nFold Software Minute

Software Gathers Dust

2009-11-10T23:12:00.000-08:00

As a software enthusiast, it pains me when shiny new software gathers dust on the shelves rather than unleashing the business value it was built to deliver. 59% of managers blame IT when users fail to adopt software and 23% blame software vendors. In our defence, my mother taught me that if you point a finger at someone else, there are 3 pointing back at you.

Old Habits Die Hard

My personal theory is that successful deployment, training and change management are only half the battle won. We can take a horse to water, but drinking involves software users coming to the party. Just as good habits take a lifetime to learn and a moment to break, so changing old habits takes time. And time is the one luxury most users are too busy to enjoy. Yet good time management principles teach us that we need to focus on the things that are important and not urgent if we want to build capacity. I always laugh when someone tells me they’re too busy to save themselves time. Because ultimately, that’s what software does for users.

Experience is the Best Teacher

We have incrementally rolled out several new software systems in our own company this year. And it took me a while to change my old habits. But when I look back at the old manual systems we were using and compare it to how much easier life is now, I feel satisfied. It gives me strength to jump the next hurdle and remove the next bottleneck. Slowly, slowly, one sip at a time, we’re drinking our own medicine. And it’s doing us good. Try it! You might be surprised at how much easier it is than you thought, and by how much time it creates for you to do more interesting things than manual drudge.

Time to Spring Clean

As 2010 dawns, I hope you will dust off the software that remains unused in your company. Let it breathe new life into your work and inspire you to grow. Is there anyone duplicating work in your organisation? Look for bottlenecks and onerous manual processes you can apply software to improve. Can you simplify and shorten business processes by involving technology? Embrace software. Use it: slowly, gently, softly, one step at a time. Aesop showed us more than 2,000 years ago that slow and steady wins the race. You can do it! No one else can do it for you.

More Reading:

Ten Common Mistakes of Collaborative Software Adoption
http://www.attask.com/docs/support/Ten_Common_Mistakes.pdf

The State of Enterprise Software Adoption
http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/IT-Management/The-State-of-Enterprise-Software-Adoption-336552/

Office 2010 - The Movie – Clippie is Dead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUawhjxLS2I

The world in your pocket?

2008-12-11T02:40:00.000-08:00

The future looks mobile.
At TechRoadmaps this week, Stafford Masie of Google claimed that there are 3 billion mobile phones on the planet, while only 1 billion people are online. He says there are more mobile phones than TVs, PCs and cars put together. nFold's software research has shown that most local CIOs rate Mobility as one of the top 3 trends to act on in the next few years. And my own experience confirms the importance of this trend, as our office has become virtual and our workers increasingly mobile. There are few technology barriers left, only psychological ones. People resist change.

Communication is the killer application, so far.
Most people in SA seem to use their mobile phones for entertainment and communication, rather than for work processes or transactions - me included. Yet most software vendors whose roadmaps I have seen, have realised that their applications must work on any device - especially mobile phones. And the availability of GPS maps and directions, and niche industry applications by companies such as Adcheck Mobile, are changing the local landscape rapidly. The battle between Apple and Google for mobile application penetration is raging full steam ahead.

A day in the life of a mobile worker.
When I renewed my cell phone contract recently, I was amazed to discover that my bandwidth usage now exceeds my voice costs. I enabled email on my cell phone a few months ago and also use my phone as a modem to get my laptop onto the Internet when I'm on the road. Most of our office systems are web based or accessible over an Internet virtual private network - but not yet on my mobile phone. Mainly because my phone's screen is too small to be useful. Email communication and calendar synchronization to my cell phone have transformed my life, but not in the way I expected. Rather than chaining me to my desk, I seem to have more time and less stress now than before. And I have at last conquered the email beast.

The world in your pocket.
Apparently your typical iPod now has the capacity to store several years' worth of music or video content. And in future, one may literally be able to download the entire contents of the Internet onto a pocket device. Stafford Masie thinks this will change the world. He reckons there will be less need to be online. I'm not convinced. As storage capacity grows, so the content available to be stored seems to multiply. Humans have a fundamental need to be connected. The bigger the network grows, the bigger the need to be part of it. And the benefits of connecting, exponentially outweigh the cost. Mobility has made it cheaper and easier to stay hooked.

The money and the mouth

2008-08-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I had a minute - I'm sure you've had those months too. At last I found a good excuse to write, as we migrate to a new mailing list platform and need to test that it works. Please bear with us if we've made a mistake with your subscription. Yes, our new software is open source. And all I'm spending on it is time. So my priority is deploying my sparkling CRM system for as little money as possible. But what are your CIO's software priorities and where are they putting your money?

Product development wins the race for budget and importance
Hot off the press is our software research with Arthur Goldstuck's company World Wide Worx. Perhaps you saw our comments on the cover of iWeek last month. We asked your CIO the questions and the winner is....more money is being thrown at using software to create new products for your company than any other category of software. Product development also ranks as one of the most important categories, alongside a few others. For example, furniture companies are spending more money on software to design new furniture than elsewhere.

Does this really mean we're more innovative?
Arthur reckons it's an indicator that software is not merely a tool. Rather it's adding more value to businesses and is becoming a means to achieve competitive advantage. Yet infrastructure, finance/accounting and operations software together make up more than 40% of the software budget. This tells me that the basics are still chewing up most of the resources.

HR software is important but cheap yet you're planning to spend more on it
I'm always intrigued by contrasts. Only 5% of your software budget is consumed by HR software, yet it is one of the most important categories. Maybe your HR platforms are in place, or annual costs are low? Or maybe you've had the luxury of negotiating down the price because it's a competitive space? HR and knowledge management are the only categories you plan to spend more money on in future, so I guess the HR software vendors have cottoned onto the idea that they could be charging more....or you're putting your money where your mouth is.

Email is dead. Long live instant messages!

2008-04-30T06:34:00.000-07:00

Social Networks Rule?
A new friend recently suggested that by 2010, email would no longer be in use for business communication. He suggested that social networking would replace it. We were discussing how the candidates for US president were using social networking to campaign for votes, and ways to use social networking for business. Perhaps I'm immune to the bug, or it hasn't caught me yet, because I seem to put off or ignore new social messages, from even my best friends.

To chat now or email later, that is the question.
Yet the idea stuck until I met a journalist who reckons that instant messages have already become more important than email. As a long-time user of AOL, Skype, MSN and Google chat software, I could immediately relate to the idea. And the more I think about it, the more I agree that this phenomenon still feels more important than social networking. Having just dealt with yet another 1,000 emails I'm reminded that "if everything is urgent, nothing is". To deal with the deluge, some people use different email addresses for different reasons: friends, work, family. That's never solved the problem for me.

Different Strokes for Different Folks
My poor friends and family have learnt over the years that I am a reluctant email correspondent; mainly because I suffer from email overload at work, so that it has become a chore rather than a pleasure to write an email. At least I prefer that excuse to sheer laziness. And yet, I am seldom too busy for a quick chat on Skype - even now that I increasingly use it for work. Somehow a quick chat is more personal and interactive than a quick email. But for some reason, I have still not activated Skype or MXit on my mobile phone, unlike millions of teenagers in South Africa who daily chat to their friends this way.

The pen is mightier than the sword
I'm amazed at how sms, instant messages and email have already changed our language. We use shorter words, emoticons and shortcuts to say more in less time. And yet we never seem to have any more of the time we're trying to save. I guess I'm about ready to ditch the world of technology for a good book over a very welcome long weekend.

The Future According to You

2008-04-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

I'm planning to write a series of white papers about local software matters this year. First I was undecided on the first topic, now I'm not sure. It's a toss up between software innovation and software trends.

Of white papers and dithering
As the end of March deadline for our own Leapfrog Award draws nearer and I dust off my power suit to attend the TT100 awards, my thoughts are turning to innovation. But we're wrapping up interviews for our local software research, I can't wait to chair the IT confidence panel discussion again in March, and I have a press deadline on local software for Monday. So local trends are hovering in the ether too. For this article, local trends has won the flip of the coin.

The million dollar question
We asked CIO's a particularly spicy question in our software survey this time: "What do you think the 3 most important software trends will be in the next 5 years?" And we got some VERY interesting answers. Better yet, we got some great conversations started on the way the software word is heading and how this impacts local companies. Many of the responses confirmed our own predictions about local software trends (see www.nfold.com/5trends.html).

Top Trends
But there are some new trends emerging that we also think will be big. And our local CIOs seem to agree, with 100% of the responses agreeing mentioning one of our original trends or the following ones we think are emerging.

Convergence - by this we mean not only more functionality available in fewer software systems, but also fewer devices delivering more useful features. And communication is becoming unified too.

Integration - as technology to integrate becomes cheaper and interfaces between systems become more standard, the dream of keeping data where it belongs and delivering it to where it's needed becomes more achievable.

Configurability - software has become more modular and can now deliver off-the-shelf what used to require custom development. It has also become more aligned to business processes rather than forcing customers to adapt to its own features. The race for features is over.

Mobility - with widespread adoption of mobile phones that have become ever more like mini-computers, software features are now delivered to the palm more easily. Already calendaring, messaging and collaboration are at our fingertips. Other features are following fast.

Surprise!
Less popular, but equally interesting, were some more trends we think worth watching:

Voice over IP - it's hard to argue with free communication over existing data networks that are becoming cheaper to grow.

New Interfaces - will voice and touch replace the keyboard & mouse?

Social Networking - the way we communicate is evolving, and could transform the workplace.

Clean Green
Yet another email in my inbox, with the catchy title "shed your load...", is a call for papers from ITWeb for its GreenIT summit. This is a new one on me and was not mentioned by any of our CIOs in the survey so far. But I can see how online meeting software can cut down on the need to travel and burn up fossil fuels. And shifts in behaviour mean that people are more ready now than ever for the idea of a virtual office. Imagine how working from home could impact on your lifestyle and those traffic jams in Jozie! Telecommuting is the way to go.

nFold Goes Global

2008-04-30T06:25:00.000-07:00

Our Marketing Manager has moved to Dubai. The rest of us are on the road or work from home so often that her move was the last straw to break the camel's back. With so many of us based offsite so much of the time, nFold has now become a virtual global company.
Doing things the virtual wayWe have our weekly meetings online using IP telephony and web meeting software. We support our customers remotely and meet them online. We even host virtual events with virtual people. And I am now able to share files in our local office network wherever I am, in whatever timezone - as long as I have an Internet connection. During my recent visit to the US, this meant I could keep in touch over the hotel's free wireless connection with anyone who happened to be awake at 4 in the morning when the jet-lag kicked in.

Free. Borrowed. Rented. Bought.
Nor has it cost us an arm and a leg. Sure it's doubled our IT costs, but then we doubled our customer base and our turnover last year, so it's time for our infrastructure to catch up with us. A wise friend taught me that as an entrepreneur, the order of priority is first to use what's free, then borrow, and only part with money as a last resort. Fortunately, there are loads of tools out there to help a young company like nFold keep up the pace.

Check it out!
Free voice conversations: www.skype.com
Free VPN software for creating a secure wide area network over the Internet: https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/list.asp
Free CRM software for managing sales and marketing, email campaigns, contacts database and building relationships with customers: www.sugarcrm.org or http://vtiger.org
Free office software: www.openoffice.org
Free tracking of roving IP number of your ADSL connection: www.dyndns.com
Free email, web calendar sharing with meeting cancellations and reminders on sms or email: www.google.com
Free offsite backups (for less than 5GB): www.xdrive.com
Rented MS Exchange for outlook calendar sharing and email/meeting delivery to mobile phone: www.is.co.za
Rented web hosting and mailboxes: www.your-site.com
Bought internet bandwidth: www.cybersmart.co.za or www.is.co.za or www.telksomsa.net Bought 3G or HSDPA bandwidth: www.vodacom.co.za or www.mtn.co.za
Bought web meeting and support software: www.netviewer.com

Keeping the home fires burning
It's another rainy day in Jozie. Telkom has no outages in store today, and the lights are on - for now. Meanwhile, in Dubai it's a warm winter day while Theresa is arranging our next guerilla marketing campaign. And I am enjoying some tea and deleting new emails at the local coffee shop between meetings. Eskom decides to do load shedding and our office lights go out. The UPS keeps our server, network and switchboard going until the generator is turned on. And peace reigns while the pitter-patter of raindrops continues without stopping, just like virtual life continues at nFold.

Software in your Stocking

2007-12-07T04:17:00.000-08:00

As a busy year draws to a close, everyone's thoughts seem to be turning to the holidays. So what software should you ask Santa to put in your stocking?

I'm sure software vendors are smiling. Budgets are now becoming available to buy the latest greatest software. Let's face it there's lots of super duper new software about and the old software dogs have many new tricks up their sleeves. My fellow software junkies and I would love to play with all the new toys about, but the last thing the world really needs is more software.

Are companies using what they have to full potential? I would argue that more can be done with what we already have in place. So rather than considering what new software to buy, perhaps CIO's should think about existing features available in the software they have already implemented. They are likely to find that quicker and cheaper results will follow, that could have a huge impact on their company performance.

Just as we only use 3% of our brains, we leverage a fraction of the potential that our enterprise software offers. It's time to start working smarter. A good way to begin is to identify the constraints in your company. Is there duplication of effort? Are there manually intensive processes? Where could you still cut costs or improve efficiencies? Is there a gap in the market your competitors have overlooked? Then re-look at software already being used in your business to see whether features exist or can be configured to meet your needs.

Why re-invent the wheel when it's already turning? Your wagon may have a steam engine hiding under the hood if only you would look.

The future of Software as a Service in SA

2007-12-07T04:10:00.000-08:00

The potential of software as a service/hosted application services is huge. And the market is growing rapidly. nFold's local software research so far shows that almost 30% of companies now prefer to rent, lease or subscribe to software as a service - double the percentage in 2005. Most of our survey respondents agree that this trend is very important, but few have implemented it. The reality in South Africa is that our high cost of bandwidth is preventing local companies from keeping pace with their international counterparts. Ironically, affordable Internet connectivity services to the SOHO market, such as ADSL and HSDPA, have meant that smaller companies are adopting software as a service more rapidly than corporates.

So locally, we tend to see smaller companies able to streamline their operations using robust technology that would have been unaffordable to them a few years ago. This makes it possible for them to conduct business anywhere, anytime. There are no limits to the type of applications that can and are being offered as a service - from the simplest RFP automation system to the most complex ERP system. Current software licensing models are inadequate. Enterprise software suppliers need to partner with hosting companies and may need to redevelop or re-align their solution to suit this model. Many shy away from taking a bigger up-front risk than they have in the past, for the promise of more predictable subscription based revenues instead of purchase and support revenues. Software suppliers ignore this trend at their peril.

nFold has predicted since 2006 that "Anywhere Anytime" and "Payment Flexibility" are important trends in the local software industry. Software as a Service (SaaS) taps into both of these concepts. While the adoption of SaaS is constrained by the high cost of bandwidth in South Africa, the global market seems to be exploding. And according to our software research, local adoption is growing rapidly. SaaS solutions already available vary from point systems (like survey or proposal services) to enterprise systems (such as ERP or CRM services). There are new entrants well-poised to tap into this market, so incumbents in the software world need to beware. I would agree that for the moment incumbents should hedge their bets by offering software services over the Internet as well as more traditional download/install options. Most companies still prefer tradition.

IT Skills: Shortage or Commodity?

2007-11-09T06:04:00.000-08:00

Everyone has been agreeing for many years that there's an IT skills shortage. The IT managers we are interviewing for our software survey agree too. Yet I've been hearing some interesting new perspectives on this old story in the last few weeks. Enjoy...

Alas! the shortage is real

One CIO went so far as to say that this will be his most significant challenge in the future. The Companies increasingly seem to be training up people to meet their own needs, rather than relying on tertiary institutions. Unfortunately, as soon as people have valuable skills they hop jobs. ITWeb Salary Survey 2007 reports: "A severe shortage in experienced IT skills fuels job-hopping, with over 50% of respondents having looked for a new job in SA, and about 5% ready to take up an overseas offer." In an effort to keep these rare gems, companies offer higher salaries, resulting in a downward spiral.

Inflated salaries are harmful

The rules of supply and demand are at play. A scarce resource is worth more money than one that's abundant. There's resistance from business to the unrealistic salary expectations of IT staff. Ultimately, IT needs to demonstrate value to organisations that exceeds its costs. It's no longer so easy to maintain the illusion, as IT costs soar and the value to business seems nebulous. And yet the value is real. But perceptions are negative.

Insourcing combats shortage?

An interesting view is that keeping strategic IT skills inhouse reduces risk: dependence on suppliers suffering from a skills shortage of their own. The outsourcing-insourcing pendulum is swinging again. Current plans to combat the skills shortage seem to be half-hearted. Some dramatic action is needed. And yet the demand for skills continues to grow and the shortage remains a reality.

Welcome to the house of fun.

Until IT becomes a fun place to be again, at the forefront of innovation as it once was, the only attraction to young professionals is money. And there's more of it to be had in other careers. We've lost sight of fun on our way to becoming a mature industry. Perhaps we need to remember the addage "Growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional". If we remain a young industry at heart, rather than taking ourselves too seriously, we will attract talent.

Read more about it...

- ITWeb Salary Survey 2007
- My Digital Life: IT skills shortage choking SA business, August 2007
- IOL: IT Skills Shortage Likely to Balloon, July 2006
- ITWeb Skills Survey 2006
- Mail&Guardian: Shortage Confusion Mismatch Surplus, August 2005

Have your say…again…and again…and again...

2007-10-02T11:40:00.000-07:00

In response to our last minute on making virtual friends, someone asked me to turn our marketing newsletters into an RSS feed. Huh? I had seen the RSS button on lots of websites, but was a bit hazy on the details. Nor was I so keen on the idea of adding yet more weight to the information overload all of us experience. Now that I’ve done the research and tried it out, I’m sold on the idea and ready to convert others. So brace yourself!

I’ve said it once in my newsletter…
Like many workaholics I get sooooooo much email that I respond mainly to the urgent ones. Contrary to Stephen Covey’s advice and my own desire, I tend to ignore the important things like news and personal emails. And yet, I write a newsletter using www.streamsend.com. More surprising – thousands of people subscribe and some even read it. And a handful of friends love me for the poor correspondent that I am.

…I say it again on my website…
We archive all our newsletters on nFold’s website www.nfold.com for posterity. Sometimes people interested in our impartial advice or niche software will browse the site and can catch up on all the fun over some coffee. Or journalists wanting to quote someone not so rich and not so famous but mad about software, will check out the results of our crystal-ball-gazing and cheeky comments about the state of the software world.

…and I say it again in a BLOG…
This BLOG business has taken the world by storm. Everyone and his dog can write whatever they want whenever they feel like it and share it with the world. The infrastructure is free, courtesy of www.blogger.com. But anyone interested in reading your thoughts will need to know your BLOG exists or find the proverbial needle in a haystack. And when you add another thought?

… now I can say it again on RSS…
I was gratified to discover, at the END of my RSS research – thanks Murphy! – that we already have an RSS feed. If you browse to our BLOG address http://softwareminute.blogspot.com your browser’s “Feed” button should magically light up. When you click it, it takes you to a specially formatted page http://softwareminute.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

But it ain’t over until the fat lady sings. Now that you have the address of our feed, you need to add it to a feed reader like the one you can download for free from www.feedreader.com. It hovers in your computer’s task bar and pops up a window every time one of your “feeds” is updated with new content. Hey presto! News that you’re interested in reading arrives on your desktop.

…and the final word can be mine.
Our next step in the new technology adoption lifecycle is to follow in the footsteps of one of our software suppliers. Tom Sant is rated one of the world’s top 10 sales trainers and writes an award winning newsletter called “Messages that Matter”. No really! There IS an award for newsletters in the US where everything is bigger and better – as we all should know. He “podcasts” his messages so that you can listen to him have the last word on http://www.santcorp.com/best_practices/podcasts.htm. Now that’s what I call spreading the word!

Niche Software

2007-10-02T03:42:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have had cause to ponder the meaning of niche software time and again. Since I've heard the phrase a lot recently, I thought it might be worth a minute of your time. When I started nFold 6 years ago, my vision was to assemble a portfolio of niche software solutions. They had to be affordable, quick to deploy and meet a specific need. Now that we also offer impartial advice on mainstream software, we have to be clear on the difference between the two.

Niche in a Nutshell
My definition of niche, is software that is narrow in function and hasn't yet achieved widespread market adoption. So it can be widely applicable to different market segments and decisionmakers, but it does one thing really well and chances are...Microsoft hasn't built one or bought one yet.

Not Niche
In my opinion, all the acronyms you probably recognize, such as ERP, CRM, SCM, MES are NOT niche. There are some applications that started out as niche and have become mainstream - such as accounting, payroll and business intelligence.

Sample Niche
The best way to explain is by way of example. One of our niche products is called Sant Suite. It automates the creation of proposals, tenders and presentations. Nothing more, nothing less. It's relevant mainly to healthcare, financial services, high tech, engineering and services companies. We mostly work with sales and marketing managers to help them improve their sales productivity and win rates. See www.santcorp.com or subscribe to Tom Sant's newsletter below.

Building a Community
nFold has pioneered this niche in South Africa for the last 5 years. We're slowly gaining critical mass in the financial services and high tech industries, although we're a few steps behind the international adoption of this type of solution. You may have noticed that we've made a huge effort recently to grow the community around this niche. We've become involved in the local chapters of UPSA and APMP (for sales and proposal professionals respectively). We are making editorial contributions to publications such as SalesGuru, Succeed, Business Brief, BusinessIT, and CIO Africa. We regularly conduct online web sessions and on 17 April, we will be hosting a best practice bid management seminar. Watch this space! Maybe next month we'll be speaking to Microsoft.

Build vs. Buy

2007-10-02T03:39:00.000-07:00

At a round table discussion hosted by Brainstorm recently, the eternal question of whether it is better to build or buy software came up again in passing. The table had no corners, but the room did have opposite ends. nFold sat squarely in the "packaged software" corner, arguing that if packaged software meets 60-80% of your needs and can be configured, there is no need to re-invent the wheel. In the "bespoke software" corner, sat Malcolm Rabson from Dariel Solutions, whose experience has been that customers don't want to pay for 100% when all they need is 5% of the functionality that comes off the shelf. He has a point. Although the packaged software response is to modularise or tier the software to different groups of requirements.

Dariel & nFold both agreed on one thing: regardless of whether the software is packaged or bespoke, a mature approach is needed to ensure the success of your project. Contrary to popular belief, it IS possible to deliver software projects in time on budget and according to specifications. Usually, that means spending more time up front, following the old adage that if you fail to plan you are planning to fail.

Another eternal question (or is it an excuse) came up in the discussion, namely the IT skills shortage; a convenient reason to buy rather than build. The word on the street is that software development environments and standards are evolving so rapidly that we now need a new kind of specialist. To make matters worse, the curriculum at higher institutions of learning has allegedly not kept up with market demands. When will our industry demand the levels of professionalism & skills accreditation already adopted in countries such as the UK?

I eagerly await the article Paul Furber has written in Brainstorm to see his take on these matters and the broader subject of Independent Software Vendors; and of course to see my name in quotes and the - no doubt - unflattering photo.

Making virtual friends? Ag shame!

2007-08-06T06:39:00.000-07:00

For the longest time I have been reading about the social revolution happening on websites such as http://www.secondlife.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/. I have also been wondering what all the fuss is about Blogs? Finally, I decided to take time out from my (rather busy) first life to find out more.

Technically speaking, you are now experiencing my first blog softwareminute.blogspot.com. It took me all of 5 minutes to register on http://www.blogger.com/ and start WABing - for the un-initiated that means I am now indulging in Work Avoidance Behaviour. In the spirit of the moment I have explored Blog aggregators such as http://www.afrigator.com/ for local Blogs. I have joined virtual networks such as http://www.mygenius.com/ for entrepreneurs. And I've been growing my business network on http://www.linkedin.com/.

Rumour has it that companies screening job candidates have started checking out the profiles of their potential employees on sites such as facebook. So watch what you say about your secret hobbies if your career means anything to you. I was a bit disappointed at how difficult it is to find and join an existing network on facebook. But it seems easy to make friends and invite people from your own address book to join your own networkssssss. Go wild! Have a dozen. Invite everyone you know or would like to know. Look up long lost friends. But be warned...you could be "poked" by someone you wish would remain lost.

You need a lot of time and patience to live a second life. As an ardent sci-fi fan, I'm not phased by the lingo. I know about "avatars" and have chosen Opin Dawes as my virtual name. But appealing as it may be to explore a whole new world peopled by 8 million other people who are responsible for 12.5 million transactions per day in this not quite virtual economy, I prefer to meet real friends for real coffee in the real world - even if it costs real money.

I guess all of these social networking mechanisms have business potential if you're willing to get creative. No doubt someone may even be willing to pay you to lead a second life in the hope of financial reward. In my view, facebook, linked in and blogger have the most immediate business potential. Meanwhile, having registered for a whole bunch of virtual networks, I am gritting my teeth in expectation while waiting for the to spam hit the fan.