Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Author: Paul Wallbank

  • Googling your business

    Googling your business

    Google’s small business services have been a constant irritation of this site, with the view that local listings have been a missed opportunity for the service.

    Overnight, the search engine giant has launched their new Google My Business site to bring together the disparate services offered to local enterprises.

    At first look it’s a fairly slick way to get new businesses signed up, albeit dependent upon Google+ for the initial login. For businesses with existing Google small business accounts, the site directs you to the revamped Google Places administrator screen.

    The immediate observation is that Google+ integration is a weakness as it relies on one ‘real person’ account to administer the listing; this will create problems for business as staff leave and founders retire.

    Black Box Verification

    Another problem is the black box verification process still remains – it’s hard for businesses to keep their listings fresh and up to date when there’s a risk doing so will see their entries might be suspended for violating some vague rules.

    For local businesses it’s essential to have the search engine listing and the Google My Business site makes it easier to get it running, however the problems with Google’s local business strategy remain.

    With Google, Facebook and the other online empires neglecting small business, this market is still a great opportunity for a disruptive players.

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  • Heating up the smarthome race

    Heating up the smarthome race

    Last week Apple sent a big message to the smarthome industry with their announcement of the Homekit, this week industrial control giant Honeywell has released its answer to the Google owned Nest smart thermostat with the Lyric.

    The Lyric smart thermostat system is quite an impressive package; along with the smart thermostat, it includes a smartphone app and cloud service that lets users control their home heating remotely.

    Other features are maintenance alerts, personalised heating settings and geolocation services for turning systems off and on when occupants are approaching or leaving home. To boot, Honeywell claim the Lyric can save households $200 a year.

    The big incumbent

    It’s a strong push into the smarthome market which Honeywell has been part of since the concept began thirty years ago and it shows incumbents don’t always sit back and wait for disrupters to steal their markets.

    The Lyric’s strength is Honeywell’s massive installed base and its army of experienced contractors; the likely way the smarthome market will evolve is that most installations are going to be carried out while homes are being built or refurbished which gives the incumbents even more strength.

    Open standards

    What’s missing in the media releases and review is whether the Lyric’s cloud services will offer open APIs to other developers and what format household data will be available in. If it’s a relatively open system then it will have a big advantage over Google’s Nest which all indications show is going to be closed to other providers.

    No doubt we’ll also be seeing compatible air conditioning units and heaters entering the market soon as well which will drive a standard of some sort to develop in the HVAC field, again the question of how open those protocols will be remains to be seen.

    The next move is Google’s, it will be interesting to see how the company will react to the incumbents fighting back and Apple’s strong positioning to dominate the market.

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  • Fear in the cloud – the loss of trust in online business

    Fear in the cloud – the loss of trust in online business

    Today I spoke about online safety to the Australian Seniors’ Computer Clubs Association about staying safe online.

    Hopefully I’ll have a copy of the presentation up tomorrow but what was notable about the morning was the concern among the audience about security and safety of cloud services.

    The ASCCA membership are a computer savvy bunch – anyone who disparages older peoples’ technology nous would be quickly put in their place by these folk – but it was notable just how concerned they are about online privacy. They are not happy.

    Another troubling aspect were my answers to the questions, invariably I had to fall back on the lines “only do what you’re comfortable with”  and “it all comes down to a question of trust.”

    The problem with the latter line is that it’s difficult to trust many online companies, particularly when their business models relies upon trading users’ data.

    Resolving this trust issue is going to be difficult and it’s hard to see how some social media platforms and online businesses can survive should users flee or governments enact stringent privacy laws.

    It may well be we’re seeing another transition effect happening in the online economy.

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  • Touring the Barcelona smart city project

    Touring the Barcelona smart city project

    Last year I posted the Geek’s Tour of Barcelona, looking at the town’s smartcity initiatives after visiting the city for Cisco’s Internet of Things World Forum.

    At the Australian Internet of Things Forum in Newcastle last month I cobbled together a quick presentation around the topic to illustrate what smartcities can deliver.

    This was particularly topical for Newcastle as the New Lunaticks and the local business community are supporting the Kaooma project run by Vimoc Technologies in one of the city’s entertainment districts.

    Kaooma – which is an entrant in Cisco’s IoT Innovation Grand Challenge – is particularly interesting because it’s a wholly private project with little, if any, formal government support as opposed to London’s Regent Street Internet of Things initiative that’s part of a billion pound regeneration of the precinct.

    Australia’s Newcastle, the world’s largest coal port, has a number of challenges itself as the country’s once in a century mining boom unwinds and city deals with a neglected downtown in the face of a rapidly changing economy.

    While the Barcelona project is in early days, the presentation shows how cities are using the Internet of Things today and gives us some hints on how those uses will evolve over time.

    Paul travelled to Barcelona as a guest of Cisco Systems

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  • Uber’s Travis Kalanick on the highly valued business of disruption

    Uber’s Travis Kalanick on the highly valued business of disruption

    For a four year old business, hire car service Uber is certainly causing a lot of trouble.

    Bloomberg Businessweek’s Brad Stone has an interview with the company’s founder and CEO Travis Kalanick on his plans after announcing a 1.2 billion dollar fundraising that values the venture at $17 billion.

    Seventeen billion dollars is a hefty valuation for the business and many believe it marks the peak of the current tech bubble, although many of us though Facebook’s billion dollar purchase of Instagram two years ago was that marker.

    Kalanick’s views are interesting in his take on that valuation – as he points out the San Francisco taxi market alone turns over $22 billion each year, so Uber’s valuation isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility.

    Uber and Logistics

    Also notable is Kalanick’s view on the logistics market, something that this blog has maintained is the real business of Uber. In that field, Fedex’s stock market value is $44 billion although Kalanick is discounting the company’s potential in that field.

    Right now Uber is on a high, and regardless of any set backs they may get with their ride sharing services, it’s hard to see how the company isn’t going to grab a healthy slice of the global taxi industry and possibly disrupt the logistics industry as well.

    Even should Uber end up being the poster child for today’s tech sector irrational exuberance, the company is a stunning example of how businesses we once thought were immune from global disruption are now being shaken up.

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