Stritar's chronolog

Twitter beyond 140 characters

Sat, 23 Jan 2016 20:20:41 GMT

Twitter is in big trouble. The user growth has stopped and the world is waiting to see if Jack Dorsey can turn things around. One of the latest rumors is that Twitter will soon resort to one of its biggest gambles yet, and remove its signature 140-character limit, which has always been of the key differentiators of the service. Can this be true? Does this even make sense?

Let's start at the beginning. In my opinion, Twitter’s two main competitive advantages (compared to Facebook) are:

real time stream, which means relevancy. I’m not saying it's better than Facebook’s filtered stream, but it certainly delivers a different way of consuming content.
density of information, resulting from the above-mentioned limit, which means speed. This, again, makes a big difference in examining information, compared to similar services.

The combination of the two is what makes Twitter Twitter. At first glance, it seems increasing the tweet limit to 10,000 characters would totally mess up this user experience. But this doesn’t need to be the case, if the expansion is done properly. Actually, people have already been adding more characters to tweets by embedding print screens of quotes or articles as pictures. Why should additional tweet text be any different? The solution is simple, this upgrade has to be in the form of a text attachment.

A simple workaround of adding text as a picture that everybody's been using.

A link uses 23 characters of a tweet. A picture takes 24, the same goes for a poll or a quoted tweet. This logic could be applied to "extended tweets" as well, and as since I'm a big fan of Twitter, I'm truly hoping this is the way Jack will go. Information on the web always comes in multiple components. Google use titles and (meta) descriptions in search results, emails have a subject and a body, Facebook embedded links use a similar information structure, ditto for articles on news sites, etc. This actually makes sense. The microblog becomes the blog, if required, and everybody's happy.

A simple solution that solves a lot of problems and doesn't change the core user experience.

But if I’m wrong and actual tweets will support 10,000 characters in a single text field, Twitter is probably done for it. Removing this character limit feature will simply make the service too generic and not useful for many cases it is used for at this point. Lately, a lot of power users have already left Twitter, and if the rest of them leave as well, there won’t be any good reasons for new users to come in the first place.

UPDATE (23.2.2016): Awkward... It seems Twitter's Jack Dorsey has been talking about the same thing a few weeks before this post, which I somehow missed.

5 reasons why Star Wars 7 will become the highest-grossing movie of all time

Thu, 04 Dec 2014 13:51:20 GMT

We’ve finally seen it! And by we I mean everybody. It turns out the thing that can really break the Internet are not a few pictures of a big ass, but a movie trailer that's been anticipated like none before it. And it came with a bang! Even though a lot of people watched the trailer on iTunes (where statistics are undisclosed), the movie already managed to attract more than 40 million views in less than a week on YouTube, beating the previous record holder by miles. This time, it’s all in, Star Wars - The Force Awakens began its journey to become the greatest movie ever. You don’t believe me? Here are five reasons why this will happen.

The original movie’s success

Did you know that when Star Wars came out way back in 1977, it became the highest-grossing movie of its time (according to Wikipedia). Neither did I, but there’s more. If you adjust the earnings for inflation, the original Star Wars turns into the third biggest box office hit in history. The movie was super huge, but we were too young to notice. Actually, most of us weren’t even born at that time, which means this one will appeal to two generations of geeks. But we’ll get to that later.

The 90s/00s sequels didn’t do bad as well in the box office, two of them managed to get on the Top 50 movies of all time list as well. Not a bad starting point for Episode 7.

The original cast

Star Wars 7 represents one of the greatest cast reunions in the history of Hollywood. More than 30 years later (the last of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi, was released in 1983), everybody’s back in action. Except James Earl Jones, but Darth Vader is dead anyways (and will hopefully stay that way), so no biggie there. Can you even look at this picture and not get excited about it?

This photography of the cast of Episode 7 already became one of the most iconic in movie history. Source: Daily Mail.

It will be interesting to see how chemistry between the actors works after so many years. On one hand, you have the superstar Harrison Ford, on the other hand you have Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, who didn’t manage to make outstanding careers. But if you ask me, the anticipation of the character dynamics makes the whole thing even more intriguing.

J.J. Abrams

It’s too bad George Lucas won’t return to direct the next few episodes, but he was very involved in the making of this movie nevertheless. J.J. Abrams surely is the right choice for the job, he has the spectacle material this movie needs. Of course, this means that the worlds of Star Wars and Star Trek will finally entwine for good, but who cares anyways. The ultimate no-no already happened when Ben Affleck was casted his second high-profile superhero.

Back to J.J.. The trailer he made for Star Wars 7 looks simply fantastic, and based on his other recent achievements, we surely have a lot to look forward to.

Disney

When Disney paid $4 billion for Lucasfilm in 2012, some people thought they must be mad. Think about it again, Disney means business. They're a marketing machine which calculated even bigger piles of money can be made from the Star Wars franchise. As the second largest media company in the world, they also know how to do it. Their biggest box office hits so far include The Avengers to The Pirates of the Caribbean, but in 2015, they're out to take the gold.

The Force is already strong with Mickey - X-wing in Disneyland Paris.

The geekosphere

On friday, the new Star Wars trailer was all over the internets. The geek community collectively orgasmed while watching the 90 second teaser. The cult and fandom that’s present around this scifi classic is enormous, and after the “disappointment" of the second trilogy, we finally have something new to look forward to.

On friday, top three posts on reddit were about the Star Wars trailer. Soon, things started taking their own course. The YouTube trailer received more than 40 million views in less than a week. And it’s still one year before The Force Awakens will be released. There are so many opportunities available to Disney it’s almost ridiculous. With proper marketing, Star Wars could actually break the Internet.

Reddit after Star Wars trailer revelation.

But it’s not only about you. It’s about your dad as well. The original cast will surely appeal to the original geeks who were drooling over Leia way before you were born, while Facebook will help to deliver the message. Our parents are the ones who will tip the scale for the next Star Wars.

The Force Awakens

Almost 40 years after the original Star Wars, the stars have aligned again. Millions of fans are patiently waiting to see how Luke, Leia and Han will combat the Dark side of the Force. Unlike the pale second (first) trilogy, Disney now holds all the cards to create the biggest movie of all time. The target audience is huge, and the means for virality and distribution are better than ever. All we need to do now is to allow Disney to seduce us for a year, and after we are all wet, deliver the promise. The world is ready for the next supermovie.

But for how long? Avatar 2 is scheduled for 2016.

Cool Slovenian brands, part 3: The rise of the Slovenian hardware startup

Tue, 07 Oct 2014 08:55:53 GMT

I've been writing about Slovenian startups for years now. In a post I published in the beginning of 2012, I've highlighted a few Slovenian companies there were able to gain global traction, and as you can see, all of them are focused on software. About a year later, I wrote on the topic again, and this time, the spotlight was on a new generation of companies, which were fueled by Kickstarter and the crowdfunding movement. These businesses were able to find their market with niche products that were interesting to the public mostly because of their innovative design. This year, I'll focus on the third generation of Slovenian technology startups, represented by companies that were able establish something that actually seems so logical today: the rise of the Slovenian hardware startup.

This is basic evolution. Slovenians know how to make great software. We were always known to have had exceptional designers. Besides, there are plenty of outstanding engineers from previous and current generations that were able to produce global success stories with high-tech products such as exhaust systems, ultra-light planes, solar panels and even sailing yachts. Put the three together, and what you get, is a modern hardware startup. Because most hardware startups that want to compete globally, require these three components:

awesome software (1st generation)
awesome design (2nd generation)
awesome hardware (3rd generation)

Currently, there are at least 16 hot Slovenian hardware startups, who managed to reach global audience, receive funding via Kickstarter or investors, or have great potential to disrupt specific industries. Most are focused on uprising technologies, such as the Internet of Things and Quantified Self. Others are simple gadgets that help fuel the mobile revolution. All of them are focused on niche markets that did not exist five years ago.

I'm really glad Slovenian entrepreneurs were able to focus on these new fields, because the modern hardware market is not something anyone can compete in. You need specific skills from many fields, especially software, design and engineering. And Slovenians are exceptional in all of them. This is why this third generation of Slovenian startups perhaps has the biggest potential of them all. The community is strong as ever, heck, some are already joining forces in making cool mashups. And they need your help as well: know them, like them, support them, buy them!

Here they are, the hottest Slovenian hardware startups, together with a few highligths of their stories so far:

Beezinga

Beezinga is an early warning analytical system about events in remote apiaries. Beezinga - Google analytics for beekeepers.
Highlights: Wins ImagineCup 2013 (Apr '13), gets covered by TechCrunch (Jul '13) and others (Jul '13).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~500
Links: beezinga.com, @beezingahive, FB: BeezingaHive

Bellabeat

Hear, visualize and share your unborn baby's heartbeat with our pocket size heart rate monitor and a mobile app.
Highlights: Joins Y Combinator (Feb '14), gets covered by ABC News (Mar '14), raises additional $4.5M (May '14), introduces 3 new products (Sep '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~9.700
Links: bellabeat.com, @GetBellaBeat, FB: bellabeat

CarLock

CarLock is an affordable and easy to use solution for monitoring your car's location.
Highlights: Joins StartLabs (Jan '14), gets featured in Auto Express Magazine (Apr '14) and Top Gear Magazine (Jun '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~6.150
Links: carlock.co, @Carlock6, FB: carlock

Chipolo

Chipolo™ is a Bluetooth item finder for iPhone & Android. And it comes in 9 gorgeous colors.
Highlights: Raises almost $300k on Kickstarter (Nov '13), appears on TechCrunch (Nov '13) and TheNextWeb (Dec '13), is available on Amazon UK (Jun '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~4.300
Links: chipolo.net, @Chipolo, FB: ChipoloTM

CubeSensors

CubeSensors are small, cordless and connected devices that help you maintain a healthy and productive indoor environment.
Highlights: Wins TechCrunch hardware battlefield (Jan '14), raises $700k (Jun '14), appears on HardWired (Jul '14), is shipping from stock (Sep '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~2.000
Links: cubesensors.com, @CubeSensors, FB: cubesensors

Daisy.si

Daisy.si is an amazing new independent portable all-in-one design smart plant watering device.
Highlights: Raises $26k on Indiegogo (Jun '14), gets covered by multiple sources (Apr '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): N/A
Links: daisy.si

enolyse

Platform for family winemakers to improve fermentation and save time.
Highlights: Wins start:Cloud 2013 (Oct '13), becomes Slovenian start-up 2014 finalist (May '14), Joins LAUNCHhub (May '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~650
Links: enolyse.com, @enolyse, FB: enolyse

FlyKly

FlyKly Street Smart. Smart tools for smarter urban transportation.
Highlights: Gets covered by Engadget (Oct '13), CNET (Oct '13) and others, Raises $700k on Kickstarter (Oct '13), appears on PopSci (Feb '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~23.500
Links: flykly.com, @flykly, FB: flyklybike

H2O-Pal

The Hydration Tracker That Works Perfectly With Your Smartphone.
Highlights: Gets covered by TechCrunch (Oct '13), appears on CES (Jan '14), becomes Slovenian start-up of 2014 (May '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~5.300
Links: h2opal.com, @H2OPal, FB: h2opal

Lumu

Lumu is a light meter for your smartphone. It helps you create powerful memories anytime, anywhere.
Highlights: Gets covered by The Verge (May '13) and TheNextWeb (Jun '14), Raises $244k on Kickstarter (Jul '13).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~6.250
Links: lu.mu, @Lumu, FB: lumu.meter

MESI (Qualcomm Tricoder XPRIZE)

Our solution is to bring the doctor into your home. It consists of a wristband, wearable shield, mobile app and 4 modules.
Highlights: Becomes finalist of XPRIZE (Aug '14), appears on TheNextWeb (Aug '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~800
Homepage: mesimedical.com, @MESImedical, FB: MESIdoo

Monolyth

Monolyth is internet connected device for your AC unit, optimizing air temperature & quality for your comfort and energy savings.
Highlights: Gets covered by Digital trends (Jul '14) and others (Jul '14), tries with Indiegogo (Aug '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~650
Homepage: monolyth.co, @MonolythCo, FB: monolyth.co

OIVO

Oivo is the smallest charger on the go for iPhone. No cables, no AC power, no fuss. Just add AA batteries.
Highlights: Gets covered by TheNextWeb (Sep '14), starts great on Kickstarter (Sep '14) but cancels campaign to reiterate (Sep '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~1.300
Links: oivo.pw, @OivoPW, FB: oivo.pw

Red Pitaya

Red Pitaya turns your smartphone, tablet or PC into many amazing instruments.
Highlights: Gets covered by TechCrunch (Jul '14), raises $256k on Kickstarter (Sep '13), appears elsewhere (Dec '13).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~1.900
Links: redpitaya.com, @red_pitaya_, FB: redpitayaspark

Swich

A unique Smartphone Wireless Charger. Sophisticated energy transmission and elegant design in sustainable materials.
Highlights: Raises $45k on Kickstarter (Jul '14), appears on GigaOm (Jul '14), FastCo (Jul '14) and ZDNet (Jul '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~1.600
Links: swichwicharger.com, @swichwicharger, FB: Swich.wireless

Visionect

We're deploying the next generation of digital signage by applying electronic paper where glaring, energy consuming and heavily wired LCDs can't do the job.
Highlights: Raises $1,5m (Sep '12), gets covered by TechCrunch (Feb '14), launches development kit (Feb '14).
Total fans (TW + FB): ~2.000
Links: visionect.com, @visionect, FB: visionect

Interested in more stories about Slovenian startups? Check out this magazine.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Check out the complete Cool Slovenian brands series.

Why Twitter is so important for the future of the Web

Mon, 05 May 2014 06:53:27 GMT

While working on a project, I visited a website to check out a product. Since then, I've been seeing their ads all over Facebook and various other sites via Google Ads. Can't run away anymore - it's becoming obvious the power of these two online giants is growing by the day, which leaves the decision about what you will see on the Internet in the hands of only a few. This is something that's very alarming; the Web is becoming too monopolized, and this trend needs to be turned around.

Today it seems Google and Facebook own the Internet. If you check out the list of the biggest (English) web companies in the world, we can see that they are way ahead of others in size and market capitalization (on May 2nd, 2014), and respectively, their power. (I haven't counted Amazon and eBay, since they are e-commerce, and not pure "Web" companies). Surely there have been similar cases of technology monopolies in the past as well, but with the Web, it's a bit more important. Whoever controls what information is being broadcast, controls everything.

	Value ($b)	Revenue ($b)	Users (m)	Network	Source
Google	356	50	1000+	YouTube, ...	revenue, users
Facebook	155	7.8	1230	Instagram, WhatsApp	revenue, users
Yahoo	38	4.7	800	Tumblr, Flickr	revenue, users
Twitter	22	0.6	250	Vine	revenue, users
Linkedin	17.8	2	300	SlideShare, Pulse	revenue, users

Chris Dixon wrote a great blogpost about how the mobile ecosystem is becoming too closed (apps over web), which will hurt innovation and progress in the long run. Something similar is happening with the Web as well, where only a few players get to decide what content we will consume. Google, with its presence across multiple channels (search, Android, maps, mail), and Facebook, with its ever-expanding suite of services and apps (Instagram, WhatsApp), trying to reach into every pore of our private lives.

That is why we desperately need alternatives. Reddit, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Yahoo come into mind, but they all share a common problem. They are not real platforms. Reddit is great for content discovery, but it hasn't really evolved beyond the original service. LinkedIn is very strong, but it represents a static (connections), rather than dynamic (interactions) ecosystem, which makes it hard to become a distributed platform. Pinterest's only logical evolution seems to be towards e-commerce, probably competing against Amazon and eBay in the long run. While Yahoo seems to be headed in the right direction, but can't seem to be able to find synergies between its services (Yahoo.com, Tumblr, Flickr).

Platforms are important, since platforms are those who rule specific sets of technologies. That is why these four probably won't have that much of a saying about the Web of tomorrow. But there is another one who can perhaps provide an alternative - my darling Twitter.

Not that Twitter is perfect - they've actually been quite bad. In my opinion, they've made a huge mistake by closing down their ecosystem, instead, they should become the ultimate platform for content exchange. Not showing Instagram photos inside their stream probably hurts them more than it hurts Instagram. But they have always been the cool kid, very important for humanity. They have also offered a complete view of the results, unlike those filtered by PageRank and EdgeRank algorithms.

Twitter's growth is stopping, which is bad. Some are already declaring it irrelevant, while others (as well as the stock exchange - its value is way too high for the revenues) believe in its bright future. I believe Twitter still has a chance to become a real player, big enough to matter in the long run. By expanding its portfolio of services (Vine, Gnip), by moving its experience more towards Facebook (I can't believe I'm saying this...), by finally admitting what it was meant to be all along: a public content-oriented social network (=perfect for anyone's public online identity).

Twitter also has the opportunity to directly compete with both Google's and Facebook's core services. The social networking component can offer an alternative to Facebook, while its search function can offer some sort of a substitute to Google search. That is why it has to work. No one else really has a chance.

The Internet desperately needs as many players as possible who will be able to stand against Google and Facebook in the years to come, for the sake of objective information. Twitter currently seems to be the best bet to provide this alternative, since they are the ones who have managed to evolve beyond its core service the most, and it seems they are distinct and innovative enough to matter. Otherwise, there's a chance that in the long run, 90% of the content we consume will be suggested by Google and Facebook.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their res…

The Web is becoming just another television

Tue, 11 Feb 2014 15:06:44 GMT

A few months ago, I managed to bookmark my 20.000th link. I always imagined I would be able to say something really inspiring when it would finally happen, but after years of collecting and tagging content on Delicious like mad, proud of the amount of information I've consumed, I ended up feeling a bit empty. Categorization schemes, mashups, systematic repeating of essays and articles, it seems nothing could help me grow anymore. What else can you expect from a passive observer of a world, overwhelmed with unlimited knowledge?

In February 2011, when I saved my 10.000th link, I felt great, full of power. This means I've made around 10 bookmarks per day on average since then, which translates into a lot of read material. But when I reflect on that, I can't bypass the feeling I haven't actually learned that much. Most online content seems recycled and without added value. The feeds I'm subscribed to are all the same, and I don't know how to break out of them. The amount of information out there is simply astounding, making me read everything diagonally. I feel like everybody is just trying to control my attention.

Then I noticed the (social) Web is becoming like television. We are all just drones, consuming unimportant information we are being fed on a daily basis. Passive readers actively choosing sources that lead us to the facts - but how is that different from choosing which television channels to watch? Not only that, we've become advocates of this situation by passing on "interesting stuff" on our timelines, a part of the infinite loop of content creation, curation and consumption.

----

Almost half a year ago, when I wrote these words, I became so depressed I've decided not to publish them. Luckily, I've had enough time to think about the problem and came up with a plan to turn myself around. I decided I need to do everything I can to become a proactive consumer of information (again). Forget social, I'm returning back to search. Web 1.0 FTW!

Together with more in-depth studies of specific topics that I do these days, I managed to achieve something even more important. I started reading books, I've read about five in the past few months. Fiction and scientific. You won't believe the effect this has had on my concentration and habits. I noticed I don't spend that much time on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit anymore, becoming the master of my information intake. By taking time to read / watch more complex work, everyday news finally started to show itself as trivial as it really is.

What we have here now, is just another television, which we passively consume for amusement, without much mental effort. But to evolve personally and professionally (what the Web was invented for!), we'll need to do more. Read books, listen to podcasts, study specific fields, concentrate on individual subjects. Because it's that focus that is crucial for one's evolution. Nobody wants generalists anymore. And believe me, 20.000 "random" articles don't make you that smart anyways.

Solving global and local records in SaaS database design

Sat, 20 Jul 2013 23:50:56 GMT

Lately, we've been seriously considering developing a new version of our framework. This one is already a few years old, and besides other problems it's facing, it lacks one very important thing - it's not suited for SaaS (Software as a Service) applications. Often, we would like to host a few simple projects (like multiple web pages) in a single database, but we are also thinking about developing a product / service, which we could offer to multiple clients. Making a product for different clients that would live in the same database is not simple, and requires an architecture that is both rigid and flexible, micro-useful and scalable.

The database model we currently use is doing quite well. It's able to support complex business-oriented systems, social portals and web sites, the core tables being the same across all applications. Sure, there are many redundant things, but we are aware where we should scale-down. More importantly, we have to decide how to upgrade this database model which is used in different applications to be able to work in a single database. I'm not that fond of using multiple databases or schemas in SaaS architecture, since this is a similar situation to which we have now, and it doesn't work that well. I'm certain having the same database for different clients is most suited for our business.

This means we will be having a ClientID (ApplicationID) in all the tables that will be used by all clients / applications. But what is the best way to take care of global and local records - records that are used by everyone versus those in only a few applications?

Let's assume we are building a CMS system for many sites, for which we will be needing two global Roles (Administrator, Moderator), but one instance will have its own Role as well (News editor). There are many ways we can go.

1. Local roles

This architecture means each client having it's own Roles. It's a simple solution, very flexible, but has many flaws - the most obvious being the benefits of global functionalities. E.g. if you're and Administrator, you can restart the site. Since we now have multiple Administrators (ID = 1,3,…), features like these get a bit harder to implement, and you can end up developing a totally different application for each client.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role
1	1	Administrator
1	2	Moderator
2	3	Administrator
2	4	Moderator
2	5	News editor

2. Global Roles with a M:N table

The other option is to have global Roles, which are attached to a single application using a M:N table. This is an elegant and very flexible solution, but from my experience, you should avoid using M:N tables if possible. Of course, there are logical cases in which you can't, but you should always consider other options. Adding another table to the equation complicates queries, makes direct data browsing less understandable, besides raising the possibilities of errors.

RoleID (PK)	Role
1	Administrator
2	Moderator
3	News editor

ApplicationID (PK)	RoleID (PK)
1	1
1	2
2	1
2	2
2	3

3. Composite key

Another possibility that comes to mind is to use a composite key, which in reality, makes a single table from the above two (Roles, ApplicationsRoles). This allows using the same IDs for the same Roles in different systems. But it also requires having a composite key, which makes other things more complicated. It prevents making simple joins (you need to make a join by both primary keys), which means all the tables joined to Roles would need the ApplicationID field as well, even if they wouldn't really require it. Not to mention this model simply calls for trouble.

ApplicationID (PK)	RoleID (PK)	Role
1	1	Administrator
1	2	Moderator
2	1	Administrator
2	2	Moderator
2	3	News editor

4. Fake composite key

Sometimes, it makes sense using an additional primary key in a M:N relationship, so you can easily join the table further. We could do this as well, making the previous case a bit more easy-going. But this situation makes all the magic that we could do across the system a bit harder - since all the joins would be made using new local IDs, we are getting too close to the first solution (you can't make joins with the RoleID field, since it's not unique).

ID (PK)	ApplicationID	RoleID	Role
1	1	1	Administrator
2	1	2	Moderator
3	2	1	Administrator
4	2	2	Moderator
5	2	3	News editor

5. NULL-able ApplicationID

A different architecture enables using global Roles that have no ApplicationID, and local Roles that have it. Each application is set to use both sets of Roles, allowing flexibility and understandability. But this model has a problem as well - we can't prevent an application from seeing a global Role - those are intended for everybody, which means that in the long run, the system would start gravitating towards not having any global roles at all, to assure flexibility. To simplify - this architecture is great, but needs something that takes care of Denying.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role
NULL	1	Administrator
NULL	2	Moderator
2	3	News editor

5. a) Creating a table for Deny

Let's put another application (ApplicationID = 3) into the equation, which, for some reason, doesn't want to have the global Role named Moderator (RoleID = 2). Adding another table to care of Denied Roles would solve the problem perfectly, but do we really need another table? We want to keep our database with as little tables as possible, so it's easier to use. That's why we should consider extending the Roles table to handle denying as well.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role
NULL	1	Administrator
NULL	2	Moderator
2	3	News editor

ApplicationID (PK)	DeniedRoleID (PK)
3	2

5. b) Adding two fields for Deny

In the most normalized way, we need two fields to take care of Deny - a boolean to mark we are working with a Deny record type, and an integer to tell which record we are denying. But what if we want to optimize even further?

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role	IsDenied	DeniedRoleID
NULL	1	Administrator	false	NULL
NULL	2	Moderator	false	NULL
2	3	News editor	false	NULL
3	4	NULL	true	2

5. c) Using an existing field for Deny

We could put information about which record we are denying into the existing Roles.Role field, since we don't really need it in these cases. But there's a major setback; if a non-numeric field would be accidentally stored in the denied Role, the SQL engine would throw an error.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role	IsDenied
NULL	1	Administrator	false
NULL	2	Moderator	false
2	3	News editor	false
3	4	2	true

5. d) Using a single field for Deny

It's much easier to combine the first two fields into one, marking the record implicitly. If the DeniedID is NULL, it means we are working with a regular record, otherwise, we are dealing with a denying record. Information about which Role we are denying is stored in the same field, which works both as a boolean, as an integer.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role	DeniedRoleID
NULL	1	Administrator	NULL
NULL	2	Moderator	NULL
2	3	News editor	NULL
3	4	NULL	2

The decision

The last architecture (5. d) is the one I think it's best. It's very transparent and flexible, and it has only one major problem I can currently think of; if only a few (of many) applications would require to share a Role, this wouldn't be possible to solve with this model, but I can live with that.

ApplicationID	RoleID (PK)	Role	DeniedRoleID
NULL	1	Administrator	NULL
NULL	2	Moderator	NULL
2	3	News editor	NULL
3	4	NULL	2

The SQL statement

I have played around a bit with the 5. d) and it works very well. Here's the SELECT statement that retrieves the records for each specific application, supporting the mentioned scenarios.

SELECT Roles.*
FROM Roles
WHERE
(Roles.ApplicationID = 3 OR Roles.ApplicationID IS NULL) --retrieve local and global roles
AND
Roles.DeniedRoleID IS NULL --use only regular records
AND
Roles.RoleID NOT IN --remove denied roles
(
SELECT DeniedRoles.DeniedRoleID FROM Roles AS DeniedRoles
WHERE DeniedRoles.ApplicationID = 3
AND DeniedRoles.DeniedRoleID IS NOT NULL
)

The same query, solved with a JOIN instead of WHERE IN, which is faster, but probably less understandable.

SELECT RealRoles.*
FROM Roles AS RealRoles --regular records
LEFT OUTER JOIN
Roles AS DeniedRoles --denying records
ON RealRoles.RoleID = DeniedRoles.DeniedRoleID --join by the ID of the role
AND RealRoles.DeniedRoleID IS NULL --but only those records that are real
AND DeniedRoles.DeniedRoleID IS NOT NULL --vs those that are denying
AND DeniedRoles.ApplicationID = 3
WHERE
(RealRoles.ApplicationID = 3 OR RealRoles.ApplicationID IS NULL) --retrieve my and global roles
AND
RealRoles.DeniedRoleID IS NULL -- take all regular roles
AND
DeniedRoles.RoleID IS NULL --that don't have a deny

Conclusion

There are many ways to solve a database model in a SaaS architecture, but because of many reasons, we've decided to use a single database with an additional foreign key that defines the client in all the required tables. One of the biggest concerns in this architecture is solving global and local records, but the model presented here takes care of most requirements a typical Saas system might stumble upon, by using a NULL-able ApplicationID, with another field to take care of exceptions that require denying.

This architecture solves most of the problems, and if you're leaning towards a single database architecture, it's probably the best way to go.

Cool Slovenian brands, part 2: The stars of Kickstarter

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 22:25:28 GMT

Kickstarter got my attention back in 2010, when Diaspora successfully raised $50k. This is the amount they required to develop an open source alternative to Facebook, where people would have full control over their posts and multimedia. It was a good idea, but too complex to easily implement, and the guys never managed to make it fully work. But there are other projects who did manage go big, making Kickstarter and crowd-founding an everyday thing. Today, numerous ideas, products, and even movies are financed this way, while statistics tell an amazing story: in 2012, Kickstarter pledges topped $300 million.

Besides getting financial resources which help people to build their products, crowd-funding has many other interesting benefits. For young entrepreneurs, this platform provides an option to validate their ideas which can help them reach product / market fit. They can start selling their prototype or MVP before they have a fully developed product. The (viral) marketing component is important as well, great Kickstarter projects spread around the (social) Web in minutes. People who get involved in something, have a strong tendency to become advocates and share information about it. These are just a few reasons why there are so many individuals and startups who are choosing such approaches to enter new markets.

I'm very glad to see crowd-funding being used in Slovenia as well. Since 2012, when LLSTOL managed to raise $18k+ on Kickstarter, other projects used the same strategy. In the last month alone, we've seen two new superstars emerge, bringing the total number of successfully funded Slovenian Kickstarter projects to 4 (two of those are still ongoing, the third hasn't reached the goal yet). We must mention two other projects (My name is Janez Janša and Namazi na mizo) which managed to find funding elsewhere.

LLSTOL

Time: Aug-Sep 2012
Received: $21,956 ($18,000 goal)
The LLSTOL (LL Chair) is a modular piece of furniture you can use in many ways; as a chair, a table, shelving or a drawing board. These multi-functional properties make it a very interesting product, which enabled LLSTOL to get featured in many local and international blogs. Thumbs up for paving the way for other Slovenian projects on Kickstarter!

XVIDA Boomerang

Time: Nov-Dec 2012
Received: $50,667 ($40,000 goal)
The all-in-one iPad stand went a step further, with a funding goal of $40k. Again, we are seeing a product with a modular structure, with a variety of beautifully designed holders for different occasions. Boomerang managed to turn quite a few heads, and is already shipping.

ONDU

Time: May-Jun 12th 2013 - STILL ACTIVE
Received: $92,876 ($10,000 goal)
Currently the most successful Slovenian Kickstarter project, ONDU pinhole cameras already raised more than $90k, out of $10k required. I like this project a lot as well, since it offers a beautiful, simple and unique product, made from local materials, by an enthusiast who likes to work with wood.

Marko B.'s story

Time: May-Jun 20th 2013 - STILL ACTIVE
Received: $1,843 ($20,000 goal)
Marko Baloh is an ultra-marathon cyclist, who he has written an autobiography about training for one of the hardest races ever, RAAM. With the help of Kickstarter, he will try to translate and publish that book in English as well. Hopefully, he can get a bit more exposure that will help him reach that goal.

Musguard

Time: May-Jun 22th 2013 - STILL ACTIVE
Received: $25,323 ($10,000 goal)
The foldable rear bycicle fender is simply awesome, and it weighs only 35 grams. The hipsters will probably take this product for their own, and thanks to Kickstarter, we will be seeing it in many colors. Musguard is one of the few projects who made it to Gizmodo.

Other projects

There are other Slovenian projects who were financed or marketed with the help of crowd-funding as well:

My name is Janez Janša: A documentary movie about three artists who changed their names to Janez Janša managed to raise more than €7k on Verkami back in April 2012, which makes this film the first successfully crowd-founded project in Slovenia!
Pelicon Beer: While Pelicon beer didn't manage to raise $100,000 to expand their production line, their Kickstarter campaign was successful anyways; they gained so much exposure, they will be opening the brewery on their own anyways.
Namazi na mizo: The cook book about different spreads managed to raise enough money to be actually published in real life. This was achieved locally, by accepting donations.

Your turn

I admit I gave the projects that used Kickstarter a bit more weight than others. I strongly feel that such cool ideas should try to aim for global markets, and Kickstarter is the platform that can help them achieve just that. Besides, there are three Slovenian projects who are still active on Kickstarter at the time of writing, and I think they need any help they can get.

It's fascinating that pretty much all internationally successful Slovenian crowd-founded campaigns are about real-life products with unique and creative designs. Slovenia definitely has to start actively developing this industry, I know so many talented designers around here, and there is a lot of legacy from the previous ages. These projects deserve to join other Slovenian success stories, don't you agree? What are you waiting for, become a part of the story, apply with your project or back someone up!

(Special thanks to alivea for compiling the list which helped me write this.)

UPDATE (23.6.2013): In the mean time, Lumu Light Meter managed to set a new standard, reaching its $20k goal in hours, and is already at $140k+ after six days. This is already the fourth Kickstarter project in cooperation with Niko Klanšek (after LLSTOL, Ondu and Musguard), and Lumu is so cool it got TechCrunched!

Check out the complete Cool Slovenian brands series.

Reinventing the blog, part 3: WTF did Pitchfork just do?

Thu, 30 May 2013 20:24:21 GMT

You know that feeling when you do a lot of research, and after you publish your results, you notice something else that should be included as well? Happens to me all the time. Immediately after creating the list of the most outstanding blogs, I noticed a few others that should be added to the directory. Shit happens. I also tried to identify the funky new UI elements these blogs use, which would help me understand the user experience requirements driving modern publishing trends. Felt pretty good about the conclusions, but only to find myself out of luck again. Turns out I missed something very important, something I noticed when I saw what Pitchfork does with their cover articles.

When I was doing some research on Daft Punk, I read an article on Pitchfork, and their use of parallax scrolling almost brought tears to my eyes. Not that parallax scrolling is anything new - there are many outstanding cases of using this technique in web design. But usually, this means the whole website is a single-page showcase that is using multiple layers that scroll with different velocity and in different directions to display information in an interesting way. One page.

Not on Pitchfork. They're using advanced layouts and super-fancy parallax scrolling on all of their cover articles. Custom fucking everything. Contrary to some other magazines, who are also using generic parallax scrolling in their feature articles (respect!), and some other blogs using custom layouts for cover stories (respect!), this is simply over the top. Check it out for yourself. I can't imagine how much time is put into a post like this, making it looks as good as it does.

One of the crazy transitions and animations inside the story.

But what does this mean? Simple. Do you remember The Daily, an iPad-only magazine that was already discontinued? Supposedly it offered revolutionary ways of consuming content. I didn't get the chance to try it out, but I did saw a few issues of Wired on the iPad, and I have to admit, it did feel like being in the future.

These paradigms are slowly being adopted on the Web as well, and some magazines and blogs are already polishing their most important content to impressive levels, combining in-depth stories and custom development into digital masterpieces. Like Pitchfork's cover story, or even a feature on Newsweek or a review on The Verge. This goes beyond putting some text into a WYSIWYG editor and uploading a few photos. Modern (digital) publishing is obviously pointing towards a collaborative effort of a broad team of journalists, designers and web developers, which will be the only way to deliver content that will retain audience. So much for a plain and simple blog redesign.

Check out the complete Reinventing the blog series.

How the #hashtag took over the world

Wed, 22 May 2013 07:57:39 GMT

Ever since the times of IRC, there has been a need to categorize specific messages on the internet. With the rise of the social web and increased amounts of information, this habit became even stronger. First popularized by Twitter, the hashtag was introduced in 2007, and since then, found its way into standard offering of the most popular social services (Instagram, Tumblr, Google+, etc.). It seems even Facebook will introduce its own version soon, though people already use them overthere anyways. The hashtag changed the way we create and consume content, and it became a symbol of collaborative publishing in the social era.

On the technical side, the hashtag is nothing more than a clickable search query, a simple keyword that is attached to the post to add a bit of context to the content. An emoticon with a few more options. But for something so fundamentally basic, the hashtag turned out to be so much more, something almost magical. Sociology, communicology, computer science and other fields would probably have a lot to say about this phenomenon.

Today, hashtags form the ultimate crowdsourced media channels, some even managed to construct themselves as brands. It's hard to imagine something happening without its hashtag, and most TV shows and commercials already include them. Actually, they remind me of the Web's beginning, when everything had the AOL keyword attached to it, except now, keyword creation and curation is decentralized and distributed.

A graffiti in Ljubljana, Slovenia, persuading people to join the protests against corrupt elites. Hashtag included.

But there's something that's much more important than commercial applications: the planned or ad-hoc hashtags that form themselves in case of disasters or other extreme events. Millions can tune-in to to these instant channels, and participate with their own information. Such streams can go beyond a single service, existing above specific social media. These hashtags have the power to help people in need, and assist activists in making the world a better place. They are the ones that made the hashtag the word of the year 2012, marking the transfer of power from publishers to ordinary people.

Daft Punk, Arrested Development, and how content is becoming an experience

Wed, 15 May 2013 07:32:28 GMT

What a great year for content! In October 2012, Red Bull Stratos set a benchmark for what can be done with branded content. The jump was watched live on YouTube by 8 million people. A few months later, Gangam style established a new standard for how far online virality can take you. It became the first video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. Powered by the internet. These two extreme cases probably won't be topped for quite some time (internet time, that is) and are clear leaders in their categories. But lately, I've noticed two other great examples that clearly show something else - where commercial content (promotion) is headed. It's all about delivering experiences, which are created and amplified by digital marketing.

Daft Punk

I've never ever seen so much buzz about a release of a new album. Ok, my streams aren't filled with information about Biebers and Gagas, so I can't tell what's happening there, but I'm sure Daft Punk won big time. The crazy release that's been going on for months, with teaser videos, song loops, weird promotions and shitloads of publicity. Facebook, Twitter or Reddit, Daft Punk seem to be all over the place, and everybody was trying to be the first to publish the link to the stream or download of Random Access Memories. The first single from the album already received more than 23 million views on YouTube (in 6 weeks), and the song is number 1 in many countries, besides breaking Spotify streaming records. What a comeback!

Arrested Development

Some of you may have heard about Arrested Development. It's one of those shows that got cancelled after only a few seasons, but kept a strong fan base that was waiting for years for a movie to be made. Then, the mighty Netflix came around, and something even better than a movie happened. Season 4, with the original cast! The trailer that launched a few days ago already has more than a million views, which is a lot compared to the 3.5 million who watched season 3 finale. Awesome stuff, can't wait to see it.

So what

A music album with lots of supporting content and infinite publicity, a TV show with a loyal army of geeks? These two cases are more alike than it seems at first sight. They both offer more than the content itself, they offer experiences. They are both fueled by the internet. They are both children of online virality.

Google search trends for Daft Punk and Arrested Development peaked in the past days.

Daft Punk gave us a something that goes beyond an album, they gave us a complete story that's funky, appealing and mysterious (and filled with 80s revival and robots). Netflix will be fulfilling a fantasy that we've been having for years, and they will make us come like never before. The complete season (15 parts, 8.5 hours) will be available at once, so fans will be able to watch it in one peace! The US internet will surely be consumed by Netflix on May 26th.

Do you see what's happening? Everything, even (commercial) content, is becoming an experience. Otherwise, it's overlooked in the sea of information overload.

UPDATE (16.6.2013): It seems Arrested Development's transmedia experience is getting more interesting. Yesterday evening, one of the most fascinating characters in the series, dr. Tobias Fünke, got it's own sizzle reel and website, promoting his acting skills. Great stuff.

Reinventing the blog, part 2: The challenges, the opportunies

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:42:06 GMT

After the initial dissection of the most innovative and well designed blogs, it's time to go behind the scenes. We've seen how some of these blogs look like, but there's even more value in understanding why they look like they do. Every good user experience analysis needs to have a clear overview of the goals and good insight into the problems of the situation, and I will try to outline these by using my blog as an example. A lot can be deducted by monitoring the basic Google Analytics reports.

Even though generic blog challenges and opportunities may not exist, I think that most blogs probably share around 80% of these goals. And just to be clear, by blogs I don't mean corporate blogs with their specific requirements (sales, leads, conversions), but modern online magazines, originally (and still) called blogs, even though they are actually becoming mainstream media. Therefore, this analysis can work for most online publishers, but I'm doing it mostly to help me understand what I need to do to reinvent my blog again. It's pretty simple: getting and retaining traffic. All other requirement are derived from these two.

Main goal: getting traffic, increasing engagement

The main goal of every website is to get traffic. For traffic, you need great (or at least good) content, something with added value for the users. What you do with that traffic, is another story. Sell things, sell ads, sell yourself.

There are primarily three different sources of traffic you can receive: direct, referral and search. You want all of them, and each component is a result of different activities. Getting direct traffic means you have a strong brand. Getting referral traffic means you have great writers / influencers which help you get backlinks to your blog. Getting search traffic means you have a great technical team and SEO (CMO and SMO) optimized site.

You want a well-balanced stream of traffic to your blog.

The other important goal that websites have is keeping the traffic on the site, which can be done by stimulating user engagement. Helping things happen after you get people to your blog. You want users to spend as much time as possible with you, navigate through many pages, and hopefully give you some feedback - leaving comments and sharing your posts on social media. Some blogs want other actions as well, but these are probably the most obvious ones.

Increasing social media activity

Social media is emerging as one of the most important referral sources. But lately, it's becoming a noteworthy factor for search engine rankings as well. That's why blogs are trying hard to integrate social media widgets into their content, some even go beyond the standard tweet / like / + 1 buttons. Help people share, there are many benefits from it, both direct and indirect.

The social activity on my most visited post. These figures translate into more than 10k unique users.

Lowering bounce rates, increasing time on site

Most blogs have very high bounce rates - people tend to read a single post and leave the site. That is why designers and information architects are trying to do everything to keep readers on their site, hoping to persuade them to read another article. Some are trying too hard by adding too many related posts, others are playing with many interesting ways of driving readers to the next page.

My current bounce rate is more than 80%, with average visit duration just above 2 minutes. Something that needs to be improved urgently. I am sure this will be one of the most significant challenges I will face when developing the next generation of my blog.

Improving these bounce rates and time on site is one of my highest priorities.

Treating every page as a landing page

The time when people visited the homepage and navigated further from there are over. Today, specially because of social media, every page is a landing page and needs to be treated as such. We are consuming content in a different way, we don't browse for content anymore, the content finds us. That is why we need to design every single page as the starting point for our visitors.

At this point, less than 10% of traffic to my blog comes through the homepage. Which means designing great post pages is becoming more important than designing the homepage, since every page needs to become a hub for further navigation.

Building loyalty and credibility (branding)

Besides keeping users on site, it's also important you get users back to the site. As your brand and reputation evolve, it gets easier with all of the traffic components, but you can achieve that with only one thing - great content. Of course, nice design and user experience help, but you can't bypass this simple fact: you need something with added value to the readers. Only then you will get loyal users and only then your blog will thrive.

Even though most focus is done on gaining new readers, you mustn't forget about returning ones.

Allowing a mobile-friendly experience

We are living in a mobile world and more and more traffic is made by mobile devices. This number is closing in on 20% on my blog, which means optimization for mobile visitors is becoming something that you can't ignore.

Mobile operating systems are on the rise.

Combining it with the funky new UI elements

In my previous post, I outlined the interesting new user interface elements my favourite blogs use. Now we can map these elements with the above mentioned five challenges and opportunities, which will help us understand the requirements behind the innovations.

	Social media	Bounce / time	Landing pages	Branding	Mobile
Unconventional navigation		1	1	1
Fixed (floating) menu		1	1
Responsive design		1		1	1
Big key visual before text	1	1
Advanced key visual (gallery, video)	1	1		1
Abstract, teaser, subheading	1				1
Suggested content within limits		1	1		1
Custom social media integration	1			1
Polished content (wrapping, quotes)	1	1		1
Custom typography				1
Infinite scroll		1			1
Pinterest-style homepage		1		1
Integrated content and navigation		1	1	1
Total	5	10	4	8	4

It's pretty clear each of the elements has at least one specific goal that it's trying to solve. Some of them will surely become a standard in the future.

Conclusion

What a modern blog is trying to achieve in 2013 is pretty clear. Get more traffic, make users spend more time on the site. This hasn't changed in decades, but the behaviour of the users has. Only those that will be able to adapt to the newly-formed situation will survive.

The most important paradigms that have shaped the past years are the social and mobile era, which have revolutionized the ways we consume content. We are online all the time, with many devices, and there is so much content everywhere, it's overwhelming. Our attention span is becoming very limited, and all of above mentioned challenges are focused in trying to capture it.

I decided it's time to redesing my blog again, and by understanding what (and why) the market leaders do, my task will surely be easier. I hope you find my analysis useful, but please feel free to add anything I may have forgotten in the comments.

Check out the complete Reinventing the blog series.

Note to self: when writing blog post titles, forget about SEO

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:23:23 GMT

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post about innovative blog designs and solutions that are emerging everywhere. I think it's a great post, it offers a very detailed overview of new fascinating concepts and features that are driven by new ways we consume content. But right before publishing, I've decided to change the post's title from "Dissecting the innovative blogs..." to "UX analysis of the innovative blogs...". I did this because I wanted to include "user experience" and "analysis" in the blog's title and url for better SEO performance, but this turned out to be a huge mistake.

This article is the first part of a series, focused on new generation blogs, which will (hopefully) form a complete user experience study of modern online media. But I've chosen the wrong title for it, since the core of every UX analysis are the problems and goals each solution is trying to solve and achieve. By thinking about SEO, I've devalued the content of the story by presenting it as something it is not. Even if the the new bible would be written inside the post, user experience experts would probably think "This guy doesn't know shit about UX" because of the title. It's very easy for something to be stained by a corrupt detail and be perceived in a negative way.

Even though I know most of the traffic on my blog doesn't come from search, but rather from referrals, I always subconsciously think about this tradeoff when I'm writing a post - appealing titles vs. SEO optimized titles with high keyword density. Pressured by the amount of time I've invested in this specific post (>10 hours), I went for the latter, also because it's every blogger's dream his / her work will once be self-sustainable. Traffic without active (social media) involvement. I do the writing, Google does its magic, the readers to the rest.

Search engine rankings are influenced mostly by (social media) backlinks. This means you need social activity first, only then the keywords start to matter. Which makes it much more important for your blog's title to capture attention than to be SEO friendly.

By the way, I've changed the title back to the intended original one, but the URL stayed the same. And I'm never thinking about SEO when writing blog titles again.

Reinventing the blog, part 1: Dissecting the most innovative and best-designed blogs

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:23:46 GMT

The blog is getting mature. Ever since Gawker did its eccentric redesign a few years ago, we've seen a lot of other blog (networks) doing similar things, trying to reinvent how the blog should look like in 2013. After the initial hiccup, Gawker managed to fortify its position and attract new users, showing others that people do like to see different things, things that are imitating the experience of reading electronic magazines on mobile devices. Today, there are many great cases of how a modern blog should feel, and since I'm thinking about doing something similar myself (it's been almost 4 years since I did this!), I decided to dissect a few of the most innovative ones, hoping to get a picture of what works and what not. Here are my picks of the most creative and best designed (mainstream) blogs on the Web, those that are standing out from the crowd and are unique in what they offer to their readers.

Fast Company

Fast Company is a great example that demonstrates the power of images - especially if you have access to professional photographic material. The home page is clean and the highlighted article is integrated into the main key visual, which works very well. The same logic of the huge picture is implemented to the inner pages as well, and this picture is transformed into a gallery if required. There isn't much of related content on a single article, and the social buttons are custom, which I think we will be seeing a lot of in the future.

Fast Company uses an effective combination of the key visual, article header, additional flavor text and custom social buttons.

Fast Company uses custom typography, infinite scroll to avoid paging, takes good advantage from the article abstract / subtitle to make you curious (it's displayed on the article as the introduction as well), and their website is responsive. It is also interesting that they keep a single article visible above the fold on their homepage to retain focus. From the design and user experience perspective, this solution is one of my favorites.

Gawker

Gawker's innovative approach was to use two columns for news on the home page - one for top stories and one for latest stories - and ditching the main menu. While this may have been one of the most important evolutions modern blogs have made, I don't think this feature works well on the homepage, since I don't really notice the right column when I browse the site. However, this feature becomes more useful on the inner pages, where this module is duplicated, and where most people land on the site.

Gawker and the omnipresent main menu that changed the game.

This realization, that single blog posts should be treated as primary landing pages, is very important, and Gawker was one of the first to fully integrate that concept into its user experience. People don't browse blogs anymore, they consume social media that brings them to blogs.

Gawker also uses a big picture (not in such a cool way as Fast Company) in the post, and it's very smart and concise that this picture can be replaced with a video. I like the way comments are solved, showing only the most popular threads, and not the complete conversation (with the amount of comments they have, it would be probably useless otherwise). I'm also keen on the internal hot meter they use, which they seem to use to distinguish the top and latest news. However, they should ditch the "like Gawker" block exposed on each article, it's very misleading. The mobile site should also be replaced with a responsive version.

Mashable

Mashable's redesign introduced quite a few interesting features I look forward to adopting. They have minimized the main menu, offering a drop down popup menu that allows further classification of news. This menu is well coded and does a pretty good job of taking care of incidental mouse moves (not as good as Amazon though). The homepage uses three columns to display articles, even though I'm not fully sure how that works ("The new stuff" is probably all articles, "The next big thing" are probably highlighted by the editor, and "What's hot" by the crowd), and this feature's column header is fixed upon (infinite) scrolling. The design is, driven by their specific social media ninja audience, of course, responsive.

Mashable has a clever integration of social media activity on the top of the article.

What I like about Mashable's new version the most, is the clever social media integration. They have the total number of shares displayed on the top of the article, as well as a little graph that displays the dynamics of social activity for a specific post. These social media statistics are probably also used to feed the columns on the homepage, even though most people probably don't understand what's happening. But perhaps that's for the best - if it works well in recommending the articles, thumbs up.

Again, we are seeing a picture above the article, which can be video as well. That's good. What I don't like about Mashable is the three-column footer of the article, it is the same as the homepage, displaying a single category. I can understand the need for such a thing, it could work, cloning the homepage on the landing article page, but for me, it's just too overwhelming.

The Next Web

The Next Web's new design is somewhere in between Mashable and Gawker. The homepage uses two columns, the Channels, which can be configured and switched from popular to latest, and the main window, which offers a pinterest-style display of articles, similar to the one Mashable uses. This left menu box is fixed and used both on the home and inner pages, and it works as the main menu to navigate the content of the portal. The main main menu is simple and works as a hub for other TNW stuff.

The Next Web's navigation and post header, together with instruction to use the keyboard.

The Next Web also has custom social media integration, and offers the users to navigate with the keyboard. This navigation works very well with the left box - meaning the users is navigating the current selection in the box, offering an experience similar to switching a remote on a digital TV, knowing what the next channel will be. I'm not sure how many users notice and use this feature, but this integrated content and navigation approach is very interesting.

The site is responsive, uses a big picture before the post, together with the detailed information about the article. Another interesting thing - the images break out of the paragraph form. Overall, a very solid performance with a minimalistic design.

Quartz

While Quartz may not be one of the most well-known blogs out there, it still very much deserves a mention for its creative implementation. The clever menu that collapses when you proceed to the article, the interesting fixed list on the left that can be configured and pivoted according to your wishes, making the navigation much easier and again, integrated with the content.

Quartz fully integrates the navigation and content.

There's another innovative feature on Quartz for which I haven't decided if I like it or not, but it is very interesting nevertheless. When you scroll to the end of the article, the next article is automatically displayed, together with a new URL. This is made as a redirect (the url changes), but it does not seem like one at all - when I get the time I will try to see how they technically achieve this. This article change is integrated with the left box, which makes the complete experience pretty interesting, similar to the one The Next Web has. What Quartz misses is better social media integration. They went a step back and decided to use links to share pages instead of widgets, which probably doesn't help their traffic that much, but it's aligned with the design. The site is responsive.

The Verge

The Verge's homepage is probably the most unique of them all. While I would make the main menu less confusing, I really like the tiles for the most interesting articles. This is followed by the video section, and by a ton of other articles - too many of them, to be honest. But things get more interesting once you get to a specific post. The menu gets smaller, there is a clear navigation to the next and previous articles at the top, and the breaking news floats.

The Verge's posts are close to perfection - full of images and quotes, together with embedded galleries.

The design of the inner page is very creative, there is a huge image (not on all articles, it seems only on the reviews) with social share widgets, a secondary title is also used. I really like the quotes inside the text, and the jump-to thingie is useful as well. You can see that someone took a lot of time to shape the content, the text is wrapped around images, the galleries are embedded within the text. This gives you an impression you are browsing a high-end iPad magazine rather than a web page. There aren't to many other elements on the page, so the overall result is very clean and easy to read. On the other hand, that polished content structure probably makes it quite hard for the site to be responsive, which The Verge is not.

Wired

The legendary Wired magazine has an online edition that would make a lot of people proud. They have been always known as innovators, and were one of the first to introduce the grid display of articles instead of a list. This means the emphasis is more on the images and headings than it is on the text. The popup menu is put somewhere inside this grid of posts, which is a daring, but effective solution. This menu neatly moves to the top on the inner pages.

Wired's article headings have big titles and teasing abstracts.

Again, we are seeing two different types of posts as on The Verge, the basic one, and the advanced one. The advanced one is a feast to the eyes, with a huge heading and abstract that get you interested, the pictures that break out of paragraphs. But there are a few things that are not suited for such an established magazine. In a gallery, each click reloads the complete page, which can be very very annoying. I don't think hunting for ad views makes it worth it. I would also make the right column a little less overwhelming with content (not only ads, but everything else as well). And the site is not responsive.

Breaking down the elements

Based on the analysis, we can conclude that new specific elements started to emerge with the next generation of blogs. These elements are the results of us consuming content in a different way that we were a few years ago - before social and mobile. Most of them are taking care of "the homepage is not the landing page" situation, while trying to persuade people to proceed with browsing the content, lowering bounce rates.

	Fastco	Gawker	Mashable	TNW	Quartz	Verge	Wired	Total
Unconventional navigation		1		1	1			3
Fixed (floating) menu			1	1	1			3
Responsive design	1		1	1	1			4
Big key visual before text	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	7
Advanced key visual (gallery, video)	1	1	1					3
Abstract, teaser, subheading	1	1				1	1	4
Suggested content within limits	1	1		1	1	1		5
Custom social media integration	1		1	1				3
Polished content (wrapping, quotes)			1			1	1	3
Custom typography	1		1	1	1	1	1	6
Infinite scroll	1		1		1			3
Pinterest-style homepage			1	1		1	1	4
Integrated content and navigation				1	1			2
Total	8	5	9	9	8	6	5

Conclusion

Typical design and user experience of mainstream blogs have evolved in the past few years, and we will be seeing similar concepts adopted by the mainstream media as well. The social and mobile era have changed the way we consume content, while heightening our expectations - most of us simply count on great experiences. Luckily, the world is full of great innovators who are not afraid to take risks and implement new creative features that will become a standard in the years to come. I'm already looking forward to how other major players will respond to the new situation.

Check out the complete Reinventing the blog series.

Dear Facebook, please stop trying to control my attention

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:06:30 GMT

Not that I'm threatening you or anything, I can assure you I won't be leaving you anytime soon. There is still too much inside you, for me to walk away. But the last few attention seeking features you've implemented are really pissing me off! I fully understand you are trying to get me to interact with others even more, but what you are doing will rather have the opposite affect. You have to find another way to get me involved, or the tab that you live in won't stay open for much longer.

The new red notifications next to the groups are very annoying (it seems I'm in a test group of some sort, since not everybody has them). Which UX mastermind sold you this great idea? It's becoming really hard for me to look at my Facebook homepage for the past few days, I've turned off all the notifications from groups and these things are still there, all red and intimidating. What are you trying to do, get me to click on each of them every day, or simply leave 'em all?

And the sound notifications you play each time I get a comment? I'm often listening to music or watching movies, and they're simply too much of an intrusion. Don't want that shit, I don't use chat because of these annoyances. You are making me wish not to receive any comments while I'm doing other things, which is absurd. The web was intended to be silent unless requested otherwise.

I try to keep positive with my blog, not complaining and bitching too much, but every now and then I just can't help myself. Things did change since you went public, the pressure from the investors must be enormous: more users, more friends, more members, more interactions, more everything. The graph is hungry. But you have to understand what's at stake: if we get too annoyed by what you're doing, we simply won't spend enough time with you to see all the banners you want us to see. Which can be a bigger problem than groups without active members or a few unnoticed comments. The service is the most important thing you have, and nothing good can come out of this new aggressiveness. Think about it.

I believe Firefox OS may be on to something

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 22:27:50 GMT

A few days ago, during the Mobile World Congress, Firefox announced its mobile OS, which will be available soon. Teaming up with 18 carriers and 4 announced manufacturers (plus Sony), the release was probably bigger than expected. A few high-profile web services, including AirBnb, Disney, Facebook, SoundCloud and Twitter, also joined the hype by including their apps to the new marketplace. Analysts quickly put down their bets, some supporting the effort, while others denying the possibility of its success. One of the most fascinating things about the new OS is that it's going to be entirely web based, the operating system itself, the apps, everything. Unlocking the power of the web, as they put it. And to be honest, I can buy that.

The situation

Currently, the mobile OS market is dominated by two players, Apple and Google. They both have their own strategies, Apple being the control-freak offering exclusivity, and Google being the easy-going dude appealing to the masses. Windows is trying to find its place somewhere in-between, but it's still struggling to gain its market share (currently at around few percent) - we will see how their partnership with Nokia turns out in the long run. We mustn't also forget about Blackberry and their potential comeback with their new operating system and the newly introduced Z10 smartphone. But that's about it.

Until Firefox OS was introduced.

The history

To begin with, we must take a look at the original Firefox browser, the first-choice browser of the developer a few years ago. That is before Chrome managed to offer a stabler and faster version of it. What made Firefox so useful, were the Javascript console and Firebug, an add-on that all web developers need once they try out. But Firebug supposedly makes Firefox work much slower. Chrome built such a tool for client-side debugging inside its browsers and boom - millions of developers switched to Chrome. I don't know why Firefox hasn't offered a similar tool, they should, especially now, when they have a chance not only to gain mobile OS market share, but also to regain their position in the browser wars. They should fully unlock the power of the web, with their potential mobile OS and browser marketing synergies. Firefox = the internet.

The web is wonderful, and Firefox has always been one of its strongest advocates. And now they are doing it again, by offering an operating system that is fully based on the web. Besides, for many reasons, they are probably in a much better position to do it then WebOS was. Or as they put it:

With Firefox OS, you can simply enter any search term and instantly create a one-time use or downloadable app.

The community

Developers are an important part of every mobile ecosystem, and developing for different platforms is a big pain in the ass. Of course, everybody has the possibility to decide for HTML app instead of a native app, but if the platform prefers native apps, it's a no brainer that those will have more capabilities and better performance. But it's hard to make native apps. I am a web developer, been doing it for years, tried to develop something for iOS one day. I lost interest in a few days, because you need to get used to a totally new environment, and the thought of going through the same with Android and Windows just made me depressed. But here's what Firefox says:

Every Web developer can easily create and distribute HTML5 apps so you can find an app for whatever you want.

Holy crap, the web as the platform! Which means I will be able to make Firefox OS apps already from the start. And when I have that HTML5 app, will I perhaps be willing to easily turn it into a hybrid native / HTML5 app for all other platforms? The thought is appealing. And since HTML5 is powerful enough to access the phone's hardware (camera, GPS, etc.), this makes it much more interesting. Not to mention I would be improving my basic web developer skills if I would start developing for Firefox OS.

The recipe

Firefox OS has the carriers, manufacturers and supporters aboard, and if developing and deploying apps will be as easy peasy as they brag about it, it will all come down to a single thing: the interface and user experience that the rendering engine will be able to provide. Firefox has its own rendering engine Gecko, contrary to WebKit, which powers Chrome, Safari and Opera. Based on the first videos of the Firefox OS, it seems the interface isn't as smooth as the one you can get from the iPhone, Android or Windows Phone, and not as innovative as Ubuntu Touch. Which can be a big, big problem. Manufacturers may need and support alternatives, but it's the users who will decide, and their expectations are very high.

If Firefox can take care of this, and (stronger) devices are fully adjusted to run it, while developers are able to upgrade the user experience, I don't see a reason why Firefox OS shouldn't gain traction. All the components are there, the brand is strong and the race is long. Go Firefox!

I guess I'm a real blogger now

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 08:28:48 GMT

How glorious my previous week! My post about not stealing other people's ideas made it big time. It took me four years, but I finally managed to write something that was read by more than 10.000 different readers. Ok, there's still a long way to go before I'll reach Swizec's league, but I'm very happy about my evolution as a blogger. The amount of feedback I received this time was amazing, infinite comments on Hacker News and reddit, tweets from startup accelerators Wayra and HackFwd, there was a also a great post on Whiteboard that added an additional sixth reason to my original five. Great results. But what makes this post so important is the fact it's been amplified by all social media channels. Not a few, like my previous viral posts, but all of them. Which confirms I was spot on this time.

The balanced social activity about the post 5 reasons why I won't steal your idea.

Before this, I was afraid I would stay "the Slovenian who went to Silicon Valley and blogged about it", since those posts were read by many, and one of them managed to attract more than 5k uniques. Which happened almost a year ago... Luckily, persistence comes a long way, and I was able to double that! Currently, I feel very motivated to push my blogging forward, hopefully beating the high benchmark I've set on previous Tuesday as soon as possible again. Hooked on social feedback, like all other bloggers.

The traffic of 5 reasons why I won't steal your idea. Around half of all referrals came from Hacker News.

Lessons learned? I admit I started off with very sterile posts, but found "my style" as I went along, learning to master the art of writing. I know this may sound weird, but I noticed the less I was trying to appeal to everyone, the better my posts became, so I just kept playing with words, unconcerned. I guess adding personality to the writing can make wonders. I also noticed how important passion is. This specific post was fueled by my frustrations with different clients, so if you want to blog well, you just have to write about things you really love, hate, or have a strong opinion about. Otherwise the results will just turn out boring and dull.

Thank you for sticking around, hopefully I will be able to deliver more interesting thoughts in the future and improve my writing even further. I love doing it, so I promise to increase the frequency of posting as well. And redesign the chronolog. Again. Many things have happened since 2009.

Challenges await!

How Facebook and Twitter are messing up Slovenian journalism

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 19:56:08 GMT

Before I proceed with this rant, I would like to point out that I strongly believe in social media. I think it can do magical things, hell, we've already seen it has the potential to change the world. But that's just me, a person consuming information, deciding what's real and what not, riding those waves that I like. The media - they should try harder - it's their job to report the truth. In the past few weeks, we've encountered a few slips from the mainstream media here in Slovenia, feeding us with bogus information they've copied from the (social) web. I know it can be hard to track everything that's going on, but still, double-checking a few things and sources wouldn't hurt that much. And since Slovenia is in a quite critical stage at this point, with a fucked up financial situation, austerity measures, protests and everything, this makes it even more important for journalists to do their job properly.

Case 1: the major mayor situation

Those that are acquainted with the current situation in Slovenia, know that we currently have two major protest venues. Maribor, who started it all, and whose protesters have already succeeded in persuading their mayor Franc Kangler to step down (and they aren't stopping there), and Ljubljana, whose activists are protesting more against the Slovenian right-winged government lead by Janez Janša, and no so much against the capital's mayor. You should know that Ljubljana's mayor Zoran Janković is an interesting person, one of those guys that's a bit shady, but since he has done so much for the development of the city, the general public still likes him (but not for much longer it seems).

In a similar fashion as the other protests (who are currently happening on a weekly basis), there was one protest in Ljubljana organized using Facebook and other social media channels, targeted specifically against the mayor. This event had hidden attendees, and their wall was covered with posts such as "10.000 confirmed guests", "15.000 confirmed guests" etc. There were a few of us that laughed at this, but this didn't stop the radio and television from reporting an expected record amount of protesters on that day, based solely on that Facebook event's wall posts! The result: a few hundred people, and some of them had a transparent "Thief, we love you".

The cached version of the event against Zoran Janković - with 15k hidden attendees. The event is no longer available. Spotted by @loudandwicked.

Case 2: the bogus response to the anti-corruption commission report

Today, another interesting thing has happened, and we still need to see how it will turn out. The national Commission for the Prevention of Corruption released a report saying both prime minister Janez Janša and Ljubljana's mayor Zoran Janković have more money that they were supposed to have (in hundred thousand euros). When this happened, Janša's SDS party's parody Twitter account with 30 followers at that time tweeted that this report proved the commission has finally dug into the corrupt communist hole.

The tweet that got mistaken for an official statement.

When I saw this tweet, I instantly checked the profile, since the tweet seemed very unbelievable, concerning the fact their leader is also inside the report. I instantly knew it's a bogus account, but this didn't prevent the Slovenian Press Agency from putting this tweet as a quote inside one of their news (no longer available), and from there on it was instantly picked up by other media as well. We are talking about one of the most important Slovenian news sources!

The citation of the tweet, copied by demokracija.si from STA. Spotted by @miharejc, amplified by @multikultivator, read the the thread.

Time for real journalists to shine

There are probably more cases like this, and it needs to stop! Social media is a wonderful tool for providing additional information about something specific, but as we've seen in the two cases, it often can't be the primary source for the news. Journalism needs to go a step back, and provide credible information from trustworthy sources. Otherwise, there won't be much truth left for our descendants, since too many people will simply have the power to make things up. But everything's not bad - situations like this could provide clear distinction between real journalists with original sources, and those who do nothing else but copy others. Something we critically need in this age of data abundance.

Using JSON (with asp.net) is like wiping your ass with silk

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 18:45:44 GMT

I love mashups. Actually, I love everything about them, I love using them, I love making them, I love those who do everything they can to empower them. In my opinion, mashups are one of the most significant concepts the Web has invented, since they represent unlimited possibilities of integrating and reshaping things that are already done. The platforms out there are stable, so it's the creativity that sets the limits. These days, you can easily take data from anyone and do something else with it. Just don't forget to use JSON.

I'm an old school guy who has been working mostly in enterprise software environments, which means using XML for data integrations, besides, RSS used to be the man. The first generation of Twenity (Twitfluence) was using XML feeds, and this blog is using mostly RSS for fetching entries from other sources. XML was the standard we all spoke, very cute and readable, but on the other hand, not so easy to parse. At that time, this fact didn't represent such a major problem, since a few more lines of code took care of everything. But today is a different situation.

It was Twitter who first started dropping support for XML, which annoyed the hell out of me. I had to start rewriting things for JSON. This turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened, since JSON seems to be loved by everyone. It's super easy to use with jQuery, but since I'm a server-side type of a guy, it's even more important that it's cleverly integrated into asp.net. Fetch the data, store it, do crazy shit with it.

JSON is serializable into a .net object with a single line of code. Create the class with parameters compliant with the the specific JSON structure, serialize the response string into that class, and everything automagically works. Piece of cake, unlimited opportunities. Take Twitter for example:

Make the basic Tweet class:

public class Tweet
{
public string id_str;
public string text;
}

Create the request to access a tweet (funny, the hardest thing to do):

string url = "http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/show/274508827146215424.json";
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(url);
request.Method = "GET";
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());
string jsonResponse = reader.ReadToEnd();
reader.Close();

Which will return something like this (play here):

{
"created_at": "Fri Nov 30 13:42:59 +0000 2012",
"id_str": "274508827146215424",
"text": ""Facebook knows what we say, Google knows what we think",
"source": "web",
...
}

Serialize the response string into an object:

JavaScriptSerializer js = new JavaScriptSerializer();
Tweet tweet = new Tweet();
tweet = js.Deserialize<Tweet>(jsonResponse);
Response.Write(tweet.text);

Pretty neat. Since I've started using JSON, mashups have become easier than ever to make. With one of our latest projects, we've integrated our application with Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare and Flickr. For breakfast! XML may have its advantages, but for such things, JSON is simply the greatest. All hail the new lord!

Occupy Wall Street and Other "Revolutions" as the Ultimate Reality Shows [Repost]

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:11:17 GMT

This post was originally published in November 2011 in a special two part series transatlantic blog post about Occupy Wall Street, on Nick Taylor’s thetwohalves.com, which is no longer available.

The situation isn't peachy. The global economic system is collapsing, the middle class is disappearing, and financial institutions have taken control of the fate of many countries and corporations. People are frustrated and want something else, they want a predictable and stable future. Hence the global Occupy Wall Street movement has been born, supported by various public figures and activist groups such as The Anonymous. Fueled by the success of the Arab Spring, these people are demonstrating against the domination of the rich 1% (or the ultra rich 0.1%), hoping to achieve a better world built on equality, opportunity and optimism.

When history looks upon the events that unfolded in 2011, it will probably view them similarly to 1848, when the Spring of Nations took place in Europe. But this time it's a bit different, it's a bit more theatrical. We're watching it live, and participating in it real-time. Everybody is in it, one way or another, the technology allows it, the people and the media amplify it. Even if you are just an observer, you pretty much know what's going on. People are squatting the streets, the police are trying to prevent it (violently), the corporations and political elites ignore it, some people support it, others don't.

These days, everyone can be a reporter. And most activists are. Equipped with laptops, tablets and smart phones, backed up by social media, thousands of tweets, blogs, pictures and videos are broadcast to the Web each minute. Uncountable number of actors, cameras and commentators make this event bigger than Big Brother, even bigger than The Truman Show. Occupy has become the ultimate global crowdsourced reality show happening non-stop, every minute, every hour, for days, even months.

The fascinating fact about this story is that you can choose the channel you want to watch. You can go directly to the source, to the people who are living it. You can consume it on the secondary level, where television and print media report their own, perhaps biased versions of what's happening. You can study the higher level interdisciplinary implications, such as these great Twitter visualizations of Occupy Wall Street or the Egyptian revolution. The Web is the playground with infinite toys.

But it's up to you if you want to get involved and contribute to the critical mass of this movement. Everybody can be a part of it, even if you're just watching or sharing information from the coziness of your living room. Perhaps you've finally been awarded with the opportunity to change the world. Probably not, but there's always a chance. And if the world won't change, you can at least participate in the show that will go down as one of the greatest reality shows of our time. Are you the 99%?

Check out the complete Occupy Wall Street series.

Sempl 14 key takeaways: top trends in (digital) marketing

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 07:35:00 GMT

The 14th media trends seminar Sempl took place last week in Portorož. This year, I had an opportunity to attend the conference, since Neolab provided the official Twitter wall. And I was glad I could, because Sempl proved itself as an event worth visiting, packed with high profile speakers and marketers not only from Slovenia, but from the entire region. Most lectures were very interesting, and the fascinating fact is that they all went into the same direction. It seems mobile, social and local are so mainstream, they are not even put into the spotlight anymore. But here are the things that were.

Content

Forget classic marketing, it doesn't work (online) anymore. Ads don't work with social, and they don't work with mobile. Advertisers now have to go beyond "YeDiLi" (Yell Disrupt Lie) concept and deliver better, more complete experiences wrapper around their brands. Content marketing within the right context is the what keeps the consumers engaged and loyal, and some brands are already removing their products from their web pages, replacing them with editorial and social content.

Storytelling

Content is crucial, but so is the experience for consumers, which can be delivered using storytelling. People want to be seduced, they need to have the feeling they are a part of a bigger picture, specially if they have the chance join the conversation and the ability to co-create the experience. Storytelling is what helps to keep them engaged with a brand and share their loyalty with their peers.

Futurist Gerd Leonhard delivering his lecture "The total reset of marketing, branding and media"

Second screen

While television still rules the media budgets, more and more people stick to their phones while watch it. Enter the age of the second screen, provided by tablets and smartphones. This is probably one of the biggest opportunities for marketers to deliver all of the above, since these little capable devices support so many things. The ads of the future will be multi-channel interactive experiences, watched on many screens at once. Transmedia FTW.

bonus: the new Shazam is awesome

The platform that fully embraces all of the mentioned concepts has to be the new Shazam. You know that app that recognizes the song you are listening to? Now it can also understand which TV show you are watching, and delivers additional content that comes with it. Cast, trivia, products on screen, etc. One of the best cases that were presented was by Red Bull, which enables watching a snowboard movie with multiple cameras. Crazy shit!

These are the most significant digital marketing trends presented on the conference. Are you already thinking about your next move? Here are the slides from the conference to help you on your way.

Is social media empowering social media?

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:41:08 GMT

Here's a funny thought. You've probably noticed infinite blogs that give you advice on how to blog. Yes, I'm doing it too sometimes. You've probably also heard that tweets containing the word Twitter are one of the most clicked and retweeted out there. The most successful blogs are focused on technology, social media and (mobile) gadgets, which again, enable consumption of the beautiful global network we've built. There are links about Facebook on Facebook, visualizations about the rise of Pinterest on Pinterest. The most clicked links on this blog contain the words Facebook, Twitter or Social. I think I'm not the only one who's noticed this trend, even though I probably tend to have my feeds in configured in such a direction. Is social media empowering social media?

But what does this mean if it's true? That there is no share-worthy content out there and social media has nothing to talk about except cats, zombies and social media?

I believe it's rather the opposite. Ever since second generation social services came around, and Facebook became Twitter (allowing asymmetric relationships), we've discovered it's not just about how many people you know, your message, if it contains added value, can be amplified and distributed very far away. And since everybody's trying to sell something anyways, people began to study how their presence and stories can be optimized, how their reach can be extended. I've seen it a many times, people who come on Twitter with a specific message, but then inevitably become "social media experts" and start tweeting about how to tweet right. Others are planning the best times to publish on Facebook, hoping their posts will get as many likes as possible. Social media marketing can be homemade, and since there are so many people interested in this topic, there's simply a lot of quality content about it.

Social media enabled people to speak up, enabled them to be heard. It seems Andy Warhol was right, everyone is a celebrity these days, but this doesn't happen randomly, it's rather the consequence of a strategy, planned or unplanned. That's why I'll make another bold statement: it may look like social media is empowering social media, simply because we're closing in on a future, where everybody will inevitably become a social media ninja. Or are we there already?

A case study in agile development: the algorithm for Ljubljana Realtime's event discovery

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:01:16 GMT

When we started working on Ljubljana Realtime, we decided to approach it in an agile way. Amongst others, we wanted to use a few interesting lean concepts such as rapid development, Minimum Viable Product and the Build - Measure - Learn iterations. Less than two months later, the results are in, and they are very pleasing. The MVP in the shape of an activity map was developed in a few weeks, only to show there is a lot of social noise which will somehow need to be taken under control. But that's currently low priority, since the first pivot is already taking place, slowly shifting the focus from the rich map application towards an event discovery algorithm and stream. That's where I see the most potential of Ljubljana Realtime, and in the last weeks, that's where the most work was done.

Launch

Ljubljana Realtime event discovery engine uses Foursquare trending venues and geo-tagged posts from Twitter, Instagram and Flickr to discover what's happening in real life. At least 6 people checked-in on Foursquare or two different people tweeting or posting photos in a single hour could mean something is going on. These events are posted to Twitter and Facebook, with links to the posts. A few versions of this algorithm were already deployed, each one solving new problems, resulting in a few micro Build - Measure - Learn cycles in a single month.

Iteration 1: Foursquare, no duplicates

The first version of the stream (bot) was a simple one, at that point it was meant to work as promotion for the map. The only thing it knew how to do was to wait a few hours until it posted the same thing again. I think Foursquare checkins are alive for three hours, so if a trending venue was still trending after that time, new people had to checkin and the venue was still buzzing.

Problem: Plain, no real added value.

Iteration 2: Adding activity from other sources

When we were trying to make some space on the crowded map, we started grouping posts from Twitter and Instagram by the nearest Foursquare venue, which meant having less boxes on the screen. This turned out to be quite a complex thing to do properly, but it was worth the effort. On only a few occasions, one venue would have multiple posts in a single hour, and in most cases, that meant something was happening there. This provided another very interesting potential for the activity stream. Actually, it made the stream bigger than the map could ever be.

(I love it when such things happen, when you are trying to solve a problem, and it turns out there is much more hidden behind the resolution.)

Groupping posts by a venue. Did Ljubljana Realtime just discover an athletic meeting taking place?

The next problem: Activity in some venues, specially generic ones such as "Ljubljana" would trigger the stream almost every day. Similarly, some large venues, such as supermarkets, would be trending too many times on Foursquare.

Iteration 3: Balancing the posts

The algorithm needed an update, which would lower the amount of times when a venue would be recognized as an event, either on Foursquare or on other channels. At first I though about an upgrade which would set the amount of people or tweets needed to trigger the "event discovered" action for a specific venue. This would enable us to reduce the importance of some venues, but it would also require manual work. Luckily, we came up with another brilliant idea: the more times a venue is trending, the harder it is for it to be trending again, at least for the next few days. Automatic balancing.

Venues with the most discovered events. Generic ones, besides massive places, such as train stations, cinemas, squares and shopping centers are too dominating.

The next problem: At this point, we have launched other test instances of Ljubljana Realtime (Maribor, Zagreb and Zurich), to see how the system behaves in other environments. Some cities are bigger, some are smaller, which means they produce different amount of activity. Besides, different services are used differently in different cultures.

Iteration 4: Supporting local instances

Foursquare is big in Croatia (Zagreb), but not so much in Switzerland (Zurich), which means Zagreb Realtime's stream had a lot of Foursquare trending posts, while Zurich's had a lot of "Increased activity on Twitter and Instagram" posts. It was obvious that local instances needed different algorithms. While having an option to set the amounts which would trigger the post on a specific venue would be too much to moderate, having the same logic on a specific region could work. And it does. Zagreb now needs more people checked-in on Foursquare, while Zurich needs more unique people tweeting or sharing photos.

Number of discovered events by type (Foursquare vs. Twitter + Instagram) on each day. Foursquare trending venues are dominating Zagreb, while social streams are dominating Zurich Realtime.

The next problem: The basic algorithm requires two different people to tweet/post from the same location in one hour. In case of Zurich, this amount was set to three, but it turns out this situation happens rarely, around 10 times fewer than with two people, or only two to three times a day. Obviously not enough.

Iteration 5: Improving the "increased activity" weight

You can only have a whole amount of people tweeting in the past hour. Two or three. In our case, we needed something in the range of 2 1/2. The modified solution adds the number of posts divided by ten to the number of users, which means that currently, at least two people making at least three posts in an hour will determine a trending event in Zurich. This is not a perfect solution from the event discovery view, but it does what urgently needed to be done: prevent having too many tweets in the stream.

The next problem: we currently have four Twitter accounts that tweet events for these four cities. Our target was for each of them to make around 10 - 15 tweets a day, which seems like a number that is not spam. But how can a person see which of these events is THE event?

Iteration 6: Going super venue level 2

The latest version of the algorithm now recognizes two levels of events. An event (mostly 6 people on Foursquare, mostly 2 different people tweeting), and an outstanding event (around 12 people on Foursquare, around 4 people tweeting). Our goal was to make this super event happen only once a few days, on rare occasions two times per day, and it has already happened a few times.

Sometimes super events happen, with tens of posts in a single hour, such as the one for Philips Fashion week. These events definitely require more exposure.

The next iterations

At this point, I'm very satisfied with how the algorithm works, even though a few other modifications need to be done (specially to support different days of week specifics and behavior). By measuring what is happening, learning from that information and building the next releases based on that knowledge, the activity stream logic has come a long way from the initial version. Measuring is crucial, and rarely we have went to such extent to enable this in the widest way possible (e.g. the update to balancing the posts based on the previous events would be trivial by itself, but we wanted to log things that would happen but didn't happen, besides things that actually happened).

These cycles of Build - Measure - Learn can be a lot hard work, but they provide great results, which are also very fun and rewarding. Some people simply need to see how deep the rabbit hole is. Do you have any other interesting cases or experience with this approach?

Discover what's happening in Ljubljana in real-time

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:37:29 GMT

I've always been a big fan of the power of the crowds. When a mass of people can achieve much more than a few skilled individuals can. And ever since we've started playing with Twitter's API, I've been think about the possibilities of this magnificent data source. Besides Twenity, we've done a few other Twitter mashups like Twitter walls, but this wasn't enough. We wanted something more - geolocation. Displaying information on a map in real-time. But since there aren't that many tweets equipped with GPS coordinates, we needed to include other services for more diversity as well. Which we did, and Ljubljana Realtime, a social event discovery application, was born.

Launch

Data and services

Ljubljana Realtime currently feeds on four different services: Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram and Flickr. It would be great if we could add other services as well, but Facebook doesn't allow public geo search, Google+ doesn't support geo search at all, and other services either aren't appropriate or don't offer an API which would allow us to get their data.

These four services are visited once a minute, and all posts in a radius of around 5km from Ljubljana city center are found: tweets, Foursquare trending venues, pictures from Instagram and Flickr. A variety of information created with different purposes on different occasions.

The area covered by Ljubljana Realtime. Different services require different searches, based on maximum allowed radius.

The application

These posts are displayed on a map, which was the original idea for the prototype. The last hours of posts on Google Maps, which can be zoomed and filtered at will. But the whole display felt a bit chaotic (still does), since there are many posts in vicinity of one another. That's why we knew we need to group similar posts, and we did this by the post's nearest Foursquare venue. Then a funny thing happened: this simple solution enabled something magnificent, something that could be much bigger than the whole posts-on-a-map application.

Anyways, since geo location is heavily connected with mobile devices, the application is responsive and fully compatible with most smartphones. Perhaps there will be native apps as well at one point.

The stream

Back to the magnificent. Originally, a Twitter bot was intended to come with the application (I love making those), which would tweet all trending foursquare venues to promote the application. But this seemed a bit lame, we needed to add something cooler. Something that would add more value and detect an event before a 4sq trending venue would happen. This is where the mentioned grouping of posts by venue came in handy, and the logic is as follows: if two or more people publish form the same venue in a single hour, this could very well mean something's happening there. And in most occasions, this turned out to be true. Read further for more details.

Discovering an event before a trending venue on Foursquare.

The event discovery stream is available on Twitter and Facebook.

The problems

Besides unstable APIs, the biggest problem we are currently facing is the geolocation itself. GPS chips in mobile phones are often not accurate enough, so people are located tens or hundreds of meters from their actual location. Combine that with the amount of Foursquare venues out there (imagine tall buildings), and you can understand Ljubljana Realtime sometimes has problems with connecting a post to a venue. Not to mention duplicated venues. We've eliminated some of this effect by only using venues with a certain amount of checkins and different users, but this will surely be the greatest challenge the project is facing in the future.

An event which is not.

The results

Problems aside, in most cases, Ljubljana Realtime event discovery works great. In a week or so since it's online, it discovered many events that were happening in Ljubljana (night run to the Castle, an athletic meeting, one of the first iPhones 5 in Slovenia, a public garage sale in park Tabor, etc.), and on many occasions, it discovered these events before a trending venue happened on Foursquare. Which is great. The potential is obviously there, and newer, improved versions and algorithms will surely behave even better.

A few of the great discoveries Ljubljana Realtime made.

The plans

This project is being developed in an agile way, where the application's behavior is constantly being monitored and changes deployed rapidly according to discovered strengths and weaknesses. The MVP (minimum viable product) is there, and with a few minor modifications, Ljubljana Realtime will soon be ready to expand to other cities and regions. Now it's up to you to help us, and it's pretty simple. When something magical is happening on and you are tweeting about it anyways, be a sport and click the arrow to include your geolocation in the tweet. By doing this, you will help others to discover what's going on in our beautiful city.

That's it for now, party on.

p.s. for all the Slovenians out there: the coordinates embedded in a tweet are pretty accurate even though Twitter will say you are in Italy. If you look at the picture of the map below the tweet, there's a polygon around Italy which sadly contains Slovenia as well. Hopefully, Twitter will remove bug someday.

Finally, a reason for bloggers to use Google+

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 13:20:55 GMT

Despite the traffic, there isn't that much going on on Google+, and the referrals from this social network are still not that numerous. Most of mine come from other sources, but Google has a plan, and this plan is a smart one - using their services to push forward other services. You've probably noticed more and more results in Google search contain the author's picture. They stand out from the rest, and since most bloggers want to get as much traffic to their site as possible, this fact can make a difference between which link is clicked or not. If you ask me, setting this up is a must, and it's really easy to do. But you need to have and pimp your Google+ profile.

There are three steps you need to follow:

have an "Author" page, which links to your Google+ profile with rel="me"
have a link to your "Author" page on your post, which contains rel="author"
have a link from your Google+ profile to your "Author" page (in "Contributor to" section)

Here are the full instructions on how to technically implement this. It should take you about 10 minutes, and I've waited for about a week for Google's search results to actually start displaying my profile picture.

This feature has been available for quite some time, but I still see many bloggers that haven't implemented it yet, also because its availability was mostly unnoticed. Combining search and social is definitely an advantage Google (still) has over Facebook, and they should've made more promotion about this interesting upgrade. Bloggers are content creators, and you want as many content creators inside your social network as possible. They are the ones who provide original thoughts that others are looking for and will eventually follow.

It's hard to estimate if this fact (and different pictures) will have any significant impact on search traffic, I'll keep you posted. But before everyone has it, it's a nice little feature that makes your results look different and much more appealing. Good job, Google, content is king, and you should stay its steward.

Dear Twitter, please reconsider this madness

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 15:01:53 GMT

Dear Twitter. You were always one of my favorites. I love it how you managed to create a subculture, something that Facebook will never be able to do. You've allowed people to collectively create information that travels the world in seconds. Your role in many global activist projects is invaluable, and your stance on privacy issues something that inspires the world. You help us find out about things before they actually happen. When the Icelandic volcano was erupting in 2010, I was watching the #ashtag word clouds being broadcasted live on CNN. It was then that it struck me that the media will never be the same again, the power of thousands reporters wins every time. You made it to the mainstream, shaped transmedia into Twitter + television. You were becoming the ultimate foundation for real-time information. You made me realize so many things by being one of the most prominent platforms of the social era. You were the man.

And now you are starting to kill the platform.

Anyone who's read What Would Google Do? would know this is a huge mistake. This book (from 2009!) has a chapter about the value of platforms and distributed systems, and I've been obsessing myself with this revelation ever since. Wrote a blog post about it, which was retweeted by the book's author Jeff Jarvis himself, and it made me even more in love with the idea. Now I'm sure platforms are the future, because they have the ability to outlast services.

The most important things about platforms are the ecosystems around them. Yours was always more appealing to me than Facebook's. Because of the information Twitter has (almost all of it public), because of the culture that's emerged around this information. Twitterers, Developers, even Lurkers and Ninjas, the amount of innovative things that people have managed to build around your core is amazing. Not just silly games and marketing schemes, actually valuable and inspiring things (we've tried it too!). I always believed you were cooler than Facebook, that you have a brighter future, since you weren't trying to keep people inside your services. You seemed to know what made you in the first place.

I understand it's the high level mashups you are interested in, but still, the platform is the most important thing you have. Why not let other people reinvent your user experience, like others are trying to reinvent email? You want that, you want people to make Twitter whatever they want, while creating, consuming and curating the data that's inside you. You need thousand of different clients that feed your infinite hunger, enabling you to build your business model around the tweets that are generated. You want developers to use, abuse and reshape your essence. Because platforms are like networks, there value grows exponentially with the number of nodes they have, and these nodes help platforms evolve even further, in unimaginable ways.

And now you are trying to kill bits of this platform, those bits that help create the most valuable thing you have - hundreds of millions of Tweets every day. They may be just Twitter clients, but they might as well be the most important thing you've ever had. Your fans, your supporters, your ambassadors, your army, your ecosystem. Your future is more important than your monetization, not just to me and to them, to everybody who loves what you are, and to those who don't get you. Your future is important to mankind. That's why you should stay what you were meant to be. You should stay the open platform.

Tweet my Foursquare check-in, and I'll change your relationship status

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:05:01 GMT

Why? Because changing your relationship status on Facebook is so last year. Because all the cool kids are on Twitter and Foursquare. Because you want to discover all the possible ways of saying something. Because you like to play. Because a tagged picture just doesn't cut it anymore. Because you like to speak ambiguously. Because you want to leave people in the dark. Because you want them to read between the lines. Because you don't intend to make it a big deal, but would still like to tell the world. Because that's simply the newest way of doing it. Tweet my Foursquare check-in, and I'll change your relationship status.

There aren't that many relationship status changes on Facebook as there once were, at least in my world. People probably work around it, make their relationship status private, change it, and then make it public again to bypass the mini-feed and avoid too much buzz in their timeline. Don't know why, but I guess having too many birthdays on Facebook made people crave for a bit of anonymity. Attention - good. Center of attention - too much.

Photos were the next step, where two random people accidentally appeared tagged together, preferably only a part of their body (feet), with a beach or some other scenic situation in the background. An implicit relationship status change is way more interesting than the explicit one. Some get it, some don't, the puzzling bit makes it more spicy. What does this picture mean? Will anybody dare to ask?

All good, but obsolete. Here's what happens today. The cool newly appointed couple travels to an exotic place far away, or a romantic spot too significant to be mistaken, and tweets their mutual check-in. Something that undoubtedly signals a thing. Most people notice, but not that many flinch. This is usually followed by an Instagram picture of the other person, which confirms the previous assumption, and the second person retweets it. At this point, the relationship status has pretty much been changed, even though it's documented only by a few tweets somewhere very far away down the timeline. And from there on, people who are supposed to know, know.

True story, I've already seen it a few times. Loving the way how people and culture evolve in the social age.

Is it even possible to create original content in this age?

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 11:52:13 GMT

I've been blogging for more than three years now. And I love doing it, hell, I think my blog is pretty fucking awesome. But there's a problem I've been noticing lately. Every single piece of content I write has probably been written hundred times before. By mainstream media, by authors, by bloggers, by you. There's no way around it, and it bugs me to infinity. Take this specific post for instance, I won't even google it, but I can guess plenty of others writers have faced these thoughts and wrote about them from their own viewpoints. The irony of the situation is fantastic.

The amount of information on the internet is overwhelming. Thousands of blogposts created every day, hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, infinite tweets (check out this cool infographic). And only so many things you can tell. Which pretty much means that no matter what you write, someone else surely wrote it before you. All the topics have been covered so many times it's silly. You feel you're stealing other people's ideas even if you aren't. Or are you?

I'm one of those people who tries to absorb as much information as possible. I want to learn every day, synthesizing the gathered knowledge for various reasons, such as my work or this blog. From this perspective, I'm inevitably copying other people's ideas, rewriting content that's already been written many times before. Stealing Lego blocks and using them to build new sculptures. Is there even such a thing as an original idea? There probably really aren't that many.

Writers and bloggers are just a bunch of monkeys who are trying to write Shakespeare anyways. Curators, who are striving to separate the sheep from the goats, blending extraordinary ideas into somethings even greater. And that's what matters, that's where the value is added. Even though most of the content is not original, if any. But I guess that's ok, I just needed to think and write about it, which helped me understand this is the very essence of blogging.

Do you think we are slowly reaching the end (of science)?

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 09:59:15 GMT

This was great week for science. The scientists from CERN Large Hadron Collider finally proved with great probability that the Higgs boson particle exists. Not that any of us mortals truly understand what it means for the future of mankind, but it's supposed to be quite significant, so I won't argue with that. Science has come a long way, and while we take into account a few other interesting and revolutionary fields, such as Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnolooy, Nuclear Fission, Stem Cells, Genetics, etc., we must also consider the timeframe in which these discoveries did or will take place, in relation to the history of our planet and humanity.

Imagine this: if history of Earth would be represented by one standard year, first cells would appear by the end of February, life would move to dry land around December 1st, dinosaurs would appear on December 13th, modern mammals on December 27th. On the evening on December 31st, first hominids would evolve in Africa, and 10 minutes before midnight, Neanderthals would spread throughout Europe. Around minute to midnight, agriculture would be invented, the Roman Empire would collapse 10 seconds before new year's, and the last 2 seconds would be marked by the industrial era. (source)

Makes you think about our insignificance in the history of Earth (not even the whole universe). But we've come a long way in these few minutes. The steam engine was invented 250 years ago, and look at us now. All in two seconds of Earth's history!

I think it was Isaac Asimov who said modern computerization represents the fourth big revolution in communication, after speech, writing and printing. Speech was invented tens of thousands of years ago, writing thousands of years ago, printing hundreds of years ago, and information technologies decades ago. Yes, it goes exponentially faster with each iteration, because every new generation of communication allows information to travel faster and reach more people, besides the fact that each time, global population is a few times greater than before. This enables science and knowledge to evolve even on a faster pace. Thousands of universities and scientist are already taking into account what CERN had discovered and announced, developing theories even further, making experiments of their own.

If all goes well, I think there is only one possible scenario: we will soon come to the end. Find that particle, understand that impulse, define that force. And by soon I don't mean tomorrow, or even in our generation, but in no time compared to History. Hundred, even thousand years? Why not. Ten, hundred thousand years? Sure, we have time, what are a few "minutes" more. Imagine everything we'll discover if we don't fuck it up on a major scale and our society evolves in a similar fashion as it did before.

But what is waiting for us at the end? Well, I think we are all pretty much aware of that. "Why are we here?", "What do we have to do?", "Is this real life?" and that sort of shit that brought us here in the first place. I think science has a good chance of clearing these things up one day, and then we will find the ultimate answer (or question). And Science will become one with Religion and the whole situation will be quite ironic, concerning the traditionally opposed stance they have. The only question that remains is, will we live happily ever after then, or will we just find another, greater and even more complex system, where we will have to help our Gods find their Gods?

The final destination, part 1: technologies and concepts enterprise IT will have to adopt

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 18:38:09 GMT

In the past years, we've witnessed a very important transformation: the consumerization of information technologies. Billions of connected users living their life online, overwhelmed by millions of information systems that have been tailored to suit their every need and desire. Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon came a long way with their products and infrastructure, but the enterprise isn't losing any time. Learning from the new paradigms and adopting new funky technologies, that have traditionally been developed in corporate laboratories. Can the Fab 4 also predict where enterprise IT is headed? And what will it become?

A few weeks ago I participated in a panel for PI-PL on Ljubljana's Faculty of Economics, where I was asked this exact question: where do I see corporate IT in 10 years. A very hard question indeed, but the more I thought about the it, the clearer it became. Enterprise data, software and technology will sooner or later integrate everything. Simple as that. But to fully understand how this will happen, we must first try to identify the most important trends that have shaped information technologies as we know them today. Yes, most of them don't have that much to do with the enterprise. But things are changing.

Cloud technologies

While cloud computing may have been present in the enterprise for quite some time, it's still pretty much dominated by web players like Google (mail, docs, etc.) and Amazon (hardware), who are also flirting with the enterprise. Who wouldn't? There are massive benefits for businesses to move their stuff to the cloud, from scalable physical Infrastructure to higher level Platform or Software as a service information systems.

Perhaps the most important thing the Cloud achieved was to render technology infrastructure irrelevant. It doesn't matter any more, what kind of environment you use. What type of security, infrastructure, servers and network you have installed. You can outsource these things to others, and it will be much easier and cheaper, while all your migrating-to-a-bigger-thing problems will be solved with a swipe of a credit card. I was fascinated that Microsoft now offers Linux based servers on their Azure cloud services, which can be changed to Windows with a click of a button. Architecture doesn't matter anymore, and this fact helps IT departments to focus on more important things than system administration.

APIs, mashups, platforms and ecosystems

Heavily connected with the whole Cloud concept, data and information never had it easier to travel from one place to another. System migrations (moving data from one information system to another) and system integrations (connecting multiple information systems into one) have always been one of the biggest challenges of IT. But the web didn't have as much resources as the enterprise, so it had to simplify things. By offering APIs (Application Programming Interface), web applications allowed others applications to work with their data in an easy way. Mashups, hybrid information systems built on top of others, were born.

Pretty much every noteworthy web service has its own API. This helped a lot of them to become a platform. You know, like Facebook and Twitter, who have created an ecosystem, where thousands of other applications live around them? Soon, similar concepts will dominate the enterprise too. There are already players like Salesforce, who not only offer business-oriented Software as a service solutions, but the also a Platform for other developers to build services on top of their services. And since everything is so open, all this data can easily be integrated with other information systems or transferred to a different environment. Modern information systems don't have problems with understanding each other, but IT departments have problems with understanding information systems, since different, more business oriented skills are needed to support these integrations.

Mobile devices and new distribution channels

More than ten years ago, when I was an Information Sciences student, there was still a debate going on about the benefits of web based enterprise information systems over traditional Client - Server architecture. In the end, the Web won, mostly because distribution was so easy, you make the update on the server, and every user gets it instantly. Employees need nothing but a browser. They are acquainted with the environment ever since they started using Hotmail, and took it for their own ever since they started using Facebook.

But today, it seems the Web is losing its ground as the leading infrastructure, since a new technology came into town. Capable mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, now enable access to information systems from anywhere, anytime in real-time. Besides, they arrived with their own app markets, which enabled a whole potential for software distribution, and perhaps more importantly, for software billing. You give a fair share to the store owner, who also promotes your solution, and you can freely focus on developing and marketing the product. It's true that mobile apps may not be as flexible as web applications, since the users need to install the updates (even though this can also be achieved by combining native mobile and hosted HTML 5), but the trend is clear. Apple already has its Mac store, Microsoft Windows will follow soon. Distribution of mobile and Software as a service information systems is becoming trivial.

Big data and The internet of things

Traditionally, banks, retailers and financial institutions have been the organizations that operated with the most data in the world. Well, things are changing, and we can only wonder who owns the most bytes today: is it Google, Facebook or someone else? Since there are less transactions than there are interactions, we can estimate consumer oriented information systems with billions of users are the biggest in existence. While this data is accessible to the enterprise to some extent, there are also hundreds of other systems the enterprise or its employees use, and they all create massive amounts of data and information, which needs to be integrated into a wider picture.

Not only that. Today, there are already are more connected devices that we have initially anticipated. These devices (cameras, sensors, tools, etc.) create even more data, which the enterprise needs to process. This trend of wired gadgets is called The internet of things, and together with the large amount of interconnectable information systems businesses use, points to one important trend: the typical enterprise was never faced with so much data and information, which somehow needs to be integrated and understood in an interdisciplinary way.

New ways of doing things, on a higher level

In the mean time, these consumer oriented (B2C) web corporation not only became a few of the biggest technology companies in existence, they've also invented new ways of how to get things done. From Google's 20%, to flat organizations without management, more and more companies (not only startups) set out to revolutionize how business is done. In the service oriented society, creativity is important, but so is productivity and the ability to ship fast. Done is better than perfect.

With new types of management concepts, such as lean and agile, modern organizations are becoming more and more flexible. Not only in doing things, but also in switching from one technology to another. These companies have developed their own way of thinking about which software to use. And it probably has a lot to do its price, how fast can you start using it, how scalable and connectable it is, and how fast can you dump if for another. IT requirements are moving to a higher level, and information systems have become just pieces of a puzzle that needs to be completed.

Design and user experience

Design and user experience probably still don't have that much to do with enterprise IT, but they are very much worth mentioning nevertheless. Face it, users are becoming more and more demanding, and software developers need to make better and better software. Even though the above mentioned facts are probably the dominating factor for the choice of which information systems the enterprise will use, design and user experience matter more and more.

Businesses have always had problems with implementing new software, educating the users, going through the whole status quo change. But beautiful and useful software penetrates faster. People perceive beautiful things to be more useful, and it's the whole intuitiveness and usability of software that helps them adopt something without too much resistance and problems. Some software vendors already found out user experience is the new competitive advantage, and in the end it may be the thing that tips the scale. But the whole point behind it is that I can see better, more clever and detailed, information systems force out older ones on an even faster pace. The whole world of information systems need reinvention, and user experience design will be the science behind these upgrades. Benefits are becoming more important than features.

Social, crowdsourcing and gamification

More than 3 years ago, I was very excited to present a concept we have been developing in Neolab on Days of Slovenian IT. I called it IT 2.0, since it meant integrating social services into enterprise software (at that time, Enterprise 2.0 was more widely used for stand-alone social software such as wikis or corporate blogs). The truth is, I didn't get the chance to sell it well, and in the mean time, disruptive social services managed to fully find their way into the enterprise. But business won't stop here; there are many other fascinating things the internet has invented that can fully be applied to corporate environments.

Gamification, the art of using gaming mechanics in non gaming environments, is getting more and more claim beyond the web. Both for motivating employees, as for motivating clients. We all like to play, so why should work be any different? And we all like to participate in something bigger, that is why crowdsourcing, where people coproduce something, can bring such exciting results. Can you see where I'm headed?

We are all human, and in the end, behaving on a very basic level. Sometimes we perform better, sometimes worse, and we all hold hidden potential even ourselves aren't aware of. That is what software in the workplace can sometimes help us discover, and it's something more and more businesses are aware of. Social, gamification and crowdsourcing are only a few approaches that can make us feel better and more motivated, and they are all concepts that enterprise IT will adopt sooner or later. Behind every company, there are only people.

The final destination of enterprise IT

These are the concepts and technologies that will shape enterprise IT of tomorrow. And with it, new challenges will emerge, together with new profiles of people, who will understand and use all of the above. These profiles, such as data scientists and business analysts, will help enterprise IT do what it was destined to do: Integrate life, the universe and everything.

But that's another story. Coming up soon.

Check out the complete The final destination series.

What's hot on the web - Part 7: The greatest metameme ever?

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:49:02 GMT

By now you've probably already noticed Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" is a pretty amazing song. It's actually one of the most played songs ever on YouTube (currently on 17th place with around 260 million plays), and already has plenty of great remixes and variations. One of the covers that is really worth mentioning is the performance by Walk Off The Earth, where five people play this song on one guitar.

This great cover already has more than 120 million plays itself, enough to get its own parody by The Key Of Awesome. This funny adaptation of the cover has more than 7 million views, and the puppet interpretation of the adaptation almost 400 thousand. But wait, there's more. A few other guys, inspired by the parody, converted it into a Tetris theme song version, with around 50 thousand views, and a parody of the puppet version of the parody version exists too. Enough to create one the the greatest metamemes in existence, and to make it to What's hot on the web series.

You'll enjoy this, and don't get too confused.

The original

Views: 259,894,229
Published: Jul 5, 2011

The cover of the original

Views: 121,555,950
Published: Jan 5, 2012
Inception level: 46.77 %

The parody of the cover of the original

Views: 7,524,547
Published: Feb 8, 2012
Inception level: 6.19 %

The puppet version of the parody of the cover of the original

Views: 396,868
Published: Feb 8, 2012
Inception level: 5.27 %

The response to the parody of the cover of the original

Views: 49,580
Published: Feb 16, 2012
Inception level: 0.66 %

The parody of the puppet version of the parody of the cover of the original

Views: 642
Published: Mar 18, 2012
Inception level: 0.16 %

Pretty impressive stuff, isn't it? Man, I love the interwebs.

Check out the complete What's hot on the web series.

Putting 'people who look at you' to your Facebook profile would be the smartest thing to do

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 10:50:34 GMT

Are you one of those people who are wondering how Facebook decides which friends they put on your profile? I admit I am, both out of programmer's curiosity and of course, there have been rumors that those individuals are the ones who look at your profile. While LinkedIn offers this "who looks at your profile" insight to its (premium) users, Facebook is still very mysterious about it, denying this is how this particular algorithm works. But there is a simple reason I don't believe them: if I would be Facebook, I would design it exactly like this.

EdgeRank

Facebook uses EdgeRank to calculate the connection between two people, determined by the amount of mutual friends, interactions, tagged photos, attended events and other parameters in a time period. Besides other things, the EdgeRank influences which posts get displayed in your news feed. It seems Facebook is saying that a similar algorithm is used for the friends on your profile, but is it really?

The exploit

Some time ago, someone managed to find a way inside the EdgeRank results. This guy noticed that Facebook caches the list of your friends, together with the level of proximity you have with each one. This stored part of the social graph helps search and other lists on Facebook to work faster and be sorted better. He was nice enough to write a script and made it public, so everybody can see who their Facebook BFFs are. The results looks like the real deal, and it's actually quite fascinating that Facebook hasn't patched this potential abuse yet, it's been available for almost a year.

Bottom line: the list of friends in your EdgeRank and the list of friends on your profile are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike each other.

Comparing my closest friends to those that are showing up on my Facebook profile

Why bother?

Facebook needs to constantly drive your engagement, and they have infinite data about you. They are trying to seamlessly integrate their experience into every pore of your life and make you even more connected. They are saying they can predict when hookups and breakups will happen. Who do you think they would put on your profile?

It would work

Adding "people who look at you" to your Facebook profile would act as the poke that never got clicked. The most basic (inter)action, something that wants to lead to something bigger. The invisible act of someone longing for engagement. Potential connection, potential partnership, potential relationship. The beyond EdgeRank scary social experiment, which holds infinite possibilities, positive and negative. An almost godly algorithm. Why would anyone even think of doing it differently? It simply doesn't get much better than this.

I would do it, I believe Facebook would do it as well, but even if they did, it's pretty clear why they can't tell us. This feature would work only as long as we wouldn't really believe it's being used. That's why you need to forget about all of this and simply enjoy your virtual life.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Why I don't believe in these crazy technology company valuations

Mon, 21 May 2012 08:14:15 GMT

The debate about the potential second technology bubble is all over the media. One of the first milestones that will determine the outcome of this story happened on friday, when Facebook went public. As opposed to other (smaller) web IPOs of the past years (LinkedIn, Groupon, Zynga, Yandex), the price on the first day stayed on the same level. This was to be expected, since Facebook received the valuation of 100 billion dollars. To put that in perspective, that's around half of Google's value, and about the same value as Amazon has. But Facebook makes 10 times less revenue than Google does, and its revenue growth is slowing down. Was Facebook valued too high? It seems so, and some analysts are already saying that most of the stocks were bought by institutional investors to keep the share price above 38$.

Facebook is not the real problem

But Facebook is not the biggest problem. It is the leading global social service, and an established company with almost 1 billion registered users, besides making quite a hefty amount of revenue ($3.7 billion in 2011). I'm more worried because of others, who make little or no revenue at all. Today, Rovio is valued around the same as Nokia, with yearly revenues of around $100 million. Instagram, with practically no revenue model, was bought for $1 billion, which is 12.000 times what Kodak is worth. A bit silly.

In technology, specially the web, companies come and go. The lifespan of services is short, and people don't hesitate to switch to a new, better alternative, and they switch fast. Remember Excite? Yahoo? MySpace? They were on top of the world not more than a decade ago. Draw Something, which was bought by Zynga for $200 million, already lost millions of users. How long does will it take for people to get bored with Angry Birds? Foursquare, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, even Facebook?

Still looking for a revenue model? Consider this.

Most of these companies have millions of users, and that is probably what fuels their valuations the most. Even though, quite a few of them are still looking for their revenue model. But what if the market simply isn't big enough for everybody? What if that is the real problem behind not being able to find a revenue model? I did some research, and here's what I found out:

the projected global spending on online advertising will be around 97$ billion in 2013 and $113 billion dollars in 2014 (source, source)
around half of that will be spent on search, around half on display (source)
projected revenues of social media ad spending in the US are around $10 billion in 2016 (source)
global mobile ad spending in 2016 will be around 15% of total online spending, or $22 billion (source)
apps and in-app purchases will generate around $46 billion in 2016 (source)
estimated size of the virtual goods market in 2015 is around $5 billion (source)
Google makes around $40 billion a year (source)

Perhaps I'm missing something, but these facts tell me that all of these companies have a market of around $150-$200 billion in 2015. ALL of them, including all the local players. Not really that much when you think about it. Sure, it's a different industry without production, but for comparison, Apple's yearly revenues are about $100 billion.

Trying to understand the math behind valuations

I went even further, and analyzed the performance of these companies; how much they earn, how much they are worth, and how many users they have. Then I tried to compare the price / sales, sales / users and price / users ratios. Since a few of high-valued companies basically have no revenue (Instagram, Foursquare), it seems that they are worth mostly between $20 and $100 dollars per user.

	Sales ($b)	Price ($b)	Users (m)	Price / Sales	Sales / Users	Price / User	Source
Amazon	50	100	/	2.00	/	/
Apple	110	520	/	4.73	/	/
Draw something	0.05	0.2	10	4.00	5.00	20.00	revenue, value, users
Facebook	4	100	900	25.00	4.44	111.11	revenue, value, users
Foursquare	/	0.7	20	/	/	35.00	revenue, value, users
Google	40	200	1000	5.00	40.00	200.00	users
Groupon	2	8	115	4.00	17.39	69.57	users
Instagram	/	1	50	/	/	20.00	revenue, value, users
Kodak	6	0.07	/	0.01	/	/
Linkedin	0.5	14	130	28.00	3.85	107.69	users
Microsoft	70	260	/	3.71	/	/
Nokia	38	11	/	0.29	/	/
Pinterest	0.05*	1	12	20.00	4.17	83.33	revenue, value, users
Rovio	0.1	9	1000**	90.00	0.10	9.00	revenue, value, users
Tumblr	/	1	30	/	/	33.33	revenue, value, users
Twitter	0.14	10	100	71.43	1.40	100.00	revenue, value, users
Yahoo	5	19	170	3.80	29.41	111.76	users
Zynga	1	7	150	7.00	6.67	46.67	users

Data for publicly traded companies are available on MarketWatch.
* - estimate
** - downloads

Google manages to make the most from its users, around $40 per user per year. How much can the others make in the long-run, put together with the estimated $150b market size? How many can even earn anything before their users leave? The equation somehow doesn't add up.

These companies are great, but still…

I'm a big fan of the internet, I truly admire these companies, and use most if their services. But I still think this is madness. Didn't we learn enough from the first dot-com bubble? Today, we're a part of the social / mobile excitement, what can we expect tomorrow, the semantic excitement? The internet is maturer than this, and nobody will take it seriously, if it will behave so manically depressive. Ups and downs every few years surely don't work that well, and another bubble is definitely something the we don't need in these unstable economic times. So, please guys, take it a bit easier. don't be too greedy and enjoy what we have.

Perhaps the best thing that could happen at this point is for Facebook to lose about 30%-50% of its value. That could put some sense into the frenzy, before it goes to far. The situation surely needs more consideration.

You know what's cooler than $100 billion dollars? $50 billion dollars.

Security questions are the dumbest thing the internet has ever invented

Wed, 02 May 2012 20:05:54 GMT

At one point of the evolution of the World Wide Web, somebody came up with this fantastic idea. This person must have thought that the problem of securing your online identity was just solved in a very elegant form: security questions, which only the person who owns the account is able to answer. But there's a problem. Even if security questions worked at one point in time (which I also doubt), they simply don't work anymore, so you might as well lose them. Luckily, most services already did that, and Facebook tried to innovate this feature with "recognizing friends" alternative, but I somehow still manage to find them. And fail using them.

True story

A few years ago I had to set up the security questions with my online broker because of their new online privacy policy. Since financial services are a bit delicate, they are trying to provide as much security as possible. One of the questions I had to answer was "What is the last name of your favorite athlete". Since I wouldn't take risks, I did something silly with the answer, but forgot what that silly was. I tried to remember on few occasions, but failed miserably every time. In the end, because of the recent Apple and Facebook stock exchange frenzy, I had to make a phone call to the States and reset my security questions. A waste of time and money.

Why u no work?

But why don't security questions work? Firstly, nobody's sure how they work with the specific service. Will somebody be able to reset my password by answering them right? Or will I be required to answer them after I login to the system with my username and password? Or will they be used just in case I need to prove my identity on the telephone? Who knows… (and don't bother explaining)

Than the next problem happens. When I'm asked to answer the security questions such as "Your first girlfriend's name", "Mother's maiden name", "Favorite holiday spot" or "Your pet's name", I can think of plenty of people who might know such things, and don't know what these monsters could do with the answers (see above). Sure, these are mostly people I trust, but lately, quite a few answers to questions like this can be found elsewhere, e.g. on Facebook. How can I be sure my mother has the correct privacy settings? Or that my pet won't appear tagged on someone else's picture? Is that a risk I'm willing to take?

Time to drop

Bottom line: I tend to be creative or lie when I'm answering security questions, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who does it. Lies and creativity are easily forgotten, so I end up not knowing the right answer when the time comes. Face it, you can not make a generic query that only I will be able to answer, and that's where the story ends. So please, stop using security questions, they don't work! Think of something else.

DISCLAIMER: Please note I'm not trying to persuade anybody to lower their security standards, but the fact is, people are emailing passwords to each other.

The future (of software) is in platforms

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:26:11 GMT

I don't know if you've had the chance to read What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis. You should, it's a very powerful book, even though it's been written a few years ago. Things have changed a bit since then, when Google was on top of it's game, but that doesn't mean the ideas presented in the book aren't more actual than ever. One of the chapters that made the biggest impact on me was the one about platforms and distributed systems. Google managed to conquer the world of Web 1.0 by being decentralized, allowing others to embed YouTube videos, Google Maps and Ads anywhere on the Web. This orientation provided the fuel for Google's further development and growth. Today, this way of thinking is not a competitive advantage anymore, it's becoming a necessity. As you will see, current online market leaders of various industries are not those who provide the service, they're the ones who provide the platform.

Platforms rule because mashups rule

Platforms, as opposed to products and services, allow others to build on top of them. Not thinking about control and centralization, they provide the basic building blocks other can use to develop even more products and services. In the world of Web 1.0, this meant using an embedded YouTube video instead of having your own video player, but Web 2.0 has been heavily defined by ecosystems of services built around other services. With APIs these platforms provide, developing high-level mashups has never been easier from the technical point of view, and this type of architecture benefits everybody. The platform vendor gets additional developers that extend and market it's service, while the satellite mashup gets the distribution channels, users and data they need to get somewhere faster. A modern synergy packed symbiosis.

Oren Michels, CEO of Mashery, which provides API as a service, talking for Silicon Gardens in Kiberpipa

The technology platforms

Today, pretty much all of the technology market leaders are platforms. Google allows various levels of use of it's services, from embedding things to using different APIs. Facebook's games and other apps ecosystem is huge, with providers such as Zynga already gone public. Twitter and it's massive amounts of tweets generated in real-time produced the Twitterverse - an array of fascinating high-level services. Foursquare, a geo-location network allowed other interesting concepts, such as augmented reality and games, on top of its service. Amazon offers you to build your own store, and Apple's and Android's mobile app stores are hosting hundreds of thousands of apps developers can build, deploy and distribute in short amounts of time. Salesforce offers a platform for enterprise IT, WordPress for writing and blogging tools. I could go on, but you get the picture. Platforms are the future, because they evolve collaboratively, with thousands, if not millions of people co-creating them.

A massive Salesforce conference in San Francisco, which I've visited on my Silicon Valley trip (thanks Davorin!)

The real-life platforms

Not only in software and technology, platforms in real-life are also becoming more widespread. The whole Apple iPad/iPhone gadgets ecosystem is one of the most obvious cases, where various providers offer sound systems, dongles, add-ons and other accessories that upgrade and make the original item even more appealing. Nespresso and Dolce Gusto are another interesting products. Nestlé provides the platform - the small coffee pads, which they are pushing to the market, while different manufacturers make coffee machines and other complementary products. The platform becomes more useful because of its satellites, which make the platform even more successful, turning this relationship into a virtuous circle.

Coffee machines by various vendors for Nestlé Dolce Gusto

So what should I do?

Firstly, you should embrace this way of thinking and understand what's happening. Platforms have been around since the beginning of software, even though you maybe haven't thought about them in such a way. Computer architectures, Operating systems, Programming languages and Development environments are all platforms, on a more basic level - but they provide the foundation which others can build on top of. Other platforms are build atop of these and others atop of those. Platforms are everywhere, and with every new level, they are less technically, and more conceptually oriented. Think about where you fit in.

Next, find a platform that suits what you are trying to do. Personally, against many odds, I believe more in Twitter than I do in Facebook, since Facebook is trying to keep as much as possible inside its service, while Twitter acts distributed. One of our projects is Twenity, a game we've developed around Twitter influence measuring.

If you're feeling lucky, you might want to become a platform on your own. While this may be almost impossible to do, it's something I wish I will have the chance to do someday. Neolab already has its own development framework, and if we do manage to make enough surplus or find an investor that will take us down this road, I'll be the first one in line. That is, if we don't decide to join an established platform and rather build on top of that.

Things have changed. The future (of software) is in platforms. Are you already a part of the show?

The Silicon Valley tour, part 6: A trip to the Internet Archive

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:28:09 GMT

Those that have read my previous post about visiting the technology giants of Silicon Valley, might have gotten the idea that organizations around here aren't that welcoming to strangers. Well, that might not be entirely true. One of my stops in San Francisco also included a visit to the Internet Archive, a foundation that is trying to preserve all the information our civilization possesses. And they were more than welcoming. Besides giving Andraz and me a full tour of their headquarters, they've also invited us to one of their staff meetings, where the Archive's members and volunteers present their activities and results from their specific fields.

The Internet Archive is located in a former church in San Francisco, so there's more than enough room for all the people and hardware. Two main projects are currently taking place; one is the Wayback Machine, which makes snapshots of websites throughout history, and the other is the Archive, which represents systematic digitalization of movies, music and books, manually done by its members. A never-ending task that can only be done by activists who genuinely want to protect the knowledge of mankind, and you can contribute to the effort as well.

During our tour, 2.5 petabytes (that's 2.5 million gigabytes!) of data was mentioned, but I'm not sure if that's just one of the projects or both. This data is well protected, with mirrors all over the world. Impressive stuff, good enough to currently make archive.org the 223rd most visited site in the world (according to Alexa), get to the front page of The New York Times, and receive various prestigious awards.

One of the most fascinating stops of my Silicon Valley trip was indeed educational and inspiring, and it got me thinking: If there's a modern Library of Alexandria in the making, this would be it. Thumbs up.

Internet Archive's Headquarters in San Franscisco. It goes well with the logo, even though they came here only a few years ago.

The staff meeting, where members from various fields presented their achievements

Everyone that is an employee for more than 3 years, gets its own figure inside the church

Brewster Kahle, the chairman, passionately presenting the Archive's servers. There is no air condition, since heat is used for building heating.

The irony: since consumer hard disks are cheaper, they buy those and get rid of the casings.

This is how scanning of videos, microfilms and books looks like

Are we there yet?

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Check out the complete The Silicon Valley tour series.

The Silicon Valley tour, part 1: Seedcamp America Trip visiting the Googleplex

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 02:05:21 GMT

When I decided to travel to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, I didn't expect things will be happening so fast. But thanks to Andraž from Zemanta, I managed to do two awesome things already on the first day after I've arrived - visit Google's headquarters in Mountain View and talk with the Seedcamp teams, currently on their tour of the United States. They came here to present their projects to potential investors, and Google was nice enough to accommodate one of the mentoring sessions in the Googleplex.

The Googleplex experience

Googleplex is huge, it seems that there's a whole town that exists only because of Google. When you get here, you really get the idea about the size of the corporation - it's a corporation by all of its meaning. Infinite buildings and office for various Google products, hundreds of people going back and forth.

What was said about Google is still true. You do want to work there. The place looks great and there's a feeling of extreme brain power everywhere you look. We got fed for free and even met Žiga, who is one of the few Slovenians working for Google. He's been doing it for a few years now, working on Google search, and he says he loves it. Who wouldn't?

Google's park and restaurant, located in the 1950 Mountain View building

Cafeteria and chill-out zone inside

The slide in the main lobby - sadly out of order. The screen displays Google search queries.

The Seedcamp experience

The mentoring sessions for Seedcamp teams took place in the afternoon in one of the buildings (Mountain View 1950 to be exact), where the companies currently in the Seedcamp program presented their solutions. I was honored to be one of the mentors, trying to help the projects with my experience in enterprise IT, business intelligence and Twitter integrations. Hopefully I was able to give the teams I was associated with some decent feedback. Here is the list of all 19 Seedcamp teams on the tour (including Oust.me from Slovenia), and these are the six I managed to get to know a bit more:

Zingl, a dating service that uses the social, interest and location graphs to match people
24symbols, a solution for e-books based on a subscription model
AppExtras, a plugin for mobile apps that allows publishers to promote other apps
archivme, a service for managing invoices and other business documents in the cloud
Bilbus, which works as a broker between businesses and lenders
blossom, a project management tool for lean companies

Pretty much all of these 19 companies managed to create some very impressive business models and innovative new services.

Alex presenting Oust.me, a location-based conquering game

Mentoring sessions happened in various rooms

A bit of food and drinks after an exhausting day

What now?

So far, so good. The Seedcamp experience in the Googleplex was amazing, and I learned more in one day than I did before in months. I truly hope these teams will be able to get what they came looking for, and I hope I will too. I just need to find out what that is, because I'm not even sure anymore.

Check out the complete The Silicon Valley tour series.

Cool Slovenian brands, part 1: Technology startups making it big

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:23:10 GMT

Slovenia has a surprisingly high level of technology companies that made a global impact. These startups are an inspiration to everybody, and we hope more of us will be joining them soon. Some made it with the support of different incubators, such as Seedcamp or Y Combinator, others made it on their own. They all share an innovative and outstanding product or service, proving that Slovenia is a place of very talented and ambitious people. While there are probably even more successful startups I haven't heard of or mentioned, I think these eight Slovenian technology organizations created the most hype in the recent few years.

Celtra

With the recent domination of smartphones and tablets, mobile advertising is sky-rocketing. And we are not talking only about ads inside apps, we are talking about multi-platform mobile rich-media ads. These ads go beyond the direct effect of clicking, they enable mobile branding, attracting top-level multinational companies. Celtra has developed a platform for publishing and tracking such ads, and it is so hot they've received 5 millions in investor funding.
http://celtra.com

DoubleRecall

DoubleRecall is a company that might as well save the printing industry. The internet made information more accessible, and people are willing to pay less and less for it. Banner ads don't generate enough revenue for online editions, so newspapers are trying other options, specially content paywalls and tablet editions. In the mean time, DoubleRecall "invented" a new type of ad, where you have to type-in in a few words to access the article. High recollection of something you read and type make this type of ad very effective, and advertisers are willing to pay a lot for it. DoubleRecall got picked by YCombinator.
http://doublerecall.com

Flowr

Even though Enterprise 2.0 has been around for a while, we haven't seen it penetrating business on a large scale. Flowr addresses this issue, offering a simple and effective service for online collaboration between coworkers and teams. Call it Facebook for the enterprise if you like, these types of applications surely are the future of work. The Flowr managed to become a finalist in the Enterprise 2.0 conference.
http://theflowr.com

Oust.me

The latest Slovenian Seedcamp winner, Oust.me, combines two fascinating and trendy technologies: location based networking and gamification. The game supports Foursquare and other geo platforms, and its main objective is to conquer as much territory as possible by checking-in to places, becoming an ouster. Recently, they've also introduced a risk-type game that you play in teams. Your life should be a game? Can't agree more.
http://oust.me

Outfit7

Thanks to a series of talking friends available on most smartphone platforms, Outfit7 has become one of the most successful mobile development companies, and its founder one of the wealthiest Slovenians. At this point, more than 200 million downloads of Talking Tom, Talking Santa and other characters have been made. One of the most fascinating facts about Outfit 7 is that they have identified a totally new target group - children on (parents') smartphones and tablets, which is shown by their vision: we compete against Mattel and Disney. Ingenious.
http://outfit7.com

Toshl

Toshl is a fun app that helps you track expenses on your smartphone. With more than $250.000.000 expenses tracked on different mobile platforms, Toshl managed to became a finalist on SeedCamp New York in 2011. The competition there was fierce, so they didn't receive any funding, but that didn't stop them from moving to Silicon Valley, where the real magic happens. We are standing by to hear about the results.
http://toshl.com

Vox.io

Vox.io is one of the hottest Slovenian startups at this point. After winning Seedcamp London in 2011, this company is on it's way up, being covered by influential magazines / blogs Wired and TechCrunch in the past weeks. What is it about? It's VoIP (Skype) in your browser, without installation. Besides being cool, Vox.io also introduced a few interesting new concepts, such as using an URL instead of a phone number.
http://vox.io

Zemanta

Zemanta is the original Slovenian startup success story, the winner of Seedcamp in 2007. It offers a service that allows bloggers to enrich their writing by adding pictures, links and related content to their posts. Zemanta is very important because it showed other companies they can think big, and since then, they have been paving the way for other Slovenian and East European startups. A few days ago they've announced a strategic partnership with Federated Media Publishing.
http://www.zemanta.com

The impact

These companies are not only successful, they are also very important for other Slovenian startups trying to make a difference. They've become the foundation and mentors of a new mentality that's coming to this part of Europe, and they deserve all the respect. We are trying too, with Neolab and Twenity, and hopefully someday we will become members of similar lists. Until then, it's only fair we support them, by using their services, helping them, or just spreading the word about their awesomeness. We should be proud some of us have actually made it this far.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. Martin Strel image courtesy of Martin Strel Swimming Adventure.

Check out the complete Cool Slovenian brands series.

I got another scent of going viral on social media. And I'm loving every bit of it.

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:58:42 GMT

I can't believe how much has happened since I first wrote about going viral on social media. I also can't believe what I wrote then, talking mostly about how virality has the most to do with luck. Well, it does, but any proper RPG character can fully understand luck can be influenced one way or another. As you evolve as a blogger, you learn a lot about writing good headlines, best times to publish, using various platforms to promote content and other general best practices, all adding a bit to the chance of going big. Of course, you're still competing in your own league, but a few hundred posts more, and you might do something extraordinary like swizec did. Get noticed and amplified by a heavy influencer.

The situation

Here's my situation - the full overview of traffic on this blog since it's beginning, according to Google Analytics. Spikes, which happen when something goes viral, all over the place. At this point, I'm almost at 100 posts, and around 10 are worth mentioning, making it on a single or more platforms. The list almost fully corresponds with my internal top list, and you can click on any of them if you would like to what they're about. Quite various, actually.

Traffic overview and the most visited contents on stritar.net

The winners

While the above chart may show those posts that got the most traffic, only a few of them are the real winners. Interaction and impact is what counts. Feedback from the people. My first real viral post about Facebook vs. Twitter got 100+ retweets, while newer ones managed to unlock a few other interesting achievements. The one about Apple and Slovenia ended by people tweeting about how Apple will buy Slovenia since there was a mysterious announcement on their homepage (which turned out to be The Beatles in the iTunes store). The post about Beer in Brussels produced more than 80 funny comments on reddit. Discussing about Pop TV and events on Twitter established an arrangement between the Slovenian soccer association, the established sports journalist Igor E. Bergant and the leading Slovenian soccer portal Nogomania to cover the next national soccer match on Twitter together (we'll see on February 29th). Fantastic turns of events.

The platforms

There is no viral without the platform. While Facebook may have been the biggest referrer of traffic in this blog's history, it's a stable referrer, which can hardly make something viral. Twitter is better, since the whole concept behind retweeting can amplify you outside your social circle, even though it's much harder to master. But the platforms really worth mentioning are the community based curation / recommendation engines: Reddit, StumbleUpon and Hacker News. They are much more complex to use, since you have to be a part of the community one way or another, but that's how it works - there is no taking without giving.

Top referrers for stritar.net. Twitter referrals are included in Twitter and t.co.

The downside: publishing to all these channels and the aftercare (commenting, animating) can take quite some time, but you're nothing without it.

Conclusion

If you have good content, going viral can be managed and influenced, and it happens when the parameters align. Since you have to have as many chances for that to happen, you need to blog as much as you can. That's the real recipe, if there is any. For permanent readers, for real supporters that can help you tip the scale, for additional lottery tickets.

But why go through all this trouble? Well, imagine getting 100 likes and comments on a Facebook post. Or 20 retweets of a really witty tweet you're so proud of. Multiply that by 10, and you'll get the picture of how it feels when you go viral. That's why you blog in the first place, you only don't know it.

Can social content curation without negative actions (dislikes, downvotes) even exist?

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:04:56 GMT

There are people who create content. Millions of them, producing enormous amounts of data and information every day. On the opposite side, you have the consumers, people who absorb most of this content for various reasons. And there are those in-between, an emerging layer of people who filter this content and pass the one worth consuming forward to others. These people are called content curators, a breed that's becoming more and more important these days, perhaps even more important than the original creators themselves. After all, they're the ones categorizing and cleaning up the chaotic Web.

Together with the dawn of the interest graph and information overload, it's becoming obvious content curation is a major trend in social. Mathematical aggregators and algorithms can only do so much, but they are no match against the collective effort of millions of people. This fact helped services supporting social curation to emerge everywhere, in different shapes. Twitter, Reddit, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Pinterest, even Facebook and Google search are offering you a filtered experience of the Web, an experience that is determined more or less by other people who share your interests. Social curation at its best.

I love these services, but as I've become a heavy user, I also started wondering, if they can work on the long run using only positive actions. Likes, upvotes, diggs, +1s, retweets, reblogs. All used to amplify, not suppress. But what if I want to prevent something from spreading, wouldn't that be curation too? Wouldn't that be a statement that would suggest the creator / curator to try harder? Another problem: how can you prevent an organized group of people (or people with multiple accounts) who are all trying to push something forward, from ruining the experience for others, without the ability to quiet them down?

I remember when Digg and Reddit were in the same league. They both used upvotes and downvotes and had similar traffic and the number of upvotes on the front page. A few years later, Digg was experimenting with becoming more Twitter-like, canceling the downvotes and introducing following. They failed miserably, but also because Digg front page was supposedly controlled by the power users. The ugly side-effect of content curation without proper goals and (crowdsourced) control. But things like that happen, and there's a good reason we probably won't see the Facebook Dislike button anytime soon.

Curation services, constructed around recommendation (Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon), recognized the need for negative action and allow (anonymous) dislikes. On the other hand, those services, that are built more around social (Facebook, Twitter, Google+), can't afford to have them without causing a social problem, creating Enemies from Friends.

But there's always an option. An option that is sadly way more drastic than a dislike could ever be. Unfollow. Unfriend. Unsubscribe. Report. Remove yourself from something. An action that not only discontinues the information flow, but also discredits the creator / curator in a way. And it may as well be the ultimate dislike. Like it or unlike it, content curation without the negative action can't exist.

Twitfluence is dead, long live Twenity! Launching December 21st 2011.

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 17:41:51 GMT

In three days, a new type of online influence measuring service will be launched, an exciting new version of Twitfluence on steroids. Unlike Klout or PeerIndex, Twenity won't try to set a new standard for calculating social authority, it will rather behave as a game on top of your social activity, which will allow players to go through quests, unlock levels, badges, compare themselves and compete with each other. A project made by Neolab and IlovarStritar that will try to combine the elements of gamification and social authority measuring. Who's hot and who's not, the game.

Launch

The algorithm we'll use is the v0.60 of Twitfluence, but on an improved engine, and that's pretty much everything that will stay the same as the prototype. Twitter is the original source for data, but if there is enough interest, new quests based on Facebook, Foursquare and other platforms will be designed and developed.

On Wednesday, December 21st, at 7 PM CET, Twenity will be presented and officially launched as part of the last wwwh of this year. We will stay in beta at this point, since there will surely be problems with some (influential) users and further patches will be done in the next few weeks. But after that, the sky is the limit. You're very welcome to join us in Kiberpipa, or you can watch the live stream online. Here are a few resources:

the official Twenity page
the v0.60 of the Twitfluence calculation
the event invitation (in Slovene)
the live stream where the presentation will be broadcast on Wednesday
the event on Facebook
our Twitter profile and Facebook page
more info about the Twitfluence calculation

"Twenity is an interesting new game that helps you discover your social capital while competing with your friends. This real-live RPG enables you to play without the need to actually do anything."

That's right: Vanity is the spice of life.

Impressions from my first guest blogging experience

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:47:43 GMT

Nick Taylor is probably the person who has the most to do with me starting blogging in the first place. That's why it makes even more sense my first guest blog post was on his blog, thetwohalves.com. Luckily, he was interested in guest blogging too, since these types of exchange can bring additional exposure and new readers. But we wanted to make something special, something a bit more interesting, so we've agreed on writing a mutual post on the same topic, both publishing on each other's blog. After looking for a proper theme for months, we've finally decided on Occupy Wall Street, something that's very actual these days.

The eye of the beholder

We both approached the situation from our point of view and style. Nick's direction went more into politics. He has just returned to the States after a few years and saw how big the movement was and how differently people perceive it. He justified the importance of Occupy and criticized the problems of the current system. Here's his post: Occupy Wall Street – why it won’t go away and why it matters.

I, on the other hand, discussed the technological implications and the role of social media in the Movement, fascinated by the fact we can watch and support today's "revolutions" in real-time, using multiple channels. Here is my blog post: Occupy Wall Street and Other “Revolutions” as the Ultimate Reality Shows.

The publishing

It wasn't easy. The logistics of publishing two cross-referenced posts with the same form were quite complex, also because Nick and I are 8 hours apart. It took us hours to make coordinated support and marketing activities on different social media channels, tweeting, retweeting, sharing, liking, plusing, upvoting, stumbling, mentioning, commenting and everything. We also wanted to post the two articles simultaneously, which perhaps wasn't such I good idea, since not all times are appropriate for sharing, and one of us (or both) would perform worse than the other. But it was our first time doing such a thing, and we did have a lot of fun with it.

The results

Actually, the results were nothing out of the ordinary, so I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. We did get a very good amount of interactions on Facebook, since our co-branded post was surely interesting for people who know us both. But nothing special on other platforms. Perhaps this topic is already saturated or the mentioned timing wasn't appropriate, resulting in the visits on both our blogs being quite average. But you have to learn somehow, and we'll just have to try a bit harder the next time.

But who cares about the results. Guest blogging is fun. Even if it takes twice the amount to do it in such a way that we did, I would and will do it again. Perhaps also with other bloggers interested in such a project, or a similar one (if this made you think for a bit, give me a shout). As for Nick - I'm really happy we've finally agreed on something. This world could be a better place, and I hope our effort did help to move it a bit into that direction.

Did Google just admit Apple's Siri is the future of search?

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 15:21:19 GMT

I don't know if you saw The evolution of Google search video, which they've published a few days ago. You should, it's a cool movie, portraying the history of search and Google's vision of its future. But something went wrong. One of the punchlines of the video was a story from one of the engineers, who said that next-generation search engines will be able to answer complex questions such as the following:

"Hey, what is the best time for me to sow seeds in India given that monsoon was early this year?’"

A very legitimate question.

I don't know if you've tried out iPhone's new personal assistant, Siri. It's awesome in every bit. Not only does it have a state-of-the-art voice recognition, it's also packed with super smart artificial intelligence that supposedly allows you to ask crazy things things such as:

"Can you remind me to call my wife when I leave the office?"

Another very legitimate question.

And there's a strong resemblance there. Both requests are really abstract and probably require quite a bit of computational power to be understood by a program. They have nothing to do with mathematical or social ranking currently used by Google (search), they are all about Artificial Intelligence and semantic interpretation. And while Google currently doesn't provide (or at least market) services that would be able to understand such sentences, Apple does.

I've noticed quite a few articles saying concepts such as Siri are the future of search. It's obvious artificial intelligence will play a big role in this segment. Apple's already in. Even if their technology is not superior to Google's, who is also working on embedding AI into search, it's fully available today, and everybody knows it. Google should really be careful with such statements concerning their core business, Web search. Specially if they are competing against the marketing wizards of Apple, who know how to sell things even if they don't fully work.

Promoting a technology you don't have and your competition does? Stupid consumers such as myself might do something stupid.

UPDATE (5.12.2011): You can join the discussion on HackerNews.

Television and Social media? How did my recommendation engine miss this connection?

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 14:58:20 GMT

November has been a great month for this blog. For the first time in history, I managed to get more than 1.000 unique users on two different blog posts in a single month. Which is awesome, thanks! The first post was about the TV show Dexter and its Facebook game Slice of life. The other was about Slovenian TV show Soočenje and its buzz on Twitter. Just two posts, nothing special, right? Wrong. It's really obvious, but I missed it somehow. Both posts are talking about combining television and social media, silly me! I can't believe I failed to see it, but I did, and so did my blog. Not that it really matters anymore. You know those fantastic coincidences that happen sometimes and put everything into place? This story is full of them.

Function

Some of you may know this blog has an internal recommendation engine that calculates the correlation between different posts based on shared tags and their frequency, offering related reading in the bottom. It missed the connection. Others may know I'm a bit obsessed with cross-referencing my posts, which I do manually. I missed it too. Perhaps Facebook and Twitter aren't as similar as I would like to believe, but I'm putting my bet mostly on the different concepts of combining television and social media. The Dexter case was about entertainment, gaming and story-telling. Pop TV's case was about politics, news and ordinary people co-creating content. Different problem, different tags, but still, the strong relation between the two is very much there.

Try

The first funny coincidence was a blog post by @anejmehadzic written a few days after mine, discussing the general possibilities of a symbiosis between television and social media (in Slovene). The post provided enough insight to make me see what I missed. TV shows using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to provide additional content to viewers was really something in between the two cases of mine. Revelation. At this point I knew I missed the connection myself, but how did my very smart algorithm also miss it?

Catch

The next lucky coincidence was a lecture on wwwh happening yet a few days later. @zbrchka was talking about transmedia, a term I haven't heard about before. I thought multi-platform or cross-platform could be concept that connected these two blog posts, but transmedia feels so much better. Transmedia is a technique for creating integrated content for different mediums, just the thing what I was looking for. Something that's becoming so important it deserves exposure on this blog too.

Finally

With the new gathered knowledge, I made a new tag Transmedia, putting it on both posts, besides the one about Šport TV tweeting about the basketball championship. It worked like a charm. Since this tag is used so rarely, it dominated the recommendation engine, and to my great relief, all three posts gained the correlation they require to be listed as related content one to another.

The blogosphere kicks ass, since bloggers are mutually inspiring each other and moving things forward. Wwwh is a great place to hang out and share knowledge and experience. My recommendation algorithm is awesome, fully working as expected. And those lucky coincidences are a thing that make this existence an interesting place to be visiting. Everything is just the way it should be.

* try-catch-finally is a an exception handling syntax used in some programming languages.

Supporting events on Twitter: how Pop TV and Soočenje owned the Slovenian Twitterverse

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 10:13:58 GMT

Supporting events on Twitter is becoming very popular, and it's a perfect case study of what Twitter can do. After all, this channel allows an additional layer for following things that are going on in real-life, in real-time. Coverage sometimes happens accidentally, if there are enough Twitterers around, but more and more often, it happens as a result of a carefully planned tactic of those behind the event. Only then it can fully work, enabling organizers, participants and observers a totally new type of involvement. Crowdsourcing event support can produce a better overview of what's happening than any well-trained team of journalists can provide, offering an experience that is broad, objective and subjective, interactive. And like using Twitter itself, some know how to do it, and some don't.

My experience

When I tried it out it myself, it was fun and rewarding, In May, Trkaj, Jacuzzy and our neighborhood Savska held a festival Blok Party, which attracted a lot of people. We were there, live-tweeting about it. We've also asked other Twitterers (thanks @loudandwicked!), who attended the festival, to use and amplify the same hashtag #savska, and in the end, more than 10 people tweeted about the event, producing over 50 tweets, most of them with pictures. Which isn't that bad on the Slovenian scale. My friend @jakasibicekaka did something similar, asking Trbovlje town councillors to tweet about a meeting with the #sejaOStrb hashtag, which attracted other people to participate as well (here's his blog post about it, in Slovene). Great results enabled by collaboration of many users.

It can work on a small scale. What about the major league, it should be even better? Let's analyze two nation-wide events that happened this week in Slovenia.

How to do it wrong

The first case mentioned was the Slovenia vs. USA friendly soccer match. At the stadium, the National soccer association (@nzs_si) promoted their Twitter account which does live coverage of matches. Which they did. But that doesn't mean they did the whole Twitter thing right. They forgot about the extremely witty journalist @IEBergant also tweeting about the match. They forgot about me, and they forgot about you and 8 other thousand people watching the game live, probably quite a few geeks included. While NZS used the hashtag #fuzbal (slang for soccer), some used the hashtag #nogomet (soccer), #slovenia, #slovenija, and the mentioned Igor Evgen Bergant used #soccerSI-US. The results: a scattered pool of tweets which didn't really offer users the complete picture. The event went mostly unnoticed on Twitter.

The Slovenian soccer association promoting their Twitter account on the match

How to do it right

On the other hand, Pop TV (@24ur), the biggest commercial television network in Slovenia, did it more than right. Their show "Predvolilna soočenja", which does political confrontations before the upcoming elections, won big time. And while using Twitter to support television has been done for ages abroad, this actually happened for the first time in Slovenia (at least so I think). And they did at least three smart things:

they've promoted the hashtag #soocenje, not minding about their Twitter profile
they've invited five influential Twitterers (@alivea, @had, @Lacn, @madpixel, @tamejhna) to the studio audience to generate the initial buzz on Twitter, besides live-tweeting from the studio. Here they are, appearing with @miharejc, who tweets for @24ur
they've broadcasted a selection of tweets with this hashtag live on television, and encouraged people to participate and ask questions on Twitter

The results were amazing. Hundreds, if not thousands of tweets all over place. Local trending topic. They owned the Slovenian Twitterverse like no one else before them. It worked like a charm. You can check out the partial report (which only displays 100 of #soocenje tweets, happening in 5 minutes!) on the following link or use the #soocenje Twitter search, if tweets are still available. Epic stuff, moving the Slovenian media sphere a few years forward.

Pop TV displaying and promoting #soocenje tweets live on television

#soocenje (besides various politicians and the show host) became a local trending topic in Slovenia according to sitweet.com

Conclusion

I'm only a level 26 27 social media ninja, but I know a few things. If you're organizing an event, the most important thing is: promote Twitter hashtags, not profiles. Even if they are nothing more than just clickable search queries, they simply work. Search Twitter in real-time and look for people who are talking about the event. Ask them and other people attending to amplify and use the same hashtag. Thank them if they do. Most of them will join you, since it'll make it more interesting for them too. Offer something more if you can (like displaying tweets on a website). Use multiple accounts (official, personal) with different wibes. Upload pictures. Retweet. Interact. Have fun.

Twitter, a funny service proving that a collective effort of many people will always provide a way more interesting picture than a single person can. More objective, more diversified, more everything. Perhaps even better than the original event itself. Real players are fully aware of that. Don't worry, even if you don't have the same power, publicity and followers, you can compensate with additional energy, time and mobile bandwidth. The results can be surprising. And if it does work, I promise you'll enjoy every little bit of it.

UPDATE (22.11.2011): I got contacted by @24ur, who told me this was already their second Soočenje show (I missed the first one - the irony - playing soccer), and the first one generated over 1800 #soocenje tweets. I also got feedback from @nzs_si and @IEBergant, they've agreed we should make a joint effort the next time Slovenia plays soccer, also involving the biggest Slovenian soccer portal Nogomania. Awesome stuff.

UPDATE (25.11.2011): Pop TV is on fire. Today, they've added another medium to support Soočenje on Twitter, their news portal 24ur.com, which is the most visited site in Slovenia.

The great technology wars and the transition of software from B2B to B2C

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 11:25:14 GMT

The epic article by Fast Company about the technology wars of 2012 provides great insight into what's happening in Silicon Valley and software in general these days. Four players, or the Fabulous Four, are mentioned to be the real market and innovation leaders: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google. Each of these companies found its place where it dominates and invents new business models, and each one is a role model for new generations of technology startups and leaders. And if you didn't notice, all of them sell software to consumers, not other companies (in case of Google and Facebook, you are the real customer, but advertisers pay for it). Software is becoming more and more consumer-oriented, and the clash of these titans will determine the outcome, the software of the future.

The Fab Four

Who are these fantastic companies? Amazon is the leader in e-commerce. Apple reinvented mobile devices and content distribution. Facebook is the largest social network in the world, a big brother in the making. Google is the biggest web and search company.

I almost won't argue with the choice of the Fab Four. To me, these are truly the technology companies that are moving things forward. To be honest, the list is bit of an understatement for Microsoft, even though that doesn't change the fact I'm trying to put out here. These four corporations (their software at least) are more B2C (Business To Consumer) than B2B (Business To Business) oriented. Even Microsoft, with its XBox, Bing, Windows (Phone and Tablet) programs is shifting focus to consumer markets.

The stock market comparison

The B2B software market is still huge, but electronic commerce, online advertising and the economy of scale of billions of users spending a few dollars is slowly outperforming more expensive business solutions sold fewer times, even if they are deployed millions of times as operating systems, products or services. If you check out the following charts, you can see information about market capitalization, revenue and historical price change of these companies (Facebook is not public yet, but it's IPO could be around $100 billion) compared to traditional technology companies such as Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. The numbers are pretty interesting (source: ycharts).

Market capitalization of Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the last 10 years (as available)

Change in market capitalization of Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the last 7 years (as available)

Revenue of Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the last 10 years (as available)

Change in revenue of Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the last 8 years (as available)

Change in stock price of Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle in the last 7 years (as available)

Why does it matter

As a software architect, I see major shifts in user-centered software compared to business-oriented software. Even if you check Gartner's strategic technologies of 2012, it becomes more and more obvious what's happening:

software is made for and "sold" to users, not management anymore
product cycles and new releases are reaching Warp Speed
the focus is shifting from features to benefits
user experience is becoming more and more important
technology used is getting less and less important
system and data integration is becoming trivial with web services and APIs
there's a new generation of devices that run software (smartphones and tablets, the internet of things)
scaling and performance is not measured in Whateverbytes, but in number of users
new distribution channels (marketplaces) are going beyond the Web
platforms and mashups have emerged, where ecosystems of software are being build around the core service
online software is more disruptive and innovative, business software follows (from Web 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0, adoption of gamification in the enterprise, etc.)

Adaptation

Some business software companies, such as Salesforce.com have managed to adapt to this situation, offering a platform others can upgrade and develop on. We're adapting too, on a smaller scale. Neolab is still mostly focused on B2B software, since that's where we've built our market. Sure, we did a few web portals and are working on deploying our own user-targeted service Twitfluence, but it's business-oriented software that we generally work on. But that doesn't change the fact we are fully aware that the concept of software is changing, and we are on top of it, trying to embrace these trends and include new paradigms in corporate infromation systems. Social, user-oriented, user-friendly. Knowing that people are behind every company.

Software is maturing; consumers are getting more and more demanding, brands behind the software are getting more and more important. And as the Web expands even further, this fact will become yet more obvious. It's you and me who are the ones who are "buying" software. Which is great, since in the end the ordinary people, not corporations, will be those who will decide how software and technology of the future will look like. Interactive, useful and fun. Here we are now, entertain us.

Is Dexter and its social game Slice of Life the future of TV shows (but no one noticed)?

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:46:35 GMT

I don't know if you've noticed, but a few months ago the hit television show Dexter got it's own social game you can play on Facebook, named Slice of Life. Similar kinds of branded social games have been done before, but it's something else that's interesting this time. This game changes according to the plot of the television series each week. That's right, the show and the game are coexisting and evolving together to bring users a totally new type of experience. And while most technology blogs, obsessed with social, said Slice of Life is a revolutionary new type of a social game, I asked myself: is it rather a new revolutionary type of consuming television?

Television is static - not interactive the way the Web is. You can't do much. More or less, liking and commenting shows, besides tele voting, are the most interactive things you can do. But Slice of Life changes everything. A television show that you can watch, consume and play on multiple mediums, multiple channels, multiple platforms, online and offline. You're actually playing a game inside the show. Or watching a show inside the game. Pretty awesome stuff that didn't get as nearly much attention as it should, attention for bringing a new type of interactivity to television shows.

If the future of television as a medium will be defined by new types of business models (Netflix), physical architecture (Google?) and user experience (Apple?), the future of television content will definitely be defined by the level of interactivity it offers, imitating the Web. And until now, interactivity hasn't been solved in such a smart way than our favorite serial killer's social game. You must watch, you must play, you must do everything to be the biggest of the 10 million+ fans Dexter has on Facebook.

It looks like television is becoming more than just a medium. It's rather evolving into a cross-platform interactive content serving entertainment system. Some have already managed to successfully understand that fact, more will follow soon. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see more.

Facebook vs. Twitter, Part 3: The phase of unification

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 08:22:32 GMT

I started writing about Facebook and Twitter because I saw these two services as the most impressive players of the social age. I received a lot of comments about the two of them not being comparable, which I disagree. They are the biggest global Web 2.0 platforms (LinkedIn successfully went public and has a lot of users, but it's hardly a platform) and two of the ten most visited websites in the world. They are social trend-setters, both super advanced on technical and conceptual levels. They are a lot, but with the latest sets of patches, they are also becoming a lot alike.

Originally, Facebook wanted to be a social network. On the other hand, Twitter wanted to be a news network. But seeing what's happening these days, we can ask ourselves: is it rather the other way around? Indeed, Facebook and Twitter are finally entering the phase of unification. Let's begin.

Two way integration

Twitter now officially supports posting to Facebook, while Facebook now officially supports posting to Twitter (for now, Pages only). Until recently, you had to use other services or install apps to fully connect both accounts, but these days, direct integration it's pretty much trivial. The wall between the two giants is obviously coming down. And they both noticed the need to recognize each other to proceed.

Facebook adds following

The symmetric relationships (friends) on Facebook made it what it is - a social network for keeping in touch with the people you know. The same goes for Twitter, the asymmetric relationships (followers) made it what it is - a news network where you can follow people you are interested in. This fact was one of the biggest differentiator between the two social services.

Facebook soon noticed they will have to somehow go beyond that, for the sake of enabling more accessible information to the masses and enabling unprotected, crawlable real-time data without privacy. They've started with Pages, intended for brands, which users can like and follow. But recently, like I predicted more than a year ago, Facebook introduced subscriptions for personal profiles, where you can follow people without the need for them to confirm you back, and they can post public updates. What an interesting turn of events.

Facebook adds a real-time stream

Facebook put a lot of effort into developing the EdgeRank, which recognizes the level of connection between two people. The previous version of Facebook had Hot and Fresh streams, the first one being based on the amount of activity and EdgeRank vicinity, and the other one on recent activity. Today, the main stream is a mixture of both, while a new feature was introduced. The so-called Ticker in the right sidebar, showing real-time activity from all your friends. Your own little Twitter inside Facebook, which they plan to evolve even further, adding automatic updates.

Twitter starts to close, adds multimedia

Traditionally, the Twitter app ecosystem was built around (outside) Twitter, while Facebook's app ecosystem was built inside Facebook. But Twitter's policy is changing. They've already acquired one of the biggest Twitter clients TweetDeck, and said they will prevent new Twitter clients from being developed. They've also added a multimedia library to each profile (feeding also from external services) and enabled an internal service for sharing photos. Bad news and a stab in the back for Twitpics, Yfrogs and such. Smells like Facebook.

Twitter adds activity streams

Social networks are all about profiles, streams and interaction. Twitter used to be plain, providing only simple profiles, basic tweets stream, replies and retweets. But the newest addition also includes real-time activity streams, where all retweets, replies and favorites are gathered in one place. I haven't gotten it yet, but people are saying Favorites are the new (Facebook) likes. Twitter is becoming very much a social network, trying to boost up it's social graph.

Conclusion

There are even more cases like this, but these are the most significant. I hope this trend won't continue much further. It was the differences between Facebook and Twitter made each one interesting and useful in it's own way, but I guess things like this are inevitable. Like operating systems or browsers, competitors are constantly copying each other's features and solutions, which actually proves mutual recognition. Why would social services be any different? It seems Twitter and Facebook are finally mature enough to enter the phase of unification.

Check out the complete Facebook vs. Twitter series.

Twitfluence received some media attention. And almost went to Seedcamp.

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:05:04 GMT

Lately, a lot has been happening with Twitfluence. We've finally decided it's time to go out of prototype mode and make Twitfluence a fully working solution, a joint venture between Neolab and IlovarStritar. A fine combination of great technical expertise and amazing visual experience. We've even applied for Seedcamp Ljubljana, but only made it as runners-up (which is actually not that bad for the first try). But that won't stop us – we are more certain than ever to make Twitfluence a complete product, and we'll try even harder the next time.

There are quite a few challenges on our way, the biggest one being the technical difficulties the calculation is having when analyzing large accounts. We had to rewrite it pretty much from scratch. Besides other small upgrades and patches, we will also be doing another major thing: rebranding it. Twitfluence sounds too generic, and most service built on top of Twitter are Twit-something. You will see what we have in mind, and we're sure you'll like it.

This will probably be the last post about Twitfluence on stritar.net, since we'll be moving to the official blog. It was fun while it lasted, but Twitfluence will be retired soon, to make way for something even greater. Hopefully you will be able to see the results in about a month.

What made us pursue the idea further, to think beyond the current ugly mode? A lot has had to do with bloggers that were covering us, which gave us amazing moral support (and a kick in the ass). This coverage went way beyond Slovenia and we are proud to have made it so far. It has also shown us we are on the right track – if we were able to get noticed with the current version, the broad potential of such a service must be great. See for yourselves, here are a few great articles that we've seen floating on the internets:

My Community Manager: Different authority measurement applications review (in French)
had blog: Twitfluence review (in Slovene), by @had
SocialEast: About Slovene Twitter tracking software solutions
Toronto Star Blog: Politicians on Twitter, and how to determine their influence and social capital

Thank you for your support and patience, we'll be seeing you around. Bigger, better, prettier and of course, more playable. Stay tuned.

Forget Facebook. Šport TV and their billboards found Twitter, with style.

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:59:14 GMT

About two months ago I was super fascinated about the fact that a variety of Slovene marketers started to promote their Facebook presence on billboards. Guess what: that's so two months ago. Šport TV, one of the biggest sports television networks in Slovenia went a step further, designing their billboard(s) specifically for promoting their coverage of The European basketball championships on Twitter. Which is a bit surprising, since there are supposedly only around 10k people on Twitter in Slovenia (compared to 650k on Facebook), but still, Twitter is much more suited for media coverage than Facebook for various reasons.

The massive billboard I spotted is located on one of the biggest intersections in Ljubljana, and it's made out of three pieces. The main piece contains three celebrity basketball commentators, each one represented with his own Twitter account and a "Follow me" call to action. Until now, these profiles managed to attract around 150 followers each, which isn't bad at all. Their Twitter backgrounds are well designed and their streams almost updated, which will hopefully continue even after the championship:

Sašo Filipovski: SportTV_Saso
Zoran Martič: SportTV_Zoran
Zmago Sagadin: SportTV_Zmago

Šport TV continued the campaign on their website, where they presented the same three commentators, besides promoting the hashtag #Litva2011, which is quite popular these days for Slovene standards. Pretty advanced and coherent marketing indeed. Great job.

The championship will be over today, Slovenia did well and managed to finish 7th, but we also went a step further in digital. Yes, Twitter is finally becoming a player and some people obviously know how to use it. Exposing the actual faces behind the corporations is effective (specially if you are in showbiz), and something that is nearly impossible to do well on Facebook. So this campaign is actually a double win. Just don't forget to update.

Šport TV's Eurobasket billboard

Šport TV billboard: Follow us

Šport TV billboard: Facebook and Twitter

Šport TV website highlight

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

The art of internal hyperlinking

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:00:02 GMT

Everybody wants traffic on their blog or website. Direct traffic. Referring traffic. Search traffic. All good in their own way. Direct traffic means having a strong brand. Referring traffic means having a strong network. Search traffic means having a strong team. The first two are hard to influence, but search - that's the one you can influence the most. And even if search technology has changed a lot in the past few years, with mathematical algorithms slowly getting replaced by social ones, old school search engine optimization can still make a difference.

Let's say you already have good content. And you have it technically optimized and search engine friendly. Like, Tweet and +1 buttons implemented where applicable, since they are more and more important for search result rankings. All good, but you might have missed something. Since it's very hard to persuade other people to link to your site giving you a higher PageRank, you just have to do it yourself. I'm talking about internal hyperlinking, where you cross-reference the content you already have. Google loves it so much that their official blog, besides influential blogs such as Mashable and ReadWriteWeb, have main headings referencing itself.

I approached this issue from two different angles. Sometime in October 2010 I took the time to systematically cross reference all my blog posts. It took me a lot of time, but I think it was worth it. Besides, I developed a "similar content" module, which additionally does it for me. The results on the diagram below, which display search-based traffic on my blog, are not real proof of that fact, since the experiment was not fully scientific; there are many other SEO factors, additional content and optimizations that were put into the equation. But still, most energy was put into content cross referencing and the trend looks pretty good.

Traffic to http://stritar.net via search engines

Since internal hyperlinking is an ongoing process, you have to have a good overview about the content you own, something that provides you with the complete picture. I used a plain Excel file, grouping my posts into general categories and started drawing arrows representing hyperlinks. At this point, it's already become a bit of a mess, so I'm thinking about moving to a stronger diagram-oriented software, but I think you get the picture.

http://stritar.net internal hyperlink structure

Internal hyperlinking can help, and it's something you can do even if you don't have a lot of technical skills. Just a lot of time, but we're in a recession anyways. Now go for it and let me know about the results.