web2society

The Times paywall is going to work … for now …

Freddy Snijder — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:28:28 +0000

[update : I've provided extensive feedback to @davidcushman's comments below, further elaborating on the ideas in this post]

When you click an article on The Times site you get confronted with the paywall

The Times paywall is now active, I read this morning in a short piece on The Next Web. You know what? I’m going to make a bold prediction about this (which I always love doing). Contrary to what many Internet experts say, this is going to work.

Really? Yes, really. Of course, the best way for news companies to go forward is to leverage networks. In my opinion news companies should become platforms, engines of news as you will. Such platforms can be used in all kinds of new ways by 3rd party applications through commercial APIs (paid for API access).

Let me explain this a little bit further. 3rd party apps could wrap the content in such a way that readers do want to pay for it and could create an infrastructure around it that also creates value, directly for readers but potentially also for advertisers.

An example of wrapping content that adds value for users is an iPad application that makes reading the content very convenient, which in turn represents value that readers can be willing to pay for. A good example of an existing iPad application is Wired Magazine’s iPad Edition. An infrastructure that 3rd parties could add is obviously a social layer on top of the news content. Social data generated in this layer can be leveraged to better recommend readers new news content but also to better target advertisement.

Wired Magazine's iPad Edition

I think that an important property of this mode of operation is that a news-company-as-a-news-engine itself does not have it’s own site with content: the content is accessible via the ecosystem of 3rd party news applications; it’s these parties that pay a fee for news.

Of course, to brand themselves, news organizations can have their own sites and interactions with the outside world through social media. They can give background information about stories, their journalists, how they work, etc.: brand your news company by giving the employees (the journalists) more opportunity to engage with the outside world about their work.

Ok, so why is this back-to-the-20st-century paywall construction of The Times going to work now? Well, there are two reasons, of which the second one is the most important. First, The Times creates high quality content that is not easily repeated by others. Many readers (read here ‘many’ = ‘enough to pay the bills together with ad revenues’), specifically of the target audiences of The Times, won’t mind paying a small fee for it.

So, Mr. Snijder, aren’t you forgetting that we are living in the digital age, where all information can be copied for almost no cost? Well, it’s up to 35 degrees Celsius here in the Netherlands at this very moment, so focus is currently not my strong point, but just like many people ‘illegally’ copy music right now, there is also a substantial base of people who pay for music online! Sure, this won’t salvage news-as-cash-cows but I believe still a healthy business can be run like this, for now…

Which brings me to my second and most important reason: currently (as far as I know) there’s no news organizations, practicing high quality journalism, that use the kind of mode of operation as mentioned. So lower-cost, more convenient or more attractive alternatives might currently be limited for the specific target audiences of The Times.

But when finally (finally, finally!) the news industry starts to make the shift to the new reality of our networked society on a larger scale and distinguished news organization, targeting the same audiences, start to implement new modes of operation, better leveraging the network (for instance as outlined above), then The Times will need to catch up fast and also make the shift.

I know, it’s a bold prediction that my colleague bloggers might not like. But where’s the fun in following the herd? This is something I believe could realistically happen, change needs time. Obviously I hope that news organizations and media in general will start leveraging the power of networks much sooner, such we can tear down ‘the wall’ once and for all.

I’m Looking forward to hear your opinions. Oh, and if you have any references I should add to this post I would appreciate if you would let me know!

– Freddy Snijder

Steve Jobs says a few important things about making successful innovations at D8

Freddy Snijder — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 10:32:37 +0000

The summary of the interview with Steve Jobs at All Things Digital D8.

I just watched this 5 minute summary clip of an interview with Steve Jobs at D8, the eighth annual conference of All Things Digital, see also this post at TheNextWeb. In my opinion almost everything he says in this clip touches upon important principals of successful innovation and also relates to ‘the secrets’ of Apple’s success. Below I summarized what these principles are according to me and what Jobs said related to them.

Focus your resources, ride the proper technological waves

Spend your resources wisely: choose very carefully which technologies to adopt, in Job’s words, “technical vectors that have a future and that are headed up”. Some more what Job’s said about this was:

“Different pieces of technologies kind of go in cycles, they have their springs, summers and autumns … and then they go to the graveyard of technology… so we try to pick things that are in their springs”.

If you want your innovations to stay ahead of the curve and flourish in the market you need to adopt the technologies that allow you to piggy bag on its future advancements and adoption by others in market.

It will cost you an enormous amount of energy if you don’t focus, hence reducing your chance to be successful. Further, if you don’t choose carefully it can cost you a lot of effort to change the technological fundaments of your innovation. This would likely imply that you lose your position in the market you are in.

Listen but stick to your vision and convictions

Two important points in one: listen to your customers to develop your innovation and adapt it based on feedback from the market, but at the same time have a strong conviction about the why, what and how of your innovation and stick to it.

Some great quotes of Job’s about this:

“… Things [products] are packages of emphasis, some things are emphasized in a product, some things are not done as well in a product, some things are chosen not be done at all in a product and so different people make different choices: if the market says we are making wrong choices we just listen to the market … “

but …

“… We have at least the courage of our convictions to say: ‘we don’t think this is part of what makes a great product, we are going to leave it out!’ That’s what a lot of customers pay us to do: is to try to make the best products we can, and if we succeed they’ll buy it and if we don’t they won’t, and it will all work itself out!”

User-driven innovation is a very important basis for developing successful innovations. It allows you to create products and services that clearly reflect user needs and delight users by optimizing its form, functions and the way you interact with it, within the intended context of use. As an example of an intended context of use, Steve Jobs for instance exemplified one for the iPad in his introduction presentation by demonstrating it sitting in a lounge chair.

Further, developing successful innovations is a highly iterative process where you not only learn how, for instance, you can build something from a technical perspective but also what (form, function, interaction) tweaks your product or service needs for users to be ‘delighted’ about using it. This iterative learning process continuous constantly, even long after your innovation has been launched in the market.

Having that said, it’s not always possible or favorable to try to grand end-users every wish. End-users do not run your company and aren’t working daily on your innovations so they usually can’t oversee the holistic whole of the innovation: how all the aspects of the innovation make it more than the sum of its parts and why all the strategic choices are made to grow and sustain the product or service innovation in the market on the long run.

But that doesn’t have to be a problem. Even more, if you can communicate a clear vision and why you stand by your convictions, users will not only understand this, they will actually highly appreciate it and possibly identify themselves with it.

Eventually this can turn users into evangelists of which Apple, not surprisingly, has many. There are multiple aspects to Apple’s success, to me Apple’s vision and courage to stand up for their convictions is one of them.

We shouldn’t need @Soluto, what we need is a better OS where apps can’t drain resources by design

Freddy Snijder — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:03:35 +0000

I find it ridiculous that, after so many iterations of the Microsoft Windows operating system, we still need a service like Soluto (which won the TechCrunch disrupt 2010 competition) to be able to have a proper personal computing experience and to force the industry to change in the future. No offense intended here, Soluto just tries to lift the burden of all these Microsoft Windows users that have to use their ever slowing and destabilizing machines. However, in my opinion, it’s because of the bad design of Microsoft Windows OS(s) that 3rd party apps can claim resources in the way they do and interfere with stable operation of the system.

The founders of Soluto mention in the video interview by Robert Scoble that people tend to blame Microsoft Windows for the problem while actually it’s the 3rd party apps that drain resources and make the system unstable. That is definitely true, but what they don’t say is that the operating system itself doesn’t have to allow these apps to cause these problems in the first place.

For sure there is ample opportunity to innovate operating systems such that applications can’t hog resources the way they do and users have more clear and understandable control, all by design of the OS; on the level of business models, technical architecture, resource management and user interaction.

It’s great that through Soluto Microsoft Windows users could challenge the industry to give them a better experience, but we didn’t have to get into this situation in the first place. Do we want to continue the Microsoft Windows hegemony by using a service like Soluto and just hope for change? Or should we just ditch this productivity draining OS (this is my personal experience) all together and use all the great alternatives out there & invent a better personal computing future without it?

I already opted for the second.

Why the Apple iPad is a computing revolution in disguise

Freddy Snijder — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:18:45 +0000

After the introduction of the Apple iPad most of the blogosphere filled with critiques and rants, specked here and there with some praising stories. I must admit that my very first reaction was also skeptical, but when I took time to view Jobs’s iPad presentation (‘the day after’) and thought a little bit about what this product was about, my opinion started to shift, … big time!

As usual, this post is quite long, so I listed URLs to the sections below for easy navigation:

It’s the computing usability perspective that counts in this decade

Digital media consumption made easy?

Awakening the digital nomad in all of us

Could future Google Chrome OS devices be a match for Apple’s iPad?

Will iPad kill eReaders (Kindle)? Yes and No, resulting in a final No.

Will the iPad save the traditional print media business? Depends.

The rocky road ahead for iPad and future competitors

The iPad is a revolution in disguise because …

Since I noticed a change to a more favorable tone yesterday in the blogosphere, and my own writings on Twitter (Thursday the 28th Jan. 2010) about the iPad are a bit abstract (see below), I thought is was high time to further elaborate my thinking about Apple’s iPad.

[translated from Dutch]
dutch| http://bit.ly/bcrlre cont’d : [With the iPad, Apple wants to bring 'personal computing' to a larger audience] cc @frankmeeuwsen 12:14 PM Jan 28th from TweetDeck

[translated from Dutch]
ducth| http://bit.ly/bDo2Ub cont’d: [It’s not about this 1st iPad, it’s about the ‘roadmap’; we will see new features in the future] 12:17 PM Jan 28th from TweetDeck

Don’t be too sure, iPad is a revolution in disguise RT @steverubel Google Social Search … far more important game-changing news than iPad 12:21 PM Jan 28th from TweetDeck

http://bit.ly/cm13vp cont’d : Agree, the iPad caters our future nomadic & comfort computing needs cc @davidcushman @miralize @damienmulley 1:16 PM Jan 28th from TweetDeck

http://bit.ly/9yscQo cont’d: The iPad is not about now, it’s about setting the stage for a personal computing future 1:22 PM Jan 28th from TweetDeck

It’s the computing usability perspective that counts in this decade.

Although the iPad basher camp made some valid arguments, many of them looked at the iPad from a perspective that will be much less relevant in the future. It was the computing technology perspective of the last decade that prevailed most in their writings, often focusing on specific technology features (OMG! No Flash! No Camera!). This instead of looking at it from a perspective that is becoming more and more important in this decade: the computing usability perspective.

Many early adopting digital savvies often forget that most people don’t care about technology: they just want to get a job done, be productive, be social and have fun. In the past there was a strong need for more storage, (graphical) computing power, better hardware interfaces, better (wireless) Internet connections and a lot of other basic technologies to make computing more useful, even for the more technically skilled.

However, now we have entered a phase where technology can, in principle, already cater many of our computing needs. So, in this decade it is not about improving technological capabilities, it’s about developing & utilizing technology in ‘computing products’ to make them truly useful, effective and fun for consumers in more focused application areas.

This is exactly what Apple has done with the iPad. They developed (or purchased/licensed) and utilized technology to create a device, with a form factor, user interface and eco-system of applications & content that is optimized for digital media consumption and lightweight computing (e.g. reading/writing e-mails, short documents, simple presentations, etc..).

With the iPad, Apple aims high. They want to cater a much broader audience to enjoy consumption of digital media and allow them to become digital working nomads, just like the contemporary digital savvies are right now.

The road will not be easy for Apple and its iPad, as I will explain later. But if Apple succeeds it will not only have captured a much larger market to sell mobile computing devices, but more importantly, have a strong hold on digital media reoccurring revenues: and that’s where the big pile of money is.

Below I will elaborate my position further and react to some remarks and questions I’ve noticed in blogosphere in the last few days.

Digital media consumption made easy?

In many R&D labs of large corporations and university institution around the world research scientists and engineers have looked at how to make the production, editing, management and consumption of digital media easy and effective for users, and they still do by the way.

Digital media (think photos, videos, news papers, etc.) have many advantages, it allows us to easily store, transmit, share, search, mash and edit it. But a major disadvantage is that it’s intangible and abstract, and thus not intuitive at all for an average user to use. It is, for instance, much more intuitive to hold a paper photo in your hand or browse through a carton box full of photos.

‘Holy grail solutions’ of digital media consumption in this perspective are solutions that keep the best of both the digital and the physical world, having the powers of the digital- and the inherent intuitiveness of the physical world.

The iPad tries to be such a solution. It’s not the final answer, but with this product Apple is appealing to a much broader base of people that want to enjoy media without any fuss.

I agree with Steve Jobs that the Netbook isn’t the answer. Sure, it’s smaller and thus easier to handle, but it’s still a general-purpose device, without any specific optimization in technology, form & user-interface design and business models for media consumption and lightweight computing.

Awakening the digital nomad in all of us

Luckily, more and more people are nowadays not bound to a desk in some cubical. We work, meet and study wherever we need or like to be, in café’s, on the beach, curled up on a couch at home or even in places where you can rent seats by the minute. Many of the digital savvy have become true digital nomads.

There is of course a group of ‘creators’ that need their heavy-duty laptops to, for instance, develop code, design websites, edit movies and create graphics & animations, wherever they happen to be. The iPad is not powerful enough for that and is actually not optimized for such creative tasks, although creating graphics could be exceptions to that. However, many people don’t need heavy computing facilities to do their jobs. They just need an easy way to use an agenda, handle email, create short text documents and an occasional PowerPoint (eh, I meant Keynote ☺).

The Netbook probably already converted many into digital nomads. But Netbooks are still to general purpose; lightweight computing can be simpler and more effective. From what I’ve seen the iPad does just that, and could ultimately turn a much larger group of people in to digital nomads as well in the future.

Could future Google Chrome OS devices be a match for Apple’s iPad?

The Google Chrome OS is basically a cloud OS that allows users to run web applications. An advantage of this cloud OS is that it allows for very short boot times and applications will be available almost instantly. But if the iPhone is any measure for how fast an iPad will boot and start applications, this is not a differentiating feature for Chrome OS based devices.

However, hardware for Chrome OS devices can be relatively cheap because a browser engine renders all its applications. This might be the only advantage over an iPad device; Chrome OS devices can be much cheaper.

Overall, my arguments don’t change. If some manufacture can develop a Google Chrome OS based device that is as easy to use and as effective as an iPad for digital media consumption and lightweight computing it could be a real competitor, especially if it can also compete on price.

Last, the openness of Google’s OS is only a real advantage if at the same time the level of usability remains high. Personally, I think open systems are the best, but keeping a system closed, like Apple does, to assure a high level of usability and to keep the user experience constant has its merits too.

It’s NOT about this first iPad

Apple surely didn’t make this first iPad to be the final, ultimate, tablet product. This device is ‘just’ a first step to reach a larger audience in the future; a process that will take a long time. We might be going crazy over the absence of, for instance, Adobe Flash, SD card slots and USB, but does an iPad need that in, say, 5 years?

The Adobe Flash platform might be less relevant in the future. Data (including photos and other content types) is more and more stored in ‘the cloud’, will my mother need a SD card slot in the future? In how many usage scenarios will she need a USB connection?

Possibly many users will require some of these features in the future, in that case Apple will add them in next generation iPads; they will have to. If one wants to jump-start a revolution of mass digital media consumption and lightweight computing, I think it is a good strategy to keep the product initially as basic as possible. It allows for keeping focus on its main use case and keeping the price as low as possible.

About this last point, price, I can very well imagine that the Apple will not make a lot of money on selling iPads now and in the future, the price is already low and will go down further in the future (as prices usually do). Apple will most likely earn the most through its stores (music, videos, apps, including games and books).

Will iPad kill eReaders (Kindle)? Yes and No, resulting in a final No.

A question debated a lot in the blogosphere is: will the Apple iPad kill the Amazon Kindle and other eReaders? Here are my answers:

No, eInk displays are much easier on the eyes, especially if you like to read a lot without interruption.

Yes, who says iPad will not get a better screen in the future? Pixel Qi comes to mind here, see for instance, ‘‘E-Ink Is Dead, Pixel Qi’s Amazing Transflective LCD Just Killed It” and on Wikipedia the screen technology of the ‘One Laptop Per Child’-laptops, on which Pixel Qi’s screen technology is based.

Yes, with all this available processing power it’s obvious that eReaders will converge to more capable devices for digital media consumption. Since iPad is in the lead for this kind of device, Kindle-s and the like won’t be a match.

No, there will always be users who want to have a device that is completely optimized for reading books. Where ‘multi-media eReaders’ will become more expensive, the hard-core eReader, that can handle books only, will become ultra cheap. (e.g. below US $100).

So since it is not a full Yes, in the end it is a No: for the coming years there’s plenty of space for eReaders in the market.

Will the iPad save the traditional print media business? Depends.

Mathew Ingram wrote a good post at GigaOm (‘Will the iPad Help Media? Possibly. Save Media? No.’). I agree with Mathew that newspapers and magazines ‘still have to figure out what they have that is unique, different and special in a way that makes people want to pay for it.’ They have to do that themselves, the Apple iPad doesn’t give them a magical solution that solves all of their business model problems.

However, although people in principle won’t pay for digital content that can be copied without any costs, they do want to pay for things that can’t be copied easily: experience and convenience. Look for instance at what iPod did for music. Anybody can download music without paying for it; it’s thus a really significant feat that the iTunes/iPod combo made consumers pay for it, allowing the music industry to earn money off of their creations. It works because it’s extremely convenient. The iPad can do the same for the print industry in my opinion.

Mathew argues that the iPad will only disrupt the traditional print media industry further, just like the iPod did for the music industry. That might be, but I think it’s the new reality for the media industry as a whole: if you understand the new rules of the digital economy you can still earn a good living working in it, but never as much as in the pre-digital age.

The rocky road ahead for iPad and future competitors

The main challenge I see for the iPad is its target user group. The target users mostly aren’t drooling over every new gadget; they aren’t following the hypes and are (generally) not willing to pay a lot for new technology.

So even if the iPad is what they want (from a user needs point of view), they are harder to reach. And, even when Apple is able to reach them, they will most likely be skeptical to spend their Dollars, Euros or what ever other currency.

Because of this target group, my guess is that, although the initial sales of the iPad in 60 (WiFi) and 90 (3G) days will be successful (it’s a very sleek and cool-to-own device), growth will be slow in the first, lets say, 3 years. After that I predict iPads and similar competing products will grow in market size faster, taking a large stake of the ‘lightweight’ computing market (which also includes Netbooks) beyond 2015.

The iPad is a revolution in disguise because …

The Digirati failed to recognize it as a significant disruption, while in fact the iPad aims to bring digital media consumption and lightweight computing to a much broader audience.
It will lead a ‘slow’ disruption, it’s not almost instant, as we have witnessed with the iPhone. The iPad is targeted to people who aren’t early adoptors or technology savvy, it will take time for them to start using the iPad and future competing devices.
It won’t save the print media industry, as many hoped, but will show to be an essential element in what this industry needs to survive.
It won’t kill the eReader, but paves the way to a more advanced device, optimized for consuming all kind of media, including eBooks.
We haven’t seen the full potential of native iPad applications yet

I hope you enjoyed this hyper-lengthy post. I’m looking forward to your feedback! Also let me know if I need to add a specific link to a topic I touched upon that someone else wrote a good post about.

Smartphones 2010-2011: It’s not only about Apple vs. Google, but also about relevance shifting away from Microsoft and Nokia

Freddy Snijder — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:03:29 +0000

Robert Scoble wrote an interesting post, asking: ‘Is the mobile tech press wrong in positioning Apple vs. Google?’ He poses that, although, Apple and Google are competitors it’s currently actually about the divide between Web-and-app-friendly devices and non-web-and-app-friendly devices. His thesis is that companies that make web-and-app friendly devices ‘will steal market share from those that do not and a confused strategy, like Nokia has, is going to look mixed because consumers will go with a company like Apple or Google who has said “we’re all in.”’

I think Scoble could be right that there is a divide. On one side there are the innovative Google (Nexus One + Droid) smartphones and Apple iPhone, providing very user friendly access to-, and development for web browsing and applications, and on the other side the other smart phones out there, notably Nokia, Windows Mobile OS based and RIM (Research-In-Motion) BlackBerry phones, that perform less in this respect.

However, looking at numbers calculated by AppleInsider.com on smart phone market shares (see chart below), I don’t think it will be a matter of Apple and Google stealing market share from other parties, but of low-growth or loss of market share in a growing market: in other words, other parties will lose some of their relevance. With this conclusion, the mobile tech press isn’t wrong in positioning Apple vs. Google, but some might indeed forget the shift in relevance from Nokia, Microsoft, and to lesser extent RIM BlackBerry, to Apple and Google.

Source: Canalys. 2009 unit figures calculated from reported market share. Numbers were calculated and published by AppleInsider.com

Here are my quick & dirty predictions of what could happen with smart phone market shares in 2010-2011:

The overall smart phone market will grow further. The web has become more and more the application platform for consumers in daily life. Especially Apple, with Google catching up, has enabled this vision with user-friendly access to the web and its applications. Consumers love it, it fulfills their needs of modern digital life and price points for low-end smart phones could go down, implying that more consumers will choose to buy one in the future.
Google Droid and Nexus One phones will catch up with Apple in market share. The Nexus One (used by Google to push its innovative mobile Internet services), the ability to choose different carriers through the Google online mobile store, and the future 3rd party smart phones based on the same software as the Nexus One, will make Google catch up. Beyond 2011 I could even imagine that it’s market share will be even be bigger than that of Apple, simply because it will have a whole range of phones and because Google has an open system and free applications in the cloud.
Depending on the severity of the problems such as mentioned by Scoble, the growth of smart phone sales for Nokia and Microsoft Windows Mobile OS based devices could slow down or even halt. Microsoft will have to show that it’s new Mobile OS version 7 is a worthy competitor (I have my doubts).
RIM BlackBerry sales could continue to grow steadily with the growth of the overall market. Although Scoble signals problems with development for BlackBerry applications, RIM has shown spectacular sales growth in recent years. I can imagine corporate workers will still love their BlackBerry and won’t easily switch. Likely, to them the web applications are a welcome addition, having less applications than e.g. for the iPhone is not a deal breaker.

So, instead of Apple and Google stealing market share from other parties in the smart phone market, they (especially Google) will benefit from the overall growth of the market. Nokia and Microsoft will likely benefit much less from this growth and thus their relative market share declines, making them less relevant (although Nokia will remain a large party in the market). RIM BlackBerry will also grow with the market but not as spectacular as Google and Apple do. In 2011 and beyond Google could turn out to be the big winner in smart phone land.

The evolution of technology products and their markets are usually very non-linear and thus hard to predict, but that’s part of the fun! Can you agree with above analysis and predictions?

The Synaptic Web ‘upgrad[es] the web to a machine learning stage’

Freddy Snijder — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:36:47 +0000

Fantastic image, published at Wired.com, of connected neurons in the cereberal cortex that are involved in higher-thought processes and perception of different senses. Image: Tamily A. Weissman

A few days ago I asked @preona, in a short post on my Three Tweets blog, if he could explain to his readers why he thinks the synaptic web paradigm is so focused on the user.

@preona replied with a post: ‘Why we think Synaptic Web will focus on the user.’

I would shortly summarize @preona’s answer as follows:

The Synaptic Web ‘upgrad[es] the web to a machine learning stage’ helping users to ‘get the important information for them first, without having to distinguish and apply their own patterns daily as we do currently.’

Here, our own daily patterns are our modern daily information processing routines of searching, digesting, augmenting and forwarding information.

In my understanding these daily processing patterns are slowly encoded into the web through the connections you make with (specific) other users and the strengths of these connections, effectively creating the Synaptic Web. This encoding could be harvested and used to find relevant information for users automatically.

Thanks for your efforts to answer my question @preona!