Next Generation e-mail

Here an interesting article about the next generation e-mail and a review of 4 companikes involved in tryin g to make communications better.

I think however that there is nothing wrong with g-mail, it works perfectly fine, what is a problem is the contacts upon which you need to hang your communication.

http://venturebeat.com/2007/10/16/four-startups-ready-to-change-the-face-of-email/

Per

CRM

OK, I know it is late but I have to write this.

Does all the CRM companies like Salesforce, ZoHo, and www.panthius.com relly think that the customer data is the competitive advantage?

Well the answer is NO.

As i have always said, the data in it self is not worth anything, it is what you do with it.

I take as an example, just to make a point, iconnecte.com wants my data, OK fine, I have to plug it in again!

and then what? Now the trick starts, what do we do with this data, I think Jesse has a great plan and let's leverage on that: to connect people and businesses in Singapore.

Is my data a competitive edge? NO. What you do with this information is. Please send me once a week a mail about what I should do next week, this is on, maybe you should attend this.....

I am constantly surprised how many people I have to tell about happenings in Singapore, really I have been here for 4 months and they ask me (!), something is wrong (or right depends how you want to see it)

Jesse, keep going, you are on the right thing, just adjust according to the customer request...

PB

sureimin

The beauty of writing your business plan as a blog is that you do not have to care about any structure, just write and make it happen, the structure is provided by Google, no?

So here is a great example of the benefits of MMUS: sureIamin.com, or what ever you want to call it. anyone wanting to get your data, magazines, event oragnizers, organizations, anyone should get MMUS sign me up API that allows yo as an organizer to get the information yo need from a person in one "drag and drop"

You can sign up to ask for what details you require from MMUS and add your own requests to the whole thing.

Cool, no, but a necessity in the future.

Now I am going to invite some more people to join this blog, we need more comments and ideas.

Good night.

PB

Going mobile

Dear friends, some time ago I did add something, but I have been busy, and I see that you have not added anything yet, well soon there will be more players adding to the story.

Here a great example of an application that should be part of MMUS network: www.styky.com

Of course we need mobile access, that is the whole point. Today for example I was at a networking event and I was bringing my analog business card holder (!), and man did I have use for it. I did manage to call 4 persons on the way to the event, at the event I did hand out another 3 contacts to 3 new contacts (get it?) and the evening was a great success.

Now being analog it has it's drawbacks. First of all I have to type in my contacts phone numbers.

Ponder it.

First of all I have to type in my contacts phone numbers.

I mean why? Why is not my business cards available on my phone?

I want to see a copy of the card, that will ring a bell and make me remember and all the data available and easy to use, phone, email, skype.

WHY DO I HAVE TO TYPE THIS SO MANY TIMES?

Google dissapoints

Getting more and more into the sharing, Web 2.0, call it what you want, but when you start using the features, you will notice that not even Google comes to deliver. Here is an example:


Can not even add your own contacts to the distribution list of Notes. And you know, they really have made one of the best applications (I will never again use Bookmarks) however why not take it full out, connect the shared people through RSS and let them know when you are adding a new note to the system. Maybe this is what delicious is all about, need to check it out, right now.

Remember it has to hang together!!!!

Microsoft Addressbook

What do you know, there is a Microsoft Address Book on every PC, just happened to find it when I downloaded the vCard from LinkedIN, since I do not have Outlook onboard I guess it defaulted to this nifty little application. Clearly someting to use since it is installed on all the 1 billion plus computers out there, compatabillity is king, someting I learned when selling CD components for Philips.


What really came as a surprise was that all my mobile contacts already showed in the MS Addressbook, I can only think they came in there when I used the Nokia PC Suite and tried to play around with that one loading all my mobile contacts to Lotus Notes.

You see it is just a mess and someone must clean up this! MS Addressbook, Google, ZoHo, OutLook, PC Suite, Mobile, and god knows where else, iconnecte, facebook, myspace and probably some 100 organizations around the world that has my details after I have been subscribing to newsletters or registering to become a member.

Yesterday was a great example when I was looking for VCs in Sweden and stumbled upon (!) Tornado Insider. When I tried to register it told me that the name already existed and when I tried my password, viola, there I was with my old data from 2001!! That is almost 7 year old contact information.

Let's make this a project and clean up the mess and make millions...

Hey that is a good tag line: MashMeUpScotty - We clean up the Internet mess (or something similar, bring on the marketing people).

:)

But hey, just tried this:

1. Export from MS Address book, I used CSV but maybe someting else is working...

2. Import to Google- Boom, 2 seconds later I had it there, very impressive, Google seems to only be working with CVS so lets use it....

We are getting there....

Looking at the Nokia PC Suit contact editor, it seems to be using the same stuff, is this just a Nokia GUI over MS Addressbook????


First things first, we need to put someone to compare the different fields and decide upon our standard and then develop a plan for how to develop the MMUS addressXchange applet that does the basic conversions and then define the interface to all different models out there and start making the MMUS addressXconnector a free API for anyone that wants to connect to MMUS. As easy as that, god I which I could program somedays, this should be a work of maximum a week and then adding one "addressbook" per day. Cool.

API standards and programming

After having read an article in Bootstrapper, I headed off to http://programmableweb.com/ to check out what they have and how it works. Seems that you need to have programming skills (something I lack) in order to make a mash-up. Is there no API standard? How difficult is it to program using a few APIs, Neil help us out here.

I will try to build the ideal MashMeUpScotty mash-up using the available APIs in this page, you can also get an RSS on news from this, cool.

Outlook online

So it seems to be fully possible to synchronize all with Outlook, however that is just what we do not like, we love Internet based solutions, we hate stuff that you have to install. So what we need for the Contacts is the Outlook on-line where I can then send all my contacts from Google:


Now saving this File should then automatically be up-loaded back to MashMeUpScotty.com where it will be merged with for example my other contact list in ZoHo.com:


Now, automatically the application should scout away and get all other relevant information about these contacts in LinkedIN, Xing, FaceBook, MySpace, etc and all of the sudden you have a fantastic picture of the people you are dealing with.

When I update my profile I will get the update pushed down to all the applications where I am active, I would also be able to easily create new accounts by just clicking on "Create new LinkedIN account" for example.

I would also have in my e-mail a little "Business Card" that anyone can pick up and have available:


And when we really get the whole thing rocking anyone that want to have my information enables the drop of your ScottyCard in their website, So for example all Newsletters, Associations, Clubs, Shopping sites etc have a DropBox in their web site:


OK, it's getting there, should be very easy to get this going. :)

Per

Mashery raises $5M

Here is from the Mashery.com introduction:

The tasks related to deploying, managing and scaling channels for a web service are not trivial. Using Mashery allows your company to build and control these channels without burdening your in-house staff with the headaches of controlling access, measuring usage and managing your developer community. Experience the benefits of an effectively managed open API service.

Neil, what do you have to say.

The more I think of this is that MashMeUpScotty is like the Interstate infrastructure, we create one account (the car) and provide the roads to get you to the destination. Well have to work on that a little but there is something there.

Neil once told me that search of the future will be all recommendation based, and I would tend to agree. What we need to get is to a state where you can make your own mashups without programming skills and you very easily grab the information you find and make something new fantastic out of it. And let is out to the world and share and recommend.

Please tell me more and let´s work it out, do not know where this is ending up but I am pretty sure that we are creating the new web here, right now...

:)

Per

LinkedIn finally adds user photos

Earlier this month, LinkedIn changed its “groups” feature to make them easier to create and manage — a move that also follows a strong rise at Facebook of its similar group feature. An open API for developer, such as Facebook has, is still in the works; company spokesmen said back in June that it would take about nine months.

I did get this from: http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/26/linkedin-finally-adds-user-photos/

Q&A from LinkedIN

Per Dahlen	Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 2:40 AM
To: business@linkedin.com
Dear Linkedin, I did register a few months back and it took me some time to get into your solution but now I am hooked and you have me as a frequent user. I run into so many potential mashups and would like to know if you have this feature for other websites. I just want to have to update my profile in one site (LinkedIn) however many other sites requires (or at least would benefit tremendously) if they could get my info from you. I am especially thinking about event organizing and networking evenings. And one more thing, why do you not have a photo on the profile????? Thanks, Per -- Per Dahlén +65-96153613 (Mobile) +65-65424606 (Fixed) +46-51017741 (Fixed) perbearatwork (Skype) http://www.linkedin.com/in/perbear (Linkedin)

---

Elisabeth O'Donnell	Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 10:34 PM
To: Per Dahlen
Hi Per. Thanks for contacting us. Glad you like LinkedIn! Re: mashups. I'm not quite sure what you mean by a mashup. Do you mean you want to be able to export your LinkedIn data to other sites & keep that synced? We don't currently have a feature like that at the moment, but it's always good to hear about product needs and requests. Re: photos. That's a frequent request, and we're targeting to launch that this week. So if you check the site sometime ~ noon on Friday, Singapore time (may take a few hours more, it's hard to say) you can be the first person in Singapore to upload a photo! Thanks, Liz Liz O'Donnell http://www.linkedin.com/in/lizodonnell [Quoted text hidden]

MashMeUpScotty Business Draft

MashMeUpScotty is a Web 3.0 application that sits on top of all other social networks applications like LinkedIN, Xing, Iconnecte, etc and merges this with CRM tools like Salesforce.com and ZoHo and with emails like Google or Hotmail. Additionally it gives you the recommendations like StumbleOn or Del.ici.us. Get it?

No, OK. I need a one-stop-shop for all my Internet content, I just want to update my profile in one place (currently LinkedIN) and I just want to have my e-mails (from Google) visible when I do a search for my contacts in ZoHo CRM to be able to keep better track. I want to be able to share Notes (please check out this new feature in Google it is fantastic) with the people I meet and find interesting.

So I sign up to MashMeUpScotty and then start organizing my web-mess, I login to LinkedIn and automatically all the information about me is sucked out, I do the same in other accounts I have and by just leaving my password and username to the different applications I pretty soon have all my stuff in one place, names, addresses, notes, photos, etc...

Once I update the stuff it replicates into all the different accounts I have. If I all of the sudden want to create a new account in for example iconnecte.com I just hit the "Create Now" button and it is done.

The power is not in the information itself, it is in what you do with it, just like this blog, creating a business by sharing ideas on the web, openly, Pretty darn cool I must say. So then of course you create an open API from MMUS available to anyone that requires your information, event organisers, employers, who ever. Of course the development platform is totally open (just steal/use the FaceBook "operating system") and you will have a host of programmers creating all kinds of useful applications around this eco-system.

Business Model? What are you kidding me, who needs that, Facebook valued to US$10Bn, and what did they do, just a decent application and a lot of hype (anyone really using FaceBook creatively and effectively?)

If you want to get invited to participate in this Business Creation, please send me a mail and I add you to the contributor list.

Let it rock.

Per


Food-for-thought:
Security is imperative!