Sudhir Shivakumar

In a stunning move, Apple Computer (AAPL) said tonight that it will purchase Next Software in a $400 million deal that will bring former Apple CEO Steve Jobs back to the company he cofounded.

The single most important decision in the history of Apple Inc.

Stevie Wonder, an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist.

viafrank:

“Do I need to know how to code?” is a question that comes up with sure-fire consistency in design circles. I’ve seen it asked by so many, from uncertain design students in classrooms worried about their chances of landing a job, to seasoned professionals at conferences seeing their pool of print projects slowly evaporate. The question is being asked with even greater frequency as of late, because Adobe has launched their product Muse, which promises designers the ability to “create unique websites without writing code.” So, if a designer wants to work on the web, should they take the time to learn this dastardly “code” or instead rely on software like Muse?

Read More

Robert Benchley’s Law of Distinction

Aruna Roy, Social Activist.

There are two types of relationships:

1. One that is not bound by time & place - family, high school classmates, friends from previous workplaces.
2. One that is bound either time or place - friends, people sharing hobbies, neighbors, friends from current workplace, commute friends.

In the first group, the underlying relationship is the same but the degree of the relationship is different. My relative is also my father’s relative. Three classmates have the same underlying relationship but the degree of friendship will be different. Big groups can be broken down by a factor and still the underlying relationship will be the same. Neither time nor place can change the underlying relationship between members of the groups.

In the second group, time and place greatly influence the relationship between two or more people. People could share a common hobby until someone gets bored and move out. Similarly, your current workplace colleagues will never be the same. The underlying relationship and the degree of relationship are variables making it difficult to organize them in to meaningful groups. Even if one is able to organize them, maintaining them will be complex due change in events, time and places.

Organizing Social Networks
Organizing the people belonging to the first group is fairly simple. It can done through a collective process. It will be faster and easier to add classmates to a group when done by many people. Not everyone might be connected to each other in a social network but could still be part of a group.

Organizing the people belonging to the second group is not that simple mainly because there are too many variables. There is no underlying relationship and people have different degrees of friendship.

Schools of thought
Facebook users did not use lists probably because it was not intuitive or the users were not keen on adding their fiends to lists. So they introduced Facebook Groups where people with common interests or those that belong to common group could participate in conversations. On the other hand, Google+ introduced a feature where every user should add people to Google+ Circles. Google’s approach is a 1-to-1 relationship definition whereas Facebook’s is many-to-many.

If we were to organize people based not he two types of relationships, Facebook Groups would work better in most cases.

Family members would be a common group or circle for everyone. In Facebook’s approach, there is very little work for everyone to quickly get connected to other family members. On the other hand, every user will have to add family members to a Family circle. Since the circles are private, every member has to add their family members which is a redundant task for every user. The same would be applicable to classmates. Planning a reunion would be a nightmare if users followed the Google+ approach. The information will most likely be missed because one of the planners does not have all the contacts in her circle. This would not be the case if a communication was sent to people belonging to a group.

Now coming to other group of people that is bound by time and place. Google+ Circles will seem to be the best solution as long as there not many changes. It will get difficult when you or other members of the group move out. Also, while creating a circle users will have to make assumptions based on the members of the circle. For example, one would assume all members of a hiking group are interested in hiking or are the people the user hikes with. Due to change of events, new members can come in or existing members can leave. Now everyones circles should be updated based on the change in events. If a Facebook Group was created, it would be a lot easier to manage members.

The look and feel of Google+ Circles is enticing but using it get complex after the first 30-odd members.

There is a higher probability of users freely engaging in a conversation when they know other members of the group as opposed to engaging on a user’s stream.

Do your users a favor - remove the complexity by letting algorithms organize groups.

Post on Quora

There are a few factors that you need to consider before selecting the feedback forums:

How to integrate with your website - embed code vs. redirect URL vs. downloaded software

• Where is data stored - on your servers vs. vendors’ servers
• Who can post - anyone vs. your users [single sign-on]
• Who can read - anyone vs. your users [single sign-on]
• Integration with your ticketing system
• Cost - comes with anything good!

There are many feedback tools but I am listing based on my usage with such tools.

Features & Ideas:
Allow users to suggest ideas and enable other users to vote on them
UserVoice [www.uservoice.com]
Get Satisfaction [www.getsatisfaction.com]
UserEcho - Service to Gather Feedback [www.userecho.com]

Feedback Forums:
Forum-based feedback where admins or other users can help.
Get Satisfaction [www.getsatisfaction.com]

Feedback Forums with Helpdesk:
Tools that integrate or replace your ticketing system and also offer knowledge base for users.
Assistly [www.assistly.com]
Zendesk [www.zendesk.com]
Tender Support [www.tenderapp.com]
UserVoice [www.uservoice.com]

Surveys:
Ask direct questions to get feedback on questions you want answered.
KISSinsights [www.kissinsights.com]
Survey.io [www.survey.io]
ForeSee Results [www.foreseeresults.com]

With the increase in social media, there are many more products that allow users to interact with employees and other product users. Though not a primary, it would help your customers if you monitor the conversations on Quora topics, Twitter profile, Facebook pages.

On Quora: What are some good user feedback management tools?

In the recent past, mobile apps such as Kik Messenger, GroupMe and Beluga (company) became popular because it allowed smartphone users to communicate across mobile platforms.

Facebook has a plethora of apps including Facebook Messages in their Facebook Mobile offerings for iOS and Android (OS). However, Messages probably did not see much traction hence Facebook acquired Beluga and released a standalone Facebook Messages app for iOS and Android.


Some call it a SMS replacement while others think it is chat application. I think it is between an SMS and chat. While both address instant communication, there are few fundamental differences:

1. SMSes are sent between telephone numbers whereas chat is sent between user IDs.
2. SMS offer interoperability and can be sent to any mobile phone irrespective of the carrier. Whereas chat offers little to no interoperabilty in the sense it can be used by users within the same network.
3. SMS support text and chat support text, voice and images.
4. SMS is primarily meant for mobile phones whereas chat is meant for instant messaging on PCs.

To establish a chat session, users should be logged into the chat network and share there presence. Since a user has a mobile phone at all times, the user’s presence is always online.

This is probably a reason why people get confused when a messenger application is available on a mobile phone - the user interface is like a SMS app and also enables communication between two mobile users or a mobile user and a user on a PC.

Facebook Messenger is unlike SMS or chat for the following reasons:

1. Like chat, there is a network dependency: both users must be on Facebook Messages.
2. Like SMS, online presence is not required since they are always online when using it on a mobile phone.

I think iMessage blends SMS and chat more seamlessly because a user uses the same application to chat with other iOS users and send SMS to non-iOS users.

I am borrowing the title from Rangaprabhu Parthasarathy who blogged about what Twitter Inc. (company) could do next. I see my post as a continuation to his post [http://www.rangaprabhu.com/blog/?p=476] and will not be talking about promoted tweets but about enabling commerce on the platform.

Twitter started of as a mass-SMSer and has evolved since then to a micro-blogging website with the ability for users to engage in a conversation. When 140 characters became a constraint for certain type of communications, URL Shorteners quickly helped users to link tweets to an external website without compromising on the 140 character constraint. If the user was interested in the tweet, she is likely to click on the URIs.

The following tweet will most likely allure Dell customers looking to buy servers. The 140 character limit for the tweet is not really a limitation to get the user interested - the benefit and the action the follower needs to take is clearly stated the tweet.


If the follower is interested, she clicks on the link and completes the purchase on the external website. There are two things that are happening here - 1) a potential buyer gathers information at one place and 2) she executes the information at another place. Why not enable the potential buyer to gather and execute at the same place?

There are many use cases that can be addressed by Twitter as an E-Commerce platform. Here are a few to give an idea.

1. Flash sales by small groups to big brands.
2. Charity events driven by celebrities.
3. Sales by individuals for unique or limited quantity items

Twitter does a better job at connecting a brand and a user over any other social media or network. The fact that a user is following a brand proves that the user is interested and will more likely purchase a product or service. It can also help create a buzz with non-followers again because a follower is likely to retweet if she wants her followers to benefit from the sale. The use cases mentioned above will result in faster and higher conversions because someone or something they believe in tells them to.

One of Twitter’s adoption reasons is because it is very simple for users to share content with their followers. Making a transaction should be that be simple if it wants volume transactions. Think iOS App Store.

In the recent past, Twitter has made changes to developer policy and its apps. Developers are discouraged from working on more Twitter Clients & Apps that replicate core functionality offered by their products. This move is ensure more users use apps that Twitter has control. This was probably one of the reasons for Twitter to buy TweetDeck.

Twitter’s website has introduced features that reduce the instances where a user has to leave the website and tries to keep the experience within Twitter. The following tweet containing an Instagram was sent by Justin Bieber that almost brought Instagram’s network down. Justin’s 11 million fans did not have to visit Instagram to view the picture but could view it directly on Twitter. This enables the user to view the content and take an action on Twitter - Retweet, reply or favorite it.
Having more control over its users and creating a better experience within Twitter apps will give Twitter better adoption rates needed for the initial success of the commerce platform.

The next question will probably be “Which payment processor will Twitter partner with? Square (company)”.

I guess that was easy!

 

When Google announced NFC offerings last week, there were reports that compared the service to Square and its new offering the Card Case. The only commonality I see is that both services operate in the mobile payments market but that is it. There is a lot of difference in the way they function. For starters, Google Wallet replaces the credit card with the mobile phone while Square’s Card Case supplements the credit card.

Google Wallet has quite a few restrictions in terms of which Credit Card association (MasterCard), issuing bank (Citi), device (Nexus S), cellphone service provider (Sprint) support it. This means a buyer that has a Sprint Nexus S and signs up for Citi MasterCard can use Google Wallet. The seller must accept PayPass, a MasterCard offering for touch less payments. The number of involved parties may increase overtime but in contrast, Square allows a buyer with any issuing bank credit card from America Express, Visa, MasterCard or Discover to make a payment. The seller has to have an iPhone or iPad and the free Square card reader. If you are a repeat customer, the Card Case allows you to open a tab with the seller so you don’t have to swipe your credit card every time you purchase. The buyer must be within 500 feet from the store and should open a tab through their phone for the seller to charge making this process secure.

NFC is an advancement in technology in an existing market whereas Square is opening up a whole new market - local businesses and individuals. NFC is complicated whereas Square is simple and elegant. NFC may please technologists whereas Square aims to please the people who are involved in the transactions.