everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Year: 2005

  • Belated Review of Web 2.0

    I’m a bit slow out the gate with this post and I expect you all to take whatever I say with a big ol’ grain of salt because of my new position with Yahoo. Truth is, there’s lots going on both here at Yahoo and the industry at large. Let’s take a quick rundown over the events of the past week:

    No wonder we’re all out of breath! I only attended the workshops and opening day sessions but feel like I was there because I picked up on the buzz at the afterparties and have read through lots of the posts about the conference.

    Two points of discussion that I wanted to highlight because I didn’t see them mentioned anywhere else.

    Esther Dyson contributed and interesting riff on the variable of time and how that might impact the relevance of what an advertiser might be targeting or a search engine presenting. If someone subscribes to a feed or buys a book today, they may not continue to have that interest in the  future. We all must keep in mind that behavior profiling via a clickstream may actually deceive. If someone is a starving student that likes to browse expensive car sites, does that really make them a qualified buyer to the BMW advertiser? If they did a lot of research for a new computer last month, post purchase, that may not be their interest and in fact, it may be more appropriate to target marketing messages for accessories instead of new systems.

    The challenge is to build an ad network which can take feedback from it’s participants. The example I’ve been turning over in my mind is the banner ad that has a button which allows you to block future instances of ads in it’s category from every appearing again. If I’m presented with an ad for a Buick Lacrosse, I should have the option to "opt out" of those ads. This feedback should make it’s way back to the advertising engine and modify my profile appropriately. Not only is the beneficial to me, as a consumer who never wants to see and ad for a Buick again, it also is beneficial to Buick who will not have to waste their inventory on me.

    The second point was best summed up in a one-liner attributed to Ross Mayfield, "Let’s stop measuring impressions and start measuring the impressed." Online advertising in the Web 1.0 world looked at banner impressions and then, with self-serve networks such as AdSense, cost-per-click. In the world of blogs, trackbacks, and rss subscriptions, it’s now possible to measure something like a cost-per-influence. It’s time for the publishers and advertisers to come together and experiment on this new unit of measure and try out new business models that are made possible by this innovation.

    In my mind, advertising is useful and complimentary if it adds to the experience of what I’m reading. It can do this by being either educational, entertaining, or highly contextual (or best case, all three). The tools we have at our desposal are improving and modern day metrics allow us to also to measure not only the nameless "daily uniques" but also the quality of an audience demographic and impact of a writer like never before. I am hopeful that this will ultimately reward quality writing which will benefit us all.

     

  • Burning Man Puppet Show

    So Tyler & Julia are getting excited about Halloween – costumes are a big part of it. My sister also sent along some information about the Burning Man decompression party this weekend and while Izumi and I need to root around to find something interesting to wear, the kids already have their get up picked out.

    Today, Izumi helped Julia make some puppets out of Popsicle sticks and empty yogurt drink bottles. Julia showed me her handiwork when I got home and made a point of saying the red hair needs to stay down on this one as it tends to get frizzed up. I guess it’s excited.

  • Web 2.0 Acid Test

    On the eve of the second annual Web 2.0 conference, Tim O’Reilly posts a longish analysis that tries to get to the bottom of this slippery label, “Web 2.0.” Ever more important because more and more marketing departments are slapping this label onto their products because it’s hip and bleeding edge, O’Reilly’s piece is seminal because of his position of authority.

    In recognition of this enhanced definition, I’ve gone in and renamed my 2 year old “Web as a Platform” category “Web 2.0”

    You really should read through to the end but the list of qualities (you don’t need all) that make up a real Web 2.0 company are worth pulling up below:

    • Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
    • Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
    • Trusting users as co-developers
    • Harnessing collective intelligence
    • Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
    • Software above the level of a single device
    • Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models

    Words to live by in this new age.

  • Tombstone Epitaphs

    We’re getting a jump on Halloween and putting some tombstomes out in front of the house for symbolic graves. Got some inspiration from True Tombstone Epitaphs but also added a few of our own such as one for Barney and "Frank N. Stein"

    Har Har – the holidays are upon us!

  • The first week

    The first week

    One week at Yahoo and what a week it’s been! Monday was employee orientation – got myself badged up and they handed me my laptop. They have this new employee thing down to a science. We had over 80 people in the room and the HR person said they bring in about 50 new people every Monday!

    I was very impressed with how quickly they ran us through the paperwork and getting us familiar with how things work at the company. Highlights included a rousing speech by Heidi Burgett on the history and exciting future of Yahoo (“when in doubt, focus on what the user wants and the rest will fall in place”) and a totally hilarous presentation on campus security delivered in a dry, deadpan voice by the head of security who has arms as big as my neck.

    I really like the fact that “fun” is one of the core values. It’s the little things that make you laugh like the fact that Security staff are called “Paranoids” and that even the sprinkler heads are corporate purple. Did you know that Yahoo stands for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”

    As an internet company, all the information you’d ever need is on the web and help tickets manage everything from ordering a power strip to requesting someone shell into your PC to install some software. Unlike most large corporations, Yahoo is cool with you customizing your PC with your own mix of software, the IT staff are sharp and on top of it. In our orientation, there were three different operating systems represented and the instructor walked us through VPN and Mailbox setup on all three without even looking at a screen. I could go on about the free Espresso and massage chair I discovered in the snack lounge on my floor but I fear I’m drifting off topic.

    I’m working with a group that is working with all the various Yahoo properties to track their plans to connect up and out their services in a way that is useful in this new “web as a platform” world. This past week I spent time getting to know all the different Yahoo properties – there are over 120 of them. Yahoo Lottery?  The mind just boggles.

    Hoping to make it to a few sessions at Web 2.0 next week and will also be going to BlogOn in NYC in mid-October. If you’re going to be at either, drop me a line!

  • Tim O’Reilly Web 2.0 Meme Map

    Tim O’Reilly Web 2.0 Meme Map

    For those who want it in pictures, Tim O’Reilly’s posted a map of all the memes that make up Web 2.0. Alex Barnett goes one step further and annotates it with links.

  • Microsoft, Google & Cross Dressing

    Whew! Take a week off and all hell breaks loose.

    First the rumored Google Secure WiFi service looks to be a reality. Danny Sullivan does the rundown of motives but still wonders why Google would go to such extremes to maintain an infrastructure so far outside of their core expertise when they already have so much information coming in from the millions of installed Google Toolbars out in the wild phoning home. Like the Web Accelerator before it, as an infrastructure improvement coming from a services company, it seems oddly out of place.

    Next, Microsoft announces a major reorg that puts the main Windows architect, Jim Allchin, out to pasture following the release of Vista and marries the Windows group with their more nimble MSN brethren. This is the strongest signal yet that MSFT is taking the "software as a hosted service" mantra seriously and is looking to better enable it’s client software to play nicely with internet standards.

    Google, the services company is shipping software.
    Microsoft, the software company is enabling software as a service.

    We live in interesting times.

  • Video Games Live with Full Orchestra

    Video Games Live with Full Orchestra

    Advertised in the entertainment section of my paper as, “A groundbreaking live event celebrating the music of video games,” comes Video Games Live, a full orchestra performance of the music of Halo, Zelda, Warcraft and others. Partially backed by Clear Channel, the performance will feature, “music from the world’s most popular video games performed by top
    orchestras and choirs across North America, combined with explosive
    video segments from each of the games, lasers and lights to create an
    exceptional, immersive entertainment experience” says the press release.

    In small print the advert says that there will also be a, “medley of classic arcade games from Pong to Donkey Kong.” I think that’s when the folks file out to get drinks and go to the bathroom.

  • The Walk to School

    Over on the work blog I’ve posted about switching jobs to work at Yahoo. I’ll be starting next week so I’m spending this week clearing the decks and getting ready. Tyler’s bummed because I will not be able to walk him to school anymore and it’s been the time of day when we get to talk about things mano-a-mano. Today, I took some pictures of what we see each day during our 10 minute walk.