Links for 2006-12-06 [My Web 2.0]

I was thinking about writing something about the Yahoo! reorganisation the yesterday, but there was so much being written and those that I spoke to on the inside were still looking for information on how it pan out (this will probably take months) that linking to a selection of the pundit comment out there seemed the best approach.

Yahoo's CEO makes big changes at the top - Los Angeles Times

Rules for Using MySpace in Politics | Personal Democracy Forum

Charlene Li's Blog: Dissecting Yahoo's reorg

Japan’s Bloggers Focused on Companies & Brands : Social Media Implications

A Gonzo Journal » Blog Archive » Blogging And Regulation

A New PB&J Sandwich at Yahoo!? [Fool.com: Motley Fool Take] December 6, 2006

TWiki - Enterprise Collaboration Platform & Wiki

INTERNAL MEMO: Terry Semel: 'friendship will survive forever' - Valleywag

Hooked on Work: the Allure of Extreme Jobs

Alsoft, Inc. Makers of DiskWarrior and MasterJuggler

Jargon Watch

GAMEY - Google, Apple, Microsoft, eBay, Yahoo!. VC-speak for the group of companies expected to buy up the creme of Silicon Valley start-ups. Thanks to CNN Money.

Generation Cash - Generation Content getting paid through sites like citizen journalist photo agency Scoopt, and video sites like Revver, eefoof and Flixya splitting ad revenue. This content for cash game has gone mobile; mobile operator 3 pays video creators per download through its SeeMeTV initative and MyNumo rewards the creators of ringtones, videos and wallpapers through a revenue share approach.

The concept also extends to the black economy trading on eBay and those people operating as part of the Fon wi-fi network and the big cash prizes offered by the likes of Intel and Netflix for customer-generated innovation. It's Alvin Toffler's prosumer concept made good. Thanks to Trendwatching.

Peanut Buttergate

Brad Garlinghouse is a natural and compelling presenter. I had seen him speak in internal presentations about Yahoo!'s communications and messenger products.

Garlinghouse has written a four-page memorandum looking for internal change at Yahoo! which maps out a possible future direction for the firm.

Brad Garlinghouse makes some very pertinent points in his now famous peanut butter memo about Yahoo!, but ultimately shows a more selfish agenda than 'saving' the company he loves.

You can read the full memo here, but I have just pulled some of the key items out to provide a European perspective on some of the points that he made:

Garlinghouse was frustrated with what he saw as competing products and approaches:

• Flickr vs. Photos: To say that Photos competes with Flickr is ridiculous Yahoo! Photos was tired, boring and a pretty shoddy product

• YMG video vs. Search video

• Deli.cio.us vs. My Web

• Messenger and plug-ins vs. sidebar and widgets

• Social media vs. 360 and Groups

• Front page vs. YMG

• Global strategy from BU'vs. Global strategy from Int'l

Part of the reason for this was a complex silo'ed matrix structure and an the result of an organisation struggling to fight a talent and ideas war against very strong adveraries like Google and Microsoft.

Some of the Yahoo! products should have been killed off, whilst other duplications occurred because internal products like 360, Messenger and MyWeb sucked at crucial iterations in their product life.

In addition, Yahoo!, particularly Music and the Comms & Community BU which Garlinghouse runs has a poor record of building products fit for early adopters like Music properties that are Mac-compatiable, the new Yahoo! Mail which doesn't work on Safari and a Messenger client which was much poorer than open source equivalents like Adium X making it hard to build a buzz that will trickle down to mainstream users.

Develop a focus on the vision
Absolutely, and drive this down into reinvigorating the brand for the 21st century. In the US, Yahoo! has a brand that resonates with consumers, but in Europe it doesn't stand for anything. Whilst my former boss Georga could recite the values of the brand and we all had purple folders highlighting what they were this hadn't changed in consumer perceptions. Focus on the vision is the first part of making that work.

Restore accountability and clarity of ownership
Two things are needed here - measurements that ensure long-term thinking rather than stort-term performance peaks and selling the future. The right people in the right roles to fulfil this. In Europe, this means going from from the top down.

Long-term thinking means building a brand to make Yahoo! a must-go online destination, rather than just using arbitrage calculations to buy clicks on Google. It means giving European users a higher quality user experience and prioritising the products users want rather than executive whims

Redesign performance and incentive schemes: This is only any good if it is tied into the right measurements and I don't think that Garlinghouse has got these measures right.

This paragraph I found particularly interesting, yet has got the least publicity is 'Align a set of new BU's so that they are not competing against each other. Search focuses on search. Social media aligns with community and communications. No competing owners for Video, Photos, etc. And Front Page becomes Switzerland. This will be a delicate exercise -- decentralization can create inefficiencies, but I believe we can find the right balance.'

Garlinghouse is basically going for a power play here.

Social media has been alligned to search because that's where a lot of the smart people who get it are: community and communications from a product and technology perspective don't get it.

Search has embraced social media because the algorithimic war is one of attrition whereas social media offers a breakout situation. A more radical and business savvy play would be to adopt Google search again and augment it with social media.

Garlinghouse blew it at that paragraph, its not about doing the best for the company, its about building his empire in the face of worthy opponents like Jeff Weiner who heads-up Search.

It would make more sense to put Communications mail product and all the communities products into Search alongside desktop search.

Finally being a marketing person I was horrified to see such a high profile marketing gaff 'I love Yahoo! I'm proud to admit that I bleed purple and yellow.' Yellow has not been an official corporate colour for over a year, somebody please give him a brand guide folder.

Its the new style

I originally wanted to post this yesterday but Blogger was on the blink.

One of the key products I was involved in whilst at Yahoo! was the company's entrance into the social search space with a product called MyWeb. In the last year or so the company has updated the product to version 2.5, which is immensely usable and purchased del.icio.us.

MyWeb was useful as a 'memory' with its repository of saved web pages, however in versions one and two was a pig to set up. Many users didn't appreciate its utility because it was so hard to initially use.

Last night the company rolled out Yahoo! Bookmarks. Bookmarks is a mix of old and new. The brand name does what is says on the tin and takes the bookmarks function that was on the old My Yahoo! page since 1999 and brings it right up to date. It gets consumers over a major barrier about what the hell the product is.

The interface on the product is slicker than a silk codpiece, with proper drag and drop functionality like the Oddpost-powered Yahoo! Mail. The site thumbnails is one of those so simple its obvious ideas. Big props to Tom Chi - the developer who did much of the super-sharp work.

So that Bookmarks must live, MyWeb must die, there will be a migration path to either del.icio.us or Bookmarks. Migration will be easy because Bookmarks sits on the MyWeb platform and del.icio.us will move over (whilst still retaining a user experience that makes a Benedictine monks cell look decadent).

To be honest with you I want both, part of the value of MyWeb is the discovery of great links from other people who are known to you, AND the ability to take a copy of a page that you've seen.

The reason that I want to copy a page is that many links, particularly on dynamic content sites like newspapers die, having a cache of the page at the time I originally saw it is a really handy reference.

Anyway, give it a try here. A Yahoo! ID is required.

Eating habits

I have started to notice on my feed statistics a change in user behaviour segmented by reader. Feedburner users tend to be there every day, whereas MyYahoo! and Netvibes-sourced traffic drops off dramatically at weekends.

I suspect that the reasion for this is to do with the format that the data is presented in by these services and how directly this is related to user audiences. Feedburner uses an Outlook or Mail.app-type layout which isn't pretty but does lend itself towards productivity.

If you have a whole pile of feeds to read, sense and you consume information the way builders consume the sports pages this approach makes the most sense.

If however your information consumption is lower, it makes sense that you would have a few feeds on a metaportal like netvibes and are likely to have other things to do on your weekend.

Meeja Moment

Just a brief post this evening as I am in the middle of working on a credentials document for a new business pitch.

Andy Kessler has some interesting posts going on at his blog about how the media industry as we know it is misaligned for taking advantage of the technological changes happening on the internet and its likely business impact. His installment 'Go Wide' is particularly good.

The horizontal model that Kessler hands out reminds me of the process by which movies and television programmes get made and financed with independent production houses bringing together the relevant elements as required.

Whether or not media companies can utilise expertise in re-engineering their business model is another matter. Kessler is also quick to point out that there will always be a market for well produced content.

I have also been reading about how the EU are looking to regulate video bloggers. Whilst I am used to a whole pile of scare stories about the EU regulation (most of which are urban myths) this could seriously queer the online media game. Its also the thin end of the wedge and shows the industry needs to think of an alternative before the government does. This could unravel the viral and social networking nature of many video properties and affect online marketing campaigns.

Talking of the thin end of the wedge, is the online market coming to the edge of singularity where all online advertising dollars need to be rendered to Google? Rising ad spend at Google, Yahoo!'s attempt to buy into an ad spot market through the purchase of a 20 per cent stake in Right Media. The company's decision to do a three billion dollar share buy back rather invest in new developments or start-ups indicate that the 3A supported bubble may be starting to deflate?

Two tribes

Lots of people have talked about the new model that is being built with Google acquiring YouTube. Andy Kessler sees it as a sign of weakness, other people see it as a sign of strength. I think that it is the classic move of a monopoly.

Google in some ways is like Microsoft circa 1999, the company has a product which has reached critical mass and more money than it can spend.

That's the reason why Google had to fight off being considered an investment fund recently by US regulators.

It's about that time that Wall Street would demand for cash returns to shareholders in the form of dividends from a normal company. But Google is structured in such a way that Wall Street's tub thumping doesn't matter. Instead Google can use the surplus of cash and highly valued stock to stay number one: like a certain router manufacturer I could name.

The cash stockpile is used as a barrier to entry and as a barrier to competition.

YouTube and the Dell deal could be seen as ways of edging competition out and not allowing them a toe hold in the online marketing space. By purchasing huge amounts of eyeballs using surplus cash it makes it harder for the likes of InterActiveCorp and Yahoo! to get a look-in.

What's more when InterActiveCorp or Yahoo! do enter the market for a new company they have to over pay, everyone knows what YouTube made, why should they be short changed? These companies aren't Google and that money comes at a higher price to their business.

When Yahoo! renegotiates with HP and Acer on distribution deals it will see its partners having Google's one billion USD deal with Dell in the back of their mind. Its not like Yahoo! is bringing anything but money to the table for these vendors, all the services from Search to instant messaging are available as part of the Windows OS anyway.

Yahoo! also has to keep up in the Google arms race building data centres, with President Reagan's SDI initative to bankrupt the Soviet Union and bring the Politburo to the table being played out at a corporate level.

I am just waiting for Eric Schmidt to describe Yahoo! as the evil empire.

In some respects with Hack Day and the Yahoo! Developer Network Semel and Co. are already practicing Glasnost.

"When two tribes go to war, one is all that you can score" - Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Briefly

GigaOM has an interesting article about project Brickhouse. When I was at Yahoo! it was a project that I heard about as a possible thing that was going to happen from some of the technologists that reported directly into the US.

Looking at the GigaOM post, it seems to be set on a more permanent footing.

Three key challenges that internal incubator operations like this face:

• Looking beyond Silicon Valley as there are a number of talented and entrepreneurial staff around the world. For instance my former colleague Axel Piutti has left Yahoo! for a new stealth project he is working on. Axel had set up Overture (Yahoo! Search Marketing) in Germany out of his flat and was responsible to rolling out Local Search in the UK and Germany, providing a superior experience to the previous business finder service

• Not alienating the majority of people that run the company's cash cows: Yahoo! Search Marketing and banner advertising across the portal. This has been a major problem for Cisco Systems' internal incubator, partly due to alleged poor management and perceived nepotism

• Successfully managing Brickhouse across diverse cultures: having worked out of Yahoo! Europe and the mothership back in the States. The culture and management style is very different

Virus in a bottle

This is the second day that I've received this message from people in my Yahoo! Instant Messenger friend list. It is pretty poorly designed from a social engineering perspective since there is no compelling reason to click on it (think about the I Love You virus back in the day).

Whilst Kevin Mitnick would not be impressed at this poorly constructed malware, you've been warned just to be on the safe side.

Putting the HOO! in Yahoo!

I just had to share this mad up Japanese clip that an ex-colleague shared with me which is supposed to be doing the rounds internally.

I am not too sure if this is a PR stunt or not. The main character is called Razor Ramon HG, being Japanese culture he isn't a straightforward camp comical character a la Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno; since it is taking a swipe at WWF wrestling and western culture in general.

If you want to see more of the character featured in the clip go here for a chaotic forum of HG fandom.

Blog Post 800: The Relative Freedoms of the Internet

A couple of stories came to my attention this morning, first off today's New York Times magazine has an indepth feature about the challenges that China presents to Internet companies seeking a Chinese audience. Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem) by Clive Thompson is balanced and well written, there are some interesting aspects to it:

• The censorship is open rather than furtive
• It involves self-censorship as a key element in it's execution
  
• Chinese people interviewed do not view freedom of speech as an absolute binary state (you're free or you're not) but as a continuum and are prepared to make trade-offs; so Google's 'Do the least evil' approach makes more sense
  
• The role of chat and forums in Chinese internet usage is far higher than we're used to
• The assumption that the US readership of the article enjoy 'absolute' freedom of speech

The last point brings me on to the text of a speech given by US attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales at National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Vigilant civil rights activists have noticed a number items in the speech which would extend the government powers of censorship and surveillance well beyond child pornography with the implication being that in future US legislation freedom of speech may not be the absolute that it once was.

Lauren Weinstein of pressure group People for Internet Responsibility made the following post to the Interesting People email list:

In a speech a few days ago, Attorney General Gonzales announced DoJ plans to send Congress new legislation to control "pornography" and (apparently) ultimately to require activity log and other data retention by Internet Services (in follow-up interviews, Google and other search engines have been specifically discussed). Gonzales is pitching this legislation using child abuse as the hook. That is, he is arguing for tools to use against child abuse and child pornography -- certainly a "third rail" issue these days where virtually everyone will support enforcement efforts.

However, it's also clear that the DoJ seems to have no intention of limiting such tools *only* to child-related areas. The legislation itself is currently titled: "Child Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments of 2006"

A transcript of the Attorney General's speech is here:
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=64319

Note this key quote: "This legislation will help ensure that communications providers report the presence of child pornography on their systems by strengthening criminal penalties for failing to report it. It will also prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet."

Requiring the reporting of child pornography on systems (when it is known to exist) is something that few people would argue against, obviously.

But let's examine the second sentence again: "It will also prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet."

This seems to be addressing the entire broad category of non-child "pornography" (which of course can be defined in any number of ways in different locales and contexts), and suggests a requirement (here we go again!) for proactive ratings/controls (presumably ID or credit card based for "offensive" materials) for all (U.S.) Web sites.

So this isn't just about children, it's likely about broader government controls over many U.S.-based Internet entities (of course, Gonzales doesn't effectively address the issue of Web sites outside the country).

Gonzales goes a lot further in another quote: "The investigation and prosecution of child predators depends critically on the availability of evidence that is often in the hands of Internet service providers.

This evidence will be available for us to use only if the providers retain the records for a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, the failure of some Internet service providers to keep records has hampered our ability to conduct investigations in this area.

As a result, I have asked the appropriate experts at the Department to examine this issue and provide me with proposed recommendations. And I am going to reach out personally to the CEOs of the leading service providers and to other industry leaders to solicit their input and assistance. Record retention by Internet service providers consistent with the legitimate privacy rights of Americans, is an issue that must be addressed."

Again, we see that protecting children -- the goal that we all support -- is being used as the raison d'etre to likely later propose broad data retention requirements on all manner of Internet services. Ironically, this is occurring shortly after calls for mandated data *destruction* legislation that arose in the wake of the DoJ vs. Google records battle (where I strongly supported Google's stance).

cted that this sequence would occur -- though it is happening even faster than I expected. Record retention is a particularly risky area.

DoJ might be expected to argue (as Gonzales implies) that such records would only be demanded in cases involving children.

That's today's line. But in a general records retention environment, you cannot a priori retain only the records related to child abusers whom you don't already know about -- you must retain *everyone's* records.

While the criteria for records access might be child abuse today, does anyone seriously believe that calls for access to user log data will not massively expand over time, to the extent that such data is available? Of course it will. If the data exists, all manner of ostensibly laudable reasons for government digging through users' Internet activities will be forthcoming. And that will create a wholly different kind of Internet, where ultimately our every action on the Net may be subject to retroactive inspection. The term "slippery slope" is definitely applicable.

We need to see the specifics of legislation before detailed comments will be possible. But the handwriting is on the wall, and it does not bode well for either Internet users or Internet-related services.