Peer Recommendation Is In Fashion, But There’s A Problem

With another article in last weekends Telegraph, with the Head of Bebo saying that peer recommendation is the way forward and the future no less of Social Networks, I can afford to feel very slightly smug that I’ve been barking up the right tree for the last 3 years, or more. Ms Burns says “I know and understand the power of search. However, social recommendations are the future…”

Kate Burns, Bebo Chief says peer recommendations are the future of social networking

My smugness should be short-lived however, as there are still two problems:

Firstly, institutional investors in Europe as yet seem unconvinced that now is the right time to invest in trust network technology or indeed associated consumer facing recommendation service optmised for mobile (Rummble has had lots of interest from VCs but thus far they’re yet to invest).  Business Angels have been very receptive, but the European VCs, in summary feel it is too early. We may yet move across the pond, to the sunny climbs of Silicon Valley, as a consequence.

Secondly and far more importantly, people (even the mainstream media, as the Telegraph article attests) are all talking about “peer recommendation” but forgetting a very important, indeed vital, factor: Trust.

There are a few problems with recommendations from your friends (i.e. your peers). Firstly, I have some fantastic friends whom I love dearly but with whom I do not share the same taste or opinions. That’s not a problem if I want to know from their newsfeed that they’ve gone on holiday, but it’s not so useful if I am recommended the Reiters Supreme Hotel they chose, in Austria, when I don’t golf and hate package holidays.  Secondly, even if ALL my 417 friends on Facebook, the 1400 contacts in my address book and the 500+ contacts on LinkedIn, ALL rated/recommended every place they went, there would still be 100’s of places in the world with no recommendations from them (and that is before you consider that they’d need to all use the same service or services between which recommendations were shared or collated).

While this does unquestionably serve to promote Rummbles trust platform technology as the answer to these problems, it is also the genuine flaw of peer recommendation services such as Geodilic and Whrrl, and of those services that blindly aggregate all data from your streams (e.g. FreindFeed).

Rummble Trust Network technology is not simply a social network, because it connects & infers trust (or lack of) between you and friends but also you and strangers

I am not saying the mentioned services are bad, I am saying simply that the focus needs to shift toward filtering information in a more intelligent way – reducing the noise.

Two of the Rummble team took 10 days out to build an experiment as a tentative step to help make sense of the burgeoning stream of data produced from Twitter; in reality the stream could have been from any social software. Tremors attempts to match Tweets with the venues they are from or referring to, to create a realtime feed of activity in venues across four major cities: London, New York and Austin Texas, with San Francisco to follow shortly.

Tremors is an experiment powered by Rummble

In this very basic first version, you can see what is going on at different venues in the city and it attempts to recognise some basic sentiment about the text. The next step, if we were to invest time in improving the accuracy, is that we could interpret the content as a recommendation (or otherwise) and ally this with content within the Rummble recommendation service.

Ultimately, we’ll be able to construct a trust network between users on Twitter whom may not even know each other, but share similar tastes or opinons, based upon an existing user behaviour. For now, it remains a fun experiment until we can resource improvements. You can read more about Tremors in the Tremors launch blog post.

Kate Burns of Bebo is probably right. Unsurprisingly, technology will evolve to build on and exaggerate existing human behaviour. We cherish personal recommendations because we usually have a basis on which to embrace or reject that recommendation. With social networks, I don’t always know how or whether to trust an acquaintance or a friend who may be outside of my core circle of trust, or whom I may respect but whom I may not know well enough to know if we share the same taste in restaurants or music.

In 2006 I presented a slide deck about “trust networking” and nobody seemed to understand what I was waffling on about; in 2009 I’ve presented a very similar a decks including trust networking and I often get nods of agreement and sometimes even yelps of excitement (see what I did there?

Our lives are built on trust and understanding (or lack thereof). Lets hope the Internet of the future is built on the trust and understanding part, not blind recommendations and lack of understanding.

Remember, “its about the data, stupid!”

Separated at Birth: Bob Bailey & Robocop

More Friday fun. In the second of my intermittent series of dopplegangers, both famous and not…

Bob Bailey (the U.S. national soccer teams manager) is actually Alex J Murphy (aka Robocop)

Robocop and Bob Bailey

Separated at Birth: Richard Hammond & Jimmy Saville

I seem to spend my life spotting people who look like other people. So I’ve given in and will now publish sporadic Separated at Birth posts, in homage to Private Eye, the section which shares the same name I always enjoyed during childhood.

Number 1 – Richard Hammond is turning into Jimmy Saville

Jimmy Saville / Richard Hammond (TopGear)

More Insane Government Internet Security Proposals

I’m not getting enough time to write my blog at the moment (read: I’m choosing to prioritise running Rummble!) but this is too important not to reblog.

Grab a coffee (or green tea, whichever works for you) and read Mike Butchers important post about digital privacy and the march of yet another stupid government agenda on trying to control / mine the internet under the guise of national security, child protection and a raft of other flawed arguments.

I’m not an alarmist nor a conspiracy theorist; I dont beleive the “powers that be” do actually want to control everything or that MI5 or 6 really has an agenda to turn our state into an imiation of 1984. Infact I beleive the sentiment is good – people trying to do the right thing; but they dont understand.

Not only are many of these plans unfeasibly costly and unworkable in practise, but the fact is the technology and the “internet” itself as ever evolving global animal, will always out run the most ardent beleivers who think that you can put a big ear to the pipes of the internet, listen for everything, store everything and then simply do a search to check out every communication this country spews (Viagra spam and all) to find out where the next 9/11 equivilent will be sprung.

Anyone sending information that important, could if they wanted subvert the system in a vast number of ways, not to mention the plethora of services and social platforms which dont even involve an email, telephone call, or SMS. Its not only niave but ill-conceived and a vast waste of tax-payers money, IMHO – and that is before we open the case for the defense of Civil Liberties.

Warning: Don’t order from E-buyer (review of ebuyer.com)

Busy executive? Run a small business? In a hurry?  Dont order from ebuyer.

Tempted by their cheaper than anywhere else prices for a Samsung 22″ monitor for my new graphics guru recently employed, I ordered from them last week.

1. I was going to pay on my personal card. They requested a copy of my PASSPORT and a bank statement. Annoyed, but wanting to simply get the goods, I complied and sent the scanned copies to their email address. Days later, still no delivery. We phoned;  they had no record and had canceled the order. We’d had no email or communication. FAIL No.1

2. we tried ordering again. This time I paid on my company mastercard; they didnt require the passport or bank statement this time, but they wouldn’t accept the order to be delivered to our London office, when the card was registered to our Cambridge office.

3. Reluctantly accepted to have delivery to the Cambridge office, so telephoned this time to ensure the order went smoothly. So we ordered BY PHONE and the guy said they would be delivered the next day, as they were in stock. I even paid extra for fast delivery.

Having arranged carraige from Cambridge to London, I called today to check things had arrived. NOTHING HAD ARRIVED. Tried to call, they had a cue of 9 people infront of me. Dug through my email, it turns out they sent a CANCELLATION OF ORDER EMAIL a couple of days ago; it had gone in my junk (good to know they use a good emailing service). The email gives NO useful information about why it is cancelled; the items were IN STOCK, so they cant be discontinued. We certainly did NOT cancel the order.

Summary of why not to order from ebuyer

3 attempts at ordering, over an hour wasted (atleast), many calls, emails and arranging of transport from Cambridge to London, and NOTHING to show for it.

In short:

• Poor communication
• fussy policies about delivery when other services all manage to provide sensible delivery criteria
• long waiting on the phone
• and the potential to be left furious at having wasted a vast amount of time and f***ing around.

And why am I writing this and using up more time? To save you making the same mistake. Its my only course of retort. Back to Amazon for me; I’ll pay the little extra, as atleast they deliver on-time and without the dance of the postal address ebuyer demand.

The email is all its useless glory, below:

The iphone is good … but not that good.

As Paul Jozefak rightly points out on his blog, it is truly unreal that after all the bitching about lack of cut and paste, they have still left it out. Maybe it will be a Christmas present from them instead

That aside, I still rate the iphone as a fantastic piece of engineering. As a net device, or for apps, its truly fantastic. But as a phone, it truly sucks. Its still better than a Windows Mobile phone, but that isnt good enough – nor should that be a measurement of success!

The iphone came down from Heaven and thus they were all in a clammer.
(know this artist? I’d like to leave credit and link – please leave a comment if you know)

If a phone is going to be “a phone” then it has to do one thing well first: Be a phone.  That means decent battery life, and easy one hand operation for making calls. If I cant retrieve someone from my address book, in the dark with one hand (this is a test, not a regular use case for me and get the right number atleast 50% of the time, its a FAIL.

My life is too rushed, too busy, too many calls to be faffing around with both hands, head dug into my phone screen.

Lastly, there are other more subtle problems– Why do I have to go back to the SETTINGS screen to do basic config changes which I should able to access from with the current mode? Why cant I add a photo into an email, FROM the email I’m writing, rather than START from the photos gallery?…..I could go on.

Currently, I’ll have to carry my beloved Crackberry 8800, the best phone Ive owned in 5 years, and find space in my clothing for the beautiful but flawed iphone, too.

• Want to know about phones? use GSM Arena – fantastic free and well updated resource on phones old and new. Not an ad, I’ve just used it for years and its a great site!

How not to manage Fairford Air Tattoo cancellation

Air Tattoo Director Tim Prince should resign his position or be fired. The Fairford Air Tattoo has never been cancelled in its 38 years history, yet on this sunny day Saturday July 12^th, they have cancelled it because of “a sustained period of heavy rainfall that has resulted in waterlogged conditions not only in the public car parks but also on the airfield itself.”

I am not in a position to judge as to whether this was the right decision or not – I have not seen the airfield.

What I am furious about is that no significant effort was made to contact people who have bought tickets and travelled – in some cases a long way at great financial expense – to attend the show.

I checked the website on Saturday morning before leaving London, actually to see if the aircraft participation list had been updated. Not surprisingly, I missed the tiny note on the page stating that the show was cancelled today. This is absurd in the extreme. With something as major as cancelling the event (for half the participants) WHY is it not SPLASHED across the page in red to avoid anyone not seeing it??? Instead the graphics still stated 12^th & 13^th July.

Its incompetent in the extreme.

I booked a ticket online. RIAT and Ticketmaster have my email address. Did I receive an email telling me it was cancelled? No. Only a moron would not consider sending out an email to all those who bought Saturday or Saturday/Sunday tickets – its cost-free, instant and effective.

Instead I wasted my day, wasted £100 on train tickets and cannot even book for Sunday if I want to.

Other sensible measures would have been to WARN people as the airfield was getting water logged, that cancellation might be a possibility and to put signs (easy to print on any laser or inkjet printer) at major travel hubs (London, Edinburgh, Birmingham) stating that the show was cancelled.

I’m furious and disappointed and other than providing a refund (to take 8 weeks!) for my tickets, RIAT has provided no further compensation – I don’t expect them to pay for my train tickets, that would be naive; but having failed completely to make any effort to inform people who may attend (there was not even a sign at Swindon Station, I had to be told by a bus driver whom I asked) the least RIAT could do is offer a token discount for next years event – one which I doubt I shall be supporting after this years debacle.

In summary, Tim Prince and his colleagues should have:

• Informed all Saturday or Sat/Sun ticket holders on Friday that there were potential problems with water logged fields
• Informed all Saturday or Sat/Sun ticket purchases by email that the show is cancelled as soon as they knew
• Put a very obvious banner in red on the RIAT homepage and Air Tattoo homepage
• Put a simple sign up at Swindon train station
• Put a simple sign up at major transport hubs

Seesmic design changes coming (or been!)?

Am I being REALLY dumb but why are there two site designs? (I sense when I’m given the answer I’m going feel very stupid)

Regular, Flash homepage at www.seesmic.com

What you get if you go to www.seesmic.com/home ..non-flash I might add.

Maybe its just late and I’m being incredibly stoopid.  Seesmic has had a bashing by many for its Flash UI; personally, I dont think its too bad. It may not have that reflective chunky button oversize text Web 2.0 look, but I didnt think it was too bad at all.

That said, I probably shouldn’t be commenting about design right now, as design and UI/Ux is exactly where my own Rummbles weak spot currently is; but we’re fixing it… Watch this space.

London Events I’m Speaking At This Week

Busy week for me coming up on the events front, speaking at 3 conferences in the smoke; if you’re at any of these events, please drop me a line by phone, email, facebook or twitter – the usuals!

On Monday 8th June I’ll be on the Content panel at EDM 08, with Tommy Ahlers, CEO, Founder, Member of the Board, ZYB, Steve Ives, CEO, Taptu and Annie Mullins, Global Head of Content Standards, Vodafone. This year EDM is all about “Search in the Mobile Era”. With some good speakers it should be a good event.

On Tuesday 9th June I’m at Simon Grice’s BEING-DIGITAL conference at BAFTA. I’ll be speaking in the “Social” theme, alongside Loïc Le Meur (Founder, Seesmic), Chris Seth (Managing Director Pizco Europe), and Jerome Touze (Co Founder & Co CEO of WAYN.com) amongst many others!

On Friday 13th June (unlucky for some!) I’ll be speaking about API’s at Carsonified’s FUEL conference. After seeing Cal Hendersons superb talk at FOWA Miami earlier this year, I attend with trepidation as I’m unconvinced I’ll be able to combine as many laughs AND technical information as he succeeded in doing. I think the Carsonified gang are yet to put up his video, but when they do it’s definitely worth a watch. Anyway, if you’re going to FUEL, I’ll do my best to amuse and inform!

Hope to see you there!

Termsheet Shenanigans for Beginners

Rummble is once again engaged in discussions with new investors; the meetings can be fun, interesting, engaging … or they can be stressful, frustrating and painful.

A simple rule can be applied here- If it’s the latter, walk away. That is not to say that meetings with your potential new bed partners will always be easy or not challenging. The best thing to be gained from any investment meeting is the potential to improve your business – regardless of whether that investor invests, or not.

Most angel investors and certainly VCs, see hundreds if not thousands of companies and startups. They have a unique insight and view on your business which should not be ignored.

Some VCs I have met with in the past have demonstrated a surprising lack of understanding of the world (in my case, internet and mobile). It is important that your investors have a clear vision of the future of their own. How else can they fairly judge your take on the world? Moreover, you end up pitching an entire industry sector, rather than your product and your team. Even if they do invest but they dont have a beleif set aligned to your own, it will cause major problems further down the line. You are choosing them too; consider your contact essentially joining your team – if you wouldn’t want to work with them in your team, why are you going to attempt to work with them on your board? Don’t.

In general you need to feel the meetings are “right”, that you see eye to eye at least on the basic: your product and the future of the market.

Ultimately, they are of course, looking to maximize their profits and that of their fund; so sometimes taking a dogmatic position for something you believe is right (be it price, your people or your product) is required – or at worst, some serious brinkmanship.

With haggling and termsheets in mind, the often excellent blog at Found and Read has a great Termsheet glossary outlining the most common terms. Also, check out www.thefunded.com which now has termsheet details uploaded too; its an excellent resource about VCs.

Don’t feel bad now about not knowing these terms as well as the VC – they do it every day, you dont – but do feel bad if you dont make some effort to gen up before discussions begin.

If you don’t know, just say so – you’ll look more foolish pretending to know but not, than simply saying “Liquidation multiple, remind me which one that is?”. After all, if you’re not a seasoned deal-sheet negotiator, they’re going to know that already.

So, it has been said 100 times before, but follow your gut. If you’re going to be a succesful entrepreneur, your gut is probably right.

(update: Found and Read has recently joined forces with Gigaom)