The Future of Local Media – at #LSS09

Note:  most of this post was cross-posted on the LSS blog.

One of the sessions at Local Social Summit ‘09 (btw – Here’s #LSS09 on Twitter) that I am very much looking forward (all the sessions will be good, but this one will rock) to is an interactive lab session being run by Praized’s Seb Provencher. The session is called: What does the Perfect Local Media Company Look Like in 5 Years Time. This lab should draw upon Seb’s excellent white paper – “I Have Seen the Future of Local Media” – from earlier this year.

At dinner last night we had a lively and interesting discussion with both Seb and Greg Sterling about this topic. The general consensus was that most traditional local media companies are quickly running out of time to start planning for their future. Greg also blogged about our discussion earlier today.

Our discussion around the future of local media seem to echo many trends and predictions that even Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt made last week at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Orlando 2009. The RWW team pulled together this very good 6 minute highlight video chop of Mr. Schmidt’s interview. Here’s the RWW post: Google’s Eric Schmidt on What the Web Will Look Like in 5 Years (well worth a read).

Below is the presentation Seb will run through during the lab tomorrow:

The Rise of the ‘netbook’ – and is it hurting Apple?

It is not a surprise but the ‘netbook’ style and size of machine appear to be making a bull run even in a bear market. And some Mac users have made the move and others are considering it. Most ‘netbooks’ run Windows (XP for now mostly) or a version of Linux. I’ve got a super-netbook like Toshiba Protege and I gotta say I love it. If the G-Phone isn’t ready for prime time well this make room for more netbooks. I am not seeing covergence in mobile devices instead I see people havein many mobile devices to serve a specific need or mode, its sort of like bags (luggage) and shoes. Hmmm, anyway need to ponder this trend some more.

The Google Strategy

Wow a very interesting slide share presentation from Google thanks to TC that tells you everything you ever wanted to know – well worth a read. I particularly like slide 15 on why they bought DoubleClick.

A New Acronym and a Maybe a Game Changer – GACL

All I can say is wow this post on Linux Journal by Doc Searls makes you think about the new cloud platform a new way – Gears + Android + Chrome + Linux = Google is rocking. This quote that  was nicely highlighted by JB’s Searchblog it pretty sharp:

Well, then the game changes. Remember back when Marc Andreessen raised Microsoft’s hackles by saying Netscape would “reduce Windows to a set of poorly debugged device drivers”? Netscape failed to do that, but Google won’t. It’s not just that Google is Netscape II, it’s that Google has a platform here. At the bottom that platform is the OS of your choice. At the top is a browser built from the start to run apps and not just pages.

Oh yeah and I agree that the Chrome logo does look a lot like the game Simon.

Google Chrome – wow 1% marketshare in 1 day

Well, another summer and what did Google do? They built a brower called Chrome and according to some sources they took 1% market share in day 1! Some predict that Chrome can over take Firefox in 2 years, well maybe my math is wrong but it could be more like 2 months (this tracking service show 2.9% already – see below).

Google minus Google plus Google

The G minus G search engine setup by Startupbin in Finland is great and yes in some way funny… I also found it nicely ironic that on both the Startupbin blog and the Google CSE they’re making money from Google AdWords!

Local Search in Singapore

I was catching up on the latest over on Alt Search Engines today about search in Singapore and it reminded me about a innovative new local search engine from Singapore called Rednano.

Rednano is a JV between Singapore Press Holdings (a newspaper group) and Schibsted (another mainly European newspaper and online media group. Much like other local search initiatives like Ireland.com, Sesam.no, 24.com (in South Africa) and Sensis (in Australia) – Rednano is trying to fuse great local content with the best local knowledge to delivery a great ‘local search’ site in that region… And thus create a winning strategy against the likes of Google and Yahoo!

The Answer is 42, I mean Yes – Google is a media co

There is an interesting and thought provoking piece in the NYT on Google today titled: Is Google A Media Company? Well here at A Fuller View we know the answer is yes Google is a media company — but with a technology head and probably heart — which is significant when looking at how the search giant operates.

As JB rightly points out this is not a new idea, but it will form a key part of a little thesis I am pulling together which has a workig title of “Why AdSense Sucks (for publishers)” that I will post of one these days (probably after summer). So, for me it is significant to see this question resurface.

Now this may be hard to follow, but 1st let me say I love Google as an end user (consumer) and I think the big G is good for most advertisters (and the ecosystem). However, if you are a major publisher (like the NYT) then I believe Google is not good for your business its like letting the fox into the hen house. Time for a tasty brew to help me ferment my thesis a bit more…

Microsoft Builds a New Mouse Trap – its called BrowseRank

Microsoft Research has come up with a new and novel way to rank search results based on user beahviour. The alogorithm is called BrowerRank and is a rival methond to Google’s famous PageRank. Over on News.com there is a very good review of the work and you see the orignal release for MS Research over HERE and the research paper is HERE (pdf).

Google Helps Celebrate Earth Day 2008

Not a news story per say but still very cool… I have to say I like today’s Google logo supporting Earth Day 2008.