Category Archives: innovation

Behind the scenes of the Open Platform’s evolution

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Matt McAlister

When I came to the Guardian two years ago, I brought with me some crazy California talk about open strategies and APIs and platforms. Little did I know the Guardian already understood openness. It’s part of its DNA. It just … Continue reading →

Posted in All, advertising, innovation, journalism, media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Using fantasy football to drive network effects

Posted on August 14, 2008 by Matt McAlister

Network effects accelerate when services are accessible wherever the user is engaged. That leap has been made in many different contexts in online media from advertising (AdSense) to participation and personal publishing (Flickr and Twitter). More mainstream publishers got close … Continue reading →

Posted in innovation, media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Local community data reporting

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Matt McAlister

EveryBlock has taken a very data intensive look at local news reporting. As founder Adrain Holovaty explains: “An overall goal of EveryBlock is to point you to news near your block. We’ve been working hard to do a good job … Continue reading →

Posted in community, data, everyblock, innovation, journalism, local, outside.in, swivel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The useful convergence of data

Posted on January 3, 2008 by

I have only one prediction for 2008. I think we’re finally about to see the useful combination of the 4 W’s – Who, What, Where, and When. Marc Davis has done some interesting research in this area at Yahoo!, and … Continue reading →

Posted in behavior, community, data, design, future, ideas, identity, innovation, local, marketing, personalization, programmableweb, recommendations, semanticweb, social, theory, trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Internet’s secret sauce: surfacing coincidence

Posted on December 14, 2007 by

What is it that makes my favorite online services so compelling? I’m talking about the whole family of services that includes Dopplr, Wesabe, Twitter, Flickr, and del.icio.us among others. I find it interesting that people don’t generally refer to any … Continue reading →

Posted in behavior, community, creativity, data, delicious, design, dopplr, edge, flickr, future, ideas, innovation, internet, models, network effects, platform, programmableweb, recommendations, social media, strategy, transparency, trends, twitter, visualization, web services, wesabe | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Building community is hard

Posted on October 15, 2007 by

Jay Rosen has an interesting post on the failure of AssignmentZero, an effort to build a publicly funded crowdsourced news organization. Among the many lessons, he keeps coming back to motivation and incentive. “A well managed project correctly estimates what … Continue reading →

Posted in citizen media, citizenjournalism, collaboration, community, innovation, journalism, media, news, participation, peer production, social media, startup, trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The business of network effects

Posted on August 15, 2007 by

The Internet platform business has some unique challenges. It’s very tempting to adopt known models to make sense of it, like the PC business, for example, and think of the Internet platform like an operating system. The similarities are hard … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, behavior, dareobasanjo, data, development, future, ideas, identity, innovation, jasonkottke, marketing, media, models, network, network effects, nick carr, participation, peer production, personalization, platform, recommendations, semanticweb, social media, strategy, trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Thinking about media as a platform

Posted on July 3, 2007 by

Back in my InfoWorld days (2004-ish?) I somehow woke up to the idea that media could be a platform.1 Whereas my professional media experience prior to that was all about creating user experiences that resulted in better page views and … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, innovation, media, models, network, network effects, platform, washingtonpost, web services | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Freebase.com is hot

Posted on June 22, 2007 by

I don’t get a chance to review products often enough these days. But when I heard about Freebase I knew I needed to dive into that one as soon as I was able. Fortunately, I was invited only yesterday to … Continue reading →

Posted in database, freebase, innovation, search, semanticweb, startup, wikipedia | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

How to fix building construction bureaucracy

Posted on May 31, 2007 by

Sometimes I forget to step outside of our little bubble here and see how people use or in fact don’t use the Internet. When I get that chance I often wonder if anything I’m doing in my career actually matters … Continue reading →

Posted in business, collaboration, community, construction, data, design, development, government, how to, ideas, innovation, manufacturing, peer production, san francisco | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments