Alexa vs Google

Can Alexa replace Google? Lets see..

In 2016, commerce/transactional searches are 'transaction-enabled' via vertical apps and services.  As people move towards using apps that in addition to providing the information queried, enable the related transaction.

Ex: Amazon helps you research *and* buy the product. Yelp helps you *research* and make a reservation or delivery from/at a restaurant. These are transactional searches -- which have verticalized over time across platforms and mediums.

Echo is a medium (voice) and a platform (SDK) similar to iPhone and iOS. Has iPhone replaced the computer for certain tasks? Yes. Can it replace the computer entirely? Possibly. However, the developer ecosystem is as important as the medium itself. iPhone would be nothing without the developer ecosystem. Same principle applies to Echo. How much can Echo hurt Google really depends on Echo's scale -- # people using it, and its developer ecosystem (integrations with other platforms such as Yelp etc).

Yes, "Voice" or AI category is definitely a threat -- but not just because Echo or other similar voice digital assistants can perform a search. It's because they can transact without you having to touch anything.  

Can Echo replace all search in the future? Yes. Is voice going to be the medium in which one consumes all searches or content? No. Is voice going to be the medium in which one consumers specific categories of information? Yes

For Example: Amazon.com Prime members such as myself often use Amazon as the starting place to shop, skipping Google altogether. This hurts Google's traffic for that highly valuable specific segment of "in-market" consumers doing "product search". 

Behaviorally, its the instant gratification generation. We seek instant 'end-results', not just queries. Thats where Echo makes a difference -- it gets instant results for your voice commands. Same query using Siri or any other assistant from your phone would be a "4-thought" process.

1. Putting your hand in your pocket or wherever the phone is placed
2. Removing phone on your pocket
3. Unlock or Keep home button pressed
4. Speak the query - and get results. 

Echo's one-step experience is convenient and natural, which makes it addictive and could seriously impact Google by enabling range of "tasks" or "queries" Echo can perform. I'd bet anything that Google will launch its own product to compete with Echo. There's no other way to hedge the risk of Echo. 

The Future of Your Profession: Automation

It's gonna happen - and there's only one thing you can do about it -- learn to hack. 

Uber vs Facebook

“The line between disorder and order lies in logistics… ”

— Sun Tzu

Uber is building an army of people (with a car for now) ready to MOVE (anything) at moments notice. The have the potential to disrupt any and all verticals such as:

- Travel

- Security

- Shopping/Delivery

- Hospitality

- Advertising

- Healthcare

Facebook: Make the world more OPEN and CONNECTED -- Facebook digitally connects people, places & things; Uber: Make the world more accessible -- Uber physically connects people, places and things

So far, here are the things Uber has physically connected people with:

- Cars: Announced financing

- People: Call an Uber from app

- Cats: Cat delivery

- Roses: Rose Delivery

- Things: XBox

- Brands: Partnerships with NFL, Budlight, Nasdaq, Pepsi & XBox

In the future, each of us are going to be Uber service providers in some form. Uber will be more impactful with a larger market cap than Facebook - excited to see what the future holds for both companies (and potential partnerships between them). 

Snapchat vs Facebook

Is there is a correlation between the increase in Selfies versus the growing trend of teens leaving Facebook?

They key in understanding the future of each of the services is in their mission statements:

"Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected"

The mission was shared with Zuckerberg around IPO time, and also explained in detail in his letter to investors. The mission is two part - 1) Give people the power to share 2) Make the world more open and connected. Facebook does a damn good job at it. For Facebook, relationships are open, one-many and long-term.

Compare Facebook's mission statement with Snapchat's (unofficial) mission:

"Capturing and sharing moments with your friends in real time"

For Snapchat, relationships are secretive, transactional, one-one and short-lived. In the short term, Snapchat may have more brand recognition and utility with teenagers than Facebook.

Facebook cannot be everything to every person. They are thinking in the right direction with segmenting their users and creating standalone apps/experiences for each.

1) Instagram - For the photo takers / producers

2) Messenger - For the texters

3) Paper - For content consumers

4) Facebook - For content producers

5) New Product/Feature - For Live Broadcast.

Video is ultimately going to trump text as a medium of communication and expression. I'd bet that Facebook will launch a competing video broadcast product to stay on top of this trend. 

Design Flaw: Facebook Star Rating On Mobile

I previously wrote about the design flaw in Facebook Star Ratings, which was addressed by Facebook sometime in January 2014. The same design flaw applies to mobile, which leads to erroneous/accidental submission of star ratings.

There needs to be a "Submit" or "Done" or "Review" button which explicitly confirms that the rating is being submitted. Others have complained about this issue on Facebook support forums as well: 

Greensboro Pediatric Surgery has two 1 or 3 star erroneous submissions. Since Facebook made the ratings/reviews public by default,  I was able to see the names of people who had submitted the low ratings. Surprisingly (or not), 2 of the low ratings came from family members. I reached out to them and found out that they had liked the page following the invitation received from me, but were not aware of submitting any ratings/reviews. The submissions were accidental. I wonder what the overall impact of this design flaw has been to other local businesses. 

5 lessons learned from Friendster founder's interview

Mashable published an interview with the Friendster Founder Jonathan Abrams. Following are key takeaways - some may seem obvious.

• Ideas are dime a dozen - f'in execute!
• If you can't scale after 2 years, expect to get fired
• Fire your board if they are forcing you to focus on features vs helping users log in
• Too little too late. Ship stuff
• Make the best of what you have

Mashable interview with Josh Abrams.

32 Lessons Learned

A list..not in order of priority:

1) Have mentors in family, friends & business circles who you can call anytime, any day

2) Nurture relationships systematically

3) It's never too late to learn, un-learn or re-learn something

4) Live in the present (Power of Now Stuff)

5) Start something, anything

6) Be the person of your word

7) Say "No" more often (choose commitments wisely)

8) Tangibly (verbal or written) acknowledge & appreciate perspectives

9) Learn to accept compliments & gifts

10) Share everything (knowledge, money, power, influence)

11) Quality trumps quantity

12) Consistency trumps frequency

13) Use "however" instead of "but" when addressing a conflicting POV

14) Deliver value in any form

15) Measure your health (#quantifiedself). How one feels about their health is directly related to mortality rates.

16) Writing is a great tool for getting clarity and help in decision making

17) Understand logic but accept that not everything is logical, world is not black and white

18) Don't try to please everyone

19) Protect your values. Values define what you stand for and sets expectations

20) Pray & show gratitude daily

21) After fulfilling your basic needs, the marginal return on money depreciates

22) It's OK to be wrong / fail often

23) There is a system for everything. Create your own systems to make things work

24) 1% better execution = 10% increase in returns

25) Be aware of your surroundings (hint: put your phone away)

26) Sharpen your axe, before you take down a tree

27) There's a formula for serendipity or good luck

28) Managing expectations is the most important variable for success

29) Control your mind and body, don't let it control you

30) Engage with someone new on any topic every day

31) Balance is about sacrifices. Iterate to achieve your perfect mix

32) Learn from others, but define your own success metrics

“Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combination of grasping experience and transforming it. — Kolb”

Kolb's Learning Model

Personal Data: Permissions, Leaks & Protection

I was in the process of installing an app that replaces my home screen on Android. Until the following (screenshot below) data access screen made me take a step back and think for a bit:

The app was requesting permission to have access to my SMS with the ability to receive, reply and delete without my permission. Out of curiosity, I tweeted them asking the reason for such access (no response yet), and then went about searching for the privacy and data policy for the app (which was kinda scary).

In another instance, this time for a web service, I was looking into a service that lets you sort out all marketing email and neatly sort it into different folders - seemed like a cool service. While signing up, I got to this page where it was requesting access to my email - DOH - should've thought about that. Spent 20 mins reading their privacy policy which reaffirmed my skepticism that granting access to my email is not worth the value given by the service. So - No Thanks, I'll scan the emails myself in exchange of keeping my email private. Another similar experience when I was hoping to sign up for a service that reminds me to connect with individuals for nurturing the relationship. 

I'm sure all these services are great, and provide a lot of value to the user, and do not have any ulterior motives with the data. Yet there are enough reasons to be skeptical and I'd like to think there are more people like me who feel the same way. Way too often, I never read through the  permissions I'm granting to the apps downloaded to my android device, or services I'm singing up with online.  I almost never read through the privacy policies and terms of use until recently. 

Think of the various data leaks there are online:

(1) All the apps on your smartphone devices with access to SMS, FB, LinkedIN, Email

(2) Any other web based 3rd party service that integrates with Facebook, LinkedIN, Gmail etc.

“I know for a fact that I have signed up with a ton of apps and services, that have persistent and often unnecessary access to my private data, including but not limited to email, SMS and social.”

 My thoughts in addressing the concerns raised by granting persistent personal data permissions:

(1) Every app needs to have a data policy in plain english, not hidden in the footer under privacy policy but clearly linked in the header under the title "Data & Privacy Policy"

(2) Apps need to make it easy for current and ex users to OPT OUT of data collection, use and storage.

“In the future, access to personal data will be a deliberate and informed decision, making users aware of the implications of ignorance””

The service should do the following (at the least):

(1) Track the WHO has access to WHAT data and HOW it will potentially be used by scanning apps on your phone + access given by your social networks 

(2) Ability to send email to the app company requesting to delete data or OPT-OUT

(3) Keep users up to date via alerts and action items related to their data.

Similar to how ad-tech companies have opt-outs (think Evidon), there needs to be a delete-outs for apps companies and any company that integrates or pulls personal information. From a business perspective, this service is akin to a virus scanner for the consumer - while this "app scanning" service is the privacy scanner of the data sharing world. The personal data protection market is up for grabs -- I'd use, and likely pay for a service like this, would you?

Update:

To prove the point of this blog post, this just came in on TechCrunch a few hours after I published this post:

Facebook Reading Android Users’ Texts? Well, Hold On

A Techcrunch users comment:

"I haven't updated Facebook app on my Android for a long time due to ridiculous permissions they ask for:

1. Read SMS
2. Add or modify Calendar events.
3. Send emails to guests without my knowledge
4. Connect/Disconnect WIFI
5. Draw over other apps
6. Retrieve running apps
7. Direct call phone numbers, read phone status and identity
8. Modify contacts
9. Read call log
10. read contacts
11. write call logs
12. Find accounts on the device
13. Reorder running apps
14. Read sync settings
15. Change network connectivity.
16. Download files without notification
17. Set wallpaper

Yep, all this to connect with my friends on Facebook? No thanks.

Sadly, after Android removed AppOps, I can no longer control permissions, and hence I am not updating any apps that asks for ridiculous permissions till the guys at Google bring back AppOps, and if they don't I am switching to CyanogenMod or start using my iPhone only."

The Future of Patient Engagement: Mobile & Social

As the healthcare compensation model moves towards outcome versus the traditional transactional model, the semantics as well as the dynamics in the way healthcare is delivered is bound to change. The physicians who do not embrace this trend are going to see a drop in reimbursements, patient satisfaction and ultimately their revenue.

Outcomes of care delivery are the function of the patients' perception and the outcome of the treatment. Ask any doctor and they will tell you how important physician-patient relationships are insuring patients are satisfied, and adhere to the physicians treatment recommendations. They'll also tell you that they only have 6-10mins to spend with each patient, followed by on average 30 mins. of paperwork and documentation related to that visit. So the question is - how do you manage a relationship with the time constraints and the added burden of documentation?

Answer: Utilizing additional channels of patient relationship management - namely Mobile & Social.  According to PwCHealth:

“Social, mobile, analytics, and cloud technologies are the underpinnings of new business models in which health organizations will be paid based on value rather than volume.”

— http://www.pwc.com/us/en/health-industries/top-health-industry-issues/social-mobile-analytics-cloud.jhtml

Every industry - from retail to service businesses & SMBs have been impacted with the rise of social and mobile. Healthcare delivery transformation and patient engagement via mobile and social is inevitable. Patients are also empowered with review platforms such as Google Places, Facebook, Vitals, Healthgrades, ZocDoc, BetterDoctor -- and one negative review (in the absence of positive reviews to counter them) could seriously hurt the practice. There's just a lot going on for physicians, and the physician or practice managers are increasingly finding it hard to manage their digital presence.

While EHR's are primarily focused as being the CRM for the healthcare industry, there's a need for a mobile & social dashboard for the physician's office. Think CrystalMD as a hybrid of Desk.com & Buddymedia while EHRs being the Salesforce.com of the industry.

At CrystalMD, we strive to facilitate and nurture the physician-patient relationship with our platform that makes it effortless to manage the physicians' mobile and social presence.

Below is a preview of the CrystalMD physician's digital dashboard (actual stats of a physician office). We are extremely excited about the possibilities and look forward to serving physicians and patients in 2014!

Designed To Fail: Facebook Star Ratings on Pages

As a part of our service at CrystalMD we design and implement Facebook pages for medical practices, and integrate the management of the page in our platform.

Once we create the Facebook page, we make physicians or their practice managers the administrators of the page so that they can invite their friends and family to build the "seed pool" of likes. Over the course of the last year, we noticed a trend:

Several doctors were getting 1-star or 2-star ratings from their friends and family who were invited to like the page.

How strange is that? Why would any of your friends and family rate your practice as 1-star or 2-star? Several doctors called got alarmed and called us to find out what was going on. After doing some poking and usability testing among friends, we reached the conclusion that the star rating system on Facebook pages is prone to erroneous submissions .

“The way you currently give ratings on a Facebook Business Page is by simply hovering over the star and clicking on it. The flow is inherently flawed. Clicking the star submits the rating is not made apparent to the user.”

When you write a review, there is a "Review" button you have to hit in order to submit the review, but that is not made available to submit the star rating. This is likely by design, to encourage people to submit ratings. However, our belief is that this is flawed and designed to fail. People click on the star rating not knowing that the rating will be submitted, as by habit, we seek the submit / review button in order to complete that transaction.

I'm sure this impacts a lot of businesses on a daily basis and Facebook should immediately look into it.

Update as of January 17, 2014: I see that flow to submit star rating is fixed. Users now have to hit the "Review" button to submit the (anonymous) star rating. Thanks for listening & the quick fix Facebook!