RAA Group

With the first decade of the new century and new millennium coming to a close, its time to look forward at some of the prognostications that several of today’s visionaries have divined from their social media crystal balls.

These predictions are meant to be thought-provokers more than a specific road map, and derive from an eclectic assembly of thought leaders,entrepreneurs and folks who are in the trenches every day dealing with the evolution of social media in our very many global neighborhoods.

Based on this research, I have also added findings from my own humble analysis that supports, questions and occasionally disputes some of these predictions.

Southeast Asia, Next Social Media Hotspot

Jimmy WalesJimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia thinks the most important changes ahead will be forged by the “next billion people coming online, mainly in India and China.” He discussed the cross-cultural impacts as people from various backgrounds, cultures, and linguistic heritages “mix and match in amazing ways.”

This year I interviewed Shane Lennon, senior vice president of marketing for GyPSii, a location-based social network. On this topic, he noted that their company has “secured relationships with China Telecom and China Mobile.” According to Lennon, “while social networks are built around the premise of who you know (a rather limiting force),” he sees “more of a future and one that’s playing out in China right now – that connects people (based) on where they are located.” (see more on the topic of location-based networks below).

Web 2.0 Attacks & Political Tension

In a recent Websense report, it was noted that Web 2.0 attacks will increase in sophistication and prevalence. In the coming year, their analysis suggests that there will be a greater volume of spam and attacks on the social Web and real-time search engines such as Topsy.com, Google and Bing.com. In 2009, researchers have seen increased malicious use of social networks and collaboration tools such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Google Wave to spread attackers’ wares. Spammers’ and hackers’ use of Web 2.0 sites have been successful because of the high level of trust users place in the platforms and the other users.

On August 6, I reported on Twitter’s announcement that it was “defending against a denial-of-service” attack which was initiated when hackers commanded a whole army of computers to attack a particular site. As the story played out we learned that this attack was based on a very old turf dispute between Russia and Georgia. In my estimation, it is clear that social networking will become a new battleground for opposing forces around the globe to threaten and harass each other. This coupled with the Iranian Election Protests, I predict that more of this these types of global tensions will bubble up over into the social media space in 2010.

The Growing Popularity of eReaders

Sarah Rotman EppsJames McQuiveyAccording to Sarah Rotman Epps and James McQuivey of Forrester Research, eReaders will get apps, too. “As anyone with an iPhone knows, apps are where the magic happens: They make the device infinitely more useful.” iRex Technologies, which has a B2B e-reader business in Europe and is launching its first consumer-targeted e-reader in the U.S, will release an SDK (software development kit) so that software developers can make their own apps for the iRex DR800SG. Rotman and McQuivey said they “wouldn’t be surprised to see Amazon launch a Kindle app store, too, including anything from a social-reading app from Goodreads to an enterprise app from Microsoft or Oracle would make e-readers vastly expand the possibilities for consumers and businesses.”

As far as the iPhone replacing the Kindle, there is evidence to indicate the contrary.  While the “Kindle for iPhone” is a possibility, particularly since a user doesn’t have to purchase another expensive device, the iPhone’s small screen is cumbersome. My research indicates that for the voracious reader, the Kindle’s size and feel is more comparable to the book reading that many of us have grown accustomed to. Its advantage over an actual book is its light-weight and the ability to store hundreds of books in one self-contained device.

Magazine and Newspaper Apps

Sarah Rotman Epps and James McQuivey have also weighed in on magazine and newspaper publishers launching their own apps and devices. “Magazine and newspaper publishers aren’t satisfied with the way their content looks and functions on the Kindle and Sony Readers—they want color, video, interactivity, the ability to sell ads and control the subscriber relationship.” Old media moves slowly, but in 2010 we’ll see them crawling towards some solutions. Time Inc.‘s John Squires is spearheading an effort to get other magazine publishers together in a joint venture, which would sell access to digital versions of their magazines that could be consumed on portable devices.

In November, I reported on ZenNews and its Zensify life-streaming app that provides a cutting-edge analysis of the latest breaking news stories from sources in real-time using a “tag cloud” visualization technology. All articles are available to read as click-thrus and include news from acclaimed news sources such as the The Guardian, AlJazeera, CNN and the NY Times.

Location-Based Social Networks

Pete CashmorePete Cashmore from Mashable recently reported in his CNN column, that “Fueled by the ubiquity of GPS in modern smartphones, location-sharing services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and Google Latitude are suddenly in vogue…with Foursquare (potentially becoming) the breakout services of the year … provided they’re not crushed by the addition of location-based features to Twitter and Facebook.”

Cashmore also believes that “location is not about any singular service; rather, it’s a new layer of the Web. Soon, our whereabouts may optionally be appended to every Tweet, blog comment, photo or video we post.”

In a recent report I published titled, “Pinpointing Popularity: Social Networking Gets Physical,” my claim is that the potential of LBS lies in the hands of the major players who have been developing this technology for the last couple of years.

Whether or not ‘location’ becomes the must-have service for Twitter and Facebook to entertain and potentially absorb will most likely be based on monetization. And based on the forecasted numbers around the globe, it looks like location-based social networks are scaling fairly well in that arena – with Foursquare out front, not only striking deals with developers and new apps but also with restaurants, bars and gyms.  As a result, my prediction is that Foursquare and perhaps Gowalla will monetize their networks to a lucrative position faster than Twitter in 2010.

Augmented Reality Success or Bust?

augmented realityCashmore’s position on AR is somewhat mixed. While he believes, “it’s yet to become part of the consumer consciousness- it has attracted early-adopter buzz in the latter part of 2009,” he has his doubts as to its continued functionality.

Enabled by GPS, AR maps the data from the likes of Google and the accelerometer technology in modern phones and overlays data on your environment with reviews of the restaurants you walk past and Wikipedia entries about the sights you see.

According to Cashmore, “the challenges for such services is to prove their utility – they have the ‘cool factor,’ but can they truly be useful.”

While I understand Cashmore’s concerns, I think there were several examples of AR used effectively in 2009 that counters his position. In an analysis I conducted in October, titled, “Real-Time Augmented Reality: Future or Fantasy?” I uncovered a application for AR that utilized real-time search most effectively.

Sporting events are perfect venues to adapt this type of technology, and this past June, Wimbeldon was the first major international arena to actually test it. The beta version of the Wimbeldon Seer developed by IBM, which runs on Google’s G1 smartphones provided fans at this past year’s matches with AR read-outs about what was being viewed during the tournament. The Seer’s features included match updates, players’ stats, newsfeeds, menu items available at the refreshment stands and could even tell you if the lines at a particular restroom were too long. All the real-time data on this system came from Wimbeldon’s own controlled channel.

Companies to develop social media policies

Dave AmanoDavid Armano’s Harvard Business Publishing report asserts that “if the company you work for doesn’t already have a social media policy in place with specific rules of engagement across multiple networks, it just might in the next year.” From how to conduct yourself as an employee to what’s considered competition, it’s likely that you’ll see something formalized about how the company views social media and your participation in it.

My tongue-and-cheek review back in October, titled, “Social Media Nazi Says ‘No Twitter For You‘” explored the ‘prohibition’ of Twitter and Facebook in the workplace. While Armano touches on the possibility of a formalized employee ‘social media’ handbook, I think there are going to be more stringent social media restrictions put in place as it pertains to social networking at your place of business.

Affecting more than half of all businesses in the US and according to a new survey conducted by Robert Half Technology, fifty-four percent of companies have completely blocked social networks at work, while another nineteen percent will only permit it “for business purposes.” According to a CNET Report, social networks “have become so ingrained in culture and communication that some companies choosing to block them can appear draconian rather than prudent.” Unfortunately , this ‘big brother’ trend, I believe will see even more traction in 2010.

Web 3.0 or the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web, which has been discussed, debated and debunked by many of the social media gurus mentioned here will emerge as a major sea change in 2010 as to how we conduct business and socially interact on the Web.

Peter SweeneyAccording to Peter Sweeney, founder of the semantic technology firm Primal Fusion, “Web 3.0 is industrial” and as an industrial entity “the automation of tasks displaces human work.” He states that “instead of users manually creating content, machines will automate the heavy lifting. Consumers simply push the buttons and get stuff done. Think textile
mills versus spinning wheels.”

Semantic web refers to the web-study of interlinked documents accessed via the Internet. Web pages are generally written in HTML,which describes the structure of information i.e the syntax but not the semantics. But if the computers can understand the meaning behind the information then this can help us surface the information that we are looking for more expeditiously. There are quite a few Web 3.0 applications we have been exposed to already including the likes of Twine, Google Squared and Mozilla Ubiquity. Also many regard Google Wave as the first major door-opener of Web 3.0 wave era.

In my article, “‘Social Awareness’ To Replace Social Networking,” I see us getting closer to the ‘Internet of Things’ where ‘social awareness’ will aggregate everything we do online to the extent that tweets and status updates will become fully automated by the world around us versus us ever having to touch a keyboard again. This will be accomplished by the coding of every object, appliance and entity we interact with on a daily basis where all of our movements will be recorded, stored and communicated automatically when appropriate. This coupled with all of our content being warehoused for future data-mining purposes, the involvement of humans for some of these tasks will no longer be needed (as noted above by Sweeney).

My feeling is that while real-time search, location-based social networks, augmented reality and the other predictions noted here will all make significant inroads in 2010, the one most noteworthy will be Web 3.0  –  as all of these other new developments will have a direct correlation with how that movement unfolds.

The next decade has been marked as the beginning of the age of semantic technology. Once that ball starts rolling downhill, all of these other social media components will unfold at a faster and faster clip. Jennifer LeggioJennifer Leggio, also known as “Mediaphyter” notes in a ZDNet article, that “2010 is the year that social media will just be, rather than serving as a shiny new toy.” I concur with Leggio’s assumption that social networking will become ubiquitous, and add that Web 3.0 will replace Web 2.0 as the next new shiny thing we can’t stop talking about in 2010.

Ron Callari
Society and Trends Writer
InventorSpot.com

COOPERSTOWN, NY  - A new method for calculating broadband take rates reveals that demand for broadband is significantly higher than it was thought to be – a finding that changes the business case for service providers considering further buildouts.

Consulting firm Brian Webster Consulting published a revised methodology for calculating broadband take rates in the United States. Using the approach described in Webster’s new white paper, the broadband adoption rate in areas where broadband services are available is 72.9 percent, or about 10 percent higher than currently accepted industry estimates. The report has a breakdown for each state.

Based on these higher take rates, broadband deployments or expansions may be economically viable in areas once written off due to low household density. More accurate data and the ability to identify exactly where unserved homes are located leads to better-informed deployment strategies and more effective use of funding to address unserved households.

“Combining the enhanced broadband take rate with other economic data and trends as input to return-on-investment models and analysis,” notes Haig Sarkissian, principal consultant at Wireless 20/20 LLC, “builds additional confidence for investors on the merit of the broadband deployment business case.”

Brian Webster Consulting teamed with data provider Gadberry Group to design and prototype an approach that provides near address-level provision for broadband consumption and take rates.

“Earlier this year we provided several first-round [stimulus funding] applicants with block-level demographics, including consumer broadband usage,” explains Gadberry Group principal Larry Martin. “Combining these data with innovative analysis techniques has led to this new perspective on broadband take rate.”

“By leveraging our years of mapping experience, we help our clients strengthen their business case and go-to-market plans, allowing them to present their cases more clearly with images as well as with hard data,” says Brian Webster, principal consultant. “With the new insight provided by the census block take rate, business case analysis is further enhanced, thereby reducing the risk in the broadband investment and deployment.”

The complete white paper is available on the WirelessMapping Web site .

WirelessMapping.Com has been providing wireless and geospatial mapping services for seven years, both with and without accompanying demographic reports that show the number of households covered or passed. Most recently WirelessMapping has been involved in census block level mapping and demographic support services to clients developing applications to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus funding through the NTIA BTOP and RUS BIP. Past and current clients include Lockheed Martin, EarthLink, Covad, Federal Engineering, Sprint PCS, ExteNet Systems, Southern California Gas and Electric, Strix, Thunder Bay Telephone Company and BroadbandCensus.com.

Ex-Factors

An upstart exchange offers a new option.

S.L. Mintz – CFO Magazine

April 1, 2009

While hoping to complete a second round of equity financing last fall, Data Drive Thru faced a cash squeeze. Needing capital to exploit rising demand for a patented high-speed data- transfer technology, CFO Brad Oldham had two viable options: increase debt or sell receivables. But a frozen credit market made traditional bank loans extremely difficult if not impossible for the company to access, and selling receivables to a traditional factor would surrender too much cash flow.

So the company turned instead to a new online exchange that does for receivables what eBay does for consumers’ used merchandise: auction it off. Live since December, The Receivables Exchange is an online bidding platform that touts greater control, faster remittances, wider access to global buyers, lower transaction costs, more transparency, and less documentation than other methods. It will accommodate amounts as low as $10,000.

Unlike eBay, however, buyers don’t end up taking physical possession of a product. Instead, they bid the amount they will pay for the receivables. The pricing is based on the risk of remittance. Gold-plated receivables, such as those issued by Wal-Mart, command the highest prices. Size of advance is also a factor — around 85 percent for good credits. The Receivables Exchange validates all parties.

The service’s primary appeal may be to small and midsize companies holding IOUs from big companies with sterling credit. Oldham is happy with his initial experience; his first auction, in December, found a buyer willing to extend him $100,000. The next morning, Oldham had cash in hand on terms he liked. Over the course of several transactions, he has trimmed the discount rate to less than 3 percent.

One buy-side portfolio manager calls exchange-traded receivables a brand new asset class. In sharp contrast with Wall Street’s fatal appetite for excessive leverage and complexity, says Bill Andersen of Andersen Capital Management, The Receivables Exchange exemplifies “the good side of financial innovation — bringing together buyers and sellers who would not have met otherwise.”

Quorum Technical Services, which provides IT staff to global corporations, uses The Receivables Exchange to augment its $200,000 line of credit. Founder and CEO Jack Karamanoukian says that Quorum tallies its invoices on Fridays and posts them to the exchange on Mondays. When totals exceed the $10,000 threshold, bidding can begin. The fastest trade so far: $19,000 in 28 minutes.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Virtual assistants help professionals handle the heavy load

South Florida Business Journal – by Jeff Zbar

Robert U. Craven has been the CEO of large companies and led teams of employees working from corporate offices. But, when he scaled back to launch ScalePassion LLC, a professional coaching company, Craven found he needed one part-time employee: an administrative assistant to take on much of his day-to-day planning, organizational and technology needs.

It didn’t matter whether the employee was on site or remote. So, Craven hired a virtual assistant to handle tasks that otherwise would have consumed his time and focus.

“My biggest need was someone to handle my calendar, book my travel and manage my schedule,” said Craven, principal of the North Palm Beach-based firm.

Virtual assistants (VAs) are finding favor across the business and professional landscape. From small or closely held companies that need tasks handled – but not necessarily by a full-time employee – to individuals who need a “personal concierge” to oversee errands and other personal errands, VAs provide services that free up clients to pursue profitability – in money or time.

VAs often include stay-at-home moms and seasoned administrators who were laid off during the recession. Most are looking for income or balance – and have a skill to sell, said Stephanie Goldberg Glazer, owner of Your Personal Manager. The business, which debuted in 2006, today helps about 20 tri-county area businesses and individuals “organize your life, free your time.”

Using little more than a broadband Internet connection from her Hollywood home office, Goldberg Glazer taps tools like LogMeIn or GoToMyPC to access client computers and manage their own customer databases.

Doing tasks others prefer not to

Goldberg Glazer sees some clients each quarter, and some no more than once a month. She generally does tasks they’d prefer not to, like package a direct mail campaign or update their social media status. With about 40 percent of her clientele being individuals with non-business tasks, some quirky requests come in – like dog sitting.

“I don’t do pets,” Goldberg Glazer said. “You have to know your limits. The most important thing I can provide is service.”

The cost: about $60 an hour. Money well spent, said Paula Holland De Long. She has used Goldberg Glazer since late 2009. Today, she attributes a 10 percent increase in income at What’s Next For My Life?, a cancer survivor coaching firm in Wilton Manors, to being able to focus on the 80 percent of her business that makes her money.

“When you’re growing a business, there’s only so much you can do,” she said. “Stephanie helped me clear stuff off my desk so I could focus on things that will make me money.”

That includes handling uploading events to Holland De Long’s Web site, updating her social media, and entering new contacts into her database. What else? When Holland De Long’s printer died, Glazer Goldberg handled the repair. And she sliced her workweek from 60 hours to about 40 hours. Holland De Long had to learn to delegate, as well as use her newly found hours wisely.

“To make this profitable, you have to reinvest your freed hours in something that will be profitable,” she said.

Not a problem for Craven. His assistant – from her home and using little more than a laptop computer and an e-mail account branded with Craven’s ScalePassion.com address – arranges appointments and interviews with prospective clients and other coaches.

Looking to hire a VA? Know your needs. Craven needed someone comfortable with e-mail, some technology and juggling of various tasks, but bookkeeping wasn’t important.

Though he currently pays about $15 to $20 an hour, Craven is looking to embrace even more “labor arbitrage” by hiring VAs from the Philippines, he said. Then, his VA will manage a team of offshore VAs, who can cost about $6 an hour, he said.

“I feel proud that I’m reaching into a community that’s used to making minimum wage,” said Craven, whose business often serves “change the world” entrepreneurs in socially responsible businesses and causes. “It’s important to find someone who’s very talented and cultivating her talent.”

Jeff Zbar covers marketing, technology and small business strategies. Contact him at jeffzbar@gmail.com.

Miami safer than Orlando? That’s what a newly released report by Washington, D.C-based

CQ Press finds.

The publication, which examined 2008

FBI statistics for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft, ranked Miami 45th, while Orlando came in 17th. Fort Lauderdale ranked 77th and West Palm Beach came in 53rd.

http://www.3freemonthsnow.com/” target=”_top” />

The report looks crime rate rankings of cities of at least 75,000 residents. Topping the list of 393 cities is Camden, N.J., followed by St. Louis and Oakland, Calif. Detroit and Flint, Mich., round out the top five.

Other South Florida cities ranked include:

• Miami Gardens: 35
• Miami Beach: 42
• Pompano Beach: 63
• Hollywood: 144
• Hialeah: 186
• Miramar: 216
• Plantation: 234
• Davie: 248
• Sunrise: 254
• Pembroke Pines: 315
• Boca Raton: 319
• Coral Springs: 346

Download the complete list here.

Miami home prices ticked up 0.05 percent in September over August, but remained down 16.2 percent, year-over-year, according to the latest S&P Case-Shiller 20-city home price index.

The closely watched gauge of U.S. home prices rose 0.3 percent in September from August, the fifth straight monthly increase.

“We have seen broad improvement in home prices for most of the past six months,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, in a news release. “However, the gains in the most recent month are more modest than during the seasonally strong summer months. Fewer cities saw month-to-month improvements in September than in August in both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted figures.”

Las Vegas has some of the biggest housing drops, with a 28.6 percent fall, although Phoenix isn’t far behind, with a 21.8 percent drop.

No markets in the 20-city composite showed a housing price increase over the past 12 months.

Hotel occupancy and rates fell again last week, according to data from Smith Travel Research.

For the week ended Nov. 14, average daily room rates in Palm Beach County fell 16.1 percent, to $109.70 from $130.77 at the same time last year. Miami-Dade rates fell 14.5 percent, to $130.85 from $146.31. Rates in Broward fell 13.2 percent, to $98.98 from $114.01.

Average rates across the U.S. were down 9.9 percent, to $95.86 from $106.45 in the prior-year period.

Occupancy in Miami-Dade fell to 71.9 percent from 78.9 percent. Palm Beach County occupancy fell to 62.7 percent from 67.4 percent. Occupancy in Broward fell to 67.7 percent from 72.4 percent.

Nationwide, occupancy fell to 52.6 percent from 56.2 percent.

Though the environment remains challenging, things are improving in Broward as we move into winter, said Alfredo Gonzalez, VP of tourism and international business at the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau. For October, occupancy was essentially flat in Broward.

“Hopefully, the next 12 weeks will set us apart from the rest of the Florida market,” he said.

On Wednesday, Virgin America Airlines debuted at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where it will offer twice-daily nonstop flights from San Francisco International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.

The San Francisco flights are expected to bring a “significant” number of gay, lesbian and bisexual travelers, an important demographic for Fort Lauderdale, Gonzalez noted.

And, Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, the largest cruise ship ever built, recently docked at Port Everglades. That’s also good for Broward tourism, he added. Finally, Broward will benefit from the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl being held in Miami this winter, he said.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA – Customers are more satisfied with residential high-speed Internet this year than they were last year, mostly because of higher connection speeds and fewer service outages.

Every year, J.D. Power and Associates asks consumers to evaluate their Internet service providers based on performance and reliability; cost of service; customer service; billing; and offerings and promotions. This year, overall satisfaction reached 639 on a 1,000-point scale – 22 index points higher than in 2008. Satisfaction with performance and reliability now averages 687, a 43-point increase from 644 in 2008.

In many instances a household’s Internet connection acts as the backbone of its voice, video and information services, making the provider’s ability to provide a fast, reliable connection particularly critical,” says Frank Perazzini, director of telecommunications at J.D. Power and Associates. “As households become more dependent on services provided via the Internet, eliminating outages and providing consistent connection speeds will become necessities in Internet service providers’ business models.”

J.D. Power found that consumers are becoming more interested in bundled telecom services, with the proportion of customers saying they will probably or definitely bundle services in the next year increasing to 52 percent from 43 percent in 2008. The most popular telecom bundle is a video/Internet combination, selected by about a third of customers who bundle services. Triple-play (voice, video, data) bundles increased from 16 percent in 2008 to 19 percent in 2009.

“Internet service may be considered the linchpin of the bundled offering, serving to drive both customer loyalty and incremental sales opportunities,” said Perazzini. “As competition for new customers increases among Internet service providers, retaining the existing customer base while promoting additional voice and video will continue to be critical.”

The highest-rated ISPs included Verizon in the East, Bright House Networks in the South, WOW! in the North Central region and EarthLink in the West.

The study findings include the following key trends:

The proportion of high-speed Internet service customers loyal to their provider has increased by two percentage points from 2008, to 32 percent in 2009. Additionally, 66 percent of customers state they “definitely will” or “probably will” recommend their provider to others in 2009-an increase of four percentage points, compared with 2008.

Among customers who contacted their service provider to resolve a problem or question, average hold times have decreased by nearly 30 seconds in 2009, compared with 2008.