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Yesterday both Yahoo! and Google revealed how they are opening up their systems. In a blog post on Yahoo! ,  Jay Rossiter, Senior VP Yahoo! Open, stated how Y! has opened up its platform to developers "who are now welcome to come in and access our tools and data so they can build applications for a more customized, social, and relevant Yahoo! network and beyond." Some of the things that you'll now be able to do are:

1. See what your friends are doing on Yahoo! and let them see what you are doing

2. Create a single, universal Y! profile

3. Develop a portable address book that you can take to other sites

4. Customize Yahoo! by making it easy to bring in content from other places across the web into Y!

5. Connect with people through social networking features

What I find really interesting about Yahoo! opening itself up in this way is that it's one step towards portability of content across the web. And that, in my humble opinion, is a good thing.

Google announced yesterday the launch of Google Apps Lab. There are three Google Apps that can now be used by business and schools:

1. Google Moderator: "Makes it easy to gather and prioritize questions or opinions on any topic from a group of people."

2. Google Code Reviews: "Facilitates quality software development by making it easy for peers to review an author's changes and share feedback."

3. Google Short Links: "Allows users to easily create descriptive shortcuts to web URLs. This makes it easier for users to recall and share the locations of important documents and web sites."

The fabulous TechCrunch reports that "Google will be opening up the platform to third party developers who want their apps to be available to the 'million-plus businesses' using Google Apps today."

The open systems are the Internet's free market: the pros of free markets (until the recent financial meltdown) are that they typically spur competition, leading to lower prices and better quality for consumers. Open systems have the same effect spurring innovation, from both companies and individual developers, to the benefit of all Internet users.

By now, we're all familiar with the power behind the "wisdom of crowds." New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki detailed the application of the concept to business processes in his eponymous book, published in 2004. We have group wisdom to thank for Wikipedia, Google's Knol, Yahoo! Answers and many other sites that rely on the socialization of information.

Open Salon applies the model to traditional content publishing, using the creativity of its audience to generate content. Salon editor-in-chief Joan Walsh describes the platform as "part blogging platform, part social network," one that allows reader-authors to piggyback on Salon's audience to build their own. Naturally, Salon benefits as well, by receiving in return low-cost content against which ads can be served. And rather than share that ad revenue with contributors, Salon put in place a micropayments system that allows readers to "tip" other contributors whose work they like. One author-critic speculated openly about the economics and logic behind the tipping system, and not surprisingly, the post/article generated a considerable amount of debate.

It is certainly true that there are many good writers and even good journalists out there who do not work for a mainstream publication (or even a mainstream blog, for that matter), but who have a yearning to be heard (or read). The relative lack of remuneration that Open Salon provides may be worth the trade-off for the ability to reach a nationwide audience through an established site like Salon. That said, does the Open Salon model spell the end of traditional publishing and the conventional professionalization path for aspiring writers? For the time being, it's probably safe to say "no," but it will be interesting to monitor which features of Open Salon catch on and migrate to traditional publishers, especially the struggling newspapers. It's difficult to see crowdsourcing or the wisdom of crowds making their way into the print versions, but a front page whose content is determined by which articles receive the most votes is conceivable.

I'm momentarily deviating from my brand monitoring conversation series to highlight yesterday's big news on the analyst front: Cambridge-based Forrester Research announced it was acquiring New York-based JupiterResearch (see announcements here and here). Forrester is by far the bigger company, competing as it does with Gartner and others in the IT research and advisory space as well as Internet marketing and strategy, but Jupiter has long been a formidable adversary on the Web research front (who can forget their attempts to out-predict each other in the heady early days of the first Internet bubble, for example?).

Over the past couple of years, Forrester's CEO, George Colony, has repeatedly characterized the company as "acquisitive," so the purchase of Jupiter is not altogether surprising, especially given the fact that rampant industry consolidation has left few other available targets on the market. Forrester's marketing and strategy practice is filled with a host of excellent minds and the addition of Jupiter's equally formidable analysts will only make it stronger. While it is true that consolidation means fewer differing opinions, I have little doubt that the Jupiter analysts will manage to retain their "voice" as part of the Forrester team. End-users may welcome the benefit of having one less research subscription to manage - no small consideration in belt-tightening times.

Thank you to everybody who visited our exhibition stand at the Online Marketing Show 2008 and complimented us on the design.

We hope everybody enjoyed the cider, jam and honey we gave away over the two days, and the hessian bags and squeezy Bruce TheBulls - we gave away over 1,000 of each. They were so popular, there are few annoyed wives, girlfriends and female employees at Steak London who missed out on getting one. Sorry ladies!

I've already blogged photos of the stand during day one, and afterwards, including some before and after shots of the space and the freebies.

The concept and design was a 100% internal job by Open, our design and creative studio here at Steak. A big thank you to everybody who helped, from designing to sticking labels on jam jars (especially MS, PR and DN)! If you want a stand that stands out from the herd (sorry for the pun!) please contact us.

In the Marketing Week InteractiveSix Supplement accompanying the show, I wrote an article entitled "Time to fire your old website?" and mentioned a case study on using Google Optimsier to increase form fills by 17%. We'll be publishing that soon - to receive a copy, please email hello at steakdigital dot co dot uk

In the meantime, here are some more OMS Photos:

Steak's Farmers Market

Open's creative juices were flowing at OMS 2008

Steak-branded milk churn

Thanks to everybody who came along to say hello, ask about the stand and chatted to the Steakites on the stand - we'll be getting in touch with you all over the coming days.

Our creative team started with an empty, grey space....

 

 

...and their restless creative minds turned the orthodoxy of white background, metal framed-stands on its dull head:

 

 

The Steakites tending the stand were also dressed for the occasion:

 

 

Bruce and his clone army were on hand, too, to go forth and spread the Steak word. If you didn't manage to get a Squeezy Bull contact us via the link at the top of the page and we'll see what we can do.

 

 

Talking of spread, we also gave away Steak-branded jam, honey and cider. Each label featured a client case study (thanks to everybody who peeled and stuck labels last week at Steak London!) and there were free Steak hessian bags for 1,000 attendees.

 

Sadly, we've got none left - sorry if you were disappointed; there are some annoyed girlfiends and wives of Steakites, too!

Oh, and if you would like an exhibition stand that really stands out, contact us using the link at the top of the page...

Update: Thanks to Berkeley PR for their kind comments about our stand.  

Our in-house creative team were given a simple brief: make our exhibition space stand out from the crowd. At all the marketing show events I have been to, the stands look the same - plastic and metal frame stands, white glossy backgrounds and black screens.

Boring!

Our creative team took a very different approach....

 

 

...the Steak Farmer's Market.

As a result we have been very, very busy on day one. I intended to blog during the day, but was too busy talking to wide range of people from diverse industries and experience levels. Let's hope we are announcing some of them as clients soon ;-)

As well as having a presence that stands out so well, we've also got some unique, Steak-branded giveaways including environmentally-friendly hessian bags, jams and ciders with client case studies on them, and of course, squeezy steak stress bulls - Bruce TheBull.

 

 

Our charity cow, Penny, is also in the entrance hall at OMS and I've seen a few people having their photo taken with her.

 

So if you've blogged about us or uploaded a photo, please let us know via the contact form - select "Marketing and Press" from the drop down, and use the subject line "OMS 2008".

If you've already come to say hello and ask about the stand and our services - thank you, and thank you to the brilliant job everybody involved in our stand has done - especially the marketing and creative team at Steak London. Your truly rock!

If you haven't been to OMS yet - come and see us on day two, 25th June, at the Business Design Centre, Islington.

So come and see us at Stand 73.

What Mozilla has done is based on a recongnition that search lies at the center of the way people use the Web. Obviously the search bar remains, with all of the different site and engine plugins, but the location bar is now far more sophisticated. When you start typing, Firefox searches your own browsing history, links, preferences and bookmarks. It also allows you to easily tag and bookmark sites (and even tag your own bookmarks), making your own favorites searchable in the same way we employ keywords for Internet search. The emphasis on search extends to Firefox' internal functions as well. There are search boxes everywhere - for the Add-Ons, for Downloads as well as in the expected places like Bookmarks.

It's not so much a case of the browser trying to shape user behavior, but rather, shaping the browsing to reflect usage patterns. Sounds elemental, but it's clearly easier said than done. Now if only I could stop it from crashing all the time....

Apparently an estimated 10 million teenagers have a computer addiction in China, according to the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital.

Read more at Wired, and book your psychiatrist's appointment now!

Updated: It seems mobile phone addiction has led to Spanish children to be admitted to a clinic.

Hat tip to ST for this.

The show features agencies, media owners and suppliers. To quote the site:

"Online Marketing and Media Show 08, is the only UK event to bring together experts and suppliers covering every element of online marketing and media all under one roof, over two days.

From SEO to PPC, blogging to podcasting, accessibility to analytics, email, affiliate and mobile marketing, online ads and integration, the show tackles all the challenges surrounding online marketing and offers advice on the latest developments. Find out how to make interactive marketing and advertising campaigns work harder for your money."

OMS 2008 Website

Oh..and we will be giving away little Bruces, of course!