Web 3.0 and The Future of Social Media

February 9, 2010 By

I’ll be speaking at the International Business Review Web 3.0 conference on the 3rd of June this year about what I call the Naturally Selected Web. Some of the topics covered in my speech I touched on in my speech at CeBIT last year about the Data Generation but at this event I’ll get into more detail about how Web 3.0 is in part about participants selecting brand and product variants in what is literally a Darwinian Natural Selection process.

Quote voucher code SAAS-WEB3 if you want an extra 10% of the 31 March early bird deadline price.

Filed Under: Developers, Ecosystem, Ideas, Saasu News, Social Media, Tech

Edge of the Web by AWIA

November 13, 2008 By

I attended a fantastic EOTW conference in Perth, Australia last week (Twitter hash tag #EOTW08). I met some inspiring people like Derek Featherstone the FurtherAhead.com accessibility Gu (A leading Guru) who is also a keen triathlete. I also did a workshop with Google JS/jQuery Gu Cameron Adams (aka The Man in Blue). It was also great to meet Matt Patterson from Freshview (Saasu’s email marketing system). Thanks Matt for the T-shirt!

Many thanks to AWIA for a great event and inviting me over to speak and attend. My talk was about ecosystems, and if there is one ecosystem you must join if you use technology in your business then it’s AWIA.

Here’s my preso I did at the conference which I have posted on slideshare.NET

SaaS as an Ecosystem
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: eotw saas)
Filed Under: Add-ons, Blog, Developers, Ecosystem, Ideas, SaaS, Social Responsibility, Tech

Gaming and Accounting

September 22, 2008 By

What things can you do in your business to make it fun for your customers?

Back in 2000 we drew up some plans to make an accounting system a bit like a Monopoly board. The idea being that as your business assets grew you would see an image of you factory grow. Your sales pipeline would expand into a bigger pipe as revenue grew. We wanted to bring some fun to accounting which can otherwise be a tad boring.

gaming in online accounting

Due to the conservative nature of accountants (a good thing, they are just trying to protect their customers in many cases) we decided to hold off on that approach. Another reason was the difficulty in dealing with animation in web interfaces back then while meeting targets on load time for screens. We were also trying to avoid pagination. Pagination is where you show 1-50 of 7,000 transactions as an example and then provide buttons or links to show transactions 51-100 etc. Pagination can be really annoying for customers as we discovered during our user experience surveys.

In 2004 we started using AJAX (it didn’t actually have a name back then) which gave us the speed and flexibility to create a more designed interface and a better perceived speed experience for customers. We still use AJAX extensively in Payroll where editable data sets are smaller but you won’t see it as much in screens that have large editable data sets because it begins to become cost rather than a benefit in load times. The customer experience might be nice but if the screen load is slow the customer will just want to throw the computer out the window.

AJAX still has issues in this area but they are slowly being worked around. New browser like Google Chrome will allow AJAX to be used right across data heavy applications as it is a very efficient in dealing with JavaScript (the J in AJAX).

Being a fan of WordPress for blogging I really like their spam removal experience. When you click delete it turns red (like slaying the spam dragon) and then slides away off the screen. The destroy feeling is quite good. Gamers amongst you would like it. We implemented this idea back in 2005 into our Payroll and Invoicing modules (without the blood effect).

We are started to work on some UI design changes to give customers a bit more fun in the screens but as always the accessibility will be the controlling factor given our mantra of ensuring the keyboarders aren’t compromised in anyway.

If any of you have suggestions or examples of animation for deletion, creation, edit etc. just post a comment as we will be working up our changes to reports and transaction searching/listing over the next few weeks.

Photo credit: Cowbite

Filed Under: Developers, Saasu News, Tech

Barcamp Sydney No.3

April 1, 2008 By

Barcamp Sydney 3

If you are in business that uses serious amounts of tech on a day to day basis then Barcamp Sydney is a great way to learn from (and even contribute back into) the IT industry.

Barcamp Sydney is a free event for you thanks to the event sponsors. The idea is that you can present for 15 minutes on a relevant topic and also listen to the dozens of presenters over two days. There are some really interesting topics lined up on social media, social capital, web services, coding, community and entrepreneurship. This is just a sample that will occur across 3 or 4 presentation rooms. Pick and choose your interests. I will be there as a presenter on the topic of Productivity 2.0 in business.

Saasu is also a sponsor of the carbon offsets required to make it a sustainable event.

Date: 5th and 6th April 2008
Time: 9:00 am – 5:30pm
Venue: Roundhouse at UNSW on Anzac Pde, Kensington, Sydney.

About Barcamp | Sign up for Barcamp Sydney 3

Filed Under: Blog, Developers

SaaS Finance – The Next Killer Feature For Google?

December 20, 2007 By

There is a great article on this topic that deserves some profile as it neatly sums up the debate around where giants like Google go next.

I like to think of it as -

  • be unique OR
  • be integrated OR
  • be in another market

To give a simplistic analogy, if your proposition is not truly unique in the world (like iPhone) then get integrated (like say SMS) so the convenience or the network effect makes you the winner.

Google has some unique offerings but their level of uniqueness will be challenged over time so spreading a wider net and ensuring a larger integrated offering is key to retention and growth. More specifically in SaaS finance we think it is inevitable that competition hots up in our space but we know (from experience) like a lot of seemingly straightforward activities, there is more to online accounting and SaaS finance than meets the eye and that just like Facebook vs LinkedIn or Plaxo or the free email wars, there is room for a bunch of different philosophies that service different market segments.

In Small business there are numerous levels already from jurisdiction neutral invoicing to country specific micro business solutions all the way through to super expensive multi-country corporate versions.

We are very much of the view that while people might want to start with just billing, it is not enough to deliver real business benefits and runs the risk of becoming yet another island of information if you are not very careful. Further, you need to differentiate or integrate to deliver real value – either do it uniquely well or link to someone that does. That is why we link with Salesforce.com instantly out of the box with no extra work and we and our partners are building more all the time.

Could we here at Saasu.com | the web finance engine be purchased by Google or Microsoft or Amazon or eBay to get into the web finance space in a quick merger/acquisition? Of course, while we are a decent size we are tiny by comparison on the global stage. Would it be good for our clients/partners? Probably very much so because of the integration with other services like mail, chat, analytics, e-commerce and the network effect of their client bases. Would there be some risks? Sure but they are little more than steps to follow and formula mitigation given the amount of resources that come into play in the M&A world.

You might find my comments on the above article of interest too, Marc Lehmann also has some interesting views.

Filed Under: Blog, Developers, SaaS

Bloatation

October 25, 2007 By

We have flotation devices to save us from drowning. I think we need a Bloatation detection device to tell us when enough features are enough in the Software as a Service (SaaS) utilites we build like Saasu. I think a bloatation detection device would sound a big warning alarm when customers: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Developers, Ideas, Tech