A Good introduction to Google Adwords

iPhone 2.0 == expensive brick (update)

After many hours without a phone, I finely got past the iTunes Authentication point (I guess patience does payoff) and my phone is now recognized as something other than a brick. This was very annoying. For anyone out there with this type of problem, I would recommend trying every 10 to 15 minutes.

I really like apple's products and services but they should planned for this. I wonder which part of the system broke down today: iPhone -> iTunes (local) -> iTunes validation (Apple server) -> AT&T service configuration?

On a side note: Does anyone know if the new me.com supports IMAP? Right now, I don't think they do. I am hoping that Google will figure out a way to push my emails/contacts/calendar to my iPhone very quickly.

Google Launches Non-Profit Portal

http://www.google.com/nonprofits/

Google recently created landing page of Google services for non-profits. Be sure to subscribe to the non-profit Google group.

The services include:
Gmail (apps)
Checkout
Docs,
Calendar
Analytics
Google Grants
YouTube
Blogger
Maps/Earth
Gadgets
Google groups

google sites :: next killer app for business

So, today The Google announced a new feature called Google Sites for their google apps platform. At first glance, it seemed like just another cool google tool. But after playing with it for a few hours, I think it will be as powerful as blogger/blogs. So, within that hour, I setup an intranet and client facing extranet with file management tools, and collaboration tools.

Just think, your company can create an area for you users, customers, constituents to interact in a Wiki manner (and for free). Here are just a few ideas: Share new product ideas, product reviews, help guides, or document support services (for those non-profits out there).

So how did Google do this? Well in 2006 it acquired the wiki company Jotspot and then integrated it into the Google apps suite of services. In the short time Jotspot was Jotspot, it had hosted more than 450,000 wikis. (no wonder Google purchased them...)

To enable site, the Google app administrators need to enable it explicitly and need to enable the Next Generation interface

Web 2.5 :: The Year of the widget (Part I)

“My prediction would be that Web 3.0 will ultimately be seen as applications which are pieced together. There are anumber of characteristics: the applications are relatively small, the data is in the cloud, the applications can run onany device, PC or mobile phone, the applications are very fast and they're very customizable. Futhermore, theapplications are distributed virally: literally by social networks, by email. ”
            Eric Schmidt, CEO Google (see below for his video)

Part I, what does this mean of consumers?

For consumers, interconnected and interoperable widgets or gadgets allows for users to completely customize their online/offline/mobile experience. Let's use Flickr as an example of interconnected/interoperable widgets. I may load my flickr photos into my facebook environment, I may load my flickr photos into a niche social network (my family social network), and embed a flickr slideshow in this blog. All from one flickr environment. The interesting part of this is that these environments don't need to synchronize because the apps are views into the flickr stream. I change/update my photos in flickr, they get changed/updated everywhere. Think of these widgets/gadgets as an IMAP implementation for email.

Another simple example, is the remember the milk plug-in for my google app's gmail interface. I can now view, create, edit my tasks right from my email interface. Again, just a modify/add/delete (MAD) view into the tasks. Remember the milk provides the basic platform and allows for different widgets or views into the information.

Now if flip this around to content digestion, one example is NetVibes (http://www.netvibes.com/) provides an environment for me to embed my remember the milk tasks, facebook inbox, gmail, google reader aggregated feeds, free/busy calendars, RSS feeds from my favorite authors, and monitor my ebay auctions. I can access all my information from a browser, iphone, blackberry what ever the consumer chooses.

The consumer also can disseminate large quantities of information to their friends, co-workers, family very easily. In a nut shell, enabling a customized and personally relevant digital ecosystem.

While I think this is a huge step forward for the WWW, I think that a lot of the widgets that are being produced are horrible from a usability and design perspective. Because users now have a choice for almost everything, usability, interaction design, experience design become the differentiator. Take for example, which is easier to use Yahoo Maps or MapQuest? Just because it is a mini-application/widget/gadget, does not mean that it needs mini usability or mini design.

For part II, I will discuss the business value of delivering widgets/gadgets (ROI, marketing, customer insight)
For part III, I will discuss how to leverage existing tools and platforms to deliver widgets/gadgets. (NING, salesforce)

The programmatic fabric of the internet :: OpenSocial

As I and almost everyone else mentioned yesterday, Google along with others (NING, Hi5, Salesforce.com...) announced OpenSocial (Googled here).

While I think this is a huge step forward for those hosting and developing social networks, I think the true value of OpenSocial is to start the process of creating a programmatic layer on the Web and thus setting the standards and environment for the Web 3.0 evolution/revolution. Web 3.0 (or Semantic Web as some have called it) is a representation of users transactions, interactions, and relationships in a virtual Web database (or persistent user activity and relationship data) that allows for the querying by artificial intelligence systems or neural networks.

How cool would that be.

I won't go into the details as to why and how Web 3.0 could be used because Wikipedia and others will do a much better job at that. I will only say that up to now, there have been some limitations with the actual implementation details. OpenSocial goes along way to solving or at least creating an approach for the details to be solved.

OpenSocial :: The next phase of a social networking framework

Tomorrow should be an interesting day as Google and others (SalesForce.com, NING, LinkedIn) are set to announce a set of API's to build private labeled and water cooler social networks.

It looks like (from TechCrunch) OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:

* Profile Information (user data)
* Friends Information (social graph)
* Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)

Partners are in two categories: hosts and developers. Hosts are the participating social networks, and include Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle.

The details can be found at http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial when they go live? Which should be in a few hours? Let's hope.

Google checkout for non-profits = 100% of donations to non-profits

Today Google announced that until the end of 2008 donations to qualified 501c3 organizations processed through the Google checkout system (see my previous post on the Google checkout donate button) will be free. By free, they mean 0% credit card fees (Google is underwriting the credit card fees) and zero per transaction authorization fee.

This is huge news for non-profits.

How about this vendor stack for a kick ass enterprise architecture (for small non-profits with less than 10 employees):

Google Apps for Infrastructure (free)
Google Grants for search engine marketing (free)
Google Checkout for donation processing (free)
Saleforce CRM for back end donor management (free for first 10 licenses)
NING for website and social network. (less than $50 per month)

This is also exciting times for The Acceleration Agency because we are positioned to provide real-time integrations with a soon to be announced integration environment.

Official google checkout donate button

While doing my normal netvibes scanning the headlines this morning, I ran across a mashable.com post talking about YouTube's Free Channels for Non-Profits. What I found really interesting is that there is now an official "donate" button for google checkout for these channels.

Up to this point, the only way to get a donate button within the Google checkout system was to hack the generated HTML form code with your own donate button. Strictly speaking, changing the button to non-Google branded buttons goes against Google checkout policies. Checkout the one.org YouTube channel and their donate button.

Non-profit 2.0 :: A reality

I have been thinking a lot about how to make the whole Web 2.0 (or is it 3.0 now) a reality for Non-profits (I call it non-profit 2.0). My technology recommendations for non profits with less than 20ish million in revenue is:

Google Apps for Non-profit enterprise email/contacts/calendars
NING for Social networking (with Joomia or Drupal CMS installed on their platform)
SalesForce CRM for a CRM (and has a very open platform for integrations. I think Kintera is a very close second if their connect platform rivals SalesForce.)

Now the question is how can we take donations online with this setup? Well, Salesforce has integrations with 3rd party (via AppExchange) credit card processors that can take money online. And, I also recommend that Google Checkout be used as a donation engine due to easy of integration and the low over head of processing/credit card fees (2%...and 0% until Jan 1, 2008).

So adding everything up, the total costs for small non profits is less than a few hundred a month. (For example,www.myafh.org is using this stack. As Athletes for Hope is using my recommended technology stack. I will report back on their success.)