In Situ Content
I've been working on a prezi for a talk I'm giving next monday at OMMA Global (here's the high level outline of the talk). It's a work in progress. I started it last weekend. I do a bit more each morning. I hope to have it done before I walk on stage monday at 9:10am.
I like to use visuals when I give a talk. I use them as eye candy for the audience. And they are the cues for me to move through the concepts I want to cover. It's like a visual outline. I don't use notes. I just hit next and I'm reminded about the flow I want to use.
For many years, I used Powerpoint to create the visuals for these talks. Then I'd post the slides to Slideshare and share the visuals on this blog and elsewhere to get feedback. It was a fine system.
But in my effort to move everything I do to the cloud, I've ditched Powerpoint for Prezi and started creating the visuals right on the web. So I can link out to a work in progress without any need to upload anything. And when I walk onto the stage, I pull up a browser, go to a URL, and I'm good to go.
I really like content systems where everything happens "in situ". The more I use systems like this, the more I think they are the future. I alluded to this in my "there will be no files in the cloud" post, but I think this goes beyond files vs no files.
So much of what I do, what I think about, what I am learning is informed by the daily act of writing this blog. I write in a browser. I bring all these web services I'm using right into the post via links, images, embeds, etc. And then I hit publish. You load up a browser, go to AVC.com, and start reading. Using Disqus, we talk about what I've written. I learn, you learn, and then it's tomorrow and a new post. This is all happening in one system (or two connected systems – typepad and disqus). It is all happening in a browser. And we are all connected to each other via the web.
So when I look at doing visual presentations, I want a similar system. Prezi is in situ. Powerpoint isn't.
When I look at creating and publishing audio, SoundCloud is in situ. iTunes insn't.
When I look at creating and publishing novels, Wattpad is in situ. Kindle isn't.
When I look at creating and publishing documents, Google Docs is in situ. Word is not.
When I look at remixing images, Canv.as is in situ. Photoshop is not.
I'll stop there. You get the point by now. There is so much to be gained when content is published and consumed in the same service where engagement is encouraged, measured, and leveraged to improve the experience for everyone. These are the content systems of the future.
In the spirit of full disclosure, Disqus, SoundCloud, Wattpad, and Canv.as are USV portfolio companies. What is the point of learning if you don't leverage what you learn?
Comments (Archived):
And the question is…can services that try to “bake in” engagement later ever really beat services that design engagement into their core from day one?It will be tough, I’d argue.
that’s what i love about wattpad. the authors write the book in the service, chapter by chapter and the readers are commenting on the chapters before the next one is written.
Wattpad appears to be the second service with only Facebook authentication that you’ve invested in.I told my team I refused to send you our demo until they finish Twitter authentication too… 🙂
it’s not a requirement for funding from USVbut i really wish they would all support both
The trouble is developers coding against moving targets, and diverse ones at that. Common protocol like authentication will help in the future connecting to any web services (not just the big two or three).Luckily there are plenty of open source libraries in a variety of languages which handle auth to service X, Y and Z. And there are companies which specialize in being the middleman constantly tuning their back ends to new services, while providing a common external API.But there’s a challenge in making any remote connection fit with a new service’s vibe. Folks don’t want another Like, +1 or sharing option. We want to forget about the brand that serves as middleware and focus more on the connection to other people or ideas.
Actually we also support Twitter authentication.
Cool!» Aaron KleinSent from my Android
do you think Wattpad will incorporate some form of Kindle sync in the future?
not sure
Definitely!
great to hear that Allen. Look forward to that happening.
I write fiction when i have time. I sat at the home page of Wattpad and pondered putting my work up there. One word. Fear. Couldn’t do it. Maybe next year. 🙂
Hmm. That’s a problem
I’m just being a big baby. I’ll get over it (eventually)
use a ghost writer’s name and fear no more…but don’t use that avatar, or we’ll know who you are 🙂
Leigh, you are not alone. Writers have been using pen names for hundreds of years. Fear is one of the reasons. Wattpad fully embraces anonymity. And our supportive community will also give you a lot of encouragement. Wattpad helps a lot of writers overcome the “fear” word everyday. Give it a try.
I would read it.
It is not what I would look for in a reading experience ( at all ) but I can see how some people would like it.Crowd sourcing works for ideas – but not execution.
Try reading on one of wattpads mobile clients
I’m also reflexively sceptical about this as an artistic process– it would have been a shame if Mark Twain had abandoned Huck Finn after a couple of chapters after taking a shellacking on the 19th century equivalent of the tweet machine. That said, much great 19c literature (Sherlock Holmes, much of Dickens) was published in serial form, and for sure Doyle, Dickens etc. took account of reactions to published chapters in completing their works.
SOME THINGS CAN BE ITERATED.ART NOT ONE OF THOSE THINGS.
Great question.Layering in ‘social’ or ‘engagement’ is tough but it can be done. Legacy companies online are looking to platform their hidden communities all the time.The big issue here is the cloud component that adds access and collaboration as infrastructure.This sentence is key:”There is so much to be gained when content is published and consumed in the same service where engagement is encouraged, measured, and leveraged to improve the experience for everyone.”Cloud as the enabler for social design is what I’m taking away from this.
Agreed. I just think it’s a lot tougher to accomplish than it seems.I’ve been trying to think through: what do I want in my company’s DNA?What is really the difference between Google Docs and Microsoft Office? The web is in Google’s DNA. Office 365 doesn’t quite flow.What is really the difference between Twitter and Google? Social is really in Twitter’s DNA. Google+ may gain traction but it will never replace Twitter.And even broader, what is really the difference between Netflix and Comcast? They both do content distribution, but Netflix is a tech company at heart.We’ve decided there are two key things in our DNA: solving hard problems with math, and leveraging sharing in a way that makes investing better for everyone (rather than being social for social’s sake).It’s so much easier to develop that DNA at 3, 4, 5 people than it is at even 10, 15 or 20…much less 20,000.
Social for social’s sake is Facebook. It’s a sharing platform around each of us. And killer at it. Not so good at finding context within it.But, yes, finding the behavior that connects around your context (math) is the design key. My sense though is that if you can narrow the scope of the context and really make it work for 20-100 or even a thousand, you are on your way. Discovering the externalization of the behavior is harder than the scaling of the platform.
“social currency is an oxymoron.”Doc searls..
I don’t fully buy Doc Searls then. WE have social currency in “real life” You can see status plays there. why shouldn’t we assume they aren’t going on here…
i should be clear. he is asking what if?, not making the statement.
@markslater:disqus even as a what if- it still doesn’t quite make sense. Why ask if we’re going to act like humans even with a source of intermediation. we acted like humans with older forms of intermediation, why would that change with technology?
not clear try again please
Boy, how true is that, Arnold.We learned SO much about how users wanted to use our app by shipping Beta 1 sixty days into our existence.We’re still building the product we had the vision to build, but the ways that users can behave with it is vastly richer because of the discovery of that natural usage.And I’m sure we’re just getting started with what we learn about that…
What do you think of the changes to facebook then?
Been too busy to spend much time today since the newsfeed morphed.The more whining I see, the more interested I am to dig in though.Tomorrow…I’ll play around.
Aaron, if you send me an email, I’ll send you the brand process i use. We just did it for my new company – i think you have to get broader if you want to build culture. Your core attributes are a good start but it might be helpful to translate them into experience beyond product 🙂
(I’ve alerted Disqus but my email replies are not posting at all. Here’s what I wrote about 30 minutes ago.)I’m really just talking about our approach to building things, but I’m intrigued by your comment. aklein AT riskalyze.com, look forward to hearing from you.
sent. 🙂
I’m not sure – I may not want “engagement” for work – I rather have efficiency…
No reason you can’t choose not to engage. But the value is there if you want to seize it.
Why would engagement not contribute to efficiency?
Because sometimes, you want to work in the zone, alone.
When I was a pup I thought the same way, and very efficiently made stuff people didn’t want. Go zen and take the middle path?
My ideal world is like an open art studio. You do your own thing in a space full of people, you get into your zone, no one bothers you, and at some scheduled time you all do crits on everyones work.I think it is very difficult with a creative process to take a truly middle path. You tend to work by yourself, and then work with people. You don’t do middle of the road limited people working…it just doesn’t work as well…
I like asynchronous collaboration too. The good tools facilitate and encourage that.
Most companies try to bolt social on. Or they foolishly think having a community manager and a great Twitter strategy is the same as social enterprise and business design.Social needs to be at a DNA level. Start-ups do it naturally – large corporations, – it’s the opposite of the way they think and how they are structured. They don’t think ecosystem – they think top down. Social isn’t a feature. It’s a new way to communicate.
“Social”, “DNA”, “ecosystem”: all the buzzwords are there, in all the right places, but I’m skeptical. Here’s why: as near as I can tell, “social” is a useful tool for established brands to communicate with their customers and get feedback (I blogged about an example with Red Mango a while back), but (maybe I’m missing them) I can’t think of many examples of a start-up growing its brand via social media.On the contrary, the start-ups I follow on Twitter tend to have relatively few followers, and get most of their buzz via established media outlets (old school or online).There seems to be something of an “Emperor’s New Clothes” aspect to social media. It’s not in the interests of the community managers and outside consultants to be skeptical about the ROI of it in growing a business (though it clearly can play a useful role for established brands).
I think we are talking two different things – social media vs. social enterprise – most start-ups get marketing traction by building social right into the product :)As for ROI – IMO you have to start measuring social spend in the context of what drives your brand and business vs. how many likes you get (what ev’s). You’ll like this post by @adcontrarian:disqus on Pepsi Refresh “The Pepsi Follies” http://adcontrarian.blogspo…
Sorry for the delay, been swamped. Not sure what the distinction is between social media and social enterprise.Tough to opine about “most start-ups” without some qualifications about what sort of start-ups we’re talking about (e.g., limited to consumer web?). I’d be interested in seeing some empirical data, though, on what % of start-ups across different industries used social media, and how much impact the founders thought it had on their success or failure (would be instructive to include successful and non successful start-ups).ROI should be measured, IMO, on what ultimately drives sales. I’m not convinced that using social media has helped anyone grow a business from scratch (not ruling it out, but can’t think of many examples). Social media seems to be more useful at helping the already big & famous maintain and cultivate relationships with customers who start following them on social media after already knowing about them.
oh and ps. i used to be an environmental planner so I think I’m officially allowed to use the buzzword ecosystem more then most. I’ve posted this presentation here before, maybe even twice, but i’ll do it again…just so you know i come by this crap at least honestly :)http://www.slideshare.net/l…
Leigh, I visited your blog and on a slideshow from 05/15/11 your lesson #3 says it all, “do not create a product create an ecosystem”THAT is it!
You can use whatever buzzwords you like. Ecology, at least, works as a metaphor. DNA doesn’t really though, despite its ubiquity. You don’t get to decide what’s in your DNA; you’re born with it. To extend the metaphor to business, the only control you’d have over the DNA of your business would be by choosing its parents (founders). Most seem to use the term in the context of business to refer to some core attributes that can be established at will.
Leigh, I have been struggling quite a bit trying to clarify this point in my presentations, and I find myself glossing over it because I have not clearly formulated the idea, but “social need to be at a DNA level” pretty much is a great starting point!Thanks
your welcome 🙂
(I’ve alerted Disqus but my email replies are not posting at all. Here’s what I wrote about 30 minutes ago.)That’s exactly what I was trying to say and you articulated it beautifully.
I’ve stopped replying via email, they are just not getting through Disqus at the moment.
well said leigh, but as a new way to communicate, it doesn’t replace other ways. some die-hard social-X fanatics think it will replace everything, and that’s wrong thinking. it will be part of everything, yes- but not a replacement.
Well said. But I think you need to take this further and make marketing part of the core DNA. Social is behavioral design; marketing is the discipline of discovering the connection between your value and the market.They are not exclusive but they aren’t the same.
When I decided to break out on my own and grow our niche brand my first goal was to create a community; a place where folks hung out, shared, and did more than just visit when they needed a product; but we were never able to make the transition from ecommerce to social/community.So, at the first of this year I decided to start all over, focusing on social/community/engagement as a primary goal with product sales a secondary goal.I blogged about the concept last night, but it is becoming more and more apparent that a community can make a brand very successful, but a brand cannot create a community.
Wow. Totally agree.
Quote from Mark Zukerberg”You don’t start communities. Communities already exist. They already do what they want to do. They are already doing they want to do. The question you should ask is how you can help them do that better.”
I cannot argue with Mark Zukerberg because in one sense he is absolutely correct, in another he isn’t. I think the issue of community is one of being and becoming. Facebook does represent exactly what Zukerberg defines but on the other hand, Threadless and AVC have built something totally new upon the concept of community.I am really struggling with the concept as you can see….
Carl- I see your point and I think you’re both right. – existing communities can use social/online to do things better for themselves- new communities such as this one can emerge and take shape online
I would argue that the community here wasn’t constructed but emerged over time. ps. i did a community site for the last project i worked on – and it went against all things i tell pple – it was a short term community, we built it for a specific purpose, we paid some participants to join etc. And even though it was against all the rules i usually tout – it was outstandingly successful. So like everything, just bc there are rules doesn’t mean you can’t break them 🙂
I would love to see a case study of that….
Carl – you are not struggling as much as you think ( I sound like JLM ). FB is a community platform, so, of course, MarkZ sees it that way.AVC is a community. It’s a platform for Fred ( & USV, a bit ). That’s what I think – don’t want to put words in Fred’s mouth here – you need to build Carl’s community as a platform for Carl. I suggest you take Fred’s engagement MO over MarkZ’s social status MO ( that’s a professional opinion, not just what I think! ).
you could have moved everything to the cloud by using Google docs and create your slide there? i never managed to adopt prezi to produce although it is a fantastic tool, to consume
i haven’t tried google’s presentation tool. is it any good?
Thanks for the heads up, looks interesting.
i am reminded of the following quotes that relate to what you are saying fred:”if the service is free, you are the product being delivered”
Source of that Mark?
Heard it a few times the last weeks, this is a source I find:If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.— Andrew Lewis, Metafilter August 26, 2010
Thnx.
I think Jaron Lanier alludes to the point in more detail in this interview: http://edge.org/conversatio…Which is an interesting discussion in and of itself..
This looks good, thanks for the link. I lean far more towards Kevin Kelly philosophically, but appreciate the stark contrast that Jaron and like minded folks bring to the table.
this is all very powerful stuff. It could be the seed by which we see transformative shifts in businesses on the internet from net-centric to -user-centric. The bits and bytes i contribute to a web service are like throwing coins in to a reflecting pool. They all have a defined monetary value. the big hairy question coming is: what do i own and not own? i hate to sound like a broken record but this is what the VRM folks are working on. there are a few others out there – like the wacky http://www.unthink.com that are adressing this and so on…..
There must be older references. Winer has been saying this for years. I couldn’t find anything though, Google’s timeline search let me down.
its an annon commenter in this blog post from some time ago:http://www.bnet.com/blog/ce…not sure i totally agree with the article – but the comment for me is profound.
Thnx Mark.
The unthink. com folks are interesting…a bit puzzled business wise still but intrigued.
think of it like this.firstly VRM is a compliment to, not a disrupter of CRM.all of our current thinking regarding online marketing focuses on CRM. huge Ad platforms have been built around this.Now take the inverse.Its actually C2BIf the lead begins with the consumer “i want xxx or tell me more about yyyy” – then the entire model is flipped.the value of this lead is astronomical and new ad-networks will be built to aggregate and create markets for this. But the consumer essentially has alot more control.Companies – in our view – will need to build channels for consumer initiated interest in the future.
Crisply said.In CRM customers are the lead.In VRM, vendors or companies are the lead for our commercial needs. For us. We are the center of the world and social gravity flows in, not out.Powerful for those designing the tools. From a marketing and business (Vendor) design perspective potentially a game changer.
Hi Arnold and others,I am desperately seeking the best latest thinking about CRM. All suggestions welcome.Karen
Do share what you find Karen.
“Companies – in our view – will need to build channels for consumer initiated interest in the future.”Doc Searls has written a lot about this. He calls it The Intention Economy (back before Gary V et al started putting “economy” on the end of *everything*).
yep thats the title of his new book.
That quote is an old saw and I think it’s way overquoted. First of all as Charlie points out below, that’s not true with freemium. More generally there are plenty of reasons why a business might want to give you freebies. Second of all–so what? I love watching TV. I prefer watching ads rather than pay for every channel. CNBC can “sell me” to every ponzi forex broker out there, I don’t mind. By definition, for two equal products I get more value if I get one free than if I have to pay for it. And a business still has an incentive to provide good service for free users–some don’t, but plenty of companies provide terrible service to paying customers as well. Free is good! Embrace it!
Nothing is free … I still remember a public address by some stupid guy from my village (or county) from my school days … he said … we are going to see that “one-day water will be sold”.I am telling you now “your oxygen is going to cost you” remember me as that stupid guy.
What you already have in the Prezi and outline looks very promising. I think that the increasing complexity of online marketing is a huge opportunity for companies like Clickable (there goes another portfolio company!). If they succeed in what they are doing with PPC they are in an amazing position to tackle this issue and become the central hub for all online marketing campaigns.
a lot of online advertising is a waste of time. it’s making money only bc media companies are so behind they have no idea how else to sell digital. five years from now, this world is going to look very very different.
I agree that a lot of it is a waste of time… as a lot of traditional media advertising is. The problem is not the media (most of the times), is what we do with it.
leigh, I agree with you and I’m looking forward to the changes. The current ad models are causing such clutter and producing minimal results when one considers the page real estate consumed and the detriment to user experience. And as a side rant: I grow weary of being “followed around” with ads promoting products or services simply because I visited a website once. e.g. Visit a luggage vender’s site, then watch how long it takes to stop being served ads from that site and their competitors even though you bought your luggage the day after you started looking. I recently looked at five web hosts for hosting a large project in development stage. That was six months ago, yet I still get served the ads from two of the venders on every news site, etc. It’s boring for me, the visitor – therefore wasteful – and it’s a missed opportunity for site owners and other advertisers. Sloppy model.
oh, don’t even get me and my over 40 yr old friends on that one. One more plastic surgery or weight loss ad on Facebook and i may lose my mind 🙂
Agree, 100%. A good chunk of the problem is measuring the wrong things….
nice one.
As we move to a world where internet connection is reliable and constant (not sure when that’ll be, but it is most likely coming), I can see these kinds of services taking over. Once that’s the case, do you see iTunes, Kindle, MS Office, etc. having distinct use cases that matter much anymore? Or will those products have to reinvent themselves accordingly?
They will slowly die off
…and services like Netflix may die off eventually – when movies just get their own “living document” URL in a more “in situ” system like YouTube (creation of movies not included – yet.)
What I’ll like to see die off is the distinction between an operating system and a browser itself. If most of what you’re doing is inside a “browser” anyway then what’s the purpose of an operating system. An OS was originally meant to run all these applications you mentioned, now you run them inside your browser. But the OS is still powerful, browsers are severely limited (in what a programmer can do inside them). This OS/Browser divide is there for historic and not technical reasons (at least I believe that), and needs to go away.
Are you suggesting the browser run bare metal?
The core of the issue is running “untrusted” compiled code from remote servers. An app running inside your browser can’t do much harm to your computer because it’s inside a restricted environment. On the flip side because it’s inside a restricted environment, it’s harder to build features as the programming languages are not as powerful and so on. Google had a cool project called “Native Client”, where you can run native compiled code inside the browser. Not sure if a lot of people use it, but I saw an amazing demo of Quake 3 running inside the browser.The html5 school of thought is that we’ll just make it easier to build things inside the browser. Another approach can be to solve the “running untrusted compiled code” problem, and let apps run on your local hardware from the cloud. Would you call it a browser running on bare hardware or an OS displaying remote content on your screen? Doesn’t matter. Microsoft Research played around with this idea in a project called “Gazelle Web Browser”. This same issue is at play in the html5 vs. Android/iPhone apps debate (iOS is a variant of UNIX after all!).
Now I understand where you’re coming from. Google is pushing that way on two fronts, and as you mentioned, Microsoft are having a go too. Apple got part way there only to quite pragmatically create the app store (seemed to turn ok 😉 ). I can’t wait to see what Amazon have done.The PC form factor is changing, and I think the browser oriented OS will be a pretty standard part of most people’s computing experience in a few short years.FYI – Native Client is still around and is *very* active.
I think they will not. Any OS builder is in the mix for any service anytime as they can create shortcuts that deliver an UX that only other OS builders can deliver. I think. Where is @fakegrimlock when you could use him? 😛
BUSY DOING OTHER THINGS.
How slow is slow is an interesting question. When I was at Yahoo mail I never would have predicted the persistence of Outlook (and other mail clients). I also find this overall premise (and the no files one) more believable for music and documents than for photos.
I like that idea that you can basically do your work no matter where you are, granted some times having a full fledged photoshop or complete IDE like Visual Studio on the cloud is not fully ready yet, but we’re getting there, and the business opportunities will boom thanks to this.The more I look at windows 8 the more I think this is going to happen more and more, the bold move Microsoft made to go with HTML5 CSS3 & Javascript as technologies of choice for their Metro apps is quite leading to what you’re talking here.
“skip the water”
Yes indeed. That was a fun post/discussion
With regard to your talk, I recently discovered a book by Ray Oldenburg called “The great good place”. In it he talks about a third place.”Third places host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work”I’d say all of the investments you mention above fall into that category. In the offline world a coffee shop or bar would fall into that category. Native monetisation via buying a drink is a side or bi-product of the primary purpose of those places.
Starbucks was envisioned as a third place.
and they carry out that vision brilliantly imo
Sounds like I need to pick up that book
It’s an awesome book. Great section on the old NYC beer gardens.
Thanks for the info on the book….I ordered it today!
Also, to be fair, if you are going to talk about ads on the net, you have to talk about the growth in targeting and bidding for display formats. An auction market changes a lot…
Targeting is fragmentation’s twin sister. It just depends on how you look at them.
true that
I want to like prezi – i spiritually like the way it forces one into systems thinking by the way it constructs things – but i find it makes me dizzy when i watch it. I hate being dizzy.
It took me a while to like it
Why not just say “in the cloud” instead of “in situ”? (Genuinly curious to your thinking)
Probably because people have been overexposed to “in the cloud” and it’s cliche now. In situ by definition, to me at least, feels more fitting.
My bet is that on the web is too bland of a descriptor for something that is a lifestyle and a process more than it is a place to put an imprimatur. That’s the word of the day.
I think “in situ” is talking to the functions of the content system being in the same place; Creation, consumption, engagement, socialization etcvs creating content offline, then putting it somewhere for consumption, then referencing that on a social network (for socializing) etcFrom a computer science stand point it can also refer to an operation that doesn’t interrupt the live system. Here that would allow editing content seamlessly in real time for example. vs creating multiple copies, each a different version, and trying to reference each new version
Yessss. Go to the head of the class.
Because I think its more than just the cloud. There’s the social elements, mobile elements, etc at work
this speaks to my obsession about changing education. Your prezi idea is an example of what teachers and students are already doing, but most importantly, what they are already doing OUTSIDE of formal education.We need to bring the outside of the way people use the web in their social life INSIDE to the public education system, so that people can not only innovate, but so that they can act like the real people they are elsewhere on the web. Vive la revolucion!
The cloud completely changes online learning. I also think youth are using these “informal” education networks to educate themselves–but they don’t realize they are doing it. They are unacquainted with the language required to legitimize their online activity on slideshare, google docs, or prezi. But these platforms accelerate education and further illuminate the “next generation’s” digital dexterity. I think in order to bring “the outside…INSIDE” we need to change the way we talk about media 100% for more on that read “Hanging out, Messing Around and Geeking Out: Kids Loving and Learning With New Media” an edited volume from MIT press. Like many books on New Media, it is a bit outdated, but speaks to this point. But, bringing it back to Fred’s original topic of In Situ, how does creating In Situ alter the nature of “teamwork” in the education system. The person who figures out how to manage the technical and social aspect of this could create amazing things for the future.
The efficiency of a single site for each conceptual group of content is compelling. Is Freemium the only model you see enabling these offerings?
I think fermium is the wrong model. I like promoted content and virtual currencies best
How much do you or others here resist being a subscriber of a service if the price is relatively low and the value is very high. In such a case, ads and similar “obstacles” are removed for the paying member, yet still may be present for those not wishing to subscribe. However, promoted content can still be part of the whole model. If it’s a place or service I enjoy, or if a higher level of support or features are needed by me, I’m very happy to pay a subscription fee. Personally I hate the “everything must be free, quality be damned” sort of attitude, but still must navigate within the abstracts of the marketplace. Interested in what others think.
Prezi combines 2 things:1) Cloud2) Animation and zoomingLove 1), but am still hesitant to rely on a working live internet connection for a high-stakes presentation2) makes me sometimes a bit “sea sick” Non-lineair, spectacular animation effects are not useful for stand-up presentations.There are other in-the-cloud slide platforms (Google Docs, slide rocket). At the moment I go with the old fashioned desktop app that saves into dropbox.
I was at a conference a couple of months ago (IFORS) and Prezi was one of the options supported by the conference venue. Saw only one Prezi in 5 days (but it was awesome!). I got the impression your reservations about a working internet connection are shared by a lot of people.On a related note, they’d do well to ditch flash.
No question about the Net connections. You are toast without it.
Long time reader, first time commenter. I love Prezi and after looking at your work in progress I’m really interested in your finished OMMA presentation. Any idea if it will be recorded for future consumption?
Don’t know. But the final prezi will be at the same URL I linked to. The living document! !
In situ at it’s best! But you’re a good speaker and that’s just as valuable as the slide presentation 🙂
Computing is so much richer and immersive for the decline of the paper paradigm.
Fred, agreed this is where things need to head –> get rid of local storage and, when wanted, get help from others. 2 issues for me at present are:- Connectivity. there are times I want to work on something (in an airplane, a train, etc.), when I just don’t have a connection, so have to work locally. Nearly every day I find myself wishing Google Docs, as one example, would restore that capability outside their Chrome OS.- Functionality. The cloud-based services just don’t have the ability to refine, adjust or do intricate calculations that locally based and more graphically or computationally rich programs do.
I think the underlying factor in this is that these services are in situ for you, but maybe not for others. The key is to find the ones that will continue to grow and be there as more of the normals move to a more and more connected life, forcing it to be in situ.The writing one for example is a good example of normals vs webbies. Normals write in journals webbies write on their computer, on the phone etc. That may change but I know there is a wide scale affection for moleskin. Maybe when the moleskin app comes out that will pull more people.I like your outline and topic. As I was reading it, and you pointed out that it is likely to get more complicated than less (I agree) the real reason this matters is that it is getting harder to scale as a Marketer. The “new” marketer is having one on one conversations, developing their voice, and touching real people … this doesn’t scale very easily. The use of campaigns like the Old Spice man help create this connection and they have done an amazing job of staying in touch, but it is hard. And there are more and more new ways to get out there and touch new people. Make sure to leave an opening to discuss new ideas from the Smash summit on Friday, that should be a good event. Will see you there.
WOW. Prezi is really cool.I have taken Speach Classes and PPT Presentation classes while in college and I could have imagined using a tool like this. Has anyone explored the site a bit? The Coca Cola Company presentation is really cool.I have a pretty mundane question, Fred. What are some disadvantages to working with cloud. For example you plan of using the interrnet to store your presentation for this talk at OMMA Global, what happens if the internet is down? I can most likely answer my own question as I notice Prezi is iPad friendly so you could possibly hook up your iPad to the projector to present. I wanted to get your take or anyone elses take on that thought.Thanks.
Hey Michael, I just happened to blog about Prezi yesterday. http://www.alearningaday.co…Just in case you find it useful. 🙂
I think this is a great example of visionary thinking that great entrepreneurs and good VCs do really well. Not because Fred is necessarily correct in his prediction….we won’t know that for a while and the comments can debate that today.But because he (and they) are investing/building in a premise that is completely unproven. They are early, before the technology is ready for prime-time and the market has been created.They’re all essentially betting on dominating a small niche and then benefiting from the growth of that niche.BUT…they aren’t just seeing a trend and a therefore a niche that will expand. That’s easy stock market stuff.They’re seeing a possible trend and putting all of their efforts into creating its expansion as well as their own dominance within it. Take note not of the prediction, but the process.
This maps to two things I’ve been thinking about.That the behaviors that these start-ups tap will go deeper and impact more people (discovering the author in all of us) and that the concept of niche as small is gone now that the platforms are global.Both of these will need to be in sync with the technology development for small to cross over to become mass market.
well put Andy.i feel what our small company is doing exactly what you are saying. We have a hunch, we develop the hunch, we gather people around this, we peer over the edge of the cliff and get busy putting the ropes together to shimmy down it, not knowing whats at the bottom. i’m pretty sure a consumer is going to want to exert more control over his data and interests. how that plays out is being worked on by us and 5 others right now…and more to come i am sure…..If you believe in VRM – then we are focused on a sub-sector – called personal RFP. Other sandlots being defined around this notion are equally fascinating, vast, and require different ropes with different outcomes.
that’s an interesting observation andywe certainly have a desire to get out in front of trendsand we also have a desire to put enough energy into them that we might even be able to influence the market
This is increasingly important with distributed teams as well. I live in Boston, but work with team members in NYC, SF, Wisconsin, and now, Minsk. We do nearly everything in situ, and real-time is becoming the new normal (such as with google docs, twiddla, etc).Separately; Fred, one thing you mention in this post is the way you start early and do a little bit each day. I remember you posted about this a few months ago, and the idea has really stuck with me. I am more natively driven by the adrenaline of the urgent / important combo — as Mark Suster blogged about — but am working on it and think about starting early and enabling parallel processing (within my org and in public) often. So thanks for that.
It would be cool if you could fork and remix prezis, like on canvas. Maybe you can.
I love Prezi. 100% of startups I’ve pitched using Prezi have successfully raised venture funding, versus 0% of the ones I’ve pitched using Powerpoint. Your mileage may vary. 😉
Wow Fred, this is a loaded post with 3 key interrelated themes:1- Your thesis on “native monetization” – that’s a discussion on its own2- Using Prezi and how cool it is3- In situ concept as motto for ‘cloud everywhere’ & the trend behind thisI’ll comment on #1 and #2 separately.
For certain types of content, music in this case, the receiver’s level/quality of access determines which provider I’d use… YouTube and Rdio are both in situ, but I wouldn’t share a song on Twitter via Rdio. I’d go to YouTube and look it up so my followers can actually listen to it.It would be interesting to see the sharing data from Rdio/Spotify/etc. compared to YouTube/GrooveShark/Vimeo.
Kindle and iTunes’ content may not have been produced in the cloud, but they are served in the cloud, and from an end-user perspective, the apps are accessed pretty much in the same way as the other cloud/in-situ apps you mentioned. So, the only distinction I could see is that the content’s production (being mostly user-generated) happens in the cloud in situ for SoundCloud, Wattpad and Canv.as. Looking at the long term trend, nothing prevents Kindle and iTunes to incorporate in situ content. Wattpad has the in situ power but not yet the platform of distribution. So, it’s a race. At the end, Wattpad and SoundCloud will get acquired by some platform company.
That link to your talk’s outline (https://docs.google.com/doc… is a pretty good read on your thesis for “native monetization”.Nailing the monetization path is a life or death thing for any startup. I would have called it “indirect monetization”, but I understand the ‘native’ adjective because you are monetizing based on the content generated by your native users and the meta-data around it. That’s pretty foundational stuff, and a very essential pattern of success for the “large networks of engaged users”.
The point stands, however iTunes & Kindle were never conceived as platforms for creation. The paradigm they reference from a design point of view is absolutely an old-school view of media (the record store/collection and the book). Soundcloud and Wattpad are trying to solve fundamentally different problems – something we can all be thankful about.
This is phase one, I think, in situ. But I think phase two, and we are at the earliest days of this, is making the service come to you instead of having to go to the service. Right now if I want to work on Google Docs, for example, I have to go to Google, log in, create a document. But if I want to tweet, I can go to any number of services, on my iPad, iPhone or on the web, and connect out to send a tweet. I’m very interested in this model.
yeah, i wish there were google docs apps on the ipad
Elia – see iCloud comment above. If you have seen anything with Jonathon Ives talking about design ( Chris Dixon tweeted a great clip this week ), you will know that his motto for design is ( paraphrasing here, very roughly )’ to make whatever the design element be invisible – to make sure it is out of the way – until you need it ‘. His example was an AirBook indicator light.You have this motto nailed in how you lay this out, IMO – ‘ why isn’t it just there? ‘.Bartender – set him up!
Thanks for the positive response, JamesHRH! I have, actually. I love the way that Ives practices his trade.I like the word “invisible” although I tend to think about “transparent.” iCloud tries to do this for standard documents but I think the future lives outside a document. A document is a legacy of the old world of computers and iCloud is a transition point away from that. Twitter is ever-present. It’s in every app I want to use, every browser (via plug-ins). What i mean is, I could share tweets and consume content without ever using a Twitter created app or site. This is the next generation. Ubiquitous integration.
Wow, you trust your venue’s internet access – router, modem, ISP, IT guy/gal, etc. – and Prezi’s servers, more than I. For important meetings which rely on a presentation I’m comfortable with a backup laptop (i.e. 2, can be a colleague’s if his is up to date); plus a cloned external hard drive; plus a static, local version (which covers most needs without full-server/DB functionality of a web app); and I usually have a thumbdrive with most of what I need incase we need to plug into someone else’s machine. Belt and suspenders. Not terribly fashionable, but my pants rarely fall down. 😉 I’m sure it’ll go smooth as silk, I’m just not wired to rely on a system with so many potential points of failure if I have options.
Same thought.I was on a cruise ship about 2002. I not only brought a backup laptop but also spoke to an engineer at mtnsat.com the company that operated the satellite to make sure they had their act together and weren’t going to block any ports and feel comfortable about uptime and bandwidth. I wasn’t going to just speak with the cruise company who had no clue.A few years later I was on another cruise ship and the WIFI didn’t work with Macs only PC’s. (That was one that I could have never anticipated.) I think I had to hijack one of the ethernet cables off the PC’s at the internet cafe or something like that.
Re: talk outlineIMO the fragmentation of advertising channels is more positive than negative. But maybe not for incumbents who previously pushed volume through mass media, and had a monopoly on consumers attention.- the greater the fragmentation — with unique services, meeting unique needs, across unique channels — the more there’s an opportunity to deeply intertwine with peoples lives. The product/service will increasingly become a part of peoples lives even before they’ve paid for it. It’s not unimaginable for virtual goods to become a ramp way (or funnel) to the physical good e.g owning a BMW on a Zynga game and then forming the mental attachments to the point of a BMW being the only viable choice in the mind of that person when choosing a “real” car. They’ve already picked the color, model, add-ons etc- the cost of advertising is kept down. In consolidated markets the increased competition puts upward pressure on prices. Google, via Instant, have been trying to increase the head search terms at the cost of the mid and long tail, for example.- improved targeting of consumers, as they segment themselves in every conceivable manner. And even opening up their networks, and creating history. With enough past and present data-points an advertiser could statistically predict the need for a product before even the consumer knows they need it. – increased value of the paid-for-message. The amount of trust that’s arbitraged from native monitization is greater than banner ads. They trust the advertiser because they trust the software they’re using. The message is coming from an insider, rather than a stranger. On social sites we’re only a click away from being friends, outside of this dynamic the company has to be highly convincing to even start a conversation.Large Cap companies can still get the volume they need by focusing on “web scale” platforms. And smaller companies can select the most appropriate channels where there target audience are most engaged.
thanksvery helpful
I’ve been meaning to use Prezi for a couple of years now, but it always looks like too much work.What does look interesting though is the topic of your talk. As someone who has previously bashed (a bit) marketing/advertising, I’d be fascinated to hear your views on the future of marketing, as personally, whilst I definitely see the fragmentation that you mention in the overview of your keynote, I don’t necessarily think it’s going to mean the end of agencies or nirvana for start-ups. Because at the end of the day, particularly at the moment, budgets are shrinking, and that means it’s going to be essential that budgets and efforts are concentrated where there is proof of effectiveness and an audience that is of a sufficient scale to justify investment.
In Situ is a perfect word to use. And i think you are an example of InSitu. You live in that world to be a in-vivo and you do in-vitro experiments to not be an in-vivo.
that’s a lot of latin
Fred – I love this post. One of our portfolio companies, SlideRocket, was built in 2007 with this premise exactly in mind. We were excited to see VMWare by the company this Spring and people are doing things in the cloud on a presentation platform now that make powerpoint feel like AM radio. We just hired a woman based on a large part on this PResuME we recieved from her – http://portal.sliderocket.c… – Truly Amazing work.I am excited to see Prezi get some good press here as it is great for our space. As I have so much respect for this community and learned so much from it, I would love to give something back. If anyone in the community would like a free 6 month pro SlideRocket account, you can contact me directly at [email protected] and reference AVC and I’ll be happy to set that up.
I actually tested out Sliderocket with a sales presentation and it worked extremely well. It seems like most of the cloud based presentation platforms are just ‘powerpoint in the cloud,’ but you guys have developed something dynamic that really takes advantage of the technologies that everyone already uses online. Keep up the good work, I’ll take you up on that Free 6 months.
i’ve never tried sliderocket but i will try it out soon
I was noticing your presentation was pretty linear. Did you try the basic GoogleDocs presentation structure? (I tried Prezi once, inspired by some great examples, but ended up feeling like to take advantage of it, (a) I’d need to be darn good graphic designer, and (b) I’d probably have to sketch out a plan in advance and “produce” it in Prezi.)
Hear hear, tried Prezi recently but it took a lot of effort to get done, would love to try SlideRocket to compare. Cheers.
Fred: I completely agree. Increasingly sophisticated deep integration of content, and most especially user generated content – originated or mashed up – over the web is a major trend. IMHO the world you are describing is one which google is aggressively pushing, not just with apps, but with technologies such as Native Client that enable new levels of performance in the browser.I am curious about your opinions with respect to the role native apps play in this context.(And in the spirit of full disclosure my startup – Scrawl – is working in exactly this area…taking user generated content to the next level, taking in situ to its logical conclusion. Watch this space 🙂 )
i think you want to have apps in addition to a cloud service. soundcloud has them. so does wattpad.
This is an interesting blog piece that is, I think, relevant to this discussion:http://www.alertdebugging.c…Here’s a key quote from the piece:”Take a look at iTunes: it is well known that the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is written in HTML and JavaScript and hosted in a WebKit View within the app. However, since it is confined to the iTunes cage, it couldn’t behave any less like the web. I can’t search the contents of the iTunes Music Store on Google, it’s incredibly difficult for me to link a friend to an iTMS page, I can’t go to the iTMS on Linux or any new platform that might come out tomorrow, and I can’t even do simple things like view two iTMS pages at once. Don’t get me wrong, the iTunes Music Store is great (you can check my credit card statements if you think I am being facetious), but it is not the web.That is why I think a lot of the developments we’ve seen with “web technologies” in the past years are completely orthogonal to the future and health of the web. If you are a big proponent of getting JavaScript to run on embedded devices that’s great, but it is not really a “web” issue.”As noted above, the thing about native apps, which are closed worlds, is that it makes the kind of interoperability that I imagine you are getting at when you talk about ‘in situ’ much harder or impossible.So IMHO right now we seem to have a tradeoff between beautiful functional native apps that are part of a closed internet and web apps that are part of the open web and in the latter environment ‘in situ’ is much more possible.
Is there an offline (maybe Webkit enabled?) fallback with this?Spotty connectivity is the norm, especially at conventions full of iphone/android/ipad bandwidth hogs.
apps?
Saw the USV connection to Wattpad on my local blog today, very cool idea. Nice one.
loved the “eye candy” 🙂
Oops, meant to include Blog Link for you. http://www.blogto.com/tech/…By the way, have you tried Kobo for online readings? They seem to link to Wikipedia etc. far better then Kindle does. Also you can post your fav quotes directly to Facebook.
Thanks for pointing me to Prezi Fred- I’ve just signed up
Nothing to do with today’s post, but after all the talk lately about this being the new Cheers, I just had to share this picture.
sweet!
Fred – you should change your handle to SamThe question is who gets the label of Woody?NormCliffetc
I put in for Norm waaaaaaaay back – like last week.
Seems like innovation is moving faster than adoption…has this always been the case?Mr. guest
Much like scouts before the legion, I think so.Also you asked about filtering comments, you can follow an individuals comments via the disqus.com web page. I find that helpful to see what folks I enjoy tuning in to are talking about.
I think this comes back to your post about the merging of online and offline. In situ is how we live our offline lives at work, home etc. We create something and then share it with our workmates, friends or family for their feedback.
We’re starting to have content in lots of places online. For me, the appeal of the desktop/file system is that it’s a good way to round up all my stuff in one place. That’s also what makes it frustrating for me to use multiple devices. Can you envision an in situ desktop or file system?
hmm. that’s an interesting idea.
That sounds like what iCloud’s approach should be: do it all on a Mac, we will mirror it in the iCloud and give you access ( if you want that ).
That sounds like the future of dropbox…
DROPBOX + API FOR CLOUD APPS TO ACCESS FILES IN IT + INSTALL VIRTUAL DESKTOP APPS INSIDE DROPBOX.
“So much of what I do, what I think about, what I am learning is informed by the daily act of writing this blog.”I had this exact sentence of yours is mind when I wrote my blog piece on Wattpad yesterday. Precisely how I pictured you working..:)http://www.woodylewis.com/c…
i just went and read your post. i’m glad you see that investment as a “marker”
Another value of “in situ” programs is being able to ensure delivery of a consistent product experience to all users e.g. pptx different than pptx or somoene doesnt have the right fonts, etc. All users are rolled up the latest and greatest features, so you don’t have compatability issues, versioning problems, etc. p.s. You seem to be using Prezi in a way that powerpoint is actually better for (linear thought or outlining the sequencing of what you want to say). For me, Prezi is much more effective when you use the fact that is spatial, and if you give a talk and use resources in a non-linear way.That said, I am a big fan of prezi.
it’s just that i don’t yet know how to use prezi. i figure i can figure it out over time
It’s an exciting way forward. What boggles/annoys me is companies producing good products but not allowing them to interact with a host of good applications out there.
I don’t think that’s right.Imagine everything worked like magic. To the user, data/content would come first, not the service. I want my data to be where I am, in whichever way I want to use it. I also want the data someone shares with me to be where I am and in whichever way I want to use it, as opposed to being in the place and manner in which it was shared.All the examples of “in situ” you give are designed to have the data accessed by anyone but primarily only in one way/through one service. It’s better than it only being accessible on one device through one program, but it is still a step perpendicular to the right direction. What we need is better glue to link up the different small bits of content we interact with (and the different ways we interact with it). What we need is a way to have a single ‘logical’ device (in the same sense of a ‘logical drive’), which, instead of separating one physical device into many, allows all of our devices, data, and services (whichever they may be, on an ad hoc basis) to function as a single unit.Centralising everything to a small handful of close-to-monpolistic cloud services isn’t the right way. We’re actually starting to see some of this begin to emerge (e.g. the ability of Disqus to link with one’s Twitter account, or of the ability of something like Posterous to cross-post to a large number of other services), but if that matures fully where is the big gap between it and editing an image in Photoshop while having it automatically saved to Flickr and discussed on Facebook?We don’t need in situ, we need better glue.
“when I walk onto the stage, I pull up a browser, go to a URL, and I’m good to go.”…except when the ‘net connection goes out. Ask most anyone who’s presented at the NY Tech Meetup. Or Steve Jobs after that awkward moment when he had to ask all the people in the crowd to turn off wifi. ppt looks attractive at these moments!
Nice if wireless Internet is cheap and ubiquitous everywhere you want to be. Which it isn’t by a long shot. Or you can 100% depend on a connection when it comes time to step to the podium, which you can’t (or shouldn’t). I like the concept, but as I spend a fair amount of time traveling the world giving such presentations, ideal and real are still two different things.
1. Love the idea of in situ. Reminds me of the commercial we did for MCI at the dawn of the web (1994): “There will be no more there. We will all only be here.” A lot has changed since then (including Anna Paquin), but your thoughts seem to evoke that vision. Here’s the spot.http://www.youtube.com/watc…2. Love the Title of your presentation, since its something I’ve been thinking and talking about for over a year. Fragmentation — and its twin sister “targeting” — are what all marketing has become once its digitized. They are innate properties of the internet. Looking forward to Monday.FYI… OMMA shows have historically been horrible with wwi-fi access.
I was thinking about this post listening to Apple’s announcements yesterday. I think in situ social networks is an interesting riff of the in situ content. Game Center, XBox Live, Google Plus are all in situ networks – social networks that arise where people eat/work/play.http://tomasztunguz.com/201…
Re: us being the product in a Freemium model…good point.Re: though the power of a VRM centered marketing strategy, this is something I need to think through and see how applications of this can be as interesting as the idea.
freemium is not the ad model – we are talking about the Ad model. how did you get to freemium.On facebook – my data is being sold to advertizersOn twitter – they must be doing the same (they are in search)On google my search is being sold to advertizersthese services are free to me because i am being sold on. where does freemium fit in to this discussion?
but we are talking about that charlie – its a marketing thread – i am therefore applying this quote to ad-based / lead gen businesses.
and on the interwebs, no one really owns what they contribute. why not?
Next time, flag!
Should we just get rid of advertising then – if we don’t want our data out there?
not at all.its about choices. and control.
😉 me too. i’m right, your wrong.