Two weeks ago on TechCrunch I posted “The Facebook Imperative,” which posed a simple question, “Why isn’t all enterprise software like Facebook?” It was the next iteration of the question I asked in 1999 that spawned salesforce.com, “Why isn’t all enterprise software like Amazon.com.” If you have read my book, Behind The Cloud, you are well aware how that one question launched a company, and a movement.
I agree with Marc Benioff that enterprise 2.0 needs to become people-centric, instead of being document-centric or task-centric. I also agree that Salesforce Chatter is likely to be a big driver of this shift.
I have the US version of the Kindle. It has more than 100 books on it and I totally love the paper-like reading experience.
When I was in Washington DC, I could download books from the Amazon Kindle Store directly to my Kindle, in seconds, through the wireless service. I remember a one-week Spring Break trip to Miami when I downloaded and read half a dozen books on my Kindle while I was sitting on the beach. When I moved back, the only books I carried with me were the ones on my Kindle.
Since I have moved back to India, I have been downloading the books to my laptop and transferring them to the Kindle. I have also realized that physical books in India are cheaper than books in the US, so the $5-10 savings from buying a $9.99 Kindle book instead of a $20 hardcover doesn’t always hold in India. Still, since I already have the Kindle, I continue to buy all my books from the Kindle store. Read More
Over the last year, I have had to explain how social media works to diplomats, defense officials, and academics and students focused on fields as diverse as international affairs, management and sociology.
I have found that first-timer find social media confusing because of two reasons.
The first reason is the excessive focus on specific social media tools. Many first-timers are introduced to social media via specific tools. Many ’social media experts’ who are practitioners rather than thinkers also focus on specific tools. Since social media encompasses many different types of tools, and each tool has specific characteristics and a steep learning curve, a toolkit approach can quickly become overwhelming. Blogging (Wordpress), microblogging (Twitter), video-sharing (YouTube), photo-sharing (Flickr), podcasting (Blog Talk Radio), mapping (Google Maps), social networking (Facebook), social voting (Digg), social bookmarking (Delicious), lifestreaming (Friendfeed), wikis (Wikipedia), and virtual worlds (Second Life) are all quite different from each other and new and hybrid tools are being introduced almost everyday. Mastering each tool individually seems like a lot of work and a lot of people give up even before they begin. Read More
Speaking in the context of the dotcom meltdown, Jeff Bezos says that while it’s tempting to see the Internet using the California Gold Rush analogy, it’s more useful to apply the electricity analogy.
Both electricity and internet are thin horizontal enabling layers that go across multiple industries. The web applications we have seen so far are, in fact, similar to the first wave of electric appliances. For instance, just like web applications use the physical network infrastructure laid out for long distance telecommunications, the first wave of electrical appliances used the electric network laid out for the light bulb. So, it’s only to be expected that web applications, like the first electrical appliances, will include both life changing innovations and amusing failures.
I believe that Jeff Bezos’ conclusion in 2003 — “there’s more innovation ahead of us than behind us” — is equally valid in 2008, and that’s true for both the protocol/ platform and the application/ user interface layers. Which is a good thing, especially for those of us who missed both the dotcom and the web 2.0 booms. Read More
Quick Summary: Be a part of social media history: buy the one-of-a-kind ‘The Age of Conversation’ collaborative book on Amazon today and the proceeds will go to Variety, the children’s charity.
- 100 authors. We’re a few but need more.
- The overriding topic is “The Age of Conversation” — where you take it is up to you.
- The items are short – one 8.5″ x 11″ page — it can be words, diagrams, photos (again up to you) If it is words – about 400, give or take a couple.
- We write it quickly and get it out there. We publish electronically.
- We make it available online for a small fee and we donate 100% of the proceeds to Variety — the children’s charity.
Over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators responded to their call, resulting in a unique one-of-a-kind project, which first became an e-book, then a self-published book on Lulu, and now a potential best-seller on Amazon. Read More
As Google becomes to the Internet what IBM was to mainframe computing and Microsoft to personal computing, the Googlezon (Google + Amazon) dominated future as depicted in EPIC 2014, a faux 2004 documentary, already looks real.
I build and nurture online communities as CEO of 2020 Social. In my previous avatars, I have studied at IIM Bangalore, held senior marketing roles at the Tata Group, taught social media at Georgetown University as the 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellow, and co-founded election monitoring platform Vote Report India.
3. Ask me how2020 Social can help you build and nurture online communities to connect your customers, partners and employees, catalyze collaboration and innovation, and drive loyalty and advocacy.
