Why Google Apps plus Google+ would change the market

Okay I managed to get into Google+... so what did I find? Well first off I found something with an unusual view on privacy and security. I can send a message to a specific Circle and then anyone in that Circle can then share that information with anyone they want. So the ability for private information to go viral is absolutely straight there... this is something that needs to be changed for Circles to have any weight. Sure the Cut and Paste angle is liable to remain but that is quite different from the immediacy of sharing.

Secondly however I saw a massive opportunity of what Google could do if they combine Google+ with Google Apps, specifically the GAPE products for business. Companies like Yammer are building a nice business in enterprise collaboration. With a bit of focus on security then this is exactly what Google could do too... but better.

How?

Well first off there needs to be the idea of "administrated" Circles, i.e. Circles which are officially vetted and which people can request to join. This would allow not just the sort of FB fan pages to be created but more critically would allow companies to create internal project or information area circles to promote collaboration. I think administrated Circles would be a +ve on both the social and enterprise side. On the Social side I think there should be "closed" admin where a limited set of people can approve access and "open" admin where a group is established and people self-vet themselves in (and potentially out).

Secondly there needs to be the idea of Google+ restricted for a given domain, ala yammer, where everyone on it has to have a specific GAPE account. This means that a company can have a private Google+ environment, which when combined with administrated Circles would enable companies to set up collaborative environments rapidly and link it back to corporate directories and the collaborative technologies of GoogleApps, for instance a Circle could automatically be established for everyone who is editing or reviewing a document....

Thirdly, and this is where I think Google+ + GAPE would be a real killer, there should be "bridge" Circles between different GAPE domains. These are external collaboration circles where people can be added to the environment from multiple specific companies to provide a cross company collaboration. In a world where collaboration between enterprise partners is becoming key I think that this sort of integration between GAPE (which allows this collaboration on documents) and Google+ would provide a step-change in simplicity for inter-enterprise collaboration.

So there it is, three things that would give Google+ a paying audience for its technology in a place where FB and Twitter just have not been able, nor seem willing, to go. A large market where Google+ could be used as a wedge into GAPE and where Google's security and sharing vision could be put to brilliant use.

Personally I said that not bundling Orkut back in 2007 into GAPE was a mistake, now its time for Google to prove that decision was right because they've now got the technology to do much more than simple a corporate social network.

Now they've got the ability to create a fully collaborative company and drive inter-company collaboration.

Technorati Tags: SOA, Service Architecture

The problem of mobile places in a geo-social world

I'm sitting writing this on a train, a specific train, the 06:37(ish) leaving St Austell Station and heading to London Paddington. Later in the week I'm going to take a specific train to Paris from London and then probably another to get back to the UK. A few weeks ago I took a specific flight to get to the US.

When considering the current state of the Geo-Social world its clear that movement is not something that is being expected of places but I think this is a classic case where a new technology can, and should, make it easier in the future.

Today for instance if you want to find out if a UK train is on time then your best bet is to go for something like Live Departure Boards which tell you about trains to a station and from there you can find out about a specific train.

Now however lets imaging a future world where moving entities are integrated into Geo-Social solutions. Now instead of "checking in" to the station, I would "check-in" to the actual train. This would then allow me to be automatically tracked, if I want, as my journey progresses until I "check-out" of the train at a specific station.

What are the advantages of this? One of the first is that for plane journeys people could check-in and the person picking them up could check their profile, via FB for instance to get the flight details and from there actually get the current status of the flight, its gate information, etc. Someone picking someone up from a station, or waiting for someone in a meeting, could see that a train is delayed and hence the person will be running late. Indeed by automating these pieces through Geo-Social you could set up notifications of delays automatically in the way that certain travel companies enable you to do today when, and only when, you book tickets with them.

Now there is of course the obvious privacy question of being able to track someone for an extended period of time, but for me if you are signing up to geo-social then you should be considering your privacy and what to share/not to share on a regular basis.

Part of this post is about prior art, namely me making sure there is something on the internet that could be cited as prior art if some numpty in the US tries to patent the idea of mobile geo-social places. The other part is prediction that this will happen.

Geo-social for public transport I can certainly see... for private transport? Probably only in the valley.

Technorati Tags: SOA, Service Architecture

Social Relationships don't count until they count

There is a game called "the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" which tries to link between any Kevin Bacon and any other actor in less than six steps.  This is a popular version of the "small world" thesis put forwards by Stanley Milgram.  In these days of Social Media and "relationships" there is a massive hype around farming these relationships with an implicit assumption that someone with lots of relationships is more valuable than someone who doesn't

The problem is that in reality this is all a version of the Travelling Salesman problem with everyone assuming that every link is of the same value.  The reality is that links have different values based on their strengths so understanding how individuals are actually related is significantly more complex than many social media "experts" would have you believe.

What do I mean by this?  Well my "Obama Number" is 4 as, via my wife, I can trace to Obama in 4 steps with each individual step being reasonably strong.  By reasonably strong I mean that each link has met the previous link several times and probably could put a name to the face.  Now the variability of strengths on these links is huge, from my wife (hopefully a strong link) to people who move in similar social circles and then into the political sphere where the connection to Obama is made.

I've a Myra Hindley number of 2 as I have a friend who met her more than once (before her conviction).

So for Republicans and Tea Party nut-jobs this means that its 6 steps max from Obama to a child killer.  Does this mean there is a relationship worth knowing or caring about?  Nope.

So how to weight relationships and how to weight each step within the graph?  Well this is actually pretty simple.  Lets say A has a relationship to B via a social network, lets call that a score of 0.0001.  Lets say that B (who is the person) has a score of 1.0.  So for each interaction between two individuals you then look at the strength from A to B.

1. How many times does A post to B?  If  > 10 then add 0.0001
2. How many times does B post to A?  If > 10 then add 0.001 (i.e. B connects to A, hence more likely to be mutual) for each multiple of 10
3. How many times does B indicate that they are at the same place as A? If > 10 then add 0.001 per 10
4. How many times does a voucher provided to A get used by B? If  > 10 then add 0.1 per 10
5. Are they directly related or married? If cousin or less then add 0.5
6. Do they work closely together? If within 1 reporting hop add 0.2
7. How many times have they met? If > 10 then add 0.05 per 10

What I'm saying is that its actually the interactions that matter to back up the social experience rather than the existence of a social link.

So while from Obama to me is 4 steps I'd say that overall its pretty weak (0.8 * 0.2 * 0.2 * 0.2 =  0.0064) a .64% link which really means I'm not worth lobbying to get influence over the US president.

This is where the combination of Big Data analytics could really deliver value, by understand the true weightings on individual relationships and from that determining the real genuine paths to the maximum possible market for the minimum effort.

Technorati Tags: SOA, Service Architecture

Social Gaming ready to Pop... Farmville worth more than EA?

Okay so the latest bubble sign. According to the WSJ, hardly the hype meister generals, Farmville creator Zynga could be worth up to $9bn some key words from the WSJ:

The discussions are the latest sign of the investor frenzy around a small class of large, fast-growing Web start-ups focused on the consumer market that have yet to go public.

and

Although valuations of the most successful Internet start-ups are getting pricey [...] part of Zynga's appeal is that it has tapped into a lucrative method of making money online.

Umm does that really stand up? Well the pricey bit certainly does.

Lets think about a company that has got into making money on-line, the sort of company maybe that makes a range of mobile games for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Palm Pre and Symbian and indeed has a history of games on mobile platforms. How about a company that has already got a pretty extensive multi-player online experience and indeed had a (failed) "social" online game and could choose to re-enter the market in a myriad of ways.

So Electronic Arts which according to the open market is worth $6bn, in other words its worth less than the low end estimate on Zynga. So what is the barrier to entry for EA, one of the world's largest games developers to take one of its internationally renowned franchises (e.g. Sim City) and develop a lightweight "social" game ala Zynga for delivery via Facebook. Much, much lower than the barrier the other way around for Zynga to develop the sort of real-time sports and action games that EA specialise in.

Again as before its more than possible I'm calling this one wrong, but its hard to imagine at this stage that EA with its new digital strategy couldn't decide to go head to head and leverage its much greater IP, brand identity and established mobile offerings. Zynga bigger than EA and investors desperate to invest and hassling to get in? What was that EA stock ticker again....

Technorati Tags: SOA, Service Architecture

Why Social Media isn't special

When I look at the valuations of Groupon, Facebook and LinkedIn I can't help feeling that Tesco, Nectar, Amex and Airmiles must be regretting that they can't just slap on a "social media" buzz on their current solutions. Lets compare Groupon with Nectar and Tesco's Loyalty programmes.

Now Groupon has 50m registered users (in the US) while Tesco has "only" 15m in a market 1/5th of the size and Nectar has "only" 16.8m users. Now what is the difference on these users?

Well Groupon know when users sign up to small business offers in a specific local. Tesco and Nectar know everything about what you buy and how you buy across a huge range of products and across multiple retailers. They give you targeted offers that are based on exactly what they know you will buy and they have the information set available to make sure this marketing is accurate.

Put it another way, Tesco Loyalty and Nectar are like Groupon + Google and yet they are rated as being worth a fraction. Now why is this?

Well arguably the first reason is that these sorts of loyalty cards are "private" between big business so you don't see them as social elements even though you are quite clearly sharing way more information with them than you do with Groupon.

The second reason is that they aren't independent, they are attached to massive corporations which makes them difficult to over-value and extract.

The third reason is that they started before the hype. Loyalty cards like Tesco with their rich set of data and massive active corporate marketing just aren't "social media", now part of this is that they aren't primarily driven via a website but the main bit is just that old isn't sexy.


So what would it take for someone like Tesco to move into the Groupon market? Well lets see

• Would small businesses love to get access to that massive targeted customer base?
• Would Tesco or Nectar's profiling make sales and conversions more likely?
• Would this allow them to be more profitable?

Check, Check, Check. so the reality is that the only reason that a major loyalty programme hasn't undermined Groupon is either because they don't see the market or they haven't been bothered so far.

How long would it take for Tesco or Nectar to become the "Groupon" of the UK or equivalent organisations across Europe and the Far East? About a month.

Sometimes its worth looking at social media and looking at what its normal equivalent is and where its real advantages lie.

Technorati Tags: SOA, Service Architecture

Social Business when does it pop?

Okay so LinkedIn is leading the social business IPO charge with various numbers being touted as a valuation from its current off market evaluation of $2.5bn (on $161m revenues and $10m profit in 9 months) to the proposed IPO. Revenue is more than doubling over 2009, but costs are nearly matching the same level of growth which delivers the minimal actual profit. The forecast isn't exactly huge either with them predicting slow downs, not this could be CYA words but there are some good points in there.

So what would $2.5bn as a valuation make LinkedIn equivalent to in the "real world"? Well how about Easyjet? Easyjet are a low cost airline who are part of the revolution in the cost of short haul travel in europe.

Assuming LinkedIn's profit/revenue growth continues then lets say we get $210m revenue and $15m profit. So how does Easyjet stack up? Well from one perspective not well.

Revenue at EasyJet was £2.97bn so almost 40 times (1.6x $) , Profit was £121.3m or about 12x (EBITA is £274m). So bang for buck is arguably better with LinkedIn but what does this profitability mean for EasyJet's valuation? £1.7bn which is about $2.7bn or probably less than LinkedIn will IPO for.

Ah but LinkedIn has 90m users, although few use it regularly and some accounts might be duplicates... as opposed to Easyjet who have "only" 50m passengers per year.

Now there are lots of other bits that drive valuations but haven't we seen this before in terms of massive valuations for companies where profitability was a secondary element? I like LinkedIn, I use LinkedIn and I wish them all the luck in the world. I can even see their business model around job hunting and head hunting making a lot of sense and them really getting a decent set of revenue from it.

But are they worth the same as a well run and profitable airline? The answer is of course that they are worth what people will pay for them which means invest at the start of the bubble but don't forget that its a bubble.

Technorati Tags: SOA, Service Architecture