thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
- it all together, and being well managed, tends to improve and differentiate your business building a strong fidelity relationship with a community and your businessWith all that and made for free with the help of Facebook and Foursquare you can collect lots of data about your consumers, get to know them better, build a permanent channel for listening them and improving your business and differentiate it more then if you hired an average business consultant. And for the symbolic price of a little single Coke per check-in.
Hi guys. I'm not very happy to start this subject and this might sound a bit insane. But sometimes is necessary to workout a bit our imagination.The way I see what is going on today I see lots of change in the way societies communicate. The largest part of the the world live under democratic forms of state. At least formally. And at least on theory those who rule nations are chosen by vote on each nation. But people is not totally free to chose who to vote. The vote is a decision made after a process of debating, thinking and choosing. In which the individual is during all the time being influenced by its environment. And this power to influence the environment is not equally distributed, of course. Some few posses most of the power. And most of the power come from communication conglomerates. Those who in last decades had ruled newspapers, radios, television and other forms of mass media. This form of centralizing the power and influencing peoples minds has created many examples of real Kane citizens, sometimes much beyond what the fiction could imagine. Like the Italian super ridiculous prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, owner and controller of the Italian media empire Mediaset. Other examples of promiscuous relations between media and government can be found on almost any other democracy. One of my favorites is the relationship of Fox with the Republican Party in the US and Globo in Brazil. Not to mention the Murdoch's scandal in UK.On a quite brief way is possible to say that for controlling people today is much more effective to shoot some information on people's mind then to threaten to shoot bullets on their brains. And that is why it is said that media is the Fourth Estate on democratic societies besides the legislative, executive and judicial powers. The revolution of InternetThat centralized media has been losing power in a surprisingly fast way since the internet became more widespread. In Internet those who received information from only one or two points of view could now receive from thousands of points of views. And better then that now he can also be one of those who think and make opinions. That emerging reality got suddenly empowered by social media and mobile computing and created a surprisingly fast way of spreading news. The examples of recent announcements that appeared first on twitter then on traditional media are every time more frequent. (Rebelions on middle east, Bin Laden's cough, Michael Jackson's death)More recently, the rebellions on middle east, organized through Facebook became powerfull enought to put an end to decades of ditactorships. That is what happens when people starts to truly communicating freely. The dark side But this freedom of Internet is not totally safe. There are some who are trying to control it. And are quite ahead on doing this. This week the Facebook and Google announced that they are engaging themselves with politics. More precisely with the Republican Party. As any other institution on a democracy Facebook and Google has the freedom to have a
political position. But Facebook is a uncommon institution who has an unmeasurable amount of data and information about more then 700 hundred millions of users. Being friends with Facebook means having the best marketing consultant and public relations consultant any politician could ever dream with. Being friends with Facebook means to have the ability to simply 'get to know' what people think, what they do, their personal history, their friends, their values and beliefs and how to reach them in their minds and their hearts. It is possible that the Facebook knows you better then you know yourself based on some complex algorithm for analyzing personalities based on users data. The same is possible for Google, another gigantic data center. And if these forces get engaged on politics, what then if Google starts to move to second or third pages of searches those websites that talk against Google's favorite candidate? A subtle form of acting and manipulating as dangerous as those of old media. But this time, even more centralized, powerful and global then old media. Facebook has more then 700 million users and Google must have almost 3 billions users everyday. The mobile contribution Mobile is making (and will make) computing and Internet omnipresent. Thanks to mobile now we can get to know about anything anywhere. And the convergence power of mobile makes also possible, and probable, that mobile takes the place of paper money and plastic money (credit cards). That is what my friend and mobile guru Tomi Ahonen keeps saying. But what I say is that mobile makes possible for people to, anywhere and anytime, be aware of societies debating and decision process. One of the things that make congresses necessary is the impossibility for common people to leave work and get together for debating and voting every little decision. That creates the need of a representation. A guy who is chosen from 4 to 4 years and has complete liberty to behave as he wants in the between. But mobile could also change this. Mobile is fully capable of making the information and the debate reachable by anyone at anytime. And if there is security enough for providing safe environment for economic transactions, then there could be safety enough to even make possible to allow people to vote from their phones!But are mobile open platforms capable of providing that environment? Not exactly. If Google is not allowed to provide services like Google Voice on the iPhone, because that is not for the best interest of Apple, if some social medias are more attached to one kind of devices then others, like twitter integrated to iOS, Facebook integrated to Windows Phone and Google Android integrated to Google+ and those being politically engaged, then how could people have equal access to information through mobile? When Apple came with the iPhone on 2007, and set the paradigms of mobile computing, its closed environment was an evolution on security of computing compared to common Windows PCs, but one step back for openess of techonlogy, compared to common Windows PCs, where user don't
need a Appstore for installing what he wants, and so, doesn't needs Microsoft's blessing for using any third part software. And that still is necessary. In other words. We can get to much more information then 20 years ago. We can speak ourselves uncomparably better then 20 years ago. But we are also being much better watched. By our computers. By our cellphones. And this information is already being used to manipulate us more and more.
On this post I'm going to write about something that deeply motivated me to start this blog years ago. The choice of the name of this blog, as in Portuguese "apito" means whistle, the instrument used by referees in soccer games. And "mercado" means market, of course. My intention was to point out how big companies, just like in soccer, exceed themselves on competing and most of the time lose the focus on answering to consumer needs. Driven by the eagerness of competing, start fighting uselessly each other. Sometimes even against consumer needs and interests. As I believe, our function as bloggers, is to be aware of these market trends and point out what is better or not for us, the users, the consumers, those who pay the bill and keep all this shit working. Just like the soccer referee there must be someone to keep the competition on fair play and keep the game a show. Not a messy carnage like Maradona is doing here. (<< please watch) Even without the same powers of a referee, we can use the power of awareness and choice to make things work. The present paradigm of mobile is making everything more difficult You have an iPhone but you miss the good battery and the build quality you had on your Nokia. And the simplicity to manage and share files without an iTunes and the great maps experience. You have a Nokia and you miss all those amazing apps like Ebay, Amazon, apps for banking and other brilliant services. Having any of thse you will also miss the best integration with Google services, the largest screens on the market, the largest portfolio of different hardware types, with fisical or virtual keyboards you can have on Android. Having an Android you miss the solidity and stability of apple's software and solidity and stability of Nokia's hardware. Having any of those you miss the great experience of messaging and email, from RIM's Blackberry. And if you need security of you information Blackberry's service is still the best. If you are a developer, you probably gonna have to renounce to some platforms for chosing only one or two of them. Even if the best was to have presence on all. No ecosystem performs better then the others in all user needs. Each ecosystem is better designed for one or other kind of user. So you have to choose. What is the most important for you? Security? Design? Stability? Screen size? Battery? Another problem is the way our phones interact with reality. Using our phones we are always 'head downs', constantly looking it and unable to connect ourselves with what is around us. That is partially caused by a paradigm where most explored possibilities are inside the phone, not outside. Apps, messaging, Internet, games. What we have is just a pocket computer. But mobile should be much more then that. Mobile should be the remote control for the reality around us. Using the words of a brilliant guy I believe is one of the few who can see this,
Tomi Ahonen. "First think of the light switch at your home. Wherever you have a light switch, you can go and turn the lights on, or turn the lights off. All of us have been to that situation one time or another that we wanted to control the lights, and find that the light switch is not where we would want it to be. That light switch interface was decided by the architect and had to have the electrical wiring installed into the wall and then connected to the ceiling where we have our lamps.Now imagine a magical light switch that worked from everywhere. And then think that it could be used to control not just our lights, but literally quite anything. So lets start simple.In India there are farmers who use mobile phones to control their irrigation systems. Pretty nifty! What about public toilets? In Denmark you can use mobile phones to open the locks of the toilets. Coca Cola has been installing vending machines that accept SMS based mobile payments they invented this way to pay for twelve years already and still find that enabling mobile phone payments will increase vending machine sales by 14% on average." For T Ahonen mobile should be the digital interface to the REAL world! Until now mobile has only been a interface with DIGITAL world itself. Only shy exceptions are geo positioning services like Foursquare and Layar or Wikitude. But this full potential of mobile will only be unlocked when ALL phones have the power to interact with reality around us EQUALLY.That was the dream of MeeGo OS. That is why it was so important for MeeGo the project over car GPS, TVs, netbooks and tablets. Our devices shouldn't fight each other. Our devices should talk to each other and interact with each other. No matter if my TV is Samsung, my computer a Mac and my phone a Nokia. I should be able to rule my TV from my computer and to rule my computer remotely by my phone. And I should go a museum and find a NFC application that works with anything and makes my museum experience more interactive, help me buy my coke and pay the taxi driver. And as was very well pointed by T Ahonen. Those things were possible more then 10 years ago! SO, It is not a matter of technologies. Is a matter of industry standards. AND a matter of lack of vision by those who are ruling this industry today. From that point on, there is a bit of blame over Apple, Google, Blackberry and, also, a bit less of Nokia. Have you ever tried to share some picture or movie you just shot with your iPhone with your friend? You could use Facebook, Twitter, email, Instagram and even MMS and a lot of other services. But the easiest and most obvious, and the best, the bluetooth, you couldn't. So, If your friend has a smartphone that is not a huge problem but if he has a featurephone then bluetooth would be, maybe, your only
option without losing the photo quality. In other words, Apple just excluded your featurephoned friend. Why? It is said that it is a matter of security of the OS. But it is also a way of keeping the user more connected to Apple then to his featurephoned friend. It is part of Apple branding, of course. Exclusivity: "Think Different" "Be different" "Be better" "Be cool". That is why mobile still is not a digital interface to real world. The industry standards are being driven through a logic of building market reserve and a forced loyalty on users, developers, partners and all other players. Everything attached to the corporation behind: Apple. Of course Apple didn't invented monopolies and this standards where not developed before the iPhone came. But no other company was that aggressive on being closed and controlling the user.Naturally Google followed the same paradigm and build it's own OS fully attached to his services, but also, no connection with the world around you. Full connected with Google services. Blackberry's point over security sound's a bit more true. As the appeal of BB is over business men, for the sake of keeping their billion dollar information safe, there should be this full attachment to BB services. Anyway BB seems not to be as closed as Apple is. And Nokia has a bit less blame as it was the first to show some integration to other non Nokia devices. As an example, the N95 with TV out. The N8 with HDMI and USB OTG. But still very little for the potentials of Mobile. A light in the end of the tunnelAs open source MeeGo project, conducted initially by Nokia and Intel, was "strangely aborted" by Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia, and ex-Microsoft. Now Intel has a new partner fully capable of providing this environment: Samsung. As the initial intention of MeeGo was to develop a free open source platform capable of being used on car GPSs, TVs, computers and tablets Samsung is a much more capable manufacturer. Recently Sammy has surpassed Nokia as a smartphone manufacturer and seems to be on the way to surpass also Apple with more then 20 million smartphones shipped. That seems to be the perfect moment for that a native OS. Also, Samsung seems deeply concerned with not being fully dependable on other people's software. And keeps following religiously the safety rule of never putting all the eggs in the same basket. And that is why is trying to be less dependable of Google's Android. Since Google bought Motorola that concern seems to have grown as Samsung has just announced new Windows Phone devices, beyond possessing the Bada OS and joining Intel for the new Tizen, ex MeeGo. Tizen brings some new concept updates as it is HTML5 centered. And that is why I'm so excited. Most of people don't know the power of HTML5. The experiences with it showed that it is ready for providing a common app experience for users. Since Financial Times bypassed AppStore with its HTML5 web app, capable of running videos on the
iPad, and of running offline, lots of attention was drawn to what might have maybe reached the "write once, run everywhere" status. Someday everything will run a browser. And HTML5 makes possible for everyone to have an app experience everywhere. More recently Google with Rovio showed an example of smooth gaming experience running Angry Birds fully on HTML5. And offline.With HTML5 most of initiatives for non monetized apps would need no native apps anymore. And those are the most important like facebook, twitter, ebay, foursquare, banking apps, reading apps, cloud services apps. Perhaps gaming would have to wait a little before HTML5 can handle it. But I'm sure there would be gaming alternatives on the web, of course, being less complex. Or maybe using flash. Another promising project is Mozilla's B2G, the boot to gecko. Mozilla's proposal is to use the Android Linux kernel, using all drivers and stuff, to power a all browser OS. Where everything would be made for powering the browsing experience. In which browsing means running web apps on and offline. In other words, you would never need again to install an app. Just point the browser and shoot. The new chanceThose projects, HTML5 based, could lead us to the principle of "code once, run everywhere", at last. Not that everything needs to run in a HTML5 browser. T Ahonen examples showed how powerful is SMS on being the largest interface that mobile still have with real world simply because SMS runs on any GSM phone. Making possible for anyone who wants a coke to just buy it on a vending machine. With absolutely no need of an iPhone app!! Yes! Coca-cola knows non iPhone smartphone owners drink as much coke as iPhone owners. And also are the majority. Perhaps HTML5 as the future's base of mobile will make corporations aware that standards for creating a digital interface with reality must be pursued, not, jeopardized, as they are doing now. Otherwise will be disrupted one or other way. And for the sake of users, not their. Again I make this question: what do we want? Our gadgets to fight against each other or to cooperate with each other on our benefit?
A largely mentioned subject on science fiction is the possibility of the creation turning against the creator. Particularly on the movie Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, androids (or replicants) named as Nexus-6 take over a space ship for coming back from outer space and meeting their creator for the sake of prolonging their by factory limited lives. And as reality can sometimes copy fiction that movie remembers us of one company which we are going to analyze on this blog, preparing us for a next blog when we are going to analyze the mobile market for 2012.The company, as you guys have already guessed, is Google and its creation: Android.As we all know, Android was the answer from Google to Apples iPhone who was extremely successful, and has in less than one year grabbed the largest market share in many markets and global market. That OS has the possibility of being modified in the manufacturer and carriers interests. That characteristic has made it widely adopted by all those who wanted to have a bite of the billion dollar market created by Apples iPhone and iPad, but had also a price.A broken ecosystemThat price was the fragmentation of Androids ecosystem. As most manufacturers dont release all the updates for its phones right when Google releases it, a large installed base of Android phones remain on older software versions while new phones are released with new software. Not for blaming only carriers and manufacturers, Google is also a company who likes to innovate by a trial and error strategy. And because of that some nonsense like the Android 3.0 HoneyComb, only for tablets witch was released 10 months before Android 4.0 IceCreamSandwich (tablets and smartphones) while there was many manufacturers selling thousands of tablets on market running the Android 2.0.A even worse kind of fragmentation is the one who began with Amazons Kindle Fire. Powered with a very personalized by Amazon version of Android the Fire has access only to Amazon App Store, which has only 10,000 from 200,000 Apps available on Googles Store. That fragmentation could get harder if other manufacturers release similar subsided tablets or smartphones like a rumored Facebook phone. But why Google cares about that?What is Googles interest on Android?Google has no interest on Android. Google is truly interested on your data, which Android can capture from your phone and feed Google servers with lots of information for making search better and AdSense better.Because of that, Google doesnt really cares if your Android is buggy or fragmented if it remains good enough for you to keep using it. That is their objective. So the first kind of fragmentation dont really bothers Google. The second kind of fragmentation, the one Amazon started, that one frightens Google a lot since your information probably cant be captured the same way it is from a normal Google device. Which means Android could be used by competitors against Googles interest.But keeping Android a healthy and integrated ecosystem is necessary for keeping it competitive which Android definitely is by now but we know there are
new upcoming challengers like Mozillas B2G and Samsungs Tizen probably this year. Also there is Microsofts Windows Phone that, even not being a strong treat, must be considered a treat by Google, and that leads us to a possible dilemma for Google.Could Google close Android?A - By not closing Android (and it isnt anymore a much open platform) Googles risk is to let fragmentation get more wild and kill Androids competitiveness which could impact on phone sales. Any other platform, being more open and more immune to fragmentation then Android (as a HTML5 based platform could be), could have the same fast growth Android had since mobile business is a fast market where people buy new hardware in periods smaller then 24 months. B - By closing it (and this is the worst choice) Google ensures a more integrated and competitive ecosystem but, kills its manufacturers and carriers best interests which is: differentiation. On both possibilities Google would be giving lots of ground for the new challengers, Windows Phone, Tizen and Mozillas B2G. Tizen would obviously be the first choice of the largest smartphone maker in the world, Samsung, and other players like LG, HTC, Sony, ZTE, ASUS would be able to choose between Tizen , B2G, or Windows Phone. While most of them would still manufacture phones with Android, but having Tizen, B2G or Windows Phone as a plan B or C. That obviously is a possibility coming in the horizon which can also not to come true. Which means: even highly fragmented Android remains competitive enough and other players dont repeat what Amazon did with Kindle Fire and Androids consolidate itself as the new Windows.What to expectFor next 12 months you can be sure Android will lead sales as it gains market on developing economies and prices come down. Until then there will be no big chances for Windows Phone to become a relevant platform and that panorama can only change with the introduction of B2G or Tizen or Google suddenly closing Android for preventing it to be used by competitors with Amazon's shapeGoogle closing Android isnt a smart movement since that means the suicide of the ecosystem by a massive droping of from manufacturers and carriers, but must be considered possible since executives not always make smart movements. Even if that is not what we have seen from Google who has shown itself a brilliant chess player. Even if Androids fragmentation runs wild and many more manufacturers make their own versions of Kindle Fire for competing against Google, Google still optimizes its objective of being on pockets of people and collecting data and selling ads with an uncompetitive Android more then with a closed Android, which would immediately impact on the support from carriers and manufacturers.