4 posts tagged “stickis”

The folks at Activeweave (makers of Stickis, which I've written about before), have just introduced a great new website and plug-in called BlogRovr.  BlogRovr is a great little tool aimed at blog enthusiasts.  It allows you to see whatever your favorite bloggers have written about anywhere on-line. 

Here's how it works:

1. Visit Blogrovr.com and sign-up for an account
   
2. Enter the URLs of your favorite blogs
   
3. Anytime your favorite blogger mentions something about a site you're visiting, BlogRovr will deliver the related blog content to you via a Sticki. 
   

• The note is unobtrusive - a small icon in the bottom right hand corner of your browser window. 
  
• You can expand the button into a web overlay by clicking it.  Similarly, you can close it just like any other window. 
  
• You can turn BlogRovr on or off any time.
• No spyware, etc. in the app.
  

Not only does BlogRovr keep you in touch with what your favorite bloggers are thinking about what you're looking at, it also presents a great opportunity to learn what products/services/websites those on your blogroll are writing about.  This is especially useful tool for:

• Researching new product/service providers
  
• Doing market research/ getting to know a new industry or topic
  
• Investigating what bloggers are saying about you and your competitors
• Etc.
  

Give it BogRovr a try and post a comment with your thoughts. 

In case you were wondering why this blog went from daily to naught this week - One of my best friends was in town this week, visiting from England, so I took a break from blogging to play tour guide.  As of today, I’m back to blogging as usual.

If you’re wondering what’s next in the world of web 2.0, Business 2.0 magazine has some interesting ideas.  Of particular interest, check out their gallery of 25 Startups to Watch.  The following is the list (and some of my thoughts on each company):

• StumbleUpon: Great feature that allows you to find websites and videos you might like on-line based upon the recommendations of friends. Think of it sort of like Digg but for recommending websites and videos.  It enables you to find websites that you'll like based upon your personal networks and the preferences you set of people with similar tastes.  It is the perfect accompaniment to Stickis, which allows you to see the comments people in your network have posted on various websites.  I'd love to see Stikis and StumbleUpon link-up to offer an integrated service.
  
• Slide:  I've not tried Slide yet, but I've been hearing a lot of buzz about it in the geek circles in San Francisco. It lets you create slide shows of your personal photos which can be inserted into a blog, MySpace page, Sent out via RSS, or streamed to your desktop as a screensaver.  It is an interesting idea, but I suspect there will be a lot of competition in this space with photo sharing sites like Zooomr and Flickr and companies like SharpCast (computer, mobile and PC sync) and photo everywhere messaging concepts like NowThen.
  
• Bebo: Social network with 30 million users.  Bebo is especially big in the UK.  Aside from having the conventional greatness of other social networking sites, it takes privacy setting seriously (which I like) and has an on-line whiteboard facility, which is handy for sharing.
• Meebo: Let's you manage all of your IM clients from one site. I'll be interested to see how Meebo does against eBuddy, which is a "free web based messenger that enables you to chat with your MSN, Yahoo and AIM buddies" without downloading a separate client. eBuddy also works via mobile.
  
• Wikia: This site was co-founded by Angela Beesley and Jimmy Wales, one of the founders of Wikipedia, who I  recently talked about seeing speak at the Social Media Club meeting in San Francisco.
  
• Joost: I'm looking forward to seeing how Joost pans out.  It's an on-line video website which focuses on broadcast quality television - like IPTV on demand.  They've just signed a deal with Viacom, the output of which will be interesting to watch.  The on-line video space is getting crowded between Joost, YouTube, Revver, Grouper, BitTorrent and others.
  
• Dabble: Makes a tool for organizing videos into playlists and favorites.  Hmmm... Not sure how I feel about this one.  Think I'll stick with video search engines and recommendations I find in blogs until someone convinces me otherwise..
  
• Metacafe: This site is kind of like YouTube, but it pays users for page views. As I mentioned before, the on-line video space is really crowded. With YouTube saying they're going to find ways to pay users for involvement, I'm not sure how I feel about Metacafe's long-term prospects for success.  That said, they do claim 17 million monthly visitors, so they're off to a good start.
  
• Revision3: "A production studio for geek-oriented online shows."... Certainly a growing market full of opportunity!
  
• blip.tv: Platform for syndicating on-line shows... Looks like a hot market.
  
• fon.com: Now this looks interesting!  Fon.com is based in Spain and is attempting to build the world's first worldwide wi-fi network.  They're selling wireless routers for $30.  According to the description on Business 2.0, consumers "hook it up, register their node, and agree to share their broadband with other "Foneros" for free. Those who want to charge outsiders for access can do so, and Fon gets a cut. Likewise, if someone wants to pay $2 or $3 to use the Fon network for a day, Fon takes a share of that revenue. Just over a year old, Fon's network boasts more than 70,000 hotspots." This could be huge, especially given that wi-fi on mobile phones is a growing feature.
  
• Loopt: Loopt lets you see where your friends are anytime, using your GPS enabled mobile phone.  Boost Mobile has integrated Loopt into it's service offerings.  There are many interesting applications to social networking... Check out my previous posts on GPS to see what I mean.
  
• Mobio:  Mobio makes mobile applications and wigets.  They do quite a bit in the mobile location based service space. Mobio just launched at DEMO in January. I've not played with their app, but their demo looks an aweful lot like Microsoft Life's mobile beta. 
  
• Tiny: Tiny's Radar service is like Flickr but for mobile phones.  It lets users send photos from their mobile phones and have their friends comment on them. This sounds very similar to NowThen, only it's restricted to mobile phones.
  
• SoonR: This company lets you access information on your PC from your mobile phone. I saw a lot of solutions like this when I was at Palm. I'm not sure why Business 2.0 thinks this is such a big deal.  Win-Hand Anywhere, a strong competitor, has been around for years.  I'm not convinced that that remote PC access is the way forward. The problem with software like SoonR and Win-Hand Anywhere is that if your computer is off, you can't access your data. I prefer "server in the sky" applications like Avvenu, Orb, and GotoMyPC which allow you to access your information from anywhere (including your mobile phone). 
  
• Turn: I don't know much about this but it looks very cool... According to the site: "Avertisers first enter the prices they're willing to pay for various results - $5 for a sales lead, say, or $50 to $60 for a completed transaction. Next, they upload their text-or graphics-based display ads. Turn's software then analyzes the ads using more than 60 variables - including content, brand strength, and keywords - and determines the right publishers to serve up the ads."
• admob:  Like Turn - Could be very useful to advertisers: "AdMob offers a place to buy ads for delivery to cell phones."  It seems to me that Millennial Advertising, which I talked about in my January 26th blog should also be on this list.
• Spot Runner: This looks like a great resource for small businesses. It's a "one-stop online shop for low-cost 30-second TV ads. Local businesses can browse a library of premade spots and personalize them for airing in their local markets."
• ViTrue:  This is a great idea. Though, I think they need to improve the way they explain their service on their website.  It looks a bit like parts of what I proposed as a potential monetization strategy for YouTube.
  
• SuccessFactors:  I met with these guys when I was working in London as a Management Consultant a few years ago. I evaluated their software and other eHR and performance management systems and found theirs to be the most intelligent and well designed. Definitely a company to watch if you're into enterprise systems.
  
• Janrain: Single sign which allows users to juggle multiple passwords for multiple website.  This is the alternative to open ID.
  
• Logoworks:  I've not used this site, which offers the ability to publish business cards, stationary, etc. for less than conventional on-line publishers, but I'm always interested in deals!
  
• Rearden Commerce:  I've been hearing a lot about Rearden recently.  They offer a "web-based "virtual personal assistant" application that smoothly integrates hotel and flight reservations, meetings, and other events into your daily agenda." They've got a strong user base with 150 companies and their 500,000 or so employees using the software.
• SimulScribe: This company has voice recognition software that converts voicemails to text.  Voice transcription software is a growing and hot marketplace. I know of at least one (stealth-mode) start-up working on the next generation of this type of software, which will can be leveraged for all sorts of things you haven't thought of.
  

Some other companies that weren't on the list, but I think are worth watching are:  Shozu (mobile 2.0), IMT Labs (the company behind Spleak, the chatbot), and Kiptronic (advertising platform for podcasters).

On a different note - If you're interested in technology (especially mobile), you might be interested in this, the new blog from my friend, Derek Snyder, from Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded team.  So far, he's talked about Windows Mobile 6, how to cancel your Verizon contract in less than 30 minutes with no penalty, how to get a free extra battery for your Blackjack, and more.

Last week, San Francisco-based start-up Activeweave launched an exciting new product called Stickis.  At first glance, Stickis looks like any other web overlay and annotation tool (i.e. Google Notebook, Trailfire, Fleck, Diigo, etc.), but dig a little deeper and you’ll see that Stickis does more.  If it reaches critical mass, Stickis could revolutionize the way that people interact with the web and each other.  Unlike popular social networking sites like MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, LinkedIn, Cyworld, etc., which require users to interact with each other within the confines of a specific website, Stickis allows users to interact with people in their network anytime and anywhere on the web.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with web overlay, traditional annotation tools have been around for a while.  These tools are browser plug-ins that let you stick virtual Post-It-esque “notes” on websites.  One of the first and most notorious of these web overlay services was the now defunct “Third Voice,” which many likened to “web graffiti”.  One of the problems with Third Voice was that it lacked privacy features, which critics argued, exposed everyone with Third Voice’s plug-in to potentially lewd and libelous commentary. In 2001, reporting on the backlash to this criticism, Wired reported:

Third Voice couldn't generate enough advertising revenue to raise consumers' awareness of its free service, and it couldn't generate enough consumer awareness to raise the advertising revenue it needed to stay in business.

Web overlay/annotation tools have come a long way since the missteps of Third Voice.  Since then, the web has seen significant technological advances – especially in the areas of privacy management, web search/organizing content, and social networking.   Stickis incorporates several advanced features in these areas into a product that not only free but highly functional, innovative, and easy to use.

One thing that makes Stickis different than its competitors is the way that the service is structured.  Stickis is organized around “channels,” which are groups of Stickis notes published by a particular user.  Anyone can set up a channel – a private individual, a blogger, an organization, a website, or a company.  (Yelp and OpenTable San Francisco are two of the first companies  to have Stickis channels.)  Users can subscribe to new channels or unsubscribe from their existing channels at any time.  Similarly, “channel” owners control the privacy of their content and are able to ensure which of their Stickis notes are shared with which of their subscribers.

Here’s how Stickis works today:

• Register at Stickis.com.
•  Pick a nickname/ username
  
•  Enter your email address
•  Select the channels you’d like to subscribe to
•  If you'd like to publish a channel, pick a name (mine is Socialmedia.vox.com)
  
•  Set-up your privacy settings
• You choose whether you want to make your Stickis channel public or private.  If you decide to make your channel public, you have control over which of your subscribers can see specific posts.  You can organize your subscribers into groups- limiting which of your Stickis are seen by which of your subscribers.  This is done by creating what Stickis calls “antisocial tags” http://www.stickis.com/settings/tags/
• Upon signing up, a small plug-in is downloaded to your computer and installed when you re-start your browser.  This plug-in does NOT contain spy ware and can be turned on or off anytime with the touch of a button, which appears in your browser’s toolbar.
• When Stickis is “on”, anytime you go to new web page, a small, unobtrusive icon appears in the bottom right hand corner of your browser window.  This button displays the number of Stickis notes that your subscribed “channels” have written about that web page.
  

  Corner-button

• Unlike other annotation programs, Stickis notes are easily ignored if you don’t want to see them. 
• If you want to open the Stickis notes on a page, simply click on the button in the lower right side of your browser, and a “tray” containing a summary of each Stickis note appears (listed in reverse chronological order).

• To get a closer look at a specific Stickis note, click on its summary in the “tray” and voila- the entire Stickis note appears as an overlay over the page you’re on.
•  If you want to add to a Stickis note or reply to someone else’s Stickis note, just press the compose button on the “tray” or in your browser’s toolbar, and start writing.
  

  Compose
• You can drag or drop URLs, Pictures, Icons, etc. into your Stickis notes.You can add ‘tags’ to each of your Stickis notes, facilitating easy searching. Similarly, you can add ‘antisocial tags’ to specific posts to ensure that only certain people see those posts.
• You can also customize the look and feel of your Stickis notes so that they reflect your personal style.
•  You can set up alerts that notify you when:
• Your favorite channel posts a new Stickis note.  
• Someone writes a Stickis note on a topic that interests you (e.g. notification when specific ‘tags’ are used).
• To see step-by-step instructions of how to work with Stickis, click here.
  

It’s easy to imagine the different ways Stickis could be marketed…

• Individuals: Share your most / least favorite sites with your friends, family, the public, etc.
• Fans: Talk with fellow fans about all of the latest on-line gossip.  Meet friends who are going to up-coming shows.
• Bloggers: Enhance your reader’s experience by cross-referencing websites that you’ve commented on.
• Blog readers: See what your favorite bloggers are saying about the sites you’ve visited.
• Marketers/ PR people (for products, bands, actors, etc.): Stickis is a great way to engage with the users who want to hear from you.  Create your own channel and share exclusive information with your prospective and existing customers.  Host contests, on-line scavenger hunts, and more.
• Teachers: Create different channels for each of the classes that you teach.  Share relevant websites / on-line content with your students and encourage them to engage in discussions with each other about what they see on-line.
• Politicians:  Reach out to your constituents and tell them what you think about what’s happening on-line.  Engage your staff in a confidential discussion about how to address leaks, negative comments/ allegations that appear on the web.
  

Stickis has the potential to become a leading social networking tool.  To succeed in this capacity, it must continue to evolve.  Activeweave’s CEO, Marc Meyer, agrees:

Today we’re very much emphasizing the annotation features and the ability to discover stuff. In the near future, we’ll be improving  people’s ability to connect more closely to their communities.

To read my blog anywhere on the web, add this blog to your Stickis Network.

To read another review on Stickis, check out TechCrunch.
 

The most genius and useful solutions are often born from simple ideas. Take, for example, basic office tools - paperclips, Scotch tape/ Sellotape, Whiteout/ Tip-Ex, Post-it notes, etc.  It’s hard to imagine life without them.  Why am I talking about office supplies in a blog about social media?  The two have more in common than you might think…

Just as the invention of simple office tools revolutionized personal administration, simple, yet innovative, on-line social media tools are (and will continue) transforming the way people live and work… MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Dodgeball, etc. are all good examples of sites that are changing the way people interact.  Plenty of other social media and web 2.0 services that you haven’t heard of yet, will do the same, when they reach critical mass.  

This is an exciting time.  The world is abuzz with the potential of social media and people everywhere are generating ideas about how it can be leveraged in new ways.  Something similar happened when the Post-it Note was launched 26 years ago.  The original Post-it (a little yellow piece of paper with a sticky edge) spawned thousands of other useful products – large Post-its, colored Post-its, lined Post-its, “sign-me” plastic sticky flags, sticky book flags, removable tape, etc. – the list goes on and on.  An entire industry was born from one, simple idea.

When is the last time you thought about, White-Out/ Tipex?  I’m the first to admit that I use it regularly but don’t think about it until I need it and find that it’s run (or dried) out.  Once a product reaches ubiquity, users begin to take it for granted.  Don’t believe me? Replace the Whiteout example with TV or Internet connectivity.   How many times do you really think about how much TV you watch until the cable or satellite signal goes down?  How often do you think about your Internet Service Provider until your ISP experiences a blackout?    

If you want a real eye-opener about how many ever-day necessities you take for granted, flip through a copy of:

Think about how many of the inventions of the last century you use regularly.  Then, ask yourself, “How many of those well used inventions do I regularly marvel over? How many of these inventions truly fascinate me?”  My guess is – not many.  The fact is that most people don’t bother to think about things that have already been invented.  Instead, they incorporate the use of those inventions into their daily lives and keep using them until something better comes along.  

Social Media is that “something better,” and it’s coming along quickly.  It is changing everything: the way we learn, the way we work, the way we socialize, the way marketers push products, the way the world communicates.  By many accounts on-line social media and social networking are the “next big thing” – “the wave of the future.”  Right now, there is still a lot on-line rubbish to sift through, and the web – including social media- is, like the early days of the Post-it note and the original dot com boom, still spawning more ideas than the market can sustain.

The dot-com bubble is well and truly back with web 2.0 and social media.  In San Francisco and Silicon Valley, in particular, start-ups are cropping up all over the place.  Corporations and VC see the potential and are, once again, spending big money to acquire the IP and people that they feel have the most potential.  Similarly, start-up beauty pageants are in full swing, and promo parties abound - the likes of which haven’t been seen since the last bubble… To check out the latest and greatest industry parties (and the resulting juicy gossip), check out bub.blicio.us.

Getting back to my original analogy, in my opinion, the social media ideas with the most potential are a lot like the paperclip, Scotch Tape, Whiteout and Post-it Notes.  They’re simple concepts with elegant, user-friendly designs – the kind of “wow” ideas you wish you’d though of yourself.  

TEASER: Tomorrow, I’ll be reviewing one such web 2.0 and social media tool… An incredibly simple concept that I feel has the potential to revolutionize social media and the way the world interacts with and on the web. Stay tuned… I think you’ll like it.