BRITE Conference Blog

Crowdsourcing in Action: One Step to Build a Company

There is growing evidence that a company can strengthen its brand by listening to customers and even sourcing business ideas from the crowd.  But just what does such an effort look like in action?

Entrepreneur Aaron Cohen used his speaking slot at the BRITE '09 conference to conduct a live crowdsourcing experiment with the attendees. Cohen described the basic concept and unique assets behind a new company he was about to lead, AnyClip.com, and then sought out suggestions that might turn these raw materials into a breakout media brand. Here is a video of this “crowdsourcing in action.”

Cohen assumed the role of CEO shortly after BRITE, and AnyClip is now moving forward along some of the tracks discussed during the conference. AnyClip (now in beta launch) lets users find, watch and share short clips of their favorite movie scenes online, and it has already secured the rights to host films from most of the major Hollywood studios. The company won rave reviews for its recent demo at the TechCrunch50 competition, walking away with the coveted Audience Award.

One of the key ideas in Cohen's crowdsourcing discussion at BRITE was to open up the company’s film clip database to the software developer community -- so that anyone can build new applications, services, and revenue streams based on AnyClip’s platform. Cohen discusses this strategy in a recent piece he wrote for The Business Insider, including the use of an “open API” (application program interface). Opening a new platform up to development by other entrepreneurs has been a critical part of the success of both Twitter and the iPhone App Store.

Open APIs are unique to technology brands. But, whatever industry you are in, there are ways to solicit ideas from your stakeholders and strengthen your brand through collaboration with your customers.

The Madness of Google, or the Operating Systems of the Future Web

It’s been just 6 weeks since Google rolled out its new web property “Knol” to much confusion (is it supposed to be an encyclopedia or a how-to?), ill will among advertisers, and derision for the worst brand name of all time.  Many have asked whether we really need another Wikipedia.

Now, Google has announced another seemingly-redundant product: their “Chrome” browser. 

Why develop a new web browser? (Especially when Google has been spending heavily to invest in the open-source Firefox browser). Is this a sign that Google’s culture of a million innovations has gone off the deep end?  Are there too many engineers with too much “20% time” on their hands? Or is there a far-reaching strategy behind this?

I’m leaning towards the latter.

The Future is Cloudy
We are in the midst of a huge shift towards “cloud computing” – where we store our files and software on the web rather than on our personal desktop machines.  This shift began for consumers with services like Flickr, Facebook, and YouTube; it’s now moving to online applications like Google Doc’s and Zoho, which may make Microsoft Office a thing of the past.  Utility-like web services have also been designed for corporate consumers, first by pioneers like Salesforce.com (which offers a database you can access through the web), and now by Amazon and IBM.  As I’ve written previously, this shift raises the stakes in the browser wars.

But what’s the advantage of Google entering the browser market itself, rather than just continuing to support the successful and well-designed Firefox?

An Operating System Built for Web Apps
Google argues that Chrome is not just another browser, but rather an attempt to build the next-generation environment for the future of cloud computing.  In other words, Chrome aims to be a operating system for the next wave of web apps that Google is developing.

It will need to be if Google really wants to challenge licensed-software companies like Microsoft. Many of Google’s current web apps offer the promise of thrilling functionality (incredibly easy collaborating on Google Docs, or the ability to work offline with Google Gears). But most are still trapped in a “Beta” version with limited applicability.

With the Chrome browser, Google may be able to make its web apps more robust, so that it can really compete with Microsoft for the future of the personal computer space. 

Chrome Smells a Lot Like Android
We’ve seen this play before from Google, except it’s in the mobile phone space.  With much more advance buzz over the last year, Google has been developing its next generation operating system for smart phones – called Android. 

Google’s competitor in the mobile phone space is Apple, rather than Microsoft.  And industry observers have been waiting to see if the Android operating system will allow phone makers like Samsung and Nokia to roll out an “iPhone killer.”  The first phone running on Android is expected this fall from HTC.

Open vs. Closed
In both Chrome and Android, Google is betting on the open source model for innovation, which built the Linux operating system and the Firefox browser.  By contrast, Microsoft Office, and Apple’s iPhone are both built on closed, proprietary systems.

Open vs. closed is a big debate these days.  Techies love to extol the virtues of the open source movement.  But Apple’s success shows the potential strength of closed innovation, which allows for a seamless user experience.  Closed innovation is why iPod+iTunes were able to break the deadlock on digital music (winning the trust of record labels, and creating an intuitive buying experience online).  Closed innovation allowed Apple to create the first web-enabled phone that actually works in the US (too bad Apple couldn’t build its own phone network too, rather than use AT&T’s).

But Apple has not always been able to hold on to the success of its innovations.  Windows stole Apple’s thunder (and huge market share) by copying the best design elements from the Mac.  What’s to keep Google from swooping in like Microsoft did and copying the iPhone design (which has solved the key problems for a smartphone in the US market)?  Can Google grab the best ideas for their Android phone platform, allowing Samsung, HTC, and others that dominate the smartphone market?  Will the diversity of an open ecosystem triumph over Apple in the end?

Betting on Google’s Strategy
What’s clear now is that Google is pursuing a two-prong strategy aimed at a future of cloud computing.  They will use Chrome as an operating system to challenge Microsoft in the world of PCs, laptops, and netbooks.  And they will use Android to establish an alternative to Apple in the realm of mobile devices.  With both prongs, they are using an open innovation approach with many partners to challenge established market leaders.

It’s an audacious strategy. And it’s probably too early to tell if will succeed.

Right now, I’m hedging my bets.  When people ask what me “What operating system do you use?”, I answer “All three.”  My mobile platform is iPhone, my laptop platform is Windows, and my cloud platform is Google.  But I’m open to see who comes up with the next great idea.

Addenda:
You can check out a review of the Chrome browsing experience from David Pogue on NYtimes.com

For a nifty but much more technical explanation of Chrome, check out Google’s comic book on how Chrome works.

Widgets vs. Apps -- What’s The Difference?

On NPR’s On Point program last week, there was a wide ranging discussion of business jargon (“bizz words”) – how these terms arise, when they can be helpful (e.g. to communicate quickly or signal insider status), when they obscure meaning (e.g. speaking to people outside your practice area), when they come to mean everything and therefore nothing (e.g. “reengineering”), and also when they signal a real change in the culture (e.g. the rise of “ecosystem” as a way of describing business models with interdependent players).

One bizz word was cited for imbuing real meaning in a previously silly word: “widgets.”  These little programs that run on your Mac dashboard, your iGoogle portal, or your Facebook homepage, are developed by an army of independent programmers. (That’s an ecosystem at work.)

The interviewee on NPR mentioned the popular iPhone Apps Store as a home to widgets such as games, navigators, and news feeds.  Which begs a question I’ve been puzzled by: just what is the difference between a “widget” and an “app”?

I got to the bottom of this talking to Joshua Keay, founder of Magnetism Studios, who has created some very successful widgets for the Mac dashboard and app’s for the iPhone Apps Store, including Tile Sudoku (an elegantly designed version of the game), CityTransit (subway updates and maps that work offline), and FileMagnet (easily copy files from your Mac to an iPhone to turn it into a pocket-sized hard drive).

So is an app just a renamed widget?  A bit of clever branding from the marketing geniuses in Cupertino?

No.  According to Keay, there is a technical difference, although it’s mainly seen on the programmer’s side.  A widget is web based, running on javascript and XML, languages of the Web that are read by browsers.  An app is compiled code residing on your device written in a programming language that is read by operating systems -- like the Objective-C language (for Apple products) or Java (for Google’s Android phone project). 

Many of these apps that Magnetism and others have designed add clear enough value that you could wonder why Apple didn’t do it themselves.  Didn’t they know half the world would want Sudoku on their iPhone?  Perhaps.  But by opening their platform up with a software developer kit (SDK), Apple was able to embrace the “jailbreaking” hackers who had threatened to undermine the first generation iPhone, and stimulate a much broader range of features than they could develop themselves. The challenge, though, may be filtering through all this choice.

"When Apple reached 2,000 dashboard widgets, suddenly there was a big quality-versus-quantity issue — there were a lot of widgets that were only half-baked and finding the good stuff was surprisingly difficult." says Keay. The iPhone Apps Store already has over 1,400 offerings less than a month after it opened.

As open platforms like Facebook, Android, and the iPhone lead to vast numbers of apps and widgets, users may need new tools to filter through the noise and customize the right set for them.  Social bookmarking or search might be of help.  But companies like Netflix have found that building really good recommendation engines can be very tricky. 

Is there any hope for an iPhone app that will help me pick the right apps for me?

-David Rogers, www.briteblog.net

Browser Wars Return

Remember the browser wars of 1999?  (Netscape against Internet Explorer, anti-trust suits, etc.)  Get ready for a little déjà vu.

With its primary competitor defeated, Microsoft waited five years to announce an upgrade to IE in 2006.  But since 2003, the the non-profit Mozilla Foundation has used the open-source model of innovation to continually add improvements to its Firefox browser, improvements which were copied in due course by IE (tabbed browsing, for example).

By now, Firefox has an 18% market share worldwide and is preparing for the launch of Firefox 3.0 (download the public preview release now here).  Microsoft is expected to release an Internet Explorer 8 this year, Apple is promoting its Safari browser for Windows PC’s, and new start-ups are entering the field.

Why all this interest in the humble web browser?

An enormous shift is underway to web services: more and more, software and even hardware will be delivered through “cloud computing” on the web.  Think “Google Docs spreadsheets,” rather than running MS Excel on your laptop.  Or, “Salesforce.com” rather than contact management software licenses.  The future is cloudy for software license businesses like the enormously profitable Microsoft Office suite.  Even hardware is disappearing into a cloud, as Amazon.com and others offer server space and data storage remotely (read about Jeff Bezos' big move in Wired).

So with more and more business models moving to the web “cloud,” expect increased competition to offer the browser that provide the entry point for all that business.

(image from my.opera.com)

UPDATE 2008.06.06: Future Tense (American Public Media) news analyst Dwight Silverman weighs in that Firefox 3 is "hands down, the best browser." Hear the podcast.

Innovation at P&G -- Mark Peterson to Speak at BRITE

Procter & Gamble has been a leader in the developing new models for innovation that bring in outside constituencies to help drive product development.  We are pleased to announce that Mark Peterson, P&G's Director External Business Development will be joining us at BRITE '08 to talk about their "Connect and Develop" initiative and the ways it is transforming innovation at this brand powerhouse.

You can listen in on a nice 7 min. radio piece here that NPR ran last summer about P&G’s use of “crowdsourcing” to develop new products.

LEGO Speaker: Paal Smith-Meyer, Creative Director, Concept & Design

We are pleased to announce that Paal Smith-Meyer, Creative Director, Concept & Design at LEGO will join us at BRITE to talk about how LEGO has brought users into the design of products such as its Mindstorms robot building kits.

An article in Wired magazine told the story of how Paal brought in Lego's most devoted customers to form the Mindstorms Users Panel that helped shape the product's extremely successful relaunch.