Uh. Two people whose opinions I deeply respect, Niko Nyman and Joel Spolsky, say that 2D barcodes don't work.

In 2006, in my earlier job, I tried to push the concept inside Nokia, publicly manisested by the the pompous blog posts 2D barcodes will rule the earth and 2D Barcode Manifesto. Taking a honest look at the current state, hovever, I realize that things have not proceeded as quickly as I assumed. Yes, we (=Nokia) have put a free barcode generator available. Yes, we have put a pre-installed barcode reader in the hands of millions. Yes, we have promoted open standards, and the consensus in the industry seems to be that this is the only sane way foward. And lots of other companies and individuals are doing similar stuff.

But still, I don't see barcodes around me. I don't use them in real life. I haven't seen anyone (Japan being an exception) using them in real life, except for technical curiosity. Still, I am planning to add barcodes-linking-to-application-downloads under Beta Labs website, due to numerous requiests from Beta Labs users. I still very much want to give 2D barcodes a fighting chance.

As Joel concludes:

Sometimes when the elders say to the youngsters, "don't do that, we tried that, it failed," it's just because they're failing to notice that the world has changed. But sometimes the elders are right, and the youngsters really are too young to know the history of the idea they think that they've just invented.

I guess we'll get to watch to see whether the oldsters or the youngsters will win this one.

Pick your side:

As I watched this video clip of how Techmeme homepage changes over time, revolving around a limited number of hot topics, I couldn't help but wonder: isn't this a textbook example of herding phenomenon? (via Herd)

To give you some context, let me introduce you to the artificial life simulation called Boids, created by Craig Reynolds in 1986. In the simulation, boids are individual agents programmed to move around according to a set of simple rules. The fascinating part, as nowadays seen in movies and computer games, is the marvellously complex movement that emerges from the simple rules, almost as if the whole was a creature of its own.

Craig explains in his website:

The basic flocking model consists of three simple steering behaviors which describe how an individual boid maneuvers based on the positions and velocities its nearby flockmates:

1. Separation: steer to avoid crowding local flockmates
2. Alignment: steer towards the average heading of local flockmates
3. Cohesion: steer to move toward the average position of local flockmates

Hmm... Don't these points sound frightenly similar to how the blogosphere and social media works? Bloggers, including myself, while trying to be different from each other (= separation), are heavily influenced by their blog commenters, RSS subscription list, and aggregation services such as Techmeme (= alignment and cohesion with local flockmates).

Let's look what happens in practice. Here's an example Boids simulation that has added a simple goal-seeking rule, symbolized by the green dots:

Doesn't this look exactly like what keeps happening in social media, including the blogosphere and aggregation services like Techmeme or Digg? To me, it sure looks so. A "hot topic" gets born, like Scoble's episode with Facebook, and everyone and his uncle contribute to the debate. But also, a truckload of other equally important/interesting hot topics get ignored, due to the herd phenomenon.

But what if you don't like the herd thing? What if you want to avoid it?

Looking at the problem from another perspective, James Surowiecki convincingly argued in his book that for "wise crowds" to emerge, you need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions.

Guess which one of these criteria is missing from the public debate in social media?

Independence. Bingo.

At this point, you might wonder why the heck I'm writing about this mumbo-jumbo here, in this blog. The thing is, we would want to take the Nokia Beta Labs feedback system to the next level, and I'm struggling with the problem how much of it we should make public, and how much private. Making the feedback system public inspires people to send insightful feedback, and to expand others people's ideas. But then again, it throws fuel on the herd phenomenon.

At the end of the day, I think we need to have both: a public feedback system (with all the latest web buzzwords) for debating the hot topics, and a private feedback system for collecting systematically feedback about the rest.

Any thoughts?

If I had to make a single new year resolution, that would be to kick in the nuts everybody who mentions the term Web 2.0. Nothing personal. It's just something that a zen master should do as a favor, when somebody limits his thinking so harshly by clinging to such labels, and doesn't try to see the real world as it is.

Sure, the box that Tim O'Reilly defined in 2004-05 was truly a thought-provoking one; and sure, it facilitated the emergence of great new stuff in the latest wave of web innovation. But as Janne Jalkanen wisely wrote last April:

"Web 2.0" is becoming now a constraint, a convenient catchphrase, the box in which people think. And I'm not interested in boxes.

So let's all stop talking about "Web 2.0". I'm sure people understand your point if you call it plainly "the Web".

I'm not suggesting, however, that we should stop making definitions and boundaries, and just think and talk out-of-the-box or without the box. On the contrary. Here's the wisest thought I saw today, from HBR Article Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box (walled garden, sorry) recommended by Rita Gunther Mcgrath:

In our quest for breakthrough ideas, we didn't ask you to think outside the box. Nor did we ask you to think more intently inside your usual box. We gave you a new box and asked you to think inside that.

Constraints are the thing that let us function, and eventually create beauty (or innovation, or a great football game, whatever). We all need constraints, some ground rules for the game.

So off you go, and define yourself a new box.

Just do me a favor: whatever you do, please don't call it Web 3.0.

I'm not sure if I'm playing with fire, but I just dropped a comment to the newly-born Official Google Mobile Blog:

Brilliant. Great work!!

And sure as hell, subscribed to your blog. Of course, if you are interested in your humble collaborators/competitors, do visit my humble playground at http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog someday too.

Hmm... I wonder whether we Nokia bloggers are allowed to have direct public discussions with Google guys in the blog world, and whether it would be beneficial for both Google and Nokia (and for our beloved users)?

Carlo Longino wrote at MobHappy: Nokia’s An Internet Company… As Long As You Use Windows and IE

[Nokia] launched today one of its first major services ... But apparently the “Internet” means people using Windows and Internet Explorer — and that’s it. ... The reasoning isn’t particularly important; the issue is that Nokia’s taken a very narrow view of what constitutes the Internet and its users.

I don't want to comment about this particular case (it's still in beta), but I'm sure that nobody in Nokia thinks that Internet = Internet Explorer. Such a view, in my opinion, would be like committing a professional seppuku. Even if the majority of Internet users today do use Internet Explorer, the majority of early adopters and other influencers use Firefox or Safari. You don't want this group of people to hate, ignore, or ridicule you.

For example, here are some stats about the readers of this blog:

You'll do the math.

Carlo continues:

Perhaps the bigger issue, though, is that this sort of move calls into question just how seriously the whole organization takes this idea of openness, and understands that it truly must embrace it to be taken seriously as an internet and services company.

Individual people always change earlier than institutions do. But as soon as a critical mass of individuals changes, you'll witness a phase transition in the whole - and a radical change in the output. Interesting times ahead, I believe.

So here's our brand-new Internet services brand name, a well-kept secret even among us Nokia insiders. I have been pondering this for a while, and I think I like it. But as a Finn, I'm not qualified to make the call... You know, the term "ovi" means "door" in Finnish, as explained everywhere, and therefore we might get different vibes from the term than other folks.

Question to non-Finnish readers: how do you like it?
---
Ps. right now, there's only a flash demo and a couple of press releases behind www.ovi.com, but forthcoming Nokia services - starting with Nokia Music Store, Nokia Maps, and N-Gage - are supposed to go under this umbrella.

Pps. Charlie is da man.

Interesting. Nokia has started offering official podcasts, in addition to Phil's ramblings at Voice of S60.

As opposed to Voice of S60's more bottom-up approach, the first Nokia Podcast guests come straight from the top:
- Rick Simonson (Chief Financial Officer)
- Tero Ojanperä (Chief Technology Officer)
- Bob Iannucci (Head of Nokia Research Center)

If you want to subscribe, as I just did, here* is the XML feed for your podcasting client.

* = if you copy the link from the official page, you'll get an extra space character to the URL (that shouldn't be there)

Now that we in Nokia are living a big transition, I guess it's time to learn a new mindset, and to unlearn some old mental models and habits. Please help us - me and my fellow Nokia people - to learn better the ethos, the pathos, and the logos of the world of Internet.

What material would you recommend us to immerse ourselves in? What are the top-3 items that have transformed your thinking, related to the Internet, the most during the last 6 months? (books, articles, essays, podcasts, blogs, whatever)

Yeah, I understand that you can't learn this stuff just by passively receiving wisdom: you have to learn by doing. But I guess it wouldn't hurt hearing what things have made you, my beloved readers, feel a flash of insight recently.

The talk about Nokia becoming an Internet company is gradually starting to materialize. The big news in June, although inside Nokia an anticipated one, was Nokia's announcement to reorganize at top level into three units: Devices, Services & Software, and Markets. I love it.

As a sign of things to come, Nokia announced yesterday the acquisition of a relatively unknown - but strategically interesting - media sharing company Twango.

Carlo Longino writes at MobHappy:

I’m just not convinced that Nokia needs to get into the business of running web services in areas where plenty of established competition exists — and consumers have overwhelmingly chosen that competition.

Good point, but then again, there are almost as many Nokia users as there are Internet users on this planet (both in the magnitude of 1 billion). So I'd say that the fat lady hasn't sung yet, and that Nokia has a fighting chance, if we are able to create something remarkably cool out of this.

Carlo continues:

I’m interested to see what Nokia can bring to the table by snapping up Twango, but I hope it doesn’t come at the expense of the continued development of tools to let consumers share their mobile media to a wide range of sites. Perhaps I’m being overly cynical here, but too often in mobile closed thinking has been the default — and if Nokia is truly embracing the Web ethic, it’s got to make openness a priority, and not seek to lock its customers in to its own solutions, either actively, or by making the use of other services much more difficult.

Exactly. I sincerely believe this kind of openness is the only way for Nokia to win.

Dear WLAN hotspot providers,

Please optimize the login page for your WLAN hotspot for mobile devices.

Currently, if you try to login to a WLAN hotspot in cafes, airports, or hotels, you often get a page full of clutter. Yes, it works perfectly with laptops. But with mobile devices, it's a pain in the arse.

You don't want to do that. Not anymore. It's 2007, and WLAN enabled mobile devices - including the ones from Nokia - are selling like hot cakes. Very soon, there will be more WLAN enabled mobile devices than laptops in the world. Even sooner, there will be more WLAN enabled mobile devices than laptops in your hotspot (because people carry their phones always).

Please, do a favor to yourself, and optimize the login page for mobile devices. Please, remove the unnecessary clutter.

And if you agree, please spread the word!

via Tero Lehto

Note: FON provides a really good Symbian client that makes the login unnecessary. I used their login page as an example only because I didn't have other screenshots at hand. Sorry, FON folks.