Content Matters

Bad Idea of the Day: LinkedUp

From the Guardian comes word of a new app - the cleverly named LinkedUp, which they describe as "Tinder for your professional network".

The app uses the LinkedIn API to access a user's professional contacts, and has a Tinder-like interface to quickly browse pics and profiles.

Let's think for a minute about how bad an idea this truly is. 

For most of us, our professional network consists of current and former coworkers, clients, your next potential boss and more. What could possibly go wrong?

I can only imagine the alerts from LinkedIn: you've just been endorsed for the following skills...

According to founder Max Fischer, "I think it helps people feel a little more comfortable about people. I was looking through some profiles earlier today and the tag line says "You must love sports and dogs" or "I really love this hockey team." 

Wait - I thought that's what Facebook already does. It captures your social graph, your interests, your experiences and more. But it does that in your social circle, not your professional circle. In other words, people who are less likely to adversely impact your career if things don't go quite right.

There could be worse ideas for dating. Perhaps a "classmates.com" for prison parolees, or an app that sits on top of the national sex-offender registry. And, I'm sure there will be those who find LinkedUp to be a useful app. But, there's a reason we don't have a single social graph, covering our business and personal lives. And most of us prefer that those world's do not collide.

 

 

 

LinkedOut? LinkedIn Shuts Out CRM Partners

Based on this post from Zoho CRM, it appears that LinkedIn has cut its CRM partners to just two - Salesforce and Microsoft. And, if you visit the LinkedIn Developer page, it becomes clear that they have chosen to work with just those two partners. 

In an environment where APIs and web services are at the core of innovative web applications, LinkedIn is taking a step backwards towards a walled garden. From a financial standpoint, I understand it. LinkedIn has an incredibly unique and valuable database. And SalesForce and Microsoft not only have the huge installed base, but also the deep pockets to make this a hugely profitable partnership. 

The exclusivity may make sense from a short-term revenue standpoint, but it's certainly not providing value to many of its users. I don't know the terms of LinkedIn partnership deals, but hopefully they can come up with an access plan that could make sense for some of the smaller, upstart providers like Zoho, Nutshell and others. 

 

Twitter Buys Gnip; What Are the Repercussions?

Twitter is buying social media firehose Gnip, it's largest distributor and among the largest social data aggregators.

On the surface, this could make sense. Twitter has been looking to monetize its data, and simply being a wholesaler doesn't let that business scale. As Rob Passarella notes, the deal is a clear sign that Twitter is focused on its data business.

But the acquisition raises a few interesting questions.

Data aggregation platforms are typically most successful when they are independent. Aggregators thrive because they can be "Switzerland", neutral and unaffiliated with any providers. It's what makes acquisition of aggregators difficult. Once they are acquired, they lose that independence. I've seen this happen many times in the financial data business.

So, the two questions this deal raises in my mind are:

1. What will the other Gnip data partners do, now that Twitter has acquired them? Beyond Twitter, Gnip partners include Facebook, Google+, FourSquare, Tumblr, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Instagram, Disqus, StockTwits, Estimize and more.

While many of these partners may be content to allow their data to flow through Twitter-owned Gnip, I can see some (Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube) looking to exit the service.

2. What will this mean for DataSift? Gnip competitor DataSift is the other leading provider of the Twitter firehose, along with Facebook, Tumblr, G+ and many others. Will Twitter still sell its firehose via DataSift? Will Gnip gain strategic advantages due to its new parent? And, will Google or Facebook to jump in with an offer to buy DataSift in response to Twitter's acquisition of Gnip?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of the Ruins: Lessons from Thunderdome

Yesterday's announcement by Digital First Media's John Paton, that DFM would be shuttering it's Project Thunderdome has provoked quite a bit of chatter. Much of that came in the way of schadenfreude, or "patonfreude", as Lucia Moses called it.

And, some of that is to be expected. John Paton has a big personality and he was not shy about touting the bold steps that DFM was taking in an effort to redefine their business. But most of the response was supportive, recognizing that bringing change is difficult, and we should celebrate the efforts, regardless of the results.

Ultimately, there were many huge challenges that DFM and Project Thunderdome faced.

As Mathew Ingram notes, a private equity-backed structure, does not lend itself well to long-term experimentation with new models. 

But digging more deeply, there were many structural issues. 

The basic idea behind Thunderdome was to create a centralized newsdesk to handle all big, national stories, with local properties handling local news. In many ways, that made sense, and DFM assembled an all-star team of digital news professionals, led by Jim Brady and Robyn Tomlin to lead it.

But that model may have been one of the big challenges for DFM. 

While shared resources make sense, transformation of a business from print to digital can't be done by a centralized, shared unit. Innovation is not something that can be created externally and dropped into an organization, as though by an Amazon drone.

As Ken Doctor notes: "Thunderdome wasn’t universally received well within the company. Talk to the locals and you heard grumbles. Traffic to the new Thunderdome sections didn’t impress them. They didn’t like national imposition on local news judgment."

Successful transformation has to come from a blend of new and old. Embedding new capabilities, while empowering existing editorial resources, is probably the best path to success. Of course, there is always resistance to change, and we've seen many cases where the legacy organization rejects the implantation of an innovation team. But it seems that positioning Thunderdome as the future, and the local papers as "the past" left DFM with no bridge to navigate the present.