Martin De Saulles

A piece I wrote for the CILIP Library and Information Gazette has just been published. In it, I look back at some of the key changes to the information world over the previous 10 years and anticipate what the future might hold for us.

A couple of years ago on my old blog I wrote about the UK's local business directory, Yellow Pages and how their online offering, Yell.com, had missed a trick in adding value to the service.  I suggested they should offer some kind of rating system that would allow individuals to rate the services of local trades people such as electricians, plumbers, builders etc.  This is one of the aspects of the Amazon service that I find most useful, particularly when buying more complex products such as cameras and computing accessories.  There are web-based services that do attempt to do something similar for people who need to employ a builder or plumber but none have really taken off and my experience of trying to use RatedPeople.com, one of the higher profile offerings, is that it seems to want a lot of personal  information from you upfront before it will ask one of its trusted partners to call you back.  I don't want someone who I have not selected to call me - I want select and call someone based on the opinions of others.  Looking at Yell.com today, I see they still do not offer anything similar.  Perhaps the complexities and costs of setting up a system outweigh the benefits but without being able to offer something extra, I cannot see much of a future for Yell.  Google offers a similar service and with approximately three quarters of people using Google as their start point on the Internet, Yell may be in a similarly uncomforatable and unprofitable position as local newspapers.

See chart above for a comparison of the share price of Yell.com, Johnston Press (owner of many UK local newspapers) and Google since August 2004 when Google was floated.  I have also added the FTSE 100 to compare the broader stock market.  I know Google is not listed in the UK but you get the picture.  As Peter Kirwan recently wrote: "The argument — still tentatively advanced by John Fry of Johnston Press and others — that we’re witnessing a cyclical correction has never seemed so hollow."

Thanks to David Tebbutt's tweet (I'm starting to see some value in Twitter) - http://twitter.com/tebbo - for alerting me to Andrew McAfee's new book, Enterprise 2.0.  You can download a free introductory chapter HERE. From the introduction, it looks like an interesting read and McAfee seems to have adopted an initially sceptical attitude to his preliminary research into how companies are using new Web tools.  I agree with him that there has been a lot of hype surrounding Web 2.0 and its applications within business both from vendors and the analysts studying this market.  However, there is something going on here which deserves further research and McAfee's book looks like it might be a good starting point for managers wanting to know more about the collaborative potential of such technologies and services.  I'll post a proper review once I have read the book.  You can find out more about the author from his blog.

Great post from John Blossom at Shore Communications.  I agree with his point that we will soon be seeing a new wave of low cost, high functionality portable devices from Taiwan, China and South Korea hitting our markets.  The growing momentum behind Google Android is partly behind this as is cheaper hardware, increasingly prevalent broadband (wifi and 3G) and a growing acceptance by users of browser-based applications (I was trying to avoid the c word).  What does this mean for content providers?  In John's words, "Dear publishers, say goodbye to your love affair with the iPhone - before it's too late. Learn to love netbooks, a galaxy of smart phones and any other device that can get you people who whant your content on the line, and then prove your value from there."