@kcpike: For the Tim Armstrong interview, I want to know if AOL has a vault full of the unsent promotional CDs they used to constantly mail #w2s

@moyalynne: "Return on assets 3x more in 1965 than it is now - longterm sustained significant erosion of profitability" John Hagel/Deloitte&Touche #w2s

@qhardy: Jon Miller: "We will have an Internet that does fundamentally respect copyright." Not sure you can RT that. #w2s

@sonicric: why does john battelle have to be smug? he's engaging, smart, well informed. but he can be witty without the distasteful smugness #w2s

@mchui: Jon Miller (News Corp): There will be a CPM premium ad propoerties. There will be a vast swath of bulk ads. Middle will be squeezed. #w2s

@ubergizmo: #w2s J. Miller former AOL CEO said MySpace is more like Twitter than Facebook is... is this a joke? #myspace

@sazzollini: Mike Arrington just asked Jonathan Miller if NewsCorp is selling Photobucket today at #w2s

@mchui: Jonathan Miller (News Corp): "You'll see MySpace leapfrog ahead in terms of being an open platform." #w2s

@mchui: Jonathan Miller (Newscorp): "I'm obsessed with realtime online. It's not just Twitter, but architecture, philosophy, etc." #w2s

@sazzollini: I might check out MySpace based on their #w2s sessions. Never thought about it as a place to meet new people around common interests.

@doucet: "If you are going to be in the paid content business you need to raise the bar and provide real additional value" John Miller News Corp #w2s

@julesmaltz: At #w2s Surprised nobody talks about engineers driving innovation. Good products will follow good engineers. This is why Myspace loses.

@danfinnigan: Austan Goolsbee of President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board at Web 2.0 saying US needs growth in manufacturing exports? #w2s

@ginablaber: Economist Austan Goolsbee: we just had a financial crisis bigger than 1929. If we'd screwed it up, we'd be in another Great Depression. #w2s

@sradick: Thinking I maybe should have stayed home and went to #twtrcon instead of coming to SF for #w2s - buyers remorse?

Video: Web 2.0 Summit 09: Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle, Opening Remarks

Sources and research: YouTube, Twitter, InformationWeek.com, web2summit.com

Image: John Battelle giving opening remarks on day 1 of the Web 2.0 Summit (YouTube screen capture)

Real-time search and Twitter: What's in it for corporate America?

Ian Lamont — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:31:23 -0700

Judging by some of this week's headlines relating to Twitter and the search partnerships with Microsoft and Google, you'd think Elvis had suddenly reappeared and announced he was going to go back on tour. And while we agree that real-time search has a lot of potential, we're skeptical that by itself real-time search results on Bing will make a big dent in the way people and companies go about their daily business. What's missing from the party are the tools to effectively utilize this information.

Some companies may think that alerts are what's needed, just like the way that Google Alerts works now. Input a couple search terms (for instance, the name of your company and a new product, or that of a competitor), set up to receive them on a regular schedule or as they first appear in search results, and voila! When people start talking about these things on Twitter, some PR or marketing person will know about it, and can respond.

But the problem with this approach (besides the fact that Bing's rudimentary Twitter search service apparently doesn't offer alerts yet) is volume. Google Alerts is suitable for a Web-based world, in which a relatively small population of traditional publishers, bloggers, and specialist forums need to be monitored. But in the Twitterverse, we're talking about millions of individual publishers (i.e., customers) following all kinds of memes and talking about what they are seeing and doing. Take a company like Salesforce, and consider how many customers, partners, and developers are working with its software. If there's a software glitch or cloud hiccup, or even a new Salesforce.com advertisement, thousands of tweets might suddenly appear. Would you want your email inbox to be on the receiving end of that firehose, or sort through all of the alerts?

Fortunately, there are many companies out there that are approaching Twitter search not just as a notification issue, but as a much larger data-mining problem. Further, they are viewing it in the context of other media and social media discussions. There are already enterprise-grade products on the market by Jive and Nielsen that help companies monitor discussions, and even respond to PR crises (such as Nielsen's ThreatTracker). There are also simple, Twitter-specific sentiment engines, such as twitrratr.com (see its results for "Windows 7") and FlixPulse, which drills down on the Twitter conversations around movies. The question for these services, and the tools in the product pipeline from Microsoft and Google, are how well they can incorporate real-time results into the mix and help companies zoom into the issues and discussions that matter most. Because real-time Twitter search engine and simple alerts by themselves just won't cut it.

Sources and research: AllThingsD.com, Bing.com, TechCrunch.com, twitrratr.com, Jive.com, collectiveintellect.com, flixpulse.com/, Nielsen.com

Image: twitrratr.com

Outside the U.S., alternate social networks grow under Facebook's shadow

Ian Lamont — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:03:21 -0700

When it comes to social networks, Facebook and MySpace dominate in the United States. But if your business takes you to other parts of the world, or you have to connect with colleagues and customers in other markets, it's important to remember that a multititude of smaller social networks have not only been established, they've attracted huge numbers of users.

You may have heard of Bebo (popular in the U.K. and acquired by AOL last year for $850 million) or Friendster (an early MySpace competitor in the U.S., now retrenched in Southeast Asia) but there are many more. In Latin America, Hi5 has established a strong presence. Eastern Europe has a fragmented landscape, with Poland dominated by a local player while other countries are the battleground for international networks such as Facebook and Hi5. In China, there are a patchwork of social networks, ranging from 51.com to the portal tencent.

The implications of the global social networking landscape can be felt by companies on several levels. International marketing efforts have to consider not only what networks are popular in each of the target markets, but also what demographic groups use them and what features are available in terms of advertising capabilities and fan pages. Companies with global workforces may also see unusual patterns as coworkers in different countries seek to make connections and join networks that they otherwise might not use. If there is resistance -- or restrictions -- to certain social networks, there may be a corresponding drop in the ability for distributed workforces to bond.

Even though some of the smaller networks are thriving, Facebook's dominant global position cannot be ignored. Facebook traffic and signups continue to grow at a blinding pace all over the world, and it is a force that many smaller networks will have to contend with. Orkut, a social network operated by Google, has reportedly been losing ground in India to Facebook. Other markets may also succumb, thanks to existing (and growing) Facebook beachheads, international networks created by students and expatriates, Facebook's crowdsourced localization efforts, and, importantly, Facebook Lite, which can give a social networking experience even on limited bandwidth networks.

Sources and research: Nytimes.com, Hi5.com, nasza-klasa.pl, bebo.com, Friendster.com, Businessweek.com, Watblog.com, TechCrunch.com, tencent.com, 51.com, Venturebeat.com, Facebook.com, TheStandard.com

Image: NASA

Abandoned sims in Second Life: Don't forget to turn out the lights

Ian Lamont — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:31:07 -0700

When will they ever learn? Time and time again over the last few years we've seen corporate marketing efforts built around elaborate sims in Second Life, and later abandoned as the campaigns end or new efforts take priority. Ending a marketing campaign is not bad in itself -- no one (with the possible exception of McDonald's) wants their marketing campaign to last forever. But in Second Life, the problem is the sims live on, and sometimes attract the hapless wanderer ... or potential customer. The ghost towns are not only creepy, they can be frustrating, especially to those interested in learning more about the company or its products, or seeking to engage in some way.

Case in point: Cisco's Virtual Palomar West, a sim that was part of a 2008 campaign promoting "The Hospital of the Future." Besides being able to tour the facility (which mirrors a real-world hospital scheduled to be completed in California in 2011) there are a bunch of technology attractions, as depicted in the video below. Cisco used the sim to showcase its "Medical-Grade Network" and networked automation systems.

But that was last year. Visit Virtual Palomar West now, and you're greeted by a very attractive sim that's totally deserted and mostly broken. The front door is open, and visitors are issued an ID bracelet to their inventory, but elevators and access to "patient rooms" are disabled. It's also easy to get trapped in spaces off of the main lobby (we had to teleport out twice).

Cisco is not the only offender. We recently visited the long-abandoned and utterly useless Reuters sim, and teleporting to Microsoft's .NET Developers and TechNet Simulator dropped us in the ocean off of the barren "Silverlight Island" -- which of course was deserted, except for a few half-finished projects.

Clearly, derelict sims are a liability. Things don't always work, no one is around to help explain or guide visitors, and the marketing message or purported function gets lost in the frustration. Following the completion of a campaign, buildings or sims should have their interior spaces closed off and/or explanatory signage or teleport points should be left for visitors to explain what they are looking at or where they should go for more information. Or, companies can do what Intel has done with at least one of its old Second Life developer sims -- erase it from the virtual world.

Video: Cisco Hospital of the Future - Palomar West

Sources and research: software.intel.com, Palomar Pomerado Health Foundation website, Virtual Worlds News, YouTube, Second Life.

Image: Screenshot of Virtual Palomar West exterior

Independent Twitter data shows exponential tweet growth

Ian Lamont — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:59:04 -0700

We don't want to beat a dead horse regarding how hot Twitter is, but the data from an independent tweet-counting service is so compelling we just had to share. According to GigaTweet, the number of tweets passed the five billion mark earlier this week. We're not sure how long the service has been going or how its dynamic counter measures tweets, but Mashable's Barb Dybwad notes that the counter stood at nearly 1.6 billion tweets on April 23, meaning in six months Twitter has apparently experienced more than 200% growth in the number of tweets.

Of course, when it comes to hot Internet services with a social twist, exponential growth has a way of leveling out as the population of potential users is tapped out or people move on to new and cooler things -- just ask the founders of MySpace. Another question: How many users does Twitter have? This guest post on TechCrunch by the CEO of RJMetrics applied some statistical analysis to the question, and concluded that Twitter had just over 50 million "live Twitter accounts" on September 1, and was gaining 8 million new users per month -- but it's a level that RJMetrics said was "no longer accelerating."

Lastly, we're still waiting to hear how @Biz, @Ev, @Jack and the rest of the Twitter gang hope to make money from Twitter. "Free" is great, but it doesn't pay for a batch of new servers that are required to scale Twitter and serve the next 5 billion tweets.

Sources and research: GigaTweet, Mashable, TechCrunch

Image: GigaTweet screenshot

#Gartnersym: We follow Twitter so you don't have to

Ian Lamont — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:01:22 -0700

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2009 is not your grandfather's tech conference. Well, at least not judging by the many thoughtful tweets coming out of the Disney resort complex in Orlando, around all manner of emerging social, cloud, and collaboration technologies. What first caught The Standard's attention was the flurry of retweets surrounding Vice President Carol Rozwell's talk, in which she smartly called out the IT shops and corporate HR departments who continue to follow 20th century-style communications lockdowns: "Banning access to social media from the corporate network is futile," runs one oft-quoted line from her presentation. "The world we live in is digitally enabled and socially connected."

There were other highlights, too, as well as the usual gripes about spotty wi-fi access and oversold sessions. The Standard combed through more than 50 pages of #gartnersym tweets from the first full day of sessions on Monday, and is presenting below the ones that we feel best capture the mood of the crowd and the ideas gaining the most purchase. Here they are, in no particular order:

@signalvsnoise: 62% of new Twitter users between 39 and 51 in 2008 says Gartner. Pay attention, embrace it, it is cultural shift. Get Ready Now.#gartnersym

@santaferraro: #gartnersym Carol Roswell talked about "the collective," social media, and the need to pay attention, how many were twittering in the crowd?

@djfeller: #gartnersym talking about the social collective < sounds like borg resistence is futile

@CornerAlliance: #gartnersym wants orgs to jump headfirst into social media, but I think they need to remember what Gutenberg caused: http://bit.ly/XLD0

@MiamiCIO: Change to make: revise business plan template to cover lifetime costs, not just project costs. #gartnersym

@Galvar60: #Gartnersym - Attendance at Symposium is great 1600 CIO's is unbelievable

@desifinado: Wifi quality at #gartnersym sucks severely. Not at all in line with a premier industry expo. 3G is pretty spotty too. Seriously lowtech :/

@sonny_h: #gartnersym Seems big disconnect between definition of cloud. Most discussion points 2 IaaS (provisioning, virtualization), salesforce

@ranjithkumaran: At Gartner event in Orlando. Google Enterprise Cloud session overbooked, turning attendees away. #gartnersym

@casmrv: #gartnersym Google Apps - 3000 businesses a day sign up. 15M users in GApps today. 2 years and 3M business to get out of beta

@athenshoopsguy: Gartner calls the "elephant in the room" our bloated application portfolio. Application promiscuity is a problem. #gartnersym

@tombitt: So far, my one-on-ones are all about private cloud computing - even the ones that started on virtualization ended there #gartnersym

@casmrv: #gartnersym Motorola move to GMail on cloud - reduction of emails received by 47% - "now I manage email as opposed to the contrary"

@CMatignon: #gartnersym Google - access to the internet has to be more powerful and less expensive - browser and mobile

@patmcanally: #gartnersym Nobody is making money yet with cloud BPM but vendors can't ignore it

@casmrv: #gartnersym Android starting to appear more prominently in the Google Enteprise Vision - access through Chrome & Android

@CMatignon: #gartnersym Google - users want simplicity, when they add complexity to search interface, usage plummets

@Sandalbar: Why isn't "SideKick" being mentioned in the cloud computing tweets from #gartnersym?

@kdemacop: Gartner says best candidates for cloud: web-centric apps with solid management and security practices #gartnersym

@appirio_ryan: Ridiculous FUD to call out Gmail outage for enterprise IT risk. Show of hands: has your Exchange ever been down for 2 hours? #gartnersym

@sonny_h: #gartnersym - Social Networking is what the web was in 2000 - Everyone wants to be on but not many know why. Maturity and value with time.

@lgreski: #gartnersym keynote: 75% of leaders surveyed say bad data constrains business. Too much info managed in spreadsheets.

@CornerAlliance: #gartnersym believes 65 million users of Facebook log on remotely, so don't bother blocking it from the firewall, it is already there

@patmcanally: #gartnersym you must decide on cloud computing before you spend a dime on application modernization

@casmrv: #gartnersym Cloud Computing - possible that compliance issues force data to remain out of cloud - careful with data move costs

@athenshoopsguy: #gartnersym Many sessions advise to inventory what's in the org such as web 2.0 tools etc. Seems logical but contradictory to other themes.

@casmrv: #gartnersym Key Cloud Computer dangers - lock into platform, and viability of current pricing models and consequences when changes

@MarijkeS: in companies of >10K employees, 15% of employees are purchasing their own notebook computer #gartnersym

@blavender: "the cloud excels for temporary experiments" #gartnersym

@MarijkeS: Consumerization of IT: "maximum innovation occurs at the edges" "attention follows budget" #gartnersym

@florianbecker: #gartnersym: G believes that cloud comp. is on the top of the hype-curve with serious adaption 2-5 yrs out. I agree-app integration is key

@djducat: Wondering if 42 is too old to get a MBA. This conference is very thought-provoking. #GartnerSym

Sources and research: CNet.com, Gartner.com, Twitter.com

Image: Screen capture, Monday Morning Update video

Tandberg T1 brings HD videoconferencing to smaller spaces

Ian Lamont — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:59:06 -0700

Full-featured videoconferencing systems are moving down in size. Last month, The Standard noted the appearance of Cisco's TelePresence lite unit. This month, Tandberg has announced its T1 system. Unlike the large, three-screen Tandberg T3, which hit the market earlier this year, Tandberg's T1 is designed for smaller spaces in which just one or two people need to be facing the camera. But don't be fooled by the small footprint -- the specs for the T1 indicate that it's meant to deliver a high-definition videoconferencing experience. The T1 has a 65" display and 1080p HD camera that refreshes at up to 60 frames per second. The recommended network speed for the full HD experience is 4 Mbps.

As for cost, the base T1 setup (camera, screen, table, and a touchscreen interface) is $139,000. There are additional options for the T1, too -- a "full immersive room" including acoustical wall treatments, leather chairs and a ceiling-mounted document camera costs $197,000. Tandberg is taking orders now for availability in the first quarter of 2010.

To give you an idea of how the two Tandberg systems compare, scroll down and check out the marketing videos that the company put together. The first one shows the T1 (turn down your volume; footage of the entire unit starts at 0:13) and the second video depicts the gargantuan T3 in action (skip ahead to 0:50 to avoid the prestory).

As for videoconferencing interoperability, now that Cisco has announced its intention to acquire Tandberg, it's likely that engineers will work on improving how their respective systems connect. That is, of course, assuming that the deal actually goes through.

Video: T1 Telepresence System

Video: T-3 Telepresence System

Sources and research: Tandberg product spec sheet and YouTube videos; Tandberg.com; Tandberg press release; emails and phone call with Blanc & Otus PR; TheStandard.com

Image: Screenshot from Tandberg T1 marketing video

Microsoft HMC + BroadSoft = UC in the cloud

Ian Lamont — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:36:56 -0700

When people think of Microsoft's collaboration applications, SharePoint, some of the Office and Exchange functionality, and experimental tools like Academy Mobile spring to mind. But another product should be added to the list: Microsoft's Hosted Messaging and Collaboration platform. HMC is aimed at service providers seeking to offer SMBs and other clients Outlook, Office, and SharePoint services without having to deal with expensive on-premises installations.

But one of the most interesting aspects of HMC is its ability to extend collaborative functionality to non-Microsoft applications. This month, Microsoft and Broadsoft are pumping up a partnership that integrates HMC and BroadSoft's unified communications suite, BroadWorks. Both are being sold as an integrated "UC as a service" offering that gives users a single desktop interface for a wide range of communications tools.

This is not a trivial undertaking. The Microsoft applications include calendaring, email, IM, and some collaboration tools, but the BroadWorks suite brings voice, IM, videoconferencing, webconferencing, and CRM functionality to the mix. In addition, BroadSoft also says that service providers can leverage its Xtended program to bring "Web 2.0 integration" with 3rd-party apps such as Salesforce.com, Sage Software's Act CRM products, and Microsoft's own Dynamics CRM software.

The Standard asked BroadSoft about costs, but was told that service providers -- which include Alteva, Outsourcery, and LightEdge -- set pricing, which is "almost always" on a per-seat, per-month utility model.

Sources and research: Microsoft.com, msdn.com, BroadSoft/Microsoft press release, TMCnet.com, BroadSoft.com, act.com, emails with BroadSoft employees.

Image: Screenshot from BroadSoft demo video

Video: CIOs grill Avaya executive on UC offerings

Ian Lamont — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:16:31 -0700

American Idol meets IT. That's one way to describe the intriguing format that Silicon.com uses in its "60 Second Pitch" series, in which vendors have just one minute to sell their solutions to a three-member executive panel. "Firing squad" may be more appropriate in Avaya's case. In the video below, Alan Laing, the company's vice president for Western Europe, spends his minute talking up unified communications, ROI and employee productivity. But watch the quiet grilling he gets from the panel immediately afterwards. No Simon Cowell-style putdowns, but these CIOs have probing questions about costs, integration, UI, and importantly, how Avaya's UC products are differentiated from others in the marketplace. Stick around to the end where the CIOs give their verdicts, and Laing offers his own take on the session:

Video: 60-Second Pitch: Unified communications

Image: Screenshot of Silicon.com's 60 Second Pitch for Avaya

Sources and research: Silicon.com, Avaya.com

Linden Lab CEO describes Second Life's enterprise growth and plans for mobile

Ian Lamont — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:25:39 -0700

While the recession has been brutal on most technology companies, one venture that has done relatively well is Linden Lab, the parent company of Second Life. When we first interviewed CEO Mark Kingdon in January, he said the company was profitable and growing. Last month, Linden Lab released figures showing increased usage of the virtual world, and a near doubling of the size of the in-world economy. The Standard recently caught up with Kingdon via email to see how the company's enterprise push is faring. The text of the Q&A follows.

The Industry Standard: How is the partnership with Immersive Workspaces going?

Mark Kingdon: Our partnership with Rivers Run Red -- one of our 35 Gold Solution Providers -- first announced about a year ago, is going well. Their Immersive Workspaces product was the first of several comprehensive business solutions developed in Second Life (more here). With very minimal set-up, a company can be holding meetings or hosting virtual events in Second Life. Immersive Workspaces are available both in Second Life and in the standalone behind-the firewall version of Second Life (which is in private beta -- codenamed Nebraska). There are more than 250 Solution Providers globally who are creating customized work and learning experiences for enterprises, government agencies, educational institutions, and non-profits. (For more info on the Gold program, go here)

TIS: By official estimates, we're nearly two years into the recession. How has that impacted enterprise use of Second Life?

Kingdon: The recession -- so difficult for so many -- has been good to Second Life in both our consumer and our enterprise businesses. We've seen enterprise use of the platform grow over the past two years, and today, more than 250 real-world companies -- including a nice cross-section of the Fortune 500 -- use Second Life. Companies like IBM, Northrop Grumman, and Intel use Second Life for 3D collaboration, training, meetings and conferencing, prototyping, simulation, product design and more. The cost saving opportunities are clear and just the beginning of what the virtual world offers. Our standalone version of Second Life, which enterprises can host behind their firewalls, is currently in closed beta. Already, we've seen strong demand for the product -- our closed beta was oversubscribed - and we are looking forward to open beta later this quarter.

TIS: How has the recession impacted profitability (in our last interview in January, you said the company was profitable)?

Kingdon: Linden Lab's balance sheet is strong and our cash balance continues to grow. We're reinvesting our profits to further enhance the Second Life experience. We currently have 330 employees and are actively recruiting for 70 positions over the next 4-6 months, and we're soon to open a new office in Europe (Amsterdam), which will be our ninth globally.

TIS: A company press release recently made a point of comparing the engagement levels found in Second Life and social networks. Do you see SL as a competitor to social networks such as Facebook or LinkedIn?

Kingdon: No, we're not in competition with social networks -- just the opposite. We've created official Second Life outposts on several. You can connect with us at Facebook.com/SecondLife or Twitter.com/SecondLife, for example. And, there's a very active community on Flickr and Plurk. Plus we're working to add social tools that enable Second Life to be more tightly connected to the social networks most popular with our users.

While people are connecting, socializing, and sharing with each other in Second Life, the virtual world is in its essence very different from social networking sites. It's a rich and immersive three-dimensional experience, enables synchronous communication, and has its own vibrant virtual goods marketplace where users will conduct more than $500 million worth of user-to-user transactions this year. Because of its immersive nature, Residents spend an average of about 100 minutes inworld each session, and about 40 hours in Second Life each month. To provide some context for this engagement metric, our release invited a comparison of the amount of time spent in Second Life with something many people have experience with -- spending time on a social networking website.

TIS: What does Windows 7 mean for the Second Life client, and mobile access of the virtual world?

Kingdon: In our experience, Windows 7 runs the Second Life Viewer just fine without any special considerations other than installing the latest video card drivers (which is what we recommend anyway) (Note: In some [undefined to date] cases, users may need to get updated video card drivers, and in others need to run in "Compatibility Mode" with either XP or Vista selected. While undefined, we are leaning toward attributing this to experiences on release candidate and Beta versions of Windows 7. A recent install, or an instance with all recent updates applied, should not have this need).

We plan to bring Second Life to mobile devices in the future, but rather than recreating the full 3D inworld experience you get with the Second Life Viewer, it will likely focus on the functionality most appropriate for mobile devices -- such as the ability to communicate with friends and colleagues who are inworld. Already, several developers have used the open source Second Life Viewer to bring varying degrees of the experience to mobile devices. For example, Genkii's Sparkle iPhone app enables residents use their iPhones to IM with friends in-world.

Sources and research: Emails with Mark Kingdon and Lewis PR, TechCrunch.com, blog.genkii.com, TheStandard.com, Linden Lab press release.

Image: M Linden (Mark Kingdon's Second Life avatar)

NewVoiceMedia's hosted call center application turns to Salesforce's Service Cloud

Ian Lamont — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:04:10 -0700

You can thank Moore's Law and competition for the long-standing pattern of many expensive IT technologies coming down in price over time to the point where small and medium-sized businesses can afford them. Software-as-a-service and cloud computing have accelerated this trend, to the point where even sophisticated hosted call-center systems are now available for a fraction of the price that installed systems cost.

One U.K.-based company, NewVoiceMedia, has capitalized on the cloud -- specifically, the Salesforce.com Service Cloud -- to create an inexpensive hosted CRM offering aimed at SMBs and distributed workforces (including agents who are working out of their homes) as well as large companies that don't want to deal with the hassle of specialized hardware, databases, and other CRM components. According to NewVoiceMedia, on-premises gear would typically be purchased from major hardware providers such as Nortel, Siemens or Cisco. But with its hosted call-center product, costs are typically $56 per agent per month (not including the salesforce.com licence, PC, or telephone line) to access standard CRM applications such as call routing, call queuing, call recording, and interactive voice response. The application also provides agents with call history (the system can be set up to route callers to agents they've dealt with in the past) and purchasing profiles, as well as access to previously recorded calls. VIP callers can be granted special priority as well.

The company says its offering is available to non-U.K. companies. Its client list includes Toyota, Fuji, Royal Mail, Papa Johns, and the BBC.

Sources: TMCnet.com, Reuters.com, NewVoiceMedia press release, email from NewVoiceMedia marketing manager, NewVoiceMedia.com, Salesforce.com

Image: NewVoiceMedia video screenshot

Social networking in hospitals: A nuisance and liability, or "important adjunct" to traditional communication?

Ian Lamont — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:59:27 -0700

Paul Levy, the president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, has a message for hospitals considering blocking access to social networking sites: Don't. In a blog post and email to The Industry Standard on Tuesday, he explained that closing off Facebook will not only have a negative effect on hospital communities, but will also impede the sharing of ideas and information -- practices that are vital to modern hospitals' day-to-day operations and long-term planning and teaching missions.

Levy was set off by an email that he says was broadcast last week to the staff of a Boston hospital. He declined to identify the hospital, but did republish the message on his blog. The email said:

Good morning,

Effective immediately, the Hospital is blocking access to social networking sites including Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter from all Hospital computers.

The decision is based on recent evidence that some employees have been using these sites to comment on Hospital business, which is a violation of the Hospital's Electronic Communications policy and a potential HIPAA violation.

The Executive Team will be working in the coming months to ensure that we have written policies in place that articulate the appropriate use of social networking sites while on duty at the Hospital. Once these written policies are in place, we have educated all employees about expectations and disciplinary action associated with violating the policies, and we have the appropriate IS tools in place to track utilization and monitor content, we will consider once again providing access to these sites. We expect this will take a period of about 6 months.

In the interim, please note that the Electronic Communication policy states that "incidental personal use of electronic communications systems may be allowed so long as such use does not consume more than a trivial amount of resources, interfere with staff productivity, preempt any business activity or violate Hospital policy".

Employees are free to use Hospital computers during their break periods to check personal email, or access the Internet, but you should be aware that the policy also states, "employees should not have any expectation of privacy with respect to any information on Hospital electronic communication systems or the contents thereof, including email, internet usage, voicemail, fax or other similar vehicles. [The hospital] reserves the right to monitor, review and inspect all uses and the contents thereof.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

On his widely read "Running a Hospital" blog, Levy questioned the justifications for the ban, and singled out Facebook as a particularly useful tool for exchanging ideas -- especially among younger staff:

"Any form of communication (even conversations in the elevator!) can violate important privacy rules, but limiting people's access to social media in the workplace will mainly inhibit the growth of community and discourage useful information sharing. It also creates a generational gap, in that Facebook, in particular, is often the medium of choice for people of a certain age. I often get many useful suggestions from staff in their 20's and 30's who tend not to use email. Finally, consider the cost of building and using tools that attempt to "track utilization and monitor content." Not worth the effort, I say."

The Standard followed up with Levy, asking him how his hospital deals with social networking. He said Beth Israel has not considered a similar policy because it is "inconsistent with our view of social media, which we view as an important adjunct to traditional forms of communication." He also said that while Facebook-style messages, wall posts and IM were used among younger staff at BI for informal chats or suggestions, when the talk turns to specific patients or other sensitive subjects, they switch to more secure electronic channels -- or better yet, talk about the issues in person or on the telephone.

Restrictions on social networking use is hardly a new issue for Boston-area hospitals and their staffs. We spoke with a doctor and researcher at the Boston Medical Center (who asked not to be identified) about practices at his workplace. The doctor described a long-standing ban on using hospital computers and networks for accessing Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Google Docs, and for that matter, any site featuring "sex, drugs, and rock and roll." However, our source wasn't sure whether the bans had been codified into a formal practice -- he said that trying to access the sites from computers on the BMC network results in an error message.

Nevertheless, the BMC ban is widely viewed as counterproductive, according to our source. For instance, the medical center's own development department once created a Facebook page and encouraged staff to participate. When the staff replied that they could not access it at work, they were asked to take part in the electronic community from home. This request was not well-received.

When our BMC source spoke with a senior IT executive about the ban, he was told that the concern among management was not so much around HIPAA compliance, productivity or bandwidth issues, as much as legal liability relating to inappropriate use or messages left on the online services by employees from hospital computers.

It's worth noting that bans like these have several potential holes. Mobile devices carried by staff are one. Another is the teaching role that many urban hospitals have. Beth-Israel is affilated with Harvard Medical School. BMC has an affiliation with the Boston University School of Medicine, which has offices and other facilities located inside the BMC complex. Unlike BMC, BU does not ban faculty, staff and students from using social networks. According to our source, if he or anyone else in his office wants to reach Facebook to connect with colleagues or add a friend, it's simply a matter of accessing a wireless access point from a BU office one floor up.

Sources and research: Email from Paul Levy, runningahospital.blogspot.com, interview with Boston Medical Center doctor/researcher, BMC.org

Image: uberzombie/flickr (creative commons license/commercial use)

Webrecs: Despite Sidekick fiasco, basic cloud services "do have their use cases"

Ian Lamont — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:00:26 -0700

In the wake of the Microsoft/Danger/T-Mobile Sidekick implosion, we received an interesting missive from Chris Robinson of Webrecs. You may remember Robinson's earlier warning about Google's and Amazon's cloud offerings ("Recent events have highlighted issues with servers in the "cloud" -- basically you are trusting that everyone is doing the right thing and that the server(s) on which your documents are stored are secure, backed up and always available.") Barely containing a sense of "I told you so!", Robinson's email to The Standard on Monday says the possible loss of Sidekick servers containing owners' contact and calendar information points to the importance of avoiding stock software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings for important data. He added that two cloud-based concepts are worth noting: Software-as-a-secure service (SaSS) and relocatable user backups (RUB):

To put it bluntly, at Webrecs we would NEVER trust our data in a SaaS solution unless we had a RUB which we could run anywhere including behind our firewall.

That sounds great in theory, but what about in practice? The Standard followed up with Robinson, and asked how he handled his own device backups. His response:

I don't use a phone for email, preferring a netbook running a 3G card with gmail forwarding to [Mozilla] Thunderbird, selectively forwarding stuff I can't afford to lose in my Webrecs subscription. The only data on my phone worth saving is my address/contacts book which I keep on my SIM and backup into my Webrecs subscription using the phone (Nokia cheapie) software. Made one last night actually.

Robinson also moderated his earlier comments about the "inherently risky" cloud services operated by Google and Amazon:

We shouldn't get too paranoid about SaaS either. Although I bag Google, [Microsoft], [and] Amazon for their lack of backup ability, they do have their use cases. In some cases, the data stored there can afford to get lost -- a pain , sure , but not mission critical. I would consider address books and contact lists and even to a certain extent CRM systems as losable (just) -- it is a pain to recreate but doable. For [enterprise content management] and [document management], though, it is simply irrecoverable and business-killing. For these I would never use them.

We're not so sure everyone would agree that the loss of a large address book or calendar is acceptable (see "A lesson from the Sidekick's cloud failure: Personal phones are used for work") but his distinction is worth noting: When it comes to SaaS, not all data are created equal. But when it comes to mission-critical content that is the lifeblood of the company, cloud options must be evaluated in light of how the data is backed up and secured.

Image: akakumo/flickr (creative commons license/commercial use)

Sources and research: Emails with Chris Robinson, TheStandard.com, NetworkWorld.com, Wikipedia

Readers respond: Apple Inc. and the "unpleasant odor" of social media

Ian Lamont — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:23:37 -0700

We're no strangers to the hand-wringing and vitriol that can result from criticisms of Apple and its products. Our essay "The beginning of the end for the Apple iMac?" and the accompanying (and incorrect) prediction drew scores of comments from readers, many of whom were clearly angry that we would dare to question Apple's strategy or suggest that purchasers might switch to lower-cost Windows and Linux machines in the midst of a deep recession.

Last week's comparison of Apple's and Microsoft's social media strategies ("OS X vs. Windows: In social media face-off, Apple Inc. gets a thrashing") also generated scores of comments and retweets. Even Fake Steve Jobs weighed in. We weren't surprised to receive negative comments ("This article's claim is preposterous!", "tabloid school of journalism", etc.), but we didn't expect that so many people would actually defend Apple for failing to utilize the many social media tools at its disposal to connect with its operating system customers, and build its business. Here's what they said:

A user calling himself Steven Bryan:

"... Social media is a new way for people to interact and exchange information. Corporations are not people, I don't care what the legal fiction is. Their presence in social media is largely pollution rather than a positive contribution."

"Jeremy":

"Social Media is not the Holy Grail, Apple has really nothing to gain wasting resources in such places. Moreover, the company thrives on secrecy, when they announce a new product there are tens of thousands of people following the events through dozens of sites in multiple languages in real time."

A user identified as Mario Rosales:

"... Differences in the use of social media for Apple and Microsoft seem to show the differences in the cultures of both organizations. Microsoft seems to build their culture from within and spreading it outward - hence the large fanbase in FB and MySpace - and Apple seems to build their culture externally from itself - sort of like 'let our customers do our talking'."

"bhatnaturally":

"Apple does not believe in using the so-called social media. Er...so? All the positive word of mouth for them is anyway being done by Apple fans."

But the most articulate response came via email from a reader named Dave Bryant. He agreed to let me include it in this post:

"[Quoting The Standard]: 'Apple's operating system may have a fanatical group of followers and a reality distortion field when it comes to press coverage, but in the social media sphere Apple Inc. lags.'

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Apple doesn't *need* 'social media'. The company is doing just fine without it, thank you. What would they gain by plunging into it? Nothing, really; it's hard to imagine that such a presence could improve sales and awareness beyond the already staggering and continually increasing success Apple enjoys today. What might the company lose? Tight control over information and trade secrets; the possibility of leaks and missteps likely would be increased dramatically, and the company has enouogh trouble with that already.

In short, it's a sucker bet. Apple can't gain anything significant from it, but stands to lose the one thing the company values to an obsessive degree -- secrecy -- as you mention in passing but don't take to the logical conclusion. That secrecy is a double-edged sword. It allows Apple to build anticipation and excitement to kid-on- Christmas-morning levels, which guarantees a concentration of press and consumer attention unique in the business world. It also can be teeth-grindingly frustrating on the occasions it affects customer service and security, particularly since the company does everything else so well.

Frankly, given the clumsy clown-in-business-suit 'astroturf' efforts of companies like Microsoft, 'social media' in the service of business has generated an unpleasant odor in the minds of many, including myself. Moreover, while it seems to be of overriding importance to those deeply involved in it, to those outside of it, which likely is a much larger population and probably includes most people over the age of thirty (like me), it at best engenders feelings of apathy or puzzlement: 'What is it?' or 'Why does anyone bother with it?'

Apple isn't failing to embrace a new and wonderful medium. It is avoiding a train wreck of monumental proportions."

We agree with Bryant that secrecy is hugely important to Steve Jobs' management and marketing strategies. Pre-launch secrecy for major product launches and upgrades has helped the company save millions in marketing expenses and generate billions in sales. And it's understandable that the company would not want to risk spilling the beans on a new product or pricing strategy.

But who said that social media and product secrecy are mutually exclusive? We haven't looked through all 2,148 tweets on the @mswindows Twitter account, but most of the ones that we have seen are promotions for Windows-related events and products ("@logicgnome For more information on Windows7 student pricing in the UK, visit:http://bit.ly/I2MXp ^NS") and conversations with customers, many of them relating to support issues ("@kaykun I did some searching on your USB eject problem and found some suggestions, it should solve your issue. :) http://bit.ly/3nlzLx ^BK").

When it comes to product secrecy or sensitive issues like defective software, it's safe to say that the five listed authors of this Twitter account (who sign their tweets with a carat followed by their initials) and the official Microsoft "voice" on Facebook and MySpace are working under very strict information control policies. They are, as PR professionals are wont to say, "staying on message."

Of course, Microsoft employees have leaked information using such tools. Last month, a company meeting at Seattle's Safeco Field was critically tweeted and blogged by employees. Last week, a LinkedIn profile -- reportedly maintained by a Microsoft employee -- discussed some Windows 8 details, even though Windows 7 has yet to ship. The profile has since been deactivated.

But it's important to note that this information came from personal social media accounts, as opposed to Microsoft's official product or marketing efforts on Facebook or Twitter.

In addition, Apple has demonstrated that it too can operate social media campaigns for its products without giving up state secrets. Apple's Facebook page (which was cited by a reader of our original article) has millions of fans and hundreds of updates, mostly relating to product promotions ("Download Glee on iTunes") but also some feature announcements ("iTunes 9 Feature: Share On Facebook and Twitter.") Most of the updates have hundreds or even thousands of "likes" and comments. We were unable to find any media references to premature product revelations or leaks originating from this official Apple resource.

The iTunes/Facebook example is proof that it's possible for Apple Inc. to run a social media presence without overstepping its secrecy mandates. Moreover, the response to the site shows that millions of customers, far from being turned off by what Bryant calls the "unpleasant odor" of corporate Twitter and social networking efforts, want to follow and interact with Apple and this product. If Apple can do it for iTunes, then why not for OS X?

Sources and research: NetworkWorld.com, Gizmodo.com, Apple.com, Facebook.com/itunes, email with Dave Bryant, TheStandard.com

Image: Video screenshot from Steve Jobs' 2008 Macworld presentation

Net Views: Ray Ozzie on collaboration and organizational dynamics

Net Views — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:02:28 -0700

"When you mix technology and people, you have something like Facebook or IM. You're dealing with the dynamics around what is it like to build a tool for people to talk to people. Then you mix in organizational dynamics, and people communicate way differently. Like they don't post things like they would online because they might get fired. There are dynamics in an org where you say something and somebody will use it politically against you. You might disclose some confidential information. There are different dynamics when you mix in that organization components.

So, even if you build a great tool and it works on the outside, it doesn't mean that it's even going to work on the inside of an org."

– Ray Ozzie, TechcrunchIT, "Ozzie on the realtime wave"

An MSP piggybacks on good vibes from Cisco/Tandberg deal

Ian Lamont — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:16:17 -0700

Cisco's acquisition of Tandberg and its midmarket videoconferencing products has been the subject of much analysis in the past two weeks. But we have to recognize mvision for putting out a release on Monday that capitalizes on the good vibes, even though the London-based company had nothing to do with the deal. Mvision is a managed service provider for Tandberg, and claims to be the number one installer of Tandberg's T3 system in the UK. The release quoted Managing Director Terry Dwyer as saying:

"The Cisco/TANDBERG acquisition will have a positive effect on the video industry at many levels. Firstly, as businesses invest in video itself, there is a resulting demand for supporting networking infrastructure; which is good news for the video channel. Also, a rising volume of endpoint sales will promote the use of Telepresence and the need for managed services such as ours; particularly within the large corporate user organisations that are increasingly common place for us. In the SME arena where proprietary infrastructure facilities aren't as affordable, it creates demand for a managed video or Telepresence service. And, as one of only five TANDBERG global managed service providers in the world, mvision is ideally placed to take advantage of the new opportunities this will create while adding a great deal of value back to the Cisco product line."

This is all fine and dandy, but the last line makes us wonder how the competitive landscape will change among MSPs that may have only worked with one of the two companies in the past. Do they see the expanded marketplace under the unified Cisco umbrella as an opportunity? Will the relationship with Cisco have to be more carefully managed now? Share your thoughts below.

Sources and research: Mvision press release, Tandberg.com, Computerworld.com, Telephony Magazine, MSPmentor.com

Image: Tandberg T3 marketing photo

A lesson from the Sidekick's cloud failure: Personal phones are used for work

Ian Lamont — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:10:09 -0700

Were you one of those IT pros who reacted to the Sidekick data fiasco with a knowing tsk-tsk, and thought, "What were those people thinking? Believing that cloud computing mumbo-jumbo, and trusting their contacts and calendars to Microsoft and T-Mobile! Well, those dopes sure learned a lesson."

Unfortunately, your own IT group may be learning a lesson as well. While many companies imagine that personal and business mobile phone use is always kept separate, the reality is there is a lot of mixed use, and situations where personal devices become de facto work phones. Not every company issues BlackBerries to their staff, and even among those who do, usage is often rationed, with salespeople, senior managers, and IT workers getting priority.

What about everyone else? Consider "Joe" in accounting. He's chained to a desk all day, and a few years back operations decided Joe didn't really "need" one for work. Even if you offered a BlackBerry to Joe today, he'd decline. He doesn't like the way BlackBerries look, and besides, he already has a smartphone that he likes, and a phone number that he's used since he was in college. In fact, Joe likes this phone so much that he even put the number on his business card and email signature, and now has the contact information for about 60 colleagues, partners, and customers stored on the device. Well, he thinks it's stored on the device, and maybe somewhere else as well -- Joe's not too sure where, but he remembers the brochure that the carrier gave him said something about the contacts being safe on their servers. So everything's cool, right?

Well, guess what? It turns out that Joe was one of the one million Sidekick users affected by the problems at T-Mobile/Microsoft, and now the data is probably gone forever. And while operations and IT support may shrug and say "too bad, but that's his problem," the reality is it becomes his organization's problem. At the very least, the loss translates to lost productivity and some missed connections as Joe rebuilds the contact list and calendar entries. Worse-case scenarios include lost business, or many hundreds of hours of lost productivity at those large organizations which have many unofficial Sidekicks in employees' pockets. If these companies suddenly decide to force people like Joe to give up their personal phones for work purposes, there will be additional cost and time considerations, not to mention backlash as people are forced to give up their Sidekicks, Nokias, and iPhones when they're connecting with colleagues and clients.

But these costs and headaches may be viewed as a small price to pay the next time a carrier cloud aimed at consumers goes down or experiences a security breach. While employees may be frustrated at losing access to their personal contacts, business can continue as usual as long as they have followed the new policies and IT departments have backed up and secured the data.

So maybe the real lesson of the Sidekick outage is it's time to stop pretending that consumer devices have no effect on business communications. They do. Another lesson: It's time to proactively address these problems through a combination of policy changes, user education, and issuing company-owned smartphones to people who previously were deemed as not needing them -- or helping owners of popular consumer devices properly secure and back up the data on them. It may be costly and time-consuming, but it could represent a big savings in the long run.

Sources and Research: Pew Internet and American Life Project, Wall Street Journal, Compete report, Moconews.net, bits.nytimes.com, advice.cio.com, networkworld.com

Image: Noize Photography/flickr (creative commons license/commercial use)