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Some useful reading

January 7, 2013 By Dan Thornton

I’ll post some more in-depth thoughts on both of the books I’m currently reading, but having already been inspired to rethink various aspects of our work on creativity, marketing and technology, I wanted to recommend Paid to Think: A Leader’s Toolkit for Redefining Your Future by David Goldsmith, and Future Minds: How The Digital Age is Changing Our Minds, Why This Matters and What We Can Do About It by Richard Watson.

Paid to Think is a structured approach to the various elements of leadership. I should note that I was kindly sent a review copy, and that the reason for the delay in publishing an actual review is because unusually, the book is prompting me to pause and put the various lessons and techniques into practice, including into live client work.

Future Minds is a book I wish I’d read when it was published in 2010, but picked up as the Kindle edition is currently discounted to the impulse-friendly £1.49, and although I don’t necessarily agree with every conclusion in it, there have been a number of points which have caused me to re-frame my thinking on specific topics.

Both are well worth checking out for yourself – Paid To Think encompasses more than the title suggests, but is probably more suitable for those either leading/managing a business, or looking to take on that type of role in the future. Future Minds is suitable for anyone with an interest in technology and the changes it is making to society.

Google Apps – no more free sign-ups, no more Freemium

December 8, 2012 By Dan Thornton

Six years ago, Google Apps launched with a great suite of tools which could be used for collaboration and work for free by anyone with less than 10 users. A year later, the paid premium versions became available, and now that’s all that will be available, as Google has now stopped new sign-ups to the free option.

Apparently due to the difficulty of managing the experience for individuals and businesses, the options now are for individuals to use a free personal account, which still gives you access to the likes of Gmail, Google Drive etc, while businesses need to pay $50 per user per year. Existing customers, including those on the free version, will continue as before.

The implications of ending free Google Apps:

I’ve used Google Apps since launch, and maintain a number of different Apps accounts. From a business perspective, we’ve been inching closer to the user threshold to pay anyway, so it was always on my radar, and I have no problem investing in the right tools. No business can rely solely on free tools and services and be able to guarantee reliability, which is why we mix and match to ensure we use the best paid and free options together to do the best job.

But I’ve also recommended Google Apps to a lot of people over the years, and that’s going to have to stop with the loss of the free version, as it rules out a number of use cases.

Easy email addresses: If you own a domain and wanted to have the corresponding email addresses with a very easy set-up, Google Apps was perfect for that. Simpler than editing MX records, and it meant you could quickly use Gmail or other email services without any hassle. But it’s not worthwhile for $50.

Micro businesses: When TheWayoftheWeb started it was just me, and more people have been added rapidly to the team over the last couple of years. As we respond to increased demand, the revenue has covered the need for more admin and collaboration tools, but at the same time, I’ve been experimenting with other projects, like niche publishing, where adding the costs for 4-5 users would wipe out the profits from some sites entirely. The benefits of easy collaboration just aren’t there.

Businesses in developing economies: A cost of $50 per person is relatively low for most people in developed economies. It’s much harder if your income and profits are much lower. In countries where $50 is a substantial proportion of a monthly or annual wage, they’re now effectively stopped from signing up to what is a decent and fairly reliable set of tools.

New experimentation: I love experimenting with new projects and ideas. And while that isn’t going to stop, the free Google Apps option meant that I could quickly set up a workspace for a small team, run an idea for a while, and see whether it’s viable or not. Now new projects will either need to use alternatives, rely on more labour intensive methods, or be reduced to those which realistically cover their costs in a short space of time.

Sad times for Freemium:

The ‘freemium’ model has had some successes and some detractors, since it started to become popular. Offering free access with a further paid version was never guaranteed to deliver the returns for a business, but many people jumped on the bandwagon.

But with a company as big as Google, which apparently made $1 billion from the sale of Google Apps and mapping software to businesses and governments over the past year, dropping the freemium approach for Apps, it sends a pretty big signal to over people using that model.

And personally I think that’s a bad move. I agree with the idea that ‘if you’re not paying for a product, then you are the product’, but I also believe that many products need time and engagement to prove their true value, and the freemium model allows that to happen. I can’t remember how long I used the free versions of Spotify or Flickr for, but it was months and years before I then took the decision to pay for both services, and I’ve remained a customer ever since.

Encouraging people into online collaboration takes time and effort, and having free tools available means you can focus on engaging colleagues without any panic that you need to cover costs immediately. There are several great project management tools, for example, which offer a 30 or 60 day trial – but I’ve often found those trials are too short to get new projects up and running effectively and show any value before the payments kick in and the idea gets ended all too soon.

Apparently with more than 5 million businesses on Google Apps, the majority have less than 10 users and are on the free version, so this is the cost Google seeks to remove. But given the 6 year maximum growth available to Google Apps users, I’d question how many businesses have had the time to actually scale from a handful of users to a major business in that time, given the failure rate amongst small businesses around the world.

Damaging to Google’s brand?

I understand the logical business rationale for concentrating on paying users rather than free. It’s a balance I have personal experience of with clients just as Jigoshop, and it can lead to a lot of complex decisions and debates.

But Google seems to be making a lot of decisions which detract from their supposed stance to ‘Do No Evil’ and ‘Organise the world’s information’. Moves like putting all their effort into Google+ at the expense of other services such as Google Reader, dropping Feedburner advertising and setting it up for likely closure, and dropping free tools for collaboration show a company which is far closer to competitors like Apple and Microsoft now than ever before, particularly as Microsoft in particular has moved towards better and cheaper online tools.

In terms of belief, it’s harder than ever to know what Google really stands for, and what they’ll do next. That makes it harder to identify with them as a personal user/consumer, and much harder to include them in business decisions.

Quick updates: DPiP and a new me…

December 8, 2012 By Dan Thornton

Two quick updates on various things happening at the moment.

DPiP:

The second annual Digital People in Peterborough (#DPiP) pre-Christmas curry took place last night, and once again proved to be a great evening of conversation with all sorts of people working in and around digital technology in the Peterborough/Cambridgeshire area.
Our next meetup is at The Brewery Tap on January 17th, 2013. You can check out more details on the DPiP website.

A new me?

I originally started TheWayoftheWeb as a personal blog while I was first employed as a journalist and then as a marketing manager. That was several years ago, and in that time, a lot has changed, including the launch and growth of TheWayoftheWeb as first a personal business, and now an organisation which employs a virtual team.

As a result, I’ve questioned how this site needs to evolve, and what content belongs on it as a business, rather than a personal blog. As a result, I’ve finally taken the time to set up a new blog at danthornton.net.

It’s not quite finished yet, but I’ve started updating there, and wanted to explain how the split works.

TheWayoftheWeb will continue to be updated by me, hopefully with more members of the team appearing in future. It’s not going to become full of self-promotion and business buzzwords, but will have a clearer focus on the things which underpin the business: Content, Marketing, Technology.

DanThornton.net will be a more personal blog, and include anything and everything that I want to put online, whether it’s related to work, leisure, music, videogames etc. If I want to share a random Instragram photo, comments on a movie, or anything else, that’s where you’ll find it in future.

Hopefully it means that both sites will develop to become more focused, and as a result, more useful in the future. Old non-work related posts will continue to reside here for the time being, and if they do get migrated across, the necessary redirects will be in place to ensure links still work.

Judging new media by old media metrics

November 12, 2012 By Dan Thornton

Apparently Youtube has announced it will renew around 40% of the original content channels it funded last year (paying channels up to $5 million). As reported by AllThingsD, the channels not receiving new funding won’t be kicked off Youtube – and why would they with infinite space, and the deal requiring them to pay back the investment via advertising revenue if it hasn’t already been recouped?

What sparked my interest was the comparison to traditional TV only picking up the hits at the end of a season, and the fact that the first two comments on the article both said the experiment was a ‘failure’ in traditional TV terms and because 60% won’t be continued.

I’d completely disagree, and it’s symptomatic of the ease with which we default to existing yardsticks.

The long tail strikes again:

Presumably Google has already made back the initial investment on the 40% for renewal, or is close.

For the remaining 60%, Google will make back it’s investment eventually – those channels will remain contributing in perpetuity until they break even.

And the creators that aren’t having renewed deals do have an incentive to keep going – the investment and news will have certainly allowed them to raise their profiles and traffic beyond what they previously had. It certainly should have done with millions of dollars being handed out. Once their investment is re-payed they get the benefits of their increased traffic and funding to go forwards with.

I’m not a Google fan boy by any stretch of the imagination, but having followed the online video industry closely for many years, things have changed with the lowering costs of bandwith and storage, and that means better opportunities for all involved to operate with a lower risk. The cost of a prime time TV network show would be far more than a Youtube channel, and if it failed, there’s no coming back – compared to any of the ‘failed’ channels which could still break out with their next video or series.

Classic Badges of Americana – the devil’s in the details…

November 5, 2012 By Dan Thornton

I had a rare trip out with my dad on Saturday – cramming in the London Motor Museum, a quick Mexican meal at Wahaca, and finally seeing Looper at the cinema.

All three were very enjoyable, but the cars deserved most of the attention, and plenty of photos. One of things I particularly love about 1960s American cars is the style, particularly in the details like

Badges:

Dodge Challenger R/T Badge — 1960’s Dodge Challenger RT Badge

Fuel Caps:

Even vents for the motor:

Ford GT40 Rear Window - London Motor Museum — Ford GT40 Rear Window and Vents

I have to admit, I was slightly motivated by the fact I’ve finally download Instagram to my new phone, so Hot Rods and Muscle Cars lend themselves to retro filters. But I’ve always been fascinated by the style of 60’s American cars. Something about the idea of a huge engine, soggy suspension and steering, combined with stylistic touches to add flair to something with the natural aerodynamics of a bungalow.

Muscle Cars at London Motor Museum — Muscle Car dream garage?

It’s a reminder of the impact that design can have on something which will only become more utilitarian and commoditized in the future. Packaging an automated, battery-powered people mover isn’t going to have the same battle of form and function as it does when you’re squeezing in a 5.7 litre petrol engine, and being shuttled forward by a serious of small explosions under the bonnet.

And how real enduring beauty comes from marrying form and function. Muscle Cars aren’t pretty in the same way as a Ferrari or Porsche can be. They’re burgers, blue jeans, work boots and rock ‘n’ roll. And in my mind, all the better for it – I wonder how many ‘working class’ icons will come out of the current era?

Speaking to a good friend and branding consultant, I mentioned that most of the brands I love are small or tiny companies doing different things. When it comes to mainstream brands, there are a scant few – two that spring to mind are Uniglo and Onitsuka Tigers, making me seem like a Japanophile, but even then it’s for their selvedge jeans and classic sneakers.

There’s the iPhone of course. But will a scratched original iPhone still combine form and function in 40 or 50 years time? Modern technology is generally made to be disposable.

And maybe for physical products, it’s coming to an end as 3D Printing means we’ll have more access to whatever we want, no matter how obscure or unusual.

Which means for me it’s probably time to spend more effort on the style of online sites. The impact of Pinterest-style sites for web and mobile has already been well-documented, but a recent Wired article on Jack Dorsey went into his appreciation of selvage denim and how the background for a new Square icon was a pair of particular high-end designer selvage jeans, rather than a flat blue colour.

It’s time websites gave more emotion and more feeling. I always thought that if any action on the website could feel as satisfying as opening a new packet of cigarettes, that website would be guaranteed success. Maybe it’s time to edge back from effortless clicking, swiping and sharing to put some meaning back into our designs and interactions?