Social Media - Collaborative Tools

Here's an example of how a system on the internet can let people collaborate for greater effect.

If you missed Muse at Glastonbury this summer, you can get close to the experience on line through setlist.fm. This is a tool that bands and/or fans can use to record the exact tracks that they play at each gig.

Lyrics can be added, and links made to examples of each track - either videos of the gig, videos from other live shows, or any other available soundtracks. By playing any track in the set, the others automatically follow on afterwards. In that way you can effectively listen to an entire gig using actual videos or archive material.

The interesting thing is that any one setlist can be compiled by any number of people, either before the gig or usually afterwards. This is rather like wikis in the likes of Wikipedia. For business purposes, people like Nigel Temple are using wiki technology to pull together contributions from a variety of people to compile an ever-growing library of marketing ideas.

What other ideas for using collaborative technology are gaining traction?

(If you are interested in other aspects of using social networking in business, including the music business, see the Fab Four Case Study.)


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Escaping Excel Hell - Reporting

Excel has many useful features, including different types of graphs.

But there are two graphical tools that have only more recently become available as add-ins to more clearly portray information in management reports:

1. SFE Sparklines (with some now as standard in Excel 2010, see comparison)
2. Gauges

Used selectively and carefully, these graphics can add great value to management reporting.

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Performance Management - Mid-Market Forecasting Tools

Here is an article on Mid-Market Forecasting and Budgeting Tools

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Cloud Computing – Hot Air or Business Reality?

Cloud computing is BIG BENEFITS, BIG RISKS.

See recent article Hot Air or Business Reality?

Weekly Review - iPhone, .co domains & HTML5

iPhone 4 Aerial Problem

Last week we looked at the Apple iPhone 4 against its predecessor, the 3GS. Since then Apple have announced that they will be supplying a case to improve the 4's aerial's effectiveness. Apparently other phones have the aerial inside, but Apple put it in a band outside – something that was apparently bound to fail! Whilst Apple aren’t perfect, it’s very unlike them to make what appears to be an elementary mistake. As the case makes the iPhone 4 more bulky, it’s not ideal.

Until an new version of the iPhone 4 is launched, if you need a new phone there is the iPhone 3GS and other smartphone choices like HTC’s Desire and Legend, Samsung’s Galaxy S, Sony’s X10, Nokia phones and of course Blackberry. Personally I’ll wait for iPhone4 v2.


What’s in a name?

Heard of the little Polynesian island of Tuvalu . It’s the place behind all those .tv domain names like www.five.tv. Apparently the Tuvalu government receives a quarterly payment of US$1 million from the Verisign group.

Now it’s the Columbians' turn. “.co” will become generally available from tomorrow, 20 July. In addition to .co, the following sub-formats will be available:

• com.co – commercial
• org.co – organizations
• edu.co – educational
• gov.co – government
• net.co – network infrastructure
• mil.co – military
• nom.co – private person

There's plenty of registration companies. Just do a Google search. At around £20 - £30 per annum for each domain, what's stopping you? Well be cautious - cheap is rarely cheerful. Always worth checking out reviews of the registration company you are thinking of using!

[Postscript: I've just registered camwells.co which I'll link straight through to the master Camwells website. This means you don't need to have new domains with the same ISP (internet service provider) as your main website is hosted. Indeed a spread of ISPs is useful for contingency purposes, and to keep track of how ISPs compare as they develop what they offer (or not) over the years.]

HTML5 & Flash

I have had enormous trouble today with Adobe Flash crashing when trying to listen to and watch music videos. No wonder Apple have decided not to support Flash on the iPad. Now it’s down to websites to adopt technology that doesn’t rely on Flash.

Along comes HTML5 that promises to transform dull websites into juicy web apps without the need for plug-ins like Flash. It is estimated that HTML5 will reach W3C (world wide web consortium) "Recommendation" status by late 2010, for general release. In the meantime browsers can incorporate the draft standard. Bring it on!

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