Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
IM: Location, Location, Location
Author: Phil Wolff Posted: 8/1/1999; 10:54:32 AM Topic: IM: Location, Location, Location Msg #: 8974 Prev/Next: 8972 / 8975
Attention/Screen Constraints are the Driving Force in Instant Messaging and Related ToolsIn the last 9 months a new battle for screen real estate opened up. This is like:
- the battle for the OS,
- for a pervasive icon on the popular desktop,
- for your screensaver,
- for the browser people use.
There is a new platform in town and it is the browsing companion. It comes in a spectrum of flavors. Some, coming from the IRC chat legacy, include
But there are more.
- AOL AIM,
- AOL Chat
- AOL ICQ
- MSN Messenger, and
- Yahoo! Messenger.
- Alexa @ http://www.Alexa.com/ (now an Amazon company)
- Hypernix Gooey @ http://www.hypernix.com/
- NovaWiz Odigo @ http://www.odigo.com/
- Third Voice @ http://www.thirdvoice.com/
- Tribal Voice PowWow @ http://www.tribalvoice.com/
- uTok @ http://www.utok.com/
- Zadu @ http://www.Zadu.com/
Both groups are engaging in a competition for visible/clickable space on your monitor. The first group is doing this as a stand alone service. They are after several things:
- Audience. Is there a question that Microsoft thinks AOL's inventory is valuable?
- Traffic Home. Excellent odds on referral and conversion.
- Turf. There are only so many doodads I want on my screen instead of web or document content. The more screen real estate one of them ties up, the less remains for the rest.
The second group works as a companion to your browsing activities. They use information in your browser to understand exactly what you're looking at and to add value to your surfing experience. Some, like Zadu, Third Voice, Tribal Voice, Odigo, and uTok, are taking a community, chatting, communications approach. We'll probably see these features converge through competition.
- Text chat,
- voice chat,
- bulletin boards,
- same site hook ups, ("Here are the 56 other folks now browsing at the KPCB Keiretsu site now. Care to chat?")
- WebEX style conference presentations ("my next PowerPoint deck will detail the five ways we propose to keep your business hopping."),
- TribalVoice's follow-me surfing, ("OK, that was the Goya exhibit. For those of you staying on, I'll be taking you and your browser to our Van Gogh collection in 5 minutes. Just sit back and let me drive.")
- paging (Beep. "Can you take the kids to soccer?"),
- alerting ("Your portfolio shrunk by 20% in the last hour. Click here for details.")
The communication oriented services want to evolve into the net's new carriers. I suspect that those not owned by portals or telcos will be, within 18 months. (Prediction! check back.)
How Valuable is Your History File?
We've all seen Alexa's "What's Related?" toolbar button. What happens, now that they're an Amazon company?
If I'm surfing the San Francisco YMCA site they may not only tell me about the national Y site, a Y history site and the YMHA, they may also show me books on the history of the Y, the Tampa YMCA Hip Hop House Party video, and CDs by the Village People.
Do they cache my surfing history? If so, Alexa may better understand a momentarily focused interest or my directed search. Based on the last 30 pages I viewed, maybe they can tell I have lower back pain and they refer me to the Analgesics section of Drugstore.com and suggest the "YMCA Healthy Back Book."
Real Estate Value Comes from Quality and Scarcity and Control
In practice, I can only have so many open windows, toolbars, explorer panels/frames, and Explorer Bar buttons. So this is a race for who can persuade or coerce users into choosing their solution at the expense of the rest. Metcalfe's law and gorilla marketing at work.
Who owns the screen real estate now? We could look at the various folks who occupy your computer. Let me suggest, however, that the user is the rightful owner and the rest merely tenants. Like mall owners, we will assert our right to a productive return on our capacity. Let's see whether any of these players become anchor tenants, like Win95 and MS Office, big national chains, deparments in a bigger tenant, or small boutiques. It makes me glad to shop!
I can't wait to see the competition come to that little strip mall called the PalmPilot.
Let's chat about it sometime. philwolff at MSN Messenger, evanwolff on AIM, evanwolf at WebEX, pager at http://www.slip.net/~pwolff, office 650 610 1211, efax 603 250 6572, mail at work Philip.Wolff@Adecco.com, email at home pwolff@bigfoot.com, and many more vectors to come. Or here at http://discuss.userland.com/.
Phil Wolff
There are responses to this message:
- Re: IM: Location, Location, Location, Doc Searls, 8/1/1999; 1:23:31 PM
- Re: IM: Location, Location, Location, Doc Searls, 8/2/1999; 8:25:16 AM
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