Connecting the dots ...
This would belong in the humor category … if it wasn’t for real: the Custom Search Blog, owned by Google was identified by Google as spam, and shut down, after which an individual without any affiliation to Google took over the domain. Details at PC World.
(I could not stuff that title with more digg & dugg…). Anyway, Clickalite did some digging into how often the Technorati 100 gets dugg up to the Digg homepage. 92 of the Technorati 100 are English-language blogs, and 76 of them made it to the homepage (you know, dugg up on Digg). The leader of the pack , Ars Technica made it a whopping 1350 times! TechCrunch only got dugg up 533 times, and Mike has said before he only gets about 10% of his traffic from Digg – no wonder, with over half a million subscribers.
Well, I’m just a little rookie blogger compared to Mike, but even I’ve made it into the Top 100, and I did not need the “digg effect” – only made it to the home page about 3 times, if memory serves me well.
In fact, I am #1 on Technorati! But wait… is was Aaron, Brownbaron, Sizlopedia, Matt, Shaun, Eclectic Life, Grokdotcom,* and a number other blogs I’ve never heard of before. Hm… quite a few to share my throne with
. Turns out this Saturday was “Everybody No 1 on Technorati Day”. Good for Clickalite not having done his (manual) research on Saturday….
Btw, there was more trouble with T’rati that day. If you look at the pic here, I seem to have 0 (yes, zero) blog reactions to my blog. Now, I know my “authority” has been in a free-fall (lost about 30% so far) since moving to WordPress recently, but how did I make it to even 484 with 0 links?
Oh, well… still waiting for that White Knight.
Related posts: Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim and CenterNetworks
* Groktodcom on the messed up Technorati authority:
If rank meant everything, every blogger who’s had even one link documented by Technorati could rejoice more than they already are after being accidentally ranked #1 today — thanks to a glitch. f rank meant everything, you wouldn’t have to create fresh, original content. If rank meant everything, blogs wouldn’t be worth reading. Everyone would be baiting links (like I am). Like money, when rank means everything, it means nothing. Do blog readers really care about rank? 😉
Tags: technorati authority, technorati, technorati 100, digg, digging, dugg, social networking, social bookmarking
Microsoft laid out its web-based strategy at their recent annual meeting with financial analysts. Pressed by first of all Google, but even smaller players like Zoho and ThinkFree, Microsoft announced they will add similar services to their Office products, first of all Word and Excel.
“We’re not moving toward a world of thin computing,” said CEO Steve Ballmer, referring to systems in which simple processing takes place on a PC, but more complex processing is moved to a centralized computer through a network connection. “We’re moving toward a world of software plus services.”
A few days later Microsoft’s half-hearted announcement (leak?) about giving away free, ad-supported versions of its baby-office, MS Works 9 sparked speculation if this would in fact turn out to be a Software plus Service offering.
Let me reveal a secret: I’ve been using Microsoft’s “software plus services” for years – long before the term was coined. Microsoft Money, the product I was forced to switch to when my bank abandoned Quicken support 7 years ago is a classic example of software plus services. The client software came with a browser-like UI, smoothly connecting online services into the basics ran on my PC. In fact switching between screens I often did not realize whether I was working offline or online. Isn’t that what “software plus services” is all about?
Money was a latecomer to the personal financial management scene, clearly dominated by Intuit’s Quicken, and in the first few years it got better and better … perhaps Microsoft’s intention was to kill Intuit after they could not buy it. 
When it didn’t happen, they must have lost interest – the annual Money upgrades brought less and less new features or even bug fixes, and smart users started to skip releases between upgrades. Then trouble started left and right: weird things happened to my accounts beyond my control. Categorization? I’ve long given up on it, most of my downloaded data is associated with junk categories. The real bad part: data changed in existing accounts, very old transactions downloaded again into already reconciled months..etc. This is my bank account, my money we’re talking about! The very data I meticulously took care of while in my possession now got randomly changed. The only way to be really sure I have the right balances was (is) to go and verify them at the individual bank or broker sites.
But none of this compares to the total ignorance Microsoft showed when they “upgraded” Online Banking on the 19th of July. There was no prior warning, or an option to upgrade at a later time when I logged on, I was simply notified that an upgrade *had taken place*, and that I no longer have access to my online accounts until I do a bunch of house-cleaning:
In order to update successfully, you will need to disable the existing online services for some of your accounts, set up those accounts again so that they will use the updated service, and then merge the old and new accounts.
Of course it’s not that simple, first I had to process all pending downloaded transactions, then back-up Money, then proceed with the task above. Oh, and the poison pill: merging accounts. I had the misfortune of doing it at a previous Money upgrade, and merge it didn’t… I ended up with zillions of duplicate entries to be cleaned manually. But I had no choice… I wanted to make a payment, and Microsoft locked me out of my accounts – so I started laboring away, around midnight. This time (unlike many) I was actually lucky: after about two hours, I was all set, the merges worked this time, and I was ready to make the payment – the 2-minute transaction I started 2 hours earlier.
(Update: Telling quote from a Microsoft employee:
This past weekend I got the most horrible and scary warning from Money. Just reading the instructions on how to keep using Money with Online Banking is enough to make this computer professional run screaming from my office. The instructions are 24 freaking pages!!! longer than the manual for the product. I seriously almost went to the “Add / Remove Programs” Control Panel to fix the problem.)
Now, if you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably noticed my anti-Microsoft leaning, and I don’t deny it: we all (well except Mac users) share the frustration of failed updates, the pleasure of patching the patches after Black Tuesdays – what is there to like? But none of that is comparable to a software company ignorantly cutting off their users’ access to their own money, (and I don’t mean *MS Money*
) and not even feel the need to apologize. It’s the absolute Cardinal Sin. And now this company wants me to put my trust in their services?
I’d much rather trust Wesabe with my money matters – their user groups are lively, full of advice, the CEO himself participates, in fact he is taking user calls 7 days a week. The full truth is, I have not switched yet, as they lack in functionality vs. Money, but I can’t wait….
Back to the title of this post – what’s the component Microsoft does not have to offer Software plus Service? It’s Customer Focus. It’s simply not in their DNA. It will be hard to deliver *Service* when your customers don’t trust you.
Update#2: Omar Shahine, a Microsoft employee responded – it’s worth reading in full, in fact I’ve just suscribed to his blog. I’m just quoting a few excerpts:
I absolutely empathize with this post on Software + Services by Zoli. As a long time user of Microsoft Money, I am this close to outsourcing the software part to Wesabe…
Now, I don’t agree that Microsoft lacks Customer Focus. That’s saying that all 70,000 employees lack customer focus…
I certainly don’t mean to imply that all 70,000 employees lack customer focus. They may all have the best intentions, it’s the end result that counts, the company’s interaction (or lack of) with Customers, and that’s often through products.
Money issue aside, I think it we add up the time spent with bungled patches, rebuilding Outlook profiles..etc, we (computer users) ALL lost days of our lives to Microsoft.
That’s bad enough, but can mostly be attributed to unintentional technical glitches. The Money Online Update was “Crossing the Rubicon”: Somebody in Microsoft had to make a deliberate decision that it was OK to cut off customers access to their financials without first telling them, giving them options, or even apologizing after the fact. That makes the *company* blatantly ignorant – despite the best intentions of those 70K employees.
Update #3: Further evidence of Customer Focus, the Wesabe way. I suppose they did not intend to pile on, but their comments got held for moderation, so they did not see each other’s.
And in perfect timing, here’s an article on Customer service 2.0, the Zoho way. The two stories they link to are worth reading – somewhat similar to what I’ve talked about here. Beliefs are important – but in our materialistic world, there is always the “What’s in it for them?” question. Well, it *pays* to focus on your customers. It may well be Zoho’s key differentiator, why users stick with them, instead of the default Goo-rilla. 
It certainly paid another company, Atlassian which grew to over $20M in revenue without a sales force. “Support is Sales for us” – they claim (PDF), and the numbers back them up.
Update (8/8): Wow, interesting timing: Today Microsoft released Microsoft Money Plus, the 2008 version of the Money products. It comes in four editions: editions: Essentials, Deluxe, Premium, and Home & Business. Well, almost. Microsoft offers a nice comparison chart, which neglects to mention a small detail, available only at the footnotes:
* Important note – Microsoft Money Essentials will not be able to open previous Money or Quicken files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of Money or Quicken, Money Plus Deluxe may be the right solution for you.
Not opening Quicken … well, it’s their decision. But not opening data from their very own previous releases? And this is hidden in the small print?
I rest my case.
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Wow, a Google StreetView Chevy just turned in the cul-de-sac, I saw it from the window. (Thank God I was inside and … hm.. not doing anything nasty
) I
I wonder how long it takes for the pics to show up on Google StreetView – we’re a small town, after all…
Tags: Google Maps, Google Streetview
If you’re in business, have some interest in collaboration, software, workplace dynamics, it’s hard to imagine you haven’t heard the term Enterprise 2.0. Especially so after the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.
Quite a difference from last year, when the term was intensely debated and the very existence of the relevant Wikipedia entry questioned. I learned a lot about the workings of Wikipedia, and chronicled the debate, but in the end concluded that it was irrelevant:
“Enterprise 2.0 as a term my be relatively knew, but it’s not some theoretical concept a bored professor is trying to sell to the world. It’s disruptive change, a confluence of technological, social and business changes in how corporations conduct business using new IT tools. No Wikipedia gatekeepers can prevent this seismic shift. Let’s move on, do our work, and in less than 6 months Enterprise 2.0 will find its way back to Wikipedia.”
And it did. The Wikipedia entry on Enterprise 2.0 was allowed to stay. Of course as Enterprise 2.0 became “fashionable”, new players claimed ownership, the entry barely resembled the original, and at some point Harvard Professor Andrew McAfee, whose April 2006 article in the MIT Sloan Management Review started it all was relegated to just a footnote. (He probably cared more about practical adoption in business then about turf-wars.). But none of these changes are comparable to what just happened.
Ironically, not long after the publication of a HBS Case Study on Wikipedia (largely based on the debate-experience), a Wikipedia administrator heavily edited the Enterprise 2.0 entry – in fact he almost completely wiped it out and rewrote it. Here are Professor McAfee’s notes on the change, and the key part of the edited article:
“Enterprise 2.0 is a term used at least since 2001 to describe a second-generation approach to online knowledge within a business…
The term Enterprise 2.0 was coined in 2001 by Participate Systems, Inc. CEO Alan Warms[5] and grew through its use in business and in industry conferences…
So supposedly Enterprise 2.0, which just in 2006 was not noteworthy or original enough to be mentioned in Wikipedia, has been used for half a decade. In that case, there sure is a lot of evidence – why didn’t Andy McAfee’s search on the joint terms “Alan Warms” and “Enterprise 2.0.” bring any meaningful results? Nowadays, “if it’s not on Google, it does not exist“…
Alan Warms’s company, Participate Systems no longer exists, having been acquired in 2004, but thanks to the Wayback Machine we can find some information on their products from several years between 2001 and 2004:
Participate Enterprise is a software solution that takes the collective expertise of your organization and puts it to work on every sales call.
Our software solution, Participate Enterprise 2.0, is built on an open architecture technology that provides our clients with unmatched community functionality that features the industry’s most robust question-and-answer natural language querying engine.
Participate Systems combines best-of-breed Self-Help, Expertise and Community management systems in one comprehensive collaboration platform, Participate Enterprise 3.
Hm… it sure looks like they had a software product named Participate Enterprise, which had subsequent releases, including 2 .. and 3, by the time they got acquired. Yes, they used the term, but not to describe a concept, which would belong in Wikipedia, rather as part of a product name. (I suspect if we look long enough, we might dig up a Microsoft/other vendor product that has an Enterprise version and has/had a release 2.0).
That said, I don’t know all the facts, and I may be wrong in my conclusion. However, what’s really disturbing here ins the process of how this Wikipedia admin got so dramatically changed by one single administrator. All the discussion, the references, the very concept of Enterprise 2.0 is gone – instead we have a history of facts somewhat related (?) to the term. 2006, the year of Enterprise 2.0 is gone – but perhaps that’s not so surprising, given that the Wikipedia admin who wiped it all out, only discovered Wikipedia in 2006, after the Enterprise 2.0 debate:
“I first encountered Wikipedia on the web when I was doing some research. Wikipedia seemed to come up first on my Google searches, so I decided to check it out. I first posted on October 12, 2006. By December 2006, I realized that Consensus and Assume Good Faith were behind Wikipedia’s success.”
Hm… single-handedly wiping out what dozens of experts edited does not exactly indicate respect for Consensus to me. I guess it does not matter, when you’re an administrator. Time to update the Harvard Case Study on Wikipedia.
Update (8/4): There’s a lively discussion going on in the Enterprise Irregulars group right now (and it’s 6am on Saturday!). We’re wondering how to properly fix the bungled Wikipedia entry. Jreferee’s handywork would normally amount to Vandalism, and vandalism is best dealt with by restoring the previous “correct” version, then editing from there. But when vandalism is committed by an Administrator, is it still vandalism?
Update #2 (8/4): Finally! A Wikipedia Admin with common sense 
. From the Enterprise 2.0 entry’s History record:
00:46, 5 August 2007 Ruud Koot (Talk | contribs) (11,391 bytes) (some of these product have a version 3.0 (and likely a version 1.0) as well. they have nothing to do with enterprise 2.0.)
00:56, 5 August 2007 Ruud Koot (Talk | contribs) (40 bytes) (this article is fatally flawed, restoring redirect to Enterprise social software) (undo)
The interesting but completely irrelevant blurb about software products that include the term “Enterprise” and a release number is gone, the Enterprise 2.0 entry is now redirected to Enterprise social software. I tend to think it would deserve its own entry, but let’s be real, it’s difficult to restore a vandalized entry, and this one is a lot closer to the subject matter than the previous version.
Update (8/23): “It’s over. The Deletionists won.” – says Nick Carr in the “Rise of the wikicrats“. A story worth reading… I’m not about to spoil it. Here’s just the conclusion:
Maybe the time has come for Wikipedia to amend its famous slogan. Maybe it should call itself “the encyclopedia that anyone can edit on the condition that said person meets the requirements laid out in Wikipedia Code 234.56, subsections A34-A58, A65, B7 (codicil 5674), and follows the procedures specified in Wikipedia Statutes 31 – 1007 as well as Secret Wikipedia Scroll SC72 (Wikipedia Decoder Ring required).”
Related posts: Between the Lines, Venture Chronicles, Scott Gavin, ReputationXchange, broadstuff, Deal Architect, Open Gardens, Collaboration Loop.
Tags: wikipedia, enterprise 2.0, wikipedia debate, deletionists, inclusionists, harvard business school, hbs, harvard case study, wikipedia vandalism
This does not require any comment – White House deputy political director Scott Jennings, dodging Sen. Patrick Leahy’s questions. 
Have you purchased a $1,500 iPhone? Well, now you could stand in line just as long and get it for $0.99 – yes that’s ninety-nine cents only.
The catch? You have to be in the first 9 customers at 99¢ Only Stores’ 25th Anniversary Celebration.
I wonder why 9 only … 99 would have been more appropriate for 99 (c) Only. I guess they are… hm.. there’s no better way to say it, so I will just say: cheap. Funny thing is, 99¢ Only Stores may very well be the only business proudly waring the “cheap” badge. After all, they’ve built a business on being cheap. 😉
Update: Standing in a long line is definitely a better deal than what this man went through…
Additional reading: Apple 2.0 , IntoMobile, MacDailyNews, Lost Remote, PalmAddicts, Forever Geek
Today my blog is getting a lot of hits from the Google search “Microsoft Office 2008”. This is typically a good indication that something newsworthy has just happened… and there we go, it’s on TechMeme: Microsoft Delays Office 2008 for the Mac. Actually, a delay by Microsoft is almost not newsworthy – shipping on time would be
Now, the only problem is that all those readers driven to my blog by Google are probably disappointed: my old post from June 2006 is not about what later became Office 2008: back than I was poking fun at yet-another Microsoft delay, declaring that if Office 2007 slipped any further, Microsoft might as well call it Office 2008. A few weeks after this post MS announced they’d be using the Office 2008 moniker for the Mac software.
Sorry to disappoint anyone, I have no clue how this little post became the #1 search result on Google for Office 2008.
For information on the *real* Office 2008 you’re better off reading these posts: Ars Technica, ParisLemon, LucaFiligheddu.com, Neowin.net, Apple 2.0, Macworld, Office Evolution, Mac Mojo, Microsoft News Tracker, Compiler, Computerworld, BetaNews , MacUser, O’Grady’s PowerPage , CyberNet Technology News, Lifehacker, Web Worker Daily,
Tags: microsoft office 2008, ms office 2008, google search, blogging
So it’s John Dvorak’s turn to predict Bubble 2.0. Yawn. Why now?
Of course there will be a Bubble – booms are always followed by a bust. Oh, and by the way, I should be a stock-market millionaire: I made all the right calls. Too bad my timing was always off. Timing is everything.
One day we’ll all claim we had spotted Bubble 2.0. These say-nothing article lay the grounds just for that – so one day we can all look smart. Again.
Oh, well. This reminds me, I haven checked my favorite Bubble 2.0 site for a while. Wow! The last post was in August 2006. And a real surprise: the site is run by fellow Enterprise Irregular, Moonwatcher, SyncMeister Charlie Wood. (last I quoted Bubble 2.0 I did not realize it was Charlie’s work). In fact he started Bubble 2.0 (which, I repeat, is a good site, sans the timing) in 2004. But why did he abandon it? Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he got super-busy with his growing business, Spanning Sync – a sure sign of a Bubble, isn’t it?
Update: As much as I claim to Connect the dots I’ve failed to notice the the connection between this post and my previous one, on Elton John. Thankfully, Matthew Ingram didn’t – his title hits the nail on the head: Troll alert: The two Johns — Elton and Dvorak. Hilarious.
Update (8/2): By this morning this has bubbled up to the top of TechMeme:
Silicon Alley Insider, CrunchGear, A VC, CostPerNews, MYBLOG by Ouriel, JD on EP, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Master of 500 Hats, Business Week, Ajaxian, rexduffdixon.com, Don Dodge (gotta love this:” The real bubble that is bursting here is Dvorak’s influence“), Venture Chronicles, Scobleizer, the Constant Observer, Socialtext, Defrag, Industry Girl
Tags: Bubble, bubble 2.0, Spanning Sync, Humor
Publisher / Editor of CloudAve and Enterprise Irregulars.
I do most of my business blogging there, with occasional asides here. More...
Blog Comment Systems Galore
What a difference (less than) two years make! Here I was complaining about losing half the conversation …. two months later three comment tracking services debuted: coComment , MyComments and co.mments. Of these three, coComment developed decent traction.
Fast forward a year or so, and we have an abundance of comment tracking / conversational tools: TechCrunch just announced Intense Debate:
TechCrunch mentions JS-Kit, SezWho, and Tangler as competitors. But on the very same day Fred Wilson announced another commenting system:
Based on some similarities (at least at first glance) I thought it was Intense Debate skinned somewhat differently – but after all, there was a little logo leading to Disqus: another commenting/ conversation system.
Choices, choices … what’s a poor blogger to do?
Update: I’ve met – online – Josh from Intense Debate and Daniel from Disqus. The dilemma still stands (hm, should I say I’m intensely debating which one to try ;-)) but in the meantime I’ve found this video on Daniel’s blog. It’s absolutely off-topic, and absolutely worth watching (till the very end, or you’ll miss the point):