Netizen

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Apex Analytics is an audit software vendor: "The fastest growing provider of accounts payable software for error prevention and fraud detection, recovery audit services, procure-to-pay compliance solutions to the Fortune 500."

Overpayment Recovery
FirstStrike
Continuous Monitoring

Best Buy and Wal-mart are customers of the Apex Analytics audit software.

Dishonesty seems to be statistical. If you run a large game, it is possible there is someone somewhere on your team, some small clique that is engaging in behavior that could get the larger team, and the brand name down the tube. Don't take a chance. Get some audit software.

Tagged: Chugging Along, But What Differentiates?

Let’s Not Put Tagged In The DeadPool Just Yet TechCrunch On the spam issue: Tagged has always been aggressive about “encouraging” users to add their address book and invite new users. It’s sadly a proven way to get lots of new users ..... Tagged has less than 40 employees and has been profitable for more than two years. They’ve raised just $13.5 million in capital and have revenue in the $10 million - $20 million range. ...... nearly 32 million people visited Tagged in April 2009, up from 14 million a year ago. ....... Those visitors racked up over 5 billion page views in April 2009, up from less than a billion/month a year ago

I don't know how exactly I ended up there, but I am on Tagged.com. It has mystified me as to why some social networking sites do well in some cultures rather than others. Why did Orkut take off in Brazil and India more than other places? I used to get a lot of friend requests from brown people - my kind - on Hi5. I still get a few. What gives?

In social networking there are going to be a few big players, and numerous niche players. Just earlier today I signed up for a site called Jhyaap, that has all of 16 members besides me. These are 16 Nepalis in Minnesota. I met the founder on Twitter and went ahead and signed up. I figured, what the heck? I started a discussion and the founder immediately responded.

What I would like as a user is many niche social networking sites that I can all sign into with Facebook Connect. Having to create a username and password for each separately is a hassle. What gives?

What differentiates? Is Tagged a big player or a niche player? Where is it trying to go? What is it trying to be? What can you do on Tagged that you can not do on Facebook? One difference I see is on Tagged many of your photos are right there on your profile page, and your wall is not another click away. Is that enough differentiation?

And if they can do spam marketing, I wonder if the girl/woman who has been poking me at Tagged is a real person or a Tagged marketing technique, you have to wonder.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Opera Unite: New Definition For Client/Server

That Reinvention Of The Web Thing Opera Was Talking About? It's Called Opera Unite TechCrunch

The details are sketchy at this point, but the promise is big. The claim is tall. Opera Unite claims to have reinvented the web. The claim is that Opera turns your web browser into a server. You don't have to go through a larger company's servers to share your stuff with someone. The sharing can be direct.

But isn't this like replicating sharing? Sharing is already happening. And your friend can only access the file on your computer if your computer is connected to the web. Whereas "foreign" servers are always on.

This kind of sharing has its uses, sure. This is innovation. But how is this revolutionary? I actually like not to have to store stuff on my own computer.

Maybe America Does Not Need To Make Things

Does America Need to Make Things? TechCrunch

Farming is still around, but what percentage of Americans are farmers? A small percentage feeds the rest. Used to be most people were farmers. But then productivity started going up. And fewer people could feed the masses.

Maybe productivity levels are similarly going up in the industrial sector as well. Only the entire globe is the stage.

Maybe the future is that

Many traditional industrial jobs will move to countries where labor is cheap.
New green tech industries will come in.
Many workers will be retrained, re-educated for new, better paying jobs.
The new generation will go into the service sector, the knowlegde sector, the web sector of the economy en masse.

The education and health in America have been designed for bygone industrial eras. A country that might send 90% of its college graduates into the service/knowledge sector might want to reinvent the education wheel.

Job Hunting And 2.0
New York City: Transformed Forever?
Reimagining The Office

Monetizing Twitter: A Few Ideas

There are many ways to monetize Twitter. I say scale it (Goal: A Billion People On Twitter), monetize it, and then go public. This is a company whose market value will be in the billions. But monetization is key.

(1) Twitter Enterprise

There could be several versions. Companies could pay for premier accounts. Of course they could opt to have free accounts just as well, like many small businesses might. But my idea of Twitter Enterprise sees similarities with Google AdWords. Companies small and big use AdWords.

The first order of business would be help companies make sense of the vast order of data that might accumulate on Twitter around their brand names, mostly real time and near real time, but also digging into the archives. What if I want a snapshot for the past week, the past month?

(2) Twitter Ad Stream

The second order of business would be displaying ads. Use the real estate. My Twitter profile page has space for ads I think. Each tweet has its own unique web address. And each such page is more real estate for ads. Maybe ads on Twitter should be limited to 70 characters. And ad streams would be handled by Twitter Corporate. Catchy text plus tiny URL.

Once you create the concept of the Twitter ad stream, you could put that out many places including in the live streams of individual account holders. If every 30th tweet in my stream is a 70 character, one line ad, so be it. The ads should look like ads.

Just like Facebook's ad space is different, (Facebook's Ad Space Is Different) Twitter's ad space is also different. It has to be to stand out.

(3) Tweet Ads

The concept has to be introduced. And it should perhaps be automated like AdWords. People and businesses sign up online, pay by credit card, design their 70 character tweet ads, and pick the kind of streams they would like to go down in. And of course the tweet ads can be retweeted.

How To Increase Your Following On Twitter
Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter?
Real Time Search: Twitter Is Not Doing It
Google Falling Behind Twitter?
Eminem: The Relapse: Twitter
Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter
NewsDesk: China, Twitter, Hawking, Obama
Digg Button, Twitter Button For Your Blog Posts
My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher
Twitter Is Not Micro
The Depth Of Your Friendships At Twitter
Goal: A Billion People On Twitter
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter

Image via CrunchBase

I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Twitter And The Time Dimension
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
TCC: Twitter Community College
Twitter Tips: It's A Bird, It's A Bird
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
I Get Twitter

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