Next Opportunities in Seamless Web Integration
This is a more extensive writeup of a problem I have talked about before. It’s about something many of us web innovators face today. Like many problems, they can be turned into opportunities if implemented well.
The new Web – let’s stop using 2.0 – is much more than social networking sites and round cornered layouts. As Tim O’Reilly said, people who think Web 2.0 is about AJAX are completely missing the boat. This is true, but it is important to keep in mind that the shift from desktop products to web services is a big deal. Online services are already gaining a lot of productivity for people and thanks to the characteristics of the web the companies developing it can distribute and evolve much better. So this means that certain value adders have now migrated to the web.
What is happening now is that many of these online services want to be able to harness the power of the new social characteristics of the web. People have their friends online now and there is a lot of activity between those people and services (UGC). Everybody wants to tap into this attention stream between people. It helps contextualize your offering and helps spread the goodness between like minded.
Unfortunately, getting this social activity going around your service is not easy. And frankly, most of the time it results in creating another lousy SNS with worse social features. Fortunately, most online services open up their API’s allowing you to integrate with their services to create a mashup.
- rate, review and discuss cheeses
- have support groups like: ‘Why is cheese so expensive in Japan?’
- add cheeses they’ve eaten, for example through IM or mail
- upload/import pictures of their cheese related experience
- provide little cheese diary entries for the real fanatics
- using Twitter to add and rate cheeses
- using Flickr to upload/import pictures about cheeses
- using Tumblr to provide journal functionality
We could use one of those create-your-own-community sites like Ning, but than we can’t build our core business around it: selling and recommending cheese based on their attention profiles. Fulfilling all cheese needs to our customers is why we exist.
Mashing up a service like this using Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr is easy. Turning that mashup into a success is nearly impossible. The problem lies in the shallowness of the way we do mashups now. People need a Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr account to use all functionality in our system. Explain that to the 60 year old French cheese farmer who just plugged in his DSL modem!
Now, I don’t want to start debating about web savvyness and targeting certain markets. My main point is that there is a certain flaw in all API’s: You need to register with the API provider in order to make use of the API anywhere.
- our cheese shop is using OpenID
- our cheese shop can create a new OpenID easily
- the services we integrate with are using OpenID
- the services allow first-time use of their service without ANY burden to our customers (truly seamless)
I think OpenID is the path we are moving towards, although I’m sure that at first most services will not be prepared for the seamlessness we want. Also, I have an interesting scenario for the case that OpenID doesn’t take off (will save that one for later).
Services will be able to focus on their core added value by specializing. Building things that have been build before is an extra baggage that seamless integration can fix. Also, when a service continues to specialize it needs to be thinking from the very start about it’s own integration in the collective. In our Cheese example, our service should have an API from day 1.
But right now, most services are not ready for this seamless integration. If FlickR would allow use of their API without showing any FlickR logos or Flickr ads, how would they make money? What if we want to display our own CheesR logo everywhere and completely exclude the user from knowing FlickR is used?
This is where Freemium Integration is born.
Right now, most popular services offer API’s. If you look carefully most of them don’t guarantee any service with the exception of Google’s. API’s are in their very early stage.
Soon, API’s will become the core of any successful online service. They will be the door to most of the revenue. Services will continue to specialize in the things they do well, recommending wine, recommending books or providing entertainment you appreciate. This specialization might go on to a point where there will no longer be an actual site, but just a widget, API, Facebook Application or some other integratable entity.
These integratable entities – that I will just call API’s for now – will have several ways of generating revenue for their creators.
- Free Integration. This could be either seamless or semi-seamless integration together with in-content contextual advertisement. In order to make these advertisements contextual there will need to be some kind of Attention Profile exchange between the two parties.
- Premium Integration. Seamless integration without brands or attention debt. The client-party will have to pay the provider an Amazon AWS like compensation for usage.
I think over the next short-term march towards the first intelligent agents, it is important to keep the API in mind. Make sure that your online service can be used with or without OpenID and that third parties can integrate seamlessly without any hassle. This also means changing your mindset towards branding since this is a concept likely to change very rapidly soon.
The purpose of this article is to spark discussion from the community. Have any of you encountered a similar discussion or desire for seamlessness? Any opinions welcome!
6 Responses to “Next Opportunities in Seamless Web Integration”
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Nice article, indeed! I’d just like to describe the situation from a slightly different point of view. As much as I would appreciate a general move towards OpenId, I think the opposite is taking place at the moment. In terms of major Web 2.0 applications, what is happening? We can see two players evolving. On the one side Facebook and on the other side Google and its allies. With the idea of opening its platform, Facebook scared the hell out of Google. The purpose was rather clear: become some kind of an online operating system. As much as the move might have looked like a step towards liberalisation at first sight, it was not! By offering their huge user base, Facebook pretty much lulled companies into using their system. Not as a complement to their current webservice but as a substitute! Services like iLike are insignificant if you take away their Facebook usage. In my opinion, that represents a huge step backwards in fact. The last one who famously failed in creating an own "private" space within the internet was AOL. Of course, people might argue that this time it is different. Facebook is more open than AOL was, technology has improved etc... but the essence stays the same: Facebook tries to build its own web within the world wide web. Google's answer is not as scaring as Facebook's approach. At least, lots of companies agree on a single standard which is to a certain extent platform independent. But to be honest, building up an alliance and allowing many networks and services to join OpenSocial was the result of Google's rather poor initial situation compared to Facebook. Only by finding some friends, Google could compete with Facebook for volunteer developers. Google's Orkut on its own would not have attracted enough attention. But OpenSocial is far from being the new OpenID. The point is that it is still under control of one company. Of course, other members of OpenSocial might have some kind of a voice. However, it was initiated by Google and the main responsibility and power stays on Gooogle's side. Besides the variety of members, there is on fact that makes OpenSocial less scaring than Facebook: the API is supposed to work both ways (at least at one point). One can send data into the network and receive data from the network. Facebook on the other hand is a one way street. Everything in, nothing out! From Facebook's and Google's point of view, I think both ideas are rather good. Both will benefit market share and that means $$. And here we have the point why OpenID is and will be neglected at least in the near future: there is no economic incentive whatsoever to support an open format. If you are big enough to have the idea of being an OpenID yourself (of course with full control) why should you support a free standard? Facebooks assets are its users. Why would you give up your main assets? So, that is how I see it: in the near future, there will be tough competition between Facebook and Google (excluding and kind of mergers). But in the long-run everybody who tries to keep too much power over their users will fail. Companies should start thinking a bit further ahead. It is not all about making some big bugs for the moment but what the user prefers in the end. You cannot push users or try to make them like something. In the end, they will always go their way! The result might be what you described: users want to be free, APIs could dominate the way of how to exchange data. Your idea of a freeium model does not sound very far fetched to me. But before that, I think that the big ones have to stop making steps backwards. AOL just closed several offices in Germany... history tends to repeat itself!
Different companies have tried to create a account system that can be used for more (web)applications. Like MS did with MS PassPort Network many years ago when they started Hotmail. (Or the dutch DigID for all your government-related stuff)
The case is. Like Eric implies, companies only want to make money off of the account. The have no means sharing their accounts with other companies (what do they gain?). They want to bond you to their shop, that's all.
Another thing is, would it be safe to let a single organisation manage all your accounts? I don't like the idea that if my account is hacked all my internet-related things are available to the hacker.
I can understand your line of thought but it isn't very safe and before a webshop will implement it, it must be proved to be profitable...
First of all, I agree with the benefits from specialization. It is a characteristic of modern society: in older times, you had to do it all by yourself: build your house, harvest your crops, repair stuff when it's broken. Nowadays, you've got respectively construction men, farmers, and handymen for that. Society as a whole is better off when people are able to do what they're good at. And you can focus on your programming ;-)
I think all this Open stuff would be great. I agree with Eric that platforms such as Google, Yahoo! and Facebook are reluctant to let users go so easily, because it's just too profitable to keep them and their data to themselves. The functionality they offer to outside developers is pretty shallow. However, not all activity in web land takes place inside the BigCo's. A lot of startups would benefit from initiatives like OpenID. So to summarize: I think these initiatives will not gain much support from the already entrenched, well-established players. It will come from the fringe, but it will come. Specialization is the natural next step.
Whoops, I stand corrected!
Yahoo! Announces Support for OpenID; Users Able to Access Multiple Internet Sites with Their Yahoo! ID http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=287698
Also:
Google, IBM and VeriSign in talks to join OpenID http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/09/google-ibm-and-verisign-to-join-openid/
Specialization, here we come!
that is kind of weird... we were just claiming it is rather unlikely for the big ones to be interested in OpenId. And now I see all the news of Yahoo/Google opening partly...
"Another thing is, would it be safe to let a single organisation manage all your accounts?"
Run your own OpenID server then (see http://openid.net/get/). Anybody can run an OpenID server.