Archive for February, 2005

Burnham's Beat: The Death of Compiled Applications

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005

Burnhams’ Beat describes The Death of Compiled Applications:

Data was the first and most logical component piece to be pulled out of applications and from that a giant industry was created, databases.  Later, client-server architectures broke applications into muliple pieces and separated applications functions, but they didn’t actually pull a lot of functionality out of compiled code.  With the birth of the web though, applications started to change dramatically.

The web browser changed applications forever by substituting a generic GUI front-end and structured text (in the form of HTML) for a compiled GUI.  In this way the browser became merely a generic execution engine.  It requested non-compiled text and then translated that text into a unique GUI according to a pre-existing industry standard.  By pulling out the presentation logic from compiled apps and making it open and accessible to not only other programmers but basically anyone who could view text, browsers launched the massive wave of innovation and creativity that in turn made the Internet a true “web”.  HTML “programmers” swapped HTML tricks and tips liberally.  They cut and pasted code from each other’s sites and as time progressed they began to use the power of HTML and HTTP to create composite sites that actually borrowed both content and styles from other sites.

Thus, in just 10 years, the presentation layer of the web has become an incredible laboratory for innovation and creativity with people using the power of HTML’s accessibility and portability to create radical new services, many of which people simply had not thought possible beforehand.

Posted in Web as Business Platform | Comments Closed

Financial Supply Chain

Friday, February 11th, 2005

While wandering the Web, I stumbled across a company, Prime Revenue, that offers to optimize the "financial supply chain" of its customers. 

PrimeRevenue is the key to a financially optimized supply chain.  For Buyers and Suppliers.

Our program is an innovative and unparalleled solution that brings the benefits of information technology to the financial supply chain.  Our services deliver greater working capital efficiency, cost savings, and revenue growth opportunities for both Buyers and Suppliers.

With our program, Buyers provide Suppliers with transaction visibility and payment certainty around trade payables to their Suppliers, reducing the amount of cash tied up in the order-to-cash cycle.  Our services streamline AR/AP processes, link the flow of funds to the flow of transaction data and, by creating visibility into future cash flows, give corporations access to a variety of transaction level financing options at very attractive rates.

Simply stated, PrimeRevenue helps companies do more business with less working capital.

Although apparently not a new concept (there’s a link on their website
to a fairly sophisticated vision of it in an article written in 2000),
the integrated communications and software infrastructure for implementing it are
only now reaching the maturation to support it.

On another Web sojourn, I encountered Wells Fargo’s Commercial Electronic Office (CEO), a proprietary financial portal that claims to provide "cash management, credit, international, and trust and investment services all in once place with a single sign on".  Maybe so, but my experience with banks suggest that would be something of a stretch.  (Wells had even applied bankers’ bureaucratese to the term e-commerce, turning a concise word into a mouthful of multi-syllabic mush.)  My instincts and experience with online media content tell me that a proprietary business model will not stand.  For the same underlying economic reasons that it would make no sense for Yahoo, MSN or AOL to limit their available market to that of one communications company (as in cable or telco), it would make no sense for a true financial portal to limit its market to the available market of a given depository institution (even if owned by that institution). 

This is worthy of futher "focused" Web wanderings, thought and conversation.

 

Posted in Financial Services, Telecosm, Web as Business Platform | Comments Closed

Blogging 2.0

Thursday, February 10th, 2005

I believe Fred Wilson nails it in this post..

That was Blogging 1.0.  We knew back then that the web was a great platform for personal expression.  All three businesses still exist.  Two of them exist inside of web portals and About.com apparently is going to get sold soon, apparently to the New York Times Company.

Blogging 1.0 paved the way for Blogging 2.0.  I see four fundamental improvements that differentiate Blogging 1.0 from Blogging 2.0.

The first is the notion of the post as the central piece of content.  About.com had some of this in its DNA, but Geocities and Tripod did not. Posts drive freshness, frequency, and syndication and make Blogging 2.0 much more exciting than Bloggin 1.0 was.

The second is related to the first.  Permalinks have changed the game fundamentally.  Linking to content was not really possible until permalinks came along.  Now each piece of content is a persistent object that has a unique identifier.  This is a huge deal and this concept did not exist in Blogging 1.0.

The third is RSS. Blogging 1.0 was a web experience.  Blogging 2.0 is a everywhere experience. Content was a solid in Blogging 1.0 and its a fluid in Blogging 2.0.

The fourth is CPC and contextual ad networks.  In Blogging 1.0, the only way to monetize the business was with banners.  And brand advertisers were not thrilled with paying high CPMs to advertise on "amateur content".  With the arrival of CPC and contextual ad networks, this is no longer the case.  Wherever advertisers can get clicks, they’ll place their ads. The result is a huge increase in the potential revenues.

Posted in Blogs, Digital Media, Web as Business Platform | Comments Closed