1. find one product and type “product name vs [hit space bar]” in google or yahoo. Take a look at the auto completed suggestions — your new leads will appear
2. Take a few of the names you have compiled and do a Google or Yahoo search using the words conference and seminar. Find the keynote speakers at these conferences and spend some time reading their websites and blogs
3. From the various websites you should have visited by now you should be compiling a best of breed feature list. Sure, obviously you should know what you need with business objectives before even starting the process — however you may find some great common best practice features and correlations. Begin a comparison matrix as soon as possible.
4. Take a look at your top vendors (you should know the industry best by now) make a list of customers who use their software in your vertical market. Try and reach out to a few of them on Linked in. With a well constructed email, you should be able to find someone willing to share candid information about the product
5. Play buzzword bingo. Try and cut through the hype. You will start to see a lot of buzz words that really don’t have much to do with the quality or effectiveness of the software as it pertains to your business needs and or budget.
This fall I will be teaching another class at NYU: Apache Web server. There are not a lot of opportunities to learn Apache in a hands on setting. This course is applicable to all types of web developers. From front end designers, content management system operators, and back end systems admins. I will discuss several real world scenarios with the web server as it pertains to topics such as search engine optimization or security. For more details check out the course listing.
http://www.scps.nyu.edu/course-detail/X52.9805/20093/apache-web-server
So there I was…giving another presentation in our conference room at work. I was using the controlled desktop which uses windows Vista. Every time I opened up a new browser, it defaulted to Bing. Now, this is clearly an obvious form of pitching a product. We see it all the time with google built into firefox and the iphone.
What is interesting to me, is that Microsoft still has complete ownership of the corporate desktop. Sure, I use a mac at work, and I am not a zealot. I use windows when I need to, and there is no ill will.
Over the past few weeks i have seen Bing in a number of places, it just sort of snuck up on me. I personally dont think this will squash google, because it has to absolutely crush google in order to replace it as a search engine. Its just the ubiquitous corporate nature of Microsoft’s products that I find interesting. They have a tremendous advantage here and i suspect they will be cashing in on it.
From: www.pewinternet.org | July 27, 2009
More than twice as many Americans went online for health information than in 2000. But the surprise is that the Web is rarely the only resource. Most people use online research to supplement, not replace, advice delivered by a health professional—and by family and friends. “Don’t count out Doctor Mom,” says Pew Associate Director Susannah Fox, who wrote the June report.
Read More at Pewinternet Report >>
After months of anticipation, i was accepted to google voice. The significance of this product has not been fully realized.
In April 2009, NY Times wrote  about the death of voicemail. For me, as a Software and Digital Media professional, 500 emails + 20 voicemail’s per day create a communications bottleneck. Whats worse, I have become lackluster in returning calls, creating frustration and problems with my personal life. Not good.
This triage table of getting back to people was simply not working. I just dont have the time to process hundreds of emails and dozens of voicemail’s.
So why am I so excited? Among dozens of features you can read about on their webiste, voice to text transcription is a godsend. I had a hard time explaining the signifigance of this to family and friends. In a nutshell, when someone calls you and leaves a voicemail, it gets transcribed into text, not just visual voicemail, not somewhere on the web, but text. Granted the translation misses a few words here and there, but I get a lot more out of this transcript than wading through voicemail messages of the past. I dont have to log into google voice, this text transcription is pushed directly to my cell phone, blackberry, etc.
Speaking to someone on the phone or on video chat are very powerful forms of communcation. For me, voicemail is a completely antiquated and i look forward to its demise.
The folks over at Smashing magazine have a great article on social media design. A lot of these principles should apply to portal and web 2.0 development. The main points are, if something is on the page it should be relevant, and connecting to more information from different sources needs to be simple.
