Really cool presentation by Matt Webb (blog and business links starting from here) about the prototyping of a kind of “Social Radio” – in the hardware sense. And if you think to something similar to Last.fm, yes, Matt says that it’s “Bringing the social features their software as to a hardware product”. Actually a prototype and not a product, it’s a project they are doing for BBC. And the BBC will be releasing it with a “Creative Commons-like” license to consumer electronic manufacturers. So who knows if an actual product will ever hit the shelves, but it’s a really interesting approach.

Co-creation: slide by Matt Webb, photo (CC) by Alberto D'Ottavi

The idea starts from the fact that radio, in Britain, is still (or, better, again) very successful. Recently took over the audience of tv for the first time after 50 years. So what about creating a complete new kind of hardware stuff, being able to understand and save your preferences, compare them to your friend’s one, and with open APIs? E.g., their prototype has a two-function physical rolling button. The first function allows you to find stations, the other let you switch between the ones you listen to frequently.

I find the idea of pulling down software function from the Web and crafting them in hardware, and then collect data to push on the web again is really fascinating. And even more powerful are the perspective emerging from the Co-creation principles that Matt used for explaining his work.

At the panel session on print media, here at Web 2.0 Expo, comparing uses and adoption of Web 2.0 functionalities by media over Europe and the US. Three newspaper-surveys has been made by Luca Conti for Italy, Robin Hamman in UK and Stephen Bueffel in Germany, studying the use of RSS, blogs, podcasting and "freedom of content" on the model of the research "The Use of the Internet by America’s Newspapers" made by The Bivings Group. Not good news for anybody, indeed. Following you can find the presentation about Italy findings, by Luca. Amanda Lorenzani should be blogging also, from here or here. Here’s the photos of the panel, here from all Web 2.0 Expo.

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During Web 2.0 Expo, and thanks to a partnership with Reply, I met Dion Hinchcliffe. We spoke about his views of Enterprise 2.0, or applying Web 2.0 methodologies in companies. Dion blogs regularly about this on ZDNet, and writes also on Social Computing Magazine. He has a consultancy company, and is launching the Italian and German chapters of his Web 2.0 University, in partnership with Reply. You can read the Italian version of this interview on Reply’s blog about Web 2.0. Da questo link si può scaricare il file mp3 dell’intervista integrale, in inglese.

What is really important about Web 2.0?
The key point here is about the rules for winning on-line, to build the most effective and successful businesses that are powered by your customers.

Do these technologies apply to companies of any dimension?
Even companies that haven’t traditionally been offering products or services on the web have to be connected to the customers. They can service them and provide a better experience about the products that they offer. General Motors had a very successful story on-line, engaging their customers in a very inexpensive and very efficient way.[//]

Which are the main fears of companies about Web 2.0, and how do you address them?
One concern that I hear over and over again is about the user being more in control of the Web than even before, and that most of the Web today is user-generated. Companies are concerned of giving up control, especially of their brand. They have invested on it, and are very protective. They are afraid of losing control of the message they give to the market. But they have to find strategies to deal with it. Of course intellectual property has to be protected, but you also have to need to embrace the model that is becoming relevant in the marketplace. For examples companies can solve this creating sub-brands, more adapt to the Web 2.0 environment.

You often tell the story of Nupedia versus Wikipedia. Why is this an important example?
One of the fascinating aspects of the Web 2.0 era is that we have to make software that works like people works. Nupedia was the original version of Wikipedia, and they had a global networks of minds that helped creating the encyclopedia, but they didn’t let the people become part of the revision process. The more barriers you have, the less others participate. So when they evolved to the Wikipedia model, reducing the number of revision steps and opening to the public, the number of contributions grow immediately. We don’t look to the human factor enough: our products are principly powered by us, and they should work the way we prefer to work.

Do you think that the consumer Web 2.0 can be helpful inside companies too?
Sure. Things like blogs, wikis or communities have been very successful on-line. There is more than one million and a half new blog posts created everyday. It’s an incredible level of participation and productivity. We would like to recreate this kind of participation inside companies, and we can tailor and adapt the systems in order to respect company’s rules.

The "collective intelligence" can work also inside the company?
Absolutely. Today it often happens that the knowledge of companies remains in documents or files that are lost or hidden. If you make it public to the rest of the company, for example using a blog, competences and knowledge of all the company continue to grow.

What means "widgetizing" the Web?
Widgets, that are small application components, represents a new distribution model. It’s a technical way of building applications that gives the end-users data and functionalities in a very simple and efficient way. We will see the rise of products that enable the use of widgets in enterprises. IBM and Microsoft are investing in this direction.

So you think that software can give more result having less features?
Yes, wikis are an example of that. The more complex a piece of software is, the less it can be used in different situations. People will naturally gravitate around the tools that are easiest and more productive.

What are you announcing here?
Web 2.0 University is meant to educate business leaders on how they can apply the innovations of Web 2.0. How to think about a modern product on-line. We already had over 3.800 students that did these courses, and they tipically are from the middle manager up to CEOs. We started in the US and now opening in Europe, and with Reply in Germany and Italy.

Thanks to Ulrike Reinhard, blogger and producer on Who is Who, here at the bottom you can find the podcast of the keynote speech that Tim O’Reilly addressed to the public yesterday night. Following you can find my personal notes.

To say it in few words, Tim spoke passionately about "doing things well". From the beginning of the hardware assembly, to his Make Magazine and Burning Man (photo), up to the foreseeable innovations of Web 2.0, Tim really overcharged the audience with his strength and arguments. "Don’t think about the software, think what data are you going to manage" has been his first raccomendation, and this is crucial, because "If you don’t have a strategy for self-improving the data, you’re not a Web 2.0 company". But if data analysis is a usual aspect for any business, the kind of observations you can collect with a Web 2.0 approach is of a higher level – usage pattern, automatic profiling and the whole, up to behavioural targeting.

But this is only the foundation of what can be built, even on top of the actual Web 2.0 applications, that need to be better built. Perspectives are amazing: "sensors" are the next cool thing, from the software ones – he made the example of Last.fm’s plug-in, that learns your habit without asking you to declare preferences – to the hardware. "Integration" seems to be his keyword, even if never pronounced, and he suggested to study better how Apple’s iTunes is designed, saying that "it is one of the best 2.0 applications ever", to understand the model.

This is now: Web 2.0 is building from the already know experiences up, because "Web 2.0 naturally goes towards consolidation and aggregation", and in this the "big guys" has a growing force. But innovation and good design still gives us the chance to answer.

Here Tim’s photos, here my other shots about Web 2.0 Expo, here all the photos about the event.

[Articolo scritto per IlSole24Ore.com, in questa pagina -ad]

Pur rappresentando un’opportunità di sviluppo, la nuova Internet mette anche paura: i “big” della Rete, infatti, sono destinati a crescere sempre di più. Almeno fino a quando i “piccoli” non trovano la giusta innovazione. Le tante aziende europee che lo stanno facendo si incontrano a Berlino, e tra loro anche tre italiane.

Più di duemila i partecipanti previsti per il Web 2.0 Expo, che apre ufficialmente oggi a Berlino. Prima edizione europea del Summit californiano ideato dall’editore Tim O’Reilly, inventore del termine “Web 2.0″, l’appuntamento si propone di fare il punto su strategie, tecnologie e, soprattutto, sulle idee per rinnovare con efficacia la presenza in Rete delle aziende.

Durante il keynote speech tenuto al termine della prima giornata di workshop per addetti ai lavori, O’Reilly ha sottolineato la centralità delle informazioni, per qualsiasi business, e l’efficacia che oggi hanno le applicazioni del Web 2.0 in questo ambito. “Non bisogna pensare al software”, ha affermato, “bensì ai dati che devi gestire”, indicando così una strada importante anche per il marketing delle aziende, che trovano nelle visite del proprio sito la prima risorsa su cui sviluppare nuove forme d’offerta.

O’Reilly ha anche criticato una certa forma di entusiasmo per le social network, che a causa di una certa eccessiva facilità allo sviluppo di contatti perdono di efficacia. Partendo dall’osservazione che una social network dovrebbe riflettere le relazioni effettivamente in corso tra le persone – professionali o personali – ha così anche indicato una strada di sviluppo verso l’integrazione dei sistemi. Dichiarandosi infastidito per le continue richieste di “conferma di amicizia” provenienti dalla Rete, ha sbottato “chiedete al mio maledetto telefono, lui lo sa!”. Una provocazione, ovviamente, per proporre uno sviluppo dei modelli di Customer Relationship Management, che in questa sede non poteva non chiamarsi “CRM 2.0″.

Pur ricordando la forza inarrestabile di aggregazione di pubblico e risorse che hanno le grandi aziende operanti in Internet, O’Reilly non ha mancato di sottolineare che il web è comunque una piattaforma aperta, accessibile quindi per qualsiasi realtà. Anche per questo, forse, la conferenza ha poi dato spazio a una prima sessione dedicata a start-up e aziende innovative, che ha visto anche la presenza di due italiane, www.questar.ite ww.yooplus.it, mentre l’area Expo vede la presenza di www.reply.it in qualità di espositore. Un settore dunque in cui l’Italia dimostra di sapersi muovere alla velocità dei mercati internazionali.

UPD Stanno arrivando le presentazioni, su SlideShare. Qui le mie foto., da cui si trovano anche quelle del tag ufficiale web2expoberlin. Di seguito il report della prima giornata.

Arrivati, preso posto, siamo con David Orban, Luca Conti e Giorgio Montersino alla session “Be like the Internet: Collaborative, Disruptive, Networked” di Scott Hirsch di Mig5. Workshop molto basico: da Google ai principi del Web 2.0.

David nel suo live blogging segnala anche una presentazione di argomento affine. Altro da Luca. Nel frattempo incontro Luca “Hikari” Sartoni. Sabato ho anche incontrato Luca Zappa.

Grazie a un twit di Marco Formento lo raggiungo alla sessione “Building Social Applications” di Stowe Boyd. Ammetto che non avevo mai visto il suo blog, e me innamoro subito. Ecco perché la sala è affollata, siamo seduti per terra.

12:15 Stowe è coinvolgente ed esplicativo, da vero “guru”. Qualche frase a effetto: “you don’t have to make money… first”; “large groups produce a lot of ideas, small groups produce good ideas”; “dont’ call it user-generated content, we’re not “users”: let’s call it indigenous content”. Durante il suo speech ottimi spunti sull’importanza del design di interfaccia, sistemi e, soprattutto, delle interazioni tra utenti, il tutto improntato a semplicità, immediatezza, efficacia. Ora, alla fine della mattinata, ha diviso i partecipanti in gruppi dando il “compito” di fare reverse engineering di Dopplr. Ora una affollata line di “spokepersons” improvvisate stanno presentando le loro idee in modalità “elevator’s pitch”.

12:40 Ancora da Stowe, si sta parlando dell’integrazione di funzionalità transazionali all’interno di comunità 2.0. In effetti questa è roba sottovalutata, a occhio. Ma l’idea qui (il che spiega il perché di “don’t need to make money at first”) è capire davvero il profilo dei partecipanti a un network. Non rispetto alla loro descrizione, ma alle loro attività. Piccola soddisfazione personale: mentre parla io penso a Last.fm, e lui la cita la slide dopo :). Penso anche a come funziona bene Gmail (da usare sempre via web, sennò che senso ha), e di come sia davvero pertinenti le pubblicità là sopra. Così mi viene in mente questa frase: “The next magic will be to know what you want without knowing who you are”, come approccio opposto al profiling classico. Make sense?

13:45 Alla sessione di Dion Hinchcliffe su “What is web 2.0″. Nuova “working definition”, Tim O’Reilly: “Networked applications that explicitly leverage network effects“. Ora sta parlando – con una decisa intensità, direi appassionatamente – del “remix di Internet”, la creazione di applicazioni mash-up e tramite widget (eheh :)

17:15 Comincia O’Reilly. Incredibile quanto sia “passionate”, ha il carisma di un grande. Stile californiano moderno, pantaloni con i tasconi e maglione, ha iniziato raccontando quante siano le innovazioni che vengono da una cultura “hacker” in senso esteso e originario, spinto dal desiderio di capire come funzionano e migliorare le “cose”.

PS Nota di colore: fa un po’ effetto veder funzionare tutto. arrivi in Fiera con la metropolitana, fai pochi passi ed entri, e tutto è chiaramente indicato con dei cartelli. Sinceramente credo che la cultura dei cartelli – un’importante interfaccia anche quella, no? – in Italia manchi un po’ :)