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Posted by Cyndy Aleo-Carreira on July 17th, 2008
Joss Whedon and company weren't prepared for the enormous interest in his created-for-the-Web musical Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog , which premiered Act I Tuesday online and crashed the servers almost immediately. The online-only musical features several Web 2.0 in-jokes, such as the villain, Dr. Horrible, having a vlog, then being thwarted by police and the superhero Captain Hammer after revealing his plans for a freeze ray on the vlog.
Conceived during the recent writers' strike, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog came with the built-in Whedon cult audience and via a mainly viral campaign, seems to have managed a huge web audience as a result. Even with the server outages on Tuesday, Act I was the most-downloaded TV episode on iTunes on Tuesday, and is still ranked at number two today.
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog combines the low budget of Web productions with the professionalism of a team used to working with a much larger budget, and even with the tight shooting schedule, the episodes have a very different feel than the usual Web-created content that isn't tied to a regular television show (for instance, the Battlestar Galactica Webisodes which were filmed using the same actors and sets as the show itself).
Whedon has said that the goal for the show is to simply make the money back, and with the show's current popularity, it looks like he'll at least meet, if not exceed his goal, which should hopefully lead to more shows like this. Whedon may be changing the way we view Web-created video content, changing the current model where shows that succeed online attempt to cross over to television and just don't make it. With more streaming content made available, it may make more sense to have two parallel markets instead of insisting one kill the other.
Act II is available today, and you can still view Act I as well if you need to catch up.
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Posted by Svetlana Gladkova on July 17th, 2008
Looks like the users still have the power to influence decisions of service providers in the web 2.0 era. I have just seen the news (on a Russian-language blog since LiveJournal is a platform mostly popular among Russian users) that LiveJournal management (the Russian company Sup) made a decision to give the users basic accounts back.
As a short summary, until March there were three levels of accounts on LiveJournal: basic (no cost, no ads, minimal features), plus (no cost, ad-supported, medium features), paid (no ads, costs involved, all the features). It seemed to be reasonable for some time for the company as they viewed the users that paid zero, watched no ads but still generated content as a necessary component of the system. I think by now everyone should have grown accustomed to freemium model and understand the necessity to watch some ads if you don't want to pay for the service directly. But the problem with Russian users is that we strongly hate all kinds of ads (I am not but I am really an exception, unfortunately). This is one of the reasons that we have only a handful of healthy profitable web companies in Russia - and those are the companies that have reached mainstream users that simply have no idea that ads can actually be blocked.
It is obvious that the basic users generated absolutely zero income for LiveJournal but still cost it money for hosting (not to mention staff salaries, office costs, etc.). And with the huge number of such users that were comfortable with only a minimum feature set but very uncomfortable about ads it has evidently become too heavy of a burden for the LiveJournal owners. And back in March they have made a decision that no new user could choose to have a basic account and no existing user could switch to a basic account any more. This was not a welcome decision - in fact, it was encountered with users' revolt (passionately described by Veronica Khokhlova at the Global Voices Online). The decision even resulted in a one-day content strike by a number of users (some of them very popular) when they published no posts and submitted no comments.
I myself can not agree with this type of reaction as I know that running a company (especially a huge one) involves costs and these costs should be covered somehow - by fees charged or by ads watched. But the Russian users think different: they believe that Livejournal (and Sup) is nothing without them, that it only exists because of their efforts and because of them taking the time to create the content for the platform. Watching the companies fail due to their inability to make any money, I have come to believe that there was nothing wrong with the decision from the business point of view but it seems that sometimes users' revolt can be too powerful to resist. So contrary to any business logic, the company has made a decision to return the basic accounts some time in August. But it looks like there will still be some changes to the previous structure anyway - the company will work closely with select users to find a compromise solution to make sure that the company still can make money and the users will be happy at the same time. Right now the users are not exactly happy about this new decision anyway as what they actually wanted to have was status quo (before the March decision) instead of some consultations intended to find a compromise. But I still feel it is a very generous move for Sup proving that they value their users very much - maybe too much for the users that don't want to realize that they use a service that needs money to survive and grow - and continue to make them happy.
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Posted by Triston McIntyre on July 16th, 2008
You have the most successful touchscreen handset on the market, your brand image could sell contacts to the blind, and guess what? You are largely responsible for a roadblock in the advancement of mobile social networking. What I'm referring to is the fact that new iPhone applications are not allowed to run continuously as a background processes.
Of course, I doubt Apple or its head man Steve Jobs directly intend to inhibit the advancement of mobile social media by not allowing iPhone applications to run continuously in the background of the iPhone interface. That choice would be in the interests of ensuring that the iPhone doesn't become sluggish from too many background processes — a slow phone, no matter what the reason, does not translate as success with naive consumers. I would venture a guess that many smartphone consumers choose Blackberrys or iPhones because they aren't running Windows Mobile, an operating system notorious for being sluggish and buggy. Call it quality control or whatever you like, from a business standpoint, the decision is a no-brainer.
The problem is that you will have no idea when you receive an instant message on AIM, a direct message on Twitter, a friend request on Facebook, or a video reply on Seesmic as you go about your day to day activities, unless of course you have your Mail app configured to receive updates to each of these programs. The situation simply isn't ideal. This is the way it should be: when you open up your Facebook application, until you turn off your iPhone (or end the process), your iPhone should notify you when you receive updates to your account. That is being truly connected 24/7 on your mobile unit.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this situation is that the iPhone is arguably the most capable platform for paving the way to fully-realized mobile social networking. There is a simple solution, but it most likely isn't a solution that would sit well with Apple. Simply add a "Force Quit" application to the iPhone so users can pick and choose what applications they run. I'm not a huge YouTube fan, and I'd rather have it turned off. I also don't really need to check my stocks at all times (as I am a bit low in shares right now). Why shouldn't I be able to run two different applications in their places?
The next obvious solution would be to plan a boost in RAM and processor power for the next version of the iPhone. It will be far too easy for Apple to sail smoothly by only pushing hardware enough to stay slightly ahead of competitors. But it is obvious this application issue is a problem. Though I and many have a vested interest in the advancement of mobile social platforms, I seriously doubt that is Steve Jobs' top concern. At what point does keeping ahead of the Joneses get replaced by really pushing innovation? Isn't that what the iPhone was originally all about?
I have to say that I think Apple copped out with the iPhone 3G. Granted, changing the phone to work on the high-speed 3G network was needed, but not groundbreaking by any means. Developers did all the work on the Apps store, and I hate to say it, but there is very little "Wow!" factor to GPS these days. Jobs gave us something great and original, and is now sitting back to milk the cash cow, and that is why you are just a hop, skip and throw away from proper mobile social networking.
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Posted by Svetlana Gladkova on July 16th, 2008
There's an interesting post on the official Google blog today about the results of Google's program of teaching students all around the world to use Google AdWords (they call it online marketing but still). They claim that the program was launched to give the students skills that they could take directly into the workforce from university.
The program worked with an international panel of professors that brought their students into competition. Every participating team of students was given Google AdWords vouchers of $200 that they could use to help grow a local business of their choice. So now Google has announced the winners - a team of students from the University of Western Australia who partnered with an indoor rock-climbing school and reportedly did a great job of promoting the business efficiently with AdWords. There are almost no details on how exactly the results were evaluated based on the students' reports so I'd really love to see a comment from the The Hangout (hopefully the students also taught their partner to use Google Alerts as well to track their name online as a part of their online marketing campaign) to get more information on how exactly the program helped them increase the brand visibility or customers' base.
Google Online Marketing Challenge (this is the name of the program) involved over 1,600 student teams from 47 countries with all of them partnering with local businesses to show them how efficient advertising can be if done right. The winners will now visit Mountain View for a tour of Googleplex and as an addition every team member will also receive a MacBook Pro "to help them in their ongoing studies". Definitely not a bad prize for artificially using AdWords, right? The success of the program resulted in decision to make this regular and submissions from students and professors are accepted for the next year.
But my personal concern is that I can hardly understand how use of AdWords equals an online marketing campaign. Is this what the future employers of the students will really be interested to find in the candidates? Something tells me that no: they will probably prefer to hire a specialist with good knowledge of all aspects of internet marketing, especially those that are free to use. Watching the market proves that the most efficient measures are usually free and involve active community and brand awareness building as people are generally tempted to ask other consumers for their opinions (or search for them) and trust them while seeing a paid link does not result in any trust. So spending money on online advertising looks more like the last step when everything else (social media, community building, etc.) failed to bring the traffic and buyers the businesses need. Maybe LinkedIn should launch a similar program for students to learn the tricks of efficient business networking as well?
Image credit: Google Online Marketing Challenge website
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Posted by Triston McIntyre on July 16th, 2008
Though I'm not a parent, I do feel like a relatively close uncle, being able to watch Twitter grow up and get big. Twitter experienced quite a significant growth spurt today when it acquired the separate Twitter search platform Summize, a buyout that fellow writer Leslie Poston recently explored.
Now Twitter is starting to look like a much more grown-up platform. It would be unfair to say that Twitter has been doing it wrong all along by not having search functionality integrated, as the platform has seen great success for being such a small operation at such an early stage. Having a search feature as well-structured as that of Summize is simply a necessity of a platform with such potential like Twitter. I personally am going to be happier not having to switch between Twitter and Summize to find people and conversations that interest me.
To all you third party twitter application developers, please don't botch up, mangle, or otherwise ruin this newly-acquired functionality! Twhirl being my favorite Twitter application, I would request that the Twhirl crew puts in an extra effort. While I'm on the subject, could a developer please step up to deliver an uncontested winner in the pool of Twitter applications? I have tried many, and let's just say that none of them have left me particularly breathless.
On that note, blogger MG Seigler at VentureBeat discussed Twitter's takeover of Summize, noting that with search functionality out of the way, Twitter really needs to start developing a solid mobile platform for those who live on-the-go lives. I feel like I'm preaching to the choir by agreeing with Seigler on the dire need for a solid mobile platform, but I think that it is important to note that at this juncture, a genuine Twitter application (birthed by the actual Twitter team) is a much bigger necessity. Though we're nearing the time when mobile will be the name of the social game, Twitter needs to make sure it is making all the stops on the way to getting big — the first step was (or should be) establishing quality and consistency, the second should be integrating search functionality and other normal platform tools, and the third should be creating a decent application. Then, and only then, should Twitter work on a mobile platform.
Most importantly, as Twitter starts integrating search functionality and possibly explores developing computer-based or mobile Twitter platform, it needs to make sure quality and consistency don't falter. The Fail Whale is still alive and well, and branching out might only mean we are graced with more visits from our favorite birdie-toted water beast.
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