Tom Purves – Product Management, Fintech & AI

The great vole of software reached out to me this week with an invitation as well to no doubt a few more of the usual local suspects and most of whom no-doubt rather more usual than me. Reaching out to bloggers they are, luring us with the promise of free drink or two at the gladstone and promises of a few peeks or two under the kimono [komodo -ed?] of what they’ve been busy with in Redmont.

To be honest I don’t spend much of my day thinking of Microsoft’s web technologies and related. Though were I were thinking much about them I would remember thinking this the other day:

About a week ago, rumors surfaced that apple is planning a competitor to google maps, and they’re calling it… “Maps”

Wow what a clear and simple brand name. I know if I was Joe/Jane consumer there would be roughly zero ambiguity in my mind about what that program does. If the icon says “Maps” on it, I pretty much know where to go if I’m looking for maps in my operating system or online service.

To understand why this just kills me, you have to realize a second thing. Microsoft also has recently launched a competitor to Google maps. And what do they call this brilliant service… wait for it… “Windows Live Local”

Windows Live Local. What the hell does that mean? Sounds like some kind of networking application to connect my operating system’s to, like, other things in the immediate vicinity? – rather than a global Web-based mapping service. yowza.

The irony of course is that Microsoft’s service, horrifically disingenuous name notwithstanding, is actually pretty good. You can do very subtle things like ad annotated pushpins to a map (x marks the spot etc.) and mail those to a friend, something I wish you could do (easily) with Google maps. And it’s pretty looking.

But “windows live” branding (not to mention the word local) kills me. The brand itself seems like a desperate attempt to create in the mind of consumers the idea that Windows Itself has something to do with the Internets. Reminds me of the days would Intel would try and suggest it’s newest cpu would make your internet faster. In Microsoft’s case though, this internet=windows philosophy seems to be deeply ingrained in their current strategy. I believe Microsoft is trying to take the Internet out of the browser. This philosophy of course flies in the face of every trend in the software industry of the last several years where one by one every major application has been sucked in to the browser. The core office applications being the last great holdouts (and now challenged by the likes of Google spreadsheets, calendar and writely etc.)

From what I’m hearing so far from those in the know, Visata and Office 12 is all about the Empire strikes back. Rich and creamy thick clients with all the goodness of rss, search and online collaboration but without that flaky browser shell. Interesting. Will this be the revenge of the thick client or Office’s last stand? next year will tell.

In the meantime, pay no attention to the Firefox in the corner

The Internet is now on Windows, And It’s Live! …and, er… Local

Photo, enjoying a drink on the patio of the lovely Gardiner Museum before CaseCamp2.1.

Academic evangelsim: Daniel Shapiro, Audience Marketing Manager, Microsoft

* Discussed long running Microsoft program to find and reward student evangelists
* Historically, hired leading students paid hourly rate, expensive but somewhat successful
* New program reward students post-facto for acheivements in promoting Microsoft for organizing events, communities on campus etc.
* Importantly reward students non-monitarily. MSDN subscriptions, job contacts/interviews with microsoft or msoft partners
* Students valued these rewards higher than the cash and program/students were able to evangelize msoft in a much more authentic way

Pushing the buttons that make Toronto come alive: Matt Blackett, Editor, Spacing.ca

* Matt Blacket invented the buttons in one part to promote his magazine as another to show up how awful the job the TTC does at promoting itself
* Sold 800 buttons the first day at trade fair
* Big break was when the mayor started wearing them, then boingboing picked up on it
* Buttons brought in tons of cash for the little magazine
* 11% of online button buyers ended up buying subscriptions – a huge conversion ratio compared to, say, direct marketing
* dailly visitors to their website before buttons 68, after launching buttons 473, after buttons plus starting a blog 651- 3,000

Podcasts Gone Bad – Leesa Barnes, President, Caprica Interactive Marketing

* Great idea to do a case on a good marketing idea gone bad and what we can learn from it
* Bad idea to do a case were the presenter blames the failure entirely on “the client” hmmm

Unboomed: Andrew Michael Baron, Co-founder, Rocketboom

* context, in case you missed it the biggest blogosphere story of the week the untimely and shocking departure of Amanda from rocketboom one of the webs leading sites in the very new field of video podcasting (300k+ viewers a week)
* they had just closed their first ad deals for 40k and 80k a week in advertising though the money was still yet to come in.
* “communication problems” since march. Amanda the host wanted to go to LA.
* Andrew the producer and writer of the show was willing to move but ‘she didn’t want me to come with her’
* They had been in discussion for weeks with a mediator. Last thing that happened and who had given Amanda an offer to continue doing the show bi-coastal or, worst-case, to arrange a transition to a new host. Amanda “walked out” “in the midst of negotiations”
* Thus far this is a story of “what happens when you lose control of the message” Andrew you could Towle has been dying to tell his story, but has remained restrained so far.
* Clearly scared ” this is the biggest challenge have faced in my life” but he’s moving on. Rocket boom will go to air on Monday.
* “I know the audience will be back” he says. “the only way to make it true this stage is… um… not sure” final quote.

Enjoyed a lovely dinner afterwards with some fellow campers. Rather unexpectedly, the night ends with John and Malgosia both in bed with another woman. It was CBC filming a pilot for a new talk/improv/reality show this one on the subject of infidelity. and shot on the streets of your Yorkville. in a bed. Fav quote from Malgosia “I can’t even remember sex before John..” awww Watch for the cute couple on a national television near you…

Had a good time as usual at democamp the other night. It’s fun to watch this thing grow, now with so many camp inspired meetups going on (and more every week) we’re soon going to either the most clued-in and/or the most chronically alcoholic tech community anywhere.

Some feedback though for presenters and organizers at future camp events:

1. Teach us don’t tell us. As always the best presenters don’t just tell us about yet another ruby on rails (YARR) web2.0 they live together in record time for the burgeoning Yak herding enthusiast community of Toronto etc. but rather – teach us about what to learn building it. The Paruba.com folks did this well, they didn’t just show us the application they told us what they learned and what mistakes they made along the way and offered advice for anyone trying to build something similar.

2. Wait until you have users. There’s a temptation to demo as soon as the software is ready, just when you most excited about it. If you are demoing a product and not just pure technology, it’s all still theory until people start using it. there were a bunch of interesting questions last night about how users and communities who are using these new softwares but the answer was always the same – I dunno, we just launched it. Ask us in three months? So my advice, you to wait until you have some users and you’ll have more to teach, or be sure to come back in three months and tell us how it turned out.

3. Acoustics. Again this was a problem for some people in the back. When you have a budgetless organization meeting in ad hoc locations sometimes things like considerations for some systems and acoustics don’t happen. This was one advantage I believe of meeting at MaRS. I seem to recall everyone could hear.

My photos of democamp 7 (John Green took like a thousand)
more photos photos of democamp 7