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Arm Yourself for the Future:
Opportunities and Threats for Your Web Business
Matt McAlisterSr. Product Manager
RSS and Social Media, Yahoo!
Agenda
• Online media trends
• Mashup examples
• How and why to step into the game
What is a Mashup?
• Mashup (music): a musical genre consisting of the combination of the parts of more than one song
• Mashup (web application hybrid): a
website or web application that combines content from more than one source
-- Wikipedia
Technologies with impact
WHICH ONES MATTER?
• RSS Readers
• Browsers
• Tagging
• Wikis
• Social Networks
BECAUSE…
1. Both readers and advertisers are migrating this way
2. These tools could bring me new customers, distribution channels and revenue streams
Alternatives to my home page
RSS Readers and Browsers
Awareness and Usage of Tools for Accessing and Reading RSS Feeds
• On average, Aware RSS Users spend 4 hours per week reading any of approximately 7 RSS feeds.
Base: Currently use RSS feeds (R6)
Aware of Tools
Use of ToolsPrimary Method
(n=175) (n=175) (n=175)
My Yahoo! 52% 39% 32%
Firefox (livebookmarks) 47% 30% 23%
My MSN 27% 11% 8%
Apple Safari RSS 21% 12% 8%
Google Personal Start Page 18% 7% 4%
Bloglines 11% 3% 2%
NewsGator 10% 1% 1%
News Crawler 9% 1% 0%
FeedDemon 8% 0% -
NetNewsWire 6% 1% 1%
Newsfire 4% 0% -
Other 22% 18% 16%
None of the above 6% 6% 6%
Average 6.6
Average 4.1Hours per week do you spend reading RSS feeds?
RSS feeds you currently subscribe to or access?
You can offer more than just headlines
Why worry?
THE BAD
• Fewer touch points with customers
• Lose control of content distribution
• Unproven ad models
• Less traffic to my home page
THE GOOD
• RSS is getting my content to people the way they want it
• Driving traffic directly into site content
• It’s cheap to produce content for these tools
Alternatives to my site navigation
Structure versus Meaning
TAXONOMY
A division of things into ordered groups or categories.
SEMANTICS
The study or science of meaning in language.
-- American Heritage Dictionary
The Semantic Web
The Semantic Web is a project that intends to create a universal medium for information exchange by giving meaning, in a manner understandable by machines, to the content of documents on the Web.
Hierarchy Model
Matrix Model
Dewey Decimal System: “Religion”
• 200 Religion 201 Philosophy of Christianity 202 Miscellany of Christianity 203 Dictionaries of Christianity 204 Special topics 205 Serial publications of Christianity 206 Organizations of Christianity 207 Education, research in Christianity 208 Kinds of persons in Christianity 209 History & geography of Christianity 210 Natural theology 211 Concepts of God 212 Existence, attributes of God 213 Creation 214 Theodicy 215 Science & religion 216 Good & evil 217 Not assigned or no longer used 218 Humankind 219 Not assigned or no longer used 220 Bible 221 Old Testament 222 Historical books of Old Testament
223 Poetic books of Old Testament 224 Prophetic books of Old Testament
225 New Testament 226 Gospels & Acts 227 Epistles 228 Revelation (Apocalypse) 229 Apocrypha & pseudepigrapha 230 Christian theology 231 God
• 262 Ecclesiology 263 Times, places of religious observance 264 Public worship 265 Sacraments, other rites & acts 266 Missions 267 Associations for religious work 268 Religious education 269 Spiritual renewal 270 Christian church history 271 Religious orders in church history 272 Persecutions in church history 273 Heresies in church history 274 Christian church in Europe 275 Christian church in Asia 276 Christian church in Africa 277 Christian church in North America 278 Christian church in South America 279 Christian church in other areas 280 Christian denominations & sects 281 Early church & Eastern churches 282 Roman Catholic Church 283 Anglican churches 284 Protestants of Continental origin 285 Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational 286 Baptist, Disciples of Christ, Adventist 287 Methodist & related churches 288 Not assigned or no longer used 289 Other denominations & sects 290 Other & comparative religions 291 Comparative religion 292 Classical (Greek & Roman) religion 293 Germanic religion 294 Religions of Indic origin 295 Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism, Parseeism) 296 Judaism 297 Islam & religions originating in it 298 Not assigned or no longer used 299 Other religions
• 231 God 232 Jesus Christ & his family 233 Humankind 234 Salvation (Soteriology) & grace 235 Spiritual beings 236 Eschatology 237 Not assigned or no longer used 238 Creeds & catechisms 239 Apologetics & polemics 240 Christian moral & devotional theology 241 Moral theology 242 Devotional literature 243 Evangelistic writings for individuals
244 Not assigned or no longer used 245 Texts of hymns 246 Use of art in Christianity 247 Church furnishings & articles 248 Christian experience, practice, life 249 Christian observances in family life
250 Christian orders & local church 251 Preaching (Homiletics) 252 Texts of sermons 253 Pastoral office (Pastoral theology) 254 Parish government & administration 255 Religious congregations & orders 256 Not assigned or no longer used 257 Not assigned or no longer used 258 Not assigned or no longer used 259 Activities of the local church 260 Christian social theology 261 Social theology 262 Ecclesiology
? Buddhism
297 Islam & religions originating in it
296 Judaism
Tags bridge the gap between structure and meaning
And they become social fabric
A Simple Content Mashup
A Simple Content Mashup
How did they do this?
Tag data makes mashups easy
Why Content Data Matters
THE BAD
• People are interacting with social media tools instead of your site
• Your content getting mixed up with other sources
THE GOOD
• People using your content for personal use
• People distributing your content for you
• Your content accessible for mashups
Your own readers are starting to look like you
– Producing targeted content– Creating communities– Selling advertising
Sharing news with each other
Helping each other buy things
Organizing ways to get together
Sharing opinions with eachother
It’s not just for the fun of it
There are lots of ways to make money:
• Yahoo!
• Amazon
• eBay
• IndustryBrains
• Kanoodle
Why User Participation Matters
• They create content for you
• Your site becomes a destination for groups to form
• There’s no better way to learn what your users want
• If you don’t give them a way to communicate, they’ll go elsewhere
Mashup Examples
Why play in the Mashup game?
• Create more compelling offerings for your users
• Get your stuff in front of more people than your competitors
• Distribute your revenue model in addition to your content
Anatomy of a Mashup
Explicit description of content
longitude and latitude
road condition summary
Make it relevant to your users
Make it relevant to your users
The Mashup Model
How do I get mashed up?
• Make your content easy to grab
• Markup your content with tags and microformats
• If you employ interactivity, expose the programming interface for those tools
• Jump start it with your own mashups
Yeah, so what? What’s the ROI?
•If you don’t, someone else will take your market opportunity
•The costs are minimal
•The upside is big time distribution
How do I make the model work?Answer: Incentives all around
1. Mashup artists who use your content must also carry your ads (or sub offers)– (YPN, AdSense, Amazon Affiliates)
2. Split revenue with your Mashers
3. Everyone gets what they want– Mashers make money
– More users get your content
– You make money
– Advertisers reach target customers
The arguments against getting connected out there
• I’ve got other priorities
Make “winning” a priority…
it’s no fun just “maintaining” anyhow
The arguments against getting connected out there
• I’ve got other priorities
• My engineers are working on a new CMS
Again? You really really don’t need a new CMS.
They would have more fun doing mashups, I’m sure.
The arguments against getting connected out there
• I’ve got other priorities
• My engineers are working on a new CMS
• I just need traffic and things will change
Don’t get caught in that trap. If you connnect with a valuable audience, the
money will come.
The arguments against getting connected out there
• I’ve got other priorities
• My engineers are working on a new CMS
• I just need traffic and things will change
• My content is valuable. I want control over where it appears and who uses itLearn from the RIAA.
Incentivize good behavior because you don’t have the $$$ to sue everyone.
The arguments against getting connected out there
• I’ve got other priorities
• My engineers are working on a new CMS
• I just need traffic and things will change
• My content is valuable. I want control over where it appears and who uses it
• A competitor might use my content and take my users away
Make them a partner and profit together. They’ll
steal your customers with or without you.
The arguments against getting connected out there
• I’ve got other priorities
• My engineers are working on a new CMS
• I just need traffic and things will change
• My content is valuable. I want control over where it appears and who uses it
• A competitor might use my content and take my users away
• I want advertisers paying me anywhere my content is being used
50% of a big pie can be worth more than 100% of
a small pie.
The arguments against getting connected out there
• I’ve got other priorities• My engineers are working on a new CMS• I just need traffic and things will change• My content is valuable. I want control over
where it appears and who uses it• A competitor might use my content and take my
users away• I want advertisers paying me anywhere my
content is being used• Do you really think I will make more money
doing this than selling brand advertising?
Hmmm, good point. Probably not.
But you’d be crazy not to at least diversify.
SWOT Analysis (Example: Wal-Mart)
STRENGTHS
• Wal-Mart is a powerful retail brand. It has a reputation for value for money, convenience and a wide range of products all in one store.
WEAKNESSES
• Since Wal-Mart sell products across many sectors (such as clothing, food, or stationary), it may not have the flexibility of some of its more focused competitors.
OPPORTUNITIES
• There are tremendous opportunities for future business in expanding consumer markets, such as China and India.
THREATS
• Being number one means that you are the target of competition, locally and globally.
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Mashup SWOT Analysis
STRENGTHS
• It’s a very inexpensive way to enable my content for the new online media dynamics.
WEAKNESSES
• I will lose some control of my content, my brand and my customers if I open up to the world of Mashups.
OPPORTUNITIES
• There are many ways that Mashups can help me distribute my content, extend my brand, acquire new customers and open up new revenue streams.
THREATS
• There are new competitive threats happening whether or not I make my content Mashup friendly.
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A Few Resources
• http://publisher.yahoo.com/rssguide
• TechCrunch
• ProgrammableWeb.com
• You’re It (tagsonomy.com)
• Rex Hammock’s Blog
• Raft Ali’s PaidContent
• Many-to-many (corante.com/many)
