ActoNetwork

Posts: On Innovation

Yahoo Pipes: A Hero's Weapon (BETA)

Last time , I asked if Yahoo Pipes was a web 2.0 hero 's weapon -- a tool that could be used to reconstruct the web in a way that increases returns on investments of attention. I tested it out. There are two problems: 1. It's not brain-dead simple enough. I have to think too much to use...

Yahoo Pipes: A Hero's Weapon?

In our article on the new rules of publishing 2.0 I mentioned that an enormous opportunity existed for a firm to create an RSS reconstruction tool -- a tool that essentially would facilitate the reconstruction of the web. Yahoo seems to realize the value of reconstruction tools in an...

We'll Be Better Friends If You Read Geoff Moore's Blog.

His last post is, as usual, off the hook. The ability both to create and promulgate such memes and to recognize when a meme is acting upon you or one of your constituents is core to being effective in this new reality. A connected world places an enormous premium on people who are fluent...

Are You Prepared to Make the Most Important Decision of Your Web 2.0 Career?

That decision is which content management system (CMS) you use to manage your web properties. We can sit here and talk all day about strategy and the edge. I can even lie to you and tell you the world is being inverted and that the key to marketing is superheroes and that there is an...

Community-Based Marketplaces

Threadwatch , an online marketing community, is contemplating launching a marketplace. See the discussion about it . In my opinion, we're going to start seeing a lot more of this. The community is essentially a platform for starting a business; it will provide you with the opportunity to make...

Quick Hits

1. Doc Searls, droppin' some knowledge on all ya'll: I think we'll like the results (of the relationship economy) we're willing to relate, and not just transact or converse. Even if I'm entirely selfish as a customer, I'm more willing to buy goods from a seller I'm used to dealing...

Freemium 2.0

Fred Wilson has coined the Freemium Business Model . Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc, then offer premium priced value added services or...

Great Quote from the Million Dollar Adsense Guy

I just found this great quote from Markus, the guy who made a million bucks off adsense in 3 months , on this GenuineVC blog post . Here it is: There is a massive paradigm shift going on right now. The cost of developing and growing a site to massive sizes is growing to 0. The big talk...

Quick Hits

1. Aaron Wall as a post about Google that is completely on the money. He notes that Google should be thought of as the "ultimate CRM system" and that they will become the "default commodities trading platform." Go read the whole post , it's great. 2. Geoff Moore explains...

In the Beginning, There Were Books. Now, There are Stocks.

Fidelity Investments has partnered with Amazon to sell their brokerage service via Amazon's ecommerce platform. The Boston Globe reports : Fidelity Investments, seeking to broaden its reach among consumers, has struck a marketing agreement with online retailer Amazon.com to sponsor a new...

Microsoft and the Innovator's Dilemma

In not so many words, John Battelle tells us that Microsoft is experiencing the innovator's dilemma. Microsoft is a middle aged company struggling to figure out how to dance with the teenagers, and its body simply can't keep up with its intentions, no matter how correct they may be. I'm...

Bye Bye, Corporation. Hello Network!

Umair Haque says that the corporation is dead. The ways we manage are deeply out of sync with the world around us. There's a reason so many movies, books, etc have been focused on the Kafkaesque institution the corporation has become. The corporation is a leftover from the industrial...

Oh My God Danah Boyd is a Genius

Her talk at eTech about building digital communities is proof. Here's the mind-blowing killer quote: 1) Empower users. Give them the ability to personalize and culturalize their spaces online. Let people create the contexts in which their expressions can occur so that they can help set and...

The Truth, in One Sentence

The folks at The Conversation (a hidden gem in the Internet marketing/business blogosphere, in my opinion), give what I love the most -- the truth: Web-based educational content with high IP value is roaring past traditional print and network tv as the smart media demand generator of...

You Own Your Clothes....For Now

Slate.com tells us that the fashion world is looking to make designs a copyrightable piece of intellectual property. The Council of Fashion Designers of America is meeting with members of Congress tomorrow to gather support for a bill to offer copyrightlike protection to clothing...

2.0 Web 2.0 Problems

What are the problems with virtually every web 2.0 company out there? Well, there are 2.0 problems: Just flat out bad ideas with weak value propositions. It works like this: good ideas solve problems; great ideas solve big problems; outrageously fantastic ideas solve big problems in a simple,...

Google Base = Google Banking?

Barry Schwartz at SEW Blog informs us that you can now accept payments without a merchant account through Google Base. So I guess this means Google CEO Eric Schmidt was lying when he said Google Wallet wouldn't compete with Paypal. Google Base is looking more like a Paypal threat by the...

AdSense Click Fraud is Only Yahoo's and MSN's Problem

Lots of people in the Internet business world talking about Google's $90 million settlement regarding a click fraud class action lawsuit. While click fraud is a real problem for Google, it is, in a way, a blessing as well: any attempts at highlighting the problem of click fraud will be more...

Google's Acquisition of Writely is Disruptive

As you've probably heard by now Google has bought Writely. The obvious question is is this an MS Word killer? Lots of people are saying no ( DeWitt Clinton , ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmm ). But they're wrong. This is a textbook disruptive innovation. Consider: MS Word is the dominant word...

The Similarities Between Open Source and Terrorism

Anyone whose read a few posts on this blog should know that I'm a big believer in open source; it's better for innovation, and when executed properly, it will be more profitable than proprietary code. On that note, here's an interesting post highlighting the similarities between open...

Check it Out: Jennifer Rice on Maslow and Marketing

It's like an annual event when she updates her blog, but Jennifer Rice has a great series of posts on a topic that can never be discussed enough: marketing and psychology. She goes through brand development strategies from the perspective of Maslow's hierarchy . Self-actualization is my favorite...

Save the Irony, FT Gets the Future of Media

Fred Wilson gives us this quote from Financial Times CEO Tom Glocer: First, media companies need to be “seeders of clouds”. To have access to high-value new content, we need to attract a community around us. To achieve that we have to produce high-quality content ourselves, then display...

It's True: Search Advertising is Overvalued

Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 argues that search advertising is about to crash . His argument: This is media economics 101. Ad dollars follow audience. If search only represents 5% of online media time, it shouldn’t have 40% of the dollars, no matter how measurable search advertising is....

Yahoo Shopping Sells Its Soul

In what could end up being a great countermove to Google Base , Yahoo has opened up its shopping API for commercial use , and is testing out a program that allows users of the API to monetize its use via affiliate programs. From the Yahoo Search Blog : Yahoo! is now accepting applications...

Make Something Interesting, Then Give a Blog

Steve Rubel tells us : Fox has launched a program that give American Idol fans their own blogs on the Fox site. Create something that captures attention and interest, and then let those whose interest you've captured start a blog. Once you have a lot of user-generated content,...

Tower Records Shows Us the Future of Media

Now this is hot. Tower Records plans on releasing a new online service called TowerPod that " lets consumers create their own podcasts using a catalog of some 6,000 songs , which Tower will provide free." (via PaidContent.org ). How will this be monetized? PaidContent tells us :...

A Software Company From the Future

SugarCRM is a software company from the future. These guys get it right, and if you're in the market for a CRM solution, these guys beat everyone (Salesforce included). Here's why: You get the software on your servers, none of this "let us host it for you" (translation: let us...

AOL Sees the Light

Slowly but surely, closed systems are dying. The most recent company to see the light: AOL. Slashdot points to an AOL announcement that explains : AOL said on Monday it planned to let software and service developers create their own versions of its AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), which...

Strategies for Spammers

So this blog recently got a spam attack, which is the third time or so that such a thing has happened. This last one was the worst one. I don't mind spam, as I view it as part of the game. The software I'm using to run this blog, LifeType , is one of the hidden gems in the open source world,...

MTV2 is Feelin' The Revolution

PaidContent.org notes that MTV2 has agreed to publish their content for free on YouTube. This is fantastic for everyone: YouTube gets more content to build its brand and get more attention from video publishers and video watchers; MTV2 gets more exposure for its artists, and thus increases its...

One Small Step for ABC, One Giant Step for Media

Steve Rubel notes that ABC will begin to broadcast some of its shows online -- for free, and with advertising. In other words, its media on demand. This is pushing us further along the evolutionary chain of media, which I propose will work something like this: We primarily consume...

Yahoo Flips the Script on Its Media Strategy

Cheers for Yahoo! I had faith they'd come through. Fred Wilson points to a New York Times article (registration required -- or not ) that states that Yahoo is changing its media strategy. Key quote: Indeed, Mr. Braun said yesterday that the way to keep users on Yahoo's site longer — and...

The Future of Search is Human

Fred Wilson and Greg Linden both ask the question of where search is headed (see Fred , see Greg ). To put it simply, search is headed human. In other words, the next generation of information retrieval is going to be powered primarily by humans -- not algorithms. This is more than...

Has Google Escaped the Innovator's Dilemma?

The Innovator's Dilemma , a concept and book popularized by Clayton Christensen , is essentially the idea that companies often have trouble innovating in the ways they need to because they lack the resources, internal business processes, and value system to succeed at innovating. For instance,...

Yo, Listen Up: The New Media Route to Beating Google

Hot damn! Scott Karp has a killer post on new media . You should read the whole thing, but below are some key quotes. Here's a great summary of how value works in Internet media: Media is about conversation and participation. Consumers can create their own media. Value is being created...

Look, Ma, I Leveraged My Network

Related to Umair Haque's idea of the post-network economy ( which I discussed here ) is the notion that you have to develop edge competencies -- in other words, you need to leverage assets that are external to your firm. Consider, for instance, how Google leverages its network of Internet...

MySpace, Fads, Danah Boyd, and Dr. Dre

Yahoo! researcher Danah Boyd has a great research paper on MySpace, geekily entitled, "Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace." An excerpt from the paper: What we're seeing right now is a cultural shift due to the introduction of a new medium and the...

Wait Till Netflix Starts Offering This

Tyler Cowen points us to The Soul Exchange , where you can rent out your soul or rent someone else's soul. Note how soul renting is incentivized -- truly creative, and introduces the possibility of The Soul Exchange earning revenue down the road.

Entrepreneurs: Social Software Is Your Best Weapon

Charlene Li at Forrester Research has a great post on the power of social computing -- essentially computational power based on monitoring social behavior (like where people click, what people blog about, where their attention is going, etc). It is closely related to social software, such as...

Office Live, ContentAds, and the Masterplan

Two major announcements from Microsoft: the release of Office Live , a web-based business solutions tool (NOT a web-based version of MS Office); and the announcement of ContentAds , Microsoft's forthcoming contextual ad network. Essentially, it looks as though Microsoft is trying to apply...

Network Economy is, Like, So Yesterday

One of my favorite Umair Haque-isms is the idea of the post-network economy. Haque writes : This is the shift to a post-network economy; where what we do with the stuff on the network is more valuable than just being part of the network. The difference between the network economy to the...

Media Goes Open Source

The Innovation Insider asks if sites like Digg and Slashdot -- community-oriented, citizen journalism news sites -- are the future of media. The article notes that such sites have a Darwinian approach to things; lots of content is submitted, but only the best gets to the top. This creates...

Robin Hood Would've Liked This

The Park Paradigm reports on the boom in microlending -- the ability to lend small amounts of money to anyone anywhere in the world. The post includes a key quote from an Economist.com article : In the past, the two main obstacles to providing financial services to poor people have been...

Yahoo Tries to Buy Relationships

This past week Yahoo rolled out a test campaign in which they emailed 5% of their users to see if they would be incentivized to use search. See the News.com story for facts and the Threadwatch discussion for some perspectives. The campaign was greeted with much skepticism, such as this...

Geoff Moore Talks Trash on Rap, Yo

In addition to advising firms to not conduct pep rallies in rap , Geoff Moore debates Tom Foremski's argument that all innovations are disruptive. He writes : My pushback is that, if you are a member of the establishment, you do not want to overcome the inertia of the status quo . It...

The Money is in the Relationships

Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution asks : should all web pages be blogs? The answer: yes. In an online world, where information is a commodity, content is a commodity, software is a commodity, and physical goods have razor thin margins (and falling), the only real asset is your portfolio of...

Being Ugly on the Outside Makes You Ugly on the Inside

Think all that matters is what's on the inside? That might be, but apparently what's on the inside has a hell of a lot to do with what's on the outside. Marginal Revolution points to this quote from Ugly Criminals , which argues that unattractive individuals are more likely to become...

Can Steve Jobs Chill With Mickey Mouse?

John Hagel has a great post on Disney/Pixar/Jobs scenario in which he explains why Jobs might not be the best fit for Disney. Hagel violates the most important piece of blogging advice in the history of mankind , so in an attempt to remedy that, here is a key quote: Jobs is a product...

Will Amazon Make the Ultimate Innovation Mistake?

Threadwatch points to this Sitepoint article that suggests that Amazon will attempt to roll out its own contextual advertising network that will compete directly with Google. Chris Beasley notes in the article : On the phone last night it was explained to me that this is more or less an...

Disruption Looms in the VC Industry

An idea that has recently been spreading through the VC and innovation blog niches is that the VC industry is ready to be disrupted. Here's a "meme highlight reel" that showcases the best of this conversation. Jeremy Wright : Notes that VCs need to add value by offering better...

Best Piece of Blogging Advice in the History of Mankind

Make your point as quickly as possible.

Can Video Ads Disrupt the Contextual Ad Market?

MIT Advertising Lab points to Vivenetwork , a new company aiming to make a market between video advertisers and web publishers. From their About page: Vive Network connects advertisers, agencies and content publishers together for an integrated online advertising across Video,...

Google, China, the Wu Tang Clan, and Necessary Evils

Getting lots of attention right now is the recent decision on the part of Google to censor their search engine results for Google.cn, their Chinese site, to be in compliance with mandates from the Chinese government. In my opinion, this issue cannot be looked at from a moral perspective....

Models of Potential Search Disruptors

The previous post explored the concept of transaction cost in SEO, and attempted to illustrate how an intermediary could add significant value to the search marketing industry by focusing primarily on reducing transaction costs for SEO. This post aims to extend that concept by exploring...

Search Value Nets & The Rising Costs of SEO

To understand why SEO costs are rising, let's take a look at the value net of each of the four players in the search industry. We can start by briefly defining the players in the search industry, and identifying what they give and take to the search industry: Users: This is anyone who...

A Framework for Disrupting SEO

The next few posts will be a "case study" of sorts that takes a closer look at the search engine optimization (SEO) industry. There are two main reasons why I feel the SEO industry is particularly useful for entrepreneurs and business strategists to study: The SEO...

Why Open Source Is Inevitable

Nick Carr explains it pretty well. He quotes John Mark Walker's article, " There is No Open Source Community ": "Software developers have two choices when trying to win over users: (1) add features not available elsewhere, and (2) release the source code. There is no other...

Why All the Hatin' on Google Video?

Lots of people talking trash on Google's bold new foray into the world of ecommerce through their video store . ArsTechnica's commentary is emblematic to what many around the web are voicing. The fact that they are introducing their own standards and DRM could be interesting, especially if...

Filling Gap's Strategy Gap

Business Innovation 2005 reports on clothing retailer The Gap's efforts at revamping their strategy: Gap is placing a big bet on a system-wide store makeover strategy, in the hopes that becoming "more like the neighborhood Starbucks" will make Gap a must-visit retail destination...

Google Casino, Google Insurance, Google Money

Previously in my posts on Google Casino and Google Insurance , I discussed that options on traffic from search engines may be the basis for a successful business model for both SEO firms and search engines. Along the same lines is this post at SearchEngineWatch forums , which discusses...

The Road to Web 2.0 is Through Web 1.0

Web 2.0 is about building a business that is a platform to support other businesses and services. Web 1.0 was about selling something to a customer. But to get to the platform that is 2.0, you need the products of 1.0 to get you there. Geoff Moore says it brilliantly : The key thing to...

Guy Kawasaki Kicks It Clayton Christensen Style

In his post entitled " The Art of Intrapreneurship ," business guru Guy Kawasaki offers insight into how to innovate in an established company. A key point he makes: Kill the cash cows. This is the only acceptable perspective for both intrapreneurs and their upper management....

Web 2.0: A World Without Home Pages

To put it in a single sentence, Web 2.0 businesses are those that can capitalize on online network effects. This means you need a lot of things, and you need to do a great job of connecting those things in meaningful, value-added ways. Because of the deep connection between networks and...

How To Become a Web 2.0 Millionaire

I'll have more confidence in this once I prove it, but here's the formula I think will work: Find your niche; identify your target customer. Focus not on getting the sale, but on getting that customer's attention. Key metrics to consider: number of visitors from typing in your name directly +...

RSS Is The Matrix

Alex Barnett notes that, contrary to what Slashdot says , RSS is used by approximately 31% of web users -- not just 4%. He writes : The study actually showed that 4% knew they were using RSS, while 27% were using it without realizing it. It seems as though RSS has some similiarities to the...

The Most Important Question

We live in a world in which a startup company must find a network to attach itself to . And, we must think about not just building our own company, but also about building an ecosystem . Based on this, which is the most important question: How can I make the most money for me? How can I...

The Need for Google Casino

In his list of 40 predictions for 2006 , Stuntdubl suggests the advent of "algorithm variable hedge betting" (#18 on the list) is near. This is similar to what I previously blogged about in the post entitled, " Do We Need Google Insurance? ". The more I think about it, the...

What is The Future Of Internet Marketing?

Stuntdubl answers that question in his list of forty predictions for 2006. I agree with most everything on the list, although here are my top ten: viral link attraction - "under the radar" text link purchase trusted links content with links exchange information...

It Makes Sense to Give Cents

Does it make sense to give cents? Microsoft is asking that same question. SE Roundtable points to The News Tribune reporting : Chairman Bill Gates wants to spread some of the wealth from Internet advertising. “When you use a search engine, if somebody is making lot of money from...

How to Compete When There's No Competition

I'm currently reading a fantastic business strategy book entitled The Death of Competition: Leadership & Strategy in the Age of Business Ecosystems . A short excerpt from the book that summarizes how entrepreneurs need to stat thinking in terms of strategy: With the collapse of...

Seth on Sneezers

Great tidbit of wisdom from Seth Godin: More often than not, ideaviruses start when the early adopters are dissatisfied with some element of the experience. Pleasing customers doesn't always lead to conversations. Delighting them, enraging them, hospitalizing them or surprising...

Google Fights the Inevitable

Presently, search engines try to disregard paid links in their algorithms. This concept was recently discussed again when famed blogger, trusted source (both in terms of search engines and readership), and Yahoo! employee Jeremy Zawodny started selling paid links on his blog without taking...

Search as a Commons (or Not)

Here's a great post from a while back from Vrypan.net that asks how long it can be until Internet search becomes decentralized: As search engines become more dominant and are able to influence economy, politics and culture in a straight-forward way depending on their ability or interests,...

Innoblog on the Nintendo Revolution

Innoblog has a great post on Nintendo's new gaming console, aptly named the Revolution, and how it stands to potentially disrupt the video game market. Basically, Nintendo is trying to change the game by changing the basis by which gaming consoles currently competes on -- high quality graphics...

Jane Galt Calls It

I wasn't going to say it, but she did . Here's my favorite part: The point being that the workers did indeed want a strike. They've been itching for it for years. That's because they know they will win. In the private sector, the company would probably fire them and replace them with...

Why Hasn't Google Spun Off Yet?

They're doing a lot of stuff right now, and I wonder if putting it all under the same roof is really the best idea. This means these new business lines will conform to the parent company's business model, and will probably focus on selling more ads to existing clients as opposed to selling ads to...

New York City is On Strike

The Transportation Workers Union of New York City is now on strike. This means the city has essentially be crippled, as the vast majority of New Yorkers and commuters use the public transportation system to get around. To me, unions are a defense against capital aggregation. Rewind, for...

Google Buys AOL -- What It Means for Beating Google

This Washington Post article reports that Google has acquired a 5% stake in AOL for 1 billion USD, beating out MSFT in the war for AOL. Plenty of people talking about this, obviously, and probably more to come, but here are some good discussions on the topic: Threadwatch ; Michael Parekh...

Do We Need Google Insurance?

If changes in Google's algorithm are becoming more unpredictable, its potential for high damage to your profitability down the road is also growing. In other words, if your profit is dependent on Google's algorithm, is your business model becoming increasing in risk? If so, how would you...

Is Google Over-invested in Technology?

I'm starting to think so. Here's why: 1. The algorithm is, as always, exchanging old problems for new problems. This time, though, the problem is that the new problems are accidental ; the publisher is intending to behave in way that Google deems acceptable, but Google's algorithm does not...

Squidoo.com: Disruption Gone Wrong

Squidoo is the new project of marketing guru Seth Godin . The basic idea -- or so it seems thus far -- is to allow people to write about what their experts in, and to earn money via advertising by doing so. It's pretty much a type of peer production strategy . Being a huge fan of Seth...

Cory Doctorow Makes Money By Selling Nothing

The laws of economics do not change. When marginal cost equals zero, on a long enough time frame, price too will equal zero. And so, if you plan on distributing many copies of a good whose marginal cost equals zero over a long period of time, you need to reconstruct your business model so that...

Matisyahu Disrupts the Reggae Market

Say you're an executive at a record label looking to find a reggae artist. Which of the following do you think is most likely to be the best bet? 1. a Jamaican guy with dreadlocks 2. a black woman born and raised in Harlem 3. a Hasidic Jewish guy born in Pennsylvania Enter Matisyahu , a...

You Must Give Away Your Intellectual Property

For most Internet companies, especially those banking on web 2.0 strategies, intellectual property doesn't have the kind of value it once did. It still has value -- lots of it -- but it's a different kind of value. Fred Wilson explains : The Web is a Platform and you must build on top of it...

Will Tivo Be the Next Internet Giant?

Right now there are three primary Internet giants: Google -- the starting point for more regular Internet users, as well as those who value fast and simple search. Yahoo -- Like communication tools, community, interactivity, and social media? Yahoo's your answer. Microsoft -- Your...

This Just Might Give Me a Wet Dream

My #2 hero, Clayton Christensen (second only to Axl Rose), recently gave a speech on disruptive innovation. He talks about the basics of disruptive innovation, the laws of commoditization, and an idea that really hits home with me: open source as a disruptive technology. It's almost enough to...

Wikipedia is Not the Next Google

Stephen Baker and Steve Rubel have been speculating on who is going to take down Google (see Baker here, and Rubel here ). Rubel's take is particularly interesting, since he notes that Wikipedia is next in line to take down Google. My opinion: no way. Not a chance in hell. My rationale:...

Kathy Sierra Reveals the Formula for Disruptive Innovation

Well, she calls it " how to come up with breakthrough ideas ," but to use the parlance of this blog, it's the same as how to come up with disruptive innovations. In what is one of the best blog posts I've read in a while (here, read it ), she begins by acknowledging perhaps the most...

Will Pulling a Google Work for Tivo? Yes!

Tivo recently announced a new initiative to allow users to search for ads, and this has gotten a fair amount of attention in the blogosphere. Some people ( Nick , Michael ) are more or less calling this stupid. I have to disagree. Tivo is simply ahead of the game, in my opinion, as ad search...

Jeremy Zawodny Knows How to Beat Google

Yahoo! employee and famed blogger Jeremy Zawodny understands that whoever is going to beat Google is going to do so not by beating them at their own game -- search and information retrieval -- but rather by changing the game to make something else important. He quotes this insightful post...

P2P as a Long Tail Disruptive Force

In this post , Chris Anderson notes that P2P file sharing increases the sales of unknown artists, but decreases the sales of well known artists. From this perspective, P2P can be seen as perhaps the ultimate disruptive force for any record label looking to break into the digital music market....

Fred Wilson Has Seen The Future of Media

And his vision is correct. His basic idea is to embed monetization opportunities in your content, and then distribute your content as far and as wide as possible. This is the future, without a doubt. Some companies have already caught on: Google AdSense -- They took their ad network and...

P2P as a Network Strategy

OpenBusiness has an interesting post on the feasibility of P2P business models. The article makes a great point on noting that P2P is really in line with network strategy; after all, it is really about coordinating peers on a network. This makes P2P very much in line with network...

What Happens When You Close Off Your Ecosystem?

Check this out. When you don't build an ecosystem, other companies build it anyway -- since customers demand one. And since you didn't help build the ecosystem, you lose your ability to get a critical position in it, and you lose your ability to profit from it. And that's what Apple is...

Create Your Own Ecosystem!

It's been said before, but it's worth saying again: in a network economy (which is quickly becoming descriptive of all of today's commercial economies), you need to think of how your product/service fits into an ecosystem. The best innovations will serve as a platform by which an entire...

Tyler Cowen On Getting More Tips

Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution shares a brilliant insight on getting more tips : Scrawling a patriotic message on a restaurant tab is a great way to boost tips...Patrons gave a 20 percent tip on tabs that included "United We Stand" but only 15 percent when they got no message at...

$100 Laptop as a Textbook Disruptive Innovation

On Wednesday at the UN Summit in Tunisia, a prototype for $100 laptop, developed primarily by MIT, was unveiled. BBC has the scoop. This has all the makings of a textbook disruptive innovation: It is a price-based innovation. The laptop is still a computer, but at $100, it is significantly...

Open Source And Emergent Innovation

This is just brilliant. Business Innovation 2005 points to this article by Jeff Vail on open source as an emergent innovation strategy that manifests ideally in a network economy. Key quote: The polar opposite of the structure of hierarchy is rhizome, a network of independent and...

EBay Gives Away APIs, Expands Network

Ebay recently announced that they will be dropping the price of their APIs to zero. Alex Barnett writes : According to News.com , up until today developers paid eBay between $1.25 to $2.90 per 1,000 items listed and an annual fee of $500. This is now zero. Why did they do this?...

Will Microsoft's Personalization Strategy Work?

As noted previously , Microsoft's Internet strategy appears to be centered around building an advertising-based revenue streams. I personally find this to be a highly suspect strategy, as Internet advertising-based revenue models is clearly where Google reigns supreme, and for Microsoft to be a...

Databases = Network Economy

Matt McAlister writes about the increasing ubiquity of databases , and how even the idea of databases is becoming more intuitive. What are the implications of this? For users, the ubiquity of databases is as close as there is to tangible evidence that network economics are becoming more and...

Innovation, Adobe Style

The Business Innovation 2005 blog has an interesting interview with Adobe COO Shantanu Narayen . Definitely worth checking out. Here's a key excerpt from the interview: What is the most important thing that needs to happen before innovation inside a company can occur? Shantanu Narayen:...

MSFT vs. Google: Who Will Win the Online Software Battle?

My previous post on Gates's leaked plans for MSFT highlighted the fact that MSFT sees advertising as a primary revenue model for web-based service applications that will disrupt desktop software. If this is the case, can they defeat Google, who has partnered with Sun and hinted at releasing an...

Gates Leaks His Disruptive Plans for Microsoft

Richard MacManus over at Web 2.0 points us to Dave Winer's site that has published a leaked email from Bill Gates and a memo from Ray Ozzie . The email and memo document how Microsoft sees online services disrupting the software market, and how they plan on seizing the opportunity. The emails...

Scaling Innovation

Fast Company asks: can innovation scale? The answer: depends on what kind of innovation you're talking about. Growing companies generally excel at introducing sustaining innovations , which can best be described as innovations that are incremental improvements over their current offerings. For...

Disrupting Education

The brilliant minds over at Innosight , an organization that lives and breathes The Innovator's Solution strategies, has a great post on the potential to disrupt the education industry. Check it out. Personally, I see mainstream education as something that is begging to be commoditized....

Sphere

I've been beta testing Sphere lately -- a new blog search engine that claims to have the answer to the blog search problem in which the current blog search engines do a rather poor job of not only delivering relevant results but of also filtering out spam. From what I've seen thus far,...

Amazon: Setting Stage for Network Effects?

From TechWeb : Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday said it would offer customers the option of buying online access to any page or section of a book, as well as the entire book, in an announcement that came the same day that rival Google Inc. started offering online access to library books and...

Futurists on Innovation

Meant to make a note of this earlier: Wired News on what futurists foresee as the top tech trends. Check it out. Which innovations are most likely to succeed? The same ones that always do: the ones that make things simpler, cheaper, and more convenient. As always, the more any innovation...

Salesforce Gets It

I'm a big fan of Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce.com. From this Business 2.0 blog entry comes a great quote from Benioff: No piece of software will ever replace Outlook. It will be a service. No piece of software will ever replace Office. It will be a service. This ties in with what...

Disruption Is Not A Mainstream Event

From Steve Juvetson: Disruptive innovation, the driver of growth and renewal, occurs at the edge. In startups, innovation occurs out of the mainstream, away from the warmth of the herd. He hit the nail on the head. Read more.

Open Source Takes on the iPod

The iPod's reign of tyranny may be coming to an end, as Neuros announces plans to create an open source mp3 player . As was expected the open source movement continues to grow -- Babak Nivi reported on open source hardware not too long ago as well, which is another sign that the iPod may be...

Will Microsoft Choose to Commoditize Itself?

Bill Gates commented today on Microsoft's decision to roll out "Office Live" in the near future. It is meant to be a supplement to its desktop software that will allow users to work on MS Word documents on the web. For more, check out ZDNet , CNet , Microsoft Watch , and...

Are Long-Term Strategies Still Possible?

Internet marketer Jim Boykin has an interesting blog entry about search engine optimization (manipulating the search engine to show your site in the listings for your keyword). He notes that the process of optimizing for a site can take a few years, and hence patience is required. It's a good...

Enforcement Costs and Innovation

The Virtual Handshake has a great article on the economic impact of online piracy. The article is a great read -- check it out. Here's a key quote from Scott Allen in the article: "Consider the analog world. Grocery stores, for example, lose millions and millions of dollars a year to...

The Money You Take is Equal to the Money You Make

Bubble Generation drops some serious knowledge on success the 2.0 way. Check it out. Moral of the story: now more than ever, the best business models are those help others make money. Look for innovative ways to allow your product/service to help others make money, and you're on to a good start.

Can Google Deal With Blog Search?

Patrick Gavin over at Link Building Blog notes that Google's search engine favors older web domains . In light of this, is it possible that Google is quite vulnerable to being disrupted by a blog search engine? Blogs are a very time-sensitive publishing tool; many blogs are created on a...

International Innovation: A Daunting Challenge

As Matt points out here , innovating for an international audience and cultures that you are not familiar with is particularly difficult. In my work experience, this is not something you can easily fake; other cultures can spot when something feels foreign or "culturally imported."...

Should Companies Create Commons to Foster Innovation?

From OnTheCommons : The point is that even industry needs a robust and open public domain in order to innovate. That’s a key reason why so many software giants are turning to open source software, and why IBM has made dozens of its software patents available to competitors (while...

Will the Browser Return to Value?

In this article , the master of innovation, Clayton Christensen , offers key insight into how companies can position themselves to maximize their stake of a given industry's value. His words: The companies that control the interdependent links in their industry value chain dominate...

Answers Partners With Wikipedia -- Is it Disruptive?

Answers.com recently announced a partnership with Wikipedia whereby the firm would be able to license Wikipedia's content for its own information delivery services. These services generate revenue via advertising, and the revenue would be shared between Answers and Wikipedia . (More)

The Underdog's Solution: How to Break Into and Conquer Any Industry Online

While the Internet has created entrepreneurial opportunities for the likes of both Fortune 500 companies and sole proprietors working out of their basement, the fundamental entrepreneurial dilemma still remains: how can entrepreneurs break into an already established market? In this article,...

What is Disruptive Innovation?

What is Disruptive Innovation? A disruptive innovation is any innovation that meets one of the following: Creates a new market for new stuff. Example: Mp3 players created an entirely new market for music consumption. Changes how companies compete. Example: Google, Yahoo, and MSN all vie...

Flock: Where's the Disruption?

Flock is a new web browser -- a spin-off, so to speak, of Firefox. It's big claim to fame is its strategy of making the browser a more social/communicative tool; it allows for superior RSS integration, social bookmarking , blogging, and more. Here's a positive,detailed review of its features,...

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