Forrester’s corporate blogging solutions evaluation, Part 1

By Charlene Li

I'm conducting a review of corporate blogging solutions this quarter and could use your help in the process. Forrester has been doing evaluations -- we call them "waves" of technology solutions for the past few years and we thought this would be helpful to do for blogging software and services, specifically targeted at corporate solutions (so this excludes blogging sites like Blogger, LiveJournal, MSN Spaces, and Xanga that are focused more on individual consumer bloggers).

But in a departure from other Forrester Waves, we'll be managing this process in a more open process, primarily through this blog. It won't be neat, it won't be smooth, but my hope is to engage a wider audience in the process and tap into your collective knowledge and wisdom.

So this is the process we'll be following:

Part 1: We’ll ask for feedback on features and functionality required for corporate blogging, and get recommendations on providers to evaluate. Open source solutions will also be considered.

Part 2: A set of specific criteria will be posted on this blog for feedback.

Part 3: The final set of criteria will be available for you to use in grading a current/potential blogging solution provider. You will be able to suggest and grade any blogging solution provider that you have had personally used.

Forrester will also conduct our own in-depth interviews and evaluations of a select group of providers using the same criteria. We will also conduct detailed interviews with end-users of those blogging solutions.

We’ll end up with two evaluations: one that’s the result of open participation and one that’s the result of Forrester’s formal evaluation methodology. I think that there’s value in both approaches and we’ll see at the end of this process how much they differ or agree.

The top line results of both evaluations will be available on this blog and survey participants in Part 3 will receive a copy of the summary report. But only Forrester clients will be able to access the full report, evaluations, and detailed spreadsheets at www.forrester.com.

My hope is that this open process will lead to greater input from the general community, resulting in a richer evaluation of the blogging solutions than can be provided by just a few knowledgeable experts. I honestly don't know if we're doing this the right way or what the result will be, but I trust that you'll help me figure it out as we go along. So by all means, let me know what we should be doing differently in this process, and how we can improve it.

So on to Part 1 of the process!

My definition of a blogging solution is a software or service that enables the online publication and management of a blog. At a minimum, the solution should allow the user to set up a Web page, write posts, and manage them. Blog support services like FeedBurner or aggregators like NewsGator don't fall into this category.

I'd love to get your feedback on the following two questions -- feel free to post as a comment or to email me directly.

1) What features and functionality are most important to you when selecting a corporate blogging solution?

2) What corporate blogging solutions did you/are you considering? Why did these solutions make it on to your short list? And in the end, why did you pick your solution over the others?

Thanks, and hope to hear from you all soon!

Successful Internet Business Panel with TiE, Jan. 31st

By Charlene Li

I’ll be moderating another panel this Tuesday hosted by TiE on "How to Build a Successful Internet Business". On the panel will be two entrepreneurs and two venture capitalists providing their wisdom and advice. More details are below.

I’m particularly excited about this panel, especially since I sat on a panel two weeks ago on a SDForum Venture Finance SIG on Web 2.0 investments. One of the questions asked was, “What defines a successful Web 2.0 company?” My answer was the same attributes that defined a successful Web 1.0 company. The same fundamentals apply today, and in fact, the briefing questions I use today are unchanged from the ones I used when I started at Forrester in 1999. I thought I’d share what attributes I look for in a successful Internet business – attributes which I think are important to keep in mind given the Web 2.0 froth today.

1)      Value – How does the company create value for consumers and businesses? Is the company built around a specific end user pain point or is it driven by technology looking for a problem?

2)      Business model – How is the company going to make money? How will it scale beyond simply tapping into AdSense?

3)      Marketing – Especially for consumer-oriented companies, how will the company get the word out? The answer “viral marketing” simply isn’t enough.

4)      Competition – How will the company differentiate from the competition? And what will the company do about entry by deep-pocketed competitors?

5)      Vision – It’s inevitable that the customers and competitors will change over the next few years. Does the management have the vision and plan to anticipate these changes and the leadership skills to shift strategy quickly?

Participating on the panel will be:

Tom Cole, General Partner, Trinity Ventures

James Currier, Founder of Tickle

Tod Francis, Managing Director, Shasta Ventures

Gautam Godhwani, CEO of SimplyHired and former CEO of AtWeb

I can’t help but mention a personal observation about one of the panelists. I met James Currier in 1999 when he was in his second year at HBS. He found me through the HBS alumni network and wanted to get feedback on his idea to start a personality testing site. He was convinced that people would be passionate about taking tests and I was convinced he was doomed to be another flash-in-the-pan start-up. I liked his approach and vision, but thought it was a pretty small market. Over the past several years, I’ve watched as emode evolved into Tickle, and then was acquired by Monster – all the time admiring James’ ability to morph the company while remaining true to those passionate test takers.

The evening should be full of great ideas and if you’re serious about building an Internet business for the long term, I hope you’ll be able to join us.

"Challenges of Building A Successful Internet Business: Stories From The Frontlines"

The Internet has been the foundation for many new businesses, ranging from Google to Craigslist.org, and companies continually come up with better ways to leverage the Internet protocol. But what components really lead to the success of these businesses – was it a matter of luck and timing, or is there something much more fundamental to building a sustainable Internet business? Is the only revenue model today the dollars you can get when you sell to Yahoo!, eBay or Google?

The panel will explore this issue from the perspective of both entrepreneurs who have been deep in the battle for the Internet user, as well as the venture capitalists who placed their online bets – sometimes winning, but more often than not, losing. By attending, you’ll be gleaning the sage advice borne of adversities such as the collapse of the tech bubble, and also learning how to deal with some of the challenges facing Internet businesses in the near future.

Registration online here.

Location: TiE Conference Center, Suite 108
2903 Bunker Hill Lane, Santa Clara, CA

6pm-9pm

Onsite fees: $30 members, $60 non-members

Advance fees: $20 members, $50 non-members

Note: Online registration closes at 12pm on Tuesday. So hurry!

Another Forrester take on Google Personalized Home for Mobile

By Charlene Li

My colleague, Charlie Golvin, covers the consumer wireless space and participated in the Google Personalzied Home for mobile briefing with me today. He offers the following thoughts on the service and asks for your thoughts as well:.

The mobile Internet is a different experience from the PC Internet — as it should be. The applications tend to fall into one of two categories:

• Information with a short half life (think stock alert or ebay outbid notice);
• Time killers (think Tetris or a 3 minute Daily Show clip).

Google looks to have done a good job of addressing some of the shortcomings in the first category, because your personalized home page — configured on your desktop, not your phone — is something you can arrange to have the resources that provide the information you know you’re likely to need when you’re on the go (like Charlene’s RSS feed). And also because they’ve streamlined the delivery of that information, ensuring that the delay between clicking on Google and getting the information you want is as short as possible (to the extent they can influence that).

Finally, they’ve chosen the platform that allows them to reach as many consumers as possible with the lowest barrier — xHTML browsers. This last point is in stark contrast to Yahoo!, which is limited to some Nokia Series 60 devices today and requires a somewhat convoluted download and installation process on some of them (like my 7610). Down the road Yahoo! will bear much higher development costs to reach their broad audience.

But will it make a difference? Will Yahoo! or MSN loyalists who have invested in personalizing their experience invest time in doing likewise at Google because the resultant mobile experience is so much better? I think the answer is no — for the real loyalists. But for those whose investment is lower and who don’t mind doing a quick setup of a personal page in order to make the mobile Internet more useful, sure. Charlene’s willing to do it just to get her RSS feeds more efficiently, but my use will be more of a flirtation before I go back to Yahoo! What do you think?

Google enables personalized content, RSS on mobile phones

By Charlene Li

Just got off the phone with Deep Nashir, product manager for Google mobile products. Google just made its personalized home page accessible on mobile devices with an XHTML-capable Web browser. The announcement of Google Personalized Home and details for a Web-enabled demo are below.

Deep had three reasons for why they did this:

1) the phone is a very personal device, so the experience on the phone should be personal. 

2) they figured out a way so that network latency issues are minimized.

3) all of the information is available on the home screen -- you can quickly see how many emails are in Gmail, what the weather is, and your top RSS feeds. Deep positioned this as vastly different from Yahoo! Go Mobile, where information is still a click (and wait) away. Also, Yahoo! Go requires a download while the new Google service is available with just the browser

Interestingly, Google sets the default order of the content, and when asked whether user could customize the ordering, Deep said cryptically, "That feature is not available today," which implies that it will soon be. 

My take: finally, an easy way to get my RSS feeds on my Blackberry! I'll be setting up my Google personalized page primarily for mobile reading. This is a new habit of mine -- depending on where I read my RSS content, I want different configurations of different content. For example, I have ALL of my feeds coming into FeedDemon, which I use as a backup. I then read all of my backlogged feeds (aka non-priority feeds) when I'm traveling and offline. There are my regular feeds that I get through both Bloglines and Google Sidebar (again I use Bloglines as a backup because I can read it anywhere, Sidebar because it's easy and accessible at all times). And now, I'll add some crucial must reads to my Google page for my mobile information needs.

Here's the announcement:

Today, Google continued the expansion of its mobile offerings with the announcement of Google Personalized Home for mobile devices, a new service that enables users’ access to their personalized Google homepage on their mobile phones and PDAs.  With Personalized Home, users on-the-go can view the information they access most frequently from one screen on their mobile device.  For example, business travelers can easily keep up with their personal stock quotes while they're on the road, and news junkies can stay on top of their favorite headlines when they're away from their desktops and TVs - all without having to search multiple web pages from a mobile device.

Google Personalized Home provides at-a-glance access to information such as Gmail, customized news headlines, local weather, stock updates, hand-picked RSS feeds and more.  Information is optimized for the smaller screens and slower bandwidth of most mobile devices and is presented in a format that reduces the need to click multiple links.

Users who have already setup a personalized Google homepage on their PC can simply visit http://www.google.com through the web browser of their mobile device, select the "Personalized Home" link, and then sign in with their Google account username and password.  The next time they visit google.com on their phone, they will automatically see the same customized content modules that are featured on the web version of their Google personalized homepage. (Users who do not yet have a personalized Google homepage on their PC should first visit http://www.google.com/ig from their desktop computer and select the content to be added to their homepage.)

Google Personalized Home is currently available for free to mobile users in the U.S. and works with any phone that contains an XHTML-capable web browser.  Users should check with their carriers on their data service plan to determine if there are additional charges for web access.

For more information about Google Personalized Home, please visit http://mobile.google.com/personalized/.

Social search panel with SDForum, Tues. Jan. 10th

By Charlene Li

I'll be moderating a panel at a SDForum Search SIG meeting this Tuesday (yes, tomorrow) on social search. This is a favorite topic of mine as it represents the intersection of two of my research areas, seach and social computing. I think it's also an important battleground in the next phase of search, especially because companies like Yahoo! and Microsoft are eons ahead of Google in terms of personalization and established relationships with consumers.

I hope you'll be able to join me and a very interesting panel as we explore how social search is transforming the user experience. Personally, I've been using all of the services from our panelists -- Del.icio.us, Digg, Kaboodle, and Wink -- and recently purchased a laptop sleeve (after weeks of online shopping) thanks to a tag on Wink. 

Aside: After his CES keynote, I asked Larry Page how Google felt about personalization -- it seems there's a love/hate relationship in the way Google uses registration and cookies -- they know it's necessary to provide a personalized experience but make it pretty cumbersome to do so. Larry gave a typical Google non-answer, but acknowledged that Yahoo! and Microsoft were significant competitors in this area (they have a bit of a head start).

SDForum Search SIG - Search Different: Tagging, Social Bookmarking and Sharing - Jan 10th @ Yahoo - Featuring Del.icio.us, Digg, Kaboodle & Wink

The session will focus on “alternate” search mechanisms that have been developed over the past 12 months such as bookmarking, tagging, rating, sharing and any combination thereof – generally in a social context. These concepts have grown to being at the core of many Web 2.0 companies, and offer a different way of finding or discovering “stuff” online – as a complement or alternative to traditional search engines.

As usual with Search SIG events, we will have a panel moderated by the host of the session, followed by demonstrations from presenting companies. Our host for the event will be Charlene Li, from Forrester Research and will be joined by 4 founders of exciting startups:

• Joshua Schachter - Del.icio.us (recently acquired by Yahoo)
• Kevin Rose - Digg
• Manish Chandra - Kaboodle
• Michael Tanne - Wink

This session will take place on Tue Jan 10th at Yahoo’s HQ (701 First Avenue, Building C, Room 4&5 in Sunnyvale, CA), and will promptly start at 7:15PM (registration from 6:45PM on).

As to the agenda:

6:45-7:15pm - Registration / Food & Drink
7:15–7:20pm - A few words about the Search SIG
7:20-8:20pm - Act I: State of the Art of “Searching Different” through a panel discussion led by our moderator, Charlene Li
8:20-8:30pm - Intermission: Search Networking & Geeking Out
8:30-9:00pm - Act II: Product Demos from Del.icio.us, Digg, Kaboodle and Wink – and Q&A with the audience
9:00-9:15pm - Open Mike Geek: Announcements (30 seconds of fame & fortune)
9:16pm - You Don’t Have To Go Home, But You Can’t Stay Here

Attendance is free for SDForum members, and charge is $15 for non-members – paid at the door. You can register for the event on the SDForum website, where you will also find the latest information about the session.

The session will focus on “alternate” search mechanisms that have been developed over the past 12 months such as bookmarking, tagging, rating, sharing and any combination thereof – generally in a social context. These concepts have grown to being at the core of many Web 2.0 companies, and offer a different way of finding or discovering “stuff” online – as a complement or alternative to traditional search engines.

As usual with Search SIG events, we will have a panel moderated by the host of the session, followed by demonstrations from presenting companies. Our host for the event will be Charlene Li, from Forrester Research and will be joined by 4 founders of exciting startups:

• Joshua Schachter - Del.icio.us (recently acquired by Yahoo)
• Kevin Rose - Digg
• Manish Chandra - Kaboodle
• Michael Tanne - Wink

This session will take place on Tue Jan 10th at Yahoo’s HQ (701 First Avenue, Building C, Room 4&5 in Sunnyvale, CA), and will promptly start at 7:15PM (registration from 6:45PM on).

As to the agenda:

6:45-7:15pm - Registration / Food & Drink
7:15–7:20pm - A few words about the Search SIG
7:20-8:20pm - Act I: State of the Art of “Searching Different” through a panel discussion led by our moderator, Charlene Li
8:20-8:30pm - Intermission: Search Networking & Geeking Out
8:30-9:00pm - Act II: Product Demos from Del.icio.us, Digg, Kaboodle and Wink – and Q&A with the audience
9:00-9:15pm - Open Mike Geek: Announcements (30 seconds of fame & fortune)
9:16pm - You Don’t Have To Go Home, But You Can’t Stay Here

Attendance is free for SDForum members, and charge is $15 for non-members – paid at the door. You can register for the event on the SDForum website, where you will also find the latest information about the session.

CES wrap-up

By Charlene Li

Here’s a quick overview of some of the things I picked up after two days at CES.

-         A Tale Of Two Keynotes. I attended both the Yahoo! and Google keynotes and Friday and the contrast was obvious, starting from the music and ending with the celebrities. I have to say, I really enjoyed seeing Tom Cruise during the Yahoo! speech, but felt that it was fairly canned, especially Ellen DeGeneres’ “monologue” about the technical problems she had. The Yahoo! speakers were well rehearsed, but they were, well, rehearsed. In contrast, Larry Page was far from the most dynamic speaker, frequently checking his paper notes. But there was a down to earth quality of his presentation, and the fact that he took many questions from audience members brought a man of the people quality to the keynote. But by far the best part of the Google keynote was Robin Williams’ co-hosting of the Q&A (I thankfully escaped any ribbing when I asked a question!). You couldn’t have asked for better entertainment than the parody of our own questions.

-         Getting trampled. Just one other observation about the keynotes. Maybe it was the 9am start time, maybe it was the company, but the Yahoo! keynote wasn’t full and while the audience was attentive, it wasn’t energized. I was able to walk in, and have nobody else sitting next to me in the balcony. Contrast to the Google keynote, which was near mayhem outside the theater doors just before the start of the keynote. I showed up 15 minutes early, stood in the wrong line (with ticket holders instead of press) and proceeded to get pushed, shoved, and almost trampled by irate ticket holders who couldn’t get in because they had all shown up past the deadline. And there were about 200 more people without tickets hoping to get in anyway at the last minute. The result: I felt very fortunate to finally get in, but was pretty shaken from the mayhem. I knew that the Google keynote was the hottest ticket at CES, but didn’t anticipate just how aggressive people could be.

-         Convergence? Didn’t see it. This show was supposed to be about “convergence” but darn if I couldn’t find it at the show. I haven’t been to CES since 1995, primarily because my research focus is on media and marketing – you know, the stuff that convergence is supposed to bring to devices. The Yahoo! and Google keynotes gave me the excuse to come to Las Vegas and indulge my gadget-loving side, but there was little convergence happening outside of Yahoo’s announcements. The only other interesting example was TiVo’s current online offerings, available on the Series 2 machines (I just ordered one so I’m eager to try it out). TiVo’s CEO Tom Rogers eagerly discussed with a group of reporters its anticipated high definition product (scheduled to be introduced mid-year) which will take advantage of its broadband connection to provide even more online services. While I anticipate more devices to integrate online services, it will be deals like the one between TiVo and Yahoo! that will be core to making such convergence services work for consumers.

-         My favorite gadget. I heard about this one when a TV crew picked me out while I was noshing my lunch outside the main hall with some Forrester colleagues. Interestingly, they wanted to interview me and not my other (male) colleagues because I was a woman. The device: the Connect Io Intelligent Oven that turns on by the Internet or cell phone (and can keep food cool before it turns on). What, were you expecting me to pick a cell phone or HDTV? As a working mom, I thought this was just the coolest thing – I can throw the frozen pizza in the oven in the morning, ping it to preheat and cook the pizza when I pick up my kids, and have pizza on the table in 5 minutes. Now, I just need an applicance that will wash, peel, and cook the veggies for me too!

-         Pedal power in Las Vegas. I rented a bike to get around (photo proof is below) and it totally made the CES experience enjoyable. (My collegue Josh Bernoff did the same). I was able to get from my hotel on the Strip (Harrah’s) to the convention center in 10 minutes – and that includes abiding by all traffic lights. Racking the bike is easy – there are stands right outside Central Hall (Sands is a bit trickier – the only rack I could find was in the back in the service entrance). And visiting other hotels around town is easy – simply check the back in at the Bell Desk. Las Vegas Cyclery makes it easy by dropping off/picking up the bike from your hotel. Only other recommendations: bring your own helmet and wear reflective clothing.

Google Pack's real innovation is Updater

By Charlene Li

On Friday at CES, Google unveiled Google Pack (along with the new Google Video Store – for more details on the video announcement, check out my colleague Josh Bernoff’s blog post). Besides downloading a whole suite of useful security, communication, and entertainment utilities, Pack also happens to make available all of Google’s applications, from Toolbar to Picasa.

What’s interesting to me about Pack is that it’s an innovation on an existing practice – the bundling of third-party software by ISPs like AOL, Earthlink, MSN, and Yahoo!. But in this case, Google is offering Pack free and unbundled from any ISP service, all in the name of improving the user experience.

But the real beauty behind Pack is Updater, the little program that automatically installs and updates the software. (In fact, it’s installing Pack right now as I’m writing this post I Word and posting it via TypePad – the computer hangs every once in a while, which is annoying, but for the most part, I see no degradation in my PC’s performance.) Once installed on the PC, Google has a direct conduit to the user’s desktop, which will be extremely valuable in pushing its own applications (current and future). Think of it as the next front in the portal/search wars to tie in user loyalty.

I believe that this opens up some interesting opportunities. First, software makers will be clamoring to be included in Pack, but will have to first get through Google’s review. In addition, companies like Dell may be interested in including Updater on new PCs to make that initial install of software much easier. Lastly, I fully expect AOL, Yahoo!, and Microsoft (which has Windows Updater already) to jump into the fray. After all, they already have existing relationships with third-party software providers that they can turn to.

But most significantly, I believe this changes the nature of the relationship between Google and the user. As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I believe that Google has up to this point been regarded more as a utility (albeit, a really, really useful one) than as the lynchpin of an online experience. But with Pack and Updater specifically, the user now not only becomes dependent on Google to smooth the experience, but also places a great deal of trust in Google to do the right thing – everything from choosing the right software to include to making sure that updates are bug-free.

One thing I think that will ensure that Google maintains that user trust is to increase the scope of the software being offered, and to be more transparent about why it decided to include one software option over the other. In a post-CES speech press conference, Larry Page couldn’t give a definitive reason why Pack decided to include only RealNetwork’s RealPlayer – but he did say that Google was open to including multiple software types in an area like media players to enable consumer choices. I would love to see iTunes and Internet Explorer included – I have to use IE for work-related applications – but I wonder just how open Google would be to including competitors products. In the end, if Google is truly committed to improving the end user’s experience, it would strike deals with the most popular and useful applications, regardless of whether it comes from a competitor or not.

Yahoo! Go shows how to connect the Internet to devices

Yahoo! announced its new Yahoo! Go suite, which consists of Yahoo! Go Mobile, Yahoo! Go TV, and Yahoo! Go Desktop. I think it’s significant because Yahoo! shows how a traditional Internet content and service provider can link to devices like phones and TVs. Here’s a quick overview and specific highlights:

-         The Yahoo! Go concept: Anything that you can access on Yahoo! through your browser will also be available on your desktop (outside of your browser), on your phone, and on your TV.

-         Yahoo! Go Mobile is a really nice connection between your phone and your Yahoo service. Snap a photo and have it appear on Yahoo! Photos (Finally! An easy way to get photos off of my camera phone). A phone number you enter on Yahoo! Addresses shows up on your phone’s address book. I personally LOVE this idea of a universal contact list, especially as I am prone to losing my cell phone!

-         Yahoo! Go Desktop is a repositioning of Yahoo! Widgets (a.k.a. Konfabulator) to puts individual services directly on the desktop. Yahoo! also announced Dashboard, which is very similar to Google Sidebar and MSN’s Dashboard (available only to MSN ISP customers). One key improvement: the user can see activities from people on their buddy lists, for example, a new post on Yahoo! 360 or Web page tagged via Yahoo! My Web. This is similar to the connectivity within Windows Live which taps into Messenger to show “gleams” of activity by your buddies.

-         Yahoo! Go TV which puts music playlists and Yahoo’s video search on the TV. It’s great especially for showing a slideshow of your Yahoo! Photos on the big screen. I didn’t find this rendition that compelling (nice, just not compelling). But tucked away in the corner of the demonstrations was a concept screen that showed how content like RSS feeds and Yahoo! entertainment content could be integrated on to the television. For example, if you’re watching a football game, go and check your sports feeds. If you’re watching a movie, go and get more information about the star, what other movies they are in, or even purchase the DVD on Yahoo! shopping (see the screenshots I’ve uploaded below -- note that one of the screenshots includes an in-line add for a Howard Stern show.) The compelling idea is that you can customize the television experience with content from the Web.   

A few thoughts on these announcements:

-         Compared to the reported announcements (via WSJ) from Google later today, Yahoo!’s Go announcements have a strong connection to consumer electronics and will have a much bigger impact over time than either Google Video or Google Pack. This is because it sets off a race among phone and device makers to tap into the Yahoo!’s large user base. But it’s also worrying because the investment that service providers have made in their own services is now to tie in users becomes less important if the user can take their services with them from phone to phone, provider to provider. I believe that device manufacturers will be more willing than their provider counterparts to let users choose between Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google mobile solutions – or mix and match as they please.

-         Go Mobile in particular expands Yahoo’s reach beyond the desktop – Yahoo! stated that there are 2 billion mobile phone users around the world, compared to 900 million Internet users). To this point, Yahoo! allows for the first time new sign-ups to a Yahoo! account via Go Mobile.

-         Yahoo!’s promise to keep the platform open will be closely watched. At the conclusion of his speech, Terry Semel said “Personally, I believe that walled gardens are a thing of the past.” But what Yahoo! is doing is in many ways constructing a different kind of walled garden, albeit, one where Yahoo! serves as the gateway to the world of Internet content. For example, Yahoo! Go Mobile will allows users to access non-Yahoo! email accounts, as long as they are POP enabled. But this has to be set up via Yahoo! Mail and in this case, through Yahoo!’s paid Mail Plus service.

To put all of these announcements in perspective, I had an interesting discussion with Cammie Dunaway, Yahoo!’s CMO. She said, “Users don’t have an emotional bond with Google. But they have one with us.” To some degree, I agree with her on this. Google has a strong brand and has built a great deal of trust and goodwill thanks to its great search experience. But I don’t have my have my life on Google – it’s actually on Yahoo!. (Disclosure: My photos are on Yahoo! and Flickr, tags are on del.icio.us, personal email (and domain) are on Yahoo!, and I use Yahoo! Local and Maps regularly.) This could change as Google and Microsoft increase and improve their services, but it will take a lot to tear me away from my established habits. Having Yahoo! now also available on my devices potentially increases that stickiness.

My colleague Josh Bernoff, who is here at CES with me, used a car analogy to illustrate this. Yahoo! is like a tricked out Lincoln Navigator – it has everything you could ever want, from the DVD player and is comfortable to boot. You practically live in that car. Google’s car representation would be the Prius, which is environmental – its users have an emotional attachment to it for a completely different reason.

So here’s my question to you, dear blog readers. Do you have an emotional attachment to Google, or any other portal/search service? To what degree can Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, AOL, et. al. develop that bond with you? Or is it not about emotional attachments and all about utility. Would love to get your perspective, either in comments or directly via email.  

Meet up at CES/Las Vegas

Happy new year, and hope that you had a fun and safe time on the 1st. After a long break, I'm ready to go and am heading out to that annual geekfest known as the Consumer Electronics Show later this week (will be there only on Thursday and Friday). The last time I was at CES was over 10 years ago and I'm long overdue for a visit.

I'll be covering the keynotes by Yahoo! and Google, but also looking at the various ways companies are pushing content, search, and social computing (blogs, RSS, podcasts, videocasts) on to devices and phones. So if you have any tips, please send them my way!

BTW, if you happen to be at CES and would like to meet up on Thursday night, please drop me an email -- would love to try to get together.

Tip: Avoid the taxi and tram lines and rent a bike. I'm renting mine from the Las Vegas Cyclery.