Social networking is going to die. This article is about how it will happen.
The focus for this article will be business social networking. If you are worried about your Facebook friends and photos and the life sucking that goes on in personal social networks, don’t worry, they will be around for awhile. They will be dying a totally different death. That will have to be a future blog posting. Ask me over a beer and I will explain it.
Ask three people to define business social networking and you will get three different answers. Try it. Going even further, I hypothesized that you ask ten different people about the benefits of business social networking, you will get ten different answers. I was recently inspired by a quote attributed to Steve Jobs about dogma as “Being satisfied with the results of other peoples thinking.” This article will be as dogma free as possible. While I can’t help being influenced by everything that is being written about social networking, I have come up a few unique conclusions.
1. LinkedIn is not a social network. Most of my contacts are either in a sales or recruiting role. In the early days, the premise behind LinkedIn was that you can connect to many people through a chain of trusted referrals. It does not matter what the creators of LinkedIn claim it to be. LinkedIn was founded on the idea that you can go through a series of trusted connections to network with a target person. It was a noble idea, however, LinkedIn is now controlled by the mob. The real question is… how are the majority of people using LinkedIn? The answer: Get as many connections as possible, build as big a network as possible. Next, when you find someone in LinkedIn that you want to connect with, read their background and connect directly.
LinkedIN is a social database.
2. Social CRM is a buzz word.
The community aspect of SocialCRM is aptly named. Unfortunately, the average person confuses the community, group and collaboration aspects of SocialCRM with popular social networking sites like LinkedIn. They are different.
SocialCRM is not concisely defined.
When everyone is copying what everyone else is thinking, you get a buzz word. Fun to report, you don’t need to think too much to find other articles to read, alter and republish. Read about Social CRM and then write about Social Recruiting. It goes both ways. But what is Social CRM? SOCIAL is the base part of the equation.
Unfortunately SocialCRM is being used as a catch-all phrase and it is confusing the consumer. For clarity, SocialCRM should be broken into 2 distinct terms. Here is a way to clarify thinking and talking about it.
CollaborationCRM – Denoting the functions within a CRM that allow group collaboration, community connection and project sharing. Salesforce chatter is a good example.
SocialCRM – Connectivity to existing social networks like LinkedIn. This is the definition, when polled, that most people believe social CRM to be. (Straw poll yielded 9 out of 10 assuming this definition).
Social Linkage – defined below
The current implementions of Social CRM (as defined above) defeat the purpose of having a CRM. The best implementation of a CRM is when the CRM is self-contained. Art Papas, CEO of Bullhorn, an Applicant Tracking System (recruiter CRM) describes it well. “Our clients live inside Bullhorn”. The best CRM should have everything the users need, inside the CRM.
Example: you click on a LinkedIN link next to a contact record in your CRM. What happens? A browser page opens and you are in a separate web page, disconnected technology, outside your CRM. This is Social Linkage, not social CRM. Bad process.
If a CRM is implemented correctly, you should not have to leave the CRM to perform important tasks.
Most of what is touted as Social CRM today is simply Social Linkage. Social CRM sounds better, sounds integrated, but in every case I have seen…it is not. What is the challenge here? Until LinkedIN and Facebook and all the other networks allow tighter integrations, social linkage will be all that we have. LinkedIN wants you to stay on LinkedIN, Facebook wants you on Facebook. Salesforce wants to be able to say they have connection to LinkedIN.
3. Marketing, not sales, is driving “the idea” of Social CRM
If you look at who is pushing the SocialCRM idea, it is marketing. The dream: Having EVERY contact in your CRM mashed up with all social network information. This would be great for marketing and market segmentation, but unnecessary for sales. The Reality: Click, click, and more clicks. The current state of SocialCRM is, at best, Social Linkage. The reality does not match the dream. Marketing is pushes the dream and leaves sales stuck with the reality.
If you have a question about what sales thinks about “Social CRM” as it relates to social network data, look at the ratings The LinkedIn plugin got on salesforce CRM. Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan on LinkedIN. Visionary concept, great source of data, however, it is not seamless with CRM. If anything the combination is anti-social CRM.
Attn marketers: Your focus should be social media, let sales people worry about and define SocialCRM
4. Social Agents will replace Social CRM. Social CRM/Social Linkage tries to solve the problem of having “an answer” for every contact in your CRM. Every contact that you can view in your CRM will, if available, have a link to external social network profile(s). Services like RapLeaf aggregate multiple social network links associated with a specific person. Due to the sheer volume of information, mashups are not always correct due to the ambiguous nature of contact information. The end result: You click on multiple different links in your CRM and open multiple disparate sources of information. Even when the links are correct you get Another Bad process.
Enter social agents.
The best products are built from dreaming an ultimate scenario. Then, working backwards to what is possible. If there were no constraints…What is the ultimate potential of Social CRM? Answer: Every CRM contact has real-time social network information from all social networks. This information would not be linked, but mashed up inside the CRM. This is not happening. Why? (1) It is not in the interest in the Social Network (really social database) to make the information free and fully available. (2) The incentive chain of $ is not there.
So if it is a bad idea to pre-populate social network information for every contact in your CRM, what should be done? On demand, social agents.
The average sales rep engages 10-20 contacts per day. A real-time, on-demand social agent is fully capable of making a real time extraction of social network information, mashing that information up inside the CRM and presenting it in a usable format for a sales rep. This is what sales wants.
Conversely, I have seen a sales reps presented with a CRM that has Linkage to social networks. While the potential is exciting to the sale rep, they are fired up about the available information available, usage drops off dramatically.
As soon as marketing starts thinking and stops listening to reporters & consultants (who listen to reporters), demand for social agents will proliferate.
5. Social Data comes in 2 distinct flavors
Where someone went to college will never change. It is a fact, fixed in time. Where someone currently works is a fluid social data point. A fixed social data point only needs to be found and stored once in a CRM, whereas fluid data points require social agents to keep them updated.
Fixed and fluid social data points should be treated differently. Why is this important to understand? Treating fluid and fixed data points, with different agents reduces the refresh and load on the technology infrastructure that empowers social agents. In addition, what can be done with the result of social agents varies based on the information being fixed or fluid.
Last thought. Adding a human-verification element, to cement data accuracy, is realistic on a fixed data point. Scan once, verify and store forever.
6. Social Intuition will evolve from social agents
Once we have on-demand social agents, then what? Take a mind walk: We now have a CRM, where, on-demand, or slightly before (predictive system) social network information is extracted, parsed and mashed up inside the CRM. No need to live anywhere but the CRM. A dream of efficiency.
Now that I have all this information about someone. How do I leverage it? The fact that someone went to the University of Miami (The Hurricanes) is something that would be in social network profile. Thus, via a social agent, I would have the University of Miami as a data point in the CRM. However, would I know the UM mascot is the Hurricanes? Would I know the score from the football team the night before? Would I know the weather in Miami that day? The answer to all these questions is no.
Enter Social Intuition
Social intuition is a combination of social network data points combined with real-time agents to gather additional talking points. The prerequisite for performing this type of mash-up is (1) Aggregated & scored data from Social Networks (2) Highly accurate fixed data points (i.e. Mascots for every college) and (3) Intelligent agents that leverage, fixed data points with social data points to “intuit” additional information.
7. Company-centric (NOT contact-centric) social mash-ups will prevail
Even with the proliferation of social networks, the average person has just a few, if any data points about them. Multiply that by the number of people at a company and patterns emerge. Patterns that would not be apparent in the microcosm of one person. The best approach in sales is to engage multiple points of contact (people) at a company on the onset of first contact. This approach is called Sphere of Influence Selling and is well documented in The Sphere of Influence Selling webinar.
Remember: You talk to people, but the company writes the check.
8. CRM Socialbases become the ultimate silos
The most valuable list is the list that no one else has. Think about it.
The most unique set of data is inside your CRM. Don’t worry about the world, just about your clients and the companies you want to sell to. Gather rich data from social networks and other sources and combine it with your CRM. The future king of all data sets will not be inside social networks. Companies will mash data from social networks and combine it with conversation history, notes, purchasing habits, etc.
CRM Socialbases will be built on a combination of Fixed and Fluid social data points.
The value of any list can be scored based on data quality & competitive advantage. For example, LinkedIN has great data, but it is it exclusive? No. Anyone with a bunch of connection can get to the names of almost everyone.
9. Things to watch
Bleeding edge: Watson. An IBM supercomputer that will, in the coming months, be competing with top Jeopardy players. In initial testing, it beat the average player, that were winners, on the Jeopardy TV show. 5 years ago this was not possible. Watson is an answer machine. What happens when you connect an answer machine with your CRM SocialBase?
Hot: Salesforce chatter: I like this technology. Nothing that can’t be copied. Expect to see it in every CRM within a few years. Brings another aspect of social into CRM, in terms of work teams and projects.
Fun: Proximity based social networks – Not a primary technology, but something that should be eventually mashed up. FourSquare is a good example. (Yes, I am the mayor of Broadlook).
Practical: CRM Profiler – The next iteration of the technology is cloud-based, lives inside the CRM, jumps over social linkage and includes social agents. Build your own social knowledge-base.
10. Black swans emerging?
Black swan theory Something that changes everything in a space. Denotes an occurrence that no one though of.
LinkedIn CRM – It makes sense, but would they alienate CRM’s that currently mash up with them? It has happened before. In the recruiting space, AIRS, a recruiter add on tool, created their own applicant tracking system. Guess who integrates with AIRS today? Nothing of importance. Next AIRS was acquired by a RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) company… how many competing RPO’s will continue to use them? The number is declining.
Facebook CRM – That would be real scary, however, a spin-off without the facebook label might fly. The yo-yo ethics of their privacy policy is comical. Can’t ignore them.
Salesforce acquisition of LinkedIn: More likely to be Oracle, SAP, Microsoft or a company that has deep pockets. Salesforce already acquired Jigsaw.
Scariest combo: Google Acquires LinkedIn, creates the Google CRM and makes it free. It actually makes total sense. If Google wants to push ads all day long, while people are at work. This is the way. Gmail is already the best web-based email system. They have google docs. They have a mobile platform. All the components are there. If you take a step further and look at the talent they have hired, patterns emerge. Nuff said.
Recap:
Social Network -> Social Database -> Social CRM -> Social Linkage -> Social Agents -> CRM SocialBase.
You heard it here first!
I have been struggling, for years, with getting speech-to-text working in a usable way. About every two years over the last ten, I go out a store, excited, and buy the most recent voice recognition software. I’m always hoping for a break-through. I’ve tried various versions of ViaVoice and Dragon Dictate. Dictation programs typically require you to read a few paragraphs to train them to your voice. Other than that, they are fairly easy to use. For the PC and Mac, voice recognition programs have reached an acceptable level of usability. Today, I can talk and dictate to my computer much faster than I can type. In fact, this article is being dictated to my Mac on a plane ride from San Francisco to Minneapolis. It seemed appropriate.
Social graces.
The guy next to me on the plane looks annoyed. I am using a wired microphone to dictate this story. Ok, now he is smiling. He is enjoying the irony. However, every time I say “period” to end a sentence the woman on the other side of me looks at me…
(Completing this article by typing)
“With Contempt” is what I was going to say, so I decided to start using the keyboard. Conservative, tightly wound person that probably thinks iPods are an evil plot.
The reality: voice recognition, even if it works, does not fit into the social construct of the plane ride, the coffee shop, the bus, the subway, in fact any mass transit system. It is a solitary endeavor OR completely annoying. Want to try a fun experiment? As voice becomes more commonplace in interfacing with devices…when you see someone talking out loud to command to their phone try this: In a loud voice say ” A B C 1 2 3″ and make sure it is loud enough for the mic on their phone to hear. It works and totally screws up the voice recognition. Fun.
Vlingo on my iPhone
While I mentioned Vlingo on my iPhone, I did not mention that it does not work for me. I am not a voice recognition expert, but I know that the processing power of mobile phones is not at the level of my new Core i7 MacBook (yeah.. it screams!) In Vlingo’s defense, if you articulate well and speak slowly, it is good for sending text messages and single line emails in a quiet environment. But it is not as good as laptop or desktop, and that is frustrating.
Don’t drink the Software-As-A-Service Kool Aid
Prediction: Cloud-based service for Mobile Voice Recognition is a bad direction. Even in a connected world, there are many places where you do not have either a cell or network connection. Does it work today? Sometimes. However, when voice recognition really works for mobile, it will have to be native and a core function with 100% availability. SaaS cannot offer that. I am really surprised that Steve Jobs added the voice command into the iPhone (Not a SaaS implementation, so they got that piece right). They usually don’t ship stuff that works 50% of the time. Apple should have tested it in my Jeep. If you follow the laws of computing, in about 10 years, mobile devices will be able to process voice as good as a desktop/laptop of today. This will be a convergence of technologies, just like when the evolution from the iPhone to the iPad. Voice commands will make more sense on the mobile device, just like some applications make sense on the iPad vs. the iPhone due to larger form factor.
What does this mean for technology affecting culture?
It can go in four directions. First, think: Do you remember the first time someone had a cell phone conversation, close to you, in a confined space? How about the first time someone sat in the stall next to you and had a loud cell phone conversation? How will you react when you are in close quarters and people are talking to their phones, dictating and email, text or tweet?
Direction 1: It will isolate people. Socially unacceptable, therefore people will withdrawal to a more quiet location to talk to their phones.
Direction 2: The older folks like me will lose the social acceptable battle. The younger generation will be texting, emailing, Tweeting and “voicing” and if we don’t like it, we can put on noise canceling head phones.
Direction 3: The advent of sub-audible microphones. Arthur C Clarke, one of the true thought leaders talked about this in several of his books. Basically, imagine a tooth implant that could pick up “throat noises”. These sounds would not be heard external to a person’s body. The sub-audible microphone would pick up the sounds and transmit to a mobile device. Everyone could happily be talking, Tweeting, emailing, or Voicing on the same subway car without every bothering a soul. Technology done right is elegant. Early versions of the microphone could be placed on the neck. No need to go running off to the Dentist just yet. Direction 3 is my prediction.
Direction 4: Something no one has thought of yet.
Implications?
If everyone is using sub-audible microphones, there will be privacy issues. If someone whispers and you hear it, are you invading their privacy? Ethically yes, but legally, no. There will be devices that unscrupulous people will employ to invade privacy. There will be outrage, backlash and then an attempt at regulation. While interfacing with mobile devices via sub-audible, I predict that people will develop their own private vocabulary, like a password or macro to communicate securely with their devices.
Stepping stones to a strange new world
1. Seamless Voice recognition, native to mobile devices (8-10 year)
2. Sub Audible microphones (technology is here now)
3. Social acceptance (who knows)
I started this whole article as a mind-walk towards the concept of “think to text”. With sub audible mic’s, you can sometimes tell if someone is talking, because they will move their lips out of habit. The younger generation that grows up on it will not.
So what about “think to text”? I have no idea. The headsets that are supposed to measure brainwaves and sell for about $200 and are pure crap. Don’t waist your money, they don’t work. Based on the state of technology, a system that could recognize words you think is way off.
Waiting in line for the iThink
On the other hand, I will be guy in line, every 2 years, excited, buying a new iThink…and hoping.
Note: The man next to me on the plane ride was a software engineer. We had a great conversation. Bill: great to meet you! It helped to talk through the scenarios. The woman next to us was a 4 term politician. Thought we were crazy, thinks ideas are dangerous, wanted to make everything Bill and I were “discovering” as an exercise in thought…illegal. Basic book burner. What a contrast!
Is your CRM Normal?
Warning: This Article is not for tech guys!
When it comes to your CRM, being “Normal” is a fabulously good thing. Most CRM contain over 30% of duplicate data. Not only is that ugly, but it causes problems for your sales team and costs your company revenue.
In simple terms, I’m talking about Clean CRM Data. If you asked your tech guy, he would call it “Data Normalization”. If you are a tech guy, we covered this…come up, stop reading!
Understanding the problem
Nearly every CRM company and internal corporate IT department has taken a stab at solving the problem of data normalization. Unfortunately, no one has done it right! Why? Think about it: when you buy a CRM it is usually empty. If you import dirty data from an old CRM, the new CRM will be dirty.
Normalization cannot be dictated at the vendor level
CRM systems are not designed to normalize data. Why? A good CRM must deliver flexibility to each client implementation; normalization cannot be dictated at the vendor level. Therefore, it is left to each individual customer and each individual user to enter and import data in the way that they see fit. For the CRM vendor it is a lose-lose scenario. If they dictate a data format, whichever format they choose, be it verbose or abbreviated, someone will not be happy.
Massive duplicates and miskeyed data does not become a problem until after you start to use a CRM. About a year after the CRM is implemented is typically when the buyer realizes there is a huge problem with the information. Without some systematic way to start with and keep information clean, duplicates will be introduced and someone has an opportunity to make more $$ on professional services.
Dirty data is a profit center.
While dirty data can lose you revenue, it is good for service providers; you store more due to duplicates and eventually someone will need to clean that data.
An unending cycle
You recently made the investment and spent the money to have your data cleaned. Now what? Unless you have an enforceable, real-time strategy to keep your data clean, the cycle will continue. Six months to a year after “cleaning” your data, it will go from pristine to ugly again and the cycle will continue. Efficiency, revenue and opportunity will be diminished.
How does data get dirty? Who is responsible?
There are 3 ways information enters a CRM.
Hand entered. This is a common method that takes place literally every day. Did you know there are over 20 ways of writing the company name “The Container Company Corporation”? Some people are verbose and will type out the entire company name, other will take shortcuts or just mis-key the information. We are all unique, and unfortunately for your CRM, that can lead to 20 instances or more of the same company in your CRM.
Product Imported. Many Software products have the capability to directly imported data into a CRM. What rules do those products obey? Do the rules that they use match your company rules? Do you even have a set of rules that your company follows? What happens when a duplicate is encountered? Unfortunately, most of these questions are never asked. The result: more ugly data.
Mass Imported. While Product imports are done external to the CRM, Mass imports are done within the CRM. Mass imports are typically done by the IT department or your CRM vendor. Guess what? Mass imports can be the worst offenders. In some cases, the person charged with doing the import is exceptional and it is done correctly, however, this is typically the exception. In most cases, vendors doing imports and data migration don’t have the proper tool sets to get the job done. Even more importantly, they have not coached their clients or asked the proper questions to assure success.
I contend that most imports that are generally considered successful would get a flat “D” on my score card. If you think your process was good, read on.
Establishing a lasting solution
Solve a problem at its source and you solve it for good. The best way to get control of your CRM is to create and enforce a Data-Plan. This is not a minor undertaking, however, for any sales team more than a few people it is critical. The quiz below is dual-purpose, it will teach you what you need to do and give you a score-card of where are now.
Is your company at Risk? Take the Broadlook “Are you Normal” QUIZ:
So, where does your company is rank in terms of the sources and impacts of duplicate data? Take a moment to take the quiz below. Good luck. Be honest!
The Dirty Data Quiz: Is Your CRM at Risk?
Data Plan. 15 points. Does your company have a standard format for CRM data? If you don’t, this is where you start the entire process. To comply with best practices, your Data-Plan should be centrally stored, accessible by anyone who enters data into your CRM. In essence, the Data-Plan acts as a single-point-of-truth for your company and how it treats data. Your points: ______
Staff Training. 5 points. Has your staff has been trained on your Data-Plan and it is easily accessible? While this is a great step, it is not as important as making the CRM enforce your data plan automatically. If your CRM does offer a feature like this, the training is most important for your IT department who can circumvent the constraints put on the average user. Your points: ______
CRM Cleaned. 5 points. Has your CRM gone through a full Normalization and de-duplication process? Once you have your Data-Plan developed, you need to ensure that the data you have meets the plan. Why only 5 points? A one-time cleaning does not solve the long term problem. Don’t pat yourself on the back for this, if this is all you do, you will have one month per year of clean data. Your points: ______
CRM Enforcement. 20 points. Is your data plan enforced by your CRM? This is tremendously important. The reality is that not one CRM provider (that I have seen) has a detailed data normalizer that can enforce your data plan like like Broadlook’s CRMShield™. If your provider does not have this feature, it means you must either build or find an add-on to your CRM. An even better option is to would be to provide all users to the CRM a tool like Broadlook’s Contact Capture to enter contacts into your CRM. Contact Capture is FREE (not trying to sell anything here). Your points: ______
Product/Integration Enforcement. 10 points. Do other products that bring information into your CRM adhere to your Data-Plan? Beware of products that dump data to a Excel or CSV file. Sometimes it is unavoidable, however, direct exporting systems that comply with your Data-Plan and do de-duplication in real-time are always a superior choice. Your points: ______
Vendor Enforcement. 10 Points. Do vendors that provide you with list data deliver it in compliance with your Data-Plan? Some vendors may push back at first; however, it has been my experience that the entire process will go smoother if the vendor complies to the Data-Plan. Hold your ground and remember that list providers want your business. Show them the format that you want your data …and don’t compromise. Your points: ______
Import Enforcement, by culture. 5 points. Does the IT staff buy-in to following the Data-Plan? The best way to make this happen is include the IT department in the development of the Data-Plan. Your points: ______
Import Enforcement, by technology. 15 points. Is your IT staff prevented from circumventing a Data-Plan by rights management? Everyone must obey the Data-Plan. If your IT staff can circumvent best practices established by management, problems will arise. It the IT staff disagrees with a Data-Plan, best practice dictates that the Data-Plan reviewed, discussed and potentially revised. Again, this maintains the single point of truth and enforceability to make your Data Plan work. Your points: ______
URL Enforcement. 20 points. Do you have a URL (website) field for each company in your CRM.? The URL of a company is more important than a DUNS number, location or anything else. It is the single best piece of company-centric information that can be used to update the CRM over time. The URL can be used to update and add contacts to your CRM with tools like Broadlook’s Profiler. Your points: ______
How did you do? I want to hear from you! Send how you did to Donato Diorio (ddiorio@broadlook.com).
| SCORE |
GRADE |
| <20 |
F |
| 40 |
D |
| 60 |
C |
| 80 |
B |
| 100 |
A |
| Your score: |
__________ |
Understand how your data and your processes rank is paramount. Dirty CRM data is a huge problem with sales force efficiency. You may think that cleaning your CRM data on a regular cycle is a good thing. Don’t pat yourself on the back just yet; cleaning CRM data on a cycle is treating a symptom. Just like good physical health, the best solution to eradicate dirty CRM data is prevention. Prevent dirty data from getting into your CRM and your CRM be clean and health. You may even enjoy using it again.
After thought:
Broadlook has just completed developing a new, revolutionary tool to empower the CRM experts, consultants and the users that they support. It is called CRMShield™. CRMShield solves a serious issue faced by every business that uses a CRM; data duplication. One piece of the CRMShield technology, “The Normalizer” will be shipped in June and is included free in every Broadlook product that works with contact information. I thought I would share some of my excitement about it.
Sometimes a totally new technology emerges and disrupts existing markets. This is where the mind naturally goes when talking about a disruption. Sometimes a disruptive technology succeeds and sometimes it does not. If you look carefully, the ones that succeeded were more a factor of convergence of multiple factors, rather than a single breakthrough.
I have a message to those naysayers on the iPad: You have no imagination, you have no vision, or you have an agenda.
Before I pontificate about the iPad, I’ll share a personal story: Last year I bought a Jeep. 
I always wanted one with a top I could take off in the warmer months. Fun to park it anywhere half up a plowed-snow embankment; a side effect of Wisconsin winters. The one I got was bare-bones. It even has manual crank windows. No extras. Here is the kicker…it came with a free year of Satellite radio. Having never used Sirius or XM, it was a great experience. The fact that there is a 24×7 Springsteen-only station still boggles my mind. I love The Boss, but I was glad to have many channels to pick from. Soon I found that one of my favorite morning stations was the BBC. It is nice to get away from the ultra left and right of American talk radio. From the beginning of my subscription, I pondered if I would renew when my free year was up. I got attached to the BBC and a few other stations; It became habit.
My year of Sirius/XM just expired. I did not renew, but I did review my portfolio to make sure that Sirius/XM stocks were not present.
Admittedly, I am behind the cutting edge as it relates to Internet Radio (IR). I use Pandora occasionally, but IR is not part of my routine. It is not yet a habit. Satellite radio was habit, but I did not want to pay $12.95 per month. Why the discord with paying for a enjoyable service? I was raised on FREE radio. It just seems wrong to have to pay for radio.
Enter the Apple AppStore. I fired up my iPhone and found a whole list of Internet Radio applications. The average Internet Radio app supported about 30,000 radio stations from around the world. After trying a few Apps for $.99 to $1.99 I found one that I liked call TuneIn Radio. Yes, it supports the BBC, all the stations I wanted… and many, many others.
Naturally I asked myself the question: Why does anyone pay for Satellite radio and when they can just use Internet Radio? If it is Howard Stern, I am simply disconnected from the mainstream mod. If that is the case, stop reading. Is Howard Stern on Internet Radio? I’m not going to take the time to check.
The answer was not Howard. The answer is… that it is not super seamless AND simple. To make this work in my Jeep and would have to have my iPhone, charger, output cord and maybe a bracket to prop it up on my dash. In addition, the iPhone has a tiny little screen that is hard to interact with while I am driving. Maybe even hazardous. Most teens could hook this up easily. I’m a techie, so it is easy for me, but most people simply won’t do it. Additionally, most cars today don’t have an external input jack. That is changing, but it is not the norm.
What would make it super seamless AND simple?
(1) Improved connectivity. Bluetooth input for car radio. No cords, unless you want to charge it. Everyone understands charging
(2) Simple to use application: Done. 100’s of them on the AppStore
(3) Larger screen. Interface will be easier to work with while driving.
(4) Really good mounting. Not hard to do. I have one for my iPhone
As I was thinking about making my new iPhone powered Internet radio
Questions to ask:
Q: What are the convergence factors in moving from the iPhone/iPod to the iPad?
A: Bigger screen, faster processor, more memory, 140,000 applications
Q: Based on convergence factors, what did NOT work well on the iPhone, but will work on the iPad.
A: GPS applications: The screen was too small. Browser: Unless you have to, no one wants to read a webpage on a tiny little screen.
There are a whole set of possibilities that involve convergence on the iPad. For the nay sayers. Yes, right now the iPhone and Internet Radio is not a perfect replacement for Sirius/XM. On my drive to work, I get reception about 95% of the trip. Taking into account that I have spotty AT&T coverage and I live out near cow fields, I’m excited with 95% reception. Again, for the nay-sayers: guess what… connectivity is going to improve. Unless satellite radio does something stunning, it is going to be disrupted.
iPhone in my Jeep, Playing the BBC
It is hard for me to look at a “what are you thinking” box in a social network and not write something. A few minutes ago, I got sucked in to google buzz. This is where this post came from and what inspired it. I’m convinced I’m right.
I’m getting social network apathy. How many can I join, watch, etc? I have to guess that I am a few years ahead of the average person in terms of connectivity. What will happen when the thick middle says “enough is enough”? There will be a backlash. There will be/must be business models that will give control back to people. My gut tells me that the solution has to do with preference…and carrying that preference with you. All social networks (which is a very limited term) will have to interact with you based on preferences that you set in ONE PLACE. Basically, a single-point-of-truth for how you require the world to interact with you. I don’t want to set my preferences on myspace, facebook, linkedIN, etc etc. Social networks, airport signs, your car, all should obey your rules. I can see a flood of preference requests coming that I don’t want to answer. Multiply social networks of today by 50, this is what we are in for. Instead of social networks, I’ll group them all together as “intelligent systems”
With this being said, one of my new side projects is defining single-point-of-truth preferences.
Some axioms that I am playing with
“You own and control your preferences.”
“If a intelligent system does not obey your preferences, it gets cut off”
I believe that if I develop axioms first, the rest will be natural. If anyone wants to brainstorm with me on this one, I’m game.
