Can OpenID change the channel?

As part their 3.0 effort to get back on top - or at least to cease endless comparisons to Google - Yahoo! made a splash this week about adding OpenID to their user experience. While there will be limitations, I says kudos to them for giving this a shot and, perhaps in doing so, giving OpenID a chance to be what it originally set out to be.

In my partner development work, I often talk to clients about the importance of low friction in relationships that are intended to generate demand from one partner to another. And the SaaS world would appear to offer the change to do lower friction deals than we have before because prospects merely have to pop from one site to another to buy something on referral. But is this really low friction? It would be save for the fact that with every passing day the average online visitor's attention span exponentially slides.

What does this have to do with OpenID. Simple. If you send me from one application to another - even if they are complementary of another - and you ask me to set up and insert yet another password, I may very well abort. Even if I can remember it. OpenID - as a concept - has the potential to change the way us BizDev people make deals; make them based only on the marketing and revenue upside and less on what development would be required to make them work.

Since being enamored with the concept though, I have since learned that the path to worldwide OpenID is not that well paved. Microsoft failed with Passport moons ago and there are at least 2 other OpenID-like groups trying to become the standard. Seems to me that by definition there can only be one standard.

But I love the idea. And, as a big Yahoo! fan, I applaud them for the effort.

More artwork from Cupertino.

I never used to care about MacWorld being in town, save maybe for the lack of tables at good restaurants. In fact, that can probably be said for a lot of people. Not anymore. Seems like once a week that I talk to once PC stalwarts sneaking off the the Apple store to see what the buzz is about.

And today, Steve and his pals struck once again. After a week of watching the locals guess at what this year's Iphone is, Air was released as a new entrant into the ultra-portable computing segment; a segment that can well use the competition. Having not so long ago purchased my own MacBook Pro, I found out first hand that the combination of very light and very powerful was hard to come by. Once again, Mac is resetting the standard for a segment and in doing so will again be able to straddle both the consumer and business markets. This in itself is an accomplishment many foes cannot seem to do.

At the risk of gushing at them, I am no longer sure what is most impressive about Apple. Product design? Buzz creation? Brand extension? You name it, they're building a Harvard Business case for it. And lets not forget the Fort Knox secrecy. No idea how they keep so many people, so quiet.

Well done, Steve. Again.

Counting the days until LinkedIn Opens.

While those who know me will never accuse me of having product development skills, I like to think that I can at least appreciate good development when I see it (or use it). With so much 'Open' talk these days though - from Google all the way to Verizon, of all companies - it's getting more difficult for someone of my skills to evaluate just how open platforms or products are going to be.

Facebook has clearly set the bar for openness; every time I log in I see a boatload of new widgets and applications to ignore. Given Google's track record I have to assume that their open, will be really open - as long as it can sell more advertising. As for Verizon, the jury is surely out by what I read. Great concept and a great step for telephony, but they are after all an 'old' phone company.

This brings me to LinkedIn, something I have used since well before the average person felt obliged to try it. And while I like it, I have pined for it to be more meaningful in my broader networking efforts. Yes, it gives me a simple way to grow my posse, but my access to people in my network - or worse, to those once removed from me - is the furthest thing from instant. Some time ago, they announced 'open' intent, but with few details. Still few details are available to this day. We are starting to see some external movement around it, including the SightSpeed announcement I posted about earlier this week. But nothing yet that has changed my LinkedIn experience.

I want presence in my LinkedIn. I want to know when people in my network are online so I can quickly IM, voice or video communicate with them to achieve whatever networking benefit I am after. This may even accelerate the process of getting in touch with those separated from me by a degree or two. Today, I just don't bother anymore if the target is not in my own network.

Because of the job they have done in building these personal databases, there are many other wonderful 'open' possibilities. Conference calling, SMS, integration to your corporate UC applications, to name a few. But this brings me full circle - I just don't know how open is open. Lets hope it's wide. I want a better LinkedIn.

Video comes to the Social Network.

My blog makes it clear that I like video conferencing. It probably also intimates that I like SightSpeed, the leader in delivering both free and feature-rich small business video services. I have had several conversations with their leader - Peter Csathy - and always come away confident that they are up to something he can't talk about. This week, among the sinners in Vegas, they added video chatting to social networking in a nice, browser-only package.

Now the conversation of convergence between online networking (a communication tool in itself), and other more formally recognized communications tools, have officially begun. Like voice and IM - still lagging somewhat in social networking - this is a must to make networking more valuable to the business community. And with this move, SightSpeed exponentially grows the opportunity for people to experience video communication - the very best way for people to 'see' that this is not just a nice to have for their respective businesses.

Ken Camp, an active member of the UC community has this to add, along with the announcement itself:

For those of us actively involved in social networking tools, the ability to include real-time video chat is a huge step forward. Driven by all the hard work at SightSpeed, we're now seeing video tools integrated into the browser using Flash. That's convergence in action. It's the integration of services, video services in this case, right into the application. For more and the announcement itself, go here...

Out-track your competition.

No matter what your business is, you have competition. I tried to tell my web site designer the other day that I did not have 'direct' competitors, and he giggled. He was right. We all do, in one sense of another. The paradox here is that as a group, we are pretty weak when it comes to tracking them. Too bad really, given how much we can learn from them.

Ironically, while for the most part the average SMB (and some Enterprises) don't do their homework regularly on their rivals, it has never been so easy as today to see what our competitors are up to. You can watch them all day long if you want to (services like Watch360 will do this for you). Imagine for a moment what it was like to research your enemies before the days of the web. Certainly could not do it overnight.

Why the sudden talk about competition? I bumped into an interesting company and offering today - RivalMap. Web-based management of your competition, their news, their strengths and weaknesses, all inside a nicely laid-out 2.0 set of tools. One thing I especially like: It encourages all facets of an organization to get involved. Sales, marketing but also R&D. You'll like it too if you've ever tried to encourage a set of features out of your colleagues across the hall.

RivalMap is worth a look.

A non-Letterman Top Ten List.

This list will not likely make it to late night television - not withstanding the writer's strike - but this analyst's predictions for 2008 around Unified Communications is worth a look. As I said, there is writer's strike, which is freeing up more reading time for some of us. Please come back soon.

For the most part, this reads like any other Top Ten UC Predictions floating around online, but there are two points that caught this blogger's attention. One I really hope comes true and one that I don't.

#4-Corporations will endorse Social Networks: Why I am hopeful for this one? Because it will give further impetus to telecom companies to go out of the box when it comes to API's allowing start-up applications - like social networks - to integrate into mainstream solutions, hence giving them more access to public validation. And it should help social become business - networks, that is. This will also push Telephony 2.0 from being about just VC-backed ideas to representing stable, profitable companies with established channels to market.

#8-Enthusiasm over Video-Conferencing Fades: Why I hope this one does not come true? Because, contrary to the pronostication, I am big believer in video as a collaboration application. I think - and know - it changes the way companies operate. And any time you can do this, you are likely to be a little more than a nice to have. (As a side note, I also have plenty of friends in video that I would like to see succeed...).

By the time next December rolls around, we will surely have forgotten what we thought would happen in '08. Funny how we see very little of these folks publishing the results of their predictions.

Winter in San Francisco. Hardly.

Nothing to do with IP Telephony, SMB Channels, VC's or anything remotely connected to my work life. But I had to say something.

After more than ten years (very lucky ones) of living in San Francisco - hailing from my birth place of Montreal - it never ceases to take me aback when the first 'Winter' storm rolls into town. You would think the world was crumbling. I can still remember my very first one back in '97. It was all over the news. Threats of ominous weather patterns approaching the Bay that would all but ground us to a halt. Frankly, I did not know what to expect. Where I came from, if they said we were going to be ground to halt, we were literally. That's what 30 inches of snow and below zero temperatures does to a city.

But, alas, this Winter storm was hardly that. It rained. And yes, the wind blew for some time. No snow, and no freezing temperatures though. Could this be Winter, I remember thinking at the time. Fast forward to this week, and here we go again. The soft skinned Bay Area, spoiled by its 300 days of sunshine and zero days of minus anything, is once again bracing for the first big storm of the year.

I surely have plenty to be thankful for as I head into 2008.