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Kissmetrics Launches Product Planner Posted: 06 Oct 2008 10:57 AM CDT Looking to chart out the user flows for your application prior to developing it? Want to see how other successful applications are driving new user installs? Kissmetrics’ new “Product Planner” tool lets you plan out more effective user flows that will hopefully result in driving users to your application. There is also a useful charting tool which helps you plan out how a user will interact with your application or site using over 30 “flow steps”. Flow steps are everything from “Web - User asked to verify email” to “Facebook - User invites friends”. While the appears to be limited to the number of flow steps available currently, I could see this being extremely useful especially when combined with actual metrics. In between each step there could be conversion rates to determine the fall-off of users as they navigate through your application or website. The service also enables users to save their user flow diagrams as well as embed them on other sites. While I’m currently having some issues with embedding the diagrams, it definitely could be extremely useful especially for internal product planning or case studies. The site currently includes a gallery of the user flow for other successful applications including “Who Has the Biggest Brain”, “Mob Wars”, and Texas HoldEm Poker. I’m not sure if Kissmetrics is preparing an analytics package comparable to Sometrics or kontagent, but the company continues to have a heavy focus on metrics related to social applications. If you are looking for a useful tool to track user flows, definitely check out Product Planner.

Social Enterprise Software Race Picks Up Pace Posted: 06 Oct 2008 09:56 AM CDT Today I.B.M. announced the release of Bluehouse, the company’s workplace collaboration software. Whether you are using the word “collaboration”, “social”, or the phrase “Enterprise 2.0″, it is all describing the same thing. There is a huge shift towards services which integrate communication and productivity tools making it easier for employees to access information and improving the organization’s overall productivity. Just last week I wrote that Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook, was leaving the company to start a new enterprise software company. If that’s not a sign that things are heating up in the enterprise space, I’m not sure what is. As we continue to learn from our experiences with social networks, companies are rapidly trying to figure out how to adapt these new tools into their organizations. The new Bluehouse product includes a web-based meeting tool, a social network, a document sharing tool which includes tagging for quick access, a task management solution, a forms wizard, a charting tool, and a chat application. Ultimately the product isn’t revolutionary but it adds a lot of features that many enterprise software products don’t include. The most important takeaway from today’s Bluehouse announcement is simply that the shift toward enterprise social software is continuing and rapidly gaining momentum. If there was a major opportunity for web developers building social applications, this would most definitely be it. The best part of enterprise software is that companies pay for it! Yes, you can make money by selling social software rather than giving it away and relying on advertising revenue!

I Have Reached the Maxim of My Digitally Nomadic Life Posted: 06 Oct 2008 08:00 AM CDT Driving in the car en route to LaGuardia airport, I find myself blogging. I have finally removed myself from the barriers of the wired world and am now completely mobile. The only thing which remains unresolved is my mail but aside from junk mail most companies have made it possible to receive the electronic versions of my bills. I’m not sure if that is a good or bad thing but it is now part of my life. While there will be new technologies that make mobile internet access more ubiquitous, there is sufficient technology available to make myself omnipresent. The only challenge while writing a mobile blog post is the continuous noise from the people surrounding me. “Shut up!” I yell, but they ignore me wondering why I continue to type on my keyboard. I tried blogging during dinner but that didn’t work out so well. So now I’m blogging in a car and ultimately I’m finding that mobile blogging is nowhere near as efficient as sitting at my desk, focused on a single task. A while back I wrote that my goal was to become completely untethered (that word provided by my mobile companion). Soon enough I realized “detached” was not an adjective I wanted to use when describing myself. Now I am completely mobile but I will still return to my home based. I guess it’s a fact of life. The totally nomadic life is a lonely one so I decided to opt-out and remain completely mobile yet not nomadic, if that makes sense. Have you figured out a way to become a completely nomadic? Do you think there is any reason for becoming a digital nomad or is being mobile sufficient?

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