[Upcoming Conference] Risks to avoid in Web 2.0
28,May 2009
To my Blog readers,
Just a heads-up: I will be giving this conference on June 3rd about risks to avoid (IT related) and opportunities to seize from Social Networking and Web 2.0. You can join the Reseau Action TI linkedin group to learn more about it.
Here is the content description (in french):
Description de la conférence:
Dans cet environnement hypermédiatique, comment un organisme public ou privé peut-il se prévenir des dangers d’une identité numérique mal maîtrisée?
Une fois les risques de sécurité contrôlés, quelles sont les bonnes pratiques et les opportunités de communication offertes par le Web et les médias sociaux ?
Directrice principale nationale/ Senior Manager, Samson/Bélair Deloitte & Touche LLP
Nous vous proposons de répondre à ces questions touchant à l’identité numérique, lors d’une conférence animée par Laurent Maisonnave, fondateur de Ze Agence et spécialiste en Social Media Marketing.
Katheline Jean-Pierre, Directrice Marketing Web chez Deloitte & Touche LLP, nous présentera une étude de cas réalisée récemment par sa compagnie.
Yahoo pulls the plug on Jumpcut
25,May 2009
On June 15, 2009, Yahoo’s video-editing platform Jumpcut will close. You might be thinking: “Who cares, anyway?” Well, Jumpcut was a differentiator in the Streaming video world. It is actually the little web-based editing functionalities that are missing in many platforms right now for non-super tech savvy people.
You might be saying again: “Yes, but there is iMovie, and Windows Movie Maker.”
True. But, instead of pushing a non-differentiation uncompetitive Yahoo! Video platform, Jumpcut could have been kept alive and better integrated or merged with Yahoo! Video, with Flickr Video or as a stand-alone tool or API compatible with the top video platforms like Youtube, Dailymotion, Blip.tv or else. It could have been what Picnik is to the photo world, a tool, an intermediate, and Yahoo had plenty of time to do that since Jumpcut was acquired in 2006.
Jumpcut could have been the real User-generated Goodness product. It brought us the Crash the Superbowl Video Contest (official web site). This contest revealed real creators (vs. YouTube’s “Wonder of the hour” ) and future directors to the world eye, which has a way deeper dimension and a much broader meaning, even if it is in the advertising world (some people will say they hate advertising anyway).
Do stats say it all? When we look at the stats, it makes sense to kill it, still it was not promoted to the extent it truly deserved. Yahoo was too busy managing, what was at the time 4 non-integreated with each other video platforms. Yes you heard it: FOUR! When you have two similar product, it is a problem; four is just an overload or an incapacity to make decisions. The official reason: “This was a difficult decision to make, but it’s part of the ongoing prioritization efforts at Yahoo! ” At last. Good enough!
For once, Google trends and Comscore data seems to align in showing a drop from 60K monthly unique visitors to 30K and less:
And Google Trends:
Jumpcut was stronger in United States and India.
Two same-topic articles you might find interesting :
Yahoo’ Entire Sorry acquisition story.
Yahoo used to be good at acquisition.
The other upcoming video editing platforms out there Jaycut.com and MovieMasher.com don’t seem to get any closer to a broad adoption. Jaycut seems to have an interesting suite of integrated video services/products and has won a RED Herring distinction.
Let’s wish them luck! And about Jumpcut? Maybe that was just me getting too emotional about a defunct product. When it is too late, it is just too late.
2045 or the Exponential growth of Technology
10,May 2009
The engineer, inventor, thinker and futurist Ray Kurzweil (Ray Kurzweil bio; Ray Kurzweil wiki ) explains the exponential growth of information technology under the concept of singularity. (Introduced to me by @avinashkaushik & @Eliasgeha)
The way he highlights the trend is interesting: Change not only accelerates, but follows an exponential curve/growth. And technology’s accelerating power transforms us. Here is an excerpt:
The explosive nature of exponential growth means it may only take a quarter of a millennium to go from sending messages on horseback to saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublimely intelligent processes. The ongoing expansion of our future superintelligence will then require moving out into the rest of the universe, where we may engineer new universes.
View the Singularity of Ray Kurzweil video.
View a TED conference talk on How Technology’s Accelerating power will transform us.
Tags: Innovation, life.
About Ovo:
The Cirque du Soleil continues to amaze in 2009. I just came from Ovo, Cirque du Soleil’s new show last week and was completely blown away. By the Concept. By the costumes. By the music with strong Brazilian influences (samba, sung in portuguese, congas and many percussionists are used). The whole universe that Ovo creates puts the “experiential” marketing definition to a different level. You can visualize some scenes in the Cirque du Soleil’s Official Youtube Channel. I liked the fact that one of the main character is a voluptuous black ladybug. Totally fell in love with the concept, as well as of the Egg, which is called Ovo in Portuguese.
Another innovation is Jukari: Fit to Fly workout program that was developed in Montreal by the Cirque du Soleil and Rebook teams. In that video, the Cirque du Soleil’s Senior Brand Director Joanne Filion and Katryn Ley Reebok Brand Strategy explains the Inspiration that brought the jukari concept to life. The name comes for a word dialect meaning “to play”. You can follow Jukari’s Youtube channel: Jukari.TV.
The concept around Jukari:Fit to Fly is “fitness that makes you feel like flying”. It is a microcosm of “innovation” in the way that the workout is articulated from the Ceiling Up, not from the ground up. It seems disruptive in the perspective that it is not directly in the Cirque’s Core Business Model to start workout techniques at the gym level. As well, the brand association between the Cirque du Soleil and Rebook gives credibility to that initiative while opening the realm of the Cirque to the street, to any woman who wishes to live 0.1% of the life a Cirque athlete. According to the statistics displayed, they say that Jukari appeals to 61% of women. I would be curious to know if this data is Canadian-based or US-based?
Time will tell us if this will just be a trend, or if the Cirque/Reebok will launch a series of these and evolve the concept through time. If it is disruptive and if it is strong, we should see other “workout techniques” be pulled off from gyms and a stronger adoption of that new concept.
UPDATED: In fact, the official press release states that The workout is the first in a series of initiatives to come out of a new, long-term partnership with globally renowned entertainment company, Cirque du Soleil. Then we should get ready to see them take a big “chunk” of the exercise “pie”.
Sustained or disrupive innovation?
According to the concept of Disruptive Innovation, developed by Harvard ’s Clayton Christensen, Jukari might be on the disruptive side.
Disruptive innovation, on the other hand, will often have characteristics that traditional customer segments may not want, at least initially. Such innovations will appear as cheaper, simpler and even with inferior quality if compared to existing products, but some marginal or new segment will value it, according to Innovation Zen Blog.
Disruptive innovation, [...] describes a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves ‘up market’, eventually displacing established competitors.
The trending here shows a growth of interest of Jukari in the search volume. Still, I would love to know what are the competitors: Tae Boxe (kind of old), Power Yoga? Let me know if you have more ideas.
Trends in the workout industry
Interestingly, Tammy Emma Pepin, Tourisme Montreal’s blogger has shot a video of her first Jukari Workout in Montreal. This shows the begining of the trend… I am wondering if that will only please the hip hipsters going to gyms like Gym du Plateau (my gym) and MMA or to a much broader audience?
Jukari already has its Twitter Account going on: twitter.com/Jukari
