From Fast Company

Google Unveils Real Time Search

From the article……

“But it’s clear that Google’s execs have tapped Twitter as the real winner in real-time status, despite Facebooks half-billion userbase, as these two were presented right at the end. You might think that’s about as real-time as you can get, but the team noted they won’t stop until the speed of light around the world is the only barrier to getting real time search data.”

Look out BING!

Are they now up-to-date?  What next?

Thanks David.

From the article “The result of the collaboration between Twitter and Peek is a version of the device built exclusively for sending tweets.

Clad in “Twitter blue,” the TwitterPeek allows all the same functionality of a desktop Twitter client – reading tweets, sending tweets, replying, retweeting and direct messaging – only it gives users that access on the go.”

Dedicated Twitter Device

Will you be getting one?

Thank you Sarah for your suggestion of this webpage.

Social technologies have been discussed in a number of classes from a technology standpoint as well as marketing and management perspectives etc.  Forrester Research has published a tool that helps describe the potential audience in terms of (Social Technographics).  The page has an interactive tool where you add Age, Country, and Gender of the audience and it characterize the audience.  A presentation is available to describe the levels of social interaction (my words).    Presentation LINK

So, what do you think?  What are you?

Thank you to Mike for suggesting this video and topic.

The 18 minute video entitled “The Surprising Science of Motivation“  is a presentation regarding motivation; intrinsic vs. extrinsic .  Daniel Pink shares, in the format of a lawyer presenting a case — that “carrot and stick” does not work!  Rather, “Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose” are the way to get things done in business.

What do you think?  Did you enjoy the presentation?

An article in FORTUNE Magazine entitled “How Facebook is Taking Over our Lives”  discusses the profound impact that Facebook is having on all of our lives.  As a technology, it is fascinating.   The online article has some great data that presents some amazing facts about the growth of Facebook users, daily users, time of use per day etc..   As a technology, it took only 5 years for it to reach 150 million users.  The telephone took 89 years, TV took 38 years.   Usefulness aside, it is a huge phenomenon.  Microsoft has taken a stake in Facebook, has been collaborating on some projects while competing in some respects. Why?

What do you think about Facebook?

Where will it go?

What is the role of Facebook in the “corporate world”?

Personally I think that RSS is one of the most under used, cool technologies of the internet age.  Notice I did not say new because it has been around for quite a while.  In fact, many people are already using the technology when they get news updates, weather updates, or just about any other notification through digital means.

HP has published an article that explains this technology/capability very nicely.  In “The Skinny on RSS Feeds “  we learn about RSS Readers and other capabilities.  (I have set up iGOOGLE with an RSS Tab).   From the article “RSS isn’t just for articles. Pretty much any information source that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: recent additions to blogs, details of special discounts, or alerts as to when new web content is available”.  This concept is the aspect of RSS we need to think about.  I believe, when used as part of a knowledge management system, especially as part of a new products management process we can develop tremendous competitive advantage.  Just my opinion.

What do you think?  How do you use RSS?

According to an article in Strategy and Business  there are over 6,000 IBMers in virtual worlds.  According to the article, ” An estimated 300 million people worldwide have registered for participation in some form of this activity, according to Kzero, a virtual world marketing and development company. In 2008, according to trade group Virtual Worlds Management, venture capitalists and other investors bet nearly US$600 million on more than 60 software producers involved in the fledgling technology.”    Wow.  Just a fad? 

Further, the article states, ” IBM estimates that, with an investment of roughly $80,000, it saved more than $250,000 in travel and venue costs for a recent corporate Academy of Technology event and enjoyed more than $150,000 in additional productivity gains, because these virtual participants were at their computers and able to dive back into work immediately at the conclusion of the meeting.”   Wow, a payback too?

What do you think?  Ready to go virtual for business?

An article in BusinessWeek called “Twitter Makes a Racket. But Revenues?”    The article suggets that perhaps something more than advertising is in play and partnerships may be the future “To date, Twitter’s plans remain obscured behind a sort of Silicon Valley Mona Lisa smile. The company is playing well with others while divulging next to nothing about its intentions. It’s allowing outside parties to create Web sites that manipulate and repackage its streams of tweets. One is CoTweet, a company whose platform organizes multiple Twitter exchanges with customers so they may be more easily tracked”.

The article suggests that search may in its future “The more ambitious play has to do with Twitter’s search engine, which it acquired last summer and which does an admirable job of capturing what is happening on the site on a moment-to-moment basis. Google can’t do this. Twitter’s recent talks with Google—and other big online players—centered around potential search partnerships, says someone familiar with the discussions. Combining Twitter’s search engine with one of users’ most common activities—sharing favored links—makes for something that has long been fantasized about: a real-time, human-powered search-cum-recommendation engine for content.”

What do you think?  How will Twitter monetize its success?

An article in the online version of CLO (Chief Learning Officer) magazine suggests that Second Life be given a second look as a platform for training and development .  The article  “A Second Look at Second Life“  (This opens to an online magazine reader) tells us that there are now over 13 Million residents and that a recent survey says that 87 percent of the respondents see virtual worlds as “beneficial to education and training efforts”.

The article tells us that IBM has committed $10 Million to development in Second Life but also lists a number of other firms including Milwaukee’s Manpower (not mentioned in the article), BMW, NIKE, and DISNEY. 

The article suggests that the virtual world is not limited by physics. 

How can you see Second Life being used in training and development?

An article appeared in Chief Learning Office Online Magazine with the title “The Future of Knowledge Management“  (Note this link takes you to an online magazine reader)

The article stresses human interaction and relationships.  It offers four steps 1. Understand who the Knowledge Sources are  2. Measuring Where and How the Knowledge Flows 3. Getting Knowledge to Flow more Rapidly and freely 4. Reinforcing Knowledge and Supportive Relationships. 

As you may recall, this has been the thrust of my paper on Knowledge Management esopecially with an emphasis on expertise location. 

The article brings intp play “social networking” and by association, Web 2.0 Technologies.  It also suggests that we must have a “collaborative knowledge sharing platform”.

What do you think about this article?   What are the Lessons to be Learned?

In the FAST Company article “The Second Life of Second Life“  we read that more companies are returning to Second Life for the “conversation” versus perhaps the initial brand building experience.

From the article “In just two years, West has rewritten the rules of corporate marketing on Second Life. An avid user of the site, she realized that billboards, commercials, and streaming video — the all-too-common troika populating most corporate islands — fell flat among hypercreative users who wanted to interact. Instead, she concluded, companies should try to spark user-to-user discussion — a surprisingly cost-effective option on Second Life.”

How important is conversation (collaboration) with customers to a firm?  Will the Second Life experience, in your opinion, increase the conversation value or not?

An article entitled “Pixar Blockbuster Secrets“  talks a bit about the competitive advantage Pixar has because it ”works differently”.  The article links to a New York Times article about Pixar and it is so successful as well.

From the article “Pixar doesn’t just make films that perform better than standard fare. It also makes its films differently — and, in the process, defies many familiar, and dysfunctional, industry conventions. Pixar has become the envy of Hollywood because it never went Hollywood.”  

What is it that, in your opinion, Pixar does that makes it so successful?  Is it just cool content? Is it the technology?  Is it the story lines?