Year: 2017 (Page 3 of 4)

What to do about the chatbot crisis

It’s never been clear that messaging apps had a future as platforms. It is also a stretch to think of voice as a platform, at least in any general purpose sense. In either case it seems like a misuse of ‘platform’. Messaging and chat systems will continue to proliferate because they are relatively simple communication tools with simple interfaces, and because there will always be heavy competition for control of the final short distance to eyes and ears. Even with only 3-4 major platforms, countless use cases, devices, and integrations guarantee severe user experience challenges. (Cartoon by XKCD)

And that’s before adding chatbots to the mix. As amazing as the progress of machine learning is, no none knows when, or perhaps if, a general purpose AI will be available, and the better a general purpose AI gets the more unpredictable and less understandable it will be. John Brandon takes you through his enlightening experience using multiple chatbots daily. Read More

The second coming of IT

It is easy to forget that the center of gravity for commercial computing and software innovation used to be in, mostly large, businesses focused on solving purely business information technology problems. Consumer applications only trickled out slowly after personal computers had been around for awhile. This was mostly due to cost, and capability, not necessarily lack of imagination. Sam Lessin makes the case that for many of the same reasons, businesses will again be the first to benefit at scale from machine learning and AI. Read More

The first decade of augmented reality

This article by Benedict Evans has something in common with the two articles recommended above — that while there are amazing technologies promising profound business and consumer benefits, we are still in the early stages learning what they can do and how to build products and use them. Evans is one of best at asking original questions, 38 in this this post. A sample…

It does seem to me, though, that the more you think about AR as placing objects and data into the world around you, the more that this becomes an AI question as much as a physical interface question. What should I see as I walk up to you in particular? LinkedIn or Tinder? When should I see that new message – should it be shown to me now or later? Do I stand outside a restaurant and say ‘Hey Foursquare, is this any good?’ or does the device’s OS do that automatically? How is this brokered – by the OS, the services that you’ve added or by a single ‘Google Brain’ in the cloud? Read More

Why distribution still matters in the internet age

Abhishek Madhavan cautions about taking the “distribution is free in the digital age” mantra too literally, or out of context. Distribution of physical products is not free, and last mile physical distribution is a critical, sometimes the most important, component of customer experience. Building a digital business that does not include a way to control the cost and physical distribution experience is risky business. Read More

5 data assumptions that marketers should avoid

Brand managers, striving to maximize spend and performance, have an opportunity to embrace advanced marketing analytics and positively impact collaboration, real-time decision-making, and revenue. This starts by removing the perceived barriers to entry for working with data. Read More

Also…

Very cool machine learning aid for those of us drawing-challenged… Fast Drawing for Everyone via Google

A more thoughtful take on the issue than most… We Need More Alternatives to Facebook via Technology Review

It’s complicated. Danny Sullivan digs in… A deep look at Google’s biggest-ever search quality crisis via Search Engine Land

You Don’t Get AMP, it’s more than one thing. via 153.io

A unique and useful resource… Global 5000 Database Update — Q1 2017 via theglobal5000.com

Gilbane Digital Content Conference

Mark your calendar! Call for papers coming soon.

Conference: November 28–29, 2017
Workshops: November 30
Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel, Boston, MA

Frank Gilbane’s Gilbane Advisor curates content for content, computing, and digital experience professionals. See previous issues. Subscribe to email or feed. Contact.

Next-generation customer experience

How do you link customer experience operationally and improve CX beyond individual touchpoints to succeed throughout the customer journey? Read More

Three millennial tech myths busted

Ben Bajarin shares findings from a recent study of mostly 18-24 year olds. Many of you are likely to be surprised by at least one of the “busted myths”, that: “Millenials are Done with Facebook”, “The PC is Dead to Millenials”, and “Face to Face Meetings are not Desirable”. Read More

Complexity and strategy

and cost and return in building software products. This is both fascinating as an inside look at Microsoft Office development and competitive strategy, and important for software development and product managers new to large complex products.

I struggled with how to think about complexity through much of my career, especially during the ten years I spent leading Office development. Modeling complexity impacted how we planned major releases, our technical strategy as we moved to new platforms, how we thought about the impact of new technologies, how we competed with Google Apps, how we thought about open source and throughout “frank and open” discussions with Bill Gates on our long term technical strategy for building the Office applications. Read More

Ad agencies and accountability

…if Google and Facebook have all of the responsibility, then shouldn’t they also be getting all of the money? What exactly is WPP’s 15% being used for? … If ad agencies want to be relevant in digital advertising, then they need to generate value independent of managing creative and ad placement: policing their clients’ ads would be an excellent place to start. Read More

How AI can solve 3 pain points in marketing

Lots of hype around AI technologies solving everything (before taking over that is). Time to focus on use cases. Three in marketing are: “lack of reliable, centralized data”, “talent bottleneck”, (or cognitive overload), and the “inability to calculate ROI”.  Read More

Also…

Think of all the helpful apps for aging boomers… DeepMind Finds Way to Overcome AI’s Forgetfulness Problem via Bloomberg

Handy, one each for B2B and B2C… The Startup Idea Matrix via Medium 

Yes, JavaScript is still #1 but where do all the others stand?… The RedMonk Programming Language Rankings: January 2017 via RedMonk

Ever hopeful… Publishers see long-term potential, short-term hurdles in messaging platforms via Digiday

You’d think they would have tested first… WhatsApp brings back text Status it replaced with Stories via Techcrunch

Gilbane Digital Content Conference

Mark your calendar! Call for papers coming soon.

Conference: November 28–29, 2017
Workshops: November 30
Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel, Boston, MA

Frank Gilbane’s Gilbane Advisor curates content for content, computing, and digital experience professionals. See previous issues. Subscribe to email or feed. Contact.

CX and the age of the appacus

This Economist article about fintech in China is important not just for economists or financial technologists, but for customer experience professionals. China is “far and away the biggest market for digital payments, accounting for nearly half of the global total”. Beyond digital payments, there is Chinese fintech support throughout the ecommerce ecosystem, for investing, consumer lending, and small business last mile distributors, reducing friction and increasing market channel and consumer reach. The arguably superior CX of the ecommerce ecosystem already at scale in China makes lots of western ecommerce experiences look creaky at best.

Many of you are familiar with attempts by Facebook Messenger and other messaging apps to become platforms in the way that WeChat has in China. But success will require going beyond a simple transaction bot to a more complete integration with the full ecosystem. Western ecommerce ecosystems have a different set of challenges, but China is experimenting and learning a lot quickly. Studying the massive scale and rapidly evolving Chinese experience will no doubt provide valuable insight. Read More

Voice and the uncanny valley of AI

As part of our recurring ‘right tool for the job’ theme, we point you to Benedict Evan’s analysis of the notion of voice as the next platform.

This tends to point to the conclusion that for most companies, for voice to work really well you need a narrow and predictable domain. You need to know what the user might ask and the user needs to know what they can ask… You have to pick a field where it doesn’t matter that you can’t scale. Read More

The blockchain will do to banks and law firms what the internet did to media

Banks and law firms may face the most existential disintermediation threat, but all corporate strategists need to think about the potential impact of blockchain technology. MIT’s Joi Ito, Neha Narula, and Robleh Ali enlighten. Read More

The potential for blockchain to transform electronic health records

Lot’s of potential here. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and MIT Media Lab describe their pilot program. Read More

On-Device machine intelligence

“What if you want machine intelligence to run on your personal phone or smartwatch, or on IoT devices, regardless of whether they are connected to the cloud?” You can… Read More

Gilbane Digital Content Conference

Mark your calendar! Call for papers coming soon.

Conference: November 28–29, 2017
Workshops: November 30
Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel, Boston, MA

Also…

A little fun… Metaphysics of the Marketing Hub via Gartner

Helpful how to… Comparison Tables for Products, Services, and Featuresvia Nielsen Norman Group

Want to understand estimates from your developers?… The Software Engineer’s Essential Time Estimation Guide via Hackernoon

It’s not easy… As Messenger’s bots lose steam, Facebook pushes menus over chat via Techcrunch

The case for digital reinvention The effect on revenue and profit and why. via Mckinsey

Solves multiple problems for them… Forbes rebuilt its new mobile website as a Progressive Web App via Nieman Lab

Last but not least… I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it via The Guardian

Frank Gilbane’s Gilbane Advisor curates content for content, computing, and digital experience professionals. See previous issues. Subscribe to email or feed. Contact.

IBM Watson IoT and the digital twin. Industry 4.0.

James Governor pulls together some thoughts and interesting examples of the digital twin model. His post was inspired by an IBM event with large industry customers, but as he suggests, the model has broader relevance. I would say the proliferation of IoT and integration with back-end and front-end applications means the digital twin model may be useful for understanding the digital transformation potential of any physical product — well, at least as a thought experiment.

… “digital twin” – a digital model of the product and service from design to production, service and support. GE has been touting the concept for some time, and it’s a compelling idea. For companies trying to understand the implications of digital transformations, with a heritage of systems modeling, digital twin makes a great deal of sense, and it looks likely to be a key buying concept across a few industries. Read More

Not unrelated…

Rethinking wearable computing

Bob O’Donnell points out that wearables have lost momentum: “I don’t see a big future for the individual products that we currently count as wearables, but I think the idea of several linked components that work together as a wearable computing system could have legs”. I think watches have the potential to succeed on their own as a successful product, and are the best candidate to compete with smartphones as the computing hub we always have with us. As he says, tying all potential wearables together is a ways out, and initially will certainly be limited by proprietary interests. Read More

12 things about product-market fit

There are lots of opinions about how to achieve product-market fit, what do you focus on and in what order, how do you know when you’ve got it, and how do you maintain it. Tren Griffin’s collection is a worthy read for product managers and founders. Read More

Your first 1000 users on mobile

Speaking of product-market fit, Eric Seufert has some advice specifically for mobile app developers…

… a mobile developer should endeavor to onboard a first cohort of 1,000 users that could conceivably look like their first million users — that is, to test the viability of their app using marketing channels that can be scaled up to produce a very large user base in the context of a growth strategy that can support a big business. If the first 1,000 users were onboarded by accident, or by luck, or by the generosity of a YouTube celebrity, the developer knows less about their business than they do about 1,000 random strangers. Read More

CEM success starts with employees

Customer experience management (CEM) is a now focus for companies, but many are missing is the value of beginning their CEM strategy at home, with their employees. Read More

Also…

Right strategy for the job… Optimizing for Context in the Omnichannel User Experience via Nielsen Norman Group

Another dimension to CX integration challenges… Bots and Humans Strain to Get Along on Messenger, Twitter via The Information

Hey founders, consider this!… Why we choose profit via Signal v. Noise

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2017 with staying power. Not your casual list via Technology Review

All in on AMP?… Google AMP is now half of Swiss publisher Blick’s mobile traffic via DigiDay

Handy resource… Social Media Research Toolkit via Social Media Data Stewardship

The Gilbane Advisor curates content for our community of content, computing, and digital experience professionals. Subscribe to our newsletter, or our feed.

Next-generation 3D Graphics on the Web

Thanks to Benedict Evans for noticing this. From his newsletter:

Apple proposed web standards that give web pages access to the smartphone (or PC) GPU to run ‘general purpose computation’ (i.e. machine learning) as well as graphics. Very surprising – I’d have expected this from Google or Facebook rather than ‘everything should be an app’ Apple…

This is good news for the open web, and I don’t find it surprising at all. The open web is under attack from many directions, but it is not going away even in an all mobile world. The question is its relative share with proprietary channels, and neither Apple, Google, or Facebook knows just how that will evolve. The article is a bit technical. Read More

Marketers note… Gen Z Rising Fast

Millennial entrepreneur Brit Morin…

… lately, I’m beginning to feel like I’m no longer part of the popular crowd at school. The focus has shifted to a new group of kids in town: Generation Z. … Last year, I sat in on an internal strategy discussion at a Fortune 500 beauty brand where the CEO spent 30 minutes discussing this new generation; the term “millennial” seemed to be used in the past tense. … Gen Zers are more diverse than past generations in both psychographics and demographics, and can’t be reached by traditional business tactics.

And to think how far behind so many companies are even providing a good mobile experience! Read More

Google makes it easier to see and share publishers’ real URLs from AMP pages

This is an example of the ongoing tug of war between platforms and publishers for control over content. This is not a war someone wins, but a long sometimes painful rebalancing. This concession addresses a big concern about AMP, but will it be enough to attract a critical mass of publishers? Read More

Cognitive Overhead is Your Product’s Overlord

No one intends to build a product with large cognitive overhead, but it happens if there isn’t forethought and recognition for it. “We saw the value being added with Flock’s predictive abilities — and a small group of users really loved them — but it was a cognitive maze for the rest of the world,” says Lieb. “The moment you assume people understand the value you’re adding — especially when it’s a new concept — you dive into cognitive overhead territory.”

David Lieb has some interesting, perhaps counter-intuitive, ideas for navigating this problem. Read More

Software Startup Markets Raising the Most Capital in 2017

Hopefully some validation rather than a surprise for investors, startups, and of course analysts. Read More

Also…

The best kind of case study… A Year of Running a SaaS “Side Business” via Priceonomics

So many big data opportunities… The Greatest Public Datasets for AI via Startupgrind

One example, but what is the future of app stores? Making More Outside The App Store via the Rogue Amoeba Blog

A little geeky but fun… Amazon is eating the software (which is eating the world via Hackernoon

A slightly subversive way to research Technical Leadership Indicators via Winton Technology Blog

The Gilbane Advisor curates content for our community of content, computing, and digital experience professionals. Subscribe to our newsletter, or our feed.

The Great Unbundling

We’ve seen the different ways the internet unbundled print and music. TV is evolving, or at least unbundling, more slowly. Ben Thompson has been tracking this for some time. In his latest look he focuses on TV and how Facebook, Snapchat are contributing to its unbundling. This is not just about commercial TV but video and advertising in general. Read More

Speaking of video, just as Facebook is starting to pushing long form video…

Parse.ly finds users not that engaged with video

Parse.ly examined the performance of four types of posts within its network of 700 sites: long-form, short-form, video, and slideshows. Read More

Slide by Parse.ly 

The iPhone Unsung Sine Qua Non

Telecommunications companies have historically been masters of control, and their tight grip has often slowed down their own, and other industries’, progress. While Apple has some control issues of their own, their wresting substantial control from the carriers has opened up huge opportunities not just for them, but for everyone. Control, however, is never a permanent state, and shifts are often unforeseen.

In retrospect, the ascendency of Smartphone 2.0 and the way it has shaped our culture seems obvious and natural. But the celebration and contemplation overlooks a crucial Sine Qua Non, a necessary (but not sufficient) condition: Unlocking the carriers’ grip on handset specifications, marketing, and content distribution. Read More

​Speaking of control…

The coming war between Apple and Facebook

Facebook has been phenomenally successful in mobile advertising. But they have long chafed at their dependence on the dominance of the only two mobile platforms that matter, Apple and Google. All three companies are jockeying for platform, content, and advertising control. Mobile marketing strategists need to track this, and Eric Seufert provides a rewarding deep dive that focuses on the Apple Facebook dance. Facebook is hoping messaging can replace operating systems as a more level platform battlefield. Read More

Speaking of messaging apps as platforms…

Tencent launches ‘mini programs’ for WeChat

WeChat is still leading the messaging-as-platform push and are who to watch first. Even though they “only” have some 800 million users in China they may lead in engagement time. WeChat ‘mini programs’ compete with Google ‘instant apps’, all app stores, and of course Facebook Messenger and other messaging products. Read More

Blockstack’s Vision to Reinvent the Web for Better Privacy

Based on blockchain technology as you might guess. The approach is one to watch and there are many companies working on it.

…instead of needing to create accounts with each site, as people do with Google or Facebook, users of sites built on Blockstack’s system will control their own digital identity (or identities). To use a site that needs your information, you will grant access to a profile under your control alone. If you want to stop using a service, you can revoke its access to your profile and data and take it elsewhere. Read More

Also…

On Their Tenth Anniversary, Mobile Apps Start Eating Their Own and of course are also threatened by ‘mini programs’, ‘instant apps’ and bots. via Flurry Analytics

On Medium 1: Jessica Lessin… What Everyone Is Missing About Media Business Models via The Information

On Medium 2: Frederic Filloux… A New Model for Medium via Monday Note

Would be fascinating to have comparable survey of U.S citizens… 70% of Europeans Aren’t Willing to Sacrifice Privacy for New Services, Survey Reveals via Tripwire 

I love quiet, but there is a cost. Think about this… Our Silent Future via The Information

Businesses are people too! and deserve a good CX and DX… Measuring B2B’s digital gap via Mckinsey

The Gilbane Advisor curates content for our community of content, computing, and digital experience professionals. Subscribe to our newsletter, or our feed.