Cloud Wars: Google 1, Microsoft 0

Any organisation thinking of moving its internally managed email and calendaring over to a cloud provider should read this.  The University of California at Berkeley recently made the switch and weighed up Google and Microsoft 365. Google won.  However, Berkeley have drawn up a matrix of the criteria against which they made their choice.  Although Google won overall, it was quite a close-run race.  Worth a read.

What is the future for professional associations?

Over the last few weeks I've been thinking a lot about the impact that informal and virtual communities might be having on established professional bodies.  I find I am getting a lot of value from the LinkedIn groups and other online communities including several run within Google Groups.  The discussions that go on in these places and the ability to ask and answer questions of other members provides much of the functionality that professional bodies have traditionally offered.  I see 4 key advantages that virtual communities offer over professional bodies:

1. They often cut across traditional barriers and link individuals from a variety of backgrounds and professions who share common interests that transcend the articles of association of bodies that may have been drawn up over 100 years ago;
2. They are easy to join and usually free;
3. Group members can be quick to respond to issues and questions - no bureaucratic committees to go through;
4. They tend to emerge from the grass roots to address specific issues and pursue common interests rather than from the top down. Some professional bodies give the impression (sometimes unfairly) they exist to serve the interests of their employees rather than their members.

Of course, professional associations also have their advantages such as having the resources to act as advocates for a profession, helping with the professional development of members and offering physical spaces for members to meet.  Some even have legal rights conferred on them requiring membership for employment in certain professions although this might be seen as an unhealthy monopoly and not always be in the broader interests of society.  

I'm not a technophile who thinks that the internet and its associated services and technologies are going to sweep away industries, organisations and practices over night.  However, I do believe some radical changes are taking place in the ways people communicate, collaborate and share information. One of the key functions of professional associations is to offer a space for people to gather, share information and pursue common interests.  Services like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google also offer this functionality and people are increasingly taking to them.  When physical meetings are required these online tools work well in organising meet ups in cafes and bars.  I see this happening a lot in Brighton where a vibrant new media industry utilises the many watering holes and community work spaces around the city.  Many professional associations are also using these tools to help their members communicate with each other.  However, I can imagine a time, not too far away, when members will start to question what is the value their association offers if most of the conversations are taking place on online platforms hosted somewhere else.  Will it be possible to justify charging annual subscriptions of several hundred pounds to pay for buildings and employees? 

What do you think?

How Google Works

This flow chart from the PPC blog neatly shows how Google search works along with some interesting information about their infrastructure.

Infographic by PPC Blog

Is Google the solution to Facebook?

We all know the issues with Facebook and its changing privacy settings. Facebook has gone some way to addressing these concerns but for many people, myself included, the trust has gone.  Antoher problem with Facebook is the way it blurs the distinction between types of friends, contacts, colleagues etc.  Basically, they are all lumped in together so that messages intended for your Facebook friends can also been seen by your Facebook colleagues.  This is one of the reasons I closed my Facebook account last year - I did not feel comfortable having an online spaced co-populated by friends, old college and school acquaintances, students, colleagues and ex-colleagues. ( I recently opened a new Facebook account but only for research purposes).  It's probably a sign of my age but email, LinkedIn, Twitter and the telephone seem to serve me well enough for the moment.

However, the news/rumour that Google is about to launch a Facebook competitor (Google Me?) is interesting.  As is the Slideshare presentation below from Paul Adams, a UX person at Google (thanks to Katie Piatt for alerting me to this via Twitter) which describes how our social networks work in the real world and why Facebook is not sophisticated enough to deal with them.  Perhaps Google Me will allow us to reflect our multi-faceted identities online.  There are a number of major hurdles Google would have to overcome if it is to succeed on this front:

• Facebook has approaching 500 million active users.  Amongst certain demographics and in some geographies it is firmly entrenched.  Will enough of these people switch to another network?
• LinkedIn is the online weapon of choice for business networking.  Same question as above;
• Google does not have a good track record in this space.  Google Wave and Google Buzz.  Perhaps Gmail will be the way in as long as they don't misjudge users again as with Buzz;
• Do enough people care about Facebook's privacy issues enough for them to switch?  I'm not sure they do.

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

Confusion in the Cloud

I've been trying to get my head around the suite of web applications offered by Microsoft and Google and it's not easy.  This may be partly due to my simple brain but after several hours of looking at their competing offerings, I'm still not entirely clear how, for example, Microsoft's Office Live, Live Mesh and Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) work together/overlap etc.  BPOS looks interesting and I will be playing with it later in the month but the pricing scheme is not obvious - what's the difference between "Office SharePoint Online Standard" and "Sharepoint Online Deskless Worker"?  Microsoft do have that information on their website but it needs some deciphering.  Google's suite of services are also confusing - for example, what's the difference between Google Sites and Apps?

Anyway, my point, for what it's worth, is that if these corporations expect small companies with little time, money, expertise or interest to start working in the cloud then they'd better come up with some less confusing and more transparent propositions.