social media

The Social Web also known as Web 2.0
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I read an article on the Swedish business news site N24 on the web 2.0 and what that really is. I decided I needed to clear up a few concepts and wrote a Swedish blog on the subject at http://www.sundelof.net.

Web 2.0 is probably one of the most discussed topics in the valley today. Everyone has their opinion on it. Personally I think it is way to over hyped and more feels like a marketing gimmick. Looking back on what the father of the web’s Tim Berners-Lee intentions with the web it all becomes clear. Web 2.0 is nothing else than going back to the original idea of the web. Less broadcasting and is more about creating connections. Moreover I rather talk about the social web instead of the web 2.0 and the characteristics of the social web is that it is

  • Connected
  • Stupid yet smart technology
  • Inexpensive
  • Human
  • Immediate
  • Ubiquitous

Now that is not that difficult. Right?

During the first stumbling steps I think the web was exactly this, but as time progressed the market forces changed the game and we lost focus on the true intention and vision of what the web should be. We talk more about business models than about true needs of people. I wrote an entry recently about this as a celebration for the 15th anniversary of the web – In the Wake of the Birth of Web.

Going back to the source. I will start with a few quotes from Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Tim Berners-Lee writes in the second paragraph of his book ”Weaving the web” where he explains how the web got created: ”The vision I have for the Web is about anything being potentially connected to anything. It is a vision that provides us with new freedom, and allows us to grow faster than we ever could when we were fettered by the hierarchical classification systems into which we bound ourselves. It leaves the entirety of our previous ways of working as just one tool among many. And it brings the workings society closer to the workings of our minds.”

He continues one paragraph afterwards: ”The irony is that in all its guises – commerce, research and surfing – the Web is already so much a part of our lives that familiarity has clouded our perception of the Web itself. To understand the Web in the broadest and deepest sense, to fully partake the vision that I and my colleagues share, one must understand how the Web came to be.”

Finally I will quote him on a topic very much relevant on what is so intensively discussed in the IT sector. Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and user friendly design, but also has some relevancy for interaction with people with disabilities.
“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”

No question he knows what he is speaking about. After all he was the architect behind the Web. he built upon the great work by brilliant people such as Vincent Cerf, who solve the technical architectural problem as signal protocols. The latter is now the lead internet evangelist at Google.

The first part of the first quote brings up what is normally referred to as web 2.0 or as I prefer to call it the social web. Obviously the first intention was exactly the one as so many now claim is the new web 2.0. We are just trying to correct our mistakes that is. Maybe this is one of the examples that the market forces not always are for the greater good for the conceptual development. They need to be there but we need to be careful not to get carried away by the first revenue model. What do we want to accomplish down the line? Long term visions should be as important the so often short term market forces.

What is the web 2.0? Tim O’Reilly presented a definition at the conference Web 2.0 in 2004 and it is described here – What is the web 2.0?. Bear in mind that the definition has slightly shifted over time so some of the content is “out-of-date”.

The discussion involves all big players such as for instance Clay Shirky at NYU (http://shirky.com) and Dan Gillmor. Dan is normally considered as the father of citizen media and is now the director for the grassroot journalism initiative at Harvard University called the Center for Citizen media (http://citmedia.org). he also wrote the famous book ”We The Media”. Clay Shirky opened up the field of social software and raised the awareness of at least some developers that social software is very different from just software.

The shift from normal software mostly focused on interaction with one user and very seldom several. Interaction between users was a truly new concept and thee were many mistakes made there. I usually recommend to all who wants to work in the field of social software to read the excellent piece by Clay Shirky – The Group is Its Own Worst Enemy – as it further emphasizes the need of structure, if yet only slight, inside the software.

More people inside the tech sphere start to realize that in order to build social software (and working inside open-source projects) you need to understand that the word ‘social’ is there for a reason. Yet I have in too many times, still do see and come across solutions that are not even close to being able to be called ‘social software’ even though they are marketed as such. They simply forgot that the social part must be there…

The second part of the quote is something that is very interesting and is intensively discussed in especially the valley. How can you make money out of this social web? Some say you cannot earn money out of social media directly but you can earn it from products derived from them. I think the truth is in between but probably more towards the latter. At least if you are looking for a sustainable business model.

Nicholas Carr, editor pa Harvard Review Letters, the man behind the blog http://roughtype.com, wrote the provoking book ”Does IT matter?” where he more or less smashes the trust put in the value of IT for any business. Many people regard him as too negative and completely wrong, but it is hard to claim that there is absolutely no value in what he says. The value of traditional IT inside the business is probably overall overrated as for now. The value of social media inside business however is still something that can provide a competitive advantage for new businesses. This is where many of the players in the valley are located. You may want to call it ‘value innovation’ if you want, but it still ‘just’ seeking a new market.

Back to the web 2.0 discussion and the existing solutions. Carr should be considered as slightly provoking and is to be considered as one of the most skeptical person towards for instance Wikipedia. Web 2.0 and as he puts it ”it’s flagship Wikipedia” is discussed in one of his more famous blog entries – The Amorality of Web 2.0. This is one of the most valid entries in the debate I have read so far and especially take note on the comments where people such as Dan Gilmor, Dave Winer and Ross Mayfield all contribute to the discussion. Carr continues the discussion in two other blog posts on the recent structural changes of Wikipedia. They can be found at The Death of Wikipedia and Now, let’s bury the myth.

Bloggers such Carr (here used as some kind of Devils advocate) keep the discussion sane and hopefully they wil help preventing the business from becoming as overhyped as in the last ‘kaboom’ bubble. Considering what I saw attending the TechCrunch party in August I wonder if we are not creating a new bubble. Fortunately it seems as the whole business is not in side the bubble, which is kind of relaxing. What we can learn from the discussion in his entries and other blogs is very simple and as I put in my blog entry In the Wake of the Birth of Web: “…that successful and sustainable technology solutions all fulfill true needs of real people.”

Where does all this fit in to the society? Just look at Thomas L Friedmans in many ways ”rich of words” book ”The world is flat”. There is a incredible faith out there in outsourcing, software solutions, webbased solutions and the IT sector as a whole, including everything from call centers, video stores to software developers and CRM systems. The flatness of the world is something that is purely new to the world society and thus we are facing new challenges. We havent got used to them and therefore new issues arises. One of the more recent issues we have started to face is the legal owner structure of the web and its implications on the web. Again Carr wrote an article on this matter and it is found here – The Web is unflat. Internationally the issue was discussed at the World Summit in Tunis earlier this year.

Recently I indicated partly where I see the social web heading in the future and then more focused on the interaction with traditional media organizations. The blog entries were written in the wake of the discussions and interviews with CNN and BBC:

Obviously there is no shortage of unanswered questions, but I do not see them at all as new. maybe some of the solutions wil be slightly new. I am not sure. I more see this as an attempt to go back to the original intention with the web. Back to the basics so to say. Keep it simple stupid. and so forth Maybe it helps to label this as the creation of web 2.0. I don’t know. What I do know is that the whole concept of web 2.0 is very much overhyped.

What I do know is that the new social web is a step in the right direction. We just need to keep our focus and not become blindfolded by the need of revenue steams. We should be as creative there as elsewhere. There must be an alternative to online advertising. At least I hope so. I am getting tired of them. :)

Update: Bruno Giussani at http://giussani.typepad.com/loip/ pointed out an important error in the facts. Vint Cerf was one of the people developed the protocols enabling the web to be born. I apologize for the mistake. He also points out:
“Your point about going back to the origin of the web is right. (“connections”, by the way, not only among people but also among data). Just look at the many things that are happening now (blogs, skype, mashups, youtube), they were all ideas of the mid-1990s already, that could not be implemented because bandwidth, compression algorithms, and some other tech pieces were not there.”

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In the Wake of the Birth of Web
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“Did you know the web is 15 years old today? Huge change to the world in such a short time!”

The question is from a chat this morning with a very good friend of mine, Tom Calthrop, who is the founder and maintainer of the organization Barnraiser. For those interested in the history of the web can take a look here – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5242252.stm. You could also use some modern encyclopedia or maybe your flavor of the month Wikipedia.

Tom and I started to chat about the future of the web, the history and where it is heading. Tom pointed out that the web has evolutionary cycles thus “web 2.0” is merely a stepping stone in a long non-stop creative process. This is not something new and this happened during the last bubble where e-commerce and e-learning were equally hyped only to under deliver.

Interesting hey…

– I am thinking of giving away a shovel to my lawyer friend to help him in his daily work.
– Erik, why would you do that? It will not help him in his work?
– Of course not, but you never know. We are trying to provide him with internet solutions that are equally as stupid as giving him a shovel so why not?

Okay I am maybe a bit too sarcastic and I am a believer of the web. However, many in the business, so to speak, still believe technology solutions alone will solve the mystery, yet do not realize that successful and sustainable technology solutions all fulfill true needs of real people.

I will use some words by Tom here to illustrate where the opportunity arises: “Instead of writing all this hype I would prefer it is people explore technology today, social interfaces, social consequences and social evolution as affected by technology. Then we may all be better placed to develop real world solutions rather than just talk about something that has no relevance, but then I am tired with the “post-dot-com” brush of pessimism when it comes to all the discussion – all talk and no action.”

Action it is!

Why? People thinking outside their own little box have been changing the world throughout history and they are usually found in places where the resources are very much constraint and where there is a real need of change. Today emerging markets and the developing world provides us with this wonderful playground to exercise out creativity and still change the lives of people. For those who are hesitant I recommend that you read Hernando de Soto’s book “The Mystery of The Capital”. Whether he is telling the absolute truth or not is left for the reader to decide, however his points are valid.

Moving on to the core of anyone in the entrepreneurial game, that is the money flow and business models. We all need money for different reasons. Recently I have had quite a few discussions about business models and I do understand you need them, but you should realize what should be in them and why they are needed. Somehow this has been lost in this tumbling environment. The reason has been preached for quite some time by Guy Kawasaki so I am not the only one. The question according to me is: Isn’t it more important to convince your customers rather than investors? If no one buys your product, does it really matter that you have a lot of venture capital backing you up? If you are a venture capitalist, why would you support ventures that are hard to sell to the bigger market? If we are doing that, are we not just doing the same mistakes as we should have learned from last bubble?

Is there a right way to find out the business model? I am a true believer of the users as they always know the answer. Hand it to the users and they will tell you. Oh, so you don’t believe that is possible. Ask the Google boys. Create an extremely easy-to-use and flexible product, hand it over to the users and see what happens. React to the response and voila! They will then tell you what needs to be added and where the opportunity lies.

Now let us go over to a big challenge for the future.

We need to face the challenge of bringing the policy makers into the game and diminish the gap (not eliminate) between them and us to put it very directly. Now the industry is more or less experienced and has been taught a few lessons in the last boom. Tom’s words are put well here speaking about the web: “I also feel as though there are Bubble 1.0 veterans around to stop the hype, but the government/lawyer involvement in web together with the corporate mingling have all the hallmarks of chaos. As you know I am no Microsoft fan, but I absolutely cannot see why the European Union is fining them – a typical example of government/corporate/policy setting/messing that will stifle any software evolution (again).”

He is so right. Unfortunately one might add. The most dangerous development in any matter is the lack of understanding. Today many of the policy makers are lagging in their understanding. They haven’t followed the development and are in many ways several years behind in their understanding of the edge stuff of the web. In itself it is not a problem but in some ways they are too far behind.

However we should have faith. This is nothing new and the same thing happened 15 years ago when the web was born, as so for most other technologies. Look at the birth of the PC, the cars and not to mention the steam machine. There will always be a resistance towards the change, and so it should.

We will come there as we did come here. The will always be a lag between the readiness of the policy makers and their understanding of the technology edge. It is so hard to keep both in sync and I am not sure we should either. It is healthy in a way, and not healthy in another.

What we as entrepreneurs should remember is that we need to open up our minds to something new more exciting than to try to fulfill our utter most dreams of flashy technology. We should start to develop (technology) solutions for people and not for the sake of technology. Look for needs outside our little bubble and fulfill needs of real people. If you want call it user centric design, iterative prototyping or rapid prototyping, do so. What label we choose to put on this is less important however. Why? Because it is cool regardless and it has been done in for a long time already…

… and after all, it is in the same feeling the web was started. A few guys playing with a need to share research information, and thus they created something to fulfill that need. Who would have imagined that it would end up like this?

Now that is is cool!

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The sailors and the media
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This rather strange title probably make less sense. However it does. I started to think about the new media and what the purpose of it is. I thought of the following analogy:

Sailors aren’t afraid of storms, they learn to live with them, learn to handle them and/or build better ships. The same can be said about wars. They will come, but we will need to learn how to deal with them.

I am not naïve, but I am as said so many times before optimistic. There is a way.

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The future of the new improved media
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I have been interviewed by a number of newspapers and news channels lately. The main focus of the interviews has been the future of citizen media or as I prefer to look at it, The New Improved Media. I will try to give my view on the future of it and why it will work.

Parts of the intro-text to the main site are:

“… Delivering unfiltered, uncontrolled and as free news as possible is a crucial part of any work towards and/or to sustain democracy. Making people trust the news media and to enable them to feel part of the news making is equally important. … Imagine people being able to report back from events such as the London bombings, the riots in Paris and the recent events in Belarus or maybe just report from your neighborhood about any crimes or other problems.”

Looking at the on-going conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, the need for citizen journalism is as high as ever. We see a lot of reports on sites such as YouTube, and the discussions inside communities such as MySpace are more intense than ever.

Looking forward: What can we learn? What is the future? What can traditional media do? What can we as individuals do?

I believe some of challenges for the future in citizen media are:

  • Empowering all citizens of this world
  • Credibility and authenticity of the delivered content
  • Friendship between persons regardless of citizenship, ethnicity, race, religion and so forth
  • Solving the connectivity problem

People in regions such as the Middle East are frustrated – frustrated of embargos, tired of war and in many ways frustrated that their voices are not heard. The new media could solve this in many ways. The professional journalist is giving the professional, objective and thought-out version of the story, as does the professional photographer. By giving the working tools for the people on the ground, where event are taking place, people will be able to share their personal stories, the way they see in – in shaky, fuzzy pictures and videos from their digital cameras, their texts from cell phones and shaky voices in audio clips.

They will start to believe that there is someone listening to them, and that they are not alone. Exaggerated, all of a sudden common people will start to feel and believe that there are people listening to them, other than the fundamental religious groups. The concept is known and for the unbelievers I recommend that you read the book: “Naked blogging” by Scoble/Israel.

Unfortunately, just providing them with the proper channel is not enough. You will also need the credibility of the traditional media to make this channel legitimate in the eyes of both the people in the troubled areas and the audience in the rest of the world. Today, many websites such as YouTube suffer from the fact that the authenticity cannot be validated. I do not blame these sites for this, but nevertheless, in order to make the citizen contributions valid, there is a crucial need to create an organization that addresses the authenticity of the citizen reports. The problem is found in both the policy (makers) as so partly in the technology. If the traditional media would get involved the situation would definitely change.

What about the friendship part?
This is according to me the most important part. If anyone wonders why, I thought I would give you an analogy to see the simplicity. When you buy a new TV, you usually ask your friends and family for advice to see what they think and what they have bought. Likewise you do when you trying to digest matters such as the crisis in the Middle East. How can this madness continue? Who is to blame? What can I do? You are asking your friends and family. Sitting at cafés, bars, around the dinner tables and talking about the problem. Trying to understand.

Wouldn’t it be better to also ask and/or listen someone with first hand information? Someone with a human face. Someone to relate to. Someone that will give you the unfiltered, unbiased(?) and uncensored truth.

– Come on, Erik. That does not exist!
– You are so right my friend, but it should!

Why will this work? The philosophy behind the UN and the European Union is to build friendships and relations between countries to prevent them from getting into arguments /disputes that end up in wars. It is a known fact that you don’t, hopefully, attack your friend. (At least my friends don’t.) What is so cool today is that modern technology enables borderless and “blind” communication between all individuals, especially when you enable wireless posting via cell phones such as SMS and MMS. You can speak to anyone, anywhere at anytime. Why not use it? The New York Times columnist Thomas L Friedman writes about it in his book “The World is Flat” even though I think that the conclusion is even broader than he concludes in his book.

Wow! Why hasn’t it been done before? Actually it has, but the obvious potential was not seen for some reason. Today in the troubled and/or rural area of this world, there often is no internet, no high-speed connectivity, and no DSL connection. Still their voices must be heard, should be heard and must be heard. As cell phones today are almost ubiquitous there they become the obvious choice.

The “right” solution therefore relies on the facts:

  • Cell phones today transmit audio, video, graphics, photographs and text.
  • When combined with the proper web application, cell phones enable any citizen in any country of any background to publish information and share it with the world.
  • Citizen journalism (or grassroot journalism), coupled with traditional journalism, results in better, more informed and credible news reports.

My project here at Stanford takes advantage of all of the above and I have created a way for anyone to blog to your blog, your photo gallery, your video gallery with their own cell phone. The only thing needed is a cell phone and some quick setup screens online. Soon setup via SMS will be enabled.

Cool, but if a person cannot write? Anyone can take a picture, a video or even tell their story via a simple phone call (see the cool technology by PodTech, Typepad/Skype) or audio clip. A picture tells you more than a thousand words and a video even more. User experience research has shown that the keypad of the cell phone can be replaced by symbols thus enabling illiterate people to send in messages.

The technology is here. Are we?

I am as a friend told me today, hopelessly optimistic about this. I however am not naïve. We will need to give it some time, but we will get there! I believe in humanity and the good of the people. The good guys always win. At least in my world. :)

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