miércoles, 16 de septiembre de 2009

Clínica Web 3.0



Se viene la clínica que organizo en la Facultad de Diseño y Comunicación de la Universidad de Palermo.

Para ver los contenidos y disertantes hacer clic aquí.

Acompaña un video que da marco a varios de los temas que se tratarán.


lunes, 31 de agosto de 2009

La reputación digital

Publiqué un artículo en la Revista Debate sobre la reputación digital. Lo que Internet dice sobre nosotros.

Se puede leer la nota aquí y la presentación que di el viernes, en el Consejo Profesional de Ciencias Económicas de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, sobre el mismo tema, aquí.

miércoles, 19 de agosto de 2009

Periodismo ciudadano en CNN

La nota en CNN en español, en el programa Clix, sobre el periodismo ciudadano, la censura en Internet
y el papel de los grandes gigantes del online: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.

Gracias a Magdalena y a los Guillermos.

Otra vez en CNN


Una nota con Guillermo Arduino del programa Clix en la que conversamos sobre el periodismo ciudadano, la censura digital y el rol de You Tube, Twitter y Facebook. Repite hoy: 10:30, 12:30, 14:30 y 16:30, hora de Buenos Aires.


martes, 18 de agosto de 2009

La Web en números


Publiqué un artículo en la Revista Debate sobre la situación actual de Internet y los números que la explican, o que dan algunos indicios de cómo está y hacia dónde va. Para leer hacé clic acá.

viernes, 7 de agosto de 2009

miércoles, 5 de agosto de 2009

Explorer, Firefox, Chrome a un Clix

Aquí se puede ver la entrevista que me realizó Guillermo Arduino en el programa Clix de CNN en español.

miércoles, 29 de julio de 2009

En la CNN

El próximo martes 4 de julio a las 20:30 hs de Argentina, y repitiendo en distintos horarios el miércoles, se emitirá por CNN en Español una entrevista que me realizó Guillermo Arduino para el programa Clix. Hablamos sobre la batalla de los navegadores, la actualidad de Linux y el futuro de 6Rounds, un servicio de "live meeting" de reciente lanzamiento. Repite varias veces: http://edition.cnn.com/espanol/horarios/zona2/index.html

viernes, 29 de mayo de 2009

Antes y después de Obama 2.0



Ayer
se realizó el V Seminario Internacional de Management Político en el Hotel Hilton.
Aquí va el link para ver la presentación y los acceso para ver los videos presentados durante mi exposición.

Presentación: http://tinyurl.com/barackobama20




Videos:

1.The Great Schlep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk

2 y 3.Budweiser
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndzWVnD7-vQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq8Uc5BFogE&feature=fvst

4. Vote
http://www.cnnbcvideo.com/?combined=Pablo%20Capurro&first=Pablo&name_id=10639282&last=Capurro&id=&nid=pBHQC9Y4HH2J6qLeFB.PpDEwNjM5Mjgy

5. 1984 Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo

jueves, 21 de mayo de 2009

Una respuesta 2.0 a la crisis de una marca

Artículo publicado por El Cronista.

Una respuesta 2.0 a la crisis de una marca

Las situaciones de crisis corporativas, que antes se enfrentaban con comunicados de prensa y anuncios en los medios, hoy explotan en Internet. Y los medios digitales son la arena donde se da la batalla.

Un video subido a YouTube en abril último por dos empleados de Domino’s Pizza, la cadena de pizzerías más grande de los Estados Unidos, generó la peor crisis en la historia de esta compañía, y demostró lo importante que es para las empresas trabajar en la Web 2.0 y, además, explorar las redes sociales.

La más novedosa de las crisis, la crisis digital, exige una respuesta activa y online, para lo que muchas compañías no están preparadas.

El material mostraba cómo uno de esos empleados (Michael Setzer, 32 años) preparaba sandwiches para delivery metiendo sus dedos en el pan, utilizando queso que antes introducía y sacaba de sus fosas nasales, y pasando por distintas partes de su cuerpo la comida. Mientras tanto, su compañera (Kristy Hammonds, 31 años), cámara en mano, grababa y relataba la acción.

“En cinco minutos yo enviaré el delivery y alguien se comerá esto; sí, se lo comerá, y no sabrá que el queso estuvo en su nariz y que un gas letal terminó en su salame”, decía Hammons mientras registraba la acción de su compañero.

Estos dos cocineros de esa franquicia pizzera, ubicada en la ciudad de Conover, crearon ese video que, en un día, fue visto por más de un millón de personas, llegó a ocupar cinco de los principales resultados en Google al buscar por ‘Dominos’, y repercutió en forma inmediata en Twitter, con miles de mensajes comentando lo sucedido. Luego fue levantado de YouTube -¡por un reclamo de derechos de autor de Kristy Hammonds!-pero esto sólo ayudó a propagar la noticia.



La reputación de Domino’s recibió un veloz y profundo impacto. La percepción de los consumidores pasó de positiva a negativa, según la investigadora de mercado YouGov, que realiza encuestas diarias a mil consumidores.

Domino’s Pizza reaccionó rápidamente, pero tarde en los tiempos de Internet.

Sin presencia oficial en las redes sociales, la crisis los puso ante la necesidad no sólo de dar un mensaje de respuesta, sino de crear los medios y la audiencia para distribuirlo. Luego de días de publicar comunicados de prensa en los medios tradicionales, descubrieron que en las comunidades de Internet la gente se preguntaba por qué Domino’s no respondía ni hacía algo. La compañía daba respuestas, pero no donde sus consumidores iban a buscarla.

Entonces, el presidente de la compañía, Patrick Doyle, subió un video (http://tinyurl.com/PatrickDoyle) a YouTube, que vieron más de 700.000 personas, en el que pedía disculpas, aseguraba que estos dos empleados habían sido expulsados de la compañía y que estaban reexaminando los métodos de contratación de su personal para asegurarse de que personas como éstas no volvieran a ingresar a su staff.

“Me enferma que dos individuos puedan impactar nuestro gran sistema. Somos 125.000 personas que trabajamos para negocios locales en Estados Unidos y en otros sesenta países del mundo. Y vamos a trabajar para recuperar su confianza. Gracias”, dijo el portavoz de la compañía. A su vez, crearon una cuenta en Twitter, el servicio de microblogging más utilizado en el mundo, para responder a los comentarios, y agradecieron por esta vía a quienes apoyaron a la empresa. Domino’s ya tiene 1.700 personas que siguen sus novedades en Twitter. La respuesta llegó, pero la acción hubiera sido más efectiva si Domino’s hubiera tenido presencia previa y activa en la Web. Con su propia plataforma online, con un diálogo fluido con sus clientes a través de las redes sociales y aplicaciones online, el rey de la Pizza en los Estados Unidos se hubiera enterado antes del incidente y hubiera promovido su mensaje de respuesta más rápido y a más gente. Las empresas comienzan a tener claro que deben estar preparadas para afrontar también estas crisis digitales, tan listas como han estado preparadas para defenderse, con las herramientas tradicionales, ante las crisis off line. Para construir una plataforma que soporte ataques como el mencionado, ya no alcanza con tener un sitio Web. El diálogo entre los usuarios se da en otros espacios.

Por eso, se trate de crisis digitales o de las otras, es indispensable un mayor arraigo en las redes sociales para construir un diálogo con los consumidores de la marca, lo que posibilita enterarse antes de los problemas y dar respuesta inmediata sobre cualquier acusación o malentendido. Y -todavía más-no sólo para los casos de crisis es necesaria esta estrategia: se vuelve imprescindible también para conocer a fondo a los clientes y sus intereses.

El sitio Web corporativo es ya un planeta menor dentro de la galaxia digital de una empresa. Un perfil en Facebook, una cuenta en Twitter, un canal en YouTube son algunas de las herramientas de las que debe disponer cualquier compañía.

PABLO CAPURRO
DIRECTOR DE LA AGENCIA Y PRODUCTORA DIGITAL SG2


lunes, 13 de abril de 2009

The true click in history

Traducción al inglés del artículo publicado en Revista Debate.

INTERNET AND POLITICS
The true click in history

The campaign that took Barack Obama to the White House marked a before and after in the history of political communication. The use of the Internet as a weapon for citizen participation, converting it into the principal mode of communication with and between users (voters) allowed him to obtain exceptional results.

In Argentina the fascination produced by this phenomenon didn’t help to identify Obama’s true digital strategy – his axis- and now that attempts to copy it have rapidly followed suit a la youtubeesque which had one of its star performances on that video site, but not the real brains of the team. Facebook, You Tube, My Space and Twitter were the highlighted goal scorers which occupied the front pages of Monday’s newspaper but the player that served up the winning pass has been completed overlooked by the cameras.

This is why understanding which were the true landmarks and virtues of Obama’s digital strategy should be the first step in the rush to imitate his success.

A numerous digital team conducted by David Plouffe and consisting of a multidisciplinary staff, with a large investment of millions of dollars and over two years work gave rise to this historic click. It wasn’t just the enthusiasm of a good number of people nor the decision to bet on new techniques but the arduous graft, immense resources (and priorizing the investment in these new media) and a strategy that began two years prior to the election day.

Obama was not the first candidate to use the Internet to receive donations or to connect with the electorate. But he was the first to create a strategy that integrated existing media to communicate a simple and concise message (Change and Yes We Can) in order to meet his objectives. He understood above all else that Internet should be a media channel to motivate an electorate to enter into action and to help him on his campaign trail, organizing it.

That is why his digital team created the a key campaign axis tool: MyBo (My Barack Obama). This space – inside the campaign website – enabled the registration of people that wished to be a part of the project and from there organized them to make the change possible.

MyBo reunited more than a million individuals that interacted online, sharing ideas, receiving news and campaign updates, seeing before anyone else the campaign TV spots and commenting on them, creating their own support blogs and receiving messages directly from Obama in their e-mail. Over and above all this it brought them together in face to face dialogue. Via this tool they were invited to meetings in nearby locations, events and campaign activities. John lives close to your home and is interested in collaborating with the campaign; why not meet up and invite five more from the neighborhood?

Starting with the premise that this campaign is about you and your capacity to change things the most important collective force in the history of campaigning was created. In this form a multitude of followers that worked on the campaign became the first world army of digital militants.

In addition the campaign raised 750 million dollars from among four million individual donors, the greatest amount ever in American history. This tripled the sum raised by the Republican rival John McCain. Obama harvested more than 3 million “friends” on Facebook and today that figure is now over 6 million. He was present everywhere (Obama everywhere) people congregated, open to dialogue in the multiple social networks.

Today, now in Government, Obama’s digital strategy continues on course. The launch of Recovery.gov a site that allows one to follow by the instant the destination of the anti-crisis funds or the recent space created inside the White House (www.whitehouse.gov/openforquestions) to receive questions that will be answered by Obama (who now has more than 100 thousand queries) are just a few of the examples. In addition from his personal site the President is promoting political participation. He invites the American people to call their Congress representatives to support his legislative proposals.

In Argentina, until now the digital activity of the candidates starts just a few months prior to the elections and finalizes on the day they are elected. They do not promote a dialogue but rather a unidirectional message. They are still a long way away from taking advantage of the potential of a network that across the country now unites over 15 million people.

What are you doing?

Traducción al inglés del artículo publicado en Revista Debate.

The before and after Twitter in Internet
What are you doing?

Although it’s just three years old it’s been able to talk since birth on the 21st of March 2006. Everything that it says is announced in short phrases but without taking a breath from talking every second. Sometimes you can understand it, or else, quite simply at times nobody is listening – but it continues trying to capture your attention.

This creature is called Twitter, the largest free micro blogging service that allows users to send micro entries or tweets (messages of up to 140 characters) that can be read by one’s followers and that has marked a before and after in the history of Internet. The creation of Jack Dorsey, a 35 year old entrepreneur, is a mixture between a blog and a chat room as defined by David Pogue a columnist for The New York Times.

Twitter is today one of the fantastic four of the Web and is confronting the other giants face to face.

It has just seven million users which is not a lot compared with the number registered on Facebook which now exceeds 150 million. The reasons can perhaps be found not just in the time to maturity of both services but rather in their functionalities.

Facebook invites you to search for your friends, make new ones and to entertain yourself playing games and sharing photos of your weekend with friends among other things. It’s a tool designed to enter into contact with a social world that accompanies us in our real lives off screen. Meanwhile Twitter was not born as a direct competitor of the “traditional” social networks and is more precise.

What are you doing? This is the fundamental question that motivates users to tell one another what they are doing every second. That’s why being on and being read on Twitter (if not, why?) means three things: being dedicated, considering that we have something important to say, and being in the mood to socialize about it with more people than in one’s personal social context.
But being massive, although it may seem paradoxical to describe as non-massive a service used by more than eight million people, is not everything. Over and above its growing but reduced popularity Twitter is now worrying Facebook that only recently renovated its design to appear more like this service. This concern has been born from the time consumed by users in one tool or another and from the competition that converts all websites in direct competitors of one another, even though their metier is completely different. This is the battle for time of permanence on a website.

Facebook, noting that many of their users have started to use Twitter for a function that their platform has contemplated but never strongly promoted has changed their design. Now, one of the biggest social networks in the world invites one to respond to the question “What are you thinking?” Just a little semantic nuance so as not to be too obvious.

But Twitter is not just providing battle on the social networks front.

Many users are approaching as passive members of the tool, to listen in and to find out what other people are doing, not only the rich and famous but those with a more interesting life, politicians or clubs or even to find out what people are saying about those new running shoes with the three stripes that they were thinking about buying. And from the inclusion of a simple search button inside the tool Twitter has now become a powerful new search engine. To find out whatever we wish we now have a service which is more specific and direct than even Google. So we might also say Twitter versus Google.

More than 650,000 people follow minute by minute the presidential life of Obama, almost the same number that is attentive to the comings and goings of Britney Spears or the anecdotes of the NBA basketball star Shaquille O’Neill. Ghost writers, people that write in the name of others tweet in their name. Except of course in the case of the Shaq, “its just 140 characters. If you need a ghost writer for that I feel sorry for you” argues the giant.
But everything is not pure optimism.

There is a risk that Twitter becomes a media channel with an empty audience, consuming and following so many tweeters one can easily miss out on the main announcements of each and every one of them. A common practice at the moment of capturing more and more followers is to follow others. As a grateful response we find that many of those that we follow decide to follow us in turn. It is considered good protocol. For example, if you decided to follow 1,500 people you would literally need to dedicate the entire day to Twitter in order not to miss out on everything they write about. Here is the real danger, that we create a media channel with thousands of readers that in reality don’t read us.

Twitter is the most important launch in Internet in recent years based on its repercussion and fame and has only 27 employees, something not unusual in these times of the second industrial revolution that has replaced man with software.

Neither is it a contradiction in this world in which we have become accustomed that Twitter is not yet a viable business.

Over and above the global crisis that is hammering the stock quotations of Internet companies, their investors have stated that they are not concerned about when Twitter will start making money and have even rejected a buyout offer from Facebook valued at $500 million.

Internet es un mundo impune

El miércoles 8 de abril el Diario Clarín publicó un artículo que escribí sobre la impunidad en Internet, la posibilidad que ofrece a quienes desean ensuciar la reputación de una persona.

Para leerla online: http://tinyurl.com/cjtr6c .

lunes, 6 de abril de 2009

¿Qué estás haciendo?

Un artículo que escribí para la Revista Debate sobre Twitter.

Para leerla comprá la revista o hacé clic aquí:

http://www.debate.com.ar/2009/04/03/1772.php

miércoles, 1 de abril de 2009

Show me the money!

Artículo publicado en El Cronista traducido al inglés.

The crisis of the newspapers in Internet

Show me the money!

In the movie “Jerry Maguire” an American football player screams in defiance at his representative with a very clear premise: “Show me the money!” The success and the adulation of his fans are not enough to conform this sportsman, who feels himself worthless unless he has millions in his bank account.

While visitors to the online versions of newspapers are multiplying, the time spent online and the involvement of users grows and the news is everyday a more highly valued asset (although unpaid), the digital newspapers begin to ask themselves that very same question. All very well but, “where’s the money?

The business model of the online newspapers just like that of the major part of the Web industry is to provide their content for free. The content is freely consulted by millions of users and the income from advertising is responsible for resolving the equation.

This is the reason for much concern about a model that still hasn’t taken off and the fear that has been brought about by the recent crisis. To charge or not to charge for digital content, and in what form to do so, that is the question.

Jeff Segal analyses this subject in an article published in the Madrid newspaper El País. In the article he affirms that “today everyone has a plan to save the press”. While many defend the current 100% free system with the conviction that advertising investment will grow sufficiently to cover the media’s needs, others assure that the model to follow is that of iTunes that charges small amounts for specific information content, or alternatively that of paid subscriptions.

A study realized by The Bivings Group has shown that the online newspapers in the U.S that require a prior registration (totally free but with the requirement of some minimal personal data and an e-mail address) have diminished from 29% to 11% in the past year. An ample majority of readers, when confronted with a minimum registration requirement, prefer to switch news provider and as a consequence the news media have chosen to lift their restrictions.

If The New York Times (whose online version represents just 12% of its total sales) should decide to charge its users just one cent to find out what Obama said in his speech to Congress, and the New York Post offers the same information for free the migration would be instantaneous. It is an impossible mission to convince somebody who has always received a service for free to now pay for it, especially if our competitor is offering the same or a very similar product totally free.

The possibility of the media grouping together and starting to charge simultaneously for their content would avoid this “unfair competition” but this doesn’t appear to be an easy path to follow.

Somewhat different is the case for specialized content. The Wall Street Journal for example earns € 92 million annually from online subscribers of its financial coverage. This would appear to indicate that in the case of detailed content, well differentiated from that offered by the competition (for example the economics column by Paul Krugman), that readers are prepared to pay.

Even so, the vast majority of the media with specialized content continue to offer everything in exchange for nothing. The technology magazine Wired, the most popular in the U.S, can be read in its entirety from their web site without paying a single cent.

The written press is going through perhaps the most critical period in its history. The News Corp group, owner of The Sun, New York Post & The Wall Street Journal has announced record losses of $6,400 million in the last quarter of 2008. And Internet, which grew up as a solution, is at least for now part of the problem.

While the online audience and consumers of news content continue to grow, the only thing that still needs to be found is the money.

martes, 31 de marzo de 2009

Books that aren't books

Artículo publicado en Revista Debate y traducido al inglés.

Books that aren’t books


Stephen King has sold somewhere between 300 and 350 million books. His novels on terror, fantasy or science fiction are available in both paperback and hardback format. That’s paper with printed words on it. At then end of the day, books. However at the beginning of this year the well known author surprised the world by launching his latest novel “Ur” and his first book that isn’t a book. This very special edition will only be available on digital devices and can be purchased for just three dollars.

One of the world’s greatest and oldest cultural industries is going through a historic moment. The evolution of electronic books (eBooks), the great proliferation of titles in this format and their positive reception on behalf of their readers opens the debate about the future of the worldwide book publishing business.

Is it possible that in 10 years time we will not be reading any more books printed on paper? The first chapter of this story – still with an unclear ending – has now been written. An electronic device that can condense everything from the Bible to The Little Prince into one has now arrived.
On the 24th of February, Amazon.com one of the world’s largest e-commerce sites launched Kindle 2, the second version of its device for reading digital books commonly called eBooks. This slim device can store up to 1500 books and can also be used to download magazines and newspapers and to retrieve one’s e-mail.

For the moment Amazon has an accumulated offering of some 245,000 tiles for Kindle but it is just a question of time before the arrival of all books in this format. There are many candidates vying to digitalize whole libraries, while others such as Google have been doing so for years. This gigantic and costly task will undoubtedly result in an inevitable concentration of authors rights into fewer publishing houses.

The disappearance of the book in its physical form, and the enormous cultural changes that will come about, have already opened a lively debate that divides the interested parties into two distinct camps or libraries.

According to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Kindle, this device is not coming to replace the readership of books but rather to “preserve this great tradition and to make it evolve even more”.
Besides its nifty product attributes in terms of weight and storage capacity this technology launch stands apart from many others for one very improbable reason: its great impact among the adult population. Not just young people start to use it but also more experienced readers. That is why it can be considered as almost an ambivalent device, innovative sure, but also “conservative”. Amazon plans on selling a million units in 2009, and close to 3.5 million in 2010.
The reach of electronic books will not be restricted to these devices alone. The Apple iPhone places at the disposition of its users a similar book reading application and all the major brands have commenced the process of converting their mobile phones into walking books.

Hernán Casciari, writer and founder of Orsay.es, one of the most read blogs in the Spanish speaking world writes: “I am reading a marvelous book, heavy and fat (some 1,600 pages) and for the first time in my life as a reader I start to feel the urgency of the electronic book. We have become accustomed to the shift key, hypertext and having to manage three to five ideas at a time. Returning to the simple unidirectional book is like having to start a fire with a stick and a stone”.

In a technology blog a user asks and then answers his own question: In truth, do you want your whole life to be digital? Yes!

Quite to the contrary, Sven Birkerts, American essayist, critic and author of the book “The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age”, sustains in an article published in The Atlantic magazine that the book “is part of a cultural system” and his fear is that “Kindle will be to literature and the humanities what Wikipedia has become to information: a one-stop outlet”.

It is clear that the reading of books in digital format does not just mean a simple a change of habits for readers – or a cultural revolution – but rather augurs concrete reforms in the publishing business.

The price of titles has diminished considerably in the transition from paper to digital. On Amazon.com one can acquire the latest releases for ten dollars and download classics to the monitor for just two dollars. Numbers that diminish significantly, based on similar experiences in other industries always tend to lower, never to increase.

Piracy and the possibility of users sharing books from one device to another or the arrival of a new Napster (peer to peer system for downloading music without paying rights) for published material are just some of the phantasms lurking over the pages of this novel.

The experience of the music industry that invented the iTunes micro-payments model (by charging one dollar for each soundtrack) following years of dire hardship has possibly created a less rocky road to be followed in the conflict over books. Getting users accustomed to paying for content, even in much more modest amounts, appears to be the key. Since the leading cases provide the model to follow, the early beginnings of this relationship, in which readers continue to pay, would appear to smooth the way forward.

Finally, the approaching world of the digital book also brings with it some big news. Just like what happened on the Internet where anyone can now create their own media communications platform, launching one’s own book will be even easier than planting a tree. Amazon has created a digital text platform that allows any writer in a just a few steps, without intermediaries, to publish his own text and share in a percentage of the sales.

And in the very name of the product that will slowly revolutionize one of the most aged industries of our culture there is controversy. Some would claim that in the name chosen by Amazon they express their true mission, “to burn the books”. The word kindle is after all synonymous with igniting a fire.

How to get a divorce, win your first million or to die in style

Artículo publicado en Revista Debate traducido al inglés.

How to get a divorce, win your first million or to die in style

In Germany if both parties agree on a separation the divorce settlement can be done over the Internet.

In China hundreds of people who have been recruited via the Web gather together in front of an electronics store to obtain a better price on the purchase of a flat screen TV. “Hello, there are twenty of us out here in all and we each wish to purchase an LCD monitor. What’s your best price offer? And if the price isn’t right we’ll check out another store just around the corner”.

The Internet is offering outrageous and innovative options for being entertained, boring oneself and even for falling into or out of love, and its growth has motivated cultural changes both small and large and the appearance of some very surprising new services.

Just ten years ago the idea of having one’s own web page appeared impossible. It was common to hear excuses like “I don’t know how”, or “who do I ask?” and “I don’t know anything about Internet”. At that time the Internet was just a small planet with a few million pages and its visitors a select global minority.

Finding the website of a newspaper that was updated on an hourly basis; or an e-mail service that allowed one to avoid the trip to the post office with letter in hand and the eternal queue; or enjoying the possibility of downloading music (with apologies to copyrights) were sufficient to make us all marvel at its wonders.

It didn’t seem that we lacked much else. At that time the scope of the Internet appeared to be infinite. Today in MyHeritage.com, a website with over thirty million users one can create a family tree and find long lost relatives scattered around the globe.

In Needaproblem.com we can discover a very peculiar philosophy. According to this site a quiet happy life without problems can be boring.

As a result they invite you to buy problems so that everyone has something to keep themselves occupied.
From one dollar to five thousand dollars, simple problems to more complex ones are offered for sale to the public. There is also the option of giving a problem on birthdays and anniversaries. “Hi, Happy Birthday.

Here goes a complicated problem as a gift so that you have something to do”.
A webpage for every eight people that surf is a sufficient number for everyone to find what they might want.

With over 1,500 million users across the globe and the possibility of just about anyone being able to create their own space on the net and publish their own content in just seconds, the Internet has multiplied its offering in almost incalculable form. Everyday, new projects are launched backed with multimillion dollar investments that surprise us and that even the most fanatical surfers are able to keep up with.

One of the great landmarks in the history of the Internet is The Million Dollar Home Page. In 2005 a 21 year old English student launched a website to help finance his university career. He created a web page and divided it into a million pixels (a minimum unit of color) which he then sold for one dollar each. He made his first million in less than a year and his funny and generous creature still lives on in www.milliondollarhomepage.com

The calculations are not precise but studies by Netcast estimate that the number of websites has doubled over the last two years and that there are now more than 182 million web pages competing for our attention

In the movie “The Holiday” Iris (Kate Winslett) and Amanda (Cameron Díaz) decide to exchange homes for their vacations.
In HomeExchange.com for an annual subscription of a hundred dollars one can consult more than 26,000 houses and apartments for exchange with one’s own. An active community formed by thousands of people that vacation this way every year and allows one to swap one’s house for another.

“Participate in creating a better World, one couch at a time” is the slogan of a very special service. If sleeping on a couch for a few days does not seem too much when its time to cut costs in Couchsurfing.com one can find more than a million people in more than 50,000 towns and cities around the World who are prepared to lend their couch with the sole interest of helping out.

A French website soon to be launched will do the homework for those students prepared to pay.

For many Internet has now become a digital filing cabinet containing their photos, documents, videos and e-mail accounts. When a person dies the mechanisms for transferring that information become obsolete and generally the terms of service of the many sites where the information is stored do not permit the transfer by any unauthorized third party. A newly launched service aptly named LegacyLocker.com takes charge of resolving this problem and very simply organizes a person’s digital inheritance.

lunes, 23 de marzo de 2009

¡Muéstrame el dinero!

El Cronista publicó el viernes un artículo que escribí sobre la crisis de los diarios en Internet. El espacio que se sostenía sería el futuro de los medios escritos, hoy también entra en problemas. Grandes masas de usuarios, pero pocos dispuestos a pagar por los contenidos, y una pauta publicitaria que no llega a cubrir los costos.

lunes, 16 de marzo de 2009

Cómo divorciarse, ganar el primer millón o morir con estilo

La revista Debate publica un artículo que escribí sobre algunas geniales locuras que ofrece Internet. Un repaso de sitios con servicios difíciles de imaginar en el mundo preGoogle. http://www.debate.com.ar/2009/03/13/1690.php


martes, 10 de marzo de 2009

Don't be evil

Artículo publicado en Revista Debate traducido al inglés.

“Don´t be evil” is the unofficial slogan of Google, its code of conduct. And “organizing the world´s information” its self prophecy. “Why?” Because besides being its mission, it also sounds good, and that provides space for them to do what they desire doing without anyone bothering them. Sshhh, Google is organizing all the world´s information.

A little more than ten years on and Larry Page´s and Sergey Brin´s creature has become, to all intents and purposes, a fully brazen multinational corporation present in every corner in the world with more than 20,000 employees and synonymous with the very medium that gave it life. “Did you find it on Google?” is a question as often repeated as its predecessor: “Did you find it on Internet?” To google or “googling” are terms that have now been incorporated into our everyday language. Google or Internet, however you prefer to name it is now a benevolent giant, loved by everyone with its good heart beating in every crevice of the inhospitable but explorable Web.

Google´s race towards the history books has undoubtedly been fast. On 4th September 1998 the company began its operations as a search engine service that quickly became the N°1 contender conquering the previously established leaders such as Lycos, Infoseek & Altavista.

Today, in addition to its dominant market position in the search business (according to comScore its market share will be 63.5% at end 2009) it has rolled out a veritable arsenal of new products that have revolutionized the Web. Almost all of its services are free, because its income comes from advertising via its AdWords and AdSense platforms. Between own creations and acquisitions their portfolio now comprises more than one hundred products, including Gmail, Maps and You Tube.

Not always the first, but always the best. It is not a company that specializes in innovation but rather in doing everything better than any other. Adapted to, and adaptable by their users, fast, versatile, simple to use, those are the trademark of the applications which carry the famous G stamp upon them. Just like its search engine which buried the competition with its notable features, many of its other adventures have had the same good fortune. When they couldn’t (or didn’t want to) beat the competition they merged with them or bought them out. For example in 2003 when they took over Blogger.com, the principal service for creating and publishing blogs; or when in 2006 for $1.650 million You Tube became part of the family.

In October 2004 they got to where no one would have imagined: they purchased Keyhole and renamed it Earth, a program that allows one to visualize images of the planet in 3D. Today, four years later with this same application one can also view the bottom of the ocean and even explore the Moon.

With the motive of its tenth birthday, Google in festive mood made a striking review of its brief and intense story that can be consulted in www.google.com/tenthbirthday.

Which will be the future great star of Internet is the question that everyone is asking. The great passion - and the obsession of all cybernauts - is attempting to anticipate what will be the next step and what is coming in terms of technological advancement. Meanwhile Google, which talks about its past does not anticipate much about its future.

While rumors of the possible purchase of mass media are discarded and one also hears the voices of those predicting their disembarkation in the mobile phone business, it neither confirms nor denies their supposed intentions to compete with Microsoft by launching their own operating system. Windows. But Google branded, of course.

That’s why in Internet there is a growing sense that the next big step of the giant, in its online expansion, will probably be an offline product, and its victim will be Microsoft. The Google operating system, faster and more intelligent than the Windows monopoly, will have an added attraction that will make it even more special: It will be free.

In May 2007 Google took the first step on this secret path by launching Android. This operating system for mobile devices will be the germ that will give life, subject to further evolution, to the software that will seek to battle it out with Windows. Its next evolutionary jump will be to the Netbooks (mini laptops) constituting a clear advance warning before advancing to the traditional PC.

The competition with Microsoft is not news. The battles between Gmail and Hotmail, MSN Messenger versus Google Talk and more recently Chrome versus Explorer are only some signs of this ongoing war in the waters of the Web. The possibility of the competition advancing into the terrain of traditional software, the absolute dominion of Microsoft for the past 25 years would undoubtedly break any chance of a peace treaty.

lunes, 9 de marzo de 2009

El futuro de Google, nuestro futuro

Aquí el print del artículo publicado en el último número de la Revista Debate. Para leer el artículo online ingresar aquí: http://www.debate.com.ar/2009/03/06/1675.php .

viernes, 6 de marzo de 2009

Ideas para la Casa Blanca

Veinte emprendores Web fueron invitados a la Casa Blanca para aportar ideas en el camino de "digitalizar" y llevar a la 3.0 a toda la estructura Web del gobierno de Estados Unidos. Ben Kaufman, CEO de Kluster (creadores de un servicio que te permite recibir opiniones e ideas para lo que necesites), pide a través de un mail colaboración a sus usuarios.


miércoles, 4 de marzo de 2009

About football, blankets and Internet

“Playing football is like trying to cover oneself with a blanket that is too short. If you cover your head inevitably you will not cover your feet.” This phrase from the football (soccer) arena explains how a team that tries to be offensive can come unstuck and suffer in defense and vice versa.

The illustration of the blanket also serves to demonstrate what is today one of the greatest problems confronting Internet.

The principal business model being implemented by web sites is based on advertising. The content or services are seen and freely utilized by millions of users and it is the presence of brands and their message which subsidizes this interaction. However the online advertising pie, despite its uninterrupted growth around the globe, is still not sufficient to keep out the cold that runs from head to toes.

This is the reason why the online newspapers or the Internet magazines have not yet taken off. The advertising income does not yet cover their costs and the bottom line remains red. In many cases these digital businesses are considered as cannibalizers of their mother product (the paper version) by the readers that emigrate from the physical version to the digital one.

The free model is not an invention of the Internet.

In preWeb times advertising was also responsible for subsidizing the interaction between the media and their audience (readers, listeners or viewers). The written press for time immemorial has charged its readers a minimum cost that does not reflect the true value of the product, but rather responds to a percentage of the costs of printing and distribution. The journalistic value, the reporting and chronicling, or in other words the content that converts the printed word into media communications has always been supported by advertising.

With the advent of Marketing Promotions this same business model has granted us free music recitals at the beach sponsored by a well known mobile telephone brand, but it didn’t go any further. When someone had to send a letter or make a long distance phone call they had to pay for it. No brand was prepared to sponsor that cost.

In Internet this business model - or non-business model - has extended to the deepest fathoms of the earth.

The income generated by advertising in Internet must also cover the costs of sponsoring our e-mail accounts so that these may be free, or advertising in the social networks so that no one charges us anything for interacting with our friends and in the video portals so that we may view hours of free “television”.

That’s why, and this is the heart of the problem, the advertising investment is not sufficient to cover the needs of an industry that offers practically everything for free.

Imagine just for a moment if the offline world had functioned in this way. Nobody would have paid to send a letter because Coca Cola would have subsidized the cost by stamping its logo on the envelopes. In bars, free beer would be offered because a tobacco company sponsored the moment and whoever desired a smoke wouldn’t have to pay for that privilege due to the sponsorship by a medical insurance company.

But that’s what happens in Internet and the Google generation has become accustomed to it.
Just the same the future is promising. The options for micro payments for small services and the charging model known as freemium (a free version supported by another paid for premium one) has started to make inroads on the Web and to complement income from advertising.

For the time being Internet advertising is not unlike that blanket that no matter how hard we pull on it, is a long way away from being infinite.

Paparazzi of our own life

Martin says: “I’ve just found out that my best friend Carlos has separated from his wife, that Diego has a head ache and is addicted to Ibuprofen, that Claudia – the friend of a friend that I have never ever seen – her clothes don’t fit her anymore and my girlfriend has just broken-up with me. She found out yesterday on Facebook that I hadn’t gone to the movies with my friends, saw the photos of that girl…and well it’s all over.”

A world in which private life does not exist appears possible. A life in which not only our tastes and habits, but everything that we do on a daily basis, is converted into news for the benefit of the greater public knowledge.

Living deprived of our privacy, as if we were Hollywood stars may be feasible in the future thanks to the attraction for self exhibition that Internet has inspired in part of our society.
In the early days of the Web the presence of an ordinary person went unnoticed among the millions of websites. We could find out who Madonna was going out with or the latest drinking binge of Prince William & Harry, but nothing about Pepe, the neighbor next door. There were no great differences with the offering from the traditional media, the combination of TV-radio-press that dominated the major part of the 20th Century. Much more information, faster and updated several times a day, but the same type of news.

The jump to 2.0 and the creation of user generated content that today mobilizes the major share of digital traffic has broken with all the previously conceived scenarios. Nowadays we not only live the private lives of the famous. Today anyone can post his photos on Facebook, or tell us what he is doing minute by minute on Twitter, or upload the video of a night out with friends on You Tube. Everyone is converting themselves in the Paparazzi of their own life and as a consequence, the lives of all those around them.

Even if you should decide to avoid this unwanted publicity and carry on with life in happy anonymity there is still a possibility that Internet threatens to frustrate you.

“You are on Facebook aren’t you?” is now a common question among surfers. “I’ve never registered but my friends upload videos in which I appear; my sister posted images of when we were kids and I am running around naked, and my wife is a friend of my mates so she knows everything that we do every time we get together…so I’m not, but I am.”, the other might easily respond.

New functions offered by some sites complicate this panorama even further. The option of tagging the faces in a photo so that when you pass over it with a mouse so you can identify the person is one of the novelties. Some sites have started to test a system that will allow automatic face recognition. As a result, in time Internet will become plagued by images and videos of each and every one of us.

Googling candidates in a job search is already a common practice among many human resource teams. What are they searching for? More information, personal data that has not already been detailed on a CV but that the detective Web 2.0 places at their disposal.

For the moment there do not appear to be any restrictions or tools that allow us to detain our steady march towards stardom, so the end of our days of anonymity appear to be close.

Artículos in english

Con la inestimable colaboración de Sean Ashe, subí las traducciones al inglés de dos artículos que publiqué en la Revista Debate.

Contenidos Web


lustration by Minh Uong/The New York Times

Wall Street Journal publica un artículo muy interesante sobre los contenidos de nicho, y una nueva tendencia en la gestión de contenidos. Mientras que Brian Stelter analiza en The New York Times la problemática del copyright en Internet.


lunes, 2 de marzo de 2009

La publicidad en Internet no alcanza para todos

En la Revista Debate se puede leer un artículo que publiqué sobre el fenómeno del (no) negocio online. Un mercado que busca resistir por la torta publicitaria, pero sus limitadas porciones no alcanzan para que coman todos. Si interesa, leer y comentar aquí.

Google cambia

Asoman cambios en Google.com.

Opciones para PROMOVER links y para REMOVER los que no queremos, en una versión personalizable de los resultados de búsqueda. Además las opciones de ingresar a un sitio salteando la intro, o ver versiones anteriores (caches) de cada página.







lunes, 23 de febrero de 2009

Paparazzi de nuestra propia vida

En el último número de la Revista Debate se publicó un artículo que escribí sobre Facebook y el peligro de la exhibición de nuestro mundo privado. Paradójicamente o no, en estos tiempos de duda existencial sobre el futuro de los medios y de cómo cobrar los contenidos online, se puede leer la nota completa aquí, gratis: http://www.debate.com.ar/2009/02/20/1631.php

lunes, 16 de febrero de 2009

Errar no es humano

Mercado Web publica un artículo que escribí sobre Google News, uno de los servicios más conflictivos de la empresa siglo XXI. Leer aquí.

martes, 10 de febrero de 2009

Webopolies

Since the Web’s evolution and its definitive opening up to a much broader public - the famous 2.0 – literally millions of blogs have appeared and this gigantic network has converted itself, apparently, into a global offering that provides unlimited access for the common good.

Since then much has been said about the democratizing merits of the Web and its virtues as a tool in promoting free trade, access to the largest markets irrespective of the country of origin. Any person or business for an extremely low, or even zero cost, could access the largest global market in the history of mankind.

Now that the emotion and the novelty has passed, if one stops to examine the economic realities, the Web is no longer perceived with such enthusiasm by those who once believed and dreamt about its merits as a socioeconomic equalizer.

Economic concentration in the preWeb world has been accentuated dramatically following the birth of this new era. Internet has promoted and fostered the creation of oligopolies, even stronger and more quickly constituted than those already known in the offline universe.
There is no company or business that has had a geographic expansion as speedy as that shown by dozens of online businesses.

Coca-Cola, created by John Pemberton in May 1886 set foot in Asia for the first time seventy years later; it was in 1954 under the name of “Ko-kou-ko-le chapo” (happiness in the mouth). Google in just 10 years from its inception is already one of the five most visited websites in every country in the World and sells advertising space (or in other words, carries out its business) in each and every one of them. It is calculated that in 2009 Google will dominate 50% of the total advertising investment in Internet.

It is sufficient to just compare several traditional businesses with their equivalents in Internet to notice the differences in time and form required to establish them as leaders.

In every country there are on average three companies dedicated to postal services, in addition to subsidiaries or smaller regional competitors. However just three e-mail providers (Google, MSN and Yahoo) practically dominate the total distribution of e-mails worldwide.

In the retail market the differences are even more notable. Around the world traditional shopping centers or malls have multiplied. In a large city like Buenos Aires more than eight shopping centers co-exist. Meanwhile, the online shopping portal Mercado Libre, concentrates more than 50% of the total online buying and selling transactions across Argentina.

Amazon.com, one of the World’s largest e-commerce sites has been in business since 1995. While they provide only minimal information about their activities, according to various sources it concentrates the lion’s share of the market for buying and selling books in the USA. The site receives more than 50 million visitors per month according to reports by Compete.com.

In the telecommunications field something similar occurs. It is practically impossible to calculate the number of businesses that provide traditional telephone services while in Internet the calculation is much simpler. Instant Messaging services for example, close relatives to the offline telephone are very few and highly popular. Once again, the services of MSN (pioneer in the subject excepting the juvenile ICQ), Google and Yahoo webopolize the business. IP telephony with Skype as its principal model is also a market dominated by just a few very big players.

The gaming business is not exempt. Also in betting Internet concentrates large and powerful sites.

In the online search industry, without possibility of direct comparison in the physical world, Google represents 63.1% of the world market, Yahoo 20.5% and Microsoft’s sites 8.5% according to MarketingCharts.

Almost all the world’s newspapers offer their own classifieds section. With more than a century of experience, in their immense majority, their reach is limited to just a single country. In every country, dozens even hundreds of different media dedicate thousands of pages to the sale of space for the buying and selling of products and services. On the other hand OLX.com, created in 2006 has already reached more than 40 countries with its service. In the USA, Ebay concentrates 64% of the total visitors to e-commerce sites dedicated to the purchase and sale of vehicles, followed by Autotrader.com with 10% according to ComScore.

While on every point on the globe a small televisión channel exists, and every country has three or four own channels, You Tube is a World leader in the visualization of video online with a 40% share of market. In second place is the conglomerate Fox Interactive Media with 3.8%.

In addition to the global logic that is a defining characteristic of the Web and that allows for the same cost the delivery of a message either to Tokyo or just around the block, the economic model demands the constitution of big players. Why is this? Currently the reigning economic model of the majority of online businesses is often free of charge. A service is placed at the disposition of its users totally free of any cost and this interaction (the use of the service) is subsidized by the advertising message of a third party. The larger the number of users of the service, the greater the advertising and as a result the revenues generated. As no direct payment for the service exists those providing the service are obliged to capture large masses of users so that their business make economic sense.

Undoubtedly many services would not be feasible, based on their huge operating costs, if it were not for the millions of people actively using them. To take an example an e-mail service like Gmail could not exist if it were utilized by only 200 users.

In 2004 the American journalist Chris Anderson coined the phrase – The Long Tail – to explain how Internet and the digital environment had changed the rules of the market. The long tail made up of millions of small competitors, in reality hides the disadvantages of a model that tends to concentrate the power in only a few.

The big, ever bigger. The many small, ever smaller.

By Pablo Capurro

jueves, 15 de enero de 2009

El dominio de los Webopolios




El siguiente artículo fue publicado en El Cronista Comercial el jueves 15 de enero de 2009.

Ver aquí.

En el diario reducen un poco el artículo, que puede ser leído completo a continuación:

Webopolios

A partir de la evolución de la Web y de su apertura definitiva al público -la famosa 2.0-, aparecieron millones de blogs, y la oferta de esta gigantesca red se convirtió, aparentemente, en un bien público y de acceso ilimitado.

Desde entonces, se ha hablado de las bondades democratizadoras de la Web, de sus virtudes como herramienta que fomenta la libre competencia y el acceso a los grandes mercados, desde cualquier país del mundo. Cualquier persona o empresa, con un costo bajísimo o nulo, podía así acceder al mercado global más grande de la historia.

Pasada la emoción por la novedad y deteniéndonos en su realidad económica, la Web deja de ser algo tan entusiasmante para quienes creían y soñaban con sus bondades igualitarias.

La concentración económica en el mundo preWeb, a partir del nacimiento de esta nueva era se acentúa en forma drástica. Internet motiva y alienta la creación de oligopolios más fuertes y de más rápida constitución que los ya conocidos en el universo off line.

No existe empresa que haya tenido una expansión geográfica tan veloz como la que demostraron decenas de negocios on line.

Coca-Cola, creada por John Pemberton en mayo de 1886, logró hacer pie en Asia recién setenta años después; fue en 1954, bajo el nombre de "Ko-kou-ko-le chapo" (felicidad en la boca). Google, con sólo diez años cumplidos, es una de las cinco páginas más visitadas por los usuarios de todos los países del mundo y vende espacios publicitarios (o sea, hace su negocio) en todos ellos. Se calcula que, para 2009, dominará el 50 por ciento de la pauta publicitaria total en Internet.

Basta comparar algunos negocios tradicionales con sus equivalentes en Internet para notar las diferencias en los tiempos y formas que requirieron para posicionarse como líderes.
En cada país existe un promedio de tres empresas que se dedican a los servicios de correo, además de subsidiarias o pequeñas competidoras regionales. En cambio, tres proveedores de e-mail (Google, MSN y Yahoo) concentran prácticamente la distribución total de e-mails en todo el mundo.

En el mercado de la compra y venta, las diferencias se hacen aún más notables. En el mundo, se multiplican los tradicionales centros comerciales, llegando a coexistir, en una ciudad como Buenos Aires, más de ocho shoppings. Mientras tanto, el portal para comprar y vender MercadoLibre.com, lo más parecido a un shopping que ofrece la Web, concentra en sí mismo más del 50 por ciento del volumen total de compras y ventas en Internet de la Argentina.
Amazon.com, uno de los sitios de comercio electrónico más grande del mundo, on line desde 1995, entrega con cuentagotas cualquier información sobre su actividad, pero distintos análisis reflejan que concentra la mayoría del mercado de compra y venta de libros por Internet en Estados Unidos. Recibe más de 50 millones de visitantes por mes, según indica un reporte del sitio Compete.com.

En las comunicaciones ocurre algo similar. Es casi imposible calcular la cantidad de empresas que prestan servicios tradicionales de telefonía, mientras que el mismo cálculo se hace sencillo en Internet. Los servicios de mensajería instantánea, primos hermanos de la telefonía del off line, son pocos y muy populares. Otra vez, los servicios de MSN (pionero en la materia, exceptuando al juvenil ICQ), Google y Yahoo, webopolizan el negocio. La telefonía por IP, con Skype como principal representante, también es un mercado dominado por unos pocos, que son muy grandes.

El negocio del juego no está exento. También en las apuestas, Internet concentra la oferta en sitios grandes y poderosos.

En el rubro de las búsquedas on line, sin comparación en el mundo físico, Google tiene el 63,1 por ciento del mercado mundial, Yahoo el 20,5 por ciento y los sitios de Microsoft el 8,5 por ciento, según reporta MarketingCharts.

Casi todos los diarios del mundo ofrecen sus propios avisos clasificados. Con más de un siglo de experiencia, en su inmensa mayoría su alcance se limita a un solo país. Por eso, en cada país conviven decenas o centenares de medios que dedican miles de páginas a la venta de espacios para la oferta de productos o servicios. En cambio, OLX.com, creado en 2006, llega a más de 40 países del mundo con su servicio. En Estados Unidos, Ebay concentra el 64 por ciento del total de visitas a sitios de compra y venta de vehículos, seguido por Autotrader.com, con el 10 por ciento, según estimaciones de ComScore.

Mientras en cada punto del planeta existe un pequeño canal de televisión, y cada país tiene tres o cuatro canales propios, YouTube es líder mundial, con el 40 por ciento del mercado, en la visualización de videos on line. En segundo lugar, y muy lejos, se encuentra el conglomerado Fox Interactive Media, con el 3.8 por ciento.

Además de la lógica global que es principio y fin de la Web, y que permite, al mismo costo, llegar con un mensaje tanto a Tokio como a la vuelta de la esquina, el modelo económico que impera en Internet hace necesaria la constitución de grandes jugadores. ¿Por qué? En la actualidad, el modelo económico de la mayoría de los negocios on line es el gratuito. Un servicio es puesto a disposición de los usuarios totalmente sin costo, y esta interacción (el uso del servicio) es solventada por el mensaje publicitario de un tercero. Por lo tanto, a mayor cantidad de usuarios, más publicidad y, como consecuencia, mayores ingresos. Al no existir un pago directo por la utilización del servicio, aquellos que los ofrecen necesitan captar grandes masas de usuarios para que su negocio cobre sentido.

Muchos servicios no serían factibles, por los altos costos que implican, si no fueran utilizados por millones de personas. Por ejemplo, no podría existir un servicio de correo como el de Gmail que fuera utilizado en forma gratuita por 200 personas.

En 2004, el periodista estadounidense Chris Anderson utilizó la frase La Larga Cola -The Long Tail- para explicar cómo Internet y el entorno digital habían cambiado las reglas del mercado. La larga cola que constituyen los millones de pequeños competidores disimula las desventajas de un modelo que, en realidad, tiende a concentrar cada día más el poder en unos pocos.

Los grandes, cada vez más grandes. Y muchos más chicos, cada vez más chicos.

Por Pablo Capurro