Blue Ocean Strategy in Web 2.0

Just stumbled onto this great article about how to create a "web 2.0" product, which is really in-depth. There's 50 strategies! Buried deep within at #38 is a paragraph about blue ocean strategy. The takeaway point is that established network effects are very hard to compete with. Services such as Digg and Del.icio.us got so large so quickly because they were offering something new in an uncontested market. These types of services fulfilled unmet demand for non-editorialized interesting news and a (somewhat) semantic search engine.

From the article:
38. Design your product to build a strong network effect. The concept of the network effect is something I've covered here extensively before and it's one of the most important items in this list. At their most basic, Web 2.0 applications are successful because they explicitly leverage network effects successfully. This is the underlying reason why most of the leading Internet companies got so big, so fast. Measuring network effects and driving them remains one of the most poorly understood yet critical aspects of competing successfully online. The short version: It's extremely hard to fight an established network effect (particularly because research has shown them to be highly exponential). Instead, find a class of data or a blue ocean market segment for your product and its data to serve.

http://web2.socialcomputingmagazine.com/50_essential_strategies_for_creating_a_successful_web_20_pr.htm

Takeaways from Barry et al (2006)

First dimension: "Businesses can innovate by offering an important new core benefit or a new delivery benefit that revolutionizes customers' access to the core benefit."
Second dimension: "whether the service must be produced and consumed simultaneously: - services can be produced and consumed on the internet anytime or anywhere
Market-Creating Innovations: A scalable business model, comprehensive customer experience management, investment in employee performance, continuous operational innovation, brand differentiation, an innovation champion, a superior customer benefit, affordability, continuous strategic innnovation

Takeaways from Kim and Mauborgne (2004)

red oceans - existing markets, blue oceans - new market space, demand is created rather than fought over
In blue oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. There is ample opportunity for growth that is both profitable and rapid.
Red ocean | Blue ocean
Compete in existing market space | Create uncontested market space
Beat the competiton | Make the competition irrelevant
Exploit existing demand | Create and capture new demand
Make the value cost trade off | Break the value cost tradeoff
Align the whole system of a company's activities with its strategic choice of differentiation or low cost | Align the whole system of a company's activities in pursuit of differentiation and low cost

10 Info Viz Projects for inspiration

Scraped blogs for sentences that start with “I feel” and shows aggregate metrics - http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_harris_tells_the_web_s_secret_stories.html
http://wefeelfine.org

3-D graphs of astronomy
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/george_smoot_on_the_design_of_the_universe.html

Last.fm listening history
http://www.leebyron.com/what/lastfm/

Who’s Buying What? (Good Magazine)
http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/transparency/014/014-buying-whos-buying-what.html

Edits to openstreetmap.org
http://www.vimeo.com/2598878

Facebook friend networks
http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project.cfm?id=639

Visualization of personality characteristics (quiz takes 10 minutes, registration)
http://beta.signalpatterns.com/personality_survey

Social network analysis
http://www.fas-research.com/visualizations.shtml

Digg Labs (Swarm) -
http://labs.digg.com/swarm

TweetWheel
http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project.cfm?id=587

BIT 678 - IT-Mediated Service Observation

I observed U01 interacting with Hulu, which is a web service that provides free streaming video content from major networks.U01 was alone at his desk eating dinner as he initially accessed Hulu. He had three other tabs open in his browser: some programming documentation, details from a homework assignment, and a tech news story. U01 navigated to a list of Daily Show episodes and made his selection based on the guest interview, Republican White-House press secretary Dana Perino, because he thought this had the most potential for controversy. The initial view preference was Full Screen, but buffering hiccups were an annoyance. After pausing and starting the video four times — which forced U01 to put down his food each time — he opted to use the “Dim Lights” feature.Hulu displays a 5-30 second video advertisement in place of commercial breaks. U01 watched the 30 second advertisement between the first and second segment. However, during the next, he muted the sound on his computer and browsed to his tech news story tab. Upon returning to the show, he had to rewind about 10 seconds so as to not miss any of the show. U01 stopped the show during the commercial break that separates the third segment with the credits. He watched a short Daily Show clip that was featured on the same page and closed the Hulu tab.

Takeaways from Leonard (1997)

Sometimes, customers are so accustomed to current conditions that they don't think to ask for a new solution
Observers saw people combining beepers and cell phones not to answer calls but to screen them.
Empathic design techniques can't replace market research; rather, they contribute to the flow of ideas that need further testing.
Learning from observation: triggers of use, interactions with the user's life, User customization, intangible invisible product assets, unarticulated user needs
Step 1: Observation - Step 2: capturing data media types - Step 3: Reflection and analysis, Step 4: Brainstorming for Solutions, Step 5: Developing Prototypes of Possible solutions

Takeaways from Thomke (2003)

Services are intangible, characteristics can't be isolated and controlled for in laboratory settings.
Evaluate Ideas --> Plan and Design --> Implement --> Test --> Recommend
Learning through Experiements: Factor / Definition
Fidelity = The degree to which a model and its testing conditions represent a final product, process, or service under conditions of actual use
Cost = The total cost of designing, building, running, and analyzing an experiment, including expenses for prototypes, laboratory use, and so on.
Iteration time = The time from the initial planning of an experiment to when the analyzed results are available and used for planning another iteration
Capacity = The number of experiments that can be carried out with some fidelity during a given time period.
Sequence = The extent to which experiments are run in parallel or series
Signal to noise ratio = The extent to which the variable of interest is obscured by other variables.
Type = The degree to which a variable is manipulated from incremental change to radical change.
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In a lab, expeirments are routinely undertaken with the expectation that they'll fail but still produce value. In the real world, there is pressure to avoid failure.

Takeaways from Melville et al

Discovery - frame and hypothesize, no judgement, building up ideas, synthesis leads to development
Development - ideation and visualization - concept development, and iteration and refinement. tangible representation. "the goal of prototyping isn't to finish. it is to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the diea and o identify new directions that further prototypes might take." - tim brown ideo
Implementation - final prototype, business case, pilot, launch

FitBit

BIT679 - Innovation Journal - FitBit

TechCrunch 2008 Presnetation and Demo of FitBit - external link: http://www.techcrunch50.com/2008/conference/presenter.php?presenter=73 // Product Website - external link: http://www.fitbit.com FitBit is a wearable sensor for general audiences that monitors the user’s physical activity and sleep patterns, a “24 hour view of the body’s activities”. The device is small, light-weight, and intended for all-day use. Data from the device automatically transmits to a base station whenever the user is near a networked base station and power charger. FitBit.com provides a dashboard interface that displays calories burned, distance walked, and allows for manual logging of caloric intake. The service provides daily benchmarks for caloric intake and burn that dynamically updates based on sensor data and nutrition logging. Fitbit.com provides social networking features including groups and challenges to increase motivation for fitness. FitBit costs $99 and will launch in Q1 2009. While the monitoring service will have tiered pricing plans, some progress tracking features will always be free.