Sightspot » Social Networks http://blog.sightspot.eu Insights Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:30:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Microsoft Service Strategy – Old hut or revolution http://blog.sightspot.eu/2008/04/23/microsoft-service-strategy-old-hut-or-revolution/ http://blog.sightspot.eu/2008/04/23/microsoft-service-strategy-old-hut-or-revolution/#comments Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:50:55 +0000 blogmaster http://blog.sightspot.eu/2008/04/23/microsoft-service-strategy-old-hut-or-revolution/ Just came across a paper of RayOzzie (Chief Software Architect at Microsoft) that outlines a change in Microsoft’s Software Strategy.

The intensified competition on the office software sector (Word, Excel) with collaborative and platform independent online services like googleDocs and googleSpreadsheets on the one side and the grow in social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Flickr) influences the business model of Microsoft. Consequently a change in Microsoft’s Strategy already has started. Microsoft’s Silverlight as a framework for rich web-based applications, the expansion of Microsoft Live, significant investment in Facebook and the interest to acquire Yahoo highlight the change…

The 3 C#s – Content, Commerce and Community have evolved:

Content: We can observe a trend towards individual aggregation of information. User Generated Content, Tagging and distribution over feeds change the way we consume information.

Community: The dynamic (push) reception of information, enrichment or evaluation by communities and as next step in our personal social networks and further aggregation on Platforms (like Facebook, FriendFeed) imply new concepts for software supporting our need in more social and dynamic communication.

How will Microsoft Strategy adapt on this upcoming trends?

Principles

1. Focus on social web and mesh of devices (seamless communication between devices) .

2. Utility and Cloud computing improve flexibility and agility (–> nothing new: Amazon EC2, Google Apps engine)

3. Change of application patterns towards small pieces loosely joined. Web Services and Data exchange technologies like RSS, Atom and improve the interoperability of software and lead to mash ups.

For a more detailed description I really recommend to read the paper to get an outlook how the future could be.

It would be interesting to see if Microsoft will still be major player in this new kind of social Business. Or is the train already departed?

]]> http://blog.sightspot.eu/2008/04/23/microsoft-service-strategy-old-hut-or-revolution/feed/ 5 Lesson learned Standford Facebook Class: http://blog.sightspot.eu/2008/04/20/lesson-learned-standford-facebook-class/ http://blog.sightspot.eu/2008/04/20/lesson-learned-standford-facebook-class/#comments Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:28:46 +0000 blogmaster http://blog.sightspot.eu/2008/04/20/lesson-learned-standford-facebook-class/ For preparation for our Facebook Application developpment project, we dicussed about the result of the Stanford Facebook Class and discussed their methodology. Furthermore we watched the final presentation and made some bulletpoints about successful app developpment in social networks. There are also some additional slides about the results of the class.

Lesson learned Standford Facebook Class:

  • Kiss (Keep it short and simple)
  • Early user involvement/feedback
  • Agile – trail and error
  • No multiple visits (War game)
  • Synchronous concepts don’t work very well so far
  • Short attention span of the user
  • Aarrr
  • Metrics philosophy -Dave McClure for viral apps AARRR as a principle for viral apps
    • acquisition
    • activation
    • retention
    • referral
    • revenue
  • Design apps by hypothesizing about customer life cycle through AARRR
  • News feed valuable tool to drive traffic/engagement
  • Appeal to emotion
  • Iteration for improvement and enhance engagement to avoid a drop in DAU (daily active users)
  • Success Patterns:
    • Native appz
      • Provoke & retaliate (X Me)
      • Reveal & compare (HOTNESS)
      • Group exchange (Graffiti)
      • Self expression (Super Wall)
    • App Integration (Flickr, Minifeedintegration)
    • Adapted appz
      • Competition
  • Implement rewarding systems and surprises

You can find the complete metrics for AARRR on slideshare.

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