November 17, 2006
Because Google knows what it is like being a webmaster. You don't want to wait around - you want it done asap.
I read today that Google, MSN, and Yahoo had all standardized on a sitemaps format. More information at Sitemaps.org. Kudos on that.
But the submission process is crappy. You can submit directly to Google, but that is well hidden. Otherwise you have to sign up for their Webmaster Tools site. A bit cumbersome, but it is rather nifty. That is for another day.
MSN lets you submit a URL, but it asks you for a captcha every time. Really - this is just annoying. If I am an automated robot that beat your captcha the first time, I can damn well beat it the second time. Plus, sitemaps are supposed to be guidelines. I would imagine that once a domain/site has enough trust/authority, the sitemap would then just be a way of getting in. So boo for hassling me in that manner.
Yahoo - they have Site Explorer. So okay, like Google, they make me register. Fine. But the entire process? Way behind Google. Google makes you upload a blank file with a name, and then immediately verifies it. Yahoo? You must upload some text (for most people, not a big problem, but for me and how I work online, creating a file is 100x easier than adding content in it). On top of that, the verification is 'queued'. I now sit six hours later, with my sites stuck in pending.
Google: Makes me register, but instant verification, two methods, and tons of interesting data
MSN: No registration required, but damn annoying captcha (it adds up with each URL)
Yahoo: Makes me register, cumbersome verification, no idea if I get any associated information.
Google still gets it, while MSN and Yahoo are still left looking.
March 11, 2006
I'm a bit sad. There is all this hype flying around all these promises, all these dead ideas from the dotcom-era brought back, and the amount of critical feedback is almost nil.
The entire idea of creating sites in the hopes of being acquired is one of the most idiotic 'movements' I have seen in a while.
What was Done Right
Oh you say, what about
Flickr,
Delicious, and others? How are the latest sites not the same?
Lets look at some of them carefully first.
Flickr.
Yahoo was extremely smart in acquiring these guys. There was a huge
photo-sharing problem. People wanted to share photos, and it was hard. A tricky task that left people like my mother absolutely befuddled. Flickr made it easy. And not only did they make it easy, they packaged it beautifully. So what did Yahoo do? They acquired the
leading website for one of the most
basic functions of the internet - sharing photos. Not only that, but this was a great blow to the competition.
Google would have loved to have been able to integrate
Picasa with Flickr. Lastly, and something that no one seems to be mentioning, is that Yahoo basically bought and guaranteed
massive amounts of pageviews, which will directly help extend the reach of their advertising platform. And I could be wrong, but I think Flickr used to use Google before.
Conclusion: leader in photo-sharing, lots of goodwill, blocked out a competitor, insured millions of adviews. Where is the downside?
Del.icio.us. Again, I have to say people are missing the trends. The valuation of link-text has been basically obliterated by SEO. Search engine technology seems to have stagnated - sure Google (and others) introduce measures to remove shopping/product sites from the organic listings, but the genius that was anchor text is no longer there. Furthermore, in order to maximize revenue, they need to macro-target. I could be on a sports site - do they show general ads, basketball ads, hockey ads, or baby products?
What both need is the ability to find out what interests you. Both have toolbars, basically created as harvesting tools to find out our habits. Lets say I visited sports.com, and Google knew that I liked basketball. Imagine how much more a targeted basketball ad could earn vs a generic sports ad. The upside is enormous.
Furthermore, Google and Yahoo need to gauge the trustworthiness of a site. Again, not a simple task - they need data and more data to find out what truly is relevant and useful to the end user. And not only tons of data, but data they can trust.
Enter del.icio.us. Here we have people happily posting their bookmarks, sharing with others what they believe to be ‘quality’ sites. Not only that, but you can also see who else likes the same link. Throw in time-based tracking (eg a news event hits and some link suddenly becomes extremely popular) and instantly you have a very credible way of gauging authority. Sure the audience is tech/geek oriented, but the voting power of 300,000+ users is astounding. Just like PageRank was one factor in the grand scheme of ranking (albeit a strong one), so can the delicious popularity of a site.
Conclusion: the search engines desperately want to find a way of gauging relevance. What better way than to track behavior through the toolbar and the ‘bookmarkability’ of a site?
Upcoming.org, Writely, and etc: I don't believe these have large-scale plans (maybe Writely), but they are again a way of tapping into audiences. Upcoming.org brings another social interaction site, tracking events, and the popularity of each event. Writely of course brings tons of information, which Google just loves. Writely could also be a tool to be integrated into their own products - the product is slick and nice, so why not? Lastly are just protective measures - make sure your competition doesn't get to it first.
So the above all make sense. Some more than others, but the two most popular examples make
a lot of sense. 300,000 users telling you what is relevant and what isn't allowing you to make your search engine more relevant? Easily worth 50 million+ in a multi-billion industry.
What Most of Them are Doing
Now we come to the 'other sites'. The latest sites getting buzz that hasn’t been seen in a long time. It is important to remember that the abovementioned sites are in the minority. The majority is as follows:
A few differences between the hopeful and the established immediately arise:
- They aren't first movers. Flickr and Delicious and Digg all were early to the game, and gained a strong following. Nowadays web 2.0 'startups' are like rabbits, spawning left and right. These new sites just can't match the critical mass.
- They don't solve a problem (to cite Seth Godin). I don't have an invite problem, and I don't have a problem of blogging through my browser (to name just two). Sure at some point in time I may, but their brands are so weak that I won't even know to go to their site. They may have the most amazing and slick and easy to use interface, but it doesn't matter if no one wants it.
- The entire model is to get acquired. Without critical mass, Flickr and Delicious would not have been big deals. There is no focus on making money - the entire idea is to coast until you get gobbled up.
- Hype, stealth startups, and other insipid crap. None of my previous examples did that - they created a product, released it, and then continued to work on it, making it better and better. No talk about 'we are going to bring the world together everyone will love it' or 'just you wait and see this will blow your mind' or 'we are going to make 15 web 2.0 companies in the next 3 years but in the meantime will steal a design from another company and then replace it with a template straight from 1997.' It almost feels like a state of circle jerking with one insider hyping the other insider, and vice versa.
Some Hope for the Future
But, there are a few that have made me go 'wow'. Websites that have bright futures.
NetVibes (AJAX Homepages): People keep talking about how they have no business model, and it blows my mind. The internet is a massive jungle. There is content on every topic imaginable. To get to this content, most people go through a search engine. A lot of people have search engines as their front page. And this is the important part -
the company that acts as the interface to the internet for the masses has immense (money making) power. Case in point - NetVibes. For a second, let us say that NetVibes is getting 100,000 repeat users a day. And then they decide to switch from weather.com to AccuWeather. Instantly the brand-awareness of AccuWeather goes up. Next time people talk about weather, they will think ... AccuWeather. Now extend this to any other category. How about search? People in general, once happy, stick with what they’ve got. So now, instead of having Google as the default search engine, you have MSN.
*BAM* - 100,000 users who would have used Google and now use MSN. If MSN’s results quality is near Google, the user won’t care to go back to Google.
The start page area will become one of the most competitive areas in the next coming years. Imagine NetVibes striking a deal with a PC company to make their site the default homepage. The power wielded by being the starting page for millions of users is simply astounding. Not only could the leader in the homepage area easily be worth a lot and be acquired, but at the same time it could make a ton of money.
These homepages are a case where AJAX truly freed them.
Visual Link Tracking: Over at
Blog Flux, we have developed our own JS-based link tracker, that tracks user clicks - the pages they clicked on, the text that was clicked on, breakdown per URL clicked, and so forth. And we have done the same for AdSense. But what really excited me, and we couldn't solve it properly, was building a dynamic heat map. And then I came across sites like
crazyegg (there was a site I found earlier but unfortunately I couldn't find it). Now this is amazing. Not only do the link tracking, but then visually display it. For power users, this is basically
ClickTracks put online. Perhaps not as powerful, but the instant heatmaps are simply fantastic. Another fantastic use of where AJAX let this happen - a non-AJAXed solution would have been cumbersome and slow, whereas this method unlocks so many doors it simply has me buzzing. Something like this could by the perfect fit for ClickTracks, or it could go with a paid subscription and make a good bit of money.
And in the End ...
And there you have it. 99% of web 2.0 is crap. The 1% that isn't can stand on their own
or be a smart acquisition. Note that the 'or' part is the key element. Some good early products, some interesting ones coming out, and the rest just burning money.
Of course, I wouldn't mind being wrong here
October 6, 2005
Taking a break from reviewing the latest and the greatest, I just wanted to put on my editorial hat and take it for a spin.
There is a lot of noise erupting from the AJAX hubaloo, from proponents to opponents jumping on every mountain they can find to yell their opinions. From the typical
AJAX is the greatest thing since sliced bread
(
aside: did people ever really stare at a loaf of bread and wonder how to make it more manageable to eat?) to the just-as-frequent
AJAX? Thats for tubs stupid!
its a whole lot of fanboyism flying around.
AJAX stands for
Asynchronous
Javascript
And
Xml. No where in that acronym does it claim to be the harbringer of peace, the saviour of the destitute, or the torturer of the evil. It is just a bloody tool (or to be technical, a system). The system is neither good nor evil.
So this is really a plea to web developers. While this web 2.0 revolution is fascinating, it is also a bit scary, reminding me of the very pre-bubble bursting days. VC money is starting to flying and expectations are big. Sites/applications are popping up left and right - all vying for eyeballs, but very few with an actual business plan to convert these coveted eyeballs into revenue. AJAX is like the killer
buzzword - mention it, and a
flock of people come running to see it in use.
AJAX helps make a website more interactive. Making crap more interactive does not mask the fact that it was crap to being with.
