Future of Influence

my6sense Extends Stream Personalization to Android

Louis Gray — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:50:00 +0000

When I switched from iPhone to Android, there were few applications I missed. While some other switchers have lamented a number of high-profile games, for me there were only a few gaps - namely Cinchcast and my6sense. With Cinchcast reaching Android in June, my6sense was the lone holdout. And if you thought I would join a company whose products weren't available for me, you'd be nuts, so my6sense playing well with my HTC Evo was a clear inevitability. What wasn't inevitable about the app's reaching Android was the speed of its development, and its quality. As evidenced by the solid press coverage and user feedback at the conclusion of day one on Android, my6sense is filling an important role in the expanding Android market, cutting through information overload, while at the same time, unifying the different streams of Facebook, Twitter, RSS and Google Buzz.

If you were watching my Twitter stream today, or my shares from Google Reader, which hit both Buzz and FriendFeed, you could see that my6sense's entry on Android struck a chord with a good number of people who have been waiting for the application to graduate from the iTunes application store and hit more screens. Even as it was rolling out to Android, the calls are clear that users are begging for my6sense's personalization and prioritization functionality to debut in new places - on the Web, on iPad, and to support new sources, for example LinkedIn, Foursquare and YouTube. Being in the marketing role doesn't mean I hold too much sway over the company roadmap and I can't do a lick of code, but be sure we're listening. If it were up to me, the power of my6sense would be everywhere, sorting and prioritizing every stream and every Web page just for me - like an intelligent assistant who finds the best and disposes of the rest.

Like any new piece of software, there are bugs. I encountered quite a few during my own testing and saw many good rounds of updates in the weeks preceding the announcement. More were reported and being worked today. The service even went down on Tuesday morning following the initial launch as demand became overwhelming and new users flocked to the system. It's not ideal, but a situation many of us have seen, from small startups like Flipboard to larger pieces of our ecosystem, including Twitter.

Even if I am on the odd side of the bell curve in terms of how I consume content, I use my6sense to surface the most interesting items from any source and put them squarely in my view. I also use my6sense as a powerful sharing tool to add items of interest to streams like Twitter and Facebook. But it's always good to hear others see the value.

TheNextWeb wrote:

"There are so many great things that make up my6sense that I honestly could spend a thousand words talking about them," adding, "...it takes a day or so for the application to start to learn about you. After the second day, you’ll be surprised by what it pulls up. After the fourth, it will amaze you."

AndroidGuys said:

"My new favorite Twitter app is my6sense. It's also my new favorite Facebook app. And my new favorite Google Reader app, and my new favorite Google Buzz app."

ReadWriteweb followed on:

"It's not hard to imagine places where the my6sense API could help. Wouldn't it be nice if you could come to a site like ReadWriteWeb or the New York Times, for example, and just see the stories that would be of interest to you?"

In addition to those great quotes, my6sense was covered by a good array of tech enthusiasts, including TechCrunch, Android And Me, VentureBeat, BetaNews, Mobiputing, Robot Briefs, Technologizer, and GigaOM. Of course, with great visibility comes great responsibility. Like with Flipboard, you can't claim victory on one day's good buzz. The success will be measured through customer satisfaction, use and expansion through partnerships that recognize real value.

Despite more than a decade's time in marketing roles for technology companies, I am not one who is keen on superlatives. I prefer to let the products speak for themselves. If you are an Android user who hasn't yet tried my6sense, it would be great to get your feedback. And if you use an iPhone or an iPod Touch, or even an iPad, my6sense is a solid contender to harness your streams and make them less of a mess and more personal. I'm spoiled because I know what my6sense can do, and I want it everywhere. I am excited to get the chance now to share it with the fast-growing Android community who needs more and more high quality apps. Add one more to the pile.

You can find the new app at http://bit.ly/m6sandroid for Android and for the iOS platform on the iTunes store. When you find issues, let us know. If you have recommendations, let us know. This is only the beginning.

Disclosure: I am the vice president of marketing at my6sense, which is also a Paladin client.

The Future of Search: Personal, Persistent and Implicit

Louis Gray — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:45:00 +0000

The world of search is changing before our eyes - from one where there is one right answer for all people at a specific instant to another where an answer to one's query can differ based on who they are, their social graph, their location, or even the time of day. No matter how fantastic the algorithms, combined with measured human editing, the assumption that there are "correct" responses to single word queries or short phrases for all is practically gone. That's why users are increasingly using multiple search terms in their queries, and modifying the searches until they find a satisfactory result. Pile on the conundrum of how to approach the world of real-time, social feedback, and geolocation, and a simple If A then B problem starts to look a lot more like calculus.

At the IFA home electronics event in Berlin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was widely quoted following his remarks where he said the future of search is well beyond the Web, but through all your information, and done automatically, as you "walk down the street", the example saying that the smartphone would be "doing searches constantly."

While some may think this is Google over-reaching its boundaries and extending its view into every step of our waking lives, it's not evil that is seen here, but instead evolution, the same evolution that is the future of products like my6sense.

Stated directly:

The traditional search market is powered by one time explicit search.
The future search market is powered by persistent implicit search.

What do I mean? An explicit search is one where you are clearly searching for something specific and you are taking that action. It is often one done for a specific occasion or time. Today, I may search for "movie times Inception Sunnyvale" to find when the film is playing in my area. I may never search for that again.

A persistent explicit search is one where the query is known and unchanging, but continues over time. For example, take Google Alerts. You may have a persistent explicit search on your name or your company, and every time Google News has a positive hit, you get an update.

An implicit search is more vague, keying off related activity or your own interests and alerting you to things you might want to know. Blinkx, the video search engine, was talking about leveraging implicit search back in 2006 with a tool it calls Pico, which found relevant results to display alongside your usual activity. Tools like this, including Google Reader Magic, some aspects of TiVo recommendations and Amazon, are implicit, showing related items you didn't search for outright.

Enter the world of persistent implicit search - and think about how this could be applied. What about dating? What if over time, a digital algorithm figured out who your soulmate was, and was constantly searching to find if they were around the corner from you? What if you were looking for a new car or a new dress or a new home, and your smartphone alerted you that the right place at the right price had just become available?

As humans, we are in a state of persistent implicit search. We are always looking for things that may make us more comfortable, more happy, more rested, more rich or more successful. The trick becomes training the machines to think like humans, and to mimic that human ranking function that separates the good noise from the bad noise and brings you the right information at the right time, even if you didn't look for it yourself.

Any time you have a big company (like Google) talking about getting to know you even better, based on information discoverable, either public or private, it is not surprising to hear cries of concern over privacy. Schmidt was careful in his comments to say this new search would be "with your permission - this is personal search, for you and only for you". You opt in and you get the new world of personal, persistent, implicit search, which can find you the right answers anywhere you are from any device.

The world is no longer one where there is one right answer for everything. Google knows that, and so do the rest of the search engines, big and small. But Schmidt is talking about it clearly and correctly. It's very close to the language I've seen Barak Hachamov of my6sense use when he and I discuss the future of the apps and the API. This direction is more than just cool apps. It's about the future of discovery and artificial intelligence. Watch and see which companies get the transition right, and which are solving for yesterday's needs and problems.

Disclosure: I am the vice president of marketing at my6sense, which is also a Paladin client.

Connecting the Dots: Socializing Touchpoints

Brian Solis — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:10:09 +0000

We are now down to the second-to-last video where Chris Beck, founder of 26dottwo (@26dottwo) and I examine the state and future of social media. In this segment, we outline the importance of connecting offline and online experiences. Brands must now introduce a connected series of touchpoints between traditional and new media programs to define [...]

XXXV

Duncan Riley — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:00:55 +0000

How time flies in one year.

Highlights include
- stranger than fiction
- record results
- Lots of shows
- a fair bit of travel (I’m even a Qantas Club member now!)
- several rounds of dating
- finally finding someone who is sane and loves me back
- more dramas with the boy at school

and much much more.

Oh, and last time I weighed myself I clocked in at 76kgs. This time last year I would have been approx 102kg.

Interesting year. Oddly enough, while I usually get depressed on this day, this time I’m mildly positive. Sure, I still hate getting older, but if a change is as good as a holiday, I’ve spent most of the last year flying to Mars and back.

12 months later and I’m simply a different person. Perhaps the person I was 10 or 12 years ago. And I can’t say I’m not loving it, the occasional crazy day aside

Social “Me”dia and the Evolving Twitter Egosystem

Brian Solis — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:24:36 +0000

There’s a saying, “technology changes, people don’t.” Yet, when we consider the impact of technology on our daily lives, some very interesting observations surface… A pen now feels awkward to hold and as such, our penmanship is deteriorating. It’s now common to sit at a dinner table with family and friends where some are actively [...]

Review: Spotify, Sonos Partner for Wireless Music Nirvana

Louis Gray — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:30:00 +0000

With Spotify making seemingly infinite music available on every device on demand, as well as sharing my friend's playlists, through Facebook-connected social profiles, it's a rare time that I even open my old standby music library, iTunes, except when I need to plug in my iPad and sync up. I take Spotify with me in the car when I play music via Android on my HTC Evo. I have Spotify on my laptop, and yes, on the iPad. Until a few weeks ago, just about the only missing place I couldn't get Spotify was through the three Sonos S5 systems I have in my home. That the two services would eventually come together was a near certainty, as one has the most promising on demand music library in the world, and the other has the best setup for playing music sourced from the Web.

Three Sonos S5 Players, Linked, Featuring Spotify
(Screenshots from iPhone app on iPad)

A few weeks ago, before today's more official announcement, I got access to new firmware that updated all my Sonos S5 systems, bringing Spotify support, complete with playlist integration, and search. This combination means, if I want, I can group together these systems, from the family room to the living room, and my upstairs office, have all of them playing the same music, and I can pull practically any music out of thin air.

Pulling ABBA from Spotify on Sonos

Search for a track on Spotify, or an artist or an album, and hit "Play Now" or "Add it to the Queue" and the music in the cloud becomes the music in your home - wherever you have speakers, be they small, on your phone or computer, or larger, now embedded in Sonos.

Searching Depeche Mode on Spotify Via Sonos

Demoing Spotify and Sonos connectivity wirelessly on the iPad is almost like magic - with a futuristic feel whereby I can, with a few taps, summon any song from any era and have it filling my house with music. A swipe to the right, and my entire home rises in volume, all players at once, turning an otherwise domestic venue into an understated dance club, with the sound echoing from room to room.

Playing Spotify Playlists and Searching Underworld On Sonos

After the quick firmware update to my Sonos machines, all linked together by a Sonos SoundBridge attached to my wireless network, Spotify was added as a service to each device, adding on to previous support for Internet radio, terrestrial radio, localized stations, satellite radio through Sirius XM and also Last.fm. I didn't have to update every single application, but every Sonos app, from the iPad to my desktop, could see Spotify supported.

As existing Sonos owners know, one of the more futuristic bits about owning one of the company's S5 players is the complete lack of physical media. The devices feature simple up/down volume buttons and a mute button atop the unit, looking more like a speaker than central music hub. There's no spot for CDs, no radio dial, no vestigal digital clock, and clearly no cassette deck. Just pure music and attention to serious aural detail. Bringing Spotify to this physical media free wonderland just makes sense.

Searching for New Tracks on Spotify And Adding to My Queue

For those, like me, who own multiple Sonos devices, you can also set different players to feature different songs at the same time, should that strike your fancy. You can play rock and roll upstairs and lounge music downstairs. Similarly, you can tap into Spotify to point that music library toward different devices. One source, but two musical streams at the same time.

Spotify only acknowledged the partnership with Sonos a few hours ago, and for most people in the US, waiting for Spotify to launch officially in this country is still a dream, but for those of us who have gotten early access, thanks to generosity from the company's head of special projects, Shakil Khan, whom I interviewed at LeWeb 2009, we're already living the digital dream. It works, and the combination of the two offerings is amazing. It's no wonder I'm not buying music from iTunes at all.

Inquisitr August 2010 Stats

Duncan Riley — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:58:50 +0000

Another great month with new record highs. Thx to the team for their work.

Video: Bringing a Brand to Life in Social Media

Brian Solis — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:39:39 +0000

We’re approaching the last bits in this series of conversations where Chris Beck, founder of 26dottwo (@26dottwo) and I examine the state and future of social media. In this installment we review the various aspects and formalities of bringing a brand alive, truly alive in social media. Everything begins with establishing the rules of engagement [...]

7 Shifts: The Future of Social Media and Internal Communications

Ross Dawson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:19:14 +0000

Melcrum recently released a report on How to use social media to solve critical communication issues, with as usual some great case studies and many practical insights. Go to the report website for a full overview and executive summary.

I was asked to write the closing section in the report, on The Future of Social Media and Internal Communications. Below is my article in full. If you're interested in the topic also see my recent Thoughts on the future of workplace communications.

The Future of Social Media and Internal Communications

Organisations achieve their objectives by bringing together the talent and energy of many people. As such, the raft of emerging communications platforms today have the potential to literally transform how organizations work. From the 1990s, email fundamentally changed how most jobs were done. Now a wealth of new communication tools are being used to create sometimes dramatically different ways of working.

Based on the rapid emergence of social media and other new communication platforms, there are seven key aspects to how organisational communication will change.

1. Organisations will diverge widely in how they communicate.
The most important implication of the rise of social media is that companies will increasingly diverge in how they communicate internally. Many companies will continue for years to come to work very similarly to how they have in the past, relying on intranet-style document repositories and email. Others will rapidly adopt a wide array of social media tools, and in the process create substantially different work processes and environments. There will be no unity in communication trends; organisations will increasingly differ in how they work.

2. Email use will be eroded by social media.
Those companies that use social media the most effectively will substantially reduce email communication. Projects will shift into dedicated online spaces with alerts for relevant updates. Google Wave or its successors will create new formats for interaction that transcend email. A key question will be whether email and other communications forms will reside in the same or separate interfaces.

3. Conversational channels will flourish.
A smaller proportion of companies will find that micro-blogging and status updates provide a very effective way of communicating on some tasks, given that many of their staff are familiar with tools such as Twitter and Facebook. The uptake of conversational channels will be mainly in smaller groups driven by function, location or team membership, rather than uniformly across organisations.

4. Social search will drive value.
The promise of social search will finally bear fruit, with for once enterprise technology moving ahead of consumer tech. Rich profiling of users, what they are working on, what they are searching for, and what they are finding useful in their tasks will drive highly contextual and relevant results, including selective context-based push of information.

5. Network analysis will drive performance.
For sophisticated organisations, social network analysis is the tool that offers the greatest insights into which interventions will best drive increased performance. As an increasing proportion of communication shifts to digital channels, the availability of data will enable these approaches to be applied far more broadly than in the past.

6. Virtual meetings will become immersive.
As virtual work rises, the demands on teleconferencing and virtual meetings will rise. Multiple formats including video, screen sharing, voting, gesture recognition and quasi-3D will generate richer interaction. There will be a rapid increase in avatar based worlds and meetings as these provide a more immersive experience, though for some time yet only by a minority of organisations.

7. Work will transcend organisational boundaries.
As companies virtualise, using workers and contractors around the world, work processes will be designed to be used equally well by people both inside and outside the organisation. Sophisticated permissioning templates and security measures will make it easy to invite business partners and suppliers to participate in business processes and communication platforms.

As a result of these trends, organisations’ divergence in their pace of uptake of new communication tools will also reflect a divergence in performance. Those companies that effectively tap the potential of social media will move far ahead of those that are slower adopters.

Ross Dawson is Chairman of international consulting firm Advanced Human Technologies and author of books including Implementing Enterprise 2.0. His blog Trends in the Living Networks is ranked as on the top business blogs in the world.

The Five Stages of Filtering, Relevance and Curation

Louis Gray — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:20:00 +0000

Tonight's news of Gmail taking on information overload directly, using a combination of intelligent algorithms and your own feedback to build in box personalization is yet another hallmark move to taking on the increasing deluge of content approaching us from all directions - be it our e-mail, static Web pages, audio and video, or the many different social streams which we have subscribed to. There is no question that content creation and sharing is exploding and people are completely incapable of giving every single message and item their full attention. And many smart folks are looking to bring solutions to find the best and ignore the rest.

As I see it, there are five major ways companies and individuals take on the topic of relevance.

1. Editorial Filtering

Loose definition: I am the smartest person. I know best for you, and I deserve to decide for you what is the most important.

Example: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN and most mainstream media outlets today, who for years have been trusted arbiters to find the most important news and bring it to us in the way that they decide.

New media examples: The Drudge Report, which has grown from one man's curation and sorting to a full team, and Techmeme, which was once almost completely algorithm driven, and now is staffed around the clock by savvy editors who pluck the best of the tech Web.

Of course, it is easy for an individual to be a curator. I share a lot of content, manually, through @lgstream on Twitter, as well as on Google Buzz, FriendFeed and Facebook.

2. Global Popularity Filtering

Loose definition: The will of the people can be trusted, and they will decide what is most important, thanks to the most votes.

Examples: American Idol, Digg and Reddit. He with the most votes wins and gains a coveted front page slot.

New media example: Twitter Trending Topics display the most frequent topics and hashtags, not necessarily the most important. Also, you can see tools like Tweetmeme and FavStar which watch for number-driven popularity online.

This would also have included RSS shared items counters of the past, such as RSSmeme and ReadBurner.

3. Social Filtering

Loose definition: What your friends like, you will like. If it's important to them, it's important to you.

New Media Examples: Facebook recommended friends and pages, which display how many friends like them, Google Social Search, which pulls results from your friends content, and FriendFeed Best of Day, which shows the items from your friends that gained the most activity over a time period.

4. Explicit Personalization

Loose definition: You told us what you like or don't like, and since you know yourself best, you know what's important.

New media examples: Netflix's star ratings and TiVo's Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down feedback mechanisms, as well as Kosmix's MeeHive project.

5. Implicit Personalization

Loose definition: Just be yourself. Read what you want, do what you want, and the system will learn from you, continuously updating.

Examples: Amazon.com, my6sense.

There is a time and place for practically all types of filtering. Mona Nomura of Pixel Bits today talked about the serendipity algorithm and what it means to marketers looking to leverage machine learning. With Gmail's announcement, ReadWriteWeb's recent coverage of TrapIt and ChatterApp in an article on consumer information overload, and the high visibility of Facebook's News Feed, against the recent feed, the challenge has grown to a level where you no longer have to convince people there is a problem in filtering, but instead, you need to make a concrete decision as to how to approach that problem.

I believe that there is a role for trusted curators of news, people who have unique access or unique insight, who can get to news more quickly than anybody else, or dive into it more deeply. I believe that social similarities are a good hint at an individual's interests, but they cannot replace your own preferences - which go beyond your ability to fill out a form and try to tell the truth on what it is that you really like. The best systems, as Gmail is trying to do (with some help from your own feedback on whether they are getting it right), happen naturally and transparently in the background.

It's natural I would think this given my work with my6sense, but I have long believed in there being a perfect place for humans to act as curators and guides, while there is another perfect place for machines to provide, to the best of their ability, resources to aid your discovery. So when you are challenged with a mountain of information coming at you from any angle, think of the best way to get it handled. Should you turn to an editor, to the will of the people, to your friends, or to code? The options are all there, and more tools are coming to help you attack the noise - because there's little chance it will fade away any time soon - and a very strong chance it could get much worse very quickly.

Disclosures: I am vice president of marketing at my6sense. ChatterApp and TrapIt are assumed competition. In addition, Kosmix.com is a client of Paladin Advisors Group, where I am a co-founder. I was also previously an advisor to ReadBurner, since closed.