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In catching up on my blog reading list, I stumbled upon a refreshing talk that LukeW gave at the SHiFT conference last September. In a short 30 minutes he highlights how design is changing not only the online world but products in general.
Yahoo! launched a new feature on its Shopping site Monday night similar to eBay’s Reviews & Guides and Amazon’s Listmania which allows their shopping community to share products with other shoppers. Called the Shoposphere it shoppers build lists on any topic for others to see or just themselves.
I think these shopping tools are a smart way to provide great content to your buyers and a valuable service to the shoppers themselves. They also are yet more examples of Tim O’Reilly’s Architecture of Participation. They allow people to be content creators and publishers.
What did surprise me was that given Yahoo!’s investments in tagging (My Web 2.0, Flickr) that they did not integrate tagging into these new Pick Lists.
LukeW covered the launch of Yahoo! Maps Flash-based UI today. I was a bit surprised to see this done in Flash as nearly everything compelling that’s been released this year was based on AJAX. However Y! shows that there is still a place for Flash in this demo. Slick zooming with the scrollwheel and the first web-based map with the ability to take more than two address.
Also note the local events browser that Luke covers as well for a clue as to how a company can make their own mashups of various properties.
I’m working on listing my father-in-laws BMW on eBay which got me to thinking about the eBay Motors + Google Maps mashup that Adam Trachtenberg and Luke Wroblewski put together for Web 2.0.
It will be interesting to watch how intellectual property law will evolve to handle these mashups. Will NavTec reconsider it’s agreement with Google? Will more companies like eBay open up their infrastructure and APIs for this usage?
Also here’s another recent mashup, Frapper, which allows you to plot any number of addresses onto a map yourself.
Distributed at the conference was a short article on what Web 2.0 is, how it affects design patterns and business models. My favorite part was a wired/unwired-esqe Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 table.
Jim Lanzone shared a number of interesting stats from Ask:
More stats up on the Ask Blog.
Safa Rashtchy led a focus group discussion on stage at Web 2.0 with 5 teenages aged 17 - 19. Perhaps most surprising were the products they discussed as being important in their lives and which ones they did not mention:
Important Products:
Not discussed as important:
At the core of their usage was keeping in touch with their friends and meeting people. Everything is related to social connections (e.g. IM, Personal Spaces) for them. Also it seems like they were quite focused on getting things for free (or cheap) and also an continued emphasis on cash, in person transactions (with the exception being ringtones). It will be important to influence and find ways to bring this segment online into the world of eCommerce. Also noteable, one teen mentioned he spent $50 - 60 a month on ringtones.
At a related presentation Sky Dayton (SK-Earthlink) spoke about wireless phones in South Korea. The people there have an emotional attachment to their wireless carrier (even more pronounced than the trend we are seeing in US teens):
Long term, it will be important for eCommerce to bridge the current gap into the wireless device relm where teenages are currently growing up in.
Perhaps most surpising at Web 2.0 is the focus on hiring talent. I’ve had a half-dozen conversations with people yearning to learn where eBay is finding good UI Design talent. It is clear to me that the demand curve for UI Designers is far outstripping the Bay Area’s supply curve (to reference my current econ class).
John Battelle’s conversation with Joe Kraus of JotSpot this morning got me thinking. Joe mentioned that he is a firm believer in the hiring philosophy of “No False Positives“. They key to this is hiring only A-players. If you agree with Joe, which I do, then finding and hiring talented people is key.
In some ways perhaps the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is the means to success. In may ways Venture Capital was the means in the Web 1.0 world. However in Web 2.0 perhaps more scarce than money is top talent. I think a key component of success over the coming years will be who can attract and acquire the top talent.
I’m hopeful that eBay will be among those that succeed in acquiring that talent.
With so many companies launching at Web 2.0 here are few tidbits I took from the 6 minute demos they did. Also gave each an interestingness rating in stars.
SocialText, Ross Mayfield (***)
Rollyo, Dave Pell (***)
Joyent, David Young (***)
Bunchball, Rajat Paharia (***)
RealTravel, Ken Leeder (**)
Zimbra, Satish Dharmara (*****)
Zvents, Ethan Stock (***)
KnowNow, Ron Rasmussen (**)
Orb, Ian McCarthy (***)
Wink, Michael Tanne (*****)
Allpeers, Matthew Gertner (**)
Flock, Bart Decrem (***)
I think what will be most telling over the next year is how the masses take to tags. Now that all the major internet companies are tinkering with these ideas (e.g. eBay’s Reviews & Guides, Yahoo’s My Web 2.0 & Flickr, Google’s GMail) we’ll see if people do actually get it. Will it get built into the next version of Windows? What will the penetration of usage be?