Content Matters

Gartner, today, released its 2006 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle Report.  The annual report which shows where Gartner analysts (if not their clients) will be focused for the coming year, listed Web 2.0, Real World Web and Applications Architecture as the three big emerging technologies.

Within Web 2.0, Gartner focuses on four trends and technologies:

• Social Network Analysis, basically the enterprise business intelligence view into all the nuggets of information generated through social networks.  There are clear opportunities here for market research, competitive intelligence and trend identification.
• Ajax: the processes used to develop functional applications within the browser
• Collective Intelligence: the development of content, metadata, software and other services by a large group of people without any centralized authority.
• Mashups: the integration of multiple web services to create new services. 

Of these four, Gartner views Collective Intelligence as having the highest potential impact, as a “transformational technology” in Gartner terminology, but with mainstream adoption 5-10 years down the road.  Social Network Analysis and Ajax are both considered high impact, with a much shorter time horizon – less than two years.  Mashups have only moderate impact (which they already have achieved IMO), again with a less-than two-year horizon.

The challenge for many organizations is that to fully embrace Web 2.0 often means a major change in your business model.  While it’s easy to begin using Ajax, it’s much harder to shift from a centralized, controlled environment to an open source or collective intelligence approach.  While the early success stories for Collective Intelligence have occurred in the consumer space (think MySpace or YouTube), innovative companies will identify ways to harness this in the enterprise environment. 
The key for content providers today is to begin to use these tools and make them a part of their daily routine.  Create a development sandbox and see how your users begin to interact with these technologies.  Over time, as these technologies move towards mainstream adoption, you’ll be well-positioned to take advantage of them.

For more insights on the Gartner report and Web 2.0, read posts by Dion Hinchcliffe, Paul Kedrosky and Peter Rip.

Now that I've had the chance to play with Google Spreadsheets a bit, here are my initial reactions:

Overall, it's a well-constructed implementation of Ajax.  In most ways, the app behaves like a software application not a web app.  Response times are fairly snappy and you don't feel like you're working on a hosted application.

The basic look and feel is, well, like a spreadsheet.  It's the same basic experience that we've had for more than 20 years.  It's hard to get excited about Google Spreadsheets as an application.  At the same time, the fact that Google has delivered a compelling ASP spreadsheet should come as a big boost to supporters of the Software as a Service (SaaS) model.  It's not that this application takes us to new capabilities, but rather that it proves that there's not a lot that you can't do in a hosted model anymore.

As previously mentioned, I don't see this replacing Excel for typical U.S. business users.  Instead, it may be used for a lot of the non-business-critical tasks that spreadsheets are used for, such as maintaining contact lists.  Also, with hosted applications, users may not want to entrust confidential data to Google.

In related news, TechCrunch posts that social software provider SocialText has struck a deal to be the exclusive distributor of wikiCalc, another web-based spreadsheet.  WikiCalc is the brainchild of Dan Bricklin, father of the spreadsheet, who launched VisiCalc for the Apple IIe in 1979.

The significance of this could be bigger than Google Spreadsheets, according to TechCrunch.  Integrating WikiCalc within SocialText will enable users to host the content inside their firewalls.  Also, as a wiki, wikiCalc offers a complete audit trail, so you can see who edited what.  WikiCalc is an open source application and the look and feel are more like a web page than a spreadsheet.  While that may turn off the number cruncher types, I think it makes row and column data much more accessible to a wider audience.

While Google Spreadsheets seems like a great tool for non-mission-critical applications, wikiCalc could see quick adoption within workgroups for sharing project documents.

As RSS feeds proliferate, it becomes more and more difficult to keep up with critical blogs and news feeds.  While mainstream tools like my.yahoo will probably become the dominant platform for reading RSS in the near-term, there are a number of more innovative and interesting viewers out there.

One of the more compelling offerings is Netvibes.

Netvibes is an ajax-based RSS home page.  At first glance, it doesn’t look that different than other portals.  Once you begin to use it, though, you can see how Netvibes has created a powerful and flexible interface that it simple to use.

Users can drag and drop content panels to any spot on the page.  Each panel can be customized with a click, changing the color or number of posts to include.  In addition to text-based feeds, you can point to image feeds such as flickr, a websearch box or links to any other site such as delicious.

As the site has been developed using Ajax, all of this customization can be done without redrawing the full page. 

What’s the impact for publishers?
RSS will soon be changing the content delivery game in a big way.  If you haven’t begun developing your RSS strategy, the clock is ticking.  RSS will be at the heart of Microsoft’s new IE7 and Windows Vista.  The ubiquitous orange feed icon will be prominent in the applications, both of which will deploy a common feeds list and a feeds API.

What this means is that the user experience will change.  With feeds, the publisher will no longer be in full control of how their content is being consumed.  Users may use a simple interface, like my.yahoo, to browse articles or they may wish to configure their own custom interface through tools like Netvibes.  Users may prefer online-only readers such as Netvibes, existing portals such as my.yahoo, or may prefer to read their content offline using apps like Feedreader.  Solutions providers may mash your feed with other content, developing applications that you'd never considered.

Publishers will soon have to make decisions about what content they will include in their feeds and whether they want those feeds to be easily syndicated by others.  Those decisions will have critical branding implications.  More importantly, content providers will have to decide whether to make their feeds customer-centric or advertiser-centric.  Today, many publishers (NY Times, WSJ Online) limit their RSS feed to just a headline or a few words from an article, forcing the reader to click through to the publisher’s website for authentication or to drive advertising page views.  But this is not a very customer-friendly experience and may send your readers looking for similar content elsewhere. 

In the meantime, if you aren’t using RSS yet, take a few moments to configure Netvibes and make it your browser Start page, so you can begin to learn how RSS may impact your 2006-2007 strategy.

Google has unveiled Google Calendar (as a beta of course).
It's an ajax-based calendar, allowing users to share schedules with others.  More importantly, Google has developed this as a platform, so look to see some interesting timeline-based mashups in the near future.  Content providers with date-specific material should explore mashing it up with the Google Calendar.

A number of my recent posts have showcased products developed using an Ajax approach.  Since I’m a believer in practicing what I preach, I’m pleased to note that this week, Alacra has unveiled an ajax-based version of the Alacra Store.

Ajax, short for Asynchronous Javascript and XML, allows web-based applications to function more like traditional software application.  Specifically, rather than redrawing an entire page every time a screen element changes, ajax allows you to refresh specific sections of a page, leaving the rest of the page intact.  While that may not sound like much, it completely changes the user experience. 

To see how different ajax-based applications are, take a look at the new Alacra Store.  When you perform a keyword search (wireless, for example), the results are displayed in seven content panels, each displaying one form of content related to that search (market research, credit & investment research, news, etc).  Until this release, any change in your search would require a full page refresh.

Now, with the ajax version, individual panels are updated without reloading the page.  For example, using the wireless search, uncheck the Company Profiles & Financials panel.  All the other panels remain active, while that panel closes. 

Next, let’s lower the maximum price range of any report to $1,000, using the slider bar on the left.  You’ll see all the panels refresh (once the "searching" boxes clear), with the results of each available when they are ready, rather than waiting for all seven to update.

For another example, click on the radio button to turn on KWIC (keyword in context).  Those content sources that offer KWIC will redisplay in KWIC mode, while the others remain constant.

These changes are modest.  They don’t enable functionality that wasn’t available before ajax.  However, they make much of that functionality usable.  The slider bar that allows you to set price ranges is a very practical way to navigate the results.  The traditional way to do that might have been to allow the user to put in minimums and maximums, then refresh the page.  While that approach might work if the user knows they have a $100 cap on any research they can buy, it’s not practical for someone who might want to browse what’s available at the low-end, then gradually increase their threshold until they find what they need.  The interactivity enabled by ajax can have a great impact on overall usability.

Ajax is still a fairly new approach and developers are just starting to test the boundaries of what this interactivity will allow them to do.  Microsoft has just announced its ajax-based capabilities, Microsoft Atlas, which is sure to increase the use of this approach.  In the months to come we should begin to see more and more complex functionality move to the web.

ajaxWrite is the latest in a group of web-based word processors, leveraging Ajax development processes.  Ajax, which stands for Asynchronous Javascript and XML, is a rapidly growing development approach which allows browser-based applications to act more like desktop applications.  Specifically, it uses javascript to enable applications to redraw individual portions of a screen so that the screen doesn't have to be fully redrawn each time a change or selection is made. 

The first thing you'll notice about ajaxWrite is that it looks and feels much like Microsoft Word(tm).  The second thing you'll notice is how fast it is.  Within a few seconds you'll be tempted to forget that you're using a web-based app and think you're using Word(tm).  Most of the menu items you're accustomed to are there, including format and style options.  ajaxWrite can open Word, WordPerfect, StarOffice and other file formats.  Documents can be saved as Word docs or even as PDF files.

So, what are the benefits of ajaxWrite?
One benefit is that it's free, where Microsoft Office runs about $500 per seat.  Also, ajaxWrite is platform independent; it runs on Windows, Linux or Mac.  As a hosted application, there's no IT required to install and new versions are automatically available.  Conversely, ajaxWrite is still a beta (even though there's no label to that effect).  It only runs in Firefox, not IE and some key features, such as spell checker, are still under development.

I don't expect ajaxWrite or its bretheren like Writely (recently acquired by Google) or Zoho Writer to take significant market share from Microsoft.  At least not initially, and not in the core business market.  But these applications may begin to eat into Microsoft in certain markets, particularly in the educational market, nonprofits and small business, as well as some of the efforts to bring technology to the Third World. 

What are the implications for publishers?
I think that ajaxWrite sends a few strong signals to any technology-focused company.
First, by going right after the number one business application, ajaxWrite helps bring prominence to Ajax programming and the ability to create real apps on the web.  If your web-based applications are still simple flat views of content, it's probably time to rethink them.

Second, these approaches have changed the pace at which products are developed.  Companies still using traditional development processes, with 9-18 month development cycles, will have difficulty remaining competitive.  Innovative companies today are working in 3-6 month development cycles, often releasing products with an extended beta period, using customer feedback to enhance the product after it's been released. 

Third, the business models for these applications are different.  A hosted application doesn't need to be sold the way shrink-wrapped software might.  These applications are well-suited towards free advertising-supported versions, perhaps with a premium version on a subscription basis.  This model should help publishers, particularly those with an ad-supported content business.

Products like ajaxWrite or the new Google Finance prove that you can quickly develop and deploy strong functionality in web-based applications.  Publishers looking to increase revenue and market share should look at these as models for how they can provide tools to increase the usability of their content.