Sunday, December 27, 2009

Predictions about the Future

Yogi Berra is reputed to have said that it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. yes, this is the time of year that we do just that, especially where this is the end of a decade - a most remarkable decade.

Ten years ago, the iMac had 64 mg of RAM and a 10 gig memory. Most people did not have broadband internet. Smartphones with built-in cameras had not yet been invented.

In ten years time, powerful personal computers will be unnecessary because computing will be done in the cloud. Data will be freely available in many forms. Probably raw data with some context built into it. Data that people will be able to analyze and make their own conclusions. Analysts and investors will be a good example, where they will have the use of tools like XBRL which allow customized data to be transpoorted across platforms and analyzed without the benefit of standard reports like balance sheets and income statements. It will be a new era in ten years time.

At least that's the way it looks now. But then, Yogi Berra had a point.

For some more predictions and ruminations see this article.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Technology Can Bridge Marketing and Sales

Technology can be a major help in marketing campaigns, some would say an indispensable part of modern marketing. However, in order for a marketing program to work well, there must be some conmmmonality of thinking between marketing and sales. Otherwise, the leads and ideas that marketing feeds to sales will be misinterpreted, resented or even ignored. This is an old problem, but technology can help in providing a forum through which marketing and sales can communicate and provide input and feedback on an ongoing basis. It's an element of technology use that makes good sense. For more follow this link.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Facebook's new Privacy Policy

Is Facebook having trouble getting it right? This week, Facebook launched their new privacy policy and procedures. Users were faced with a tool that asked them to choose the levels of privacy they would allow regarding key parts of their information, such as email addresses, phone numbers and addresses.

The new approach is running into some criticism from critics, who say that the defaults on the new policy open up the availability of the information, which means the user needs to take specific action to restrict access. Some feel it should be the other way around.

Others point out that Facebook had touted the new policy as tightening the security around individual privacy, but that the policy tends instead to extend availablility, in some cases to the entire web.

Maybe there is a need for some tweaking. Here's one take on the situation.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

An Open Standard for E-Readers?

E-Readers, such as the kindle are selling like hot cakes, yet the very existence of a proprietary standard for such devices is unsustainable. People don't want to have to buy 5 different e-readers just to read the books they purchase from different suppliers.

In a move that is definitely in the right direction, the top magazine publishers have entered into a deal to support a common open standard platform for their magazines. Clearly, this is to the benefit of the consumers - the magazine readers.

While this new open standard appears to be restricted to magazines, hopefully a similar open standard will emerge for book e-readers as well. Then watch e-reading take off!

For an article on the magazine publishers' initiative, see this article.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Government Policies and Social Media

It seems the US government and no doubt other governments are using social media as a useful tool to investigate people and capture criminals. This carries some concerns as most people are innocent of any wrongdoing and in the non-cyberworld, long established safeguards are in place to secure the privacy and presume the innocence of ordinary citizens. In the cyberworld, however, such steps are not really in place. Although one would hope that the same safeguards would extend to the cyber-environment, the question is - do they? It would seem that clearer policies would be worth considering.

For more on this issue, check out this article. Also there is a white paper on Government and Social media available for free (for a limited time) download from Information week.

Friday, November 27, 2009

The Universality of Broadband

Here's an interesting social question. Should we take the necessary steps in society to make broadband universally available?

It's an important question, because the continued growth and success of our economy depends on technology and broadband is the core of modern technology. Access to high speed internet improves access to information, enables better education and promotes higher levels of productivity. These advantages cut across all sectors of the economy, albeit to different degrees. Generally, people with higher incomes make good use of broadband. those with lower incomes do not. Lack of universality of broadband access therefore promotes the digital divide - the growing economic disparities in society brought about by access to technology. It's a chicken an egg situation. People without broadband are at an economic disadvantage, in their education and in their jobs. They tend to become lower income, and therefore can't afford broadband or the equipment to make use of it. People in poverty can't afford broadband and therefore have yet another impediment to improving their lot in life.

Should the government step in to develop policies for universal access to broadband? There have been sporadic attempts to do this, but not a comprehensive carefully defined policy. The question has been likened to the initiatives during the industrial revolution to make road access available to everyone. Broadband is the new road system, just as essential to the e-economy as roads were to the i-economy. It needs to be approached that way.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The Opportunity, A Novel

A new novel - The Opportunity, by Gerald Trites, has just been published. The novel involves the high tech industry and has an e-business backdrop. It centers on a complex merger in the high tech industry. It is available from Amazon.com and, in Canada, from BlackAvon Books.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

CRM Failure

Customer Relationship Systems are large systems that take a lot of time and resources to properly implement and then operate. They are in the same league as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and the size and scope of some of the failures with these systems are legendary.

Some failures, however, are not as dramatic or obvious as the more famous implementation failures. Sometimes, the new system comes into production, and then the users work with it and it can take a long time before the realization creeps in that the system is not delivering on its promise, perhaps that it is draining the enterprise of its resources and not delivering results.

This calls for ongoing vigilence and the implementation of evaluation systems, carried out by groups with a degree of independence from the implementation, to determine whether the system needs to be tweaked or even replaced.

An article in E-Commerce News addresses this issue for CRM systems and offers some practical advice.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

International E-Tailing

Selling internationally is a benefit of the internet. However it also carries risks, as international fraud is high. So precautions are in order, as well as using the best of the international marketing sites and services to help share the risk. This article takes a quick look at this arena, and offers up some sound advice.

Friday, November 13, 2009

That Blinkin E-Mail

Most people find e-mail management frustrating, at least some of the time and in many cases virtually all of the time. It just keeps flooding in, and much of it is stuff you don't really want to read, at least right now, but have subscribed to because it comes form an area of interest and might be useful in the future. So we sort through it and file it appropriately.

What if this process were automated. Just think how much time it would save.

The first reaction to this idea is that - is there any system out there we could trust to sort it accurately? The fact is, some of those messages are important, indeed crucial to our jobs. So we need to find out quickly which are important and which aren't.

One idea being floated is that we can learn from some of the techniques used in social networks. They often enable messages to be built into searchable databases. They have approval systems (thumbs up/thumbs down) that help to shape the messages received.

Google Mail does some of this, but sorts the messages by conversation. Google Wave has some promise, primarily for collaborative situations, but is untried. There are other possible tools, though. Check out the suggestions in this article.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Online Shopping

We still hear about shoppers who are afraid of online shopping because of security concerns. Some of this fear is fed by prominent stories in the media about identity theft, credit card fraud and phishing. many of the fears are overblown.

The fact is, online shopping is safer than ever before. Website security is well established. Payment card companies have adopted new and better means of authentication. Encryption techniques are commonly used and with modern systems and browsers, need not slow down transactions.

True, shoppers still need to be aware of the danger of fraud, fake sites, and phishing and hacking. However, many people these days have the basic level of "web smarts" to be able to tell when something is not right..

Online shopping has been a growing industry. Each year sees significant increases in the volume and this year it is likely to grow again. Hopefully the numbers of people who are deterred by security concerns is diminishing. Here's an article on this topic with more detail.

Monday, November 09, 2009

Facebook Responds to Canada's Privacy Commissioner

Facebook has recently posted changes to its privacy policy in response to an investigation by the Office of the Privacy commissioner of Canada. That investigation identified a number of instances where Facebook privacy policy did not meet Canadian rulkes, For example, the Canadain legislation is clear about the requirement to fully inform users of why their information is being collectedd and what will be done with it. Facebook has had policies that were vague in this department. They also had a policy of retaining information for deleted accounts, which users did not necessarily know about. Their argument was that the users might wish to reinstate their accounts in future. However, the users have a right to have the information deleted if they wish.

A good writeup on this development is found on InternetNews.

Friday, November 06, 2009

Paypal - A Success Story

There have been some remarkable success stories in eCommerce over the past ten years, but few overshadow that of Paypal. Starting out as simple way for people to pay for goods on palm pilots, it was bought by eBay, and  has grown into a full service online payment system accepting most major credit cards and serving almost 80 million people today. Now it is positioned to outgrow eBay itself - a remarkable achievement. More of the story can be found on Technology Review.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Perils of Internet Phone Systems

We've been saying for years that the phone systems of the country are going to end up on the internet. this has been happening especially over the past couple of years, with many businesses buying into this relatively less expensive option, as well as its convenience. However, as with other business applications moving to the internet it carries with it new security challenges. Now the risks are beginning to surface and some companies are not ready for the challenge. Check out this write-up on the issue.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Word of Mouth Marketing

Marketing through word of mouth, referrals from happy customers, for example, has long been a most effective technique for many businesses. People are more likely to be convinced by someone who has had a positive experience with a company than by an impersonal image on TV.

The past few years have seen a growth in social media and, what is more important, a change in the demographics of the users of social media. Research now shows that over 35-year-olds now form a major component of social media users. Something like Twitter is a means of reaching out in a word of mouth fashion. Re-tweets can extend the message to a wider audience. Media like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Flickr, Digg, etc all offer the opportunity to advertise by word of mouth. It's the new way and many companies are picking up on it. A good article on this topic is found in E-Commerce News.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Now its the Nook

Barnes & Noble has announced a new e-reader - The Nook - to compete with the Kindle. it advances the technology by adding in an LCD screen as well as one based on the e-ink technology. the biog advantage of this is that it adds colour, which is not yet available with e-ink. That could make a difference with consumers.

E-readers are the wave of the future for books, but there does need to be more maturity in the technology., All these different readers will not be helpful to the consumer. They stand at risk of spending a still significant amount of money to buy one of them only to find out after a few months that it has been overcome by one of the other products. Also, newer ones are coming out, notably the expected release from Apple, which is almost certain to be a major event. And the price is going to go way down. Another year will make all the difference for e-readers. And we are waiting with bated breath for that new Apple product.

Friday, October 16, 2009

The Future of Books
by Gerald Trites

Google has announced the formation of a business - Google Editions - to sell electronic books that can be read on a number of devices. It represents an attempt to capitalize on their recent efforts at digitizing books in unprecedented quantities. In this new business, they say they will only be distributing books with the permission of the copyrightholder, where the copyright has not expired.

Google stands in a good place to offer direct and strong competition to Amazon and other publishers. Electronic readers are starting to take off. So far, they constitute as much as 5% of the total market. This is sometimes touted as a small percentage, but remember, good readers like the Kindle have only just started and are still expensive. It costs almost as much to buy a Kindle as it does to buy a desktop computer. This will change. Eventually, readers like the Kindle will be sold for perhaps $20 or perhaps given away in return for the purchase of books. Others are coming out with readers, like Apple. Smart phones are getting smarter and have a lot more power and storage space. It isn't hard to imagine smart phones impinging into the e-reader market.

Eventually, the electronic books market will be the majority of the book market. There seems little doubt about that. Google is placing itself in the market at an excellent time - just when the field is starting to heat up. For more, see this article.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Collaboration Pays Off

A recent survey carried out globally, sponsored by Cisco and Verizon, shows that collaboration results in more effective sales efforts and better customer relations. The survey took a broad definition of collaboration, and included the use of tools such as video and audio conferencing, VOIP and instant messaging.

Collaboration has been a feature of eBusiness for years, but it continues to pay dividends to companies, who have constantly employed a variety of collaboration techniques to strengthen their business and extend its boundaries beyond its traditional limits.

Interestingly, some of the new collaboration techniques include desktop video conferencing, which is suitable for a moblie workforce and holds a lot of promise. We'll be hearing more about that. For a write up on the survey see this article.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Canadian Wireless System Needs a Fix
by Gerald Trites

Canada has one of the most regressive and outdated wireless systems in the world. Generally. Canada is a technologically sophisticated country but in the wireless area, this does not apply.

Canadians pay the price in cell phone bills, the outdated practice of requiring contracts to obtain cell phones, the lack of availability of spectrum to more providers and the outmoded system of regulation.

True, more spectrum has been made available to some new competitors in the wireless area, and we are all waiting impatiently for them to arrive (at least consumers in selected areas are because the first ventures into the market will be limited to certain areas like Toronto). But this is something that should have been done years ago.

The big problem has been lack of competition, and still the arena is dominated by just three companies - Rogers, Telus and Bell. This is simply not competition, is oligarchic at best and not in the best interests of the consumer. The government and regulators seem to know this, but are bound by the old regulatory system which takes years to make simple rulings.

We see this not only in higher cell phone bills than most other areas of the developed world, like Asia and Europe, but in the availability of new technologies. We had to wait until the iPhone could be sold in Canada. We are having to wait for the arrival of the Kindle, because of issues among the carriers. We will have to wait for the arrival of future products such as the  forthcoming Reader from Apple, which will likely take the market by storm in other parts of the world and we will only be able to watch from the sidelines.

We also suffer from lack of online programming because of Canadian regulatory systems, such as the CRTC, which again is outdated and irrelevant. For example, Canadians cannot watch programming on Hulu.com for this very reason.

It's time the Canadian Government initiated a major reworking of the Canadian wireless and online programming regulatory framework. Canadians dsserve better.

For a good article on the Kindle issue, see this article in the Globe.

Friday, September 25, 2009

E-Textbooks - The Time is Now
by Gerald Trites

E-readers have been on the market for a while now and have been slowly growing in popularity. The biggest thing holding them back from a runaway market has been price. At $400 plus, they can't compete with traditional paperbacks. However, in the college textbook market, the situation is very different. University students have been paying prices in the range of $100 - $150 for traditional hard cover textbooks for years. Multiply that by five courses and two semesters and you have a lot of money.

Admittedly, the traditional textbooks are expensive to produce, but the cost is simply more than some students can bear. So they often try to go without, or share their books. This hurts their education, because you cannot become educated without reading, even in this digital age.

E-Book readers have the potential to change all that. There are different ways to get readers into the hands of the students without bankrupting them - through university bookstores, renting programs and used markets. Also, the price of the readers, like all new technologies, will be coming down over the next few years.

The textbook publishers need to give some serious consideration as to how they will proceed with this area. One thing they should not do is to each adopt their own unique protocol for the books. They need to be compatible across publishers. Students always have to purchase books from different publishers, and can't be expected to acquire six or seven different readers. So there needs to be standardization.

Also, the University Bookstores need to be empowered to sell the content. Not just for convenience, but for support.

In addition, the readers need to be compatible with other major readers, such as the Kindle, so the students can access other readings when they wish.

Use of e-readers by students could bring on a new wave of reading among young people. This is critical to education. A win-win-win for the publishers, the students and their professors. For an article on this emerging world of readers, see this article in Computerworld.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The Google World of Books
Gerald Trites

When Google announced a couple of years ago that they were going to digitize the world's books, a few eyebrows were raised. They began with all the books whose copyright had expired. Copyright laws vary, but in most countries, copyrights expire after a period of time, like 50 years, at which time they become part of the public domain. There can be exceptions, but this depends on the actions of the individual authors, if still alive, or their estates, or other interested people. So digitizing the books in the public domain is not really a big deal.

Then Google extended their realm to obtain the specific permission of copyright holders for books not in the public domain. Again, this was not too big a deal because it at least respected the rights of the authors.

A big change took place, when they proposed to digitize all books, and pay the authors part of the proceeds, with the provision that the authors could opt out if they wish. This was a significant change, because it put the onus on the authors to opt out rather than seeking their permission. It was a negative assurance approach to copyright law.

Although some groups support the idea because of the perceived advantages of having digitized books, many opposed it. One of the main arguments against it has been the fact that Google is essentially claiming full digital rights to these books, thus taking away a significant part of the copyright benefits of authors and publishers.

Of course it has been challenged in the courts and in a class action suit settlement last year, Google was granted the rights to digitize all out-of-print books, which covers many not in the public domain. The settlement essentially gives Google a monomoly over the digitization of books and tramples over the rights of authors, their heirs and traditional publishers. The US Department of Justice, which monitors things like concentration of economic power and monopolies, is concerned and has launched hearings. Most recently the head of the copyright division in the US has voiced opposition to the settlement.

This is a vastly important case. The attempts of Google to corner the market for digital books needs to be curtailed. The field needs to be left open to competition and competitive market forces. This is in the long run interests of everyone.

Information wants to be free. The internet makes that possible to a greater extent than ever before, but it must be recognized it will never all be free. Free market forces remain relevant. Placing a significant chunk of that information under the control of one large company is the absolute wrong way to go.

More on this in E-Commerce News.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

The Virtual Workplace

There is nothing new about employees working from home. It's been a growing element of the business world for years. New younger employees expect it. And it saves costs of such expensive accoutrements as office space and furniture. Some companies have gone to "hotelling" where no employees have fixed offices assigned to them, but reserve space when they need it.

Of course technology makes all this possible, especially high speed internet.

But the challenges remain and need to be addressed by companies. Since employees can't be supervised, they need to be managed by output. How is the output of employees measured? That's still a big issue for some employers. And then there is the question of security. How should the company-owned computer systems be configured to minimize risk of data leakage and hacking? Employees may be working at home or even in internet cafes on unprotected or poorly protected wireless networks. There is a need for policies and controls here. And likely encryption policies as well as Data Leakage solutions.

An excellent article on this topic, together with relevant links to helpful resources can be found on the E-Commerce Times Site.


Monday, September 07, 2009

The 3-D Web

Want to have a business meeting without having to pay for travel? It happens all the time, you say. How about if I add that all the participants - in virtual form - can be there around the virtual table. They can talk to each other and look at each other as they interact. It sure beats a teleconference, where you miss all the body language.

Something similar has been done with expensive teleconferencing systems in the past, where you can sit people at a meeting table, and then interact with others on a screen at the end of the room who are actually in a different room in another part of the world.

But the new 3D Web will make virtual conferencing possible for anyone with a web browser to participate. To create a 3D image of themselves and place it at the meeting table. To see and interact with the images of the others at the meeting.

Live Virtual meetings are just one aspect of the 3D Web soon to come our way. It will change the way we interact with each other, It will usher in a new Web and perhaps a new world. Read more in this article on Computerworld.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Basics of Starting an Online Business

Here's a basic but useful primer on what is needed to start an online business. It covers the technology end in an ioverview fashiopn. Of course there are lots of other matters to consider in starting any business, including things like form of organization - corporation of proprietorship - methods of recordkeeping and accounting, income tax consideration, and so on.
Ecom Primer: What You Need to Set Up Shop Online — eCommerce-Guide.com

Thursday, August 27, 2009

E-Commerce in Canada

Statistics Canada periodically reports on the state of e-commerce in Canada, with its last report issued in April, 2008 presenting stats on 2007. That report shows that e-commerce has continued to grow at double digit rates since the surveys began in 2003. It also shows that e-commerce is still a relatively small part of overall economic activity. The growth, however, will have its eventual impact. There is no question that e-commerce is a critical part of the activities of many, perhaps most, companies. Even if their core business is not internet based, their internet presence is often important. In fact, its a fair bet that the statistics issued by Statscan actually understate the situation. They take into account transactions consummated over the internet, but do not cover transactions started by the internet, through the use of websites for shopping and pre-buying research. That is an important aspect of e-commerce too. The Statscan reports can be found on Statscan's website.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Facebook Remodels its Business Model

Ever since the advent of the internet and the consequent growth of eBusiness, business models have been built, re-worked, scrapped and shaken up. Some internet startups began without a viable business model, forgetting that the old rules of bringing in more money than you spend still apply to internet based business.

Amazon is the major example of a company that has shaped and reshaped its business model with considerable success.

Now, Facebook is at it. Using its established Gift Shop, Facebook is expanding the range of goods available in its gift shop to the point of including real world gifts as well as the virtual gifts, like electronic logos and decals, it has handled all along. It has taken to selling its virtual gifts - icons - by having them sponsoered by celebrities, in this case Britney Spears.

Facebook also has its own currency, Facebook Credits, which can be used to buy gifts. The company is also going into the "banking" business, by encouraging the use of its "currency" to buy goods on other sites. It is expected that the new remodelled gift shop will generate an additional half million this year. Not a bad start.

Read more in this report on the new Facebook.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Television - A Dying Medium

A recent survey has found that online viewing of videos has doubled in the last three years, outstriping the growth in social media usage and reflecting the growth in availability of broadband internet in homes.

There is a trend, mentioned in the report on this survey, that people are starting to watch television programs online more often. While online availablility of programs is not yet to the point that TV can be replaced among the general population, nevertheless, it is a trend that is not going away. And will be a reality sooner rather than later.

Already some people have cancelled their cable subscriptions (I know this anecdotally but haven't seen a study on it yet)and are using their computers to view their favourite programming. Many of the networks are archiving their programs and of course they can be viewed at any time. CBC, for example, archives The National, and various of its other programs. National Geographic and Discovery channels, as examples, contain a lot of archived material. Archiving sonds like real old stuff, but in reality the archiving is often done the next day, and sometimes even in real time.

Numerous websites are popping up that offer TV viewing, such as Hulu and TV Anywhere. These are backed by TV Networks, meaning the networks see the writing on the wall.

Since the beginning of the internet revolution, we have been predicting a convergence of technologies. Convergence of TV and the internet is the next big step. IT's interesting to speculate whether what comes out the other end will look more like TVs or computers. The survey is reported on in Internetnews.com.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Pointless Babble on Twitter

A recent study carried out on Twitter tweets carried out by Pear Analytics, reports that 40% of the tweets on Twitter are pointless babble, where they tell people illuminations such as "I'm eating a sandwich now" Only 9% of the tweets were categorized as having pass-along value.

Hear! Hear!

Twitter can be a valuable source of information, but it can be difficult to wade through all the babble to find it. Hopefully this evolves. Here's a good report on the Study.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Why SOA Projects Fail

There have been a number of SOA projects that have run into implementation issues. Recent research seems to indicate that the main issues are around people. This is no surprise. The main stumbling block for all major types of IT project over the years has been people. The problems that companies ran into with ERP implementations have mostly all involved people problems - lack of involvement at the outset, lack of proper training, resistance to change, poor management buy-in or control, fear of job losses. All of those are factors being mentioned with SOA projects. No surprise there. See this article in IT World.

Monday, August 10, 2009

The Aging Facebook Community

If anyone ever doubted that older people (55+) - lets call them the boomers - are becoming a greater part of the Facebook community, the latest statistics from IStrategyLabs should remove that doubt. While there are questions about the numbers and some issues around the data,(for example, missing data if it is left out by the users)nevertheless, it confirms a growth in the 55+ group. An increase of 24.9 % among US Facebook users during the past month alone. Previous surveys have also shown notable increases. This trend, if sustained, will have a major impact on the nature of Facebook. Will it scare the young ones away? Time will tell. See the survey at the Businessweek site.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Denial of Service Attacks

Recently, Twitter experienced a denial of service attack that seriously impeded its service. DofS attackes have been one of the most common malicious attacks by hackers for years. For a brief bu cogent description of what they are and how they work, see this article in Technology Review. Also, it's useful to check out this article in Wikipedia.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Canadian Copyright Law
by Gerald Trites

The Copyright Act, last amended in 1997, is hopelessly out of debate. The world has changed since then, and has especially changed with regard to the way information is handled and, more importantly, the way people view it. A saying that came out of the information revolution says that "Information wants to be free". Many people, especially those of the younger generation, feel strongly about this. And yet we have new companies, like Google, making billions of dollars on selling information or otherwise building business models that profit from it.

Many traditional industries have been fighting for their lives, notably the music industry and latterly the Movie video industry. The book industry is heading into a revolution of its own, not to mention the newspaper industry. All of these industries need to change their business models to adapt to these new social attitudes about information and still stay in business. Indeed, without some kind of copyright protection, some and perhaps a good deal of, the information products these industries produce would disappear because there would be no profit motive for the preparers, like the artists, musicians and writers.

Reforming the copyright will not be an easy job. Some of the new attidutes are legitimate and endowed with the force of new technologies. Others are not. But is is a job that needs to be done. An article in the Globe and Mail points to some of the issues.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Spot SPAM Before it Hits the Mail Server?

"New software developed at the Georgia Institute for Technology can identify spam before it hits the mail server. The system, known as SNARE (Spatio-temporal Network-level Automatic Reputation Engine), scores each incoming e-mail based on a variety of new criteria that can be gleaned from a single packet of data. The researchers involved say the automated system puts less of a strain on the network and minimizes the need for human intervention while achieving the same accuracy as traditional spam filters." Read more on Technology Review. Spam continues to be a major problem, and there needs to be found a new and better way to control it. This approach, while it might not be the final solution, may be heading in the right direction.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Twits and Twitter
by Gerald Trites

Twitter, that upstart microblogging service, that allows short messages of 140 characters, has been both praised and derided since its inception. Some say it is the new wave of internet based communications and others say it is a waste of time and we don't need to know when someone is going to brush their teeth.

There is no doubt that some people misuse twitter by posting every little irrelevant detail of their lives, just as some do with other social media like Facebook. However, Twitter is beginning to find its place in the eBusiness world, and it may be a permanent and useful place.

Twitter has just released a new book called Twitter 101, which outlines the main benefits of Twitter. One of them is for customer relations, and they recount some stories where Twitter has played a role in converting prospects to sales. Dell is one of the companies cited, and in fact Dell has been a leader in the use of Twitter. One of their interesting uses has been in the Investor Relations area, where Twitter is being used for such events as the announcement of quarterly earnings. It's not a prime vehicle for such news, but a useful adjunct.

Social media is becoming a staple for companies to communicate and interact with their stakeholders. While there will continue to be experimentation, as there was with the internet in the beginning, some very useful and perhaps profitable, applications are almost certain to emerge. You can download Twitter 101 by going to this site.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Web Analytics

There is a great article on web analytics in the E-Commerce News which explains how analytics has boosted and perhaps made possible the survival of e-commerce by making advertising more effective than traditional print ads. Read it here.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The Internet Wars, Stage One
by Gerald Trites

There is a war starting that is going to change the way companies use the internet, or, more accurately, the way they allow their employees to use the internet.

A young generation is entering the workforce who has used the internet from the time they could talk. It is such a part of their life it is pretty much an extension of their personna. They use social network sites and other sites, yes, even news sites, like they breathe, talk and walk.

A great many companies and other organizations, on the other hand, have for years placed tight restrictions on the use of the internet, some would say unnecessary, even draconian restrictions. This is done in the name of security and safety, and in the name of keeping people's nose to the grindstone and not allowing them to goof off on the net during working hours.

The clash has been predicted by several writers and thinkers - Tapscott and others. But it is now a reality that is shaking up the established order.

The companies need to change their ways. For one thing, the internet is not as unsafe as they make it out to be. Lots of measures are now available to reasonably protect from the obvious threats, like viruses and hackers. For another thing, people can be more productive if given a little leeway as to how they use their time. And - and this is important - they can have more fun in the process.

The internet generation doesn't necessarily have the same time split between work time and personal time either. Word is they are willing to work all hours - and play all hours too. They want some freedom on how they use their time.

Every generation brings its own perspective to the table and sometimes changes the world - they always have that potential. The internet generation, not surprisingly, has a perspective on internet usage that the employers are going to have to listen to. And its high time they made a few changes in their outdated and repressive technology policies.

Two articles in today's news highlight this developing war. One, in Technology Review, tells of the experience of a twenties something, who found his new employer so out of touch, he moved on to a newer one. The other is an article reported on in the Globe and Mail published originally by Morgan Stanley authored by a 15 year old intern they hired for the summer that explains a teen's take on technology use. An article that does not contain a lot of revelation but is nevertheless attracting a lot of attention because it represents a voice of the new generation.

Listen up, corporate technology bosses!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Mobile Business Models
by Gerald Trites

Smart phones like iPhones and advanced models of the Blackberry have become common. The mobile internet is a reality and soon to become the norm. The question that arises is what exactly will it be used for over the next few years and how can the carriers and others make money on it?

To date, the carriers have made money on internet usage and email by heavy, sometimes exorbitant charges for data downloading. However, this approach has been wearing thin with consumers, prompting the carriers to initiate programs like unlimited email. As data usage increases, they are going to have to eliminate this approach altogether because people are not going to pay through the nose for their data when they can get it for free on the regular internet.

New applications for smart phones are coming out almost daily. They include a lot of social media usage, including facebook, twitter, Google talk, Yahoo and Youtube. This might be expected, since text messaging has been one of the most popular uses of cell phones for years and most social media is based on social interaction.

Again, people are used to using social media for free, which means there is no reason to expect they would be happy paying for it on the mobile internet. So carriers are in a bind, they can't charge heavily for the data transmissions and they can't charge for the usage either. That leaves advertising revenue as the most viable business model. Advertisers will be/are keen to get in on it too, adding to the viability.

The referenced article in the Globe and Mail explores this issue, and points out that Google is well positioned in this area, since they have been so good at developing advertising based models on the internet. Chalk up another one for the big G

Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Kindle or Paper
by Gerald Trites

It seems the sales of Amazon's Kindle are not exactly taking the world by storm. This despite the fact many people are accustomed to reading electronic print, and the Kindle really does make it easier on the eyes than normal computer monitors. What's the problem, then?

Likely, its the price = $359 each, now reduced to $299. Readers are faced with a decision when they want a book to read. They can buy the book off the stand in their local bookstore for, say $20 or they can order up a Kindle from Amazon and hope that they will then be able to download the book for a further price. Big expenditure plus uncertainty equals not buying.

Add to that the fact that people are comfortable with reading paper books, that we are in a recession where an unnecessary expenditure of $300 matters, and you have a further disincentive to buy. Add to that the fact that people know from experience that new technologies usually go down in price, often quite radically. Why buy today at $300 when in a matter of months it may be possible to buy for $50?

What should Amazon do? Should they reduce their price further, tough it out until the recession ends or revise their business model?

Probably the latter is in order. The idea of selling a device like the Kindle for a profit is a tough one. They need to consider alternatives around pricing packages that include various books and effectively sell the device with content that will appeal to people. After all, its the content that people are interested in, not the device itself. People don't go to the grocery store to buy an empty bag. It's the groceries in the bag they want.

Cutting prices probably won't be enough.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Building a Small Business Website
by Gerald Trites, FCA

It has long been a problem for small business. Website construction often has required technical expertise that many small business entrepreneurs don't have. Its just that their skills lie in other areas and they don't have the time to deal with the complexities and technicalities involved.

There are tools out there that can make it easier, and a number of Content Management Tools in particular, but even these tend to be expensive and require specialized expertise to implement.

There are, however, some newer tool suites available that are specifically designed to address this issue. They still require some time to work with, but they can work with less effort than most other previous stategies.

A notable one is an offering by Microsoft, called Office Live for Small Business. This site offers website design, custom domain names, email and document storage, mostly for free. Charges for the services that are not free are minimal.

Another site called Yola, (formerly Synthasite) offers up tools for free website design and some related services.

Other useful services for small business involve document management and lead generation software and those are coming available in forms that are increasingly easy to use and inexpensive. There is more in this article from E-Commerce News.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

IT Innovation - Looking For Outside Help

Innovation has become a critical ingredient for success. This holds particularly true in the field of Information Technology, where change is rapid and sweeping. Many companies have had difficulty keeping up, and sometimes run out of ideas to solve their needs and resolve problems.

As a result, some companies are looking to Innovation Networks. These are essentially alliances that focus on issues faced by its members, and seek out ideas for resolving them. The idea has worked in many cases, because it brings in more brain power, along with people from diverse cultural backgrounds and experience. Collaboration is one of the defining characteristics of modern society and Innovation Networks fit this model well.

Wharton recently had a conference on this trend, and some commentary of the results are posted on the Knowledge@Wharton Website.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Mobile Technology

Many experts agree that cell/smart phones wil be the dominant means of connecting to the internet in future. They could also become a dominant means of payment at stores, kiosks, etc. Two things need to happen. The software for the phones needs to improve. For example, search engines on phones are poor right now. However, new software is coming out that will change all that. There is even a fledgling start at the use of voice recognition software that will enable people to search the net by speaking into the phone. That is bound to be popular, when it becomes good enough. The other thing that needs to happen is that people need to accept this use of phones. They already do in Europe and Asia. But North America has been lagging in this area. Nevertheless, the European and Asian experience shows that people will accept these new usages of phones, so when the new tools and softwware come to market, watch for a big change in the way we interact with the web. This month, Technology Review has a special section on Mobile Technology that discusses these and more issues.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Twitter is taking the business world by storm, but people are jumping in without understanding what Twitter is and what the risks are. One of the risks is that a tweet could cost the Twit's (which Twitter users are known as) job. Another perhaps more critical one is that tweets might compromise a company, from a competitive or security viewpoint. An interesting article in CIO Today spells out some of the pros and cons of Twittering in business.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

The Slow Death of Books
by Gerald Trites

Slowly, inevitably, books are becoming obsolete. Advances in technology are wreaking their damage, and sometime in the future - five years, ten years, books will be sold only in musty, dingy little stores on side streets and back alleys, perhaps in Art Galleries. They will be bought as historical art or as collectors items, not as critical elements of modern communications.

There has long existed two basic kinds of reading - informational and recreational. Informational reading means reading a book simply to get information that might be needed to perform a task or to build something. It includes most newspaper content, textbooks, most business books, how-to books, reference books, and so on. Recreational reading includes reading novels, poetry, any reading that is done for relaxation or for an artistic experience.

Informational reading is already a dying activity. The internet has seen to that. Google has delivered the final coup de gras. It's just so much easier to find information on the web than it is to find the right book, buy or borrow it and search through the pages for the desired facts. Informational books still exist, but they are no longer an economically viable form of information delivery.

Recreational reading has been dying a slower and, to many, a more painful death. There are still many people who love the idea of "curling up" with a good book. TV off. Computer off. No noise. Existing in a more elemental and satisfying world. Transported to another world created by a creative author, but largely accomplished by ones own imagination rather than by the blare and screech of technology.

But even this last sanctuary of the Gutenburg era is suffering the blast of technological development. Digital readers like the Kindle, new technologies that port digital text onto paper-like materials, a mass of new portable devices, very popular with a mobile and increasigly technological savvy society are all conspiring to bring about the demise of paper based recreational reading material.

The purveyors of the paper books are suffering increased economic dificulty, finding their old business models, as with so many other industries, just don't work any more. Some of them will be able to make the transition to a technological world. Many others will simply disappear.

Some of the populace will miss the old musty paper world. Most will not. The new technologies will offer up a neater and more versatile product. And a more convenient one. People will still read, but in a non linear fashion as they do now with informational reading, jumping from one area of interest to another through links of commonality. From War and Peace to Gone with the Wind to a History of the Crimean War. Treating knowledge as they have information, as a product to be consumed on demand and integrated with all other knowledge rather than consumed discretely. A new world created by the reader, not by the author.

A commentary on the difficulties facing publishing can be found in the London Times Online this week.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Gone Fishing
by Gerald Trites

Social networks have posed a new opportunity for many people, to keep in touch with friends, to network for business, to collaborate, to showcase, to message and converse. They have also presented an oppportunity for thieves.

That's because many people post their vacation plans on places like Facebook. And they like to post entries from whever they are - whether it be Paris or New York or wherever they can get an internet connection. "Having a wonderful time in London - We'll be back home in ten days."

A thief could read that, look up the vacationers' home address on any number of sites, get the directions to go there on Google Earth and head out. Numerous people have found their house broken into on their return. Sometimes, there is evidence that the break-in was a professional job (select items gone, house not ransacked), which indicates that there's a burgeoning industry out there.

It's something to keep in mind, when making arrangements to have the lawn mowed, stopping the paper delivery, and taking all those other precautions when going away for a while.

The less information we publish on the internet, the better. Check out this article on Technology Review.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

NYC iSchool

A new educational movement in New York City transforms the educational system from the Gutenberg era to the age of the Internet. It engages the students much more effectively and may be the way of the future. Watch this video.
Social Marketing
by Gerald Trites

Social networking, such as Facebook, is entering into mainstream business with some interesting twists. One of these is the idea of social marketing, where social networks are utilized to monitor and channel group opinions and views towards a particular product. It's a major change from the classic approach to advertising. Arguably it isn't advertising at all, but a new way to utilize online communities to make others aware of your product in a way that is more credible than using your own voice. In other words, let others speak for you.

Combine this approach with social mapping tools, such as Loomia, that enable sophisticated trend mapping, and you have a powerful marketing tool.

A good article on social marketing can be found in Businessweek.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Speedsourcing

It was expected that the current recession would lead to an increase in outsourcing. Sure enough, it's happening. And there's even a name for it - speedsourcing. The idea is that outsourcing agreements are nailed down within a three month period by working out the major issues up front and tying down the details afterwards. Of course, deciding what needs to be done up front and what can be done later is a critical decision, and one wonders how well it is being made.

One of the issues that often gets shortchanged in approaches like speedsourcing is that of proper internal control. It's often not seen as on a critical path and, anyway, the auditors will look at it later.

Mistake.

Poor controls can undermine the whole process and cost heavily in the longer term. Companies had better make sure they cover it off well, preferably by having controls experts involved at the outset. A summary of Speedsourcing is found at the CIO.com site.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Google and Information Control

Google is famous for collecting data. The more of their products you use, the more information they have about you. They say they will not use that personal information, but then they are also famous for making innovative use of masses of data. No company in history has gathered so much information about people and the world in general. This in an age when information is at the core of economic and social activity. It gives google a lot of power - unprecedented power because they are in the drivers seat as to what they gather, how long they keep it, what they do with it. Of course, Google, like everyone else, must acknowledge privacy legislation. Well, maybe not quite like everyone else. There is an excellent and in depth article on this in the current Computerworld. Very much worth a read.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Cloud Computing and Moving Data
by Gerald Trites

There continues to be progress in the Cloud Computing arena, with a new application recently out, called Cloudkick, which enables the movement of data between Cloud applications run by different vendors, such as Amazon and Google. This will address one of the big concerns that many companies have, that is having their data tied up with one company. This means there can be a stronger element of competition in the Cloud, which is presently dominated by Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

The other side of the coin, however, is that the easy movement of data may complicate the control issues that have dominated IT management with regard to the movement of data across organizations, between applications and between companies. Also, data has moved on different platforms, notably small mobile devices, amaking it very difficult to avoid occasional data loss and the resultant privacy concerns.

It's nice to be able to move data around, for sure, but IT security administrators have to be cognizaant of the risks involved, and deal with them.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

eBooks on Cell Phones

We hear a lot about the Kindle and the inroads it is making into the book publishing industry. However, we hear less about the software that makes it possible to read eBooks on cell phones, especially smart phones with their larger screens.

Nevertheless, smart phones, like the Blackberry, are gaining in popularity, expecially, it seems, among higher income women. The beauty of using phones to read on is that there is nothing extra to carry around. You're going to have your phone with you anyway. And even though the screen is smaller and not as geared to reading as the Kindle, the convenience factor is obviously an important one to many. Not to mention the cost factor - not having to spend $300 plus on a new gadget. There's a rundown on this trend in Computerworld this week.

Friday, May 01, 2009

Cloud Computing and Cell Phones
by Gerald Trites, FCA

The idea of cloud computing and cell phones working together makes a lot of intuitive sense. Cell phones are becoming much more powerful and therefore are relied on by users for more complex tasks. However, compared to portable computing options like laptops, the computing power of cell phones fades to insignificance. The hardware and software is just to limited for serious work. So people are using them more for computing functions, but running into the barrier of size and power.

At the same time, the cloud is becoming much more prominent as a way to offload processing to applications on the internet, and therefore use the more powerful capabilities that can be invoked there. The cloud is almost unlimited in its potential.

Bringing the two - cell phones and the cloud - together would enable people to get the best of both worlds. The trouble is there has not yet been an effective way to do that. Cloud computing is geared for conventional computer networks, and cell phones are, well, cell phones.

All of this might change if a new proposal put forward by Byung-Gon Chun, a research scientist at Intel Research Berkeley, gains traction. Chun suggestion: "create a supercharged clone of your smart phone that lives in 'the cloud' and let it do all the computational heavy lifting that your phone is too wimpy to handle." A simple idea that could work.

The idea is that the interface you hold in your hand is duplicated in the cloud. However, the difference is that the cloud duplicate is , unlike your cell, able to interact effectively with applications in the cloud, giving it the power of a full sized computer.

That still would leave issues related to input and output display, however, the idea is a start, and while there would still be limitations to cell/cloud computing, at least initially, there would also be a considerable increase in those capabilities, which would likely grow as the technology improves.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Needed - A new Business Model for Television
by Gerald Trites

A Globe and Mail article today points to the difficulty that many television stations and networks are having. Their business model hasn't changed for decades, and with the advent of new technologies, the internet, internet applications like Youtube, and other pressures, the traditional industry is having a tough time. The CRTC, the industry regulator, also has a tough challenge ahead of it. Many of its policies, such as the requirements for Canadian content, have been framed in the context of an industry with lots of money. Now that is no longer the case, and so some of those policies will have to go. Which ones remains to be seen.

Essentially, television is in process of merging with the internet, and ultimately all vestiges of the traditional industry, such as the networks and local TV stations, will disappear, or become so radically transformed as to be unrecognizable.

A major shortcoming of all this change, in this industry as well as in the newspaper industry, is the decline of local stations and papers. The Internet is decidedly global in scope, and there seems little movement in favour of local or community audiences. There needs to be something to enable communities to communicate with each other. There certainly is lots if capability in the internet for such communication, but the best, most viable, approach has yet to emerge.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Greening the IT department is a major issue. The first thing people think about is printing, or power consumption. But there's a lot more to it than that. Check out the article at the following link:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=management&articleId=336339&taxonomyId=14&intsrc=kc_feat

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Communications Convergence
by Gerald Trites

Ever since the changes in business brought about by the internet became evident, there has been talk of convergence. This means that various previously extant technologies would be melded into a single new or combined technology. It meant that the companies that provided these technologies to customers, or used them to provide their services, would also have to change and converge, or merge or go out of business and be replaced by new companies more in tune with the changing times.

Some of this has indeed happened, with land line carriers moving into the cell phone space and high speed internet. Land line carriers have been at greatest risk, since they held for a long time a position of essential monopoly in the provision of telephone services. As the eBusiness revolution gained in strength, their position came to be seen as more vulnerable, with competition coming from other carriers like cable companies and cell phone companies.

But there is a lot more change to come, convergence is still the watchword in the industry, and we "ain't seen nothin yet".

That technology has been changing rapidly in the communications field is an understatement. Over the past few years, we have seen the introduction of smart phones, more powerful hand-helds like the Blackberry, Netbooks, which rely heavily on the internet for applications and storage and new software applications that make effective use of VOIP.

Traditional carriers continue to be challenged and it is worth remembering that this is an industry that held a near monopoly not so many years ago. Can an industry that was mired in the inertia of a monopolistic environment develop the new more vigorous culture that is required to adapt to the unpecedented change that is about to befall them? The question is open.

The issue is that ultimately the industry is driven by the demands of the consumer - now more than ever before because the consumers have access to the new technologies and want to use them to their greatest potential. They want to be able to communicate and obtain the information they want seamlessly, independently of the carriers, anywhere, anytime. And they don't want to, and are not willing to, pay an arm and a leg for it.

How the carriers and the rest of the industry react to these changes is going to establish the viability of these and other companies in the communications industry over the next several years. Accenture has written a white paper on these issues which provides a high level strategic overview of the challenges, and is worth a read.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Spam Hurts the Environment
by Gerald Trites, FCA

The scourge of Spam, that has plagued the internet almost since its founding, has received a lot of publicity. Spam makes up as much as 80 - 90% of the total emails sent out. We don't see all of it because most companies and people make use of spam filters, that recognize much of it and take it out of circulation. However, in order to get to the filters, the spam is consuming computer resources. And computer resources consume energy.

A recent report prepared by a consulting firm, ICF, and McAfee has revealed that spam contributes to the production of 17 million tons of CO2 annually. This is equivalent to more than 2300 cars on the road and represents more than 20% of all the energy used by computers worldwide.

While there has been some attention in the past few years to the impact of computing on the environment and what can be done to reduce that impact, there has been little attention given to the impact of spam. This is a timely study. The conclusion is that the fight against spam must proceed against its originators, and not wait until it moves through the internet and reaches the filters.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

SAAS
by Gerald Trites

Software as a Service (SAAS) is an approach that in our current recession has gained some traction. Essentially, SAAS involves outsourcing applications to a service provider who develops and maintains the application. An organization can run its data through the application over the internet and obtain much of the output it wants. As with any outsourcing activity, SAAS frees up valuable resources to work on the most critical aspects of the organizational information systems, without getting bogged down in development or maintenance activities on systems that are othersise less important but simply need attention. With the scarcity of resources inherent in a recession, SAAS is a natural direction for many companies.

Also, SAAS is a significant step towards the much heralded cloud computing, which involves having significant chunks of an organization's system on the interenet. So far, despite the hype, the cloud has not yet formed for most companies.

SAAS, however, is being adopted. In a recent article in Computerworld, four companies that adopted SAAS are interviewed. All are happy with their decision. All mention the kinds of pros and cons that one would expect with adopting applications that are not unique to the company, not fully customized. But all enjoy the new freedom to apply their resources to areas they consider to be of the greatest strategic importance, which has got to be a major advantage of SAAS.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Changing Business Models For The Information Age
by Gerald Trites

When the impact of the information age, particlarly the internet, first started to be noticed, many observers noted that the then-new world of eBusiness involved significanly different supply chain structures. Instead of using the old supply driven approach, where production lines are fed with materials that go into production of goods that end up in inventory and become available for sale, they began using a customer driven approach, where goods are only produced after they have been sold.

One of the best examples among the new information age companies was Dell Computers, who adopted exactly this approach, building computers on demand.

The result of the customer driven approach is that the supply chain is steamlined, inventory levels are reduced and obsolescence is controlled. The approach has been so successful - not just for electronics companies - that those who do not adopt it are at risk of becoming obsolete themselves.

A case in point is the North American automobile industry, who have not changed their basic production model since they started producing cars, with the limited exception of Ford.

This lack of responsiveness to the realities of the information age, the lack of competitiveness that results from this lack of responsiveness, can perhaps explain the trouble that GM and Chrysler find themselves in. They have been asked several times by the US government to produce a viable business model, and so far have failed to do so. Their myopia is staggering. The Globe and Mail today carries a good story on this very point.

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Mobile Technology - Coming of Age?

Mobile technology has been changing the world of personal computing dramatically in the past couple of years. The changes could be as great as the introduction of pc's themselves during the 1980's. Indeed, there are some who think that mobile units, like smartphones, netbooks and hybrids could largely replace the laptops we see every day now. No doubt there will continue to be a demand for large powerful laptops. However, many people, given the opportunity might be just as happy not to carry laptops around with them if they can achieve their computing needs with the smaller units. Increasingly, smartphones, pda's and other small units are measuring up to the challenge. They can be used for social networking, which is major, browsing, email, games, and many other applications. their big disadvantage now is that the keyboards are not big enough for comfortably preparing longish documents, and of course, their screens are small. With the advent of virtual screens and keyboards, this might change.

Technology Review has put together an interesting set of articles and papers on mobile computing that is worth a browse. It can be found at: Technology Review: EFlorida

Friday, April 03, 2009

Twitter, Blogs and media like Facebook have been gaining credibility as a means to keep in touch with customers. They are good for establishing a presence, getting feedback on products and generally keeping in touch. Companies that are stepping into this space are finding they need to learn how to use these tools. Not too much direct advertising. Not too much fluff. Good solid information plays out the best, it seems. This ROB article explores the area.
reportonbusiness.com: Businesses tap new markets with social media

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Payment Systems
by Gerald Trites, FCA

For years cell phone payment systems have existed, but in North America, they have been slow to take off - perhaps grounded is a better word. There are reasons for this. Lack of technology is not one of them. Likely, the reasons are more cultural than technological. Also, it is noteworthy that in North America, we have numerous options for payment systems already in place, and a good financial system (current breakdown notwithstanding) to support payments by debit card, credit card and, yes, cash.

Some countries lack this financial infrastructure, even down to lacking bank accounts and strong currencies. But in many developing areas in the world, amazingly, cell phones abound. Thus their appeal as payment systems. Nokia is investing $70 million in this potential of cell phones in the developing world. Others are doing the same.

It's an interesting scenario and one that is fairly typical of the developing world. they often lack the infrastructure we developed during the industrial age. But now they have an opportunity to adopt the technologies available in the post industrial age, and in effect skip the mess of industrialization. Another good example is the lack of a communications structure. Since they often lack phone lines, for example, traditional communications can be all but impossible. Indeed this is one of the reasons why cell phones are so popular. They don't need the infrastructure. The capabilities of wireless technologies present an interesting opportunity with potential long term benefits for developing countries.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Music Needs a Business Model
by Gerald Trites, FCA

Since the early years of the Internet, the music industry has been a focus of the kind of business model problem faced by many online businesses. They have had great difficulty finding a viable business model. In the very early days, Napster rocked the industry with its free music sharing service, essentially robbing the industry of the music. Over the years, numerous court cases have found against Napster and they were forced to go "legitimate". Then iTunes came along and has experienced a great deal of popularity. It had the closest to a viable business model of most of the other online music sites. They sell single tracks for 99 cents, and take in some advertising revenue as well. Now, however, they are raising their prices for single tracks to $1.29, perhaps launching a trend that could be its undoing. Other services, like Ruckus and SpiralFrog have had to close down.

Many other music sites have gotten themselves into the bind of offering music for free and having to pay the music labels for their music - a business model with no future. One of the basic principles of business that seems to have been lost with some cyber entrepreneurs is that a retail business must buy goods and then sell them at a higher price in order to generate a profit. Advertising can augment the revenues and lead to a bigger profit, but is not necessarily going to be enough to lead to a profit in the long term by itself.

Consumers are both naive and short-sighted to think that they can get good music for free. It costs a great deal to produce modern music and someone has to pay for those costs and provide some kind of return on investment to the providers of the music - the musicians, producers, labels, etc. That is simple economics.

The music industry has been going through a restructuring since the Web took hold. After more than ten years, it is still struggling to come to terms with it. Hopefully there will be some progress to be made in the next couple of years. See this article for a good summary of the current changes going on in the industry.

Monday, March 23, 2009

INTERVIEW: IT Skills Shortage A Chance for Unemployed Workers > Human Resources Issues > IT Workplace

For several years, there has been a shortage of people with IT skills. This means that there are jobs available. In the article cited below, the estimate for the US is 200,000 to 300,000. Much of the shortage started when the high tech bubble burst in the early 2000's and many people concluded that there were no more jobs available in the IT area. An illogical conclusion because the high tech sector is not the same thing as IT jobs, which are common in all kinds of industry, indeed most industries these days.

Now the problem is even more bizarre, snce there are a lot of people without jobs because of the down economy, but there are still a lot of IT jobs that have gone unfilled. This is an opportunity for people displaced from their jobs in the economy who might be able to round out their IT skills. Also, it is an opportunity for young people starting out, who with the right skills can get a very good high paying job right from the get-go. INTERVIEW: IT Skills Shortage A Chance for Unemployed Workers > Human Resources Issues > IT Workplace

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Conficker Cabal
by Gerald Trites, FCA

An underground struggle is going on with potentially high stakes worthy of a thriller novel. A group of computer experts - state of the art experts - known as the Conficker Cabal, along with Microsoft, is attempting to fight a deadly worm spreading through the world's computer systems that is known to have malicious intentions. It's authors are unlknown. The FBI , other law enforcement officials and a host of security experts are battling quitely in the background to determine the identify of the Conficker authors and to minimize or forestall the impact of the virus, which they think is intended to take effect on April 1. So far, every step the law has taken has been countered by the authors in a high tech cat and mouse game. Time is getting short, and the stakes are high.

It appears to some of the experts that the Conficker worm was built to take advantage of the cloud computing initiative, spearheaded by Sun and Microsoft, in which companies have their applications and data reside in internet based servers run by the service providers. It has been clear from the start that security is of the utmost importance in such a scenario, but the basis of going forward has been that the state of security capability for internet based applications has advanced to the point where cloud computing should not be hindered by security concerns. The Conficker worm could challenge this premise. For more on the Conficker Cabal see this article in the New York Times.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Newspapers Struggle to find a New Business Model
by Gerald Trites, FCA

Ever since the world wide web got rolling twenty years ago, people have been predicting the end of print media. The predictions were that the end of the Gutenberg Age had come, that newspapers, books of all kinds and any other paper media were destined for the dustheap.

Now after all that time, we still have books. A recent poll revealed that a majority of people still felt that paperbacks would survive, even over competition like the Kindle. There are still newspapers around the world, although the evidence suggests that they are not read as much as they used to be and subscriptions have been declining. What happened?

There has been an evolution going on. In the case of books, basic information based books like those on business have declined dramatically. It is simply easier and faster for one to get information from the web than it is by wading through printed books. On the other hand, novels continue to be written, and people can be seen in public places, like airlanes and subways, reading paperbacks. Sure there is competition from iPods and laptops, but the paperbacks are still there.

Newspapers are a different deal. You don't often see them being read in public places any more. Any trip on a commuter train will show the newspapers to be in a minority. So, where do people get their news?

It seems they get a lot of it from television and the web. With regard to the web, they get a lot of it from the online versions of - yes - newspapers. Some make use of blogs and some have their favourite bloggers. The big difference between newspapers and blogs, though, is that newspapers are written and run by journalists in a newsroom - people with comprehensive training on how to obtain, verify, source and present stories in a reliable and accurate way. Blogs are often produced by people with little such training. Therefore, newspapers should be a more reliable source of information than blogs. Also, blogs tend to have a relatively narrow focus, while newspapers tend to cover a wide variety of areas of interest - news, weather, sports, community affairs, politics, comics, classified ads, crossword puzzles, you name it. Blogs don't do that. Some people think that blogs can substitute for newspapers, but that's a kneejerk reaction that simply does not stand up to scrutiny.

Newspapers have been trying over the past twenty years to find a business model that accomodates the web. Some of them charge for content. Some charged for content and then changed their minds. Most simply offered up their content for free. But with subscriptions to their print versions declining, the recession has been the tipping point for some papers.

The question is, what are they to do? There are options but not very many. Here are a few:

1. Continue to offer online content free and hope to increase online advertising revenue,
2. Offer online content on a subscription basis,
3. Offer online content on a pay-as-you-read basis,
4. Discontinue the print version, then refer back to 1, 2 or 3.

Their challenge is to come up with a business model that produces enough revenue to support their newsroom and the kind of standards that have made them an important part of our society, indeed, as the Globe and Mail puts it in a recent article, an important element of our democracy.

The problem is all of these options have shortcomings. Offering content free does not generate revenue. Advertising revenue has not been sufficient to cover costs. To require subscriptions for online content just turns people away to content that they do not have to pay for. Charging subscriptions would require unprecedented collaboration among all newspapers to work. And even then there would be other sources. Pay-as-you-go might have potential. Some have tried it, but again, the competition would need to do the same. Discontinuing the print version loses revenue, caves in and would leave parts of the populace without the news, because not everyone has and uses a computer on the internet.

The bigger risk appears to be with newspapers for smaller cities and communities. Newspapers that have national and international reach seem able to survive. But there is a growing list of cities that have lost or may lose newspapers - Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis and others, maybe San Francisco are some mentioned in the Globe article. Is this just a reflection of tough economic times on a struggling industry? Or is it part of something bigger? Is it part of the continuing decline of community in our society?

The role of families (along with communities) has also declined drastically over the past twenty years or so. We have attempted to maintain the services they provided by outsourcing, particularly the outsourcing of child rearing to day care, sports teams and schools.

For communities, newspapers have played an important role in maintaining public awareness of the community environment, the activities of their politicians, keeping them accountable and providing a forum of discussion among its members. To whom do we outsource those activities? Who will step in and take up the challenge? There are no obvious contenders.

But the newspapers are not dead yet. They do need to adapt with bold and new initiatives that recognize the role that the web plays in society - that it is more than a medium for conveying information, but rather itself a forum for interaction. The newspapers that capitalize on this aspect of the web will have the better chance. That means going beyond the provision of reader comments on stories, although that is useful. It means having people join rather than subscribe. It means making the newspapers truly interactive, social networking sites - not copies of Facebook type sites, but not totally unlike them either.

The Web has transformed society. It has made us much more interactive and engaged with each other in new and diferent ways. That is what people want. They don't want just to be told, they want to discuss. They want to hear and be heard. They truly want to be part of something - a community of some kind. Newspapers have recognized some of these trends and tried to respond to them. They just haven't gone far enough.

Friday, March 13, 2009

eBay Focuses on a Strategy Shift
By Gerald Trites

For some years, eBay has recognized a need to change its strategy to accomodate the rapidly changing world of eCommerce. Initially, the stunning success of eBay could be attributed to the undeveloped state of eCommerce on the web at the time. Few people were buying on the web and even fewer companies offered their wares on the web. So eBay offered a unique means of buying and selling goods. In the early days, much of the ebay activity took place between individuals. In a quest for growth some years ago, eBay shifted its focus to bring in more commercial businesses, by establishing Marketplaces for different indistries and classes of goods. At the time, some observers recognized that such a move might turn off the more free spiritied, venturesome and generally younger users. However, they made an effort to prevent this from happening and moved ahead with a strong vendor oriented commercial strategy.

But eCommerce began to take hold among many companies, and the numbers of corporate websites that offered consumers the opportunity to buy over their websites grew dramatically. This meant competition for eBay's new commercial strategy, and indeed they have had some difficulty wth their strategy. In addition, Amazon got into the online auctioning business and sites like Kjijii and a variety of others offered real competition to eBay's traditional business. Moreover, eBay management over recent years has been subject to some criticism for alleged inaction on the key issues facing eBay.

Now, eBay is facing a new strategy change, with an intention to focus on Paypal for its growth. Interestingly, Paypa was originally acquired as an enhancement to eBay's core business by providing an easy method of mayment for the goods sold over the site. Now it could conceivably end up being the core business of eBay. See this article for an additional perpective.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Tweeting and Twittering
by Gerald Trites

When Twitter first came out, many people thought - yes, another silly fad. And a ridiculous one. Who wants to know every little thing anyone is doing all day? And sure enough, a lot of people started to use it that way, reporting over the World Wide Web that they are going out for a coffee and will be back in 15 minutes. And so on.

But others saw something else in it and started using it to get out short simple messages about an event, conditions, policy - a host of things.

Twitter started to gain some attention.

And then along came Barack Obama, and the world of Twits changed forever, not to mention the world of politics. Of course, Obama's use of technology in his campaign extended beyond Twitter, but it became firmly established as a smart political tool, useful not only for getting a message out, but for fundraising as well. Now just about every politician you can name has a Twitter account, with periodic updates, including Steven Harper, and numerous provincial and municipal leaders.

Corporations have also taken notice and there are some beginning to use Twitter as part of their corporate reporting tools. A good example is Dell Computers, which uses Twitter as well as a corporate blog for these purposes.

Facebook has taken notice as well. One of the core concepts that started it was the idea of "What are you doing now?" But of course Facebook went well beyond short tweets. Now they are modifying the Facebook functionality to include Tweet-like messages to ulimited friends. A direct response to the impact of Twitter. See more at this article.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

CRM and Mobile Units
by Gerald Trites

CRM systems always have presented opportunities for connections with mobile devices. That's because CRM is based on relationships with customers, and the most effective means of developing good customer relationships is and always has been giving them the attention they need and spending time with them when they want it. So the people directly involved with customers need to be in the field and that means they need to have some connectivity with the home system. This has long been an issue with companies, and numerous companies have tried different ways to deal with it. Now, Blackberry is coming out with new CRM applications that will make it easier for users to interface with their CRM systems. This is a logical move and the only question one would have is - Why did it take so long? Of course, iPhone is planning to compete in this sphere as well, but may be up against their positioning as a consumer device, whereas the Blackberry has long been positioned as a business device. More on this at ItBusiness.ca.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Hard times has opened up new opportunities for open source software suppliers. They are initiating marketing plans that stress the economics of open source, and these are causing a lot of companies to rethink their commitments to proprietary software. A bit of a windfall for those suppliers. More about this at this site.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Personal Rapid Transit Systems
by Gerald Trites

One of the greatest consumers of energy, and one of the dirtiest, is transportation, especially planes and cars. Each year, the numbers of cars on the road has grown and especially in the cities have become a major problem. It is clear that major change is called for. Consequently, cities have built better rapid transit systems, but this has been slow and expensive. And it doesn't get some (read a lot of) people, especially North Americans, out of their beloved automobiles.

Personal rapid transport systems are a possible answer that has been kicking around as an idea for decades, but which has considerable appeal. Utilizing small private cars, driven by battery and electricity, and controlled by computer systems, PRTs can be a solution that not only provides people with a mode of transport that is quite similar to private automobiles, but also provides it in a manner and with environmental impact similar to that of mass transport.

New large scale experiments are beginning with these systems, a notable one being at Heathrow airport. If it is successful, one can see ultimately the system spreading through London, a city long plagued with car polution, not the least of which is of the noise variety, and which already levies taxes and fines on cars entering the city core. There is more on this in the current issue of Technology Review. There is also a pretty good explanation of PRTs in Wikipedia.

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Where are we Going with Personal Technology?
by Gerald Trites

Many pundits have been predicting the demise of the personal computer for several years, even though the technology is only about 25 years old. Lets face it, PCs are the first major technological change after the age of print, and contain many relics of that age. The keyboard, for example, is a clear holdover from typewriters, which were the primary means of recording information for many decades before the age of technology. The documents you find in computers, from pdf to word and anything else, are clear relics of the age when we had to print large documents to convey information and ideas. When people had to read those documents to stay informed. Who reads large documents any more?

No, what we really want is a computer we can talk to - just like the Star Trek folks did. We want to request information orally and receive instant answers in the form we want, whether that be voice, video or whatever. We want to be able to dialogue with our computers. That's the way people learned for centuries - dialoguing with those who know something they want to know, from elders to Plato to court tutors. It's the natural way to learn, obtain information and develop knowledge. That's what we want from our computers. We don't want to carry around big laptops. Something like a cell phone size or smaller would be much more suitable. No keyboard. No screen. Of course, we may want to be able to see things like videos and movies and so on. But the technology is there for projection screens that can be created on any surface or even in the air. We don't really want to have to carry around a screen. Much of the physical bulk of laptops comes from the screens and keyboards and the batteries required to drive those big screens and hard drives. Of course, by the way, hard drives are destined for the dustheap, to be replaced by the internet.

Does this mean that technology will become obsolete? Of course not. In fact, technology will become even more pervasive and extensive. We see it being buried in all kinds of things we use every day. Cars are perhaps the best example, as per this article: "This Car Runs on Code", By Robert N. Charette. Most of us really don't want to be dealing with technology to carry out our daily lives. We want it in the background, so we don't even need to think about it. Ultimately, PCs will be found only in the hands of the hobbyists and committed geeks - like myself.