Linkedin vs. Flickr: On activating a social audience

Or, in more affected businsss-y language that I know Aaron Cope likes me to use, creating a channel for increased customer engagement.

Linkedin, which this morning announced another one of their new features, this one about data trends, has got me thinking.

First you have to credit Linkedin for popping out a lot of stuff of late in their march towards an IPO later this year. Bravo. But more impressive has been their creation of an activity stream, which not only encourages more linkedin usage, but also provides a channel to get their customers to try their new features. It's the vessel that they can keep using to drive customers to their new ideas. This is something that we tried and failed to do during my time at Flickr.

Linkedin, which long struggled to get people to use the site when they weren't in a job search, turned the lights on their activity stream at first by aping Facebook, and has continued to evolve their experience into something that is uniquely suited to professional networking.


What they've done is create a primary place for someone to talk to their network. You don't have to go to some far off place like a group, you just post a status update or a link. And, acknowledging that they don't own all the professional dialog that goes on on the internet, they have a logical and expansive integration with Twitter.

And people see it, and interact with it. So, as LinkedIn launches an experimental data product, or a search product, or any of the other new things that they're cooking up, they have a place to get it in front of their members.


Whereas, at Flickr, the paridigm of a members activity never moved beyond the original construct of photos.


When Flickr set out in 2008 to redesign the main page of Flickr, we brought brilliant folks together, but we didn't account for the importance of objects/ vessels other than photos from your contacts. Tags, long important in Flickr's genesis, didn't make the cut, nor photo-sets, nor advertisers....

There are so many reasons why this didn't happen, but who needs to dwell on the hurt.

But as a result, over time when we had new features that we wanted to habituate our customers to...

* Galleries
* App Garden
* People Tags
* Getty Images
* Sponsored Groups

We just threw them out into the world and hoped that they would just work and become popular. Most found modest success, but few of these amounted to any change in Flickr's strategic course. Arguably, this remains Flickr's biggest hurdle to in defining its role in he future of social media.

Galleries, which was a labor of love for a number of us, had (has?) tremendous potential, but notably found its greatest popularity through the distribution channels not of Flickr, but via Twitter and even the Yahoo.com homepage.

Does this mean that everyone should go and build a facebook-like activity stream into their social products?

I think not neccessarily. There are other ways to channel the most important content and features to your customers -- Google has shown us how extensible the search result experience is-- but one should build some sort of distribution channel deep into your product. At Flickr, I always thought that there was a way to do this with photos and visualizations, but who knows what we would have ended up with via trial and error.

Social Media End of Year Report

This is a record of how I'm using Media at the end of 2010. It's a snapshot, and in all likelihood not representative anyone but me.

I use Flickr

I love Flickr deep in my bones, though truthfully I have not been using it nearly as much as I did a few years ago. Partly this is the evolution of a former employee (who sees the imperfections more acutely), but partly it feels like some of the vibrancy that propelled the community along-- for me-- has gone elsewhere. I haven't found any particularly good alternative to Flickr, though I have been watching this now-frothy space in startupland try and fill the void for many customers (Instagram, Yfrog, Plixy, Dailybooth, et al.).

I use Facebook

Mostly to log into other sites on the internet. Were it not for this feature I don't think I would neeed to use facebook ever. I mostly hear from acquaintances there.


Gosh, I still use Email

Email is still the grandaddy of them all, right? Though I hate email in the workplace, I find it perfectly reasonable for my everyday life, friends and professional contacts.


I use Quora

Though I believe it has a just as much ego/voyerism at play as any other social network, this one makes us all feel like reference librarians. And it's immaculately designed, probably representing the cutting edge of social applications and web design in 2010.


And then there's Twitter

Which i feel ambivalent about. It is a significant evolutionary step in how people express themselves and communicate in public, but it also seems to contribute to our self-promotional instincts and our shrinking ability to live in the moment (the Times had a nice little feature on this).

There are other social networks that I tinker with, including this blog.

What does this mean going forward (for me)?
I think that rather than a winner-take-all race between Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple and other relevant an interested players, I sense that we're heading toward more diversified small communities. Quora, for example, isn't going to OWN question and answer experiences on the web, but it will for some segment of them.

I'm hitting some sort of fatigue with an increasing number or social networks, but the result isn't that I consolidate my experience with one company. It's that I'm increasingly discerning about which ones I start up with and will continue to use.

What does this mean going forward (for the nation and the world)
This is where us social-media enthusiasts should take a look in the mirror, re-watch the Rally for Sanity, and accept our own role in the disfunction of our national dialogue. Social media, for all it's self-promoted potential for changing the world, holds just as great a potential to make us vacuous.

For example, is Twitter meaningfully contributing our to national dialogue on the War in Afghanistan? Does Quora drive policymakers to think constructively about the climate change? In a bygone age, this is what media could do. I challenge us all to work towards a more impactful media-verse in the new year.

Photosharing

Says Kevin Systrom of the recently launched iphone photo shoot and share app Instagram:

I know what you’re probably thinking: oh, another photo-sharing app. But the fact is that at least one of these apps is likely going to take off in a major way at some point soon. To some extent, Hipstamatic already has, but one of these is likely to get even bigger. “There’s no Flickr for mobile yet,” is how Systrom puts it.

To which I say, with some measure of exhasperation: why isn't the flickr for mobile, um, flickr?

Taking some responsibility as a former Flickr staffer, I acknowledge that Flickr isn't exactly delivering on this. Arguably, hipstamatic and others of this ilk (along with Facebook) are writing today's history of photosharing in a mobile/social world of cameras everywhere.

But were it given the permission by it's obviously distracted yahoo overseers, and were it so motivated, Flickr can (and should) still be writing the history taking photos and sharing them with your friends and the world as one of the definitive forms of expression.

Identity and Validation, Brokered by Twitter and Facebook

Cell Phones Everywhere by Scott Abelman

Peggy Orenstein in the Sunday Times Magazine ponders the emerging trend of sharing even our most mundane thoughts externally, in I Tweet, Therefore I Am..

On a recent lazy Saturday morning, my daughter and I lolled on a blanket in our front yard, snacking on apricots, listening to a download of E. B. White reading “The Trumpet of the Swan.” Her legs sprawled across mine; the grass tickled our ankles. It was the quintessential summer moment, and a year ago, I would have been fully present for it. But instead, a part of my consciousness had split off and was observing the scene from the outside: this was, I realized excitedly, the perfect opportunity for a tweet.

In describing this new desire, Orenstein raises the question that arises from this always-connected-real-time world: is this way of living better or worse than the way we used to craft our sense of self? Of happiness?

I asked the same question of myself last summer:

I worry a little bit when I go someplace new/interesting/beautiful that instead of experiencing it, I reach to my cameraphone. My modern technological instinct is that I won't get the gratification of going to this place *unless* I capture it in photograph and wait for the flickr/twitter/facebook comments to roll in.

Why can't I just inhabit the space in the moment?

Orenstein takes this to it's logical conclusion, but doesn't pretend that there's any turning back..

The expansion of our digital universe — Second Life, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter — has shifted not only how we spend our time but also how we construct identity. For her coming book, “Alone Together,” Sherry Turkle, a professor at M.I.T., interviewed more than 400 children and parents about their use of social media and cellphones. Among young people especially she found that the self was increasingly becoming externally manufactured rather than internally developed: a series of profiles to be sculptured and refined in response to public opinion. “On Twitter or Facebook you’re trying to express something real about who you are,” she explained. “But because you’re also creating something for others’ consumption, you find yourself imagining and playing to your audience more and more. So those moments in which you’re supposed to be showing your true self become a performance. Your psychology becomes a performance.”

The fun of Twitter and, I suspect, its draw for millions of people, is its infinite potential for connection, as well as its opportunity for self-expression. I enjoy those things myself. But when every thought is externalized, what becomes of insight? When we reflexively post each feeling, what becomes of reflection? When friends become fans, what happens to intimacy? The risk of the performance culture, of the packaged self, is that it erodes the very relationships it purports to create, and alienates us from our own humanity.

How do we re-take control of the personal reflective time we used to encounter on those quiet summer afternoons? Do we really need external forces to let us know that we're having a good (or bad) time?

For me, and from time to time, the best way to ensure this is by leaving my phone at home.

Revisiting the World's Most Popular Camera

Which if you don't realize it, is a mobile phone-- never to be a single-use device every again.

One year ago, when I still parked myself at a desk at Flickr I wrote:

Mobile phones are certainly going to become the way most human beings capture and share images. The new iphone camera is good enough for most people to mean they don't have to buy a point and shoot camera. It's also going to negate the need for most people to have a video camera, as techcrunch reported this weekend. If you're a serious photographer or videographer, of course, you will have fancier equipment. But I'd propose that for most people, the newest mobile phones are more than good enough.

What does this mean? It means the people in the business of photos (camera manufacturers, printers, photo sharing web sites) had better have a story about how they make life easier for customers with mobile devices that take pictures and connect to the internet.

I heard from a few people who doubted this trend, and in particular doubted the footprint of the "iPhone." They were wrong.

Today, on the eve of the release of the iPhone 4 with an even better camera and video recorder, I am doubling down on this prediction (which by now is irrefutable) . What will this mean for the business of capturing, sharing and processing photos and video? Time will tell.

Yahoo! Acquires Koprol

Smitty and I have had the privilege of spending the last few months at Yahoo! working to jump-start the company's product line in emerging international markets. We've been particularly keen to find and build social media products that appeal to young internet citizens.

Koprol and their talented team in Jakarta Indonesia fit the bill. Here's what they say they want to do:

We want to help people to discover new and exciting people and places in the world

It is going to be fun to watch them make a go of this at even larger scale. The founders and the team (and the exploding Asian market) are have a great chance to go really big. Congratulations to the whole Koprol team!

(One can only hope that) Today's purchase purchase of Koprol is the first big step in a wave of new social innovation from Yahoo.

Yahoo Acquires Geo-Location Service Koprol (Which Translates to Foursquare of Indonesia) - Kara Swisher / Boomtown

The Ascendancy of Facebook

Facebook gets crowned this week.

This week the six year old-Facebook will assert itself as a web powerhouse, alongside only Google with so central a place in the web ecosystem. They're announcing a slew of new features to the site and to the developer platform that assert their ambition. Don't misunderstand their ambition, says Om Malick,

To those who view it as the 21st century version of the online ghetto called AOL, you’re underestimating this gang. If Mark Zuckerberg and his troops execute on their plan, the web is going to be a lot different. I believe that Facebook will rival Google’s current domination of the search and online advertising business. These guys are ruthless, unrelenting and singleminded in their quest for success.

And it's true. Facebook has amassed a massive worldwide audience-- 400+ million-- who check in daily on their laptops and mobile phones to update a status, send a message, play a game, connect with a long-lost love or any of the other things that you see fleeting across your screen whenever you check in. And that's just the beginning.



So how is this possible? Isn't Facebook just an online photo album, a gathering place of teens? Well, no.

It's possible for three reasons...

It's got you. It has your time and attention, it's picking up on your habits and it wants to get more. It knows, for instance, who your friends are, where you went to school, what zip code you live in. And it also knows the type of movies and TV shows you like, and maybe even how you spend your money. At their developer conference this week Facebook will announce that they want to collect more data about where you are right now (think foursquare), and what you like on the web.

It's got any and all people who went your attention on the web. Ask any media website where traffic comes from, and they'll tell you that an increasing amount of it comes from Facebook (and twitter to a lesser extent). Five years ago the answer would have been Google search, by a longshot. The rise of "social media" lead by Facebook is changing the way people choose where to jump around the internet. More and more people are taking cues from their friends on Facebook. At their conference this week the company will announce new tools to integrate more of Facebook into sites all over the web-- through a new version of Facebook connect, a chat feature and an elegantly simple "like" button.

It's able to execute. Facebook has the best chance of anyone to pull these things together to dominate the next few years of the Internet, making lots of money through transactions, hyper-targeted advertising and who know what other means. Not only does Facebook have more of this incredibly valuable data than anyone else, they are set up to execute on this opportunity.

Is this good or bad? Probably a little of both.

Here's my scorecard, let me know if I'm missing anything:

• The rise of a true competitor to Google on the web? Good.
• The rise of an open platform that makes it easy to share what you want with people? Good.
• The rise of a company that may stifle innovation, in it's desire to control more(most) of the social pipes connecting the web. Not so good.

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Update: by posting this, I'm admitting that my boredom with Facebook from a few months ago, while honest, didn't represent a good read of the company's prospects. I was wrong.

The Right Person for the Job

The Times uses a little ink this morning to write a friendly profile of David Remnick, editor at the New Yorker. It's worth reading for just for the pointlessly bland praise from Si Newhouse about halfway through the article.

Remnick has led a renaissance at the magazine built solidly on old-fashioned show leather. Here, an admirable look at his style of leadership:

Mr. Remnick’s taste in journalism was formed early, as he grew up in Hillsdale, N.J., reading The Village Voice at the local 7-Eleven. His management style was formed at The Washington Post, where he went to work after college. He became its Moscow correspondent before leaving for The New Yorker. It was Ben Bradlee’s Post, where Mr. Bradlee would make daily rounds, growling greetings at reporters.

“Most of us who were young saw Bradlee the way one saw a great orca in a fish tank,” Mr. Remnick said.

Like Mr. Bradlee, Mr. Remnick spends his day walking around. “He makes a point of making a circuit around the floor every single day, dropping in on people,” said Pamela Maffei McCarthy, deputy editor, “during which he acquires a great deal of information about what’s going on here.”

Making it Look Easy at the New Yorker - The New York Times

On Connectivity Being a Bad Thing

I need to spend more time blogging about how the always-on Internet and mobile devices are probably not a good thing. (or, now that I think about it, I *dont*).

But just the same, I think there's something to this concern of mine that we're all rapidly being submerged by status updates and looking-up-of-trivia on our iPhones. To wit, via Swoodie, comes this nice piece in Salon Magazine called "Digital Nation": what has the Internet done to us?.

Let's see, so the digital revolution led us all to this: a gigantic, commercial, high school reunion/mall filthy with insipid tabloid trivia, populated by perpetually distracted, texting, tweeting demi-humans. Yes, the information age truly is every bit as glorious and special as everyone predicted it would be!

Apparently our futuristic "Blade Runner"-esque digital dystopia is so bewildering that even Internet "big idea" man Douglas Rushkoff is currently reconsidering his unconditional love for new media in Frontline's "Digital Nation" (premieres 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2, on PBS, check local listings), an in-depth investigation into the possibilities and side effects of our digital immersion.

"I want the luxury of being able to push the pause button, you know," Rushkoff, one of the producers of this 90-minute report, muses to the other producer, Rachel Dretzin, as the cameras roll. Rushkoff says he wants to "really ask whether we're tinkering with some part of ourselves that's a little bit deeper than we might realize at first. You know, how are we changing what it means to be a human being by using all this stuff?"

Conan's Statement, for Posterity

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over “The Tonight Show” in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004, I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my “Tonight Show” in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the “Tonight Show” to 12:05 to accommodate the “Jay Leno Show” at 11:35. For 60 years, the “Tonight Show” has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the “Tonight Show” into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The “Tonight Show” at 12:05 simply isn’t the “Tonight Show.” Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the “Late Night” show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard, and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of “The Tonight Show.” But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet, a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the “Tonight Show,” I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.

Yours,

Conan

Richard Rodriguez on Newspapers

When a newspaper dies in America, it is not simply that a commercial enterprise has failed; a sense of place has failed. If the San Francisco Chronicle is near death—and why else would the editors celebrate its 144th anniversary? and why else would the editors devote a week to feature articles on fog?—it is because San Francisco’s sense of itself as a city is perishing.

Harpers: Final Edition: Twilight of the American Newspaper

Blog Posts I Wrote When I was Interviewing at Flickr...

That don't embarrass me looking back...

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What Is Flickr?
That's a question I've been thinking about in the last couple of weeks. It's the web's premier photo sharing application, of course.

I guess I'm asking the question in respect to where the service is going? As Yahoo's most successful sub-brand, how will it evolve to serve its customers while also serving Yahoo's goals.

I see three possible paths...

1. Best in class web photography application

2. Best in class user generated media community

3. Evolve into something broader still. Perhaps Flickr could be Yahoo's first successful social network. Could it be a facebook-fighter.



http://shanand.blogspot.com/2007/10/what-is-flickr.html

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Here are some of the building blocks to think about if you're looking to build and maintain a relevant media service on the web these days:

Think about Consumers and Producers. While it's critical to get people to upload content (the producers), it's equally important to focus on how people find cool stuff (the consumers). Discovery in social media is so much more than search: it's slideshows, maps, friend summaries and all sorts of other interfaces as-yet-undefined.

http://shanand.blogspot.com/2007/10/social-media.html

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Peak Facebook

As in peak oil.




Hypothesis: Facebook is at it's peak, and can't go much farther into our online lives without completely overwhelming us with stuff. Hence, it's going to retreat-- at least a bit-- from the center of online social life for many.

So, when some guy named Jason Kincaid at Techcrunch says that Facebook is poised ot gobble up whole sectors of other interesting successful online social competitors, I say pffffft. (Watch Out Foursquare, Facebook is Poised To Dominate Geo).

Facebook currently is:

* a way to connect and communicate with old friends.
* a place to share stuff (namely photos) with said friends
* a way to promote yourself
* a place to waste time reading about your friends
* a place to play games/ take quizzes

Are you bored yet? What's the next big thing? Oh, I guess I'll just add another app to my iphone...



This is not to say that Facebook is going to go away, or become marginal. It's just saying that facebook the company is doing a whole lot of things these days. It does some things very well. But we're full, and with each new thing Facebook becomes more of a messy portal.

We're ready for something new. And we've got so many choices.

The International Herald Tribune, or the Most Important Ritual in International Travel

I love the International Herald Tribune when I'm outside of the United States. I started getting it the first time I went to Europe, just a year or two out of College. It was the closest you could get to the New York Times, which is my stateside ritual. I have vivid memories of reading it in Toulouse, France and in Amsterdam during these first trips.

It's better than the Wall Street Journal global edition, obviously.

It was until recently a joint venture of the New York Times and Washington Post. It will probably be rebranded as the global NYT soon, now that the Times owns it wholly.

It has a quirky history that goes back to the old days of now defunct New York dailies.

The Paris Herald was founded on October 4, 1887, as the European edition of the New York Herald by the parent paper's owner, James Gordon Bennett, Jr.

After the death of Bennett, Jr. in 1918, Frank Andrew Munsey bought the New York Herald and the Paris Herald. Munsey sold the Herald newspapers in 1924 to the New York Tribune, and the Paris Herald became the Paris Herald Tribune.

In 1928, the Paris Herald Tribune became the first newspaper distributed by airplane, flying copies to London from Paris in time for breakfast. Publication of the newspaper was interrupted during Nazi Germany's occupation of Paris (1940–1944).

In 1959, John Hay Whitney, a businessman and United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, bought the New York Herald Tribune and its European edition. In 1966, the New York paper closed, but the Whitney family kept the Paris paper going through partnerships. In December 1966, The Washington Post became a joint owner.

The New York Times became a joint owner of the Herald in May 1967, whereupon the newspaper became known as the International Herald Tribune.

It's not available in South America so far as I can tell, which is the only reason not to go to South America.

Twitter Driving Flickr Galleries

When we built Flickr Galleries, one of things that we didn't have time to work on was discovery. How would people find a gallery once it was created.

Yesterday Tom Coates put together a Flickr Gallery of the dust storms in Australia and created a web sensation.

And he didn't need a Flickr discovery solution. He just used Twitter to get the word out. His gallery has 90K plus views in less than 24 hours. Wow.

On Journalism

President Obama speaking at today's Walter Cronkite memorial service in New York.

And too often, we fill that void with instant commentary and celebrity gossip and the softer stories that Walter disdained, rather than the hard news and investigative journalism he championed. “What happened today?” is replaced with “Who won today?” The public debate cheapens. The public trust falters. We fail to understand our world or one another as well as we should –- and that has real consequences in our own lives and in the life of our nation. We seem stuck with a choice between what cuts to our bottom line and what harms us as a society. Which price is higher to pay? Which cost is harder to bear?

Naturally, we find ourselves wondering how he would have covered the monumental stories of our time. In an era where the news that city hall is on fire can sweep around the world at the speed of the Internet, would he still have called to double-check? Would he have been able to cut through the murky noise of the blogs and the tweets and the sound bites to shine the bright light on substance? Would he still offer the perspective that we value? Would he have been able to remain a singular figure in an age of dwindling attention spans and omnipresent media?

And somehow, we know that the answer is yes. The simple values Walter Cronkite set out in pursuit of — to seek the truth, to keep us honest, to explore our world the best he could — they are as vital today as they ever were.

The Times has a fuller excerpt.

So Long, Uncle Walter

Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, dies.

The Times has an Obit, and a measure of his cultural impact.

Kara Swisher, whose coverage of the Tech and Media industries I admire, posts an appreciation for his integrity and seeks to learn a lesson for today's tumultuous media landscape.

In my brief time at CBS News, well after Cronkite retired, I greatly appreciated the standards of Journalism that his generation of reporters embodied.

The World's Most Popular Camera

Is shortly going to be the a mobile phone (in this case, the Apple iPhone). I'd give it a matter of weeks until this happens. Follow this trend yourself in Flickr's Camera Finder.




Partially, this is a quirk with the way apple classifies it's photo EXIF data. They roll up all of their mobile picture taking devices under one (first generation iphone, second generation 3G and even the new iphone 3gs). This means all these millions of cameras are contributing to this trend as opposed to major camera manufacturers and cell phone makers, who break out each device separately. So partially this is a bookkeeping trick.

But more significantly, mobile phones are certainly going to become the way most human beings capture and share images. The new iphone camera is good enough for most people to mean they don't have to buy a point and shoot camera. It's also going to negate the need for most people to have a video camera, as techcrunch reported this weekend. If you're a serious photographer or videographer, of course, you will have fancier equipment. But I'd propose that for most peope, the newest mobile phones are more than good enough.

What does this mean? It means the people in the business of photos (camera manufacturers, printers, photo sharing web sites) had better have a story about how they make life easier for customers with mobile devices that take pictures and connect to the internet.

Evolving Media Creation/Consumption

At a conference yesterday, New York Venture Capatalist and thinker Fred Wilson said:

"social media, led by Facebook and Twitter, will surpass Google in driving traffic to many websites sometime in the next year."

Sure, it's important if you have a web site that receives a lot of traffic from Google and/or Facebook, but what is more interesting is that more and more people are going to be flying around the internet based on what they Friends are creating or sharing with them.

Interesting.

Which got me to thinking about how I find the media I read on a daily basis. Sure, I get the New York Times on my stoop out of tradition, and I listen to NPR when I can't sleep, but most things come to me via computer or mobile browsing.

Aside from the odd offline source, here's where I get information from on a daily basis.



Note how much of this information and prioritization is coming via my friends (Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, et al). Note how little of my regular information consumption is coming from New York newsrooms.

Which got me to thinking.... what does all this mean? Does this mean most media is moving more and more toward user generation and participation? Should we lament the declining influence of newspapers and old news organizations? Am I better served or worse served by this?

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more to come when I have more time!

What Is Yahoo!? - A Call To Arms

This legitimate question has been kicking around the worlds of technology and media for about 10 years. Kara Swisher asked it again, with some resonance, in preparation for today's talk with new Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz at the All things D conference.

After all, in 2009, it is still hard to answer the simple question: What is Yahoo?

That’s the one that stumped former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang onstage at our sixth D: All Things Digital conference last year.

And, it will still be the key query that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will need to answer when she takes the stage Wednesday morning at D7.

I have been noodling all weekend about what to ask the forthright executive, who does not seem to mince words or suffer fools.

That’s good, since it will take that kind of gumption to clearly lay out for the influential crowds of attendees and assembled tech press exactly what she is going to do now that she has started to make the basic structural changes at Yahoo.

I can't wait to hear Bartz's answer. (update: her answers are posted here)

Not knowing the company's core focus means that projects get approved, but underfunded. It means that what was important last year is no longer strategic this year. Witness the departure yesterday of the talented Satish Menon and the write off of Maven Networks, a video platform company that Yahoo bought last year for $160 Million. Um, yeah, I just said what was $160 Million important to Yahoo last year is no longer important today.

The highest levels of Yahoo! MUST have a clear and compelling vision for what products it wants to make better than anyone else.

Founded as a web directory , Yahoo started by offering people easy to navigate links to the relatively small universe of web sites back in the day. Then it branched into Mail (with the acquisition of four11, the genesis of Yahoo Mail), Media (think Yahoo! News, Sports and Finance) and Community (eGroups, the genesis of Yahoo! Groups).

Terry Semel came aboard as the CEO in 2001 and brought professional culture to management sales forces, and was handsomely rewarded when the online economy rebounded.

Recovering from the dot com bust and recognizing the threat of Google to the business, Yahoo! bought into search via Overture and Inktomi (in 2002-2003). Between 2004, the company bought into some other relatively small businesses, including Flickr.

The company has grown through acquisition and a "fast follow" strategy, recognizing emerging trends and buying and occasionally building in to new web businesses. Yahoo! has never been a strong incubator of unique ideas, but has excelled at scaling businesses BIG and globally, and monetizing them.

So, what you have is arguably a business built by acquisition into the following grouping of core services the company offers customers:

Search
There are 2 fundamental questions that Yahoo! must answer here. First, how to compete with Google. Is it by copying Google features (arguably, the strategy for Yahoo! from 2004-present), by differentiating itself with features, or by offering customers a completely different experience than Google, essentially finding a way to turn search on its head.

The second question is whether to sell this business or not. This has already been endlessly speculated upon, and I have no great insight to add to the debate.


Communications
By communication, I mean Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Groups-- all number one in their product categories globally. (Flickr is here too, but I won't speculate on it because I work there).

Arguably, many of these products have stagnated in the last several years, and have lost focus. And more than other Yahoo! businesses, these are the most threatened by the rise of completely new ways of communication like Facebook and Twitter.

I think Yahoo! should pursue 2 tracks in parallel for these business. First, they must develop a clear product differentiation strategy for Mail, Messenger and Groups. These are diamonds in the rough, lack a clear purpose (nee value proposition), and deserve to be restored to their rightful place as best in class web and mobile products, which they currently aren't.

Secondly, I think Yahoo! must find and acquire some small social products that it can stitch together as an alternative social network or sorts. Yahoo! can't afford Facebook or Twitter, but it may not need these. If Yahoo! can find a emerging social tool and then scale it (via Yahoo! mail, et al), it can effectively create a new facebook-scale social tool. It needs to be an acquisition, because up until now Yahoo's internal social network building has been lackluster.

Media
Meaning Yahoo! News, Sports, Finance, Entertainment, Shine, OMG, blah blah blah. These media properties are strong in the US, and have less-dominant roles in most other markets around the world. These are core to Yahoo! and what it is to customers, but just like the communication products their focus and quality have a mixed record in recent years.

Historically, these have been sites that package up content from other sources with some original reporting and data services (Finance, in particular, has carved out a really uniquie position offering best in class original content, tools and data).

What sort of content will Yahoo package in those sites? Will it be licensed content, like Reuters, AP, etc) or will it be originally reported, as AOL seems to be pursuing. Or will it be user generated? Or will it be all 3, as Yahoo's female-oriented shine has had some success packaging together? And, what media properties does Yahoo! want to offer? Currently, there is a long list of thinly spread media sites that the company offers.


Everything Else
Here's a long list of everything Yahoo! offers, if you're interested. These maybe should, or maybe shouldn't be divested. But I can't see how they're core to the future of the company.

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(this post reflects my personal views as a shareholder. It does not represent any informed position as a Yahoo! employee)