BizDev & Product Management

A Competition Powered by Nature

2008-05-04T22:22:00.001+02:00

Volvo Ocean Race 2008-2009 Promo

Looking forward to see the teams of one of the most challenging races of the world sharing some challenging moments of this outstanding race featured in spectacular video clips.

The quest for victory in the hardest competition around the world, the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-2009: Balancing speed and safety in a competition powered by nature.

First offshore leg will start in Alicante, Spain, on October 11, 2008

Brand Awareness: Ocean Racing at it's Most Exciting

Facebook Delivers an Outstanding Performance

2008-04-10T15:38:00.002+02:00

In these days it's trendy to collaborate, share data and information over the Web and the big differentiator of Facebook came when Facebook opened their platform letting information structure emerge instead of imposing structure.

Facebook does not impose any limitations on how services show their value proposition and make money. It's like an operating system, businesses can run full applications on top of Facebook leveraging the social graph or just connect with their customers.

With 7.5% time spent in a community, communities capture a respectable share of user's overall online time. From the OPA:

There is several ways to get orientation, currently Facebook leverages 21.428 additional applications. They can be selected from several categories and sortet according to selected criteria like 'Recently Popular, Most Activity, Most Active Users and Newest' and of course they can be searched.

There is Adonomics™, Facebook Analytics and Developer Service. I'm quoting from their site: 'There are 930,295,450 installs across 21,492 apps on Facebook with over 200,000 developers currently evaluating the platform.' They offer free services like 'Top Applications, Top Companies and Top Developers' and help to grow engage and monetize an application as well as to track application growth, activity, and valuation.

Of course there is also a typical Web 2.0 app rating style called AppRate, a Community-Driven Facebook Applications Reviews and Ratings site with daily reviews and ratings of Facebook applications.

Overall, Facebook and its community provide excellent services, transparency and an outstanding performance with business models for an open Platform and applications like:

Contextual, displayed, targeted and linked advertising
RSS advertising
Sponsoring and donations
Affiliate programs and merchandising
Social Commerce (recommendations, reviews etc.)

Hard times for competitors!

Turning Towards Two.Zero eCommerce

2008-03-05T22:00:00.001+01:00

The most influencing factors for online shopping are still convenience, trust and quality of information.

Characteristics of today's Web 2.0 architecture allow better communications and data exchange resulting in improved social networking technologies, service orientation and cinematic user interfaces based on AJAX and Flash complementing modern SOA's and Web-services. Web 2.0 features increase brand loyalty and customer retention.

Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

It's a very early stage, but innovative services on the horizon already leverage human intelligence filtering content by trusted friends and community features applying technologies such as the Semantic Web and FOAF which will enrich today's Web technologies and allow even better collaboration online and improved search results for products and services.

It's not the big guys who drive this evolution, it's smaller but smarter social commerce sites like Kaboodle, ThisNext, Wishpot and StyleHive that have triggered an unprecedented social commerce phenomenon 'customers communicating with customers' and a resurgence in the Long Tail economy.

But also the big U.S. retailers like Wal-Mart, HomeDepot, Kroger, Costco and Target, expertise providers like iVillage and WebMD and of course the great online shopping portals like eBay, Amazon.com, BizRate.com, MySimon.com, YahooShopping, NexTag.com, Overstock.com, Shopping.com, Pricerunner.com, PricingCentral.com, MSN Shopping, Shop.com and Shopzilla and B2B eCommerce portals like the Chinese Globaby.com and Alibaba.com have started to apply Web 2.0 features and most of them are known in Germany and Europe, too.

Time for eCommerce to meet two.zero now.

Targeting Well-defined Audience Segments

2008-02-17T19:41:00.003+01:00

contra los elementos, originally uploaded by luzdelsur.

Accessing the Internet at high speeds has several positive effects on Internet usage resulting in higher connectivity and new sorts of services.

Due to better transparency today its possible to reach one's audience when they are searching online, while researching a product or service and when they are spending time online on activities like social networking or watching videos.

I'm expecting more new touch-points in 2008 due to an evolving digital landscape, just thinking of innovative messaging services...

Phantastic capture, taken at Playa Chica, Tarifa, Spain, southernmost point of Europe.

Trends in Online Shopping

2008-02-15T12:08:00.000+01:00

Keeping myself informed about the American market the Pew Internet & American Life Project is an excellent independent resource to gather trusted, high-quality information. The key findings of a recent publication (PDF) were:

'American internet users have embraced online shopping because they say it is convenient and a time-saver.'
'At the same time, most online Americans have high levels of concern about sending personal or credit card information over the internet.'
'More than half of internet users encounter frustrations and other frictions in the course of online shopping.'

So the most influencing factors for online shopping are still convenience, trust and quality of information. However people's behavior in researching buying related information and decision making has changed during the last months:

eCommerce maturing in the US is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years. As experience showed easy to use tools do have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business. Web 2.0 features give control to the user, increase brand loyalty and customer retention and can make products and services benefit from a word-of-mouth.

Brand the most Valuable Asset of a Global Company

Handling Open Web Application Security

2008-02-14T12:24:00.000+01:00

As the market dynamics change digital business is quickly becoming the method of choice for any enterprise to offer products and services on-demand to their market applying next-generation information infrastructures with AJAX as an ideal partner to complement modern SOA architectures.

But moving applications to the Web also brings up a lot of questions how to deal with security issues. The OWASP is an open project and a community to help make informed decisions about Web application security risks. In 2007 the most serious web application vulnerabilities (as PDF) were:

Cross Site Scripting (XSS)
Injection Flaws
Malicious File Execution
Insecure Direct Object Reference
Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Information Leakage and Improper Error Handling
Broken Authentication and Session Management
Insecure Cryptographic Storage
Insecure Communications
Failure to Restrict URL Access

For the most prevalent Web application frameworks and especially for open source development, where open source software became the most prominent face of open source the OWASP project represents an excellent ressource to stay informed and make decisions about application security.

The project also provides a comprehensive guide to build secure Web applications and Web services and many recommendations also for projectmanagers, application owners and of course C-level executives.

Google Reader Does not Like Special Characters

2008-01-20T10:31:00.000+01:00

Making extensively use of Google services Google Reader has become one of my favorite applications. But it seems like sometimes even Google launches with bugs :-)

Google Reader Interpretation

Feedburner Interpretation

Original Blogger Content

Google Reader represents a big step forward in terms of user friendliness improving one's digital lifestyle and simplifies the personal information management process centralizing and storing information and information history across several website feeds for users and extending reach for distributers.

Google Reader Blog

A Favorite Ski Resort, l'Espace Killy, Val d'Isere

2007-12-16T11:55:00.001+01:00

DSC01505, Originally uploaded by chevaliermorgan.

Val d'Isère is known for its charming "chalet" architecture and the "l'Espace Killy", one of the largest ski areas in the world reaching from 1785 m–3599 m of altitude offering 300km of piste plus breathtaking off piste skiing.

This year's season started already with lot's of snow beyond 100 cm, the photo shows the center of Val d'Isere in Dec/2007as an amazingly quiet winter idyll covered in deep snow. Excellent precausions for the coming ski season, and of course an excellent photo.

View WebCams

Perfect Open Source Project Management on a Linux Box with OpenProj

2007-10-11T15:49:00.000+02:00

While setting up a list of useful open source applications for my Linux laptop I found a very advanced project management solution provided by Projity incorporating both, a web-based project-on-demand service (SaaS) and an open source desktop alternative to MS Project. The latest version requires Java (JRE) and is available as .deb, .rpm or platform-independent source at Sourceforge.net.

'OpenProj shares the industry's most advanced scheduling engine with Project-ON-Demand and has Gantt Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts, Earned Value costing and more.'

Being familiar with MS Project it's easy to switch. Just create a work breakdown structure, add time and dependencies, OpenProj will construct a project model applying CPM ready to prioritize activities for the effective management of project completion.

OpenProj on a Linux Laptop

Probably the best solution I've ever seen, just got used to it.

Consumer Recomendations more Influencing than ever

2007-10-09T00:18:00.000+02:00

Trends and consumer reactions in terms of communications and marketing can best be monitored in blogs and other consumer-generated media like web pages, newsgroups, emails sent-to companies, chat lines, forums and message boards.

A recent study from eMarketer showed that consumer opinions are no longer a local phenomenon: Word-of-mouth works worldwide and is more effective than traditional forms of advertising.

'Yet more than three-quarters of consumers surveyed worldwide find that consumer opinions are the most effective form of advertising, according to a Nielsen study.'

Web 2.0 features give control to the user, increase brand loyalty and customer retention and can make products and services benefit from a word-of-mouth.

Here are some more significant success factors:

Strong brand
Highly automatized work flow
Media-compatible staged content
Low problem cases
Mastering rapid changes in technology
High stability at payment solutions and CMS

As experience showed easy to use tools do have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business. Putting increasing efforts into successful website operations with a focus on making consumer opinions an essential part of a website can result in making a profit, generating significant online revenues, developing online branding, creating successful online products or attracting subscriptions.

Vodafone UK Part of Google Checkout Network Now

2007-10-03T00:39:00.000+02:00

Just before the Q4 shopping season Vodafone UK opted for Google Checkout to see more visitors to their site, higher conversion rates and an increase in the return on investment for their AdWords spendings as well as helping Google’s Checkout service gain new users.

I'm just wondering when GC will arrive at Germany, rumors say 2008...

(Via Google Checkout Blog)

Fascination Speed: New MB World Speed Record

2007-09-29T18:18:00.000+02:00

What do high-speed ski racing and downhill mountain biking have in common? They share the same locations while chasing for new speed records. It's just incredible:

The Austrian Markus Stöckl (Kitzbühel) has set a new world speed record for series mountain bikes (Intense M6 bike) on a 2000 m long and 45° steep speed track in La Parva, Chilean Alps. With a speed of 210.4 km/h (130.7 mph) he exceeded his 8 year old record from Les Arcs, French Alps, by 23 km/h (14 mph). (Via MS Racing Blog)

Next-generation Communications and Collaboration with Google Apps

2007-09-18T12:53:00.000+02:00

After Documents and Spreadsheets Google added Presentations to Docs. It's possible now to create and share presentations online with co-workers reducing the amount of friction to interact with each other improving communications and productivity.

Chinese Alipay Launched as a Global Payments Option

2007-08-31T11:33:00.000+02:00

Located in the Asia-Pacific market the world's future Internet super-power China's largest e-commerce company, the Alibaba Group, which also owns Alibaba.com, Taobao, Yahoo! China and Alisoft launched Alipay as a global payments option for Chinese customers including 12 major currencies.

From PRNewswire:

'As of August 20, 2007, Alipay had more than 47 million users in China, growing at a rate of more than 80,000 new registered users each day. Alipay's average daily transaction volume exceeds RMB 150 million, handling an average 780,000 transactions each day.'

'Alipay is the largest online payment service provider in China with a market share of over 50%. '

'Alipay expects to expand its overseas partner list to over 100 retail websites by the end of the year, to cover product providers ranging from cosmetics, fashion, bags and jewelry to household and digital products. The company also predicts the international service will reach monthly transaction volumes of RMB 800 million by the end of 2007.'

'Alipay's first international partner retailers include Sa Sa International Holdings Limited, a leading Asian cosmetics retailing and beauty services group; StrawberryNET, the world's leading provider of discounted designer skin care, make-up, cosmetics, perfume and men's and women's fragrances; and J Shoppers, a subsidiary of Japan's largest listed mail order company Nissen On- line, focusing on mail order sales outside Japan.'

Alternative payment platforms are catching up, become more and more popular and with the progress of eCommerce they represent a big step forward in terms of user friendliness improving one's digital lifestyle and I'm excited how Chinese customers will shop across the world.

Global market leader PayPal got another formidable competitor!

Yesterday's Fabulous Horse Racing Event in D.

2007-08-20T09:15:00.001+02:00

Sparkassen-Renntag, originally uploaded by drasir.

Always a pleasure to visit Düsseldorf's picturesque green racecourse a few minutes away from here. It's just amazing to watch a live race experiencing how fast they can go. The difference from average starts with the saddle. Excellent shot!

Welcome to the Payments Club, Amazon FPS Started

2007-08-03T12:09:00.000+02:00

Today Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS) designed as a Web-service tailored to the needs of developers launched on top of Amazon's reliable and scalable payment infrastructure. It claims to be flexible, inexpensive, reliable and secure, supports micro payments, enables 69 mio. active Amazon customers to use FPS and the most important, they have experience -- Amazon processes global payments for more than a decade now.

More than a year ago when I had the idea 'Why not Using Online-Payments to Checkout?' 37% of all US-bills were payed by check. Although it's very traditional in the US to pay by check I'm still convinced that there is a huge consumer demand for new payment technologies, including cash, checks, credit cards, debit cards, stored value cards and Internet banking.

Alternative payment platforms are already catching up among the top 200 e-commerce sites, Bill Me Later commanded 28 percent market share with PayPal and Google Checkout representing 26 percent and 13 percent, as a recent poll showed.

Amazon FPS complements other Amazon Web-services like S3 and EC2, offers code snippets in C#, Java, PHP, and Ruby code and with the progress of eCommerce it is a big step forward in terms leveraging the long tail – I'm excited what kind of services will make use of FPS.

It took Google 9 and 1/2 months after initial launch in the US and 3 weeks after being certified for e-money by the UK-based FSA to launch Google Checkout across Europe of course first in the UK.

I'm wondering when Amazon FPS will come to Europe.

Superb Shot of the Tower of Macenas

2007-07-26T20:28:00.001+02:00

The Last Guardian, originally uploaded by cuellar.

This fantastic capture of the Tower of Macenas recently caught my interest because of its great atmosphere featuring the picturesque Tower of Macenas located in the middle of nowhere, well it's located at the Mediterranean coast of Spain near Almeria. Excellent shot, like in a movie.

RSS Reader Trends among Tech-Savvy Users

2007-07-25T13:05:00.000+02:00

Read/WriteWeb recently conducted a poll among their readers about RSS-Reader usage reflecting the trend among tech-savvy users (extract):

	July 2007	January 2007	Change
Web-based (e.g. Bloglines, Google Reader, Rojo)	59%	52%	+ 7%
Desktop (e.g. FeedDemon, NetNewsWire)	13%	19%	- 6%
Start Page (Pageflakes, Netvibes, etc)	16%	14% (+ 2%)*	no change

The big winners are browser-based RSS-readers and even start-pages became more coveted than desktop-readers.

Since I'm on Google (3 years ago) I'm moving more and more applications online making extensively use of Google services such as Gmail and Google Reader. The fact is that Firefox has become my most coveted application and since the introduction of Google Gears it's even possible to download RSS-Feeds via the Google Reader making them available offline and synchronizing them the while going online again. Cool!

Experience showed that a centralization on behalf of a user simplifies the personal information management process, thus browser-based RSS-readers and start-pages can really improve one's digital lifestyle.

Browser-based RSS-readers centralize and store information and information history across several website feeds for users and extend reach for distributers.

Personalized start-pages are frequently used as an information resource and a preferred place to personalize trust worth and up-to-date news and services.

Web-based applications make collaboration easy for users and reduce maintenance costs for suppliers.

World's Tallest Building in Dubai now!

2007-07-21T21:17:00.001+02:00

Burj Dubai1, originally uploaded by moctar.

Burj Dubai with 512 m the highest building on earth now and no ending in sight. It's said to grow beyond 700 m until 2008.

Fog at Sunrise in Dubai

Google UK Checkout Doing Well after 3 Months

2007-07-07T21:55:00.000+02:00

3 Months after their UK launch the first success stories from happy customers are available now. Ebuyer.com which offers brand name computer technology and consumer electronics through both, Google Checkout and Paypal's Express Checkout, to it's customers reports in a featured case study:

'We’ve already seen more visitors to the site, higher conversion rates and an increase in the return on investment for our AdWords spend.'

'Our customers just can’t get enough of Google Checkout! The launch promotion drove a lot of the traffic initially but we expect customers to continue to use Google Checkout because of the convenience that it offers.'

DiamondGeezer.com which offers high quality diamond jewellery online shopping including high ticket items far beyond £10.000 reports:

'Checkout has increased consumer trust in our brand and the service that we offer.'

UK stores, that accept GC include ProFilmGear (video and photo gear) partner of Channel Advisor’s ecommerce network, SportsHQ (golf equipment), iFlorist (flowers) and many other sellers in 17 categories.

eCommerce maturing in the US is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years. With surpassing PayPal's Express Checkout in the US in terms of Checkout seller adoption and with the further progress of eCommerce Google is more and more tapping into eBay's fixed price business competing in products, customers and business model and has shown that GC is a formidable competitor to Paypal's Express Checkout.

I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany. To benefit from the initial launch promotion it's recommended to be an early adopter of GC.

2007 Year of Third Party Widget Developers

2007-06-28T12:53:00.000+02:00

As the market dynamics and content delivery systems change 2007 is the year of widgets. I've written already about Current and Future eCommerce Challenges leveraging network effects, Web Widgets as a Distribution Channel, of course Facebook's Open Platform as a Serious Trend for Future Marketing and Facebook Sets Trend for Distributed Networks.

Web widgets bring the Web to you, prominent use is iGoogle (released a set of tools in 2005 called Fusion), Google's personalized start-pages are frequently used as an information resource and a preferred place to personalize trust worth and up-to-date news and services via gadgets.

Inspired by the success of iGoogle, Google introduced a new pilot program dedicated to helping developers create richer, more useful Google Gadgets: Google Gadget Ventures

Grants of $5,000 to those who’ve built gadgets we’d like to see developed further. You’re eligible to apply for a grant if you’ve developed a gadget that’s in our Google gadgets directory and gets at least 250,000 weekly page views. To apply, you must submit a one-page proposal detailing how you’d use the grant to improve your gadget.
Seed investments of $100,000 to developers who’d like to build a business around the Google gadgets platform. Only Google Gadget Venture grant recipients are eligible for this type of funding. Submitting a business plan detailing how you plan to build a viable business around the gadgets platform is a required part of the seed investment application process.

Recently comScore introduced a new report called comScore Widget Metrix to serve advertisers wich relevant facts:

'“The recent explosion of user-generated content has helped create a worldwide marketplace for widgets,” said Linda Boland Abraham, executive vice president at comScore. “comScore is excited to be providing measurement for this developing content medium.”'

'comScore’s analysis of the top ten Web widgets worldwide revealed that photo-related widgets dominate the top positions. In April 2007, Slide was the top widget provider with a worldwide reach of more than 117 million unique viewers, or 13.8 percent of the total worldwide Internet audience. Other top photo-related widgets included RockYou (82 million viewers), PictureTrail (31 million viewers), and Photobucket (28 million viewers). '

'As more and more sites across the Internet employ Web widgets, the worldwide penetration will continue to grow. In April, widget penetration was highest in North America where 40.3 percent of Internet users visited a Web site with an embedded widget, followed by Western Europe (24.3 percent) and Latin America (17.5 percent).'

And of course there is already applications for the newly released Apple iPhone. I'm excited to watch this development to take off in the mobile space.

Superior User Interface on Apple's iPhone

2007-06-27T15:05:00.000+02:00

Anytime, anywhere access to any multimedia services is in progress and addresses current trends in the telecommunications sector. Today's cellphones converge more and more into hybrids combining voice-centric and data-centric services.

Cellphone manufacturers were not capable to offer a convincing user experience so far, there is millions of products and services on every cellphone, but unfortunately beyond SMS nobody really uses them.

Apple iPhone attacks exactly that weakness and provides a superior and clever UI in terms of quality, video, photo and audio capabilities, leveraging a larger screen (320x480), omitting the physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on a touch screen and providing generous built-in memory (4-8GB).

It will be available on Friday in the US and by the end of the year in Germany. It hasn't been sold yet, but I think is has the potential to become the second iPod. Expectations are high, mobile carriers queue already...

The ability to anticipate consumer needs and to think outside the box are key factors to focus on consumer-centric innovation. The new core competence is creativity and new forms of innovation driving it forward are based on an intimate understanding of consumer culture.

Promoting Google Checkout with AdSense Referrals

2007-06-25T16:00:00.000+02:00

Just discovered referrals for Google Apps and Checkout:

Google Checkout:

'When a user you refer to Google Checkout has an account in good standing and completes a transaction of at least $10 (before tax and shipping) within 90 days of sign-up, we'll credit your AdSense account with US $1.'More on Checkout

Google Apps:

'You will be credited (US $5) when someone clicks your referral and signs up for Google Apps with a domain that has not already been signed up for the service. The domain must then have one or more Google Apps email accounts in use for four consecutive weeks.' More on Productivity

eBay back to Google Advertising

2007-06-23T20:20:00.000+02:00

When Google announced two weeks ago it would hold a Checkout party that coincided with the beginning of eBay Live !, eBay announced that they would take away all their US ad spending and they did it, but for the purpose of an experiment and treatment to find out how dependent on Google Advertising they are. The timing was just a coincidence. Via internetnews.com:

eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said 'that while eBay was pleased Google canceled the controversial "Freedom Party," the timing of its experiment was mere coincidence.'

Well, if eBay wouldn't need Google Advertising... eBay depends on the traffic from Google namly both, organic and non organic traffic, but Google does not depend on the traffic from eBay - and it's a global marketplace and I'm expecting Google to gain further market share in the search category. Via internetnews.com:

"We are now slowly turning AdWords back on, in a much more limited way than before," eBay spokeswoman Catherine England told internetnews.com in an email.

In a statement emailed to internetnews.com, Google said eBay remains a valued partner: "Over the last seven years, we have worked closely with eBay to drive customers to their site and build value for their business and the business of their sellers. We look forward to a continued partnership."

Google and eBay created the two most successful business models, search and auctions, on the Internet, but expanding into new markets led to an increasing competition in several other products and services (Rebranding into Google Product Search).

Google Base and Google Product Search compete with Craigslist, Kijiji, Shopping.com and of course eBay and the last year launched Google Checkout competes with PayPal, especially with the PayPal Express Checkout, where Google Checkout recently surpassed PayPal Express Checkout in terms of customer adoption, view interesting comments here.

More on Checkout:

Expedition White Nile - Extreme Paddling, Rafting, Kayaking

2007-06-22T16:35:00.000+02:00

Bujagali Falls, a stunningly beautiful White Nile treasure, which is about 10km from Jinja, Uganda, situated at the source of the Nile at Lake Victoria, part of the African Great Lakes, is the center of some of the most extreme spots with water falls throughout the year and one of the most famous places in the world when it comes to paddling, rafting and kayaking white water rapids, washing machines and waterfalls.

It's just amazing how many high quality clips contributed by a very specialized community can be found in my AJAX-powered video search further down just by typing 'White Nile'. Those videos are attractive, entertaining, hype and innovative because they represent a service that would not make a commercial sense from a traditional media point of view.

Downriver Kayaking through Bujagali falls near Jinja , White Nile, Uganda

Freestyle Kayaking even more extreme near Jinja, White Nile, Uganda

White Water Rafting through the G-Spot near Jinja, White Nile, Uganda