Google is trying to reinvent email and online communications with a new development platform. Uses iphone like auto-spell check, real-time, back and forth, inline commenting, and character by character transmission (you see what they are typing as they type it), playback to see how the conversation evolved. Basically it combines the best of skype and gmail with some really nice new features. Everything is really fast!
Can’t wait for this to be integrated into gmail.
If someone at your company is not watching your brand on Twitter (website: Twitter.com wikipedia: Twitter) you could be missing out on valuable market intelligence and an opportunity to interact with your customers in a way that makes your brand more personal. Plugging into twitter a little each day is a good way to “listen” to what is happening: in the news; in your industry; and with your customers and to the web. The web is changing fast and changing society as it does. Ideas are generated in small sub-cultures and explode outward in viral waves that influence consumer behavior, innovation, even language.
If you have not heard of Twitter, heard of but never tried it, tried it but didn’t “get it”, or seen the value but weren’t sure how to extract it, then this article is written for you.
When I rent a car these days I try to rent a prius. I love gliding silently through the streets, pulling up to fast food windows and not having to shout over the rumble of an engine. Imagine if we could fly in such silent style. Imagine if the airplane was as quiet as a library. This painting made we wish for that. It is a painting by “futurist” Syd Mead who also worked on movies like Blade Runner, Tron and Aliens—but in his most recent work he envisions a future city by the name of Doha, Qatar.
I think we have the building architecture down. But somebody has got to get to work on these wonderful flying machines.
Technically, blimps are soft-body-inflatable aircraft – these are more like zeppelins, rigid-body-lighter-than-air craft. Either way, I would except the longer commutes if I could have a conversation without losing my voice and hearing.
Sprint is making a really interesting move to promote its new phone the Instinct. Rather than give people a rebate or discount, they will pay the first 1,000 users $20 to create a video that includes the phone and upload it to YouTube.com. The winner will get $10,000. This is interesting because companies and ad agencies are really struggling to learn how to best use the power of the internet.
The approach here seems to be – when you can’t think of anything else – have a contest.
So for around $50K – Sprint is getting:
How many of these will be of the “will it blend” variety?
Take aways:
Google giveth, then Google taketh away. And then, Google giveth back again. Just as in the biblical story of Job, Google looked out across its user base and spoketh undo one who is a tempter, smiling and saying “lookth ye at my user base, how upright and righteous are they. Consider my user bshoemate.”
“Ha!” sayeth the tempter, “Take away his adsense account and he will curse and defame you!” And so Google did, accusing him of click fraud although he had done none. And in his confusion and despair he looked upon the face of Google and appealleth saying – “Why have you forsaken me?” But Google made no reply…
Long bshoemate suffered. And in darkness and despair, he looked at Yahoo, but that strange portal offered no comfort. He looked to MSN but found no solace there. He traveled to the mighty Amazon, but path was not straight, the language unclear, and lost he became.
But then, an email. “Could it be! Cahloo Cahla” he cotorted in his joy and he read the email subject aloud from his open window to the streets below: “[#249567499] Google AdSense Account Reinstated!” Sweet, sweet justice he thought.
So where are the fabled ads of yore? Has he not yet put the code back on his site? Surely he must have only commented it out. “Nah, I’m in no hurry” he said, and wiser and a wearier man he rose the morrow morn.
The purpose of this presentation was originally to inspire a group of educators at a single school in Colorado to take their job seriously and invest in education. From that intended audience of 250 people, it has now been seen by millions. The message is clear, the world is changing. More and more of my clients are asking me to help them adapt to this change. To prepare road maps and visions and governance models that will help them adapt. What are you doing to prepare?
See Update: Sweet sweet justice. Praise be to Google.
I’m a big fan of Google (always have been) but I’m staring to worry that maybe I’ve given them a little to much trust and power. I have been a beta tester on almost all of their programs. I’ve played with everything in the Google lab, and been an advocate of all their services. But today I was sent a message telling me that my adsense account was disabled. I understand they have to protect the integrity of the system, but after looking into it, I can not figure out what they think I have done wrong. This is what they wrote:
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Most of the work I do is related in some way to communication. I take it seriously enough that it actually hurts me when I am misunderstood. The potential for misunderstanding is magnified on large international projects even when everyone speaks English. English is spoken all over the world by over a billion people, but most of these people speak it at a very basic level as a second language. Even among people who grew up speaking English, it is sometimes difficult to communicate and misunderstandings are common. As a consultant, I work with people from all over the world. They all speak English in very different ways, with different accents and very different cultures. I just finished an international project where the team was 40% Japanese, 20% American, 20% French, with the rest of the team coming from Mexico, Russia, Spain, the Netherlands, India, Australia, Canada, and Brazil.
I have advice for everyone speaking English who is trying to say something important:
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