Community Guy – Jake McKee

What is Identity?

As I’ve been saying for a while now, Identity is going to be the next big thing on the Web.



For a very fun presentation on the subject, check this out. Lots of fun and lot of info. Presentation by the Sxip CEO.

Open source outside of technology

One question I hear a lot is "The Open Source concept is nice and all, but how can it be applied beyond technology?"



How about an open source beer?

Additional Flock Stuff

Some additional links regarding Flock –



Wired story –

Flock advertises itself as a "social browser," meaning that the application plays nicely with popular web services like Flickr, Technorati and del.icio.us. Flock also features widely compliant WYSIWYG, drag-and-drop blogging tools. The browser even promises to detect and authenticate all those user accounts automatically. It’s a clear attempt to be the browser of choice for the Web 2.0 user.

It’s no coincidence that the buzz has built rapidly to a rolling boil. Blogger and tech pundit Robert Scoble simply calls it "awesome." Given the recent swell of anticipation surrounding Flock, the preceding stealth period seems quaint by contrast. Since an August demo at Bar Camp, enthusiastic blog posts have amounted to love letters in their enthusiasm.

A Flock review –

Blog post from Flock CEO about open source and Flock  –

A list of discussions (check the comments and trackbacks)

Flock!

The much hyped Flock browser launched yesterday. Well, sorta. They released a very early beta. From this article:

Additional features include your “watchlist” (people who’s bookmarks you would like to monitor), and “groups” (basically, defined groups of flockers linking to this category).

Breadcrumbs, Watchlists and Groups all have RSS feeds (of course).

Many people in the blogosphere are railing on the concept as unimaginative, or not all that impressive. The bulk of the complaints seem to be focused around the fact that there’s nothing terribly revolutionary in any of the components. After all, the argument goes, you could get most of the Flock functionality in a series of Firefox extensions. These arguments are being made by people who frequent the blogosphere, either as bloggers and/or blog readers.



But I think they are missing the fundamental component of what makes Flock so kick ass – it passes the "My Mom" test with flying colors. Back in my days as a full-time Web developer, I used to be responsible for architecture, design/code implementation, and usability testing, my team had one overriding goal – make the site pass the "My Mom" test. Basically, can the site be easily understood by my mom (a persona of a newbie user)?



Today’s social tech and web tools don’t pass the "My Mom" test… my mom has no idea what these things are, much less how to use them. She’s barely able (or perhaps interested) in downloading and installing Firefox, much less downloading, installing, learning and using a series of dissociated extensions. Provide her a tool like Flock and she’ll be using them without even knowing she’s using them. One install, and bam!… she’s part of Web 2.0.



For a real example of this, look no further than the adoption curve of RSS. As bloggers/blog readers, most of us love and are addicted to RSS. We can’t imagine a world without it, and can’t imagine our daily life without it. But look the ~10% adoption curve across all internet users. What’s amazing to us is simply non-existant to most Internet users.



While we might all think that AOL users are fools for using AOL services, there’s a reason so many newbies flock…no pun intended… to the AOL services – one install, instant access to everything. They make it simple and easy. We seasoned pros don’t mind having a bunch of dissociated applications to perform various tasks… desktop blogging app, multiple browsers, multiple extensions, RSS reader, multiple web based services, etc. But for those that just want to get online, do things, and get off, they’re simply not going to learn or ever even discover all those seperate pieces.



Every new tech invention needs it’s must have tool to take it from geeks to mainstream. Web 2.0 is coming to a mom near you soon – thanks in no small part to Flock.



Kudos to the Flock team for their efforts. If you’re interested in learning more about the Flock biz model, you can find more here.



UPDATE: I just came across an interesting quote from the Flock CEO – looks like I was thinking on the same page they are….

LEGO and the Long Tail

Chris Anderson writes about LEGO products and how TLG fits into the Long Tail model.

It all starts with Lego’s mail-order business, which began as a traditional shop-at-home catalog and is now increasing organized around its website. In a typical toy store, Lego may have a few dozen products. On its online store, it has nearly 1,000, ranging from bags of roof tiles to a $300 Deathstar (shown). If you want to see how different the online market is from the traditional retail market for Lego, check out their topsellers list. Only a few of those products are even available in stores, and most of those are inexpensive items added to other purchases to bring them over $50 and thus qualify for free shipping.

It’s worth pausing here and considering the Long Tail implications of this. At least 90% of Lego’s products are not available in traditional retail. They’re only available in the catalogs and online, where the economics of inventory and distribution are far friendlier to niche products. Overall, those non-retail parts of the business represent 10-15% of Lego’s annual $1.1 billion in sales. But the margins on these products are higher than the kits sold through Toys R Us, thanks to not having to share the revenues with the retailer. And because the virtual store can carry products for all Lego fans, from kids to adult enthusiasts, and not just the sweet spot of nine-year-old boys, the range of prices can be a lot greater online, from $1 bricks to the aforementioned $300 Star Wars kit.

Through my job, and my general interest in all things online community, I end up talking with many journalists. I’m sure a Lexis-Nexus search of news articles would turn up quite a few hits on my name (ok, now I’m curious… must find Lexis-Nexus access).

But unfortunately, the reporters never seem to get the story quite right. Well, that’s probably not true – they don’t get the story written exactly as I would have written it. Doesn’t mean they’re wrong, I’m just a perfectionist! (And of course, I want to share vastly more details and facts than anyone would actually find interesting – thus the reason I’m not a journalist)

But Chris does a terrific job in this article of really hitting the nail on the head with this article. I’ve been following his blog since it launched shortly after the amazing article from Wired that it was based on. If you are interested in business strategies, his site is well worth keeping up with.

More Open Source Marketing

Firemonger is a project to "Help spread Firefox. Download this CD, burn it and give it to your friends and family".

Very cool open source marketing idea.



Have I mentioned how much I like Firefox?? If you’re not using it, you’re crazy!

Work your network!

OK, it’s time for a bit of a rant – please bear with me.



One thing that I’m continually surprised at is how close the connections are among people. The whole six degrees of separation (between any two people) rarely seems to be that many degrees. Especially when it comes to industries like marketing or community or interactive. How many times have you dug even a little deep and found that you used to work with someone or hang out with someone who is now suddenly a current connection? Hell, look at the success of LinkedIn and browse your own network sometime to discover how many great contacts you have at your fingertips.



To me, there’s nothing better in the world than having a friend or colleague say "Boy, I sure wish I knew someone at X company", and being able to respond "Actually, let me hook you up with my friend Jimmy".



So why is it then that so many  chances for networking are thrown out the window because you’re too busy or don’t see the benefit.



I guess I can understand the thinking, although I can’t agree with it.



If you’re a small business person, you are simply overwhelmed and don’t have the time to do much networking. When an opportunity, no matter how good comes up, you probably end up thinking that you have more important things to do, like the current active project. But how are you ever going to get to the point where you’re not worrying about where to get the next project if you don’t take a few minutes to connect with people and opportunities that might help take you to the next level? I don’t know many times I’ve seen BIG opportunities get turned down by small biz people because they "can’t see how it would help me". The reality is that EVERY connection can help you – the bigger the connection, the bigger possibility for help. You may not see it today, but it WILL pay off.



And people working in big companies tend to think "why bother? I have a steady job, and I’m not looking to change jobs". Fine, but a) how long are you positive you’ll have that job, and b) why would you turn down opportunities that may help you do better in that steady job – thus increasing your chances of keeping said job? I’m always surprised how many times a day I think "oh man, I should get some feedback/help/input from that guy I know who is an expert on X subject".



It’s amazing how many people just toss these opportunities out the window. Honestly, I don’t think that it’s a lack of interest or laziness. I truly believe that it’s just simple shortsightedness – a fundamental lack of understanding about how networks can benefit a person. I’m not sure if they teach these things in business school, but if not, they should.

Comet

I’m not exactly sure what it’s going to be, but it looks interesting. And most everything coming out of SixApart is worth paying attention to.

Project Comet will launch in early 2006 and will combine the publishing power of TypePad, the community aspects of LiveJournal and the years of insight garnered from Movable Type. Project Comet is focused on creating an advanced weblogging technology platform combining the best elements of all our products, giving people the ability to easily stake out, build and share their own place on the web.

Project Comet will incorporate the latest technologies, some of which include:

• Community Aggregation: Gives you the ability to create individual blogs and share sections of them with other users in an elegant and customizable way.
• Multiple Streams: Provides a single place to keep everything that is important to you. A record of your life is created by incorporating streams from various media, like music, photos, videos and other blogs into a single customized blog with an identity of its own.
• Privacy: Lets you decide who gets to see what parts of your blog in addition to existing password protections for entire blogs.

Learn about Project Comet directly from Mena

Read the Press Release

Get more details from the Project Comet FAQ

Project Comet will hit the market in early 2006. Stay Tuned!

Book Review: Podcasting Hacks

Through the relationship with the publisher of my book, I’ve gotten hooked up with O’Reilly, the coolest tech book publisher around. On occasion, they send me a book to review and I’ve been writing up some words on Amazon and BN.com and other places. But I thought it’d be wise to post the reviews here as well, as I know some of you fine readers might find some interest as well.

The latest book I’ve reviewed is a great one: Podcasting Hacks

While this book is a solid starting point for newbies, this book is a must read for bloggers, developers, and other tech smarties that are looking to get started with podcasting.

The well known "hacks" format also does a great job of allowing people to jump and and then jump out. It also covers a wider range of topics than a typical podcasting book. I mean, how many podcasting books actually have a section called "Podcasting without a blog"?

If you’re looking to start your own podcast, definitely pick up this book. Especially if you already know a thing or two about technology or blogging.

The time is now

I was totally bummed that I missed the recent Online Community Summit. Hopefully I’ll get an invite next year.



In his notes from the event, Lee had an interesting thought that I think is pretty significant thought about the state of community now:

I think that this is an important point across the board with community, online and off. We now able to connect with other people through social networking sites, local fan clubs/user groups, eBay auctions, dating sites, etc. But unlike just a year ago, the idea of telling someone that you "met online", whether as a dating situation or as a frienship, isn’t bizarre or sad anymore.



As I’ve been saying for a while, the next big thing in community will be (or at least should be) a better way to profile ourselves so that others are more comfortable with the idea that we really are who we say we are. That’s the missing step to making this as mainstream as it’s going to get.