Always a way

I have always been a big proponent of Linkedin. I was an early adopter and have seen its growth skyrocket in the last few years. Some say that it is Facebook for business, which ever way you look at it you really a place you need to be if you are serious about your career or your business. You can view my public profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/ciaops and if you are already on Linkedin then feel free to connect up with me directly.

One of the surprising benefits I found from Linkedin was the fact that once I linked my Twitter feed into the Linkedin my audience grew significantly. I also found far more interaction with what I posted in my Twitter stream from people who saw the information via Linkedin. I was therefore disappointed to read about the fact that this would no longer be available.

Twitter cuts off service to Linkedin

After some consideration I have found what I think is a suitable replacement using If This Then That.

If This Then That is a very simply yet power site. It allows you to create automation ‘recipes’ from other online services. I already use the user to send a copy of every tweet that I do to the online notebook Evernote. All I needed to do was create something similar but send it to Linkedin.

Once you create an account you think link in your online services or ‘channels’. Here you can see some of the ‘channels’ I have already configured (including Linkedin)

I can now start linking these services together via simple rules.

In the case above, if I tweet with Twitter post that tweet to an update on Linkedin.

So here’s the tweet and

Here’s the update on Linkedin (it may take up to 15 minutes to come through).

Pretty handy eh? If you haven’t looked at If This Then That then I recommend you do. There is a thriving community of people developing and sharing recipes, so you don’t even need to make your own!

If This Then That to me point in the direction we’ll see with cloud services. Basically you’ll be able to easily and simply combine them together and automatically share data and information between them. Very, very powerful when you think about it.

Downloading is dead

It is fast becoming apparent that the concept of ‘downloading’ is a thing of the past. This video from Hungry Beast gives you the reasons why.

<img alt="" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-xuMe3u-w28E/UOEWFWdquaI/AAAAAAAAGfU/n75nn51kHJo/video6abb1fce43be.jpg?imgmax=800" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('347ade4a-6c22-46a5-bb3d-44e8eacac079'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/dv26FQR8_bE?hl=en&hd=1“;” style=”border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none;” />

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv26FQR8_bE

This set of circumstances has been reinforced by two recent services. The first is Spotify which has finally made its ways to Australia. It basically allows your to stream music directly from the Internet no matter where you are.
Not only can you access millions of tunes you can now access these on just about any device that is connected to the Internet including PC, MAC, iPhones, iPad, etc. There is even an option to store some of the music locally to take with you when you don’t have access to the Internet. Best of all you can start using the service for free! Upgrades provide more features but again access to millions of tunes for free that you don’t have to download – Brilliant!

I’ve talked before about how I have been a member of a DVD video rental library for a while now. The idea is that you pay so much per month and they keep sending you DVDs in the mail. You simply watch and return them. This model has fast become out dated and businesses like NetFlix in the US are providing streaming of movies directly to devices.

Such streaming services were unavailable to Australia until just recently. Quickflix (of which I am a member) has now released an app for idevices that allows you to stream movies and TV shows directly. The choices, I admit, are somewhat limited but they are growing rapidly. In the couple of days since I have had the service I have already watched a few movies. It is just so convenient.

At this stage I would still like to get the content from Quickflix onto my aging TV rather than on the small screen of my iPad. I know that I can do so from the iPad but what I am really after is the ability for streaming Quickflix content to be delivered to my TV via my XBox which is always connected to the TV. The good news is that service is coming soon, not soon enough if you ask me, but in the meantime I can still stream movies to my iPad, PC or MAC, so I’ll survive.

With Spotify and now Quickflix streaming we are again seeing a shift in the technology landscape. Sure you’ll need faster broadband connections and bigger download limits but I can’t see these actually getting smaller can you? I think that the concept of download limits here in Australia will disappear as it has in the US. The ability to access a service anywhere, anytime and immediately is certainly here to stay thanks to services like Spotify and Quickflix.

SMBs and Cloud Services

I was browsing through my RSS reader recently and found the following interesting article from Box Free IT:

http://www.boxfreeit.com.au/Productivity/small-businesses-using-cloud-to-triple-in-next-three-years.html

Now all of this comes from a Microsoft funded survey of influencers at 3,000 SMB’s including some here in Australia. Now because it comes from Microsoft you do have to take the figures with a grain of salt, however the trends are still very interesting.

If you dig into the article you’ll find the actual Microsoft article at:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2012/mar12/03-28SMBCloudPR.aspx

Which too contains a graphic:

This one aimed at the opportunity for the SMB reseller. Now, as I have mentioned many time here before I certainly believe there are plenty of opportunities for resellers BUT they are going come without some pain and re-alignment for these resellers.

Take for example the figure that 65% expect to be using cloud based email services in the next 2-3 years. This means that there is going to much less call for a product like Exchange Server on site for SMB’s. It is also going to mean that ancillary services like message hygiene (spam and virus filtering basically) are also going to move into the cloud and away from reseller revenue streams. Conversely to that you also see figures there like 60% don’t have the resources to implement new technologies and applications. That is certainly an opportunity, however it also means that resellers who want to provide that need to get skilled up on these ‘new technologies and applications’. So an investment is required but it would certainly appear to be worth it.

Perhaps what these sort of surveys do is challenge the perception. Take a look at the figure that only 20% believe their data is less secure in the cloud than it is in their on-premise system. That is certainly contrary to what you hear out there generally.

What these survey’s do reinforce is that fact that there is still opportunity in the IT business no matter whether it is cloud based or not. Importantly however, cloud services are going to require some skills education, investment and development to reap the rewards. It is very unlikely that staying with the same old business model and the same old skills is going to provide you with more opportunity in the coming years.

In the end you can take away from these surveys what you want but to me the important thing is to look at the trends that all these surveys point to. If you are not paying attention, chances are you’ll get left behind and have to struggle. Don’t say that you haven’t been warned!

Tri-focal

If like me you have read the Daniel Suarez novel Daemon you will have heard of the concept of augmented reality. Basically it allows you to project an image in front of your vision (like a heads up display) and that show you information pulled from the Internet.

Google now has a prototype called ‘project glass’ which is basically a set of glasses to provide this augmented reality. They have created the following video to demonstrate the concept:

<img alt="" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-1GAIb9ID-kA/UOuxAPj_rrI/AAAAAAAAG2E/eCPTbMgP8wA/video3fc28455ad1c%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('caf2f934-7fbf-451c-9d30-188f7b68b0c8'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/9c6W4CCU9M4?hl=en&hd=1“;” style=”border-style: none;” />

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4

Now of course this video is the ‘rose coloured glasses’ through which Google would like us to believe it will be like. If it is from Google then it is probably going to look more like this video:

<img alt="" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-5yYI1ZK8Mjc/UOuxBBkD_HI/AAAAAAAAG2I/FcTaIUKOTyk/videoe78aa6c10244%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('c6e0563e-fea2-468d-92d5-ede1106410b0'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/_mRF0rBXIeg?hl=en&hd=1“;” style=”border-style: none;” />

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mRF0rBXIeg

No matter how bad that is it would have to be better than what some believe would be Microsoft’s equivalent:

<img alt="" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-T-g-0XxV5L8/UOuxBzXkx-I/AAAAAAAAG2Q/J7G7VwO6w2o/videodac31acf90a0%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('3b780085-63c8-454f-8039-45c605706880'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/ZwModZmOzDs?hl=en&hd=1“;” style=”border-style: none;” />

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwModZmOzDs

So if you like the concept of augmented reality I’d suggest you have a read of the Daniel Suarez novel Daemon and keep an look out for what I reckon will be a growing number of these devices.