The Future of Microsoft TellMe on Windows Phone

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While Apple's new "Siri" speech interface on the iPhone 4S may have a few more features and a little more intelligence than Windows Phone's current speech interface, Microsoft isn't standing still has been working on similar features for a while now. They put together this video that was released months ago of how a future version of Windows Phone will work with a more natural, personalized, and adaptive speech interface. Microsoft also shows how this will be highly integrated with Xbox and Kinect, which will be pretty cool. After all we know already that Windows Phone's speech UI shares the same system as the Xbox Kinect speech interface and that they learn from eachother.

Source: Creamhackered

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Microsoft's Andrew Lees on Future Dual-Core, LTE Windows Phones

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Microsoft's goal for 2012 is to make Windows Phone a solid third platform offering a viable alternative to iOS and Android. Things are already starting to look good as Windows Phone Division head Andrew Lees believes an important goal has been met: Microsoft became credible again in the phone market.

Good things are already happening in Windows Phone-land and, according to Lees, this is just the beginning. Expect dual-core and LTE-enabled phones too! Current Windows Phones are all single-core "but I suspect that they will be faster in usage than any dual-core phone that you put against it, and that?s the point," said Lees. There will be dual-core Windows Phones around the time the software will be able to take advantage of the processing power offered by the new chips.

Redmond wants to approach LTE differently. Initial phones that support the network standard were both huge in size and battery usage. Lees thinks "it?s possible to do it in a way that is far more efficient, and that?s what we will be doing".

Source: AllThingsD

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Bill Payment & Cellular Services - The Wave Of The Future For Merchant Retailers!

Electronic Distribution

How Electronic Distribution Works

The Problems of Distributing Prepaid Services with Hard (Scratch) Cards

Introduction

One of the most significant developments in the prepaid telecom industry in the last few years has been the emergence of electronic distribution technologies, such as Prepaid Wireless Direct point-of-sale activaton (POSA) will completely reconstruct the way in which prepaid services are sold.

How Electronic Distribution Works

Prepaid Wireless Direct electronic distribution systems enable any prepaid sevice to electronically transmit their services to virtually any retail location. Prepaid Wireless Direct provides an integrated POSA solution comprised of flexible and compact point-of-sale terminal equipment, proprietary software, transactional communications, protocols, and professional services to assist retailers with implementation.

Once in the retail environment, consumers simply select a product from point-of sale signage or displays and make the approprate payment to the clerk who then inserts a wallet-sized thermal card into the POSA terminal. After pushing a few key corresponding to the desired product, terminal prints a prepaid PIN along with usage instruction on the card. Prepaid Wireless Direct also supports PIN-less delivery whereby the terminal makes a real-time connection service provider. A credit is instantly issued to the customer's account. Within moments of purchase, customers can use services.

The types of retail environments that are beginning to switch to electronic delivery include wireless shops, supermarkets, conveience stores, check cashers, food marts, university shops, electronics stores, hotels and many more.

The Problems of Distributing Prepaid Services with Hard (Scratch) Cards

Prepaid Wireless Direct has developed electronic distribution services to address the many problems of distributing prepaid mobile and other prepaid services through hard cards. Hard cards are also known as scratch cards because the customer scratches a panel on the back of the card to reveal a PIN or other secret code.

The current and traditional distribution methodology of most prepaid services involves the prepaid services involves the provider printing scratch cards, warehousing them and fulfilling orders to distributors. The distributors purchase large quantities for providers, warehouse them and fulfill retail orders. And retailers purchase the cards from distributors, manage the inventory and sell the cards to consumers.

Each participant in the distribution chain encounters problems with scratch cards.

Retailer Problems. Under today's traditional hard card distribution format, most retailers struggle on several fronts to offer prepaid products

Retailer have a difficult time carrying the inventory costs of prepaid services. The recent growth and popularity of prepaid wireless intensifies the problem. With prepiad mobile, airtime denominations are much more expensive the phone cards that most retailers are familiar with. It's common for one prepaid wireless provider to offer 5 or more different airtime denominations that range in price form $20 to $150 each. To make things worse, prepaid wireless airtime is carrier specific, meaning that Verizon prepaid wireless customers cannot top up (recharge or replenish) their accounts with AT&T, Cingular or any other providers's airtime, and vice versa. This makes it critical for retailers to carry airtime for all of the popular national and regional prepaid wireless carriers or operators in their area, something that retailers didn't have to worry about with phone cards.

Today there is an average of six major carriers or operators offering prepaid wireless in each of the top 20 U.S. markets. Trying to inventory product for all six could mean that prepaid wireless alone could account for as much as 25 percent of a conveience stores total in-store inventory costs. Many retailers simple cannot afford the cash outlay required to successfully sell prepaid wireless services.

Retailer trying to minimize inventory costs often create out-of-stock problems. In general, stock outages cost the average retailer 6% of its sales, resulting in loss of billions of dollars every year and high customer dissatisfaction.

To make thing worse, today's airtime hard cards, also know as vouchers, scratch cards, replenishment cards, recharge cards, and hanging cards, increase the likelihood of fraud. The biggest problem seems to be at the point of sale where easily concealed, high-value airtime cards can be the target of both retail customers and employees alike. To prevent comsumer theft, retailers often put cards under lock and key but still suffer losses due to employee pilferage. In the conveience store industry, it is believed that as much as 80 percent of the store's shrinkage is attributable to employees. Retail employess often feel underpaid and rationalize theft as a way to make up for what they're owed. As prepaid wireless airtime cards often range in denominations from $10 to $150, employees can easily conceal thousands of dollars of product in their pockets or purses.

Cards are also attractive because they can be easily converted to cash on the street by offering them for sale at a discount of their face value. Because they're close cash equivalents, prepaid wireless cards have become tantamount to an underground currency in some places including Europe. Because of the proliferation of theft reduction is the number one investment priority among convenience store executives.

Additionally, each of the supply chain participants lacks efficient inventory controls and reporting while battling fraud. Because of the difficulties they face, and retailers that sell traditional hard cards are in dire need of cost-effective distribution solutions.

Electronic Distribution Solutions

Prepaid Wireless Direct products and services solve the distrbution problems of retailers that sell prepaid wireless (mobile) and other prepaid services.

Retailer. Retailers are increasingly demanding electronic delivery for the significant benefits they derive.

By delivering prepaid products electronically, on demand, with point-of-sale activation(POSA) techniques, Prepaid Wireless Direct essentially allows any retailer to sell prepaid wireless or other prepaid service without carrying any inventory. This eliminates prepaid inventory costs that acted as enormous cash barriers, prohibiting many retailers from selling prepaid wireless or other prepaid services. What once tied up thousands of dollars in inventory, now requires no up front cash from retailers. Now virtually any retailer not only can afford to participate in selling prepaid services, but also can expand their product portfolios to include phone cards, wireless, dail tone, credit cards, internet and more. In addition, they can also afford to represent all of the popular prepaid wireless service providers in their areas.

Also, because products are automatically replenished at POSA terminals electronically in PIN or real-time formats, retailer never run out of inventory. With Prepaid Wireless Direct POSA solution, retailers avoid the heavy costs of out of stocks and resultant customer dissatisfaction.

Once installed in a retail location, the POSA terminal virtually eliminates theft by retail customers and employess. Because only inactive products are on display, retail customers can no longer steal valuable airtime. And because all retail employees are assigned unique passwords required to accesss the POSA terminal, the system creates an audit trail that details all sales activity by date, time, shift and employee. This audit trail provides a monitoring system that virtually eliminates employee theft. With the POSA system, retailer no longer need to count and reconcile scratch card inventory amounts at the beginning of every shift.

POSA also reduces shelf space requirements and simplifies a retailers job by consolidating all prepaid products into one convenient POSA platform. POSA delivers operating flexibility to the retail marketplace that traditional point of sale products fail to provide.

Retailers also have 24/7 online access to reports that show real-time sales activity by each of their locations. Retailers can also print real-time sales report directly for their POSA terminals. Reports can drill down to sales activity at individual retail outlets by product, clerk, day, and time. Reports come standard but may be customized to match the retailers unique information needs. Retailers use sales activity reports can also highlight sudden changes in sales at a particular location. Subsequent investigation often reveals a simple solution to boosting sales such as replacement of signage that has been taken down by a window washer. Timely awareness of problems and simple remedies often make a significant difference to the amount of sales at retail.

Prepaid Wireless Direct is proud to be leading the way in the electronic distribution of prepaid services through retail environment. By delivering unique, industry-first features and benefits, while supporting a growing list of platforms, methods, suppliers, and products. Prepaid Wireless Direct is poised to lead the electronic distribution movement into the future. In addition to its current suite of products. Prepaid Wireless Direct intends to introduce many more electronic product delivery solutions as it continues to leverage the leading technologies to create cutting-edge, customized products for emerging customer segments.

Retail Licensing Provider of Bill Payment & Cellular Providers Technologies.

http://www.prepaidwireless.2ya.com

1-877-947-3577

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Is VoIP in Your Future? About Residential Internet Phone Service

Are you using VoIP yet? If not, statistics indicate you'll be replacing your traditional land line phone service with internet phone service within the next year or so. Chances are you've heard about VoIP, but you may know of it as "digital phone service". This is the marketing term cable television provider's use when advertising their version of internet phone service.

The terms VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), internet phone service, broadband phone service and digital phone service are used interchangeably, and all refer to the technology used to make telephone calls over the internet. VoIP started becoming popular as a money-saving replacement for "land line" phone service a couple of years ago, and now it is quickly becoming the residential phone service of choice.

According to the Telecommunications Industry News, the number of VoIP users in the United States doubled from 1.5 to nearly 3 million between 2004 and 2005. Voip Monitor estimated there were approximately 6 million users in September 2006, and projects there will be 24 million users by the end of 2008. Internet phone service is here to stay, and it's only a matter of time before you consider switching to VoIP.

Why are so many millions of people disconnecting their regular "telephone-line" based phone service in favor of VoIP? To save money!

Regular phone service relies on millions of miles of telephone cable, millions of switches and millions of technicians and support personnel to maintain the telephone in your home. This costs a tremendous amount of money, and the costs are passed on to us consumers in our phone bills. Most people pay $40 a month or more for the privilege of having a dial tone. When you add long distance charges to that, it's not uncommon to see $100+ phone bills every month.

Internet phone service relies on a broadband internet connection to route calls over the World Wide Web, to anywhere in the world. VoIP providers only have to maintain a room full of servers and switches, internet connectivity and a staff of technicians in order to provide consumers with high quality internet phone service.

Although prices differ among VoIP service providers, you can expect to pay $20 - $40 a month for internet phone service, and this usually includes unlimited local and long distance calls! Most VoIP providers also throw in tons of free phone features too - like caller ID, call waiting, voicemail and call forwarding - just to name a few. If you really want to save a lot of money on phone service, consider using a VoIP provider that offers an unlimited annual plan. These plans usually run $199 a year (paid upfront). Voip.com and Sunrocket are two good companies that offer an annual option.

If you make international calls, VoIP service will save you a ton of money vs. traditional phone service. International long distance rates are usually only pennies per minute with VoIP, depending on where you call. If you make frequent international calls, consider subscribing with a VoIP company that offers an international calling plan. Sunrocket, Packet8 and Vonage are three good providers that offer an international option.

The only requirement you'll need to meet in order to use residential VoIP service is a broadband internet connection.

Most people already have broadband internet access (over 60% of Americans), so this makes switching to VoIP a really easy process. After choosing a VoIP provider that offers the calling plan that is right for you, sign up for service on their website. In many cases, you can keep your existing phone number. The provider will send you a small device known as a Voip adapter (also known as an ATA). When you receive it, installation is a simple matter of connecting a few cables and dialing a special number to activate service. No tools or technical skills are required in order to install internet phone service, and you can use your existing telephone.

If you don't have broadband internet service yet, you'll need to get this before you can use VoIP. My recommendation is to use cable internet service. Although this may cost you around $20 a month more than your current dial-up service, you will more than make up the difference once you subscribe to VoIP service and disconnect your land line phone. An added benefit is that you will be able to surf the web at high-speed while talking on the phone at the same time!

Most people who switch to internet phone service save around $500 a year on their phone bill. VoIP looks and feels just like regular "land line" service. The only thing different that you'll notice is extra money in your pocket!

See my website for more information on internet phone service, including reviews of the best VoIP providers [http://www.long-distance-savings.com]. For the latest information on VoIP providers and current promotions, visit my blog Internet Phone Service - The Future is Here!

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BSkyB shows how streaming could be the future of pay TV

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As bad as it seems now, Nokia’s future looks worse

After revising its earnings estimates downward in May, on Thursday Nokia shared abysmal results for the second quarter. The onetime clear leader of the first smartphone era has tumbled down to what looks like the third spot for smartphone sales, definitely behind Apple and likely behind Samsung as well. With a new CEO in Stephen Elop, Nokia is surely in a transition, but a transition to what?

My first reaction to today’s results was twofold: one of sympathy and one of optimism. I thought to myself that one of Elop’s major actions so far, choosing Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform for the future, was akin to quickly yanking a Band-Aid from a wound: Sometimes it’s best to just get the pain over with. But after digesting the news a little more and thinking about the path Nokia traveled to get to its current low point, I don’t see how the bleeding is going to stop this year, now that the Band-Aid is off. Here are five reasons why.

Feature phones can’t save the day. Each time I’ve pointed out Nokia’s challenges, the company’s faithful have railed at me and rallied on the general platform of “. . . but Nokia sells more feature phones than most others combined!” While that’s always been a valid point, it’s less relevant as the world transitions to smartphones. Nokia’s own sales numbers reflect this point: Total mobile-phone-handset sales revenue declined 20 percent from the year-ago period and 25 percent from the prior quarter. Combine the sales drop with a 3 percent decline in the ASP of Nokia’s mobile phones, now 36 euros ($51.20), and you can see that Nokia’s bread and butter contributed to its $692 million quarterly loss.Existing smartphones aren’t helping. So as feature-phone sales are in decline, one would hope that high-profit-margin smartphones can help make up the difference. That’s not happening, given that the company didn’t capitalize on the smartphone market like Apple and Samsung, for example. Apple just reported 20.34 million iPhone sales for the quarter, a 142 percent boost from a year ago, while Samsung is estimated to have sold around 20 million smartphones in the same time period. This happened while Nokia’s smartphone sales declined 34 percent from a year ago, with 16.7 million smartphones sold. The ASP did rise 2 percent, but that’s not enough to offset the sales dropoff.A smartphone answer doesn’t exist yet. Nokia is still at least one, if not two, quarters away from even beginning a sales transition to Microsoft Windows Phone 7 devices. Elop today confirmed that Nokia would launch a Microsoft-powered device by the end of the year. That means sales and revenues in the high end are likely to continue declining throughout 2011. And there’s still uncertainty about the first WP7 handsets from Nokia: What will make them different from those offered by LG, Samsung and HTC, for example? Again, the Nokia faithful will chant that Nokia makes hardware second to none. I’d be the first to agree with that, but there are two problems with the mantra. Nokia always made good hardware, and yet that alone hasn’t saved the company. Second: Nokia may not be manufacturing its first Microsoft phones. Instead, it reportedly outsourced the production to Compal, in Taiwan. In other words: Nokia’s smartphone transition is still fraught with risks for many reasons, and it’s going to take time for Nokia to hone its skills on a new platform.Android squeezes at the top and bottom. Clearly, Nokia isn’t competing well in smartphones, given the growth rates shown by devices running iOS and Android. It’s the latter of the two that may have hurt Nokia the most. Why? Google is activating 550,000 Android devices per day — both handsets and tablets, but the vast majority are phones — and that number is composed of devices at both the top and bottom. High-end smartphones are selling well in regions that can afford them. At the same time, cheap Android smartphones are popping up in areas where feature phones once reigned. Think of India and the next 500 million mobile users. Look to China, where Nokia moved 52 percent fewer phones this quarter as compared to the past one. In these areas, inexpensive, low- to mid-tier Android phones are arriving and offering much more functionality for just a little more money over feature phones. We’re even seeing these in the U.S.: This year offered $149 no-contract Androids with expectations of prices dipping below $100 by the end of the year.How much destruction can one brand take? Among the many negative tangible results for Nokia today, there’s a massive intangible one as well: a tarnished brand. Tomi Ahonen illustrates the global branding Nokia has on his blog today, saying “[M]ore people use a Nokia phone than drink a Coca Cola, than wear Levis’s jeans, than tell time on a Timex watch, than wear Nike running shoes, than smoke Marlboro cigarettes, or write with a Bic pen.” As sales of Nokia devices continue to stumble, the brand itself loses value in terms of consumer and investor confidence. With smartphones, the brand is tied not just to hardware but also to software and services: Consumers are purchasing brand platforms and ecosystems when they buy a handset. Think of it this way: When consumers purchase an iPhone, they equate the full package with Apple, a company that arguably sets a high bar for the entire user experience. What will customers think of when they see a Nokia smartphone after the company’s fall from grace?I still have the same sympathy for Nokia that I had over my first cup of morning java. It’s never good to see a global leader heading toward “has been” status, especially with all the innovation Nokia has brought to so many people around the globe. But the optimism I had dissolved faster than the sugar in my coffee, faster maybe than Nokia’s overall profits and sales.Image courtesy of Flickr user ecastro

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Car apps: the future of the vehicle industry

By Haydn Shaughnessy Jul. 18, 2011, 2:10pm PT 4 Comments

Car companies are trying to get social, and 2011 could be the year of the car as a major platform for social and other types of apps. Projects like Toyota Friends, a social network run on Salesforce.com for Toyota owners, Ford’s American Journey 2.0 and the decade-old Sync and OnStar show that car companies want to capitalize on social but don’t quite know how to make it work. That’s a perfect opportunity for new apps and app developers. In a new GigaOM Pro report, I examine the in-vehicle app landscape, focusing on the different types of car apps, the major players in the space, what each has to offer and how those will fare as more and more apps come to the vehicle industry.

Two years ago most auto companies were preparing to go through app stores and the developer community. Enthusiasm stalled, however, over safety concerns. Now, even though companies like Toyota and Ford are actively courting developers, the process of getting an app onto an official car platform is stringent, with none of the benefits of quick sign-up, cheap SDK and turnkey retail apps.

That means that opportunities actually lie not only in cars themselves but also in transportation in general. Carmakers are toying with the idea of dashboards in the cloud, but the real business opportunities are going to be seen in big data, the use of location technologies, video, parking, road pricing and new ways of approaching mobility.

That is not to dismiss the car as an app platform. The new-car market and aftermarket comprise 800 million consumers globally, which is a distinct vertical opportunity when you look at per-mile or per-time-of-day road pricing, insurance discounts for good driver behavior, adaptable parking revenues and data systems that bring accurate up-to-the-minute data on traffic conditions into the car.

Many carmakers are agonizing over what they can do in-car, but smart movers like BMW are adjusting to a new horizon. BMW has invested $100 million in a mobility solutions VC fund and incubator in New York City called BMW iVentures. The first investment, startup MyCityWay, provides information about public transformation, parking availability and other urban information. BMW has also launched a car-sharing service.

These moves signal a dramatic shift by a major carmaker away from the traditional model of the car consumer — a person whose pleasure is derived as much from owning a particular car as it is from getting around. Changes in ownership taste and a preference for alternate modes of transport over ownership will be significant factors as the car industry transforms.

These alternate modes of transportation raise the stakes on the promise of connectivity and convergence. Carmakers have consistently failed to stay connected with the overwhelming majority of their buyers, but this too could now change. Mobility convergence (car, bus, train, plane, smartphone, infrastructure) offers an opportunity to build new relationships with a much broader public than the buyers of, say, a BMW 3 series.

Many carmakers are also focusing their efforts on electric vehicles and convergence with the smart grid. In this area, opportunities to develop new diagnostic and battery data services will probably happen after 2015. But the other convergence – transport modes – is different and is already further in process. Here the market is a big one: those 5 billion people who own mobile phones.

Thus short-term opportunities for the app landscape rest in the integration of the mobile phone with car control and car entertainment systems. Long-term opportunities, though, lie in how we as consumers, as well as the industry, can reconceive the concept of mobility.

To read more about the future of the in-vehicle app landscape, as well as to find out more about individual carmakers’ in-vehicle app efforts, see the full report at GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

Image courtesy Flickr user Yutaka Tsutano

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Like it or not, aggregation is part of the future of media

Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington

There’s been a lot of commentary flying around about a recent incident in which The Huffington Post “over-aggregated” a piece from Advertising Age, including a complaint from the original writer, an apology from one of the Huffington Post’s new senior editors, and the suspension of the HuffPo writer responsible for the post. This incident has proven to be another handy stick for traditional media outlets to beat The Huffington Post with, since it has become the poster child for the negative aspects of aggregation. But it doesn’t change the fact that aggregation, broadly speaking, is a crucial — and fundamentally valuable — part of the future of media.

This particular case got its start when Simon Dumenco, who writes a media column for Advertising Age, complained about a Huffington Post piece that seemed to pull most of the facts from his original article and reproduce them verbatim, without giving much credit to the magazine or adding anything of value to the original. Dumenco’s column, entitled “What It’s Like to Get Used and Abused by the Huffington Post,” described how he had put together a piece in June — using stats from Trendrr to talk about trending topics — and then not long afterward, The Huffington Post published a piece summarizing the article.

Although the HuffPo mentioned Advertising Age specifically in its post, and included a link to Dumenco’s original article at the bottom, the Ad Age writer was still incensed. The link at the bottom of the HuffPo piece, he wrote, was “disingenuous… because Huffpo had already cherrypicked all the essential content” from his article. Dumenco also noted that while some aggregators like The Huffington Post defend what they do based on the traffic they send by linking, the rewritten Ad Age piece only sent a measly 57 pageviews to the original source of the article. He wrote:

[G]eez, this is grade-school-level pathetic! This is akin to those lazy-ass and/or dumb kids in the fifth grade who would ask if they could copy off my homework or would “write” term papers by rephrasing the Encyclopaedia Britannica (pre-Wikipedia).

In a follow-up, the Ad Age columnist criticized The Huffington Post for suspending the writer of the article that cribbed from his piece. He suggested that this was hypocritical, given the fact that this kind of aggregation” was a routine part of the HuffPo’s approach — as confirmed by several other examples Dumenco mentioned, as well as comments from unidentified Huffington Post staffers to Gawker and other websites. Dumenco thanked Peter Goodman, the executive editor of Huffington Post (and former editor at the Washington Post) who apologized, but said that “unethical aggregation is essentially embedded in the very DNA of The Huffington Post.”

Needless to say, this isn’t the first time The Huffington Post has been accused of “over-aggregation” (whatever that is). New York Times executive editor Bill Keller wrote a passionate rant about the online media outlet and its practices, in which he called founder Arianna Huffington “the queen of aggregation.” But as I pointed out in a post at the time, Keller’s invective cleverly ignored the fact that most journalistic publications like the New York Times engage in aggregation all the time — but they call it “journalism.” Do they routinely rewrite other people’s material? The NYT may not, but lots of papers do, particularly in Britain, as one Forbes columnist has noted:

[F]rom the English point of view of this, there’s no opprobrium attached to it. This is simply how the business works, your story, your scoop, lasts only until it hits the streets, when someone will pick it up, rewrite it and publish it.

Is that kind of thing defensible? Perhaps not. But my point is that it happens even in traditional media — and the justification for smart aggregation of all kinds in digital media is even stronger. There are so many sources of content available, from blogs to traditional sources to Twitter and everything in between, that aggregation is almost a necessity. Anyone who thinks that they can retain anything like a “scoop” for more than a matter of minutes in this environment is deluding themselves.

In a sense, Dumenco is right when he says that aggregation is embedded in the DNA of The Huffington Post — because it is. Is some of that aggregation “unethical?” Undoubtedly. The Ad Age writer uses the example of a HuffPo piece based on a Playboy article that essentially reproduces the entire article in rewritten form, which doesn’t seem kosher at all. But I would argue that Dumenco’s own example isn’t as clear cut: the Huffington Post summarized the piece, yes, and included many of the facts from it — but the Ad Age piece was much longer, had a chart and many more details. And the Huffington Post did mention the magazine and link to it.

That particular Huffington Post piece may not be a great example, but much of what we call aggregation is extremely useful, such as the aggregation (broadly speaking) that Andy Carvin of NPR does of tweets from the Middle East — or the Storify modules that writers have created about a variety of incidents, in which they pull together quotes and pictures and videos about a news event. That’s clearly aggregation, but not the kind Dumenco and The Huffington Post’s critics are talking about.

It seems as though when we like it we call it “curation,” and when we don’t like it we call it “aggregation.” Either way, it’s become a crucial part of the online media ecosystem, whether it’s a headline aggregator like Techmeme, or a broader aggregator like Google News, or sites that pull together the major news stories of the week and try to make sense of them. All of those things have value — but how much value? And does the value that is produced accrue to the reader, or to the original publisher? In ideal cases it would be both, but unfortunately that isn’t always the case.

At the bottom of much of the criticism about The Huffington Post and other aggregators is the business model that most online publishing is based on, which consists of collecting as many pageviews and unique visitors as possible. Its critics complain that this is what drives the HuffPo to do such clumsy aggregation — but it’s the same yardstick they use when they complain about how little traffic the aggregated piece sends them.

In the end, the online media business is about attention: how to get it, how to keep it, and how to maintain it over time — and it isn’t a sprint, but a marathon. Worrying about every place that posts a summary of your content without permission is a mug’s game. If a poorly aggregated, hastily rewritten version of your content can compete with what you do, and offer more (or even as much) value to the reader over the long term, then you have a lot bigger problems than just The Huffington Post.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users World Economic Forum and jphilipg

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What Sheryl Sandberg shows us about the future of work

The New Yorker‘s recent profile of Sheryl Sandberg purports to be a piece about women in technology and doubles as a fine executive profile. But it’s also a glimpse into the evolving state of the workplace in an entrepreneurial and highly connected world — what I think of as the future of work for the professional class.

The New Yorker profile hints at these topics, rather than exploring them directly, but within the nine pages of the article, Sandberg’s decisions about going to Facebook, her leadership style, the life she has created in order to be the COO of a hot startup and the reaction she gets from women and her employees all paint a certain picture. Here’s a good example of how Sandberg views her work, from when she was evaluating moving from Google to Facebook:

“It was like dating,” says Dave Goldberg, Sandberg’s husband and the C.E.O. of the online company SurveyMonkey. Sandberg says they asked each other, “What do you believe? What do you care about? What’s the mission? It was very philosophical.”

It was philosophical, because the professional class today doesn’t join a company with a nine-to-five work ethic anymore. They are also joining a group of people that they will spend long hours with either at the office or online. They’re entering a relationship with these people, so those people better mesh with their values and ideals.

This isn’t just at Facebook. Many workers have been forced by an uncertain economy and an overall shift in employment to become more entrepreneurial, which means there are more people setting their own agendas and hours. But as Generation X and the millennials rise in the workforce, there also more people who are motivated and driven by their own goals, rather than a company’s goals.

So we have a shift in why people work and how they choose their jobs. How do you build a company and a culture that works with this shift instead of against it? Clearly forcing people to work from nine to five in a cube seems like it would be destined for failure, especially since self-motivated employees generally work best when left to follow their own ideas and projects. So options such as telecommuting, Google’s famed 20 percent time or Facebook’s Hackamonth are good for providing outlets for entrepreneurial people.

But I don’t think that goes far enough. I believe work is changing to be more like a family. Just like in families, where there is an ethos around everyone pitching in and working toward a common goal, a company needs to have people who are all dedicated toward a company goal. I’m not talking about some hokey mission statement, but rather a tangible result that everyone agrees with. At GigaOM, it’s delivering good analysis on major stories. We’re all pulling for the same thing, together. This also means people are more willing to work longer or odd hours when needed, because they believe they’ll get time off when they need it. Employees have a loyalty to the company that is rewarded with loyalty back to the employee.

And if something falls apart, just like your home-family, your colleagues will support you. In startups and entrepreneurial workplaces, there’s very little blaming and throwing people under a bus because of their “family values.” It may seem idealistic, but smart, creative people don’t have to hang around in bad environments, and they often won’t. In the Sandberg profile, plenty of people mentioned her ability to push junior staff members forward and encourage people to succeed. That’s the style of leadership required for creating these workplaces.

Today’s professional class are driven by their own goals, so like Sandberg did with Zuckerberg, they look for a deeper connection with their workplaces. They are looking for a good fit — in lifestyle and culture besides merely previous experience and career goals — not just a job. This change is seen as a good — especially within the tech community.

But there’s a darn good reason most people don’t want two families. It divides your loyalties, and it’s hard to prioritize when you have divided loyalties. To accommodate this, there needs to be a corresponding cultural shift in the home, something the Sandberg profile also illustrates.

She said, “The No. 1 impediment to women succeeding in the workforce is now in the home. . . . Most people assume that women are responsible for households and child care. Most couples operate that way — not all. That fundamental assumption holds women back.” The second impediment is guilt, she said. “I feel guilty working because of my kids. I do. I feel guilty. In my TED talk, I’m talking to myself, too. I’m not just talking to other people. I have faced every one of those things myself.”

As women play a greater role in the professional world, they also tend to expect more from their partners at home. So when Sandberg talks about her husband sharing the workload, that’s not an idle comment — it’s essential to her success. But it also allows her husband to achieve a level of participation in his home life that many of today’s younger men say they want. And when both partners are trying to have it all instead of just women, the social dynamic changes, ideally in a way that allows more women to take on leadership roles without being stigmatized for having a family.

That works on a macro level. But it’s the day-to-day — or sometimes, minute-by-minute — conflicts that put the true pressure on both work- and home-families, making me (and I’m sure other people like me) wonder why we even bother trying to balance both. Something as simple as a huge story breaking on weekend when your husband is out of town creates instant conflict. But when it works, it’s the most satisfying feeling in the world, and as a skilled worker, I can’t imagine going back to some nine-to-five existence where my projects and priorities are dictated by others instead of something I care deeply about.

Image courtesy of the World Economic Forum.

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The future of grid energy storage: Software-as-a-Service

One of the reasons energy storage for the power grid isn’t widely used is that many of the technologies, like batteries, are still far too expensive to be used at grid scale. But what if you could use something that costs a fraction of a battery to deploy for grid storage … like Software-as-a-Service? On Thursday, a startup called Clean Urban Energy (CUE) launched its SaaS product, which uses commercial buildings essentially as thermal batteries, and announced a $7 million investment from VCs Battery Ventures and Rho Ventures.

Here’s how it works: CUE makes a deal with a building owner, then plugs the company’s software into the building’s management system. Over a two-week period, the software crunches the energy consumption and HVAC system data, pulls in outside data like weather and temperature, and eventually creates a model and baseline for how the building consumes energy and how best to optimize that energy use.

The software then is able to shift parts of the building’s energy use via the HVAC system to times of day when a utility’s rates are lower and when there is less demand on the grid. So, say, a building could be subtly pre-cooled on a hot day, before the utility’s peak times occur and the rates are a lot higher. The software can do this without changing the comfort of the people in the building, says Battery Ventures Partner Jason Matlof.

CUE says it can save building owners 15 to 30 percent in energy savings from their HVAC systems. For utilities, the buildings are turned into sort-of thermal batteries that can store energy during peak times, and can enable building owners to participate in utilities’ variable pricing programs.

In contrast to many building management systems that use sensors and extra hardware installed throughout a building — and take weeks or months to integrate — CUE uses no extra gear, and just relies on the building management system and its model to start to work. The system can cost less than $10,000 to get up and running says Matlof, and the low capital required is one of the reasons Battery Ventures funded the company.

The smart algorithms came from the work of one of CUE’s founders, Gregor Henze, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who previously wrote his dissertation on optimal control of thermal energy storage systems. The model is able to accurately predict how the building is going to respond to the current environment in real time and adjust the HVAC system accordingly, says Matlof.

Battery Ventures has backed other low-capital-intensive energy efficiency software plays like networked lighting company Redwood Systems. “We’ve avoided the kinds of companies that get stuck in the Valley of Death, like thin-film solar, utility-scale solar thermal and electric cars,” says Matlof.

CUE’s software reminded me a bit of some of the projects that smart thermostat service company EcoFactor has done, optimizing demand response events for utilities. Though EcoFactor is concentrating on residential buildings, and not, say, a 70-story commercial building that’s in CUE’s cross hairs, the two companies are similar in that they both use big data and predictive algorithms to focus on HVAC as the pain point in a building.

CUE has already done 12 pilots with its software (two in the Chicago area) and has just started selling its software commercially.

Image courtesy of CUE.

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The Future Business Model of Facebook

The one thing Facebook has not figured out yet is how to utilize their fabulous product to make the most money, consistently and on an ongoing basis - i.e. finding the right business model. A really intriguing topic to write my very first blog about, because, in my opinion, finding the right business model for Facebook cannot be accomplished using conventional thinking, like, solely looking at Google and their search engine ad revenue, for example. Facebook is unique, so you need to find unique solutions. Actually, there is not one single best business model for this site, rather a multitude of potential revenue streams from very different sources. It is not only "how do we generate revenue", but equally important "when do we start with which one". This might sound strange now, but it will get clear, when reading this. Summarized, it is basically taking your assets and what made you successful in the first place and finding new ways to use them effectively.

Business Network / Business Profile

I thinking about this since beginning of February. Wouldn't it be great, if you'd only need to login once and have your private and professional network in one view, although strictly separated from each other, depending on your settings? Wouldn't it also be great for companies to have a business network with about 7 times more users than LinkedIn, that can offer people having every kind of skills and experience imaginable as well as offering any kind of services and products among their 500 million users? Wouldn't it be great for Facebook to be able to get into companies blocking the site so far, generating new streams of ad and other revenue from recruitment companies and others? But most importantly, Business Network market leaders LinkedIn and Xing charge their users, meaning Facebook would have an absolute legitimate case to do so as well for their business network users. This means, that the crucial, and psychological, hurdle of charging end-users can be overcome via a sideway, so to speak, without having to expect a massive backlash or a mass exodus of users. Of course, they can only start to charge the active business network users, but when the door is open once...needless to say, this has the highest potential impact on the bottom line of Facebook.

All this would happen, if Facebook offered a Business Network, too. This is not even a huge undertaking for them really, just leveraging their existing functionality.

It can be set-up rather easily via automatic transfer of the existing (fitting) data of the user profiles into their new professional profiles, giving the users the choice to opt-in into this service and let them enter more business-related data to be able to activate their professional profile (which also means more key data available within Facebook). The professional profile can be, e.g. on a separate tab right next to the private one or just as another wall and info page next to the main profile, allowing for it to be within the Facebook site, but with the possibility to completely block the private section, when accessed from certain locations, while also allowing the user to keep both profiles and their connections separated via respective privacy settings. To grow rapidly, at least initially the service should be offered for free. Ads can be displayed to help offset part of the launching and initial running costs. Existing Facebook functionality should be incorporated, examples are, the news feed with real-time updates, posting pictures (e.g. from corporate events), the Like button, the option to easily post relevant news, etc., enabling the user to do the same things they like to do on the social network also in a business environment and in a simple and already known way. This would make the Facebook Business Network that much more alive than the mostly static existing ones, allowing users to be active or passive, enjoying ever-changing new content, keeping them on the site, just like it's happening on the current social network. At the same time, the previously mentioned benefits for Facebook are enormous, while the development time and costs for this are comparatively small as already proven and existing layout and functionality can be used. In my opinion, if set up properly, the other existing professional networks will be marginalized within about 9-12 months after the launch (depending on the roll-out plan), just like the other existing social networks.

In short, just take what successfully works, put it in a business context and reap the huge rewards.

Job Market

A job market, integrated with the business net as well as the rest of the site could be the next step. Same procedure as above, at the push of a button, the relevant data from the other profiles, private and professional gets transferred to a job search profile(again, if agreed to by the user) and additional data is added by the users to fill out the respective profile, alternatively, if a business network already exists the professional profile can also act as the job search profile, saving the users valuable time and enabling them to easily get out on the job market, without needing to fill out a long new form, updating their CVs, etc.. The first option, a new profile, would enable Facebook to gather more data and place more ads; the second one keeps the number of profiles from expanding, meaning less complexity and maintenance. Why Monster.com - Facebook has the equivalent of the third largest country in the world as talent base, available at the push of a button. This enables Facebook to pretty quickly become a major player selling job ads and e.g. earning additional money from HR companies for special search functions, etc. and also generating more ad money with the existing ads on the side of the screen.

Marketplace

Facebook has a marketplace actually, but it's safe to say, that it never took off in the way other parts of the site did. So I suggest a relaunch. Advantages are that no additional login is needed and the pretty convenient account access, also via Facebook's pretty well done mobile apps. Now the business network profile of (at least) the sellers should be integrated with the marketplace with the users accepting that Facebook can use their data for security reasons (e.g. to eliminate users with fake profiles from the start) while having them also add more data to be able to act as a seller (more key data within Facebook). This wealth of data enables Facebook to have a sufficiently lower fraud rate and even better fitting custom offerings for every single user than e.g. Ebay, huge competitive advantages. Special promotions for goods on Facebook will also make it easier for many users to accept letting Facebook use their existing data strictly for security reasons.

Now some examples for things currently totally out of Facebook's scope,

Facebook Apparel

Why they haven't done this already is beyond me. It's a great brand, simple logo, people like it. White and blue T-shirts, each with the alternatively colored Facebook logo, and matching caps, maybe some sweaters, that's enough for starters. Then advertise these products via their ad system, which simultaneously generates a great case study to show to ad buying prospects. For sure not their potentially largest income stream, but pretty quick to launch and profitable nevertheless, with options galore, like the ability to build the biggest clothing online store on the web via own offerings and the integration of other brands and retailers in an open way, similar to what Facebook has already done with applications on their site (use what works). Tailor-made offers (no pun intended) for 500 million users every time they log in, is quite a powerful thing here, too. Even opening Facebook brick & mortar stores in the future could be a viable option, also not necessarily limited to clothing.

Comprehensive Event & Event pictures database

Neat little features with great user benefits while pretty quick and rather inexpensive to launch are always fun. A comprehensive event database where every event manager will enter their own events and every Facebook user can search the listed events, concerts, etc. in his or any other region. If you travel abroad, for example, you know where to look for events and e.g. can also contact the event management or other Facebook users attending an event you are interested in easily and immediately with tools you are already familiar with. Additionally, the option to link pictures to the respective events should be implemented. Again, integrating all the successful Facebook features e.g. allowing people to tag themselves or be tagged (for privacy reasons, only the person her-/himself can tag themselves if they want; to tag others, the user needs to give permission to be tagged in this more public environment), Comment, Like button, etc., also allowing users to upload their own pictures from the events and link them to the event (when authorized by the event manager), makes it that much more interesting and definitely increases the number of user interactions on Facebook. Needless to say, all this is non- existent with the usual event/photo sites, where you often need to register, again, then get flooded with ads and only have partial overview over one region, and basically none of the other options described above. A centralized database is so much more convenient. By using already existing functionality for a new application, Facebook will save resources in developing these features while gaining speed to launch them (a familiar theme by now). Existing sites will have no chance against a comprehensive, worldwide, but localized database within the offering of a 500 million user juggernaut. This is certainly not difficult to set up from a technical standpoint and will render the existing party sites meaningless within about 6 months after launch in the respective regions. Facebook would gain even more new users, more user-generated content and user interaction as well as more ad revenue (e.g. the ad money flowing to the party sites will go to Facebook) out of this.

Banking functions

Microcredits

Facebook itself could offer a variation of a microcredit to its users (a microcredit is a very small loan originally designed for impoverished people in developing countries to engage in self-employment projects that allow them to generate an income - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcredit ). Where's the context, you will ask. The data of the users of Facebook is a credit rating specialist's dream as certain non-financial data is, when available, also highly valuable in today's loan approval process. No bank has anything close to this in terms of private data. To actually being able to use this data, Facebook would ask the applicants to sign a document that his Facebook user data can be used in the loan approval process. You can bet, somebody who wants money, will accept this. (Also, the applicants will be asked to provide their full financial information, of course, as this is currently not available on Facebook.) In this scenario, a credit officer will really have the total picture. This is an invaluable advantage in being able to calculate if an applicant should be denied or if someone will be able to pay back. This would result in a lower credit default rate for the Facebook loans, meaning in turn higher profitability, but also lower interest rates for the recipients of the loans, as Facebook would need to price less into the issued loans for the expected defaults than normal banks. Facebook needs some experienced banking people for this, get a license (not as difficult as it sounds nowadays, I guess the government will be happy, if anybody else wants to offer quality loans), set up a process and the respective software or alternatively, have one bank or a consortium of banks in the background for this and only act as router (first option earns much more money, latter one can be set up more easily and bears less risks). In any case, the first step would then be to start a very small test balloon (they would be totally overrun, if they would even offer this "only" in their home state, let alone Facebook-wide). After some time gaining experience with the process, they can think about offering higher amounts and potentially becoming quite some competition to regular banks (again, think the potential customer base of 500 million+), while, importantly, also doing something good in supporting their users with more affordable loans. Later on, they could even expand to offer more banking functions, like an online account, e-brokerage...

Peer-to-Peer Lending platform

They could also offer a Peer-to-Peer lending platform, where users lend money to other users, like e.g. Zopa or Prosper, which would soon thereafter become the biggest one on the web, of course. The process would be the same as with microcredits, whoever wants a loan, needs to share his data with Facebook, so it can be checked, if the applicants qualify, which is what the P-to-P platforms do as a service for the lenders, charging a small fee for it (another revenue stream for Facebook). The advantages to other platforms are the same as to banks in regards to microcredits, the quantity and quality of the data at hand. Another advantage here would be that the number of social interactions between the users increases as lenders and takers interact quite a lot on these platforms and a rather safe guess is that they would do even more so on the familiar Facebook. This is also potentially a good way of gaining experience before offering microcredits themselves, if they choose to do so.

Credit information system

If Facebook decides to not go the route above or chooses to launch another business, they could easily become the largest and best credit information data provider. They have data nobody else has and banks would pay a lot to get this information. Here, the privacy problem becomes a bigger one as Facebook cannot just transfer the data. From Facebook's point of view, the best thing would be to let the banks negotiate the access with each bank client, who is a Facebook user.

I have more examples, but this was just to show, that the possibilities are endless.

As I have stated initially, it is basically taking your assets and what made you successful in the first place and finding new ways to use them effectively.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, there are many ways for Facebook to haul in boatloads of money and Mark Zuckerberg be all smiles. It is not only "how do we generate revenue", but equally important "when do we start with which one". That's tricky, and a distinct timeline can only be set by the company itself, of course. My suggestion would be to start the Event/Pictures point in parallel with the business network. The latter has the most impact, the first can be set up the easiest and they don't interfere with each other. I have no affiliation with Facebook or any insight or access, so these are just my humble suggestions and assumptions. Whatever is going to happen, it is definitely exciting to see, where Facebook is actually going and what is possible for them.

Next up: How Google can prevent Facebook from taking over

My name is Matthias Karim Rahmatian, I am holding a master degree in business administration from the Vienna University with the focus on Leadership, Human Resources and Psychology in a business environment. My half Austrian, half Persian descent helps me tremendously in understanding and effectively communicating in cross-cultural environments. Having held several leadership positions in the IT industry and being stakeholder and board member of a software company, I have a tech background, too. My main interests are in personal development, strategy, thinking about how to make things better and international business & politics and foremost - how to help others achieve extraordinary results!
1) How to set goals and create outcome- and purpose-driven massive action plans
2) How to stay dedicated and driven
3) The tools you need to achieve your goals
4) How to ENJOY not only the outcome but the process itself!
Check out my website:makara-coaching

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