Mostly Media – Definitely Digital
George Dearing On Media, Marketing And Technology
From the category archives:
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How can anyone really think using community and curation tools won’t be a boon to media companies and publishers? The ones that get it are already committed to establishing better ways of sharing and collaborating, baking that mindset into every part of the business.
Not so long ago every pundit preached “community” this and “community” that (me included). Sure that’s a part of it, but in less than a few years, things like Twitter, Google Buzz and a newsier Facebook have forced private and public institutions alike to look outside of their comfy websites and community hubs. Brands and online publishers realize the conversations happening in other online environments and niches can often overshadow much of the activity taking place on their own web properties.
The BBC’s recent statements underscore much of the shift taking place not only in media outfits but in corporations, where internal and external teams are scrambling for the right mix of engagement and listening.
"For BBC news editors, Twitter and RSS readers are to become essential tools, says Horrocks. Aggregating and curating content with attribution should become part of a BBC journalist’s assignment; and BBC’s journalists have to integrate and listen to feedback for a better understanding of how the audience is relating to the BBC brand."
And somewhere between the analysis paralysis and the trip to the CFO’s office lies the epiphany that you and your company can do this stuff. You see, you’ve been talking to customers all along and you pay people to make sure they’re happy with your product or service. What you haven’t been so focused on is helping them understand it’s ok to connect with them in other environments, around the global water cooler, if you will.
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I kept trying to connect all the the dots around Google Buzz over the last few days and ran across this quote from Chris Messina.
“In fact, I’d argue that Buzz is as much about Google creating a new channel for conversation in a familiar place as it is about how we’re going about building its public developer surfaces. Although today’s Buzz API only offers a real-time read-only activity stream, the goal is to move quickly towards implementing a host of other technologies — most of which should be familiar to readers of this blog.”
That obviously speaks well to the "open web" movement and how Google is positioning its APIs. Whether or not dropping social elements in GMail is your idea of better collaboration, it’s hard to deny that familiarity with something as utilitarian as email breeds adoption.
But to think email is the only anchor the Buzz ship will hitch itself too is naive. Even if Buzz can make a permanent home in your inbox, that might be enough for it to make inroads against Microsoft and IBM in the messaging wars. In fact, just last week Gartner made some predictions about the forthcoming collision of email and social networks.
“By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.”
“Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location.
“The rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode.”
With Aardvark in the Google arsenal, it immediately gets deeper into social search, mobile and more importantly sets the stage for biting off bigger pieces of the enterprise. Think about how Aardvark could easily be repurposed as a self-service support tool incorporated into the fabric of Google Apps — with Buzz as the interface to support systems or social CRM services. All of sudden, it’s not just email that’s housing all that collaboration, it’s just another interface.
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I’m not discounting Box.net’s recent mobile moves, but from a platform perspective, the SMB market is really where it needs to focus.
All this SharePoint competitive stuff makes for good fodder but it’s not terribly realistic to compete against SharePoint within the confines of big corp. USA – otherwise deemed “the enterprise.”
“In the last 18 months, we’ve watched as Box.net has transitioned from a cloud storage solution into an entire cloud-based content management system. At this point, Box.net is actively pitting itself against Microsoft’s SharePoint for small and large business users.”
Too many companies have invested too much in SharePoint to move away so quickly. Box will be bought and sold or become three different things before SharePoint subsides in the enterprise.
You see, people don’t install portals anymore, they install SharePoint. And those SharePoint implementations – good or bad – are the gateway to the rest of the business apps and workflows that users access to get work done.
I do think Box.net can continue to make inroads however, with mobile obviously being one of the catalysts. Mashable’s Christina Warren describes its mobile improvements.
"Box.net 2.0 adds in file preview (similar to the enhancements rolled out last month for the full site), the ability to comment and view comments on files or folders, the ability to share files or folders straight from the app, and the ability to view updates to an account or project."
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