Signal Eleven

Just because everybody else is…uh..buzzing about Google Buzz (pun intended), I’ll share a couple of thoughts that may or may not be relevant or accurate. I hope I tackle a few insights nobody else talked about.

Here we go:

1. Google Buzz shows that google IS into social, not only into search, tapping into established social streams. They want to be the gateway for pouring stuff into the stream, not merely sucking in secondhand content. It doesn’t get any more realtime. And search, Google’s core business, will benefit from this fresh stream of content.
2. Google Buzz shows that the Gmail interface can be extended in a decent semi-elegant way. Which makes me want Wave to become a feature of Gmail. Buzz style.
3. It used to be true that in network economies “the winner takes it all”. Would you join identi.ca while the whole world is on Twitter? Would you share last night party’s pics on Orkut (ironically, Google Orkut) while all your friends are on Facebook?
   Network externalities play a big role in user’s choice when it comes to adopt a new product. Early adopters drive the future, thus first movers as the greatest advantage
   Now it’s truer than ever that “it’s not over ’till it’s over”. Google demostrated that by aggregating informations about our social graph while not even playing in the social arena they could pull out a social network service overnight.
   I woke up this morning already  following some of my friends and followed by other people. Granted, a slightly different set of contacts than twitter or friendfeed, but still people I know. They leveraged what they know about us to create an already ongoing community and put it right where we “live”. Next to our inboxes.
4. I keep insisting that people should talk to me online using Gtalk, because I like to have a centralized place for searching my conversations. If you search for “label:Buzz” in gmail now, all the buzz conversations turn up. It means that it’s all searchable in one place. Me likes.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Image via Wikipedia

Google filed for patents for a technology for letting downloaded software modules run directly on a processor. SAAS would benefit from that, performance swould benefit from that, but supposedly that technology is going to be embedded only in their Chrome browser. And while I don’t mind Google building a better browser (I’m a full time Chrome/Chromium user now) I’m not sure I want that browser to have a strategical technology for web apps that other can’t have. As discussed in “this week in Google“,  it sounds like “ActiveX” to me. They focused on the security issue, I focus on the “browser neutrality” issue.

Web standards need to keep up with the times and I strongly support new technologies for making web apps more like desktop apps, while retaining their “cloudness”.

I’m not sure patenting is the way to encourage this.

I’m a huge Google fanboy. I’m rooting (in the sense of supporting, not installing custom firmware…) for Android to gain support and allow me to ditch the iPhone*.

I’m used to think that Google isn’t evil, at least when it comes to the future of the net, because the more we use the net (with any platform: mobile, browser, ANY browser) the more Google gets eyeballs, and the more their business thrives. I might be biased by having perused Jeff Jarvis’s “What would Google do?”, or maybe I’m just naive.

I want to see where this is going and what use (if any) will Google make of those patents.

Also I wonder how is this related to Google Native Client technology, that somehow I just discovered.

*(that I still *love*, despite its shortcomings in term of freedom. I see the rationale behind that, I understand it, but I still don’t like it)

They are learning.

After my grouchy post about Acer’s design choices, twitterfeed published the link in my Twitter feed.

Shortly after I’ve been contacted by @TheAcerGuy, a guy running a blog asking me to repost my content. ”Sure, help yourself”, was my answer.

I did a little research on the guy and I discovered he runs a communication company and works for Acer. He’s basically a consultant for Acer’s brand image on social networks, running his “unofficial” blog. Curiously enough, he lives in Milano.

I like that companies are experimenting with this kind of communication. I doubt that any of my grouchyness will make it through someone who actually takes this kind of decisions, but marketing is no more a broadcast, as much as it became a conversation. It’s interesting.

He did recommend my post to a guy who tweeted about doing the same kind of operation I did on my netbook.

The guy seems really smart and I thank him again for the quick conversation on twitter.

Stay tuned, more to come.

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• Delivering blogs via Twitter (sethgodin.typepad.com)

I have an Acer Aspire One, AOA 110.

It’s a VERY cheap machine, I got it from a department store for 150 euros. It’s an ATOM based netbook, 8.9 inch screen, solid state storage (8 gigs), and makes a decent machine for typing or surfing on the go. Definitely smaller and lighter than my 1st Gen Macbook, that, at the time I bought the Acer, was my primary machine.

It comes with 512 MB of ram, which is not enough for running…well, pretty much anything these days.

It also comes with a preinstalled fugly linux distribution for netbooks (Linpus, which sole name reminds me of some kind of infection), that I got rid of, roughly 10 minutes after unboxing.

My sister has a twin netbook, and she tried running windows XP, that came in a USB stick, included in the price. Unusable. She now uses Linux Mint and frequently complains about the slugginess, but for updating Facebook and writing emails, it serves its purpose.

I had a 512 MB memory stick lying around and I decided to upgrade mine (Running Ubuntu) to at least 1 GB.

I’m not going to bother you with more words. Look at this video to see what I had to go through.

I wished I were a surgeon, so, by the time the new RAM was in, I could have just ordered my freshman assistant to “close him (it..) up”.

I finished the job sparing some 10 screws that were completely unnecessary (but they’ll prove to be VITAL the next time I’ll drop the computer).

The netbook now runs ok, and I’m pretty amazed than it still works.

I just want to point out that freaking APPLE, made the fracking RAM a frigging USER SERVICEABLE PART. Apple. And I had to go through 1,5 hours of pain and a youtube video to expand my RAM.

Why? All Acer had to do was putting a gorram DRAWER on the bottom.

Stay tuned, more to come.

I responded to Gina Trapani’s (smarterware.org) call for use cases for Google Wave.

Here’s what I wrote on her blog.

I host a podcast about space news. (www.astronauticast.com).
Every week I open a wave to discuss the time at which me and the other hosts will meet, the topics we’re going to talk about, with links, etc.
Since I recently moved, I have used the maps tools to include my new location map, but that was more to test the service than for actual use.

Using wave we reach a consensus about topics and details well before we meet, and we have everything in one place, without tens of email flying back and forth, or a shared document that mixes comments, revisions, and actual content.

I open the wave with an introduction, another blip for the timeline of the episode, and a third blip to encourage comments.Observations and discussions about meeting time are reply wavelets to the first blip.

Topic and links are added by EDITING my timeline blip, and inline wavelets are added should something need more discussion.
After we reach a consensus, I “clean up”, leaving the timeline blip easier to read. The playback tool allows everyone to see how we reached a consensus.

If you need screenshots, I can provide them. If you need them fast, they’ll be in Italian.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Today I was walking in Milano, Duomo Square. I’m rarely there, and so far I missed one of the coolest marketing installations I’ve seen in the city. Especially because it promoted a project sponsored by the municipality.

As seen in several other cities (we’re never first in this kind of stuff), a Metro stair was transformed in a giant piano.

To be fair, I walked away realizing I didn’t remember the name of the project. Just that it was sponsored by the city. Which is not a good outcome for a marketing campaign.

What stroke me, though, is that people walked up and down the stairs. Smiling. Not only groups of people, even old ladies, business men. They smiled. Alone. They even stopped, jumped, played for a few seconds. That’s uncommon to see.

I shoot a video, but I’m going to post a better one I found on youtube.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Sic transit gloria webbi.

Stay tuned, more to come.

You know those times when you realize you have a few gmail conversations that belong to the same macro-topic, but due to subject changes, dumb reply prefixes (some Italian localized clients – Outlook and Blackberry to name a few – use R: instead of Re: , and gmail goes wacko), or simply people starting a new conversation, everything got scattered around?

Sure, you can label them all, but when it’s only 2 or 3 conversations, it’s overkill.

My feature wishlist on this matter would be:

• Conversation merge: the ability to merge together two arbitrary conversations.
• TAGGING!

I used to point at gmail labels to explain the concept of tagging to people, but that’ doesn’t quite cut it. Unless you want to end up with an infinite list of labels, defying the purpose of having a list in the first place, you need another way to add metadata to a conversation.

So here’s my DIRTY little hack. It’s not something I would use daily, but for a few projects where things got messy, it helps.

You just have to add the word “tag: ” followed by your tag within an email in the conversation.If the tags you want to use must be kept private for some reason (say you’re tagging a conversation “nuisance” – people might get angry for that :) ) you just have to reply to the conversation, erase all the recipients and address it to yourself.As as you don’t change the subject, gmail will keep it properly grouped with the rest of the conversation.

There. You can then summon all the conversation you tagged by searching for “tag: your tags here”.

It’s not perfect (expecially if you often mail about “tags” combined with the words you use as your tags) . But it works.

One workaround can be coming up with a made up word for tag, such as “mytag”. Hey, don’t look at me, I just have the ideas, it’s your job to find the shortcomings.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Let me tell you about my weekend.
No, it’s not the boring chronicle of a sleepy afternoon spent watching the game on TV and some tedious housekeeping work.

This past weekend, Astronauticon 4 (http://www.astronauticon.it) was held in Lecco, Italy.

Astronauticon was the name of the annual meetup of the users of forumastronautico.it, the largest Italian space geek community.
Starting last year, roughly before Astronauticon 3, some of us forum users and “mantainers” decided that we needed a better institutional presentation. We decided to lay the foundation of ISAA, the Italian Space and Astronautics Association.

After three editions of Astronauticon in Montecatini, this year we moved to Lecco, benefiting from the huge help of the Deep Space Astrophile Association, that happily opened the doors of their fabulous Planetarium for us space geeks to flood in :-)

Special guest of honor was Col. Edward Michael Fincke, NASA, USAF, Twice on board the ISS for two different long term missions, up to a total of a whole year, six months as station commander.

What. A. Weekend.

The public response was HUGE! The model was different from the previous conventions (we used to have an hotel with congress center, so people would have to register…). Partly because of NASA rules, partly because we had committments with the local authorities that helped us funding and presenting the event (have you ever had a whole theater for your event? ;-) )…but hundreds of people came to see Astronaut Fincke talk about his experience in space and learning about our association.

We were absolutely amazed by the ability of Col. Fincke as a communicator and by his people skills. Having lunch with him (enjoying a meal together is an Italian tradition he came to appreciate soon during his stay) was always fun and relaxing, and the passion and the patience of his speeches (and he gave quite a few of them) were so genuine.

We had no doubt about his technical abilities, but now that we see he’s a great HUMAN BEING we know that NASA is still sending the “right stuff” up there.

www.isaa.it
www.astronauticon.it
www.forumastronautico.it

When it comes to improve the customer experience of a service, a substantial improvement can be achieved by carefully designing the frontend process.
One of the most important aspects to work on is the communication with the customer.

A prompt and accurate communication can be the rug under which to sweep mild inefficiencies.

I wish I could provide you with an extensive case analysis, backed with loads of data. But I’m no expert on this, and I speak solely as a result of personal experience as an “educated customer”.

Two examples:

A couple of days ago I decided to send some flowers from a web shop (super famous worldwide flower shipping brand).
I chose the flowers, I wrote the card, I entered the recipient details and I proceeded with the checkout, entering my credit card information. During the whole process a button on the top of the page offered live chat assistance.
So far, so good.
I confirmed the order, and I was taken to a page, with an error that lamented the lack of sender and recipient data, with a summary of the data that was actually empty. A click on the “back” button and my session was terminated.
I hit the assistance button. I waited for a sales rep for maybe five seconds.
I explained my problem, and then…I received NO answer for the following FIVE minutes.
In the meantime I got a PDF receipt in my email, with the correct addresses.
After five minutes the operator confirmed that my order got through OK.
A minor issue had become a (light) source of “stress” for me, because I was left without feedback from an assistance service that is supposed to be “real time”.

Totally different situation:

I took a train a couple of hours later.
Trains in Italy, as I guess in most of the world except Japan, are a synonym of inefficiency.
So, there we were, travelers and commuters on the platform waiting for a train.
Since Milano is final destination for that line, the train arrives full, and has to be readied for the trip in the opposite direction.
A commuter asked the station employee waiting for the train if the delay in the arrival would have had an impact on the departure time.
“Yes,” he answered  “the train is 5 minutes late, but *I’ll do my best* to have the cleaning squad working inside the train while I do the routine brakes check to save time and make an attempt to leave on time”

The train left the station five minutes late, but the presence of the station employee and his description of the tasks he was in charge of in order to minimize the problem had a very good impact on my perception of the service.

Bottom line: bring customers into the loop. Tell them how long they are supposed to be waiting, the status of their work in progress, what are you doing to make things work. The payback is subtle, but substantial.

Stay tuned, more to come.