Christophe LANGLOIS (first version)

Linkedin: an excellent new interface (18/03/06)

Linkedin have launched another interface, and today I am going to insist on the member homepage which has changed a lot.
As an experienced networker, every Linkedin new release is a real pleasure!

The new interface: a better support to Linkedin's business model
Linkedin Executives are clever. Indeed, the new interface gives more value to its members (improved access to useful new information), and it "promotes" their premium services better.
Linkedin business model is based on premium services, job services and avertising.
   
Thanks to the new interface I am confident they will further increase their member database, and they will make more members aware of these extra features.
    
Network updates
I have been waiting for those info for so long, and it is one of the best improvements of the new interface!
Now, you know how active your contacts (Linkedin members) are, and you know when one of your personal contact has registered on Linkedin.

You can broadcast some news to part of/all your contacts and notify them your got a new job for instance. Of course, when you choose one of the available entries, first you see an intermediate page which promotes Linkedin features and premium services.

New members
Nothing really new here: you are aware of a new member in one of your companies, groups, and among your contacts not-yet Linkedin members (providing you have uploaded your outlook contacts)
Nevertheless, the display has been improved and now you see the job title and the company of the new joiners.

Network data
They have added new stats, and they have improved their display (look of the icons and bars).

Linkedin: reconnect with you old classmates

A couple of weeks ago, Linkedin launched a new feature: now it is easy to reconnect with your old classmates.
   
The list of contacts displayed is based on the name of the institution and the dates you entered in your profile.

Accoona: a future alternative to Google?

Have you already tried Accoona? It is a new internet search service, launched last week.

It is led by Eckhard Pfeiffer, former Chief Executive of Compaq and Gary Kasparov is a shareholder. Accoona attracted more than $100m in backing.

It allow users to easily narrow their searches to particular sites, time periods, countries and other criteria to product more relevant results.

It is also launching a Chinese site, and plans a European site.

UK - Internet & Mobile phones have dramatically increased our expectations

Remember, or try to imagine, how we communicated only 15 years ago: regular phones (fixed-line), fax, telex... and no email.

Cellphones and Internet have dramatically increased our productivity at work, and changed our day-to-day lives. Nowadays, you can contact anyone at anytime. And most of the time, you expect people to be reachable, or to get back to you straight away.

UK - Study to better understand the world of cyberspace etiquette
I have recently read an interesting article about a study recently commissioned in the UK. Please find below some "morceaux choisis".
* "Nearly a half of office workers consider it rude not to receive a reply to an e-mail within a morning"
* "5% thinks it is impolite not to get one within 5mn of sending a message"
* "2 in 5 mobile users expect a response to a text message within an hour before taking offence"
* "Nearly 25% expect a response in 5mn"
Impressive, isn't it?

Blackberry
Do you have a blackberry? It is a fantastic device if like me you are traveling a lot and you are managing people: clients are obviously very pleased to easily get hold of you. But now that you follow up emails on the go, wait a minute and think about your colleagues and your expectations... ;)

March 2006: Linkedin becomes profitable

Congratulations to Linkedin's senior executives!
They build a business model based on 3 main sources of revenues: premium services, job services, and advertising. Their strategy has paid and Linkedin will start being profitable in March 2006.

Full news on CNet.com

Linkedin: increased visibility with the new Web Profile

Web Profile: increase your visibility online thanks to Linkedin
I am so enthusiastic when I talk about networking and visibility on the Internet!
One more time, I would like to say "Bravo": this is a very clever feature Linkedin made available to its members.

Now, you can send a personalized link pointing to your resumed profile, and you get to fully customized that page.

Microsoft to provide a serious alternative to RIM's Blackberry?

Microsoft and Vodafone have joined forces to launch a portable email service that intends to rival market leader Blackberry.
In addition to sending and receiving e-mails, Windows Mobile E-mail will enable users to edit Microsoft Word and Excel documents. (more)
   
My Blackberry changed my (business) life!
I am traveling a lot, and I remember how nice were my evenings, on the road: I spent hours in Internet Cafes all over Europe sending emails to my clients, prospects, team members and my manager!
Now, I follow up emails on the go, at anytime. This is an interesting fact, because it changed the expectations people have.

Microsoft Office on the go?
So, Microsoft wants to become a leader in that field too. Why not, as long as the handsets are as clever in terms of ease-to-use. If in top of that, you can open Word and Excel documents and play with them like on a PC, MS could become a threat to the almighty RIM...

eBay: Meg Whitman's Vision & Strategy for 2006

There was a good article on eBay in the FT on Thursday 8th February.
   
The CEO, Meg Whitman, talks about the key players in the Internet world, their strategy, and explain how good the future will be for eBay. 2006 is the year of synergies and consolidation.
          
Ebay, key facts
* Creation date: Founded in September 1995 by Pierre Omidyar
* Mission: provide a global trading platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything
* Nb of registered users:
* Volume of sales every year:
* Merchandise at fixed prices: 34%
* Acquisitions: PayPal in 2002, Skype in 2005, and huge investments on its own search engine
* eBay Sites: Half.com, Kijiji, PayPal, Skype, ProStores, Rent.com and Shopping.com

Ebay sees Google, Yahoo, Amazon divergence
The four dominant internet groups - Google, Yahoo, eBay and Amazon - will increasingly focus on their core activities rather than compete with each other head-on, according to Meg Whitman, eBay's chief executive. (...)
"I think we will end up specialising," she told the FT in an interview on Tuesday. "We have specialised in e-commerce, payment and voice communication. Google stands for search, Yahoo largely stands for content - so I think we may on the fringe compete, but I suspect that over time the businesses will become more specialised." (...)

I am really surprised by Meg's comments and vision. Indeed, her views contradict the widely held notion that the four internet giants will engage in increasingly fierce competition as they try to match their rivals' services.

Google is an obvious counter-example. They plan to compete against:
* eBay: Google recently launched Goggle Base, a classified advertisements website that puts the company in direct competition with eBay.
* Yahoo!: Google is targeting the Instant Messaging market and would then become a significant threat to Yahoo!
* Amazon: Google and Amazon are separately in talks with music industry executives about new digital music services that could break Apple’s grip on the fast-growing market for legal downloads. Google may bid for Napster, the now legal online music company.

2006: a year of consolidation & synergies for eBay
Ms Whitman said she had no plans for further big acquisitions this year, stressing that 2006 "is going to be a year of consolidating the Skype acquisition and leveraging the synergies between eBay, PayPal and Skype".   
She said: "Skype has 200,000 new users a month. We would like a lot of those people to have PayPal accounts, so there's a nice synergy there. We also want to expand Skype buttons on eBay [which allow users to contact each other by clicking on them]."The reason we want to do that is that we want to increase the velocity of trade. If the buyer and seller can talk to each other, especially with high-end items, we think it can accelerate trade." (...)

If I understand the acquisition of Paypal: with eBay's incredible no of users, it helped Paypal to become the reference in the field of secured and convenient mean of payment on the Internet.

The synergy with Skype is not as obvious to me: even though it is a great once revolutionary service, I am not convinced it represents a way to make buyers and sellers come to an agreement more quickly!

New websites / Initiatives: eBay Express, Portero
* eBay Express: eBay plans to launch a specialty site where items would be available for immediate purchase. He says eBay hopes that the new site would attract customers who prefer a more conventional e-shopping experience. (more on BetaNews)
* Portero: (powered by eBay) Portero was founded in 2004 on the belief that buying luxury online should be effortless and without risk. They are committed to delivering trust, service and expertise to their auctions. And, they are the only online auction marketplace truly devoted to the luxury brand legacy as is evident in our product & brand selection, presentation and certification process. (more about Portero)

Google @ odds with BMW over web spamming

Google & "doorway pages"
When I was on my plane from Zurich to London, I read an interesting article in the Financial Times: apparently, Google removed 2 German websites from its search results. And those companies are not small or unknown companies (BMW, Ricoh)!

If you want to follow the news from Google, I would suggest to check the very good Google section on the FT's website (www.ft.com/google).

BMW falls foul of Google "web spam" rules
(source: www.ft.com, February 6 2006)

The German website of BMW, the carmaker, has been removed from Google’s search results as part of the web company’s crack down on the manipulation of its search engine.
Google confirmed on Monday that www.BMW.de had been removed from all search engine results. A spokeswoman said the company could not comment on specific cases but said: “We cannot tolerate websites trying to manipulate search results as we aim to provide users with the relevant and objective search results”.
The website used “doorway” pages, which can be employed to trick search engines into leading their users to websites that are not directly related to the search terms. (...)
Matt Cutts, a software engineer at Google, wrote last month in his weblog that the company would begin to take a tougher line on web spamming by non-English language websites. (...)

Moreover, Google seems to have removed another website for the same reason, www.Ricoh.de, the German website of the Japanese electronics and office equipment company.

Doorway pages
The website used “doorway pages", which can be employed to trick search engines into leading their users to websites that are not directly related to the search terms.

UK: Pushy sales pitches "cost firms dearly"

Sales people, the cliche
Sales is a highly interesting topic. Most of the time, when they think about Sales, people think: "pushy, biased, products, intrusion"...

Hard-selling: a costly sales strategy for UK businesses
This morning, I was on my way to the office, on the tube, where I read an article from the Metro: Pushy sales pitches "cost firms dearly".

Aggressive sales tactics and pushy staff are leading to a consumer backlash against British businesses. Please find below an extract of the article:
"AGGRESSIVE sales pitches and pushy staff at callcentres are l;eading to a consumer backlash against British businesses, a study suggested yesterday.
Many companiers face losing money because people experienec "customer service rage", according to the National Consumer Council (NCC).
Top hates include "robotic" call centres, hard-selling marketing, missed appointements and poor after-sales service.
Companies in telecoms, the financial services and utility sectors were named among the worst-performing.
Electrical retailers and garages also came off badly in the survey, title The Stupid Company: How British Businesses Throw away Money by Alienating Customers.
NCC deputy chiez executive Philip Cullum siad: "We're seeing more and more service rage, with infuriated customers punishing companies for hopeless performance.
"The scale of company inaptitude must amount to many billions of pounds of lost profits."
Survey responedents criticised some firms for being "sneaky, dishonest, incompetent and ineffectual".
The study said companies could improve by getting one member of staff to deal with a customer from start to finish, to ensure a personal touch.
(...)"

Networking is a passion for me: I like meeting new people and develop excellent long-term relationships.

2006: a demand for tailored services and excellent customer care
The reason I work as a Sales Manager is for the challenge of developing the best relationships with new clients, or enhance the quality of existing relationships. The secret to be a fantastic Sales person is... to listen first. That is the secret. You understand the needs of your contact, you listen. Then you can explain how you could help him and meet His specific demands. It needs to be taylored.

I believe my clients think about quality, relationship, consulting, help, care, responsiveness.