Virtual Identity Dialogue

I have been playing around with GoAnimate which is a website that lets you build Flash animation clips. Besides making it very simple to create (if you can build a PowerPoint, you can build GoAnimate) - they have licensed characters from third-parties such as Star Trek. You can also upload your own.

I thought it would be fun to see if this might be another way to explain technology information.

You can check out my clip that I built to explain virtual directory (in general, not OVD specific) technology using the characters from Star Trek.

I'm on a bit of a Star Trek kick here on the blog. Though to be clear - I'm pan-sci-fi fan. Meaning I dig Star Trek, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica (both the original and updated) pretty much equally.

I'm also a big fan of classic NASA.

(That's the Saturn V which was used to go to the moon. I cannot describe my thoughts on the Space Shuttle in a family friendly manner - having one explode over your house (Columbia) leaves a sour taste)

But the point I wanted to make in this post was about expectations with the new Star Trek movie coming out this week (May 8). And to see how the core fan base will react.

The element is that beyond simply the origin story (which is going to both anger and enlighten the core fan base) but can Trek move forward with new actors playing the original characters. This is something Gene Roddenberry always hoped for - after all nobody knows (or cares) who first played Macbeth.

And we've had several people play similar mythological characters (from Batman to Superman to James Bond).

But for many people the personal of Captain James T. Kirk is personified by the identity of William Shatner. Of course Shatner is still working (though hasn't played Kirk in almost a decade) which keeps him in our public mind's eye. However, he's one of the few actors to be successful in multiple character roles - we may mock him, but it's quite amazing to look at the array of personalities he's played - Kirk, T.J. Hooker, Denny Crane. He's also had a number of smaller hits  - Rescue 911 (the first successful reality show) and Tek Wars (based on a successful series of books he co-wrote). And Priceline.com would not be as successful without him as their pitchman.

And I think this does tie into some discussions around identity vs persona on the net.

The single identity - William Shatner is known as different personas depending upon context. But unlike the net, TV/Movies help you know what context he's in (Kirk's starfleet uniform is much different than his suit & tie as Denny Crane). That shifting of context and the ability to completely separate them will be a key to future evolution of the net because even in real life we have our "work persona", our "family persona" and our various "friend persona". We need to be able to better separate these contexts to improve the social-aspects of the net.

I don't believe there are any magic bullets here - I think it's going to take a deployment of new technologies (like IGF) and updates of laws & social norms (I strongly suspect a rise of the importance of the self over the collective that is the foundation of most notions of privacy will happen).

Finally for what it's worth - I'm anxious to see the new Trek. I think they are smart to do an origin movie and a new set of adventures. Hopefully the movie will aim to please an older audience instead of the kids the way Lucas went with the recent Star Wars. I don't need as dark as the new Battlestar but I don't want 9-year olds flying the Enterprise either.

Fellow PM (on the OAM Suite team) Mark Karlstrand has just posted a link of stories about our new service with British Telecom (BT).

I think this is important - not only because it involves Oracle products and a partner. Though it does give me a chance to talk about some interesting facts I've learned over the past few days.

First - this is important because identity assurance (aka how much do I trust you are you) is vital to do business.

Second - this is an excellent use case of how telcos can add value (and thus revenue) based on the things they already do well besides simply selling you the data-pipe.

Third - mobile phone adoption is growing at a massive rate - it's being said (I believe I saw it on a Mobile 2.0 presentation) that by end of 2010 - half of the planet will have access to mobile phones

Fourth - twice the number of people have mobile phones than who have credit-cards (though I'm pretty sure anyone who has a credit-card has a mobile phone) :).

Fifth - in many places (in particular developing world) mobile phone minutes are a form of currency - thus the market for this type of service is practically unlimited (though how you convert minutes into money for your quarterly reports will need to be worked out :)) .

Exciting stuff and will be interesting to see how the adoption of the service goes.

For those so inclined - I'm now on Twitter as "mewldap" (e.g. @mewldap). I'm still playing around with Twitter - so I may occasionally post some of my other non-IDM stuff there (though I'm trying to keep that as just Facebook updates) but if you just want to follow my IDM related tweets - I'll tag them as "#Oracle_IDM".

Last week Marc Canter posted his collection of links for first week of May.

However, one item caught my attention:

See how this works? TinyURL creates a market, the VCs swarm in and fund up bit.ly and now everyone will have their own URL shorterner. This is how our industry works.  No innovation, just copying the sure thing.

I wanted to respond to this  as a way to tie together some thoughts building in my head based on a couple of books I've read/reading recently.

The first book is "The Innovator's Dilemma"  -- which covers (based on empirical research) why successful businesses are replaced by upstarts based on variety of factors. His focus was on disk-drive manufacturers - effectively the leaders of a form factor (starting with mainframe drives) were replaced by new leaders when new form-factors emerged because the new form-factors didn't meet requirements to succeed initially but blazed new markets until they could attack the older market. He then points out how this has been repeated in other industries like steel (with mini-mills). 

and the second is "Why Evolution is True" -- the title basically says it all :).

Here is how I would respond:

First - as an investor in any project (and by investor this isn't just the VC, it's the employees as well - even if that's just working a job for a paycheck) - you want to increase your chances to succeed. That's easiest when you have an existing market. Nothing is harder (and more likely to fail) than establishing a new market. Remember Apple didn't invent the personal digital media player market. They just perfected it.

Second - just because products are in same basic market does not mean there is not innovation.

First a non-tech comparison - coffee. Aka "Starbuck Wars".

We all recognize that Starbuck's helped create the market for good-tasting coffee and "coffee drinks". This of course spawned numerous direct copies but also spurred innovation in other areas. This ranges from McDonald's (I occasionally like to indulge in a Bacon & Cheese McGriddle - now I can do so with a pretty good tasting cup of coffee) to local coffee shops that serve areas where Starbuck's won't and even to home coffee. Without Starbuck's - The home Flavia wouldn't exist. And would probably be drinking instant. Instead I get to indulge in a really good tasting coffee that is fresh-brewed, single serve and comes in a number of varieties. This also includes the ability to make "mixed" drinks like cappuccinos.

All basically are "coffee" but a wide-variety of innovation within the same market.

In the biological world - my favorite example would be dogs. Dogs have the most variety of any single species. A species loosely being defined as biological organisms that can produce fertile offspring. My friend Tracy owns the best examples of this. He has two dogs - one is a miniature chihuahua (weighs < 2 lbs) and the other a golden retriever (weighs > 70 lbs). My own dog is a mini-dacshund which is bigger than the chihuahua (about the only dog he's bigger than) but still much smaller than the retriever. All share a common ancestor (current thought is that the original dog was a wolf in Europe). But each has different traits that were bred to differentiate the breed. For example - dacshunds are short, squat, excellent diggers with loud barks because they were bred to hunt badgers. 

So now back to URL shorteners.  An URL-shortener service is a service that allows you to take a long URL (such as an Amazon book link, Google Map URL, practically any Oracle.com URL) and converts it into something that is much shorter. Initially this was done to make it easier to exchange links via email. Now it's practically a requirement if you use Twitter.

Let's look at the three examples referenced in Canter's post:

• TinyURL
• Bit.ly
• Amazon (ironically this link is to a blog-post, that is itself hosted by another URL-shortener service...)

While they all belong to the same common-market - I would disagree they are all copies of each other.

TinyURL is basically just a URL shortener and was the market originator.

Bit.ly - allows you to track how many people actually click on your link. Which is useful - even if just for vanity reasons.

Amazon - has a long history of adding services that make it easier to use their marketplace. Additionally this helps control their brand without actually restricting the other services.

In short - innovation most often occurs within a single market category. And that while from a high-level this may appear to be the same - but there is usually strong differentiations - in particular for the successful.