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Which do you find the most appealing?

    a) Having access and sharing all your information across multiple devices and platforms OR
    b) Having a secure computing/digital environment

If you’re like most of us, you want both.

But here’s the catch:  when PCs  were first introduced, they were local (sat on our desks) and their contents could be kept private (no information was shared).  As we became more connected, we were taught safety first  – “Get anti-virus!”  “Make sure you have a firewall!!”  We were living on the left side of this grid.

Then two things happened:  cloud computing started to gain traction at the same time social networks came to define Web 2.0.  (For those of you who don’t know the expression “cloud computing,” it’s where shared information, resources and software applications are stored and accessed in a “cloud” (the Web).  If you use Google Docs, for example, its Office-like programs which  store and share documents online are “in the cloud.”  The same for its Calendar.)

Where does that leave protecting our files, identities, and the like?

It’s confusing, really.  Public info in the cloud?  How about Facebook, which has consistently said they don’t believe in privacy – so much so that there are now four senators calling for an investigation of the company and its policies?  Have you changed your settings recently so you’re comfortable with the amount of info being shared?

Feeling virtuous because you don’t use Facebook?  Doing any online banking?  Using GoToMyPC.com to access office files from home?  Or sharing pictures via Flickr?  You’re in the cloud, whether in public or private.

Why is this comfortable for us?  I suppose that for each of these things, we have weighed out the benefits (convenience, accessibility) with the risks.

But in the last few months, as I’ve explored delivering interactive market research reports to clients online,  I’ve realized that where I draw the line in the cloud is in storing proprietary client reports in an area where they can have access to them.  In other words, I’m not yet comfortable providing my clients with an electronic cloud-based archive of the work I’ve done.

To get there, I’ll need the following:

• A private browser-based gateway or portal for each client.  (This could include a “secure tunnel” from the client’s Intranet to where their files are stored in the space I’m paying for.)
• The platform should be able to support multi-media elements (slides/pages, audio, video, podcasts of presentations, etc.) without software needing to be loaded on the client’s server/computer.  (Rather like how the wonderful sales tool, SlideRocket.com, works today.)
• Viewing of files must be completely secure – like SSL, with a visible lock in the browser.
• Client files can only be uploaded and/or edited by me.

In short, if Carbonite and SlideRocket were to have a baby, I’d be very happy and there would  no longer be a need for “drawing lines in the cloud.”  I’d have both “a” and “b.”

Know of a solution for me?  Think online reporting is moving in another direction?  Let me know!

BTW, Perspectives on Consumers, this GSS blog, is now part of the blog directory at http://Market-Research.Alltop.com!!

The new Pew Internet and American Life Project report has been issued this week.  It won’t come as news to anyone that teens are texting a lot.  But here are a few fun facts:

• 74% of 12-17 year-olds now have cell phones.
• 72% of all teens (88% of teen cell users) use text messaging.
• 54% of all teens text daily.  This compares to:
  • 38% who make a call on their cell (mostly with parents, they report)
  • 33% who talk face-to-face
  • 30% who talk on a landline
  • 25% who visit a social networking site
  • 24% who IM
  • 11% who email
• Boys send/receive 30 texts a day whereas girls send/receive 80.

One of the key implications here is how many more teens text daily than engage with a social media website.  Mobility is critical.

Here’s where I get blown away:

• Half of teens send 50+ text messages a day.
• Roughly one-third of teens send more than 100 text messages a day (3,000 a month).
• 15% of teens who text (or 11% of all teens) send more than 200 texts a day (6,000 a month).  Let’s be generous and say that to send/receive a text takes 15 seconds.  That’s nearly an hour a day these heavy users spend texting.

Reading between the lines, the instant gratification of communication via this channel says something important about these teens.

(To see the full report, visit Pew Research.)

Question 1:  I wonder how this will impact business communications 10 years from now.

Question 2: How does this/should this impact how research is conducted with this hard-to-reach target?

A few days ago, I got the wind knocked out of me with one of those rare “aha” moments.  A headline caught my eye:  “The State of Linked Data in 2010” by ReadWriteWeb.  Being a curious sort, I read the blog post, and then spent the next few hours (days) exploring what Linked Data is.  OMG.

Now I realize this may be old news to some, just as the WWW was when I got on board in 1993.  But in 1993, I bought the first Mac built for online connection, and the good folks at Apple took days to successfully get me online as it was still such a novelty.  So I’m thinking that Linked Data (also referred to as the Semantic Web) may still be an unknown idea to many of you as well.

Last May I was wowed by the concept behind Wolfram|Alpha, and I wrote on it here as it was launching.  Since then, I haven’t heard that much about it (it’s a private effort), and I personally don’t believe it works that well.

Linked Data, an open-source movement, is more likely to be the real start of the answer of how inter-relationships between data can be seen and accessed on the Web.

Simple, one-dimensional searches are fine today, but what happens when your query is complex?  Here’s an example I saw about football (I know, how unlike me!):  you want to know which football players went to the University of Texas, Austin and played for the Dallas Cowboys as cornerback.  What you’re really asking is that two databases – UT and Cowboys – talk to each other.  But unless they’re connected in some way, they can’t talk.  And that’s what Linked Data is all about – forming those connections through shared databases.  (To see more – for those of you who are tech-inclined – visit this link.)

Today, it’s a little cumbersome to “code” the data for these linked databases, but when it becomes more automated, it will be quite powerful  and I think more people and organizations will participate.  Currently,  the US government allows all federally collected data – data that we as taxpayers pay them to collect – to be shared across departments.  It’s early days, but visit www.data.gov to see what the US government is doing.  The Brits are also committed to this effort.

A company called Talis has a great example of how its platform is working for the BBC and I believe if you watch the short video, you’ll get excited about the potential of this new movement as an end-user.

What are the implications for other types of businesses? I can’t imagine they will share their proprietary information, but I do imagine that there will be “intranet-like” Linked Data resources where queries will merge public data with their private data and data from their vendors (such as agency media buys).  Internal politics regarding who “owns” which data sources may be the biggest hurdle for full adoption.

I know that there will be more to write on all of this over time, but I would highly recommend a blog post by Scott Brinker.  In his visual (below), you can see that he lays out seven business models going from indirect-to-direct revenue models and from ‘raw data’ delivery to ‘as an application’ delivery.

Are you as wowed as I am?  What are your thoughts?