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News site registration

The single hottest topic in the online news industry at the moment is that of required registration. A number of large news sites (the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune) have moved to this model, and many local newspapers are following suit.

If you haven't seen BugMeNot, go and check it out now. It's a simple service for sharing free news site accounts, and it's started to upset some people in the news industry. A post to the online-news mailing list inquiring about possible legal action against the site prompted me to reply with the following:

The flaw here is not with BugMeNot - it's with the entire concept of user registration in its present form. The reason BugMeNot works is that there is absolutely no value to an end user in keeping their account to themselves. If you want to stop people from sharing their accounts, give them an incentive not to. This is not a difficult thing to do - I have a large number of accounts on different community sites which are used to contribute to discussions and manage my personal information. I would never dream of sharing those accounts with others - it would allow other people to impersonate me and damage my reputation. An account that only allows me to read content (a one-way interaction) is of no value to me, so why not share the account with others?

BugMeNot is not a new idea by any stretch of the imagination: shared accounts have existed for as long as sites have required registration for spurious reasons. For as long as I can remember, members of the MetaFilter community have worked together to set up username/password combinations of metafilter/metafilter on sites that require registration to bypass the irritation of setting up yet another account.

If you want to fight BugMeNot, the solution is to monitor the site and ban any accounts for your own site that appear there - but that's just fighting the symptoms. The core problem is the whole idea of registration itself: it's anti-web, anti-user, it doesn't scale and it's a sign of extreme short term thinking. Imagine if every site on the web required registration - no one would use it!

As a web user, I see registration as nothing more than an unnecessary irritation. Before BugMeNot I would simply hit "Back" whenever I saw a registration screen; now I use it to carry on through to the articles and accompanying ads. As a heavy web user who buys online almost as frequently as offline I'm exactly the kind of demographic sites should be trying to attract.

Reading the above a few days later, I think it still accurately represents my thoughts on the free registration model.

Adrian has also posted his thoughts on registration, which run along very similar lines to mine.

For a great example of the mentality behind registration, check out this sp iel from the Toronto Star (via Craig Saila):

Our main goal of asking you to become a registered member of thestar.com is to improve and enhance your online experience with us. Registration is an important piece of our long-term strategy in building a valuable audience for our advertisers and helping us in setting the priorities for future site development and enhancements.

[...]

By asking you to share some information with us we are able to increase the value of our site to advertisers, who help support the cost of producing one of Canada's top news sites, by offering them the ability to target their advertising messages based on the information you provide.

And that's the problem right there: as a user, the value proposition of having more targetted ads thrown at me just isn't a good enough incentive for me to jump through their hoops.

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IS BUSINESS
WAKING UP TO THE NEED FOR
INNOVATION?

After three years of obsession with cost control and outsourcing, there are some mixed indications that business might once again be realizing that you can't cut your way to greatness, and that companies can only survive by continuous innovation, developing brilliant, creative new technologies that solve important human needs. That innovation will hopefully be directed at solving the root causes of disease, crime, violence, mental illness, waste & pollution, urban decay, bio-degradation, unemployment and inequitable distribution of wealth, rather than the design of yet another sneaker. An annual survey by Boston Consulting Group is the latest indicator. The survey of 236 executives in 30 countries found that 20% rated innovation their #1 priority and 90% listed it in their top five priorities. Technology plays a role, but its role is in enhancing and enabling the innovation process, rather than serving as an engine of innovations per se. Expect to see a lot more discussion of what this 'innovation process' is (the charts above and below are three depictions of the process that I have personally found useful), well before you start to see an uptake in actual investment in innovation. And expect to see businesses thinking more broadly about innovation than just new products and services. As customers become both more demanding and more savvy -- and recognize incremental improvements and 'sequel' products for what they are -- not innovations -- companies will realize that innovating their internal business processes, their delivery channels, the technologies they use in operations, collaboration and connection, and even innovating the very business model that determines how the business operates and makes decisions, are at least as important as innovating the things the company actually produces. And in this age of corporate scandals, greed, hostility to customers, disenchantment with untrammelled corporatism, and recognition that corporations are inherently psychopatho logical, we might even see some innovative new forms of business. Another recent BCG article from James Andrew & Kermit King entitled Boosting Innovation Productivity looks at some of the frustrating obstacles to innovation -- long lead times, high failure rates, preference of risk-averse executives to 'buy' rather than 'build' innovations -- and ascribes these obstacles mainly to lack of discipline in both the process and measurement of innovation itself. BCG's study of existing innovation processes and track records suggest that: companies invest too much in incremental improvement and not enough in true innovation investment in innovation is often misdirected into unsuccessful and unproductive projects the best innovation ideas come from outside the company, not from within companies let fatally flawed ideas drag on too long before killing them innovation budgets aren't directed to the most promising projects, but to the ones with key sponsorship innovations are not properly prioritized, and resource allocation doesn't match priority even when they are The authors' advice follows naturally, and is fairly obvious: Add discipline to the process, and especially to the evaluation, prioritization and measurement process. Make the innovation team cross-disciplinary, and make innovation people's full time job. Draw on top outsiders both to feed the idea database and to provide expertise in evaluation and development of innovations. The authors select one of the traditional project screen/hurdle models to ensure ill-conceived and premature ideas are caught and stopped early. In my experience, however, there is a huge danger in such screen/hurdle models -- they tend to block the boldest innovations and encourage 'creeping incrementalism'. In what I think is the most useful section of the article, several innovation 'traps' are outlined: The Denominator Trap -- believing an innovation can capture 100% of an existing product's market from competitors The Sustainability Trap -- underestimating the costs of sustaining market share for the product in years after the initial launch The Substitution Trap -- not anticipating how an innovation can cannibalize the market for the company's existing products The Uniformity Trap -- not treating every new product launch as unique, requiring different approach and sustenance The Tactical Trap -- short range thinking, not assessing the strategic impact of the new product, competitors' likely response, and the 'fit' of the product with the rest of the company's line, image etc. Some additional ideas that I suggest in my Innovation Incubator process: Consider having your core innovation team in a separate, autonomous business unit or company. Creative minds are often very entrepreneurial, and flourish when they are relatively free from bureaucracy, and when they have some of their own skin in the game. Use 'pathfinder' customers on your advisory team -- the select few existing customers who always seem to be a step ahead of the pack, open to new ideas, but solidly aware of marketplace realities Learn the process of 'thinking customers ahead'. Through scenarios, iterative 'what if' exercises, future state visioning and other practices, you can help your customers imagine where their own business will be and could be three or five years from now, and hence what they might want to buy from you by that time to stay ahead of the competition. Don't leave valuable knowledge on the table. An understanding of how consumer tastes are changing in completely different areas from those in which your business operates, an understanding of where the economy is going, and an understanding of demographic changes can provide enormous insight into the potential market for your innovations. In assessing ideas, don't overlook aspects other than customer enthusiasm: deliverability, quality assurance, sourcing of materials, strategic 'fit' with your other products, your company's image and your corporate 'culture', the 'packagability' of the product (easy to explain, distribute and use), possible alternatives, and possible conflicts (competing with your customers, regulatory hurdles). Some wonderful ideas have crashed and burned for reasons that had nothing to do with market acceptance. There's no such thing as too much testing. Small, continuous testing of every aspect of your innovations -- checking and rechecking the market, product quality, timing, ease-of-use, perceived value, life cycle, competitors' offerings, and many other things will allow you to 'fail fast and fail early', so that the probability of a successful launch is maximized. For the accompanying Figures 2 & 3 of Peter Drucker's innovation process, please see my earlier article. The innovation process at the top of this post is from Credit Suisse First Boston and is explained in more detail in my longer innovation paper. The Innovation Incubator is one of the service offerings of my new enterprise, Meeting of Minds.

Yankees Win, but Kevin Brown Injured
(AP)

tech.life@play | Movie-based video games
attracted gamers in 2003

On Waking Up and Living The Mindful Life

CREATING A
LIFE TOGETHER

Diana Leafe Christian's book Creating a Life Together lays out in painstaking detail the process to create an Intentional Community. She is unapologetic about airing the dirty laundry of the 90% of Intentional Communities that have failed, because these are the lessons that must be learned if the next generation of communities is to succeed. "This", says Patch Adams in the book's preface, "is the work for political activists who want to live their solutions." If we want to change the world, we need to Be the Change, and create the model that others can look at and say "See, it works! There is a better way to live!". As a business adviser who has helped many entrepreneurs plan out and start up their companies, I tend to take a lot of the advice in the book for granted, and forget that most people have never learned about the different legal forms of ownership and enterprise, and about enterprise finance. Intentional Communities are essentially Natural Enterprises, and just about all the advice in my book resonates with Diana's advice. The book is extremely pragmatic, perhaps a little too much so for us idealists. I am a believer in self-selection and self-management of enterprises, allowing people to find each other, opt in and opt out as the enterprise or community evolves in ways they like or don't like. Diana's book is address to founders, and assumes that someone will be 'in charge' of the community. And while the book carefully lays out the principles of consensus governance, it warns that such governance isn't right for every community, and unless done properly 'structural conflict' can be the community's undoing. Here's the process outlined in the book, in a nutshell: The qualities needed to found, and belong to, an Intentional Community Creating the community Vision< br> Setting up decision-making and governance processes, fundamental operating principles, preliminary timeline, membership criteria, and documented log of critical decisions made Selecting members and determining what each member must equitably contribute and commit to Conflict resolution and effective communication Legal forms of organization Deciding on land needs, researching, form of holding, registering, creatively financing it, and dealing with neighbours and zoning (in many areas, multi-family buildings are prohibited by zoning laws designed to keep density low, but can have the effect of torpedoing Intentional Community building plans) Site planning Making the community sustainable Wisely, the decision on buying land is near the end of the process (in most failed Intentional Communities it's done too soon and using unobjective criteria). The section of the book on Vision is especially good, and again, it's sound advice for any enterprise: Make it clear, goal-oriented, inspiring, make sure it doesn't create false or unreasonable expectations, and above all, make sure it's a collaborative vision, one that all members take ownership of and buy into. The book has a number of exercises to teach members how to craft a vision document. These exercises 'bring out' the wallflowers in the group, clarify in each member's mind their expectations and ambitions, 'out' unreasonable demands and bullies, and surface hidden expectations. One interesting exercise has each member identify "things, situations and systems that must be or must not be present" in order for them to go forward as a member of the community -- a brilliant and innovative process to level-set and clarify expectations. Another exercise, ascribed to process consultant Rob Sandelin, called Where Do We Draw the Line, has each member use red dots on a large easel to define minimum acceptable and ideal standards and values for the community on matters as diverse as what foods will be raised and eaten, the use of automobiles in the community, and moral and aesthetic standards. The exercise quickly shows where there is, and is not, consensus, and which members are going to be uncomfortable with the group's consensus. There's an interesting discussion on privacy. It turns out most people's initial concerns about not having enough privacy in an Intentional Community is unwarranted. "It's much easier to get solitude in the midst of community than to get community in the midst of solitude", notes Tom Moench, a member of one community. When people opt out, it's more likely to be over personality incompatibilities, unmet or changed expectations, or financial, power or principle disputes -- the same problems that cause many marriages to fail. The shocker to me was the size of successful Intentional Communities. In a survey by the author, successful communities envisioned an average of 50 members in the community, and had an average of 25 participants in early meetings prior to formation. But the median actual number of members is only eleven. an average density of only one person per eight acres of community land! Diana is only interested in establishing how many members a successful community needs, so she doesn't answer the question of why so few successful communities have a substantial number of members. With more practice, as we start to overcome the zoning and other hassles that interfere with Intentional Community formation, and as the Internet and other social networking capabilities allow us to find like minds more easily, will this median size grow closer to the theoretical maximal community size of 150? And is our primeval need for physical and psychological space, and proximity to nature, behind the low density of successful Intentional Communities -- historically hunter-gather communities averaged only one person per hectare (2.5 acres)? The only thing that disappointed me about the book is the fact it doesn't mention something that I think is critical to the cohesion and evolution of successful natural enterprises of all kinds: Love. The word isn't mentioned at all, even in the context of creating community 'glue'. I believe you need to love the members of your community. Diana believes you need to be hard-nosed, realistic and unemotional in (co-)creating and (co-)managing communities, and she's right, but that doesn't mean you have to, or even should, suck the passion out of the venture. When you love each other, you can sustain more adversity, you exercise more patience, you compromise more, you find consensus more easily, you trust each other more, and the whole enterprise is more fulfilling, more fun. I think love is instinctive, more than emotional -- there's something in us that allows us intuitively, if we trust that intuition, to know who we want to make a living with, and how to do it. The book sidesteps issues of human morality other than ecological issues such as veganism and sustainable living processes. Just as in marriage, however, moral issues, differences and lifestyles are a big issue. In the 1960s, a lot of communes collapsed because of differences over monogomy vs. polyamory philosophy, over the acceptability of nudity and public displays of affection (especially in front of children), and over 'it takes a village to raise a child' issues of responsibility for others in the community. The book presupposes the continued existence of monogamous relationships and personal property, and there are many Intentional Communities for which these are critical, contentious issues. But on the whole this is a thorough, brave and valuable handbook for creating Intentional Communities. Another addition to my How to Save the World reading list.

tech.life@play | Xbox's exclusives play
starring role

Schwarzenegger Wraps His Life Story
Around GOP Themes (Los Angeles Times)

Zap Video: Kevin J. O'Brien

Stream Video with MSN Messenger

For a Fee, a Stream of Tunes, Talk and
Video

Eventually You'll Be Able to Stream that
Video Back to Your Cell Phone, Too

Honey, Did You Remember to Call the DVD Recorder?

"The machine has a 400GB hard disk drive, is capable of zapping video elsewhere in a home, and is designed to let consumers program recording remotely over the Internet--including via cell phones. The new product, dubbed the DMR-E500H, and related devices with smaller hard drives, are slated to be available in Japan beginning Sept. 21....

Panasonic said the DMR-E500H offers high-speed dubbing from its hard disk drive onto DVD-RAM and DVD-R discs. The machine can record a 1-hour program onto a DVD-R disc in just 56 seconds, according to Panasonic.

The product comes with an Ethernet port and a broadband receiver, Panasonic said. With the Ethernet connection, MPEG4 video and JPEG photos can be viewed on a PC in another room, the company said...." [CNET News.com]

I soooo want one of these. Here's the relevant paragraph for us, though:

"Bob O'Donnell, analyst at research firm IDC, said making programming choices may not be appealing on the small monochrome cell phone screens common in the United States. But things are different in Japan, he said. 'It's totally possible with the 2-inch, flip-phone cell-phone color screens,' he said. 'In Japan, everybody has those.' "

It's the money paragraph because it's a lot easier to do things on Japanese handheld devices than on those we use here in the U.S. So features like reading ebooks, listening to music, and watching video are more viable services there. Of course, that type of quality and functionality will eventually hit our shores, and these types of devices and services will have an impact on library services and user expectations.

Reuters to stream video of Iraq conflict
| CNET News.com

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"life-threatening problems"

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tech.life@play | Headphones that are a
joy

Will Your System Play Half-Life 2?

Oracle Makes a Play for Life Sciences

tech.life@play | Two games; only one
winner

Real-Life Problems Solved in New IBM Ads
(Reuters)

tech.life@play | Combat's not easy in
this shooter

tech.life@play | Finally, baseball
without steroids

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has
appointed James Brown Brown to be the
first US 'secretary of soul and foreign
minister of funk'

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tech.life@play | Now showing: Games
based on new movies

tech.life@play | Smooth and masterly is
Jade Empire

tech.life@play | Nintendo renews old
favorites for retro fun

tech.life@play | Finding comfort and joy
by returning these gifts

Paid to Play Video Games

Play video on an iPod under GNU/Linux

Video Game Stocks Here to Play

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