Along the way, we have received local and national media attention, benefitted from the wisdom of individuals throughout the world, and created connections that are today advancing new business ideas, while creating great educational experiences for students.

The article includes some tech that is specific to corporations (such as Green Grid computing), but it also demonstrates the now constant interplay of social and work technologies (Twitter, Yammer, Blackberry, iPhones…). Many knowledge workers do not want the redundancy of multiple devices, accounts, or passwords when the social computing technology admirably supports both work and personal communication.

http://feedroom.businessweek.com/linking/index.jsp?skin=oneclip&fr_story=4ff1e4b3a9adab1fad937c0f767acc92c93cf3ae&rf=ev&hl=true

As our Digital Business group evolves and gathers more momentum, we will continue to study, consult and advise on the appropriate uses of advertising as part of a web company’s business model. One thing is clear though, the investment community remains very optimistic that whomever controls the marketplaces for online ads will be a winner no matter what may come!

Update: Time magazine covers the story as well.

Good news! The National Science Foundation has funded a second phase of the interdisciplinary Future Internet research project with Golisano Computing colleague Dr. Nirmala Shenoy for approximately $250,000. As before, the Saunders College team will identify and model the business impacts/ adoption patterns that are likely for a novel Internet technology. The complete award note is available at the NSF website.

This research is funded by NSF’s FIND (Future Internet Design) program which is a new long-term initiative  to envision and plan a future internet by bringing together researchers from many different disciplines.

If you are interested in helping with this research effort, contact me at: vjpbbu@rit.edu

Discovery. Its the one of Nick’s subcomponents that keeps popping up all over the place in my life. Maybe all of the online culture is one of Discovery (hey it would explain the value of Google). There is a constant quest to discover and try the enormous variety of new things accessible online. To be sure, this is a social computing thing. Its about discovering new territory and inviting your cool friends in for a visit.

Discovery experiences appear to be more important than ever today. For example, Alternate Reality Games, like Jane McGonigal’s The Lost Ring are attracting larger and larger audiences/players. The players become involved in a story because they are curious; curious to learn more, curious to see what this is about, curious to see if anybody else has found more.

But how do Businesses embrace Discovery?

• Viral Marketing campaigns that leverage consumer’s desire to Discover are really engaging. I showed my class the multifaceted Mini Men of Metal to give them a feel for this genre.
• Making us all beta testers allows us all to try businesses for free. I remember the pages of legal stuff I had to sign to be a beta tester back in the day (not to mention the stacks of 3.5 inch disks to install) ugh.

• Can we build new business models on discovery? Does giving users the ability to experience something free take away any chance that you would want to own it? A question you might ask the music industry. Last.fm, Pandora, Finetune allow users to explore music based on your own and others listening habits. Imeem and Muxtape allow you to create playlists of your own music that others can listen to and then buy.

One recent study suggests that Discovery business models may be increasing sales of music at Last.fm. I hope so. Given our unprecedented ability to search through the incredible variety of creative work, sharing the few things we like seems like what we are all doing online. Indeed, Discovery and associated sharing may be what drives the social networking phenomenon we are enjoying right now.

What I learned quickly at this meeting is that the FIND community are a VERY impressive group of researchers who are actively designing what might/could/should be the next Internet. They represent an incredible assembly of ivy league schools, research companies, think tanks and more. Needless to say it was exciting to be there! Unfortunately, my ignorance was pretty vast going in. I collaborated with some real Internet pioneers (e.g. Bob Kahn and David Clark to name two) without even knowing it! Furthermore, the technical nature of a lot of the subject matter was stretching my 1980’s era computer science knowledge and memory to say the least.

The good news is that the FIND group is engaging a wider set of collaborators, and I am honored to be one of the few business/economics types there. In fact, my input helped to add to the design of the “information”-centric design philosophy which has become part of the record for the larger group.

What this amounts to, dear readers, is a whale of an opportunity. We have a seat at the table and a voice in the conversation, now all we have to do is use it! What do you think the Future Internet should do? How should it enable society or business? Let me know, and just maybe we will see your ideas in the Future.