Multi-Function Phones: Old School Incompatibility

So, here I am trying to contact a VERY important person, but someone who's not so important that they don't have an assistant or receptionist actually answer the phone. Cost cutting has given us a very dependable but very inflexible voicemail attendant. So, here's me without the person's direct extension calling from my Blackberry Pearl. Dial by name directory. Great, no problem. Oh yes, problem.

My Blackberry has a keyboard with numbers and letters on it, but it's sure not the same layout as a touch-tone phone - different numbers, different letters. The touchtone has 10 numbers and 26 letters, the Blackberry has the same, but many more actual keys. And, a standard touch-tone phone is nowhere in sight, as I'm in my car. I try my best to remember which letters are on which number keys - does A, B, C start on 1 or is it 2? and where's the Q? and the 9 has four letters, W, X, Y, Z?
Old school technology, meet cool, new school technology. Same for the iPhone, same for the new G1. As phones get to be more like computers and less like phones, we'll need to rethink voicemail systems and the antiquated touch tone technologies that drive them.

Its basic stuff, but I had to wait until I got to my office before I could call the person back. So, for everyone out there who's trying to convert their Blackberry keyboard to standard phone keyboards, here's a touchtone helper image. It's tough to do in your head.

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More MySpace: the right moves fast enough?

So, after a bit more poking and exploring, it turns out the MySpace is doing some great things to stay ahead of that Zuckerberg rascal. I missed this the other day, and it could be poor PR coverage, "just another biz dev deal", or it could be me too busy. The social network announced that they are working with HP to complete that photo lifecycle and get users' uploaded photos printed. Definitely the right direction. Hopefully the product team can make it better than anything else out there, including the vast myriad of photo sharing sites.

In other relevant news, MySpace launched an Android app with the Google G1 phone, to mediocre reviews, but its there right at launch anyway. Again, good biz dev, we'll see if either catches on. Maybe the G1 will actually sell, but iPhone and Blackberry will be tough to beat and I didn't see anything super compelling about the G1 other than a keyboard. It's the start of a long slog, and probably the downfall of incumbents Nokia (too bad, once a great product, they just stopped improving usability and utility) and Motorola (finally! their software is just horrible).

So, there are some good things going on over at MySpace, but will these little things make a difference in spurring growth or just retaining existing users? The clutter of the site (just too many things to see and do and navigate) and the fact that professional adults aren't using it as their primary network are still big problems that will have to be tackled.

And, do people really click on those Adsense ads? Those things are as ugly as they are annoying...

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Social Network Growth: becoming Real-World centric

I think the trend in Facebook's growth and activity over MySpace's continued stagnation (and decline?) is worth a look, as social networks are going to continue be a major part of shaping the the Internet. Monetization and advertising aside, what's driving this Facebook growth? Reported by Nielsen, the Facebook continues to add unique users, and they are moving steadily towards MySpace's #1 position.

Being a slightly older technology enthusiast (geek?) - I'm not Gen Y - I've seen way too many of my non-technology friends create Facebook profiles in the past few months. None would ever have considered creating a MySpace profile, so there's something in Facebook that's "grounded" enough for a 30-50 something adult to want to put in the effort. Now, most of my friends in this age group, especially business colleagues, have a LinkedIn profile, and probably some sort of default Plaxo profile. These are business tools, and make life a bit easier by not having to maintain an address book or a stack of business cards, so its a lot easier to see how both could save a lot of time. But Facebook? It could be a trend or a could just be the top of the hype cycle - how many of these people will continue to use it on a regular basis in 2, 5, 8 months? That remains to be seen, but these older folks are driving FB growth today, alongside newly minted college kids.

MySpace has alienated this group either by design or by accident. And high schoolers are now creating profiles on both networks - one for friends, one for family. Anyone making it to college simply must move to Facebook. They might continue both, but from what I've seen, they maintain MySpace for their friends back home, and build their future in Facebook.

Here are some of the key differences in why the older generation (30 is old?) feels like Facebook is right for them and MySpace just isn't:

• Use of real identity - user names are for entertainment, real names are serious
• Granular control over privacy and information - even for friends and friends of friends
• Clean design - it just looks more professional. Although the new MySpace layout is much much better, it's still clunky.
• Pictures - pictures seem to be driving tons of Facebook activity - more than any single photo sharing site.
• Initial focus on college students, not high school. College students are more serious? More mature? No, I think college students are compelled to have a Facebook profile. It's so closely linked with their campus identity - belonging to The Network - that there are very few that don't.
• At the root of this, it seems that Facebook is grounded in the real-world. It takes offline activities and friends into online and mobile. MySpace is all about online friends and doing things online - it has very little bearing or relevance in a user's offline world.

Facebook brings our offline worlds online - real names, real geographic locations, real friends. MySpace is not really about your real friends, it's about making new friends or connecting with a band that's in another country, or watching videos. It's about entertainment. Facebook users connect to family members to stay in touch, to share pictures, videos, and news. MySpace users don't have this same need or desire - it's escapism and entertainment as much as it is socializing.

I do believe that this "grounding" is a trend with all social networks. Facebook will continue to move in the offline direction - enabling more real-world groups to organize online - with Events, Groups and future functions. FB could just about eliminate LinkedIn with a simple migration function and by adding a Degrees of Separation-type app and/or an "blind introduction" app (more on this later). Right now, they're pretty focused on keeping the site up with the massive amount of traffic, but this is the trend - organizing offline activities online. Something that is useful, saves time, and compliments somebody's real life instead of adding to it. That's what computers really were built for, isn't it?

What's going to happen to MySpace? The company has been adding some innovative entertainment to get more traffic (and try to monetize) with the launch of MySpace Music. I'm sure this was no easy feat pulling together artists and distributors, and it probably took a ton of resources to get it off the ground. But, to drive increased registrations and social pageviews, the only option is to become more of a real-world compliment - to expand to a more mature audience and to make MySpace ageless - so when middle and highschoolers hit college or jobs, they don't feel like they must create a Facebook profile. MySpace could keep users from "defecting" as they get older, but the company needs a network that's appropriate in form and function for connecting with families and business contacts. Without a detailed user segment ion analysis, here are a few ideas:

• Ability to have one or more version of a profile - one for friends, business, and one for family - to keep all aspects of life centered, but appropriate for different audiences.
• Build out photo-sharing. That's driving FB, take it a step farther. Integrate photos with Groups and how about building in a Kodak gallery to get photos developed after they're uploaded? Get the whole supply chain in there.
• Add more granular privacy to enable a wider variety of "friend-types" and profile depth
• Build LinkedIn-like degrees of separation - this could really trump Facebook
• Enabling really great group functionality - private and semi-private group centers that are truly useful with calendaring, announcements, media sharing, listserves, membership control (membership revenue management!) and page customization. Maybe buying something like Meet-Up. If a real-world group uses MySpace for veryday communications and registration is required, that will drive growth.
• There's no reason MySpace can't include Ning-like walled garden functions and make it better. Ning is being used to create mini-networks to organize real groups. As networks go, Ning stinks, but it's definitely filling a niche.
• Become verticalized - build on top of the social network and enable users to participate in vertical discussions. Groups start to do this, but are so functionally limited. Vertical discussions elevate the site - making friends is cool but having discussions and finding people with similar passions and opinions is bonding.
• Vertical content should also help with advertising, where people are more likely to be searching for information or services in context.
• Seriously promote their iPhone app to keep users engaged all the time. Making the platform mobile is critical in keeping up user engagement. The more touchpoints, the harder it is to leave.
• Enhance the friend feed (and buy some very social users) with Twitter.
• Make a big commitment internationally - non-US markets are still open (China anyone?), but each one must be attacked aggressively and specifically. Translating isn't enough - other cultures are picky, finicky and want local, local local - built just for them.
• Keep the cool factor. MySpace can't let itself fall out of cool, it must be constantly reinventing on the network side. The site has a real opportunity to be cooler and have a broader audience than Facebook since its users start at an earlier age, but balancing "cool" for young kids and "useful" for everyone else is a balancing act.

Adding more entertainment is great, but the core of the "social" part of MySpace must be moving faster than Facebook or the balance of power will change - quickly. Right now, based on the aggregate numbers, MySpace seems to have stalled. Whoever adapts the most quickly to the real needs of real people as they grow up and go through life transformations will stay on top.

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Tom Kuhr Bio

Presentation to the Software Council of Southern California

"Successful Product Launch Strategies"

Tom is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at OleOle the world's largest social media web platform for football (soccer) fans. He was brought on board to redesign the website to cover more than 6,000 professional football teams and 57,000 soccer players in 10 languages through the eyes and ears of the fans. OleOle launched in May 2008 and has seen tremendous growth since then. The social media platform currently hosts some of the world's most popular football blogs, and let's fans do the reporting through photos, videos, podcasts, live game blogging and history. OleOle is a social publishing platform, pushing the boundaries of social networking and social media.

Before OleOle, Tom launched CircleUp, a venture-backed consumer-focused social communications service and scaled that to 100,000 users in 3 months. Prior to getting back into consumer-focused products, Tom was vice president of global marketing for Telelogic, a $220M public enterprise software / SaaS company acquired by IBM. Tom managed marketing operations and field marketing strategy across more than 38 countries, and oversaw online and offline marketing campaigns and promotions, field marketing, sales training and sales enablement.

Before Telelogic, Tom was vice president of marketing and product management for Preventsys, an information security software vendor. There he increased lead acquisition by over 500% and helped increase revenues by over 40% through the introduction of a disciplined sales process, product marketing and sales training. Preventsys was successfully acquired by McAfee in 2006.

Tom also served as vice president of Stamps.com's international business unit, where he initiated the adoption of Stamps.com's technologies and services by postal organizations and shipping carriers outside the US. He was integral to the design and launch of the world's first online stamp printing service - one of the first software applications delivered as a service. Stamps.com was the most secure non-government software as a service (Saas) ecommerce system on the Internet, and Tom helped to build the customer base to over 300,000 in the first years of operation.

Tom has proven experience creating new B2B and B2C products and services, transforming start-ups into viable growth companies, and excels at technical product marketing, corporate expansion and building repeatable marketing and sales processes. Tom has managed regional offices across the US, Europe and Asia and marketed products and internet services around the world. He has lived in Mexico, Ireland and the United Kingdom, where he developed a passion for football. Tom graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he majored in aquatic biology, of all things, and still lives near the sand in Hermosa Beach, California.

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