— Chris Saad

What is Love?

By: Chris Saad
29-04-2012
Personal, Relationships

In my last few posts I’ve used the word ‘Love’ a lot. I thought I would try to describe what that word means to me.

From the bible (though I am not a big fan of that book)
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

I would add…

Love is truth. Love it is openness. Love is loyalty. Love is nostalgia.

Love survives time, and space. Love survives moods.

Love is vulnerability. Love is drawing power from partnership.

Love is making yours mine. Love is making mine, yours. Love is making you, us. Love is making us, me.

Love is based on trust and friendship. A friendship that could never be abandoned. Love is not being alone.

Love is the thing that survives long after the lust has burned away, the words have evaporated and the disappointments have sunk in.

Love is scary as hell.

The feeling of love peaks and troughs. Love takes faith.

Love is not playing games. Not manipulating. Not having an agenda.

Love begins with loving yourself. It ends with loving everyone and everything.

Love is often confused with fear.

Love is often confused with lust.

Love is infrequent.

Love is evolution.

Love is God.

You can’t convince someone to feel it. You can’t convince yourself to stop.

Love is nearly impossible.

Most people can’t even imagine it.

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Ruminations re: Relationships

By: Chris Saad
16-04-2012
Family, Personal, Relationships

My last post was about personal behavior. This one is about personal and business relationships.

—-

Above all else, you must have a great relationship with yourself. Without that strong foundation, you can not have a strong relationship with another person or organization.

There’s no such thing as normal. We all have our biases and neurosis.

We obsess over ritual, process, dogma and fear. Did he do the right thing on date number 3? Did she file form number 5? Did they come through the right door?

Our egos, pride and fear get in the way of real connections and meaningful leaps of faith. We classify ‘ideal’ as unattainable ‘fantasy’ instead of a worthy goal. We semi-commit, leverage, tell half truths, white lies or outright betrayals. What if your business model matched your vision? What if your words matched your thoughts. What if your thoughts matched your highest ideals – ideals based on love and openness.

We play power games, instead of realizing partnership affords us the greatest power of all. Saying “I need you” or “I need help” is a critical kind of power.

We think we must choose between love, work or self. We are all selfish. But we don’t realize that definition of love is broadening your definition of self to include another person. We don’t realize that success without love is like a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear – it happens but it doesn’t matter. No one gives a shit.

We think we must choose between one person or another. The truth is we are all nodes on a network. We need different types of signals from different kinds of people.

We try to ‘find ourselves’ not realizing that our everyday actions define us. Did you say that kind word to that stranger? Then you are kind. Were you loyal to a friend? Then you are loyal. Did you avoid that confrontation? Then you are someone who avoids confrontation. Did you tell your complete personal truth? Then you are honest.

We look for the next best thing instead of recognizing that truly getting on the same page with someone is the best possibility of all. Achieving that kind of collaboration – even for a moment – should be cherished in the moment and for a lifetime. Sometimes it happens like a lightning strike. Most times it takes hard work, communication and trust.

We forget that the best relationships are about resonating with something or someone. About helping each other evolve by creating safe harbors, new opportunities and covering each other’s blind spots.

We grow complacent and content in our relationships. They require constant work. Each participant must grow, evolve and contribute to the whole.

There are so many stories of people breaking up because they were ‘too young’ and now, years later, they long for that lost connection. “We’re different now. They have a girlfriend now. They are happy without me.” Why did you give it up in the first place? Why not try again? Are grand gestures only for the movies?

There are so many stories of high-school sweethearts that wake up one day resenting each other. Do they resent each other, or do they resent missed opportunities. Being trapped. Missed freedoms. Did they communicate? Did they give each other freedom? Did they create opportunities for each other? Did they leave when the relationship finally no longer served their evolution?

Maybe most relationships are temporary – a day, a week, a year, a decade. We try to have ‘clean’ breakups. Contracts. Lawyers. Relationships are not clean. They are messy. Love is messy. Life is work. Work is life. A relationship is not defined by what you think it should be or what the contract says it will be – it’s defined by every day. Every hiccup. Every earnest effort to do the right thing for the other person.

Time is not running out. We overestimate what can be done in a day and underestimate what can be done in a decade. Breathe. Take your time. Pay attention. Keep perspective.

Is there always imbalance in a relationship? Does one always need the other more. Love the other more? Is that ok? How does one measure the delta. What is the threshold for when the delta becomes too great? When does the relationship no longer serve your evolution and the evolution of your partner?

These are some of the open questions about a partnership that remain for me.

I know, though, you can’t hold on too tight or you will strangle each other.

These things are only cliches because they are true.

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Compelling Behavior

By: Chris Saad
21-03-2012
Analysis, Personal, Relationships

I’ve been thinking a lot about what compels people to behave a certain way. In business. In personal relationships. In life.

I’m certain there are countless books espousing countless metaphors for thinking about the issue. For me it comes down to some common themes.

Perspective

Perspective is perhaps one of the most important human traits. Along with tool building and self-awareness, it’s one of the core things that separate us from the animals. It allows us to switch angles, points of view, lenses, frames of reference or ways of thinking in order to evaluate an idea or circumstance in multiple ways.

Often times when you’re feeling down, confused or looking for a better option, simply try changing your perspective and your attitude or feeling can change almost instantly.

Priorities

Our priorities can affect our actions in fundamental ways. In fact just re-ordering a few subconscious priorities can dramatically change our behavior, loyalties and outcomes.

When you hear someone say “they’ve changed” it’s likely that the person in question has changed their priorities or their perspective because the rest of the items on this list are pretty hard to change without a lot of conscious thought and self-evaluation.

Patterns

Patterns are about what a person has seen in his or her past and is either repeating or trying to break away from. You might also see patterns from your peers or they might even imprint them on you directly with advice. In the worst cases this is peer pressure.

Perhaps it’s their parents. Perhaps it’s a previous business failure. Whatever the case, human beings are pattern recognition (and repeating) machines. We are doing it all the time. It’s very, very easy to fall into them and almost impossible to change them – particularly the fundamental ones.

Patterns are not just about behaviors. They are also about subconscious ways of thinking and the way we might emotionally identify with situations.

In many cases our behaviors change, but the underlaying emotional pattern is the same. Some patterns are probably fairly immutable without a LOT of pain and conscious thought.

Predispositions

There are certain temperaments and personality traits we’re born with. Some babies are irritable, some sleep through the whole night. This isn’t learned behavior, it’s  genetic. Our chemical make ups have a profound impact on our patience, personality and actions.

Sure you can take pills to help with depression or anxiety. Ideally, though, you use exercise or other meditation techniques to adjust your brain chemistry but the core genetics are obviously locked in stone.

Pride

Pride is a powerful force. It can stop us from reaching out, reaching in or just fundamentally seeing the truth. Pride often times leads us to our worst fears and can block us from getting what we want. It’s like a poison that can fundamentally break our lives in ways we can’t understand and may never be able to repair. It’s based on fear (detailed next) but it’s so specific that I thought it deserved it’s own section.

Fear

Fear is an overriding motivating factor. Fight or flight can shut down all other factors listed here and drive us to do crazy things. When we think our person, personality or future is at risk, we can lash out, cut off and fly away from situations or people faster than you can say ‘hey relax, you’re no longer fighting for your life out in the prehistoric caves’.

Love

Living in Love is the highest form of decision making. Highest form of living in general really. Making decisions based on your highest hopes and grandest version of yourself is hard to do because everything in your brain and body tells you to run like hell. When your perspective is wrong, or your priorities are shifting or your patterns are locked in or your predisposition is messing up your clarity or your fear is shutting down your brain and forcing you to simply react, or your pride is getting in the way  – finding your love, much less acting on it, is near impossible.

Find it you must, though.

[Update] Love also has another effect. When you truly love someone else, they become part of you. Part of your definition of self. The way you treat/behave towards yourself is vastly different than the way you would treat anyone else. This can dictate your behavior in ways that even supersede fear.

[Update] Purpose

[Editors Note] I left this out when originally publishing the post but a couple of hours after writing it I attended an inspiring dinner where it was clear many people were trying to use this factor to drive their behavior  - it was an oversight not to include it in the first place.

Purpose is, in many ways, the easiest way to manipulate your own behavior. In fact In many ways it’s the only way to practically (in material ways) determine success because by clearly defining your purpose (and change the world or be important is not clear enough) you can carve a smooth trajectory for your life, make your actions more consistent and ultimately give you something to succeed at. After all, the definition of success is first stating a goal and then achieving it.

Having a grand purpose also helps inspire those around you to action as well. In many cases our purpose is defined by the factors listed above and just as often the factors above block us from achieving it.

Did I miss any?

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The Open Web Is Dead – Long live the Open Web

By: Chris Saad
05-02-2012
Analysis, Attention, Business, Dataportability, Media, Technology, Work

Yesterday Robert Scoble once again declared that the Open Web was dead. His argument was that Apps and proprietary black holes like Facebook are absorbing all the light (read: users, attention, value, investment) and taking our beloved open platform right along with it. In his post, he kindly (but incorrectly) named me as the only person who really cares about the Open Web.

While that’s flattering, I think he’s wrong about me being the only one who cares.

But he is right about the Open Web. It’s in real danger. URLs are fading into the background,  native Mobile apps are all the rage and Facebook threatens to engulf the web into a proprietary black hole.

But I think there’s a bigger problem going on right now. Not just with the web, but with silicon valley (as stewards of the web). We’ve lost sight of the things that matter. We’re obsessed with quick wins, easily digestible VC pitches, stock options and flipping for a Ferrari.

There’s more to this game than that. Let me touch on some of the things I see going on.

  1. Lead not just cheerlead
    In our obsession with being seen by our micro-audiences as ‘thought leaders’ or ‘futurists’ it’s always very tempting to watch which way the wind is blowing and shout loudly that THERE is the future. Like a weather vane, it’s easy to point the way the wind is blowing, but our biggest, best opportunity is not to declare a popular service ‘the next big thing’ just because a few visible people are hanging out there. Rather our collective and individual responsibility is to help articulate a direction we think moves the state of the art forward for both the web and for society at large. Something, as leaders of this field, we believe in. Just like VCs develop an investment thesis, we should all have a vision for where the web is going (and how it should get there) and actively seek out, support and promote quiet heros who are building something that moves the needle in the right direction.
  2. Add to the web’s DNA
    Almost every startup I see today is focused on building an ‘App’ and calling it a ‘Platform’. Too often (almost every time) though, these apps are nothing more than proprietary, incremental and niche attempts at making a quick buck. We need more companies to think deeper. Think longer term. What are you doing to change the fabric of the web’s DNA forever? How can you contribute to the very essence of the Internet the same way that TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML, JS and so many other technologies have done. Even proprietary technologies have provided valuable evolutions forward – things like Flash and yes, even FB. How are you going to live forever? This is why Facebook used to call itself a ‘Social Utility’ instead of a ‘Social Network’. Mark Zuckerberg was never content to be the next Myspace Tom. He wanted to be the next Alexander Graham Bell. And now he is.
  3. Don’t just iterate, innovate
    Of course, someone has to build Apps. We can’t all be working at the infrastructure layer. But too many of the Apps we chose to build (or champion) are incremental. As startup founders, investors and influencers it’s so easy to understand something that can be described as the ‘Flipboard of Monkeys’ instead of thinking really hard about how a completely new idea might fit into the future. Sure there are plenty of good business and marketing reasons why you shouldn’t stray too far from the beaten path, broadening it one incremental feature at a time, but the core essence of what you’re working on can’t be yet another turn of a very tired wheel. If you’re shouting ‘Me too’ then you’re probably not thinking big enough.
  4. B2C, not Ego2C
    Silicon valley is clearly a B2C town. We all love the sexy new app that our mother might eventually understand. Something we can get millions of users to use so we can show them lots of ads. Besides the fact that I think we should focus a little more on B2B, the problem is we’re not really a B2C town at all. We’re actually more focused on what I will call Ego2c. That is, we pick our favorite apps based on how famous the founding team is OR how easily we can use the app to build yet another niche audience for ourselves (and brands/marketers). It would be a tragedy if the social web revolution boils down to new methods of PR and marketing. But that’s what we seem to be obsessed with. As soon as any app from a famous founder gets released we give it tones of buzz while plenty of more deserving projects get barley a squeak. If the app gets a little traction (typically the ones that have Ego mechanics baked in) you see a million posts about how marketers can exploit it. Inevitably the app developers start to focus on how to ‘increase social coefficients’ instead of how to help human beings make a connection or find utility in their lives.
  5. “Users don’t care”
    Speaking more specifically about the Open vs. Closed debate, too often we hear the criticism ”Users don’t care about open”. This is absolutely true and the reason why most open efforts fail. Users don’t care about open. They care about utility and choice. This is why the only way to continue propagating the open web is to work with BUSINESS. B2B. Startups, Media Brands, The bigco Tech companies. They care about open because the proprietary winners are kicking the losers ass and that usually means there are at least 1 or more other guys who need a competitive advantage. They need to team up and build, deploy and popularize the open alternative.  That’s why open always wins. There’s always plenty of losers around who are going to commoditize the popular closed thing. As technology leaders we’re paid to care about things users don’t care about. Things that shape the future. While users, in the short term, might not care, we should dare to think and dream a little bigger. As a case study look at Android vs. iOS. iOS is more profitable for a single company, but the other is now a force of nature.
  6. Death is just a stage of life
    Just because something is no longer interesting doesn’t mean it’s dead. Its spirit, and often times the actual technology, lives on, one layer below the surface. RSS is a great example of this. RSS’s spirit lives on in ActivityStreams and the general publish/subscribe model. It is powering almost every service-to-service interaction you currently enjoy. Is it dead, or has it simply become part of the DNA of the Internet? Could RSS (or something like it) be better exposed higher up in the stack, absolutely, but that will take some time, thoughtful execution and influencers who are willing to champion the cause. The same is true for OpenID and OAuth.
  7. The Arc of the Universe Is long but It bends towards Open
    The battle of Open vs. Closed is not a zero sum game. Both have their time. It’s a sin wave. First, closed, proprietary solutions come to define a new way of fulfilling a use case and doing business. They solve a problem simply and elegantly and blaze a path to market awareness, acceptance and commercialization. Open, however, always follows. Whether it’s a year, a decade or a century, Open. Always. Wins. The only question is how long, as an industry, are we going to keep our tail tucked between our legs in front of the the great giant proprietary platform of the moment or are we going to get our act together to ensure the “Time to Open” is as short as possible. It takes courage, co-ordination and vision, but we can all play our part to shorten the time frame between the invention of a proprietary app and the absorption of that value into the open web platform.
  8. Acknowledge reality
    FB has won. It’s done. Just like Microsoft won the Desktop OS (in part handed to them by IBM), so too has FB won the Social OS (in part handed to them by Microsoft). For now. Acknowledging the truth is the first step to changing it. The only question now is how long we’re all willing to wait until we get our act together to turn the proprietary innovation of the ‘social graph’ into part of the open web’s core DNA. We need to recognize our power. They have ~1B users? The open web has more. Chances are that the major website or brand you work for has plenty of its own users as well. Are you going to send them to FB, or are you going to invest in your own .com. Trust me, I know it’s really, really easy to take what you’re given because you’re too busy putting out a million fires. But as technology leaders I challenge us all to build something better. We’re the only ones who can.
  9. [Edit] Don’t kill Hollywood
    Did you catch the YC post  calling for silicon valley to kill hollywood. Not only was this reckless and short sighted, it’s the exact opposite of what we should be doing. Instead of trying to kill or cannibalize media companies and content creators, how about we work with them to create the next generation of information technology. They have the audiences+information and we have the technology. Instead, most silicon valley companies, by virtue of their B2C focus, are too busy leaching off major media instead of finding ways to help transform it. Sure most of them move slowly – but move they are. Move they must. Helping them is very profitable. I write more about this on the Echo blog – calling it ‘Real-time Storytelling‘
  10. [Edit] Today’s data portability problem
    When I started the DataPortability project the issue of the time was personal data portability. That’s not the case anymore. While user-centric data portability is still being done via proprietary mechanisms it’s a) actually possible and b) moving more towards open standards every day. The real issue right now is firehoses. Access to broad corpuses of data so that 3rd parties can innovate is only possible through firehoses (for now). To put it another way, the reason Google was possible was because the open web was crawl-able - for free – with no biz dev deal. The reason FB was possible was because the open web allowed any site to spring up and do what it wanted to do. Today, too much of our data is locked up in closed repositories that can and must be cracked open. Google’s moves to exclude other socnets (besides G+) from their search results until they had free and clear access to them might be inconvenient for users in the short term, but, as a strategic forcing function, is in the best interest of the open web long term.

End of rant.

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You don’t need to ask permission to change the world

By: Chris Saad
11-11-2011
Analysis, Personal

I was just watching a great TED video about the guy who runs ‘Improv Everywhere’. If you don’t know what that is I strongly suggest you google it and watch the video.

His TED talk had some great themes and some funny videos showing the result of their work, however my key takeaway was from a small innocuous line that he kept repeating as a one of his throw away comments… “and we didn’t even ask permission”.

His final summary in his talk speaks to our collective need to, as adults, remember to play and have fun. But I think that his statement about permission reveals what ‘Improve Everywhere’ is really doing. It’s showing people that it’s ok to impact the world… without asking permission.

Too many people assume that they need to ask permission to change the world.

“I’m studying to be a writer” basically suggests that you are waiting for someone to hand you a permission slip (A degree) which declares you an ‘English Major’. Then maybe you can call yourself a writer? Or maybe after you get your first writing job? Maybe after you publish your first book? Which of these permission slips allow you to declare yourself what you want to be – give you permission to change your little corner of the world?

This applies to everything we do. To be an entrepreneur, to love, to change the rules.

More people need to stop asking for permission – or worse, assuming they could never do something because it’s against the written or unwritten rules.

This theme was echoed by an old interview I recently watched featuring Steve Jobs. He said that the old electronics kits that he played with as a child showed him that ANYONE could build the things they saw around them. A radio, a TV, whatever – these were man made, understandable and attainable things to invent and build for yourself. He mused that these kits were one of the things in his early life that helped him understand that he could build anything he wanted and impact the environment of millions of people.

So for all of you out there waiting for permission to change your life, your career, your perspective or your world – stop waiting. Go do it. Be, Do, Act as my friend and colleague Philippe likes to say.

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Analysis of F8, Timeline, Ticker and Open Graph

By: Chris Saad
24-09-2011
Analysis, Attention, Business, Dataportability, Media

So at F8 last week Facebook announced Ticker, Timeline and extensions to the Open Graph API to allow for new verbs and nouns.

Here’s what really happened.

  • They split their single ‘News Feed’ into 3 levels of filtering. Now (Ticker), Relevant (News Feed), Historical (Timeline). (Side note, we’ve had a ‘Ticker’ style product at Echo that we called ‘Community Stream’ for a long time now – and most of our customers and partners said to us ‘why would we want to show all that data it’s just noisy’. Maybe now they will take a second look.). Question: Will G+, Twitter and the REST of the web adopt the same model? They should.
  • This allows FB to collect more ‘noise’ (also known as synaptic firings or Attention data) which, in turn, allows them to find more signal (also known as synaptic inferences or attention management). I’ve long said that the answer to information overload is not LESS information – it’s MORE. The more information you have the more ability you have to find patterns and surface them in relevant places (I said it so long ago I can’t even find the link). Question: Will independent websites think to collect their OWN Attention data BEFORE sending it to FB so they can leverage for their own purposes. The value of this data is incalculable.
  • Having these new presentation metaphors in place, they then created a mechanism to collect more data in the form of expanded Verbs and Nouns in the Open Graph API. With this new API, user’s are now expected to abandon explicit gestures of sharing and instead, accept that every action they take is auto-shared to their friends. Question: When will the first horror stories start coming out about engagement ring purchases, personal health issues and sexual orientations being inappropriately revealed due to auto-sharing?
  • Using all the bling of the Timeline, along with new messaging and a simple little opt in toggle of ‘Add to my timeline’ they managed to re-launch ‘Beacon’ without anyone noticing (none of the tech blogs I saw even mentioned it). Question: Why did none of the tech media cover that angle of the story?

I continue to be in awe of Facebook’s scale, seriousness, ambition and momentum. There has never been anything like it before.

They have created an Attention Management Platform that rivals Google Search and easily out classes many of my best ideas about Attention Management and Personal Relevancy back when I was thinking about the problem.

It’s breathtaking.

And since it is all done with hard links to a single proprietary hub, it is eating the web like a cancer.

Before F8 it was clear that Google+ was a 1 or 2 years behind FB. Now they are 3 or 4.

Only time will tell who, how and why more open systems will begin to reassert themselves in the ecosystem. My bet is that it wont come from a b2c copy-cat, though. It will come from a well organized, commercially incentivized b2b play.

The part that still confuses me, though, is why ANY serious media company would want their news to load in a ‘FB canvas app’ instead of their own website. It makes zero sense. None of this changes the reality that you need to own your own data and your own point source. I made a little comparison table earlier in the week that explains why.

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WSJ Outsources its business to Facebook

By: Chris Saad
20-09-2011
Analysis, Business, Media, Technology

Today WSJ announced that it has built a news publishing platform that lives inside Facebook - effectively outsourcing their core website to the Social Networking Giant.

The number of reasons this is a bad idea is staggering. I’ve tried to summarize them in a spreadsheet comparing a FB approach verses an Open Web approach.

Please feel free to contribute

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Real Names getting Real Attention

By: Chris Saad
21-08-2011
Analysis, Dataportability, Media, Technology, Work

There’s a lot of fury on the web right now about ‘Real Names’. FB is trying to use it as a unique feature of their comments system claiming it reduces trolling and low value comments.

Of course that isn’t really true. For one, any commenting system could force FB login. Two, users will troll with or without their name attached and, worse yet, many legitimate users won’t participate for any number of reasons if they can’t use a pseudonym. There are plenty of better ways to increase quality in your comments including participation from the content creators, game mechanics, community moderation and more.

The real debate, however, is about G+ trying to copy FB’s stance on Real Names. They are insisting all user accounts use them and are actively shutting down accounts that violate the policy. They are being so heavy handed about that even people who ARE using their real name are getting notices of violation – most notable Violet Blue.

I’m not really an expert on pseudonyms, shared contexts and anonymity so I’m going to stay out of this debate.

The real question for me, however, is what is Google’s strategic business reason for this policy. There must be a long term plan/reason for it otherwise they wouldn’t be insisting so hard.

My assumption is that it’s related to their intention to become a canonical people directory and identity provider on the internet to compete with FB in this space.

FB, after all, does not just get it’s power from news feeds and photo apps – it gets it from the deep roots it has laid down into the DNA of the internet as the provider of 1st class identity infrastructure and identity information.

In this sense, FB’s social contract has served them very well, and Google’s attempt to copy it is a hint that they understand FB is not just a .com feature set, but a powerful identity utility. They must (and in some cases seem to be) understand that strategy and it’s aggressiveness if they are to properly compete with the monopoly. My only hope, however, is that they are coming up with their own inspired counter strategy rather than just copying the moves they see on the surface – because that’s doomed to fail.

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What is ‘Real-time as a Service’?

By: Chris Saad
11-07-2011
Analysis, Media, Personal, Work

First, to define ‘Real-time’

Real-time is no CDN or Cache latency. When there is new data in the database, it’s available to the end-user.

Real-time is not needing to hit the refresh button to see new information. It’s when information folds into the page while you’re reading it.

Real-time is a new volume and velocity of data. A lot of web data used to consist of ‘Blog Posts’ or ‘News Articles’. Documents. Real-time web data is about activities. Granular, human readable micro-stories about the activities that users make.

“I read this”, “I rated this”, “I commented on this”, “I shared this”, “I edited this” and so on. Why? Because capturing, surfacing and socializing real-time activity data is part of the core essence of the social web. The ability to see not just the result of actions by users, but the play-by-play stream of those actions along side faces, names and time/date stamps takes an experience from a static ‘snapshot’ into a living, breathing stream. Further, by enabling users to like, reply, flag, share and otherwise interact with these activities, sites are creating new opportunities for engagement, conversation and conversion.

Real-time is a presentation metaphor. It often (but not always) takes the form of a reverse chronological stream with nested comments and likes. It helps users understand the order of things and mixes content with conversation in a way that drives engagement and return visits.

Real-time means filters instead of facts. Let the user decide what they want to see – to craft an experience that makes sense for them, and their friends.

Now, what is ‘Real-time as a Service’?

If all the things above are true, then it changes everything we used to know about web infrastructure, databases, user interfaces and tools for moderation or curation.

APIs can no longer be request-response. Databases must now store far more data at far faster rates. User interfaces need to factor in names, faces and actions. Moderation and curation tools must leverage algorithms, crowd sourcing and real-time flows.

Real-time as a service, then, is cloud infrastructure that helps make this transition easier.

It is a database that can handle new magnitudes of scale – handling hundreds or thousands of write events per section. Not just to a flat table, but to a hierarchical tree of arbitrary activities.

Site -> Section -> Article -> Rating -> Comment -> Reply -> Like.

It’s a database that can store all items permanently so that users can visit old streams at any time. Permanent storage that can also handle localized annotations. Localized annotations are the ability to modify the metadata of an activity – say a Tweet (Promote it, tag it, retarget it in the tree etc) – in such a way that that your view of a tweet is different from another customer’s view.

It’s a database that enables not just the ability to perform an SQL-like search query, but also continuously updates you when the data changes – so that you can modify the UI on the fly.

It’s a database that returns not just flat query results, but a hierarchical tree – allowing you to present the activity in context.

It’s a database that handles not just a few hundred users requesting (reading) data, but a few million users swarming to see the latest action in a sports game or a concert.

It’s a database that organically makes connections between items by understanding the relationships of URLs and #tags to make implicit links in the graph where and when they’re needed. For example a tweet mentioning acme.com should be attached to Acme.com in the tree.

And most importantly, it’s a database company that understands that the opportunity of the Real-time, Social Web is far too big and moves far too quickly to possibly be built by a single vendor. A company that, as a result of this understanding, chooses open standards over proprietary formats; Partnership with best-of-breed partners over trying to build mediocre versions of everything by itself.

Polls, Ratings, Comments, Live Blogging, Forums, Data Bridging, Data Enriching, Visualization, Moderation, Curation, Analytics Game Mechanics, Authentication… the list is endless. They are all transformed by the Real-time web. They must all be part of Real-time as a Service.

And finally, Real-time as a Service is about service. Enterprise grade support. Best in class uptime. White label.

That’s Real-time as a Service.

Further Reading

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Initial quick thoughts on Google+

By: Chris Saad
29-06-2011
Analysis, Dataportability, Politics, Technology

It’s certainly very slick, but it’s a few years behind FB.

I mean that not just in timing and network effects, but in the much more strategic sense of platform ambition. FB.com was the FB strategy 4 years ago. FB is now going for the rest of the web. It’s reach and role as an identity provider and social infrastructure player makes it much more important (and harder to beat) than launching a cool new service. So hopefully the Google+ team is thinking WAY beyond this as a destination site when they are thinking Google Social Strategy.

So far the broad ranging announcements from the +1 button to Google Analytics adding Social bode well for this being a company wide, product wide refresh. The key to success will be in thinking about the need to compete with FB beyond the walls and products of Google.

The key to that, of course, will be to get deep adoption by major sites.

Update: Upon thinking about it a little more. Google has once again missed an opportunity to play to their strengths. With the document web they played the role of aggregator and algorithmic signal detection system. With the social web, their ideal strategy would be to build the ultimate social inbox. A place where I can navigate, consume AND interact with Facebook + Twitter + Foursquare + Quora +++ in one place.

Instead they created yet another content source.

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