Posted: March 18th, 2011 | Author: Jon Lund
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Yesterday New York Times (NYT) introduced its new pay-wall: from March 28 the nyt.com site, it’s iPhone and iPad apps will no longer be free to use.
However, the NYT pay-wall isn’t really a walled garden – only sorts of. And that’s great! Vigorously administered pay-walls tends to isolate the site they’re trying to protect potentially leading to complete suffocation: users won’t bother to neither pay or log-in, if they don’t have a really good reason do to so, thereby cutting off the lions share of user engagement. Not only does this inflict severe damage to the revenue-streams of the site – it also tends to make the site feel dull and kind of ex-communicated. You want to read what others read. Knowing something you can’t share feels awkward.
The blessed holes in the NYT pay-wall goes as follows: first, you can read 20 articles a month before you’re charged. That is: random and regular users are alike are welcomed on a free basis, but also expected to pay up.
Second, and this is really important, you still have unlimited access to articles when you access them from one of your friends tweets – or a like on Facebook. That is: NYT encourages users to share their content on the social media platforms, and encourages the dialogue around it’s content. It doesn’t kill off the lifegiving dynamics of the web – it embraces them!
Also, access from Google-searches are excepted from the Pay-wall toll. Which is also really clever, since Google obviously is a major muscle pumping traffic to any news-site.
Obviously NYT like all publishers needs to make money. The new (blessedly!) holed pay-wall might be the way to make it work.
Posted: November 16th, 2010 | Author: Jon Lund
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Har du signet op til en @facebook.com mail-adresse? Det kunne du fra i går, hvor Zuckerberg & co lancerede deres sprit-nye mail-system.
Angriber Google
Facebooks nye mail er et aggresivt angreb på særligt Google. Først startede Facebook et samarbjede med Microsoft og søgning, så det er Microsofts søgemaskine Bing og ikke Google som ligger bag Facebooks net-søgning. Og hvor Bing ikke i sig selv er outstanding i forhold til Google, så kan Facebook drysse sit magiske sociale støv over søgningerne, så sider du selv eller dine venner har “liket”, og som derfor alt andet lige er mere relevante for dig, kommer højere op i resultaterne.
Socialt spam-filter
Nu kommer Facebook så med deres helt eget mail-system, ligesom Googles gmail. Også her vil Facebook give dig en bedre inbox med mindre spam og ligegyldige beskeder. Det kan de fordi de kender dine venner (og deres venner) – og give mails fra dem forrang for andre.
Een samlet inbox
Facebook slår også på at de kan flette facebook-beskeder, chat og mails sammen i en fælles inbox. Sammen med sms’er. Og på den måde give dig et enkelt sted hvor al din kommunikation er samlet. Og så vil de afskaffe emailens emnefelt – der står alligevel sjældent noget meningfyldt, og så kommer mailen også til at ligne chat, beskeder og sms’er mere.
Sporene skræmmer
Der er dog ingen garanti for at det kommer til at lykkes Facebook at slå Googles gmail ihjel. Faktisk skal man lige spise lidt brød til den store gmail-killer-historie. Sporene fra netop Googles forsøg på at revolutionere mailen for et år siden skræmmer nemlig. Dengang forsøgt Google at genopfinde mailen helt fra scratch med Google Wave. Og selv det også lød lovende og havde alle Googles eksistrende mail-brugere at trække på, slog det aldrig an, og blev lukket her i sommer. Og Facebook ruller da også deres nye mail ud langsomt, gennem et særlgt invitations-system.
Posted: October 20th, 2010 | Author: Jon Lund
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This is what the geo-location rush is about: the physical world reclaims it’s importance vis a vis “cyberspace”. It answers questions like: Where is it?, How do you get there?, Where are your friends? and Any savings in the neighborhood? It involves gps-tracking, bar-codes and RFID-tags, tripplanners, Googles new self-driving car, Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook places and groupbuying services a la Groupon. I give you the full acount of locations-based services today in Danish newspaper Politiken:
Read as PDF (in Danish): Den fysiske verden slår igen
Posted: August 18th, 2010 | Author: Jon Lund
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The Google/Verizon blow at net neutrality does far more than just make the web run smoother. It risks messing with the fine-grained mechanisms which has spurred the largest wave of innovations ever seen.
Article published in Politiken today. Online version available here.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all websites are created equal… This is the spirit of the Internet, as we have known it this far. Like another Lady Justitia the Internet has from it’s very inception been blind to the content and applications running through its veins, treating all of them equal.
This is soon to be history, however – if Google and Verizon – and the telecommunication industry at large – have their way, that is. At least on the wireless Internet. The somewhat odd pair wants to open up for telcos to prioritize traffic on the Internet, making it possible for websites and applications to pay their way to the fast lane, bypassing others, smaller, less powerfull services. Endangering the openness of the Internet, endangering the innovative spirit, endangering the mechanisms of innovation so deeply ingrained in the basic architecture of the Internet.
This is what my analysis in Danish newspaper Politiken today is all about. Read the article (in Danish), at the Politiken website
English-speaking readers, take a few minutes to walk through Barbara van Schewicks excellent seven-pages defense of the innovative spirit of the Internet as we known it
Posted: February 11th, 2010 | Author: Jon Lund
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Socialistan is the largest country in the new world accounting for 31 % of total time-spend. Here by far the most Danes are actively engaged in updating their facebook-status, twitting and blogging. The women of Socialistan leads on, while men are more passive.
You won’t find a Dane who hasn’t spend time in Googledom within the past month. For 24 % of their online-time they’re googling around, looking up numbers and facts and using the tools of the Internet.
Especially men are fond of Newscorpey. They like to stay informed (though top issues evolves around sex, gossip and crime stories). The country is ruled by the “old media” who find a hard time in the fact they’re not the key media providers anymore, accounting only for 15 % of the time Danes spend on the Internet.
In Disturbia you’re engaged in buying and selling. Danes loves this – however there’s nowhere enough online outlets to satisfy their needs: one third of all Disturbia-activity is spend second-hand shopping, consumer to consumer.
The mobile moon is orbiting around our new globe – especially powered by the iphon-ish way the internet are spreading to the pockets of Danes.
(Time spend for the four countries all are Gemius-figures for +15 years olds surfing (top 300 sites) in August 2009, which I’ve digged for you (I also analyzed them and drew up the above map). Socialistan activity is documented in Facebook rules Danish social networking, in Danish facts: Twitter is a small, elitist niche-site and in arto.com vs facebook. If you want to know more about the gender issues, check out War of the gender reborn on the internet: Women socialize, men gather information. For documentation of Newscopey-characteristics, see Economics of news: the case for qualitative journalism on the internet. Disturbia-facts and -explanations are found in Eroding powers of digitalization revealed: Secondhand-shopping, telecommunications and e-banking rules e-commerce in Denmark and Oldschool/Newschool: Top 25 Danish e-commerce sites evaluated – Consumer-trust and exploitation of business opportunities. For more on the Mobile moon check “Christmas sales at Apple App-store. Assessing the Danish market for iPhone applications”, Smart-phones leading the way: The case of iPhone and dedicated mobil-sites in Denmark and The seven faces of iPad. Assessing the potentials of Apples new tablet-device. Several other findings are available from my hand; check out the reports-section of this site)
Posted: January 21st, 2010 | Author: Jon Lund
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When travelling abroad I’ve often met the notion of the three big ones: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Or least I used to it. From a Danish perspective, I’ve allways been puzzled by the Yahoo-part of the equation, though. Case is, that Yahoo has never really been big (or present at all) in the Danish web-sphere. I’ve also had a some troubles understanding Microsoft, being divided out on a portal-site (msn), a search engine (bing), an email-service (hotmail) and instant messaging (messenger).
I therefore decided to map out the top of the Danish Internet in this weeks report “The three kings of Danish Internet: Google, Facebook and Microsoft” (link below). And I did find both Google and Microsoft on top. And Facebook. Yahoo, however, was no where visible in the upper layers.
Interesting Google, Microsoft and Facebook each come out number one, depending on what metric you look at. Google tops the chart of sites visited by most Danes. They have a second-to-none reach. Microsoft is the most frequently used site. Whereas Facebook takes the lions share of hours spend.
However it’s not really surprising. Google is tool. Highly effective – without wasting your time – it’s guiding you on, when you’re not really sure where to go. Microsoft has charms. Checking out your hotmail (as any other mail) is like a magnet, constantly drawing users back to the site. As are messaging and news. Facebook is the social beast, dragging you into the interpersonal (or -group) dynamics of pictures, status-updates and what have you, eating your time.
Together they form the backbone of the 2010 Danish Internet. And anyone who wants to play the Internet game should be aware of this. Putting it a bit on the edge, you need to ensure that you can found on Google, related to on Facebook and connected to through Microsoft. Because that’s what your users do.
Send, download and print. Price: 345 ddk/€45,50 (ex. VAT)
“The three kings of Danish Internet: Google, Facebook and Microsoft” is in 15 pages and includes 4 graphs and 3 illustrations.
To order the report, send an email to jon@jon-lund.com including your contact information with subject: “Buy Jon Lunds The three kings of Danish Internet report”, and you’ll receice both report as pdf-file and an invoice.
