Tom Purves – Product Management, Fintech & AI

Miss Rogue has started an interesting and provocative discussion (starting here ) on the purported death of the browser. The argument being that (connected) desktop apps are making a comeback on the strength of being more network aware but not dependent on network availability (you don’t need to be online to check your outlook calendar etc.) as well as the traditional strengths of desktop apps: better access to local filesytem, other apps and peripherals; less memory/cpu overhead and so forth. And this argument has some weight, webapps can’t solve every problem yet (though they’re getting closer, at democamp last week, I was amazed to watch a browser/flash app capturing, processing and vlog posting live from a plugged in webcam).

But consider this. The trend in connectivity is always towards greater ubiquity and the cost of bandwidth always trending towards zero. If you ask me, the biggest threat to MS office isn’t the current crop of webapps, it’s widearea broadband wireless technologies like WIMAX, EVDO (and their successors) and the ever cheaper cost of silicon (now you can get a decent wifi enabled laptop for $600, the same specs down from $2000 3 years ago). Extend this trend into the future. Mebabit connections approach free and become as ubiquitous as cellphone coverage is today (or more so). And meanwhile connected hardware becomes ever cheaper and wildly proliferate. Someday soon, useful full-featured hardware will be cheaper than hardcovers.

still want all your data and applications tied to a single desktop?

Wait, before you show me yet another longtail business plan, have you done the math to know how long the tail really is in your market really is? Don’t assume that in every business that the long tail is created equally.

The Long Tail meme is a great one and story you’ll be hearing even more about (if that’s possible) now that the book is out. The long tail is a wonderfully evocative name for a certain type of business model that’s springing up everywhere in the web2.0 and especially the content industry. The basic premise being that technology has now made it possible to reduce the frictions of serving even the tiniest of niche markets – which in aggregate could add up to big business – if the latent demand in these markets actually exist.

This post stems a conversation I was having with Rob Paterson over on his blog here about the (so called) 1% rule. And why I think it’s dangerous to apply a fixed rule of thumb (such as the 80/20 rule or the idea postulated that most of the content of any socialmedia community will be produced by 1% of the participants)

Now it’s certainly true that great many markets (from blogosphere traffic to record sales) follow a declining powerlaw or long tail curve.

However, the concavity of that curve is affected by many factors including, for instance, the nature of the community, the design and/or intrinsic properties of the interaction medium. For example, the fall-off of the curve is much different for some markets or communities than for others even if they both follow a long tail curve.

look at the shape of the curve, for example of the most popular tracks of the Proclaimers (classic one hit wonder with “i would walk 500 miles”
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Proclaimers/+charts

vs steepness of the curve of the rolling stones (flatter)
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Rolling+Stones

vs Beatles (even more flat)
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Beatles

What is the moral of this story? To use these two extreme examples, If you had the chance to go in to business marketing, say the long tail of the Beatles Catalogue I would go for it. But the Proclaimers Catalogue? Now matter how many tracks you’re willing offer, the public is only ever going to buy one of them.

Some tails are longer than others Caveat marketer.

As with all businesses, it pays to know your market. The power law curve follows the equation y=x^-n where the greater the n the steeper the curve. Plot out the curve of your customer base in excel and see what curve fits. Eyeball (or indulge in a little integral math) to see where the bulk of the area under your curve really is.

We have Demo’s on tap tonight:

1. WildApricot
2. JobLoft.com – Google maps-powered job board
3. Filemobile Power tools for bloggers, letting users videoblog and moblog with ease. Democamptoronto account setup at Filemobile (democamptor, password), so upload your stuff to: democamptor.7579@filemobile.com, or login and upload.
4. Languify A not-yet-released tool from the Nuvvo team & NicolaasHandojo to manage translating your user interface to new languages. (For more information see DemoCampToronto8Languify.)
5. Mike McDerment (FreshBooks.com) – How to Measure the Success of Your Web Service

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location is at no regrets (lets hope there’s a mic this time?)