OTOinsights

IBM Helping to Keep Your Digital Wallet and Identity Safe

Cool stuff looming on the Digital Security horizon.  IBM is about to open source a piece of Information Security software that could play a big role in reducing financial and identity theft scams online.  For the short attention span crew, this means that transmission of your Financial, Health, and other related records online may become much safer in the very near future.

The software, called Identity Mixer, has the potential to allow users to anonymously complete secure transactions without the need to reveal any personal information.  Without getting into the nitty-gritty details, one potential scenario could work like this:

1. User downloads a browser plug-in from their bank which creates a secure token (called an ICard) on the user's machine.  This ICard contains limited encrypted information pertaining to a user's identification.

2. User goes to online merchant to buy clothes.  At check-out, user sees that the merchant supports their bank's secure transaction system.  User opts to complete the transaction with this method.

3. Merchant's system checks user's ICard to see if there are sufficient funds to complete the transaction. No identifiable information is transmitted, simply a "Yes" or "No" to the amount of funds required. 

4. Merchant completes transaction directly with the bank, where the user has securely stored their preferred billing/shipping information.  Funds are withdrawn, and the sale is completed. 

Note that during this process the user has never entered any personal information.  Not too shabby.

I could also see this technology working nicely on a Desktop Application.  Thinking ahead, a user could install a checkout system on their desktop and merchants could supply inventory and pricing information directly to the users so that all transactions happen directly between the customer and their bank.  All that changes hands between the bank and merchant is money and whatever personal contact info the users has allowed the merchant to receive. 

Like most new technology standards, there is the uphill battle of getting companies to willingly adopt them.  By itself, Identify Mixer is not all that useful as it is simply the code that provides the link between users and their personal information, be it bank/credit card balances, medical records, social security number, etc...  What it needs in order to become successful is for some engineers to leverage Identity Mixer's code into their own software and promote the software to financial institutions and online merchants as a new online commerce standard (take note, this is how small software start-ups can become very wealthy). 

As an aside, Microsoft also moving ahead to push their own security solutions, but there are speculations that MS may just adopt IBM's standards as part of their framework.  Otherwise users may find themselves in another Betamax vs. VHS war for security standards.

Pentaho BI Open Source Solution Continues to Grow

Since 2002, a group of executives from companies including Hyperion, SAS and Cognos have been developing a series of interoperable open source packages that provide a full range of Business Intelligence (BI) offerings.  As of November, SourceForge.net reports over 500,000 downloads of Pentaho's software from their servers alone, and Pentaho estimates over 2.5 million total downloads in the past 2 years which may not seem like a large number in the grand scheme of things, but is akin to a landslide when compared to the number of operational licenses sold and managed by the proprietary BI players. 

In 2006, Pentaho was named to Red Herring's list of 100 privately held North American companies that are innovating the technology landscape.  They also made the Red Herring 'Open Source 20' list in August and were highlighted as the most popular open source BI suite by Intelligent Enterprise magazine. 

Also launched this year was Pentaho's Partner Program, with nearly 30 implementation and hosting companies already signed up.  They also formally joined IBM's partner program in October and partnered to demonstrate a join IBM/Pentaho solution at the "Information On Demand" conference. 

Press has been very favorable, including clips such as:

"Pentaho is well-positioned for the high-growth performance management market, which is poised to reach $23 billion this year. Some important wins include Abbott Labs, Divx, and Orbitz. To compete in a market of very big players, Pentaho will have to continue to snag large customers, but Chairman Andre Boisvert, an enterprise software veteran, can open a lot of doors for this fledgling." Source - Red Herring August, 2006

"After a lengthy development, and some initial market skepticism, Pentaho BI certainly seems to be gaining steam and followers. It's already listed as one of the top one hundred projects hosted on the Sourceforge.net nexus, a website that lists around 120,000 open source projects. The ranking is based on the number of downloads and activity." Source - Computer Business Review Online April, 2006

Pentaho has also made numerous enhancements and additions to their suite this year including integration with Google Maps for enhanced geographic analytics, rollout of Mondrian 2.2 including a wizard-driven business cube creation engine, and acquisition/integration of the Weka open source project which adds a rich new layer of data mining offerings developed by the University of Waikato in New Zealand.

To learn more about Pentaho's free* suite of products, check out their website.    

*Software is free, licensing for professional use will run $20k-50k which is 10% of the fees for the bigger proprietary players

Five Corporate Blogging Success Factors

Dr Walter Carl, the students in his Advanced Organizational Communication class (Spring 2006) at Northeastern University and John Cass and his colleagues at Backbone Media, recently published a research paper that seeks to uncover reasons, conditions, and factors that make a corporate blog successful. 

The research team interviewed twenty corporate bloggers from companies of varied size and industry, and asked each blogger a series of standardized questions.   After careful review, the research team identified five factors for a blog's success:
1. Culture
2. Transparency
3. Time
4. Dialogue
5. Entertaining Writing Style and Personalization

Notable Technology Marketers on MySpace

Below represents three major technology brands that are using social network site MySpace.com to promote their brand and/or products via their own MySpace page.

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Company: Cingular

URL: http://www.myspace.com/cingularsounds

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Company: Dell

URL: http://www.myspace.com/dellditty

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Company: Motorola

URL: http://www.myspace.com/motoq

Trendwatching.com | Youinversal Branding

Machinima Commercials

MIT Advertising Lab and Futurelab's Blog highlight some interesting early attempts at Machinima Commercials.  For those unfamiliar with Machinima, Wikipedia defines the production technique as:

"rendering of computer-generated imagery (CGI) using low-end 3D engines, as opposed to high-end and complex 3D engines used by professionals. Engines from first person shooter video games are typically used."

Consumers, armed with nothing more then a massively multiplayer game or 3D virtual world environment (such as World of Warcraft  or Second Life) are producing their own 30-60 second commercials and posting them on the likes of YouTube or Google Video.

MIT Advertising Lab and Futurelab Blog highlight the following examples:

• Beautiful (pictured above, a must-see), The Motel, and Video Camping for Nylon camera in Second Life (more info).
• An entry for Converse Gallery made in World of Warcraft.
• A spoof of the Bravia spot done in Battlefield 2 and a piece of MasterCard's "Priceless" theme in Halo.

Consumer Generated Media Asset for McDonalds

What ever happened to the old catchy McDonald Jingles???  You know the ones I am talking about:

"Big Mac, Fillet of Fish, Quarter Pounder, French Fries, Icy Coke, Thick Shake......yada yada yada". 

Today, most of the TV commercials for the Golden Arches fall pathetically short of anything with real urban flare, humor, and/or word of mouth worthiness.  However, all is not lost.  McDonald marketing executives and their supporting agencies should take a serious look at this "lil" nugget (pardon the pun) found on YouTube.  The below video is an excellent example of brand endorsing consumer-generated media and open-source marketing.  If I where in their shoes, I would be posting this on McDonald websites, streaming it within ad banners, and placing it within their broadcast media rotation. 

Jeremi Karnell-President, One to One Interactive