• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Focus Melds Crowdsourced IT Analysis with Social Media

    September 20, 2010 Alex Woodie

    A new online venture called Focus is looking to shake up the status quo in the market for B2B and IT analysis with a business plan that combines social media mechanisms with mostly “crowdsourced” content. If all goes as founder and CEO Scott Albro plans–and it seems to be so far, considering www.focus.com is attracting 12 million people per month, according to Albro–the big players in IT analysis, such as Gartner, will be forced to change how they produce and distribute content.

    Focus, which officially launched its Website in May, bills itself as a source of business and technology expertise that’s free to all users. Visitors to the site are encouraged to read the analysis of the experts that Focus has recruited, which Focus typically does not pay them for (hence the term “crowdsourcing”). Even content that the company pays for, such as the recent ERP and telephony buyer’s guides, are free to registered users. (Yes, registration is also free.)

    User interaction is encouraged through the many Q&As sprinkled throughout the site and the “virtual summits” that Focus recently added. In the popular Q&A format, users often get multiple responses from experts with specific recommendations to their questions, such as “what CRM systems is best for my particular environment?” Focus currently targets eight industry areas, including IT (the biggest), sales, marketing, finance, customer service, operations, human resources, and small business.

    The crowdsourcing approach to generating content works for two reasons, Albro tells IT Jungle. First, the experts that Focus recruits are genuinely interested in helping other people (the altruistic drive). Secondly, the experts are eager to get the exposure that Focus can bring to help their business and their careers (the self-promotion incentive).

    Focus is similar in some respects to the popular social networking Websites Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, in that the Focus site is largely people-driven, with lots of people offering their opinions (as well as promoting themselves). “We do draw a lot of inspiration from the Facebooks, Twitters, and LinkedIns of the world,” he says. “We absolutely believe the Internet is going to a more social place, where who you know becomes very important for how you make decisions, even in a professional setting.”

    The big difference between Focus and the popular social networking sites is Focus does everything within a B2B framework, and highlights the business knowledge an individual can offer other people. “We launched Focus to be a platform designed to help business and technology professionals make better decisions, and make better decisions in a social way,” he says. “We’re trying to not only allow people to make better decisions based on who they know, but also allow people to make better decisions based on what they know. That’s hard to do on Twitter or LinkedIn.”

    So far, the business plan seems to be working. Focus has about 5,000 experts registered, and attracts about 12 million people to the Website every month. But the more important figure, in Albro’s opinion, is the 850,000 people that have become registered Focus users. “We have a long way to go before we’re Facebook, but it’s not bad for a site that we released a little over a year ago and only officially launched five months ago,” he says.

    If Focus continues to grow, it will help the company’s advertising business and allow Focus to scale its operations and expand into new topic areas. (For all the talk about social media breakthroughs, breaking old business models, open source content generation, and democratizing access to content, Focus still makes money in the traditional B2B media manner–selling advertisements and sponsorships. It’s a tough business to be in, as IT Jungle knows).

    “One of the interesting things about our business is we have no shortage of people who want to create content and cover different topics,” Albro says. “The capability of this business to scale and cover lots of different markets is one of the more exciting things. I think you see that with most crowdsourced businesses. That will open up lots of new markets for us that our sales organization can go in and sell advertising to.”

    If the Focus business plan pans out in the long run, the IT analyst “dinosaurs,” as Albro calls them, may want to seek shelter–or at least draw up some new business plans that don’t require customers to spend $10,000 or more for a report, and more effectively incorporate the social and technological breakthroughs enabled by the Net.

    “We think of the Gartners, the Forresters, and even the McKinseys and Bains–the big consultancies of the world–as being companies that haven’t necessarily embraced, and aren’t necessarily well-suited to embrace, all the positive changes that the Internet has brought to so many other industries,” Albro says. “That’s the kind of antiquated model that seems pretty ripe for disruption. And that’s really what we’re trying to do with Focus.”

    Albro, who lists “knifefighter” as one of his duties in his Focus bio, seems to share a particular disdain for Gartner and the $1.1-billion-company’s cloistered business model, which restricts access to the content its 700 analysts generate each year for its for 7,000 clients.

    “We’re really trying to open up that closed world of the Gartner Group,” he says. “They put up barriers around that content, some really restrictive pay walls, in an effort to make the content look extremely scarce, so they can go charge a very small set of customers a lot of money to get access to the content, the expertise, or the advisory services.”

    The Internet has already had a huge, irreversible impact on consumer media. People simply don’t pay for content, such as music, newspapers, or magazines, once they realize they can get it for free online. Albro is betting the same thing is happening in B2B media market, which he pegs as generating something north of $200 billion per year. Considering that some major players haven’t yet adopted their business models to the Internet, they may be ripe for disruption.



                         Post this story to del.icio.us
                   Post this story to Digg
        Post this story to Slashdot

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 19, Number 33 -- September 20, 2010

    Sponsored by
    PERFSCAN

    Revolutionary Performance Management Software

    At Greymine, we recognize there is a void in the IT world for a dedicated performance management company and also for a performance management tool that’s modern, easy to use, and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. That’s why we created PERFSCAN.

    PERFSCAN is designed to make your job easier. With revolutionary technology, an easy-to-read report and graphics engine, and real time monitoring, tasks that used to take days can now take minutes. This means you will know your system better and will be able to provide better service to your customers.

    OUR FEATURES

    PERFSCAN is full of robust features that don’t require you to take a three-day class in order to use the product effectively.

    Customizable Performance Reporting

    Whether you are troubleshooting a major system problem or simply creating a monthly report, PERFSCAN lets you select any combination of desired performance metrics (CPU, Disk, and Memory).

    User Defined Performance Guidelines

    No matter if you are a managed service provider managing complex systems in the cloud or a customer analyzing your on-premises solution, PERFSCAN gives you the flexibility to define all mission critical guidelines how they need to be.

    Understanding The Impact Of Change

    Tired of all the finger pointing when performance is suffering? PERFSCAN’s innovative What’s Changed and Period vs. Period analysis creates a culture of proof by correlating known environmental changes with system performance metrics.

    Comprehensive Executive Summary

    Creating performance graphs is easy. Understanding what they mean is another thing. With one mouse click, PERFSCAN includes an easy-to-understand executive summary for each core metric analyzed.

    Combined Real-Time Monitor And Performance Analysis Tool

    With PERFSCAN’s combined built in enterprise real-time monitor and historical performance analysis capability, you will always know how your mission-critical systems are performing.

    Cloud Performance Reporting Is Easy

    Managing performance for production systems in the cloud can be a black hole to many system administrators. The good news is PERFSCAN analyzes all core metrics regardless of the location. That’s why MSPs and customers love PERFSCAN.

    Detailed Job Analysis

    PERFSCAN shows detailed top job analysis for any desired period. All metrics are displayed in two ways: Traditional Report and Percentage Breakdown Pie Chart. This toggle capability instantly shows the jobs using the most system resources.

    Save Report Capability

    Your boss lost the report you gave to him on Friday. Now what do you do? With PERFSCAN’s save report capability, any report can be retrieved in a matter of seconds.

    Professional PDF Reporting With Branding

    Creating professional looking reports for your customers has never been easier with PERFSCAN. Branding for our partners and service provider customers is easy with PERFSCAN.

    Check it out at perfscan.com

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Admin Alert: Getting Started with i/OS Security Auditing, Part 1 Pat Townsend Bolsters MFT Lineup with New Encryption Options

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

TFH Volume: 19 Issue: 33

This Issue Sponsored By

    Table of Contents

    • The More Things Change
    • Big Sam Is Worried About Oracle–And For Good Reason
    • Focus Melds Crowdsourced IT Analysis with Social Media
    • Mad Dog 21/21: Seismically Active Storage
    • IBM Gives Schools Discounts on Power Systems Iron
    • Reader Feedback on IBM Adds New SSD and Fat SFF Disk to Power Systems
    • Central Florida User Group to Disband in December
    • Former IBM Server Chief and Potential Heir Gets Six Months in Prison
    • An IT Jungle Reader Appreciation Offer from iSeries DevCon
    • Lab Services and Training Available for Power Systems Shops

    Content archive

    • The Four Hundred
    • Four Hundred Stuff
    • Four Hundred Guru

    Recent Posts

    • Fortra Issues 20th State of IBM i Security Report
    • FNTS Launches Managed Services for Power Servers in IBM Cloud
    • Total LTO Shipped Capacity Up Slightly in 2022
    • Four Hundred Monitor, May 24
    • Update On Critical Security Vulnerability In PowerVM
    • Critical Security Vulnerability In PowerVM Hypervisor
    • IBM Power: Hosted On-Premises Or In The Cloud?
    • Guru: Watch Out For This Pitfall When Working With Integer Columns
    • As I See It: Bob-the-Bot
    • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 25, Number 21

    Subscribe

    To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

    Pages

    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Contributors
    • Four Hundred Monitor
    • IBM i PTF Guide
    • Media Kit
    • Subscribe

    Search

    Copyright © 2023 IT Jungle