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Survey: Which social-technology tools and trends will disrupt the enterprise most?

David Card — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:00:08 +0000

Social technologies are working their way into business IT on a deeper level simply by being front ends for communication and collaboration. They are now evolving into core enterprise functions like ERP, customer service, accounting and finance, and HR. GigaOM Research is conducting a series of analysis reports on different market sectors to gauge the importance of social technologies in the enterprise and to assess tech vendor opportunities.

With that in mind, we invite GigaOM readers to share their thoughts on which of the key social-technology and business-culture forces will be most disruptive in the enterprise. Fill out the survey below to let us know which trends smart vendors can best harness to gain revenue and market share.

Want to read the reports? Fill out your email in the provided field, and we will send copies once they are published.

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The 6 ways digital music is being disrupted

David Card — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:56:41 +0000

As media and entertainment went digital and online, many looked to the music sector as the canary in the coal mine — a scary harbinger of things to come. Indeed, the transition to digital music has not been enough to restore the industry to growth, let alone to its 1999 glory days of $14.6 billion in recorded music sales. Digital now comprises over 40 percent of consumer sales, but the whole market was worth only $5.9 billion in 2010. Even digital felt stagnant.

But that’s changing.

At GigaOM Pro, we’ve identified six digital music disruption vectors: areas of huge innovation and disruption where big shifts in market share are there for the taking. The companies that can ride these disruption vectors will be the winners in digital music in the years to come:

Smartphones are driving anywhere access, but don’t forget about cars, the place where most listening by Americans occur. Anywhere access will be the most important digital music disruption vector.
Two business model disruptions will be nearly as critical. Subscription services from companies like Spotify, Rhapsody and MOG aim to unseat the traditional music spending mix from purchase to “rental.” At the same time, Pandora is reinventing radio, and using advertising revenues to pay royalties that terrestrial radio station never had to pay to music rights holders. So advertising, and subsidization schemes along the lines of what Deezer is doing with Orange in France, will be highly disruptive.
Social media is changing music and music service discovery. Facebook’s open graph is exposing friends’ listening habits and encouraging sharing. Social media plus personalization and sophisticated recommendation technologies could unseat radio as the most critical means of music discovery.
Two areas will be less disruptive. The newer digital music services mostly replicate listening experiences – on-demand versus programmed. Highly engaging services like Turntable.fm probably require too much participation by casual listeners to have mainstream impact. And someone will have to fund artist development and marketing, even if the role of labels will evolve.

The near-term net result of this disruption will be a shift of dollars to digital services and downloads. Digital will total 65 percent of the overall $6.3 billion U.S. spending we’re forecasting for 2015, finally returning the overall industry to growth.

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Flash analysis: assessing Yahoo’s options

David Card — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:19:59 +0000

Long a big force in online media, Yahoo is struggling. After firing CEO Carol Bartz — after which Om recommended the board of directors fire itself as well — the company announced it would enter a strategy review that apparently could include selling part or all of the company. Yahoo’s once-successful online portal business model combining content, communications and web navigation has lost momentum and advertising revenues to search engines and social media. So we decided to ask GigaOM readers what they thought Yahoo should do, and we published the results in this flash analysis on GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

Respondents to our survey don’t have high hopes that Yahoo will be able to manage itself out of its malaise. They said they think staying independent gives Yahoo the best chance to be successful but by a slim five to four margin: Fifty percent suggested some variations on independence, while 41 percent listed options like merge or break up. Worse, they thought a merger or breakup was the likelier outcome (59 percent to 38 percent, respectively).

Over the past several years, Yahoo has missed out on major consumer digital trends: for example, the social troika of media, commerce and gaming, and it has done little in online video or mobile services. Its strategy to partner with Microsoft on search and leave the heavy technology investment to Redmond isn’t showing much yet. Perhaps co-founder Jerry Yang can help take Yahoo private so it can concentrate on being an online media company, as Mathew Ingram suggests.

GigaOM readers we surveyed think Yahoo should seek out a technology company (54 percent) rather than media partner (34 percent). But an overwhelming number (84 percent) think it needs help with its overall vision and strategy, and the respondents themselves seem undecided on what course Yahoo should steer. I’m with Mathew: Yahoo could double down on its media potential by selling a few assets and making some strategic acquisitions.

We asked GigaOM readers which companies might make a good partner for Yahoo, what its most valuable assets were, and what it needed the most help with. We also asked what a potential Yahoo merger might mean for the industry. See the full results of the survey, along with comments from the respondents and our GigaOM Pro analysis, in this Flash analysis research note (subscription required).

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Survey: Weigh in on the future of Yahoo

David Card — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:13:25 +0000

Two weeks ago, Yahoo’s board fired CEO Carol Bartz, and now it may be looking to sell all or part of the company. Om thinks Yahoo’s board should fire itself and then look at some acquisitions. But what do you think? Here at GigaOM, we want to hear what our tech-savvy audience thinks about Yahoo’s prospects and its potential impact on the industry. Take a few minutes to fill out our survey. And if you want to be entered into a drawing for an Amazon $50 gift card, make sure to enter your email address in the survey below. We promise your info will not be used for anything other than notifying winners. And, as always, those who enter their email will be sent a summary of results before the report is published.

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Supporting Millennials in the enterprise

David Card — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:32:04 +0000

The invasion is under way. The newest generation – those so-called Millennials born since the 1980s and raised on ever-present mobile devices, ubiquitous online access and social media – are entering the digital workplace in force.

How will the unique environment that this generation grew up in influence the way they work? There’s plenty of social and political research on Millennials but little geared at helping IT managers support and get the best out of this technology-engaged cohort. With that in mind, we surveyed 400 U.S. Millennials, ages 20 through 29, on their attitudes and behavior around at-work technology and tech support, communications preferences and problem-solving styles. We found that Millennials have distinctive characteristics around response time, communications channels and self-sufficiency that IT needs to address to make these workers productive and avoid potential problems.

Everything you have heard about Millennials and instant gratification is true. Although the Millennials we surveyed said they are largely satisfied with tech-support services, they have extremely high — and in many cases unrealistic — expectations for response time. Nearly 60 percent think that only 10 minutes is an acceptable waiting period, while 30 percent said “just a couple of minutes.”

We also found that many Millennials like to try to find their own solutions before going through proper IT-mandated procedures (see figure below). Although 39 percent of Millennials turn first to company support upon encountering a technical problem, that means that 61 percent look elsewhere first. A quarter said they seek help from colleagues or friends, and another 24 percent try to figure out a solution via a search engine such as Google.

This kind of behavior can lead to end users making problems worse. But at least most Millennials aren’t broadcasting their problems to the world. Very few said their first recourse was either a forum or social media channel such as Facebook or Twitter. In interviews, Millennials spelled out different reasons for not going to a public social network for support problems. These included speed, privacy and equating public networks with entertainment. Corporate social networks with searchable self-help documentation and FAQs could further minimize external security risks.

As far as communicating with support staff, many Millennials would prefer something other than the two dominant tech support channels — the phone or email. Despite their requirement for immediacy, nearly 6 in 10 Millennials said that the telephone is not their first choice, and 70 percent said the same about email.

The net result? IT support staffs need to work on delivering initial responses faster and through the channels that Millennials prefer. IT should aim to deliver efficient communications through SMS and chat in addition to, and often prior to, phone or email, to balance the Millennials’ expressed needs for immediacy, multitasking and location. And they can steer young employees toward mainstream behavior via training and education on IT policies and limitations, as the survey also showed that nearly two-thirds of Millennials want to learn more about troubleshooting.

For much more detail on supporting this new generation in the enterprise, see this GigaOM Pro report, the first in a two-part series. The second section looks at how IT managers are responding, and there’s an upcoming webinar on August 24 that will feature highlights and discussion.

Image courtesy Flickr user Alex E. Proimos

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GigaOM Pro: Why Microsoft can’t abandon Bing

David Card — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 16:22:51 +0000

Microsoft’s online business lost $2.6 billion for its fiscal year, mainly due to its investment in search. Yet even with Yahoo’s outsourced search business, Microsoft barely cracks 30 percent in market share, according to comScore.

Last week, a Reuters Breakingviews piece that was picked up by the New York Times generated controversy and counter-commentary over Microsoft’s struggling efforts in search. Breakingviews suggested Microsoft abandon its money-losing search business and sell the Bing search engine to Facebook. That’s a bad idea.

Microsoft needs search for several reasons. For one, Microsoft must have a credible search engine business to defend its core platforms and APIs, as well as keep its biggest rival, Google, honest by forcing Google to create sustainable business models in competitive markets like applications and mobile. And a somewhat more successful search engine would solidify Microsoft’s own ad business and open emerging revenue streams. To read more about why search is essential for Microsoft, see my latest weekly update at GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

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Yahoo growth options dwindle

David Card — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:35:00 +0000

Yahoo reported another disappointing quarter, with core revenues down 5 percent to just over $1 billion. Its display advertising business was up 5 percent, but it appears to be losing share to companies like Google and Facebook.

Yahoo is still one of the biggest online properties in the U.S., with fairly sturdy content and communications assets, but its options for restoring growth are getting fewer. If Yahoo cashed out its assets in China, it could use that money for other acquisitions and investments to bolster online advertising and gain a little social media momentum. If Yahoo can’t reenergize its business around video, a social advertising network and/or syndication, as I detail in my weekly update at GigaOM Pro (subscription required), I suppose it could try to sell itself to Microsoft or AOL, assuming they’re still interested.

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Google can’t rest on its laurels

David Card — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:02:12 +0000

Google revenues were up 32 percent, to a record $9 billion. Android activates 550,000 devices a day. Google+ had 10 million users in less than two weeks of limited availability.

But Google can’t ease up on the accelerator. Though Google dominates search, U.S. query volume is flat and paid clicks and average prices sluggish. Google could address potential threats to its search and advertising business with better product integration. It needs to double down on display advertising and show a plan for ads on Google+, because that might be its next big source of page views. To read about more about the places where Google could connect the dots, check out my weekly update at GigaOM Pro.

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The competitive prospects of Google+

David Card — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 22:40:56 +0000

Google+ looks like Google’s best effort yet in social media. To get a handle on industry reaction to Google+, we did a quick survey over the Fourth of July weekend of 451 GigaOM readers on Google+’s chances for success, its competitive weapons and its likely impact on other social companies. In a new research note at GigaOM Pro (subscription required), we analyze the results.

Why does asking GigaOM’s readership make sense? Because, as we suspected, they’re radically early adopters, as the 69 percent of respondents that said they’ve tried Google+ shows.

Source: GigaOM Pro

We asked this early adopter audience what kind of impact they expected Google+ to have on the competition. What did they think? As shown in the chart above, survey respondents think Google+ will have the biggest impact on Facebook and Skype, while companies like Twitter and LinkedIn won’t feel as much heat.

Why Facebook and Skype?

A few select quotes from the survey’s open-ended responses (the best of which are in the research note)* may give you a clue.

On Facebook

“Google+ has the potential to be a Facebook without the ‘my life is better/worse than yours’ component. Instead, it can shift the focus from digitally stalking your ‘friends’ to making authentic human connections how and with whom you choose.”

On Skype

“Google+ makes video chat an obvious choice rather than a secondary offering just to remain competitive. Initiating a hangout is intuitive. Combined with Circles, Google+ can be a place to share information with friends, family, and coworkers — even as a place to get work done — that moves the ‘social network’ idea to the next logical place.”

That’s not to say that Google won’t have to work hard to compete in the social media space, and the company’s past flops in this area only underscore that fact. For more on Google+’s competitive outlook, and to see more of the survey results, read the full research note at GigaOM Pro.

*To protect the identities of the respondents, we have not included names with any of the quotes.

Disclosure: Automattic, the maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, the founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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LinkedIn’s post-IPO offerings and opportunities

David Card — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 18:45:08 +0000

A month after its debut as a public company, Wall Street seems to love LinkedIn, as evidenced by analysts predictions this week. Nor is the professional social network resting on its laurels post-IPO. The company has introduced several new initiatives over the past six months, and in June, it made moves that include testing a new, social ad format, hiring a journalism pro to help with content initiatives and adding syndication features to its jobs platform.

These moves are geared to increase member usage and value for advertisers, and here’s what each might bring to LinkedIn’s overall growth strategy:

Social ad format: Borrowing an idea from Facebook ads, LinkedIn is testing a new format that uses information from a user’s network connections and activities to serve them more targeted ads. An example of this might be a recruiting ad that includes contacts at the company that could refer the user. With this initiative, the company is smartly tapping into its professional contact information to raise its advertising value — and presumably price. LinkedIn is, however, being pretty sensitive about potential privacy concerns here: It enables users to opt-out of these ads and it hides the data from the advertiser.
News and content: LinkedIn hired Daniel Roth, Fortune’s digital editor, to work on LinkedIn Today as well as other content projects. A few savvy editors can help with LinkedIn’s news curation and aggregation strategy more efficiently than hiring a lot of original content creators. Similarly, the company is adding sharing integration with SlideShare and creating a SlideShare section for Today as it hopes to leverage user-generated content and professional connections toward its aim to increase usage frequency and duration.
Job application plug-in: Sites will soon be able to add an “Apply with LinkedIn” button to job postings on their websites. This is a much more logical LinkedIn platform plug-in than product or content recommendations. It could encourage wider LinkedIn sign-in service adoption, and contribute to LinkedIn’s objective of housing a user’s professional identity: the LinkedIn profile as identity and resume.

Despite these new offerings, LinkedIn nonetheless faces fierce competition from Facebook, Google and Twitter when it comes to leading in the social media space. Those sites have better access to information about people’s interests, which is more widely useful for advertising and shopping. But LinkedIn’s best chance to establish its APIs and technology platform is as a professional-identity authenticator, meaning LinkedIn could give its members the digital equivalent of a business card, but with the trusted authority of the LinkedIn name behind it. Besides professional relationships — hiring, of course, but also buying, selling and sales leads — such an authenticated identity could play a role in contracts and payments systems.

LinkedIn has its work cut out for it competing. It will have a hard time adding yet another recommendation button on sites, so its sign-in feature could be the most appealing part of its platform, especially for companies offering information about business content and services, travel or technology. I go deeper into LinkedIn’s post-IPO strategies in a new research note at GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

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