CheezeDMG Blog

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft have all reached for their chequebooks in recent months to snap up companies which are developing similar new technologies to use in very different ways.

One of Google’s most recent acquisitions is the social-networking platform Jaiku.com. The site allows its members to share their activity-streams via a wide range of technological touch-points. An activity-stream might include status messages, shopping recommendations or photographs and users can post these online or set them to feed directly from third-party sites such as Flickr, Last.fm or Facebook. Users connected via a mobile device can even post their location and track the movements of their friends.

This multi-faceted, 360° approach to keeping in touch has been gaining significant traction of late and has attracted the usual frenzy of zeitgeist-friendly monikers. Lifehack is one such term which is starting to enter popular usage. The expression was coined to describe quick-and-nasty pieces of code which computer programmers would use as shortcuts between themselves but has recently been taken up by bloggers and grown in scope to incorporate any piece of technology that ‘solves an everyday problem in a clever or non-obvious way’.

Jaiku is a good example of a life hack as it combines more traditional content feeds with another emergent technology: micro-blogging. This mode of communication is, as the name suggests, a bit like blogging-lite or, if you’d rather, instant messaging on steroids. Put simply, it allows users to post short messages, generally of fewer than 200 characters, onto the Web using a range of delivery methods. The ‘status update’ on your Facebook profile is a really basic example of this but the service which has so-far become synonymous with the technology is probably Twitter.

All of this collaborative, on-the-go functionality also has obvious enterprise applications for which the business community has coined the phrases unified messaging and unified communications. Both Yahoo! and Microsoft have made recent acquisitions to a gain a presence in this emerging market with the purchase of, respectively, Zimbra and Parlano. Both of these providers have developed products which they describe as being based on next-generation messaging and collaboration suites accessible via a range of online applications and hand-held devices.

A good way to demonstrate how similar technologies can be positioned in very different ways is to compare Twitter’s mission statement with a typical definition of the benefits of unified communications.

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

The largest single value of [Unified Communication] is its ability to reduce “human latency” in business processes. Although communication methods (such as voice or IM) can be used individually and separately, organizations should examine how bringing these methods together can increase synergies and efficiencies.

Some well-known brands are already attempting to incorporate elements of the new technology into their communication strategies. Dell are distributing promotions via Twitter www.twitter.com/delloutlet which are available for anyone who wishes to subscribe and, perhaps more importantly, not bothering those who don’t. Exhibitions and seminars, including the Le Web 3 conference currently underway in Paris, are also using these channels to send immediate messages and receive real-time feedback. www.twitter.com/leweb3

It is still very early days for these tools and the real benefit or potential may not yet be revealed. However, these tools are growing in importance so come and try them – you can follow Jamie by going to www.twitter.com/jamieriddell and on Jaiku - See you there!