antti.vilpponen.net

I’ve been talking about this to some of my friends for quite some time that we might see something like this in the near future and now I’m starting to see it in my own behaviour. I’m talking about Facebook being so powerful of a community that it’s disturbing the use of other social sites, despite it lacking the features of these other social sites. This is something that sites with strong social aspects should be worried about. Seriously worried.

The use of the social application I mainly see myself questioning is Jaiku. Now that it has closed registrations, it’s hard to invite people to use it and I only have about a bunch of people using the application. This of course results in the whole application not being very useful, even though I consider myself being in the innovator/early adopter groups with regard to the technology life cycle.

Facebook on the other hand is not that useful (especially from the mobile) and it’s not really micro blogging when you change your status line. However, it has severe social implications. My friends are able to see what I’m up to, and what’s really scary is that almost all my friends are using it to update their status. Those that use this feature know how clumsy and detached it is from your usage patterns - you have to open your browser, sign in to Facebook, change your status as compared to Jaiku’s take your phone and post a new Jaiku.

I find myself wondering if I should stop using Jaiku, because it doesn’t fulfil its social use anymore - Facebook is simply so much more powerful, there’s a lot more social pull. This of course will be a major problem for other sites with strong social aspects, such as LinkedIn, Last.fm and so forth. Only when the social groups that dominate the applications in your own circle of friends are far enough from each other is there a chance of adoption for you with regard to that application. With Jaiku, it shares pretty much the same social group with Facebook and therefore I find myself questioning the use of it when there’s a lot more value in using Facebook (despite lacking the features).

What does this all add up to?
Well, it certainly affects the way websites and companies should see their line of business and strategy of growing as well as their product development. It’s pretty self evident that you have to have the features to grow and keep the user base satisfied, but these features should very strongly support social interaction in your service - only then do they create enough stickiness and glue. The power of the website and the business is definitely in the community and how well the company can hang on to, and develop, that community.

There’s also a big question to ask in terms of Roger’s theory of diffusion. Is the theory itself valid anymore or are the diffusion cycles dramatically shorter in social applications. Do innovators matter anymore, when you can directly tap into the mass market and due to the architecture of the application, spread very rapidly in that group?

Update: TechCrunch and VentureBeat are reporting on a “gang-up” on Facebook. Seems like I wasn’t alone with the thinking.

I’ve decided to try new things online again. Here’s my second videocast I did last night. There are some revelations in the video so enjoy it. It’s slightly too long (about 8:20). I’ll try and keep these under 5 minutes in the future.

Oh, and you can probably tell I was pretty tired when I filmed it :)

Google has just added IMAP support for Gmail. This is something I’ve been waiting for a long time, ever since I signed up with GMail.

The problem from the user’s point of view has of course been that you can’t really sync your devices in a useful way. You can try to read it through the webpage, but since many mobile browsers don’t work that well with AJAX, you’re stuck with Google’s own Java application (which I never found that useful to be honest).

However, I believe this is a major step forward in true usability of the service for people who access their mail from multiple sources. Good stuff Google!

Have a look here how to add the IMAP support for your mail application.

Have a look at Loïc’s new video of Seesmic, he has a short interview on Jyri from Jaiku.

Update: Loic posted the whole conversation between him and Jyri online. Giving us a bit more background on the whole Google Jaiku acquisition.

Widescreen mode, a previously unknown band to me, has been quoted in a Kauppalehti article on their record sales online. They have been on the official downloads list for 15 weeks (src) with their single Everlasting Bomb. Kauppalehti has written that the 15 week sales add up to about 100 000 purchased downloads. That’s a very good amount in Finland.

Now, to the problem itself: the sales don’t generate a lot of revenues for the band itself. This is nothing new and something I have been preaching about for a long time. The problem in my opinion is the business model. It may have worked in the age, when record shops reigned and bands needed distribution deals to break it big time - not to forget a proper amount of radio play.

However, in the age of the internet, this model does not work anymore - at least from the artist’s perspective. In my opinion, there are too many useless middlemen. Widescreen mode has created a phenomenon online with the help of their Mikseri page (an online music community supporting amateur bands), their IRC-gallery community and lots more. With regard to a group of supporters, they have quite a solid fan base online already - they are reaching to them directly in terms of communication, why not in sales?

Currently Widescreen mode sells their music through online music stores, which sell the song for around 1€. Teosto, record labels, the government and the music store all take bigger proportions for themselves than the band itself (my guess, but I’ve done some work in this sector and the figures are quite strong). Needless to say, the business model is very distorted. Radiohead did what bands should have been doing for a long time already, they sold their new album online directly from their own website and went even further with it - they let the users decide on the price!

It takes guts to work on the edge and take the risks (and eventually reap the rewards). However, in some cases it simply makes sense to forget and dump the old ways of doing business and go ahead with new ideas and methods. Because, when you stick to the safe ways of doing business you’re taking a risk of staying behind and dying slowly.

(Seth Godin has a good post on why industries don’t break the conventions of doing business and stick to the old safe ways of doing business.)

Why doesn’t YouTube support RSS-feeds? This is really weird because it would make perfect sense for Google to enable this feature so people could follow video streams through Google Reader, for example. I have been experimenting with some videos and it would be really cool to be able to follow other people doing similar things through their RSS-feeds. At the moment you have to login to the site and check your “subscriptions”, which is basically the same thing, but so web 1.0.

Google, why not open up a bit?

Hot news: Google buys Jaiku!

Read more on the Jaikido blog as well as the FAQ on the acquisition.

Update: VentureBeat reports through Valleywag post that the price tag on the acquisition is rumoured to be around $12M. This is something that I’ve heard as well from a few people.

I haven’t had too much time to blog in the recent days about my career decisions. However, the secret is out and the new company I will be joining is called Oy Gyllene Skor Ab, it’s Swedish and means golden shoes. The company is brand new and was founded in September. We launched our company to answer the demand for a business oriented hands-on digital consulting company focusing mainly on strategy and marketing.

Be sure to check out our website - more news on the developement later.

Loic’s new company is called Seesmic. I love the way he is launching the company - through short videos, keeping people hooked, always coming out (and giving users) with something new. If you ever look into starting a company, be sure to watch these.

There’s more on the sites of Techcrunch and Ben Metcalfe.

Martti Vire has done a great job compiling a site, Wanhat Purjelaivat, with a lot of detail on old ships. He’s got an excellent coverage through history of the development in ships and their technologies. The reason why I am evangelising about the page is that Martti contacted me for some pictures he has on his page. Go to “Historiaa -> Höyryn Aika” to see my photos of a few steam ships.

Great page with a lot of detail, I have to say.