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What Should CEOs Do Differently?

Guest Post by Punit Renjen, Chairman and CEO, Deloitte Consulting LLP

When I became a CEO a year ago, I wanted to know what challenges and opportunities other CEOs had on their plate, and how they intended to respond. I decided there was no better way to find out than to simply ask them. So I used my new role as a calling card to visit with other CEOs.

A year later, after talking to dozens of CEOs at some of the world's best-known companies, I have some new insights. Some of them surprised me. Most were relevant to any organization, regardless of the type of business, size, or location. CEOs are not only fundamentally reconsidering their roles, but they are turning to meet new challenges in some unexpected ways. And information plays a big role in all these changes.

That's what I will talk about in my keynote address at Leaders Circle during this year's Oracle OpenWorld. I will share five of the most valuable insights from my listening tour, including:

• The CEO is dead (Long live the CEO)
• Regulation is reality
• Don't think big--without thinking small

-Punit Renjen
Chairman and CEO, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Learn more about Deloitte and Oracle, and visit Deloitte's booth in the Moscone South exhibition hall.

Generating Complex Events from a Partitioned Stream

In my last entry I looked at a monitoring use-case and used CQL to generate complex monitoring events that aggregated a series of underlying, simple monitoring events. The idea was that every three events coming from a particular machine room should produce an outgoing complex monitoring event. In this entry I would like to remove the restriction, made until now, that all monitoring events come from the same machine room.

So, suppose that we have monitoring events coming from many machine rooms. It's somewhat unrealistic, after all, that a large company would have a single machine room hosting all of its computing resources. The events coming from the different machine rooms are all mixed together in a single inbound stream of events, called the 'alerts' stream. ; The key to handling this more general input stream is to use the 'partition by' feature of CQL, however, partition by has some important limitations that one should be aware of. Here's an example of a query that uses partition by:

;

istream (
SELECT alerts.machineRoom as machineRoom,
       recent.administrator as administrator,
       sum(alerts.severity) as totalSeverity
FROM alerts[partition by machineRoom rows 3] as alerts,
     alerts [partition by machineRoom rows 1] as recent
WHERE recent.machineRoom= alerts.machineRoom
GROUP BY alerts.machineRoom, recent.administrator
HAVING COUNT (*) = 3)

The query above includes the machine room name and system administrator, in addition to the overall severity in the generated complex alert event. Note the use of the 'partition by' in the definition of the event windows in the FROM clause. 'Partition by' converts a single input stream into what can be thought of logically as a set of input streams by partitioning it based on a set of stream attributes. In this case, partitioning is done based on the machineRoom attribute since we want to aggregate alerts coming from the same machine room. ; This makes each partition behave as though it is a stream of events coming from a single machine room. ; The WHERE clause makes sure that the most recent event from each machine room is joined with the most recent three events from that same machine room. The joined relation is then grouped by machineRoom and administrator so that the total severity for the machine room can be calculated.

If we run the query above on the following input stream:

[AlertEvent: machineRoom-mr10, severity-2 administrator-Hoyong]
[AlertEvent: machineRoom-mr11, severity-3 administrator-Robin]
[AlertEvent: machineRoom-mr10, severity-7 administrator-Alex]
[AlertEvent: machineRoom-mr11, severity-5 administrator-Cedric]
[AlertEvent: machineRoom-mr10, severity-1 administrator-Eric]
[AlertEvent: machineRoom-mr11, severity-7 administrator-Thorick]
[AlertEvent: machineRoom-mr10, severity-4 administrator-Anand]
[AlertEvent: machineRoom-mr10, severity-10 administrator-Seth]
[AlertEvent: machineRoom-mr10, severity-1 administrator-Andy]

We would like to see the following output:

[ComplexEvent: machineRoom-mr10 totalSeverity-10.0 administrator-Eric]
[ComplexEvent: machineRoom-mr11 totalSeverity-1-15.0 administrator-Thorick]
[ComplexEvent: machineRoom-mr10 totalSeverity-1-15.0 administrator-Andy]

 ;

But instead we see this:

[ComplexEvent: machineRoom-mr10 totalSeverity-10.0 administrator-Eric]
[ComplexEvent: machineRoom-mr11 totalSeverity-15.0 administrator-Thorick]
[ComplexEvent: machineRoom-mr10 totalSeverity-12.0 administrator-Anand]
[ComplexEvent: machineRoom-mr10 totalSeverity-15.0 administrator-Seth]
[ComplexEvent: machineRoom-mr10 totalSeverity-15.0 administrator-Andy]

 ;

Why the extra events? The problem is that the individual window partitions are not sliding in units of three events, as we would like. Thus, after the first three events for a particular machine room arrive, every subsequent event from that same machine room causes the generation of a complex alert. ; One is tempted to fix this by doing something like the following:

 ;

istream (
SELECT alerts.machineRoom as machineRoom,
       recent.administrator as administrator,
       sum(alerts.severity) as totalSeverity
FROM alerts[partition by machineRoom rows 3 slide 3] as alerts,
     alerts [partition by machineRoom rows 1] as recent
WHERE recent.machineRoom= alerts.machineRoom
GROUP BY alerts.machineRoom, recent.administrator
HAVING COUNT (*) = 3)

 ;

Note the addition of the slide keyword in the window definition. By using the slide keyword we were able to achieve the desired behavior in the single machine room case, however, CQL does not currently support this functionality when using partition by (The query above will actually not compile without errors.). So, how can we fix it? ; Well, the trick is to use another feature of CQL which is the MATCH_RECOGNIZE cause. This clause provides a general pattern matching facility and is very powerful. Here is what the MATCH_RECOGNIZE query for our current use-case looks like:

;

SELECT T.machineRoom, T.totalSeverity,T.administrator
FROM alerts
MATCH_RECOGNIZE (
PARTITION BY machineRoom
MEASURES 
            machineRoom as machineRoom,
            sum (severity) as totalSeverity,
            administrator as administrator
PATTERN (A*? B)
DEFINE
    B as count(*) =  3 
) as T

 ;

Notice that this query also contains the notion of partitioning and partitions the incoming alerts stream based on the machineRoom just like our previous attempts. ; ; The MEASURES clause defines the three values that are computed by the pattern match. These are the same as before; machine room, administrator name for the most recent alert, and the total severity. The pattern clause defines the pattern being matched. In this case the pattern consists of any sequence of three events. The pattern is applied to a partition of the original alerts stream so, in effect, it is attempting to match any three events from the same machine room. The DEFINE clause is where we specify the 'three events' constraint. The ' count (*)' counts all events that are part of the match. Another thing to note is that by default, freestanding references to stream attributes such as 'machineRoom' in the MEASURES clause refer to the most recent event matched by the pattern. Note that all events that are part of the same match have the same machine room (because of the partition by). For the same reason, 'administrator' refers to the administrator of the most recent event which could be different than the administrator for other events that are part of the same match. This is as it was in our previous examples. ; The 'sum (severity)' is performed over all events that are part of the match.

;

One final thing to note about our pattern is the use of the '*?' quantifier. This quantifier has the same meaning as the '*' quantifier -- it matches zero or more events. However, '*?' is reluctant in that it will attempt to match the minimum number of events first before going on to attempt a larger match. Had we instead used the '*' quantifier, the match would never have terminated because '*' is greedy and would attempt to match the largest number of events before producing a match. -- all events in the stream in this case. ; It's important to realize when thinking about patterns and pattern matching in CQL that conditions such as A and B are matched independently. In other words, the 'count(*)=3' condition is not considered when matching A, but only when matching B. ; In our sample query we count on the fact that 'A*?' will match 2 events and then allow B to match the third event producing the overall match of three events.

;

Pattern matching in CQL is a very powerful feature. As we saw in this entry, it can help to make up for some current limitations in the CQL language. Hand-in-hand with the power of pattern matching also comes complexity, however, and a lot of new semantics even for developers that are familiar with traditional SQL. It's worth studying the documentation and trying some simple pattern matching examples to get the hang of things, before jumping into a complicated use-case.

;

How Will Google Instant Affect Your Company's SEO?

When Google announced this morning that it would be delivering search results to users in real time as they type a query, it rightfully generated quite a bit of chatter and intrigue in the tech world and beyond.

The changes are certain to fundamentally change the way people interact with the world's biggest search engine. But what is less clear is how this game-changing update will affect search engine optimization and search traffic referrals to Websites.

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The Impact on Speed, Refining Searches and the "Long Tail" of Search

Google Instant does two things: it returns results more quickly and it predicts search queries as the user types.

While it's too early to predict the implications of this with any certainty, a few speculations come to mind. For one, searching on Google is going to become a much speedier process for the end user, who may now be less likely than ever to click through to the second page of results. Searchers will also be able to more quickly refine their search terms on the fly, which could either prove to be good or bad for site owners.

"It seems to me that the top three rankings will get even more value," says Ian Lurie, President of Portent Interactive and blogger at Conversation Marketing. "Also, long-tail search is going to be more important, since folks can just keep typing until they see what they want."

On the other hand, John Ellis at Search Engine Land wondered earlier if Google Instant would "kill the long tail" of paid search advertising by making it less worthwhile to bid on more specific, long tail keywords.

How the User Experience Will Change

According to Avichal Garg, former Product Manager of Search Quality at Google, the impact of Google Instant on SEO and search performance will come as a result of changes in the user experience, not the ranking algorithm, per se.

He cites query construction patterns, click patterns, page scanning behavior and the ease of making search query refinements (re-searching) as examples of user behaviors that are likely to be different from here on out.

"It will have a tremendous impact," says Garg. "User behavior will change. And good SEO is all about understanding end user behavior."

Will It Impact Traffic to My Site?

For insight into whether the volume of search traffic to one's site will change, look no further than the Google's own Webmaster Central Blog, which advises site owners that they "may notice some changes in your search queries data due to the launch of Google Instant." The post goes on to explain that the number of impressions for many search queries is likely to increase. In other words, the number of times a given site is displayed in results (whether they're clicked or not) is bound to go up, since users no longer need even finish typing a search query before the results show up.

Google's Matt Cutts Chimes In

Perhaps the most insightful commentary on Google Instant's potential impact on SEO came in a blog post from Goolger Matt Cutts a few hours after the company's announcement:

"The search results will remain the same for a query, but it's possible that people will learn to search differently over time. For example, I was recently researching a congressperson. With Google Instant, it was more visible to me that this congressperson had proposed an energy plan, so I refined my search to learn more, and quickly found myself reading a post on the congressperson's blog that had been on page 2 of the search results."

Are you concerned about how Google Instant might impact your site's visibility on Google? What do you think about the new feature in general? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Apple Relaxes Restrictions on Mobile App Development

Today, Apple announced it is relaxing the previous restrictions on the use of third-party development tools for the creation of mobile applications on iOS, the operating system that powers the iPhone, the iPad and the iPod Touch. Specifically, sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 of the iOS Developer Program have been modified with new language that rolls back some of the changes that were enacted earlier this year.

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The first two sections included restrictions on the use of development tools that allowed developers to code in languages familiar to them, like Adobe Flash, then port those applications to the iOS platform. Section 3.3.9 also placed restrictions on the use of third-party software within an app whose purpose was to collect and analyze app usage data.

According to the Apple press release, these decisions were made because the company "listened to our developers" and has "taken much of their feedback to heart."

Most of the complaints at the time of the initial changes revolved around Apple's decision to ban the use of Adobe's "Packager for iPhone," a tool which allowed Flash developers to leverage their existing skills in order to produce iPhone applications. The announcement led to escalated tensions between the two companies, and shortly thereafter Apple exec CEO Steve Jobs posted a lengthy piece on Apple.com which explained all the reasons why his company did not want Flash technology on any of its mobile devices, whether as a plugin or as an app-creation tool.

However, today's news doesn't just affect Adobe Flash developers, although they were the most vocal about the prior ban - it could also permit the use of other mobile development technologies including Sun's Java or Microsoft's Silverlight/Mono, notes Apple-watching blog, AppleInsider.

They also point out that the decision, in part, may not be simply because Apple "listened to feedback" but because of recent U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigations which had the regulatory body looking into the complaint regarding the Flash ban, among other things.

Meanwhile, as the language in the Apple Developer continued to change on an ongoing basis, developers interested in building mobile applications for iOS had to remain constantly vigilant that they were not using any technology that could later come under fire from Apple.

When Apple then updated the section banning the use of some third-party analytics services, the move was called out as permitting an unfair competitive advantage for Apple's own iAds advertising platform and analytics service over competitors' services, like Flurry, Distimo and most notably, Google's AdMob, all of which were popular among mobile app developers for monitoring usage numbers and other details about how consumers were interacting with the mobile apps.

Apple says it will also publish its App Store Review Guidelines online in an effort to be more transparent with the community. This decision is likely due to the constant media attention given to each and every mobile application that Apple bars from entry into its App Store, removes from the store, or leaves in limbo, awaiting approval for months on end.

The full text of the Apple Press Release is below:

The App Store? has revolutionized the way mobile applications are developed and distributed. With over 250,000 apps and 6.5 billion downloads, the App Store has become the world's largest mobile application platform and App Store developers have earned over one billion dollars from the sales of their apps.

The App Store is perhaps the most important milestone in the history of mobile software. Working together with our developers, we will continue to surprise and delight our users with innovative mobile apps.

Amazon Upgrades Checkout, Plays Catch-up with Google, PayPal

It's been a few years since online retail giant Amazon started offering hosted e-commerce payment services in the form of Checkout by Amazon, and today the company has rolled out some upgraded features that should be good news for merchants. Third-party sellers now have the ability to provide customers with a full-blown Amazon.com experience from directly within their own site, including address book and payment method information.

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Amazon believes these updates to Checkout will help deter the abandonment of shopping carts and boost sales for merchants. Previously, Checkout redirected customers to Amazon.com to process orders originating from independent merchant sites, causing confusion and frustration for customers. Now when a user clicks the "Checkout with Amazon" button on a merchant site, they will be able to enter their payment information and access their address book without leaving that site.

"These enhancements to Checkout by Amazon reflect the feedback we've received from merchants who want to offer Amazon.com customers the convenience of using their account information with a more streamlined buying experience," said Baris Cetinok, General Manager of Amazon Payments.

Merchants will be pleased with the deeper site integration now found in Checkout, and customers should be excited that making purchases with their Amazon account on third-party sites its faster and more streamlined. Competitors like PayPal and Google Checkout have allowed customers to buy directly from merchant sites with embeddable tools for over a year. Amazon fans should be glad to see their horse get back in the race and become a more viable option for hosted e-commerce payments.

Amazon has been continually working to improve Checkout, including last year's introduction of PayPhrase, which sped up payments by allowing users to enter a phrase and a PIN to quickly purchase items. The upgrades to Checkout come at an opportune time for Amazon as retailers prepare for another busy holiday shopping season.

For Advertisers, Location-Based Services "Blew Up Overnight"

Advertisers have long talked about the mystical possibilities of using real-time location data to target customers. The technology existed; most cell phones have a GPS receiver in case of emergency. But real-time location data was off-limits to advertisers until Web-centric phones introduced people to the concept of sharing their location in exchange for utility. Soon, along came apps like Foursquare and Gowalla, which essentially trick users into sharing their real-time location with advertisers. Suddenly, location-aware marketing is red hot.

"It's huge and it's increasing," said Michael Becker, a director at the Mobile Marketing Association. "Location is going to play an increasingly critical role in enabling successful consumer engagement through and with the mobile phone."

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For advertisers, the growth of real-time location data felt like an explosion that "blew up overnight," Becker said.

Big name advertisers seem to be throwing money at location-based services. Brightkite is reportedly charging between $10,000 and $20,000 for local promotions. Foursquare seems to be announcing a new A-list corporate partner every week, including Starbucks and MTV. And Shopkick, the treasure hunt of consumption, launched with Best Buy, Macy's and American Eagle among its sponsors - which had to install special audio transmitters in all their participating stores just so the app will know when a user walks in.

Advertisers are excited because location-aware ads really work, Becker said, citing a study that showed nearly 50% of users who are shown a location-aware ad on a mobile device will "take some action," beating out text messaging (37%) and Web display ads (28%).

But isn't that because location-savvy ads are fairly novel? Advertisers were also excited about display ads in the early days of the Web, when users were so unaccustomed to browsing that they clicked on anything that caught their attention. Doesn't it seem like the higher engagement reported for location-aware ads could be because a user is not used to seeing her city or neighborhood mentioned in an ad on her phone?

Newness may be inflating the numbers a bit, Becker acknowledged, but advertisers will just create more engaging and sophisticated ads as time goes on. But location is just one of many important factors in mobile marketing. Advertisers also consider a consumer's age, type of phone, even time of day.

"Location is not necessarily the goal of the interaction. Rather, location is a piece of information that provides context to the user experience and can create a more relevant and engaging interaction with the consumer," Becker said.

Advertisers in the U.S. will spend $1.8 billion on location-aware marketing in 2015, according to a recent report by market research firm ABI Research. (By comparison, advertisers in the U.S. spent $10 billion on search advertsing in 2008.)

Not every advertiser will care about location, said Neil Strother, a director at ABI Research who put together the report. For restaurants and bars, real-time location is crucial. But for NBC or Coke, not so much.

And there are lots of companies hesitant to join in the location game, Strother said. That's because of inexperience and fears about threatening consumers' comfort level. "The next few years will be very important for companies to get it right and not abuse the location information they're getting," he said.

Google launches 'Instant' search

Police in 14 Countries Raid File-Sharing Hosts And Hit Close to Wikileaks

Authorities cracked down on file-sharing sites across Europe yesterday in a major operation two years in the making, Swedish officials told media.

The raid is getting special attention because one target in Stockholm is best known for hosting part of Wikileaks.org, the site where whistle-blowers have leaked highly sensitive documents from governments across the world. But authorities said the real target was not Wikileaks, but the highly-active pirate network known as The Scene or Warez Scene, which encompasses 48 sites.

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Seven locations were raided in Sweden, according to the file-sharing news site Torrent Freak, including a university. Raids were also reportedly carried out in the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, the U.K., the Czech Republic, Hungary and Belgium, where the request originated.

Several torrent sites including Pirate Bay were down for users in some countries today.

Five policemen showed up yesterday morning at PRQ, the company that in part hosts Wikileaks, and asked about two IP addresses used in 2009. The company handed over email addresses associated with the IP addresses, which are the only records it keeps on its clients. No servers or computers were confiscated, the company said.

The raid comes as Wikileaks is preparing to release 15,000 classified documents related to the war in Afghanistan, which the U.S. government is anxious to prevent. PRQ denied that Wikileaks was the subject of the raid, and Wikileaks has not made any statement yet.

"The raid was about the usual file-sharing crack-down, which they have each year, so not directed directly against PRQ or its customers," PRQ said in an email to customers.

The extent and precise targeting of the raid suggest that it was a dedicated effort to crack down on piracy. The fact that one of Wikileaks' hosts was targeted could be a coincidence because Wikileaks and file-sharing sites have similar requirements: security and bravery in the face of international law enforcement.

But stranger conspiracy theories regarding Wikileaks have been proposed. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is claiming rape charges filed against him in Sweden are part of a smear campaign orchestrated by the U.S. government.

What do you think - was Wikileaks a target here?

Call 911? Maybe not from a cell phone

Bahraini Blogger Arrested, Probably Tortured

Bad economies always drag repression in their wake and social media is no exception to this rule. One of the worst instances is the recent arrest of Ali Abdulemam, a blogger and the editor of the long-running forum Bahrainonline.org (now shut down).

Abdulemam was arrested for the same reason before - he had acted as a midwife to discussion on democracy among other things. This time, he was arrested on September 5 for "publishing false news." Soon came speculation that he'd been tortured.

A group I was involved with, the Committee to Protect Bloggers, was one of many groups agitating for his release in 2005 during his first arrest. It worked. He was freed. Let's join together and make sure the same thing happens this time.

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Ali's a reasonable, engaged person, a reporter for Global Voices, a father and businessman. He seems to have made friends in half the countries on earth. No one deserves illegitimate imprisonment and torture.

ReadWriteWeb is not a partisan outfit. There's plenty of discussion and disagreement (on our own time) about political issues. (One of us even has the temerity to be from New Zealand, if you can believe it.) But some issues are human more than political and this is one of them. Although on a practical level, if everyone like Ali gets sent up the river, who will we write for?

Whoever you are reading this, Ali's one of you. So here's what you can do if you want to try to help. Please keep in mind, no matter what you do and who you connect with, don't be a tool. Ali's safety is the issue here, not your outrage.

• Tweet Bahrain's foreign minister, Khalid Alkhalifa
• Write the Bahraini ambassador in your country
• Write one of the Bahraini officials listed here
• Join the Free Ali campaign.
• "Like" the Free Ali Facebook page
• Use your social media accounts to talk about it
• Post a link to your own discussion of Ali on the Free Ali Facebook page
• Leave a comment of support below.

Improve Your Company's Media Outreach with MediaSync

Here at ReadWriteWeb, like other major blogs, we get a ton of email tips everyday from entrepreneurs, PR companies and the general public suggesting story ideas and requesting product reviews.

Surprisingly, considering the size of our site and the pervasiveness of spam in general, most of these emails are quite interesting and useful. Some of them, however, appear to be blasted out to a list of seemingly random blogs with little forethought, or worse, a political screed written in all caps.

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For small businesses and startups especially, getting the word out to relevant media outlets, while important, can be a time-consuming task that competes with each day's list of to-do's.

So how can businesses streamline their media outreach? One answer is MediaSync, a service from Web marketing firm mBlast. MediaSync is a free database of media contacts that enables you to find individual journalists and bloggers based on the topics they tend to cover and the outlets they write for.

For example, a search for "social media" will return a list of bloggers for Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOm, CNET and others.

Each writer has a profile containing basic contact info, a brief biography, links to their social networking profiles, as well as data about the topics and beats they cover.

MediaSync currently boasts 521,899 media contacts in its database, and that number is sure to be growing on a regular basis.

The database is evidently a work in progress, as not all media contact profiles are populated, including those of a few high-profile bloggers and journalists. Nonetheless, MediaSync remains a good way to do some initial research into which media professionals might be most receptive to a given request for coverage.

Most tech and business bloggers see a ton of emails fly across their desktop and mobile phones each day, so targeting the right ones might improve your message's chances of getting read and, if you're truly onto something, acted upon.

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Download Our Latest Free Report: The New Social Layer for the Enterprise

We are once again pleased to announce a new premium report: The Social Layer: How the Rise of Web-Oriented Architecture is Changing Enterprise IT. Thanks to Socialtext for sponsoring the report and making it available as a free download.

The Web 2.0 era gave rise to social applications such as Twitter and Facebook. These services made it easier to share information and connect with family, friends and experts. The enterprise has followed this movement by creating its own social applications that fit within a secure environment.

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The report explores how social technologies in the enterprise is now evolving into a new "social layer," that allows people to access information from a variety of enterprise applications and colleagues across organizational silos. It discusses how microblogging, wiikis and other social technologies are used by employees to serve customers better and drive new business opportunities.

The report further explores the role of the open Web and the importance of Web services and applications to talk with one other easily and securely. The open Web has allowed services like Facebook to flourish by simply adhering to the HTTP protocol.The report demonstrates how enterprises can embrace a similar architecture to build their own social layer.

It also explores:

• The rise of scripting languages, open frameworks and the "view source" culture.
• The rise of REST APIs in the Enterprise.
• The move to the cloud and a Web-Oriented Architecture.
• Building the social layer in the enterprise architecture.

We think you'll find our report about the new social layer (embedded below) to be essential reading for the new technology enterprise. And remember, you always you can find our day-to-day coverage about social IT at ReadWriteEnterprise.

Leaner Than Lean: Is Ultralight a New Class of Startups?

There is a fascinating article online this morning from the San Francisco Chronicle's Tom Abate in which he profiles Raymond Lei, a 19-year-old Berkeley student and entrepreneur. While still in high school Lei founded ooShirts.com with just a computer and an idea. A few years and just a couple thousand dollars in capital later, Lei runs a successful 2.5 person team set to earn over $700,000 in 2010. Abate dubs ooShirts an "ultralight startup," but is Lei's bedroom business any different from a lean startup?

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In recent years, lean startups have become a popular sector of Internet businesses that look to push a product at "low burn." A lot of what makes a lean startup lean, according the man who coined the term, Eric Ries, is when the company strives to create value for customers. "Every activity that does not contribute to learning about customers" should be defined as "waste," Ries says.

But Lei's company seems leaner than lean, with almost no "burn" whatsoever. According to the ooShirts.com homepage, less than 0.5% of the company's revenue goes to advertising. Instead the company relies on referrals and repeat customers to help spread the word. By working with over a dozen suppliers, ooShirts keeps its shipping costs low - savings it passes on to its customers in order to undercut competition.

ooShirts is part of a unique subset of Internet companies. While many startups one might categorize as "lean" are developing applications and tools for the Web, ooShirts is playing in the co-creation and mass customization space. These companies serve as intermediaries between customers and manufacturers who can create customized products, and thus can afford to run at a "low burn."

Because of this business relationship, mass customization companies may need to be set aside from lean startups, which by nature are highly iterative product companies. But perhaps there is some intersection between lean startups and the low burning mass customization companies. Or maybe Abate's term "ultralight" is a new class of startups? Either way, running thin is certainly a growing trend among startups, and ooShirts is a fine example of how the Internet is enabling the success of these businesses.

Giant Wooden Pointers at University Remind Students to Check In on Facebook [UPDATED: PHOTOS]

It's always a little funny to me when I see "Find us on Facebook!" written on church marquees and signs on coffee shop counters. But the University of Kentucky has taken this real world hyperlink concept to the next level.

The school has built huge wooden sculptures shaped like Facebook's teardrop pointer and map logo to remind students to check in around campus using the new location feature, Facebook Places. The human-sized signs will inspire more buzz about the school on Facebook, recruiters hope.

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"We're encouraging students to check in, so when they do, it'll show up in their news feed and maybe their friends still in high school will see it over and over again," the university's marketing director told AdAge.

It was the university's ad agency, Lexington-based Cornett-IMS, that hatched the idea. The agency has pursued a high-tech strategy to help UK double its freshman class, including "a media-rich microsite with high-energy guided campus tours, and a truly immersive experience of campus life," which it says has led to record applications. The school has more than 105,000 fans on Facebook.

Two of the wooden signs have popped up on campus, and several more are coming this week, Cornett-IMS said.

This Saturday, even larger pointers will appear at Commonwealth Stadium to encourage fans to check in during the Kentucky Wildcats game, Cornett-IMS said.

The school is also considering placing stickers on doors across campus to remind students to check in, according to AdAge.

Thanks so much to RWW reader Alex Johnson for the photos taken outside Memorial Hall on the UK campus, and to Cornett-IMS for the photo of the pointer inside the visitor center.

Feeling Burned By the Press, Craigslist Hunkers Down

The powers behind craigslist.org appear to have decided that withdrawal is the best strategy to deal with recent controversy around the "adult services" section of the site.

Last week, craigslist shut down "adult services," which normally features paid advertisments for sex. "Adult services" was recently the subject of legal threats from 18 states, but it looks like it was media coverage that drove the people behind craigslist underground. Craigslist has not responded to any media inquiries since the shutdown.

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A CNN primetime investigation that aired last month featured human rights advocates who accused craigslist of facilitating human sex trafficking and even prostitution of minors (see "Craigslist Under Fire for Kids on 'Adult Services'").

In the special, CNN's Amber Lyon approached founder Craig Newmark after an event and asked him some accusatory questions about how the site polices its community. Newmark appeared very uncomfortable, at points was unable to answer. He ended up looking very bad.

In the days after the special, Newmark was friendly and very responsive to my emails. He cited "iPad Compulsive Disorder" when I thanked him for responding so quickly. The company also responded to the controversy fairly aggressively on its blog, responding directly to advocates quoted by CNN, outlining its manual screening policy, ripping apart the claim that eBay classifieds (proposed as an alternative to craigslist) are "family-friendly." CEO Jim Buckmaster even posted a letter accusing Lyon of sensationalism and self-promotion.

The CNN story that put founder Newmark in an unfavorable spotlight.

Newmark also published an op-ed, "What I Should Have Said to CNN's Amber Lyon," defending himself. He cites his tendency toward Asperger's Syndrome, a disorder on the autistic spectrum, and the fact that he has not been at the helm of craigslist for 10 years.

Now, silence from craigslist

But the media has not gotten a peep from craigslist since the "adult services" blackout. "Sorry, no statement," spokeswoman Susan MacTavish Best said when the New York Times asked about the blackout. IPad-compulsive Newmark has not responded to me in three days. Asked via Twitter to do an interview and "talk about anything you like," Newmark responded "not soon."

Meanwhile, the media continue to cover the story, and not in the best light. "Some See a Ploy as Craigslist Blocks Sex Ads," the New York Times wrote. Lyon accused Newmark of lying in a follow-up segment on CNN.

The law is on craigslist's side - websites are not liable for content posted by users under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. But craigslist has given up anyway. It's not because its owners want to prevent sex trafficking - craigslist has maintained that it does more harm than good because law enforcement agencies can use it just as easily as pimps can.

Letting go of the narrative

From here, it looks like craigslist botched its defense from the beginning by attacking its accusers and presenting an unpolished explanation of how it polices its community of 50 million users.

The 30-person company doesn't have the muscle or the savvy to fight a public relations battle. But it may be hurting itself more by clamming up.

Or maybe it's smart for craigslist to sit back and let the media argue both sides of its case. The Huffington Post has a story, "How Censoring Craigslist Helps Pimps, Child Traffickers and Other Abusive Scumbags, written by a Microsoft researcher."

What do you think - should craigslist speak up? Or hold its peace?

Google considering iTunes-like service?

How Push Notifications Will Change Twitter

Are you ready to get buzzed by Tweets? Twitter confirmed last week that it is experimenting with and will soon roll out push notifications through its official iPhone app.

What does that mean? It depends on how exactly the company lets users manage and receive their notifications, but it's not too early to start thinking about how push could change the Twitter experience. We asked a number of experts in the field of User Experience design what they thought about Twitter push notifications and several of them predicted it will be a game-changer for mainstream users.

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Charlene McBride, a self-described "cranky UX designer" from Boston, says first what we're all probably thinking: "I think it could be an interesting way for users to prioritize certain tweets, but I also wonder what keeps it from becoming yet another firehose of status updates."

Let's look past the risk of information overload for a moment, though, and assume that Twitter implements the feature well. What might that mean?

Right: screenshot captured by Nick Starr.

For me, getting replies and direct messages sent to me by push notification (I've been using Notifo) has been really nice. Twitter can be both synchronous (a real-time exchange) and asynchronous (I'll see your posts when I get around to it) but the addition of push notifications brings the personal communication of replies and direct messages firmly into the synchronous experience, even when I'm not at my computer or looking at a mobile app. It really adds to the flow of using Twitter. The asynchronous part of Twitter is most suited to non-personal messages broadcast by the people I'm following; I'd like the messages intended for me personally right away, please.

That's my take on it, here's what some more UX pros have to say.

Push as SMS Replacement

Cindy Alvarez, author of the San Francisco-based blog The Experience is the Product, thinks push notifications could supplant SMS and win some new users to Twitter:

The non-Twitter-users I know say, 'If you want a reply, you text or email [a recipient]; if you don't need a reply you post to Facebook, what is Twitter good for?' Bringing a more SMS-like experience to the desktop (where you don't incur $0.05 per text charges) might win over a different audience.

Twitter and SMS coming together again, just like the product's creators originally envisioned? That could lead to some truly far-out use-cases, too.

"[Push notifications] really start to blur the lines between what we traditionally think of as a Twitter client and SMS," says Dwayne King, User Experience Strategist at Portland, Oregon design firm Pinpoint Logic.

"Not knowing for sure what options they'll open up for push, it could expand beyond the bounds of what something like SMS could do. Where SMS requires some sort of pre-existing relationship between the texters, Twitter and push via hash tags or geographic location opens up a new avenue for meet-ups, flash mobs and such."

Bringing Celeb-Tracking Mainstream Users Back to the Good Old Days of Twitter

The most compelling take on the User Experience implications of Twitter push notifications may come from Aviel Ginzburg, UX guy at Seattle-based Untitled Startup, makers of Twitter bulk-conversation analysis tool RowFeeder. Ginzburg thinks that the addition of push notification tools could help make mainstream users, who have been introduced to Twitter as a way to passively consume updates from celebrities, aware of the service's incredible potential as a communication tool.

"Those of us who have been using Twitter since the days that it was largely (entirely) text messaging driven perceive Twitter much differently than mainstream users.

"The way that the site has been restructured in the past several months including the new search, celebrity, and brand focus, categories, featured tweets, promotions, etc have drawn in the mainstream in such a way that they aren't perceiving Twitter in the way that the early adopters do - as a real-time communication platform..." -Aviel Ginzburg

"Two days ago I was having coffee with a friend of mine, who has been on Twitter for a little over a year (tweets everyday, DMs, @replies people, and even owns an iphone w/Twitter for iPhone) and as my phone beeped over and over again, she asked me if something was wrong. I said no, I just get my DMs text messaged to my phone. Her response was, 'you can do that?!'

"She has been using Twitter like people use Facebook, as a way to consume (mainly) and share content in a 'on your own time' fashion. When she uses Twitter, she really uses it, but in controlled bursts when she is physically engaging.

"The way that the site has been restructured in the past several months including the new search, celebrity, and brand focus, categories, featured tweets, promotions, etc have drawn in the mainstream in such a way that they aren't perceiving Twitter in the way that the early adopters do - as a real-time communication platform that will one day replace text messaging, email, and even phone calls. Just look at the Twitter homepage... it's a text media consumption site.

"With the announcement of push notifications, they're bring the messaging platform core value proposition back to the forefront, and pushing the mainstream, who joined Twitter for entirely different reasons, to experience Twitter in the same way us early adopters do -- as a real-time communication channel that you never disconnect from. The concern of course is: have these users really signed-up for entering a service where the are expected to be available and engaged at all times?

"It may seem like a small and logical update (cut out the text messaging middle-man), but really, Twitter is going to be dramatically changing the way its mainstreams users experience and use Twitter."

What do you think the implications of push notifications in Twitter's own mobile applications will be? Are you looking forward to it? Do you think it's something only power-users are really interested in? Do you think it will change peoples' SMS habits?

Debate Around Password Security Overlooks Universal Logins

Must include at least one number. Must be longer than six characters. Cannot have more than four sequential characters from your previous seven passwords. The rules for password creation vary wildly from site to site, an effort to protect users from those who would hack their identities.

These protective measures don't go very far, according to the New York Times, because hackers can get ahold of passwords with software that remotely tracks keystrokes, or by tricking users into typing them in. The story touches on a range of issues around the problem, but neglects to mention the obvious: the march toward a centralized login for multiple sites.

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A universal login could solve a lot of the issues around password security, from keylogging to the problem of users having their passwords discovered after writing them down.

It would also solve the problem of password-overload. Managing logins for all the Web sites that require registration is a pain, and any frequent Web user who says differently is either lying or has a photographic memory. Browsers have taken some of the pain away by remembering passwords for us, but clear your browser's history and suddenly you have to answer secret questions and email your username to yourself for umpteen different sites.

A handy chart to help you create secure passwords, from Microsoft.

One or more options for a universal login is inevitable and progress is well underway. More and more sites are supporting the easy-to-use Facebook Connect, which lets users register for a site with their Facebook profile instead of creating a site-specific username and password. As of last year, there were more than nine million websites using OpenID, the openly-developed standard that users can use to log in across multiple sites.

Standards like OpenID carry their own security problems (and other problems - see The Troubles With OpenID 2.0), the obvious being that a successful hacker can gain access to all the sites and services you use at once. But the convenience of a universal login is irresistible, especially for the myriad sites where there's no danger if your password is hacked, such as news sites. Users who try it won't want to go back - which is why it's important to talk about the security issues around these new protocols for users and the sites that implement them.

How do you manage your logins?

Adult services blocked on Craigslist

No Crackdown but Questions in Europe About Data Protection and the Cloud

German authorities have recently expressed skepticism about cloud computing and the potential it has for breaking data protection laws.

According to the Information Law Group, there is no imminent danger of a European crackdown but legal experts are advising international companies to address the potential concerns in their planning and operations.

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The controversy stems from Dr. Thilo Weichert, head of the data protection commission in the northernmost German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Weichert is calling for the abolition of the Safe Harbor framework and doubts the ability of companies to protect the rights of Europeans, who enjoy some of the strongest personal privacy laws in the world.

According to the Information Law Group, the Safe Harbor Framework was "developed jointly by the European Commission and the US Department of Commerce, under which American companies can publicly certify compliance with a standard set of Safe Harbor Privacy Principles approved by the European Commission and enforced by American regulators, predominantly the Federal Trade Commission."

The concerns about data privacy are also felt across Europe. Most of the tension arise from how personal data is stored in the Untied States, where privacy laws are less comprehensive.

European law is fairly meticulous on the matter of data privacy. There are a number of ways that a customer needs to be notified about how their information is being processed. The belief is that on many occasions, customers are not informed at all when using SaaS services and cloud computing services. Still, there have been no formal complaints issued against cloud computing providers.

The concerns from Germany do come at a time when Europe is beginning to review data protection laws that have been on the books for the past 15 years. Comments have been submitted to the European Commission, which has decided to push back any ruling until mid-2011 due to the varying approaches European countries have been taking about data privacy enforcement. According to the Information Law Group, the commission also want to examine how best to apply the general principles of the law in an "increasingly global, networked, and distributed computing environment."

The law group advises companies to make sure they are compliant by "handling European employee data in centralized enterprise resource management systems or outsourced applications."

Outsourced applications could be any variety of services. But due to the general tone in Europe right now, companies need to make sure cloud computing providers can prove they are compliant. This can be difficult at times as providers are sometimes hesitant about disclosing locations or sub-contractors. If they can't, then it's time to start looking at other options.

Further, the Information Law Group says it's important that customers check to see if United States vendors, including cloud service providers, "are Safe Harbor certified, or alternatively use EU-approved standard contract clauses."

This issue shows again why transparency and standardized policies will be increasingly important to develop in the cloud computing market. European authorities have a reputation for strict data protection requirements. That's not going to change. It's a just a question what effect the law will have on the technology itself as privacy takes center stage.

7 Ways to Increase User Participation

Running a site doesn't only require Web development skills. Any site where the users can add content and communicate with each other requires a great deal of care and attention if it's going to be a success.

Increasing user participation on your site is achievable if you aim for the old adage KISS, or keep it simple, stupid. Beyond that, there are a few things you can do to get more people to interact with your site. Here are seven tips to set you on that path.

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1. Enable Social Logins

I'd suggest losing registration altogether if you can. But if your site requires registration, best to make it as simple as possible. A quick click here, a quick click there, and hey presto - one registered user without the barrier of a signup form.

Check out our guide to JanRain Engage and you'll be setting up social logins in no time.

2. Clearly Signpost the Forums

Got a forum on your site? Good! Now make sure it's easy to find. Forums are not a great deal of use if nobody can find them. Put a link to the forums in the main navigation bar - don't bury it on a sub-page.

3. Show Avatars Everywhere

I've always found forum software to be rather plain and boring. Avatars are shown when you view a post, but on the topic listing, not so much.

Something like this seems much more appealing:

This is a layout I developed for a site with built-in forum functionality. Displaying avatars at this level helps when differentiating between the topics in the list.

4. Highlight Recent Activity

People are much more likely to participate in a site if they can quickly find what's new and updated across the site. Whether it's recent blog comments, replies in the forums, new members or site upgrades, some people will be interested to see what's going on. Let them find that information.

5. Talk To Them!

If you're building a site for someone else, there may be limits to what you can do in this area. But if it's your site, or you're contributing to a site where it's acceptable for the developers to get involved, do so. Being approachable is a very good character trait for a developer to possess - it shows you care.

6. Run Member Polls

If a lot of people have something to say, particularly about new or proposed features, it can be useful to distil this information into a member poll. Running a poll from time to time gives you a good insight into the general views of the community, while simultaneously sharing the same information with members.

7. Reward Top Contributors

Do you have a few people who stand out as being helpful, resourceful or good at keeping the peace? Depending on the goals of your site, giving out small tokens of appreciation can be a big help. Be careful not to alienate the less frequent contributors though.

Photo by JamieL.WilliamsPhotography

Remote Work: Pitfalls and How to Avoid them

One big theme to emerge out of our conversation last week about the future of the workplace was remote working. I thought it would be beneficial to start this week off by thinking about the disadvantages of remote work and the technologies and policies that may be able to mitigate some of those problems.

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Productivity remains a concern for managers unwilling to give their employees a chance, but according to telecommute advocacy groups like Undress for Success and The American Telecommuting Association, research shows those concerns are mostly unwarranted. However, there are some other problems. Here are some of the issues I've witnessed in organizations of all sizes, and some ideas about what to do to fix these issues.

Please leave your own gripes and solutions in the comments, or e-mail klint@readwriteweb.com, and we'll highlight the best responses in a follow-up on Friday.

Missing Out On "Hallway Meetings"

Anti-meeting commentators, such as those from 37signals often point out how unproductive meetings are, and how little hallway conversations are usually where the most important conversations take place. This is probably true, but it creates a communication problem: those important conversations and decisions have to communicated to everyone who needs to know about them.

This can be hard enough when everyone works in the same space. But when employees aren't physically present, keeping everyone in the loop can be even more difficult.

Solution: This is what e-mail and intranets are for. Managers need to be dililgant about documenting and communicating decisions, and making sure that information is easily accessible to employees.

Lack of Responsiveness During Work Hours

One of the proposed advantages of teleworking is the ability to minimize interruptions from co-workers. However, sometimes co-workers have important needs and questions and not being able to get in touch with a remote working employee can damage everyone else's productivity.

This is exacerbated by flex time, especially when flex time overlaps with telecommuting.

Solution: Communicate virtual "office hours," and set standards for timeliness of responses. Instant messaing has proved to be a good medium for communication remote workers, but can be a distracting productivity killer. Setting "IM hours" could be a happy medium.

Being diligent about entering useful information into the organization's intranet will reduce the necessity to be contacted directly. Using Q&A sites like MindQuilt could also help employees find answers to questions.

Morale

Jealousy can impact the morale of workers who can't or aren't allowed to work from home. Also, while managers can track the productivity of employees who work from home, co-workers might be less privy to that information and harbor doubts about their remote co-workers accomplishments.

Solutions: Undress for Success recommends the following for dealing with telecommute-envy in the workplace:

• Employees need to understand why they were or were not chosen for telework.
• Employees should see telework as a benefit that is earned, not given.
• Standards of selection should be uniform.

Photo by Richard

Kanye and how Twitter changed communication

Augmented Reality Coming to DC Bus Stops Today (Photo)

Gov 2.0 advocates have printed a run of QR (2D barcode) stickers they will stick at bus stops all over Washington DC today, allowing mobile phone users to quickly get up-to-the moment bus progress reports, post traffic status updates, and more. This augmentation of the physical world with real-time data from the ether strikes me as accessible and useful. The project was one of many ideas discussed at DCWeek this June and is being implemented by the Research and Development group in Office of the CTO, DC Government (on Twitter: OCTOLabs).

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O'Reilly's Gov 2.0 correspondent Alex Howard shared a link to this photo on Twitter this morning. Smart phone users will use QR reading apps to snap a picture of the codes, then their phones will be shown relevant real-time information corresponding to the bus stop they are at. (That makes more sense to me than NYC's new QR codes on the back of garbage trucks, but hey - they point is, these things are growing more mainstream in the US.)

Update: The team behind these QR codes has updated us to let us know that the stickers are ready but won't actually be distributed for a few more days.

Here in my home town of Portland, Oregon, the ability to check "time-to-arrival" for buses by phone is much appreciated. Augmenting that kind of data with a richer experience, launched by QR code, sounds great. Santiago, Chile added similar QR codes to 4,000 of its bus stops this Summer.

"See" also this audio interview earlier this week with Bryan Sivak,
Chief Technology Officer at the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) in the District of Columbia.