Netbooks: The Next Wireless Revolution

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

This week, cell phone provider Verizon confirmed it plans to release its own netbooks this year. Verizon’s decision to move into the computer market is fuelled by two key factors: 1.) the demand for wireless data is growing 2.) most people in the U.S. already own cellphones.

I think Verizon is making a smart move, as netbooks will become the next coveted gadget of connected professionals and individuals. But why do we need netbooks? Why do we need another computing device?

As computing has come to dominate how we communicate, work and gather information, a variety of computers have evolved to suit our needs in various situations. The computers we use for work are often not the same as our personal-use computers. Likewise, smartphones which are hand-held computers, help us stay connected to our work and social sphere wherever we are, but in a limited way. What if you are out and you need to do something that requires a little more power than a smartphone can provide? Take out your laptop? At five to eight pounds, laptops arestill too big and heavy to carry around easily. And making lighter laptops isn’t so easy. We demand too much functionality from our laptops for them to be truly mobile devices any time soon. Their screen and key-board size alone make them too bulky.

Netbooks offer enough functionality to, say, edit that report while at a cafe, or do a little more research on the train without being weighed down by all your files, DVD player, web cam, speakers etc. Most netbooks are under two pounds, so you can casually carry one around. If your netbook is connected via 3G cellphone network, as the Verizon netbook will be, then your connectivity is not constrained to wireless hot-spots–another huge mobility asset.

In short, our mobile, web-connected lives demand different levels of computing power and mobility. Netbooks offer the portability of a smartphone and the power to work and engage more thoroughly, something many of us are discovering we need.

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LogMeIn Improves Remote Access

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Earlier this month, remote access enabler LogMeIn released it’s latest version of LogMeIn Rescue, the company’s help desk and troubleshooting support product. Remote access use has gone up substantially in the last few years as technology and demand have converged to create more flexible, universal and accessible work platforms. Along with this rising trend has come increasing demand for features, flexibility and on-demand tech support.

“A new generation of Internet-based PC remote support tools is disrupting the commoditized remote-control market,” according to David Coyle, research vice president, Gartner, Inc. “These new tools have several advantages including remote-control support for anyone, ease of implementation and greater cost flexibility. They are gaining popularity among internal IT and external service providers as the employees, customers and partners they support are increasingly mobile and beyond the reach of traditional IT support tools.”

This latest version of LogMeIn Rescue builds on the product’s flexibility by allowing multiple technicians and/or customers to collaborate and troubleshoot problems at the same time through a variety of features including screen sharing by multiple users and instant chat capabilities.

Another interesting innovation is LogMeIn Rescue’s “below the OS” connectivity. By taking advantage of Intel’s vPro technology, it allows technicians to expand what is possible to do remotely and access computers via the Internet — even if the computer is turned off or if the operating system is unavailable due to hardware or software failure.

As computing becomes more mobile and more cloud based we will see more demand for secure, adaptable, multi-person and multi-pointaccessible remote access products like this one. In fact, how well remote access evolves may help determine overall computing and work styles in the future. The latest versionLogMeIn Rescue is just another small evolutionary step towards the next generation of even more universally accessible computing.

Google Begins Behavioral Targeting

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Google announced last week that its Adsense system would begin using behavioral targeting to determine which ads it displays to users. What exactly is behavioral targeting? Primarily it is gathering information about the types of sites a user visits to place that user into interest and demographic categories. But it can also include actions within a site, such as the types of products a users views on some shopping sites. All behavioral targeting is done through the use of cookies and can’t be used to trace a users particular identity or whereabouts.

Google’s announcement has excited the already contentious internet privacy debate. Rep. Rick Boucher from Virginia said last week that he is working on a bill that would put mandatory guidelines on internet companies to protect user privacy. Though the details of the bill are not yet finalized,Boucher said it will be influenced by how prominent, concise and understandable Google’s policy is.

How internet users feel about behavioral targeting might, in large part, depend on what information they believe is private. Some may not believe their hobbies or interests as protected information, while others may not be comfortable with any information about themselves being gathered. In a recent survey of 1,000 adults conducted byTRUSTe , more than 90% said that internet privacy was a “really” or “somewhat” important issue and 51% said they were uncomfortable with behavioral targeting. However, that number is down from 57% last year, leading some industry spokespeople to believe that, over time, users are becoming more comfortable with behavioral targeting. 70% of respondents said individuals themselves should also be wholly or very responsible for protecting their own privacy, yet 57% said the government was very or wholly responsible for protecting anindividual’s online privacy through legislation or regulation. The survey also said 48% of users delete browser cookies once a week to help protect their information.

Personally, if I am going to be served ads–which is unavoidable–I would rather them be more relevant to me. I am also far more uncomfortable with the fact that Google scans the content of my Gmail for keywords to display ads to me than I am with whatever information my browsing history gives. Yet I think it is important to explore legislation on behavioral targeting to keep policies clear and accessible to all users and determine exactly what information can and cannot be used.

The Truth About Micropayments

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of buzz about micropayments and if they can save journalism as we know it. With more local papers closing monthly and even giants like The New York Times teetering on the brink of collapse, newspapers and loyal readers are crying out for something, anything that will preserve their way of life.

Presumably, mircorpayments would allow users to pay small amounts of money–a few cents to a few dollars–to have view web-content and thus fund a publications journalism. A few different models have been proposed: a “pre-pay” or “top-up” structure wherein a user loads up an account that is incrementally billed as content is viewed; a bundle model where users pay for access to severaldifferent sites or networks at once and a classic subscription model with monthly payments per publication. There have even been calls for Apple to extend their successful iTunes environment to other transactions for content and services.

I wish micropayments would work, I really do. But, sadly, even if they do work–which is doubtful at best–it won’t be enough. Even by optimistic estimates, user payments would have to be much more than micro to level the dropping revenues of papers for institutions like The New York Times which always made their profits from ads, not subscriptions.

If the bastions of traditional news from The Economist to Harper’s to the The Wall Street Journal fail, there will indeed be an informational void no blog yet can fill. But they probably won’t all fail. Some will die and others may become smaller, leaner organizations, but it is doubtful every one will disappear. We also must acknowledge that most local newspapers are not The New Times. The majority of stories printed in most local newspapers for last several years have come not from local reporters, but are reprinted Associated Press articles.

World wide competition has come to an industry that used to have a local monopoly. The result is that once large organizations will need to learn to be lean and compelling. Local papers need not have a national and international section, but instead report only on the compelling news in their area. Even national and international papers now compete for the same sets of eyeballs. In short, we still want quality investigative reporting we just need fewer reporters and papers to get it.

The Internet: From Anonymity to Instant Accountability

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks
In the beginning of the web, it was a wild frontier of anonymity. Nothing that was written was held to any kind of accountability. It was almost an informational Las Vegas where the most exciting but unreliable personas came to play.  But recently the internet has made enormous steps to actually become the opposite– a place of instant accountability.

The consequences of this are becoming evident, but what I believe is the logical conclusion is not obvious. Yet.

The biggest reason for death of www wild frontier is that the web became a market place, not just of goods, but of ideas. If you want someone to invest even their attention in you on today’s internet, you’ve got to be a trustworthy source or…. very entertaining. If you actually want them to buy something from you, you’ve got to have a good reputation. And when I say good, I mean nearly spotless. One bad review on Yelp or unhappy ebay costumer can hurt you. All your mistakes are now archived and instantly accessible to anyone. 

But even more motivating than a sale, is establishing a reputation you can leverage. Modern urban life is an anonymous place. Setting yourself apart from the crowd is difficult, but an internet presence can help if you use it correctly. Any savvy jobseeker knows that social networking profiles are often viewed by potential employers. Equally important is what a Google search can reveal. For competitive positions, it’s not enough that your online persona is clean and professional, it must “add value” to your resume. Real estate agents, other contract professionals and small businesses were likewise quick to set themselves apart from their peers through compelling online personas. Now even big companies like Comcast and Jetblue meticulously monitor Twitter for mentions of their brand.

This is all social media 101, but the effect is expanding. If you want to promote yourself as a professional for anything you have to have a blog, a Twitter account, and at least two social networking site profiles. Your online social networking is likely to be as important as networking you do in real life–and the two will almost certainly augment each other. The trend is towards less of a distinction between the personal and the professional, the online and the offline the private and the public. In fact, people are eager to publicize many aspects of their private life if it makes their online personas more relevant. Twitter streams and blogs are full of lifestyle activities and private moments of frustration.

Online identities are also becoming more mobile. The popular blog comment platform DISQUS now makes it easy to automatically add a picture and other information to your comments. I expect this trend will continue. In the near future, it will be easy to link anything you say online to everything else you have said online, and to your profiles and blogs. This interconnectivity will be desirable for reputation and persona building. Anonymous statements won’t garner much attention or respect.

If respect is the goal, then authors will keep in mind that anything they say can be quickly cross referenced and checked. Plagiarism, gross exaggeration, lies are now all easier than ever to pinpoint and expose.
Instant accountability means that now corporate blogs and personal comments are now subject to standards once reserved for journalists. Integrity is key.

I’m not suggesting that all web anonymity will disappear or that the accountability will be perfect. There will always be places to hide or forget yourself on the web. All fact checking and cross referencing is only as good as its source, as we have all learned from Wikipedia. But when it takes so much effort to build up a credible persona, people will spend more time building and less time being incredulous. The effects will even reach into the real world, as one PR account executive learned when he tweeted an insult about the home city of one of his clients.