Why Words Matter – Can you Feed me that Chicklet?

13 years ago I was participating in group discussions on the FidoNet network.  I even had a personal profile, and could even engage groups of my friends in discussions and what not.  In retrospect, I was using a social networking service.

10 years ago I setup my first web-page on Geocities.  It had a guest-book, a comments section, the works.  In retrospect, I was running a blog.  The site also had a “links” section (Blogroll) and even had icons linking to other sites (Chicklets)

10 years ago I was receiving web content via push technology.  Remember Pointcast and Backweb?  In retrospect, I was processing content feeds (RSS).

We seem to have an urge to invent and reinvent new terms for old concepts.   From a purely cynical standpoint, one would simply point to the Hype Machine – RSS feeds are hip (and you can raise money off them), so let’s flog them to death.

But I think there are more compelling reasons that underscore this phenomena.

1. Using these specialized terms enables us to have a more focused, concise discussion.  The terms imply a shared common understanding that includes expected functionality, look and feel, APIs, standards, etc.  “I’ve setup a new chicklet” is a shorter, more informative, statement than “I’ve setup an image link which takes you to another site…”.

2. This shared understanding enables us to extend the terms in innovative ways, which would have been impossible before.  Whereas my Geocities site can be compared to a blog, it is totally foreign to the concept of a video/photo/mobile blog.  And yet once we had defined a blog, it is easy to extend its usage.  The terms we define early on become the building blocks of the next innovative layer.

3. Using these specialized terms allows us to focus on what is really important.  “I’ve set up a new social network for book-lovers“.  We immediately understand that the importance of this statement has to do with book-lovers.  We’re no longer bogged down by the term “social network”.

4. Most importantly, defining new terms tells us where we stand in terms of institutionalizing our space.  By creating a specialized jargon we clearly define who we are, what we do, what we do not do, etc.  It gives us a communal sense and clearly separates “us” from “them”.  Where would lawyers and physicians be without their mambo-jambo terminology?  We do away with the terms of the past to symbolize the uniqueness of what we do in the present.  

This is the process by which pure hype is transformed to a shared experience which takes a life of its own.   It is when your parents start referring to blogs that you know something has happened at the societal level. 

5. Practically, these shared terms simply make it easier for us to communicate.  Imagine trying to pitch a social network concept to VCs 10 years ago.  Without being able to use such concepts as tags, blogs, feeds – you’d have to hack at it, feature-by-feature, on a proprietary basis.

Of course, this is an evolutionary process.  We tend to over-hype and to create many more terms than we’ll ever be able to use.  We’re also using extremely ill-defined terms (Web 2.0 anyone?).  But the evolutionary process ensures that (a) selection shall over time weed out the less relevant terms and (b) terms shall adapt over time to the changing environment.

I find this whole topic very exciting – we are in the process of creating new products and services, but we are also creating a new language, a new way to look at the world.  Whether terms are purely internal to the industry (end users don’t care for AJAX or chicklets) or whether they cater to the general population (Podcasts, blogs, social networks, tags, etc.), this is an exciting process to observe.

— Oren

Lost Comments

If you posted a comment in recent days, it may have gotten lost in Akismet spam filtering limbo.  The Akismet queue went down from 6 to 1 as I was watching it…

— Oren

Mobile Newspapers, Anyone?

The Editor’s Weblog had this to say about mobile newspapers the other day.  Oddly enough, it assumes that end uses are looking to replicate the print/web newspaper experience on their mobile phone.

If we had learned anything from RSS & co., it is that content matters more than presentation.  Why try and recreate a non-mobile experience on a device which was not designed to support it, when you can optimize the content stream to the device and have it delivered in a mobile-relevant manner. 

It’s all about separating the content layer from the presentation layer (which are one and the same in real newspaper).  Deliver the same high-value content, but adapt it to the device.  Adapt it to the mobile experience, where content is viewed in small chunks, where navigation needs to be dead simple and where entering text is a nightmare.

If you set out to replicate the real world / web newspaper experience on a 3″ device, you will fail, iPhone or no iPhone.

— Oren

So you think you should blog…

The myth (Blogger front page):
Create a blog in 3 easy steps:

1. Create an account
2. Name your blog
3. Choose a template

Real life:

Deciding to start blogging: 1.5 years in the making

Choosing blog platform: 1.5 hours

Choosing blog name: 2 hours

Creating account: 5 minutes

Creating profile: 10 minutes

Choosing blog template: 2.5 hours

Understanding widgets: 25 minutes

Setting up feedburner: 15 minutes

Creating feedburner profile: 15 minutes

Setting up digg: 15 minutes

Creating digg profile: 15 minutes

Setting up Technorati:  you know it by now…

Setting up Technorati profile:  see above.

Writing a post:  Who has time to write anything?  I’m too busy looking at stats, posting at other sites, networking, etc.  Content?  What does that have to do with a blog?

 — Oren

When is “Just Good Enough” good enough?

Pragmatic Marketing recently published an article describing the “just good enough” product planning concept.   In a nutshell, the concept says that you should always figure what what is “just good enough” for your customers and focus on delivering products and product features which are just good enough for your market.  

Like all consultant-based approaches, this one is also easily described using a magic quadrant and a simple graph.  Unfortunately, while the concept seems to make lots of sense, applying it in real life is, well, tough.

For instance, before you can determine what is good enough, you must clearly define your target market and your customer persona.  In other words, “just good enough” is always relative, and is always on the move.  What is good enough for a Ford buyer is not good enough for a BMW buyer.

One seemingly obvious example of a company which has embraced the “just good enough” principle is Google.  When you look across their entire product base, it is clear that they are not the technology leader in any category.  There are better search solutions, better advertising platforms, certainly more feature rich email solutions, etc.  Just looking at their products, one is tempted to say that they had cracked the “just good enough” formula, and are applying it left and right with great success.

However, I would argue that Google is doing anything but “just good enough”.  Applying “just good enough” implies that at one point someone at Google took a look at GMail and said “enough, we don’t need any more features, this is good enough”.  And at that point all the developers simply junked the hundreds of features they were considering, feeling disappointed that they are not going to deliver the most feature-rich platform out there.

This, of course, is bull.  Google’s chief design principles revolve around simplicity and clean interfaces.  Its products are not devoid of features.  Their simplicity IS the feature.  GMail is not a crippled version of Hotmail, and happens to be “just good enough”.  It is a BETTER (IMHO) platform than Hotmail, and delivers excellence and market leadership on dimensions other than just feature-count.

In the business strategy world we’ve always used “just good enough”.  It is called “show me the money” or “if we build it, will they buy it?”  At the corporate level there is nothing new here.

At the practical level, “just good enough” deserves to be R&D’s guiding light.   Product managers, marketers, developers and the rest of us, are always interested in delivering the best possible product.  This is natural. 

However, given resource constraints, time to market needs and just our incapacity to hold 30 meetings a week, there

Right now I am in the midst of planning a new product offering.  With a core product idea, this is the point at which the product can develop in many different directions.  New ideas pop up all the time, each one is supposedly better than the last one.  Feature creep is upon us.  The product plan grows horizontally (new features, new ideas) and vertically (“we simply cannot launch until we optimize this and solve that!”) 

It is at this critical point in time that I use the “just good enough” principle as a practical tool.   All members of the product planning team are reminded daily of the priorities:  Launch, launch soon, and launch fast.  Make it work.  Sort of. 

Mind you, we are talking about alpha and beta launches.  The risk here is that feature creep and general defocusing lead to delays and (while adding more features) to a more buggy product. 

Each team member is encouraged to keep a journal of ideas that can deliver value, but that currently go beyond what is “just good enough”.  Personally I use a Wiki system, as I find it the most flexible tool out there to record, grow and expand ideas.

Ideas get written down even though it is clear to everyone that some of them will never get implemented.  Still, it is better to spend 10 minutes writing down an idea than spending two weeks implementing it, only to find out nobody cares about it.  Periodically ideas get reviewed, and, depending on what is “just good enough” at this point in time, may get incorporated into the product plan/roadmap.

So here’s my 2 cents:

- Clearly define what is “just good enough” relative to where you are in the product life-cycle.  Define your most critical business and marketing goals.  Anything which does not contribute greatly to achieving these goals is distracting and resource consuming.

- Log every idea, bug, comment for future reference.

- Establish clear milestones for re-evaluation.

- Learn to embrace less-than-perfect solutions.  Fight the urge to make your service respond in 0.01 millisecond, when customers are happy to accept a 5 second lag.  Apply your resources where they make the most customer impact, not product impact.

- …don’t spend too much time posting to blogs (Actually, this is a serious comment.  Blogs have become the #1 time-sucking activity for me.   I now have specific time slots set aside for feed-reading…)

— Oren

Good News, Bad News

We’re getting ready to launch a new service offering.  Whereas our existing Service Delivery Platform product line is currently targeted at the Chinese market (see Shanghai Mobile Announcement), our upcoming service offering targets the rest of the world.

 As we’re still pre-alpha, I cannot discuss it in detail (hey, I just lost most of you).  I’ve been spending the past few weeks travelling, meeting with potential partners, potential customers and most importantly with people whose opinion I value.  The result of this activity is a Good News, Bad News situation.

The good:  Everyone is excited by this new offering.  It seems to resonate with current market trends, and bridges a gap in the current value chain.

The bad:  There was not a single person I had met who did not ask me this question:  “Is it legal?  Can you do it and get away with it?”. 

And there you have it.  It all hinges on that seemingly simple question.   Often product managers and marketing executives in general tend to be so taken with the opportunity, so excited with the prospect of real product innovation, that they tend to ignore this often fatal question – am I allowed to do this?  (If you’re Google or Microsoft you may ignore this and just refer to your legal team/department/army).

Oh well.  I’m meeting the lawyers on Monday.

 — Oren

Walled Gardens? How About Locked in a Dungeon?

I was planning on launching this blog with some deep thoughts on current affairs.  Something that clearly shows my graps of everything mobile.

Then I looked at my new mobile.  It looked back at me.  It was just begging me to tell its story. 

 First things first though.  I live in Canada.  Yes, it’s “that country” north of the US.  Wonderful place, really.  Lakes, mountains, snow – we’ve got it all.

One thing we’re somewhat short on is a thriving mobile culture.  We’re getting there.  Sort of.  Almost.  Not quite.  For starters, there are only 3 operators (Bell, Telus, Rogers/Fido).  The first two are CDMA, the latter is GSM.  So far so good.

Of the three operators, only one has a high-speed network.  Telus operates an EVDO network on top of its 1X net.  The other two are on 1X (Bell) and EDGE (Rogers/Fido).  As my work requires me to spend much time on the mobile browsing the web, it made sense for me to get (another) phone, this time from Telus.  Network speed was critical.

I finally made it to a Telus store.  A friendly saleslady greeted me and explained to me that nearly all their phones support EVDO.  I complimented her on her vast knowledge, and mentioned to her that they offer just about 5 modesl with EVDO, the rest being 1X. 

I opted for the new Samsung A720.  That’s another thing to consider – phone-wise, Canada (and the US for that matter) is light-years behind Europe and Asia when it comes to devices.  Oh well, you get what you can.

After going through all the various plans, add-ons and extras (the total number of service permutations must be in the thousands) I was happy to activate my 30mb/month traffic plan.  All-you-can-eat flat fee data plan?  You’re joking, right?  No carrier in Canada offers it.

As I began to explore the new phone (with its 150 page user manual) I was happy to note its improved web browser.  I decided to check out the built in (read: hard coded by Telus) Google search function.  It worked great.  Of course once I landed on Google’s page, I got some interesting recommendations, such as downloading GMAIL and Google Maps to my phone.

Always a sucker for J2ME applications (and having used both on other phones) I decided to download them.  Lo-and-behold, I got a “Forbidden” message each time I tried to download them.  “Must be a bug in the browser”, I thought.

Next I tried accessing the mobile video platform provided by Nexage.  Oddly enough, I was unable to access any of their videos.  Anyhow, it all went downhill from there.  Telus won’t let you install stuff on your phone unless you get it from them.  Ringtones?  Either buy them from Telus or hack the phone.

Let’s recap:  I paid +$300 for the latest and greatest phone, I’m paying $60/month for the data plan, and it turns out there’s not much I can do on the phone other than use the native browser, and even then some stuff is blocked by the operator.  Walled garden?  How about locked in a dungeon.

The final twist is the crippled bluetooth interface.  You can only use it to exchange contacts with others.  Transfer files?  High-speed data modem?  Cripple-ware.

So… will I switch away from Telus?  Not until the other carriers catch up with their networks.  Once you get used to EVDO speeds, everything else looks so… dial-up like.  Can they get away with it?  Hell yes.  Do I have the energy to complain to the CRTC (Canadian FCC)?  No, I’m too busy writing this post.

— Oren