Category Archives: Finance

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Games, Technology

Roblox, Massive Tween Gaming Platform, Goes Public

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Popular tween gaming platform Roblox filed to go public on Thursday. The company declined an interview, citing a quiet period.

Source: Roblox, massive tween gaming platform, goes public – CNN

My son and I, OneWildRide,  are hooked on the Roblox game Theme Park Tycoon 2   I’m fixated on building out my park.  For beginners, there are the “out of the box” rides you can buy, and the amount of items you can use to accessorize your park is staggering.    Not only can you add “canned” rides, such as the Gravatron, but the theme park builder can add all different types of roller coasters, water rides, park transportation, etc.

Users of the Theme Park Tycoon 2 are Graded by:

  • number of active users in your park
  • the amount of money you make based on park admission, pay per ride, and concession stands
  • People can “like” your park, and provide feedback at the entrance

Commoditizing Roblox Games

I will shamefully admit that I purchased Roblox Bucks, with real dollars, that can be used on a plethora of items to build my Theme Park.  For example, the Theme Park has a height limit for how high you can build your roller coasters, so naturally, the builder/user has the ability to purchase to lift the height requirements.  You can also purchase additional “packs” that provide the builder enhancements to their rides, such as running the ride in reverse or looping the ride three times instead of the default single loop.  There’s also the conversion of USD to Roblox $$ because builders need to buy the components to build water rides or roller coasters.  You can even purchase concession stands (e.g. Popcorn Vendors).  The builder of the amusement park must also buy/build restrooms and spread out trash cans throughout the park.  There is also the concept of day and night, so make sure to buy/place lamps across the park.

Pay to Play – AI Bots = Theme Park $$

These “auto” bots/characters paying to play in your park may leave if they are dissatisfied, such as no bathrooms.  Also, without trash cans, there will be visible trash on the ground that must be painfully cleaned up, pile by pile, or left there to pile up.  On the flip side, these AI amusement goers will pay:

  • Park Entrance Fees
  • Pay Per Ride
  • Pay to use the loo
  • Pay for Concession Stands, such as Soft Drinks, Popcorn, and Pizza
  • Pay for Theme Park Memorabilia, such as Santa Hats, Tis the Season!

The Theme Park Builder sets the prices for EVERYTHING.  The AI Bots have “thoughts”, such as “This ride is really cheap.” to help you gauge your ride pricing, or “I’m Hungry”, to imply you should buy/place concession stands throughout your park.

Minecraft Anyone?!

I should say someone should have seen this coming, several someones.  You build this Theme Park at the “block” level, very similar to Minecraft, however, it seems, as far as I can tell, the graphics of Roblox seem somewhat superior to Minecraft, although this is a very debatable topic.  Minecraft has lots of 3rd party “mods” or customizations/modifications to the game.  Minecraft has had a lot of time to cultivate its userbase as well as a marketplace for users to buy these modifications.  Roblox as an application/gaming platform seems intriguing in light of the IPO.  I wonder what the highest-grossing games are on the Roblox platform.

Availability

Roblox Theme Park Tycoon 2 is available on Xbox, iPad / iPhone, and Windows to name the environments we use, jumping from device to device wherever is convenient.

Multiplayer Environment

My son constantly wants me to go over to his Theme Park, and go on rides he has just built.  It’s really a lot of fun to go to other builders’ parks.  There is a basic transit system to move between amusement parks.  You can get LOTS of ideas by looking at other builders’ parks, some of these parks put the “real world” amusement parks to shame.  So far, I’ve seen six (6) people playing concurrently, where you can see who has the most Roblox Bucks, and who’s park has the most visitors currently.  Naturally, if you’re not the big kahuna, you’ll want to stroll by the other builders’ parks.  If you are in close proximity, if you time it right, you can log in to the same server, and play with friends.  Doesn’t always seem to work quite right when people jump on and off the game.  There is probably a feature I’m not using to guarantee the same server with friends, maybe the “Premium” version of Roblox?

Build Your Own Roblox Games?  Monetary Incentives?

Wow, I really didn’t contemplate it that much.  I didn’t even think about the possible monetary returns from building one’s own Roblox game.  Not sure what the requirements would be to be a developer, how easy or hard it would be to build Roblox games, i.e. is there a coding language to use, a proprietary language, or just a simple graphical tool to build games.  No clue if there is a “developer/partner” annual cost, which is what I paid when developing applications for the iPhone / iPad.  Also, playing on the iPad / iPhone Roblox platform hosting the Theme Park game, would Apple get a percentage of “In-App” purchases for Roblox dollars?  We purchased Roblox bucks from the PC, and XBOX, so it didn’t occur to me there would be margin paid to the platform on which it runs.

Disclosure – I am not a “Premium” Roblox member or a “game” builder.

Business, Economy, Entertainment, Finance, Media, Technology

Social Media: News Feed verse App InMail

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Better Demographic Penetration and Transparency to More Accurately Determine Creative Media Asset Worth

News Media Assets

News Media Assets are created by writers of non-fictional work, coverage of various topics targeted towards the periodical demographic.

Selling Advertising Space

Layered within the news media product, consists of News Media Assets and sold advertisement space. Ad positioning throughout the news media product may have commonality between the product or service being advertised and the news media asset. A goal is the smooth transition between reader of asset and advertisement.

Revenue Models For News Media Assets

  • Deriving revenue from sponsors of news Media Assets
  • Subscription Base of News Media Assets, regular frequency of news media product to subscriber base.

Social Media – News Feeds

The news agencies post to public news feeds a “teaser” headline, a sentence or two describing the news media asset, and a teaser image all to lure prospective readers to clink a link to the news media publisher’s platform. At that point, the publisher sets the “ground rules” for the potential subscriber, e.g. 10 free articles a month, then their digital subscription price of NN goes into effect.

Social Media – InMail (I.e. eMail within the platform)

InMail through the social media platform can come from a variety of sources, for example:

  • Former colleague looking to reconnect
  • Recruiter looking to pitch a potential role
  • Sales / Marketing InMail targeting you as a potential customer of their product or service
The Tools to get the Job Done

As a prior client of LinkedIn Advertising for both ad placement and Sponsored InMail, I found the tools provided and the granularity upon which to refine the demographics impressive, and not lacking in any way.

Personable, Targeted Marketing of News Media Assets, sponsored by 3rd party promoting their product or service.

Delivering News Media Assets to your digital door step, with advertising partners speckled into the asset. Because of the granularity of the InMail advertising controls demographics are at a level of precision. Beyond what a magazine or newspaper, digital or print, can offer.

it’s all about the targeted audience and the granularity of the data collected and then leveraged to meet the desired audience. Much more personal than a link back to the publisher’s platform.

Just like there are expenses to do business in print or traditional digital, the price of doing business with a platform like LinkedIn Sponsored InMail, would be absorbed by the news media agency, net advertisement placement for advertisements.

Although the LinkedIN Social platform was used for reference, other platforms may be leveraged, depending upon the product or services being marketed, such as a Facebook People Magazine article relevant to their demographic, partnership / sponsorship.

Fake News – Not a Problem

Since News Media Agencies will now pair with “sponsors” or commonly know as advertisers, both parties, the news agency and the sponsor have “skin in the game”, it is less likely to be a factitious article.

Economy, Finance, Science, Science Fiction, Technology

Cryptocurrency + Quantum Computing := Encryption Fail, The Next Y2K

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Over the last several months I’ve been researching Quantum Computing (QC) and trying to determine how far we’ve come from the theoretical to the practical implementation.  It seems we are in the early commercial prototypical phase.

Practical Application of QC

The most discussed application of Quantum Computing has been to crack encryption.  Encrypted data that may take months or years to decipher given our current supercomputing capabilities, may take hours or minutes when the full potential of Quantum Computing has been realized.

Bitcoin and Ethereum Go Boom

One source paraphrased: Once quantum computing is actualized, encryption will be in lockstep progress, and a new cryptology paradigm will be implemented to secure our data. This kind of optimism has no place in the “Real World”. and most certainly not in the world financial markets.   Are there hedge funds which rightfully hedge against the cryptocurrency / QC risk paradigm?

Where is the Skepticism?

Is there anyone researching next steps in the evolution of cryptography/encryption, hedging the risk that marketplace encryption will be ready? The lack of fervor in the development of “Quantum Computing Ready” encryption has me speechless. Government organizations like DARPA / SBIR should already be at a conceptual level if not at the prototypical phase with next-generation cryptology.

Too Many Secrets

“Sneakers“, a classic fictional action movie with a fantastic cast, and its plot, a mathematician in secret develops the ultimate code-breaking device, and everyone is out to possess the device.  An excellent movie soon to be non-fictional..?

References:

 

Advertising, Business, Data Warehouse, Digital Assistant, Economy, Finance, Information Architecture (IA), Media, Personal, Technology

People Turn Toward “Data Banks” to Commoditize on their Purchase and User Behavior Profiles

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Anyone who is anti “Big Brother”, this may not be the article for you, in fact, skip it. 🙂

 

The Pendulum Swings Away from GDPR

In the not so distant future, “Data Bank” companies consisting of Subject Matter Experts (SME) across all verticals,  may process your data feeds collected from your purchase and user behavior profiles.  Consumers will be encouraged to submit their data profiles into a Data Bank who will offer incentives such as a reduction of insurance premiums to cash back rewards.

 

Everything from activity trackers, home automation, to vehicular automation data may be captured and aggregated.    The data collected can then be sliced and diced to provide macro and micro views of the information.    On the abstract, macro level the information may allow for demographic, statistical correlations, which may contribute to corporate strategy. On a granular view, the data will provide “data banks” the opportunity to sift through data to perform analysis and correlations that lead to actionable information.

 

Is it secure?  Do you care if a hacker steals your weight loss information? May not be an issue if collected Purchase and Use Behavior Profiles aggregate into a Blockchain general ledger.  Data Curators and Aggregators work with SMEs to correlate the data into:

  • Canned, ‘intelligent’ reports targeted for a specific subject matter, or across silos of data types
  • ‘Universes’ (i.e.  Business Objects) of data that may be ‘mined’ by consumer approved, ‘trusted’ third party companies, e.g. your insurance companies.
  • Actionable information based on AI subject matter rules engines and consumer rule transparency may be provided.

 

 “Data Banks” may be required to report to their customers who agreed to sell their data examples of specific rows of the data, which was sold on a “Data Market”.

Consumers may have the option of sharing their personal data with specific companies by proxy, through a ‘data bank’ granular to the data point collected.  Sharing of Purchase and User Behavior Profiles:

  1. may lower [or raise] your insurance premiums
  2. provide discounts on preventive health care products and services, e.g. vitamins to yoga classes
  3. Targeted, affordable,  medicine that may redirect the choice of the doctor to an alternate.  The MD would be contacted to validate the alternate.

 

The curriated data collected may be harnessed by thousands of affinity groups to offer very discrete products and services.  Purchase and User Behavior Profiles,  correlated information stretches beyond any consumer relationship experienced today.

 

At some point, health insurance companies may require you to wear a tracker to increase or slash premiums.  Auto Insurance companies may offer discounts for access to car smart data to make sure suggested maintenance guidelines for service are met.

 

You may approve your “data bank” to give access to specific soliciting government agencies or private firms looking to analyze data for their studies. You may qualify based on the demographic, abstracted data points collected for incentives provided may be tax credits, or paying studies.

Purchase and User Behavior Profiles:  Adoption and Affordability

If ‘Data Banks’ are allowed to collect Internet of Things (IoT) device profile and the devices themselves are cost prohibitive.  here are a few ways to increase their adoption:

  1.  [US] tax coupons to enable the buyer, at the time of purchase, to save money.  For example, a 100 USD discount applied at the time of purchase of an Activity Tracker, with the stipulation that you may agree,  at some point, to participate in a study.
  2. Government subsidies: the cost of aggregating and archiving Purchase and Behavioral profiles through annual tax deductions.  Today, tax incentives may allow you to purchase an IoT device if the cost is an itemized medical tax deduction, such as an Activity Tracker that monitors your heart rate, if your medical condition requires it.
  3. Auto, Life, Homeowners, and Health policyholders may qualify for additional insurance deductions
  4. Affinity branded IoT devices, such as American Lung Association may sell a logo branded Activity Tracker.  People may sponsor the owner of the tracking pedometer to raise funds for the cause.

The World Bank has a repository of data, World DataBank, which seems to store a large depth of information:

World Bank Open Data: free and open access to data about development in countries around the globe.”

Here is the article that inspired me to write this article:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/you-might-be-wearing-a-health-tracker-at-work-one-day-2015-03-11

 

Privacy and Data Protection Creates Data Markets

Initiatives such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other privacy initiatives which seek to constrict access to your data to you as the “owner”, as a byproduct, create opportunities for you to sell your data.  

 

Blockchain: Purchase, and User Behavior Profiles

As your “vault”, “Data Banks” will collect and maintain your two primary datasets:

  1. As a consumer of goods and services, a Purchase Profile is established and evolves over time.  Online purchases are automatically collected, curated, appended with metadata, and stored in a data vault [Blockchain].  “Offline” purchases at some point, may become a hybrid [on/off] line purchase, with advances in traditional monetary exchanges, and would follow the online transaction model.
  2. User Behavior (UB)  profiles, both on and offline will be collected and stored for analytical purposes.  A user behavior “session” is a use case of activity where YOU are the prime actor.  Each session would create a single UB transaction and are also stored in a “Data Vault”.   UB use cases may not lead to any purchases.

Not all Purchase and User Behavior profiles are created equal.  Eg. One person’s profile may show a monthly spend higher than another.  The consumer who purchases more may be entitled to more benefits.

These datasets wholly owned by the consumer, are safely stored, propagated, and immutable with a solution such as with a Blockchain general ledger.

Business, Economy, Entertainment, Finance, Healthcare, Legal, Media, Mobility, Technology

AI Email Workflows Eliminate Need for Manual Email Responses

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When i read the article “How to use Gmail templates to answer emails faster.”  I thought wow, what an 1990s throwback!

Microsoft Outlook has had an AI Email Rules Engine for years and years. From using a simple Wizard to an advanced construction rules user interface. Oh the things you can do. Based on a wide away of ‘out of the box’ identifiers to highly customizable conditions, MS Outlook may take action on the client side of the email transaction or on the server side. What types of actions? All kinds of transactions ranging from ‘out of the box’ to a high degree of customization. And yes, Outlook (in conjunction with MS Exchange) may be identified as a digital asset management (DAM) tool.

Email comes into an inbox, based on “from”, “subject”, contents of email, and a long list of attributes, MS Outlook [optionally with MS Exchange], for example, may push the Email and any attached content, to a server folder, perhaps to Amazon AWS S3, or as simple as an MS Exchange folder.

Then, optionally a ‘backend’ workflow may be triggered, for example, with the use of Microsoft Flow. Where you go from there has almost infinite potential.

Analogously, Google Gmail’s new Inbox UI uses categorization based on ‘some set’ of rules is not something new to the industry, but now Google has the ability. For example, “Group By” through Google’s new Inbox, could be a huge timesaver. Enabling the user to perform actions across predefined email categories, such as delete all “promotional” emails, could be extremely successful. However, I’ve not yet seen the AI rules that identify particular emails as “promotional” verses “financial”. Google is implying these ‘out of the box’ email categories, and the way users interact, take action, are extremely similar per category.

Google may continue to follow in the footsteps of Microsoft, possibly adding the initiation of workflows based on predetermined criteria. Maybe Google will expose its AI (Email) Rules Engine for users to customize their workflows, just as Microsoft did so many years ago.

Although Microsoft’s Outlook (and Exchange) may have been seen as a Digital Asset Management (DAM) tool in the past, the user’s email Inbox folder size could have been identified as one of the few sole inhibitors.  Workaround, of course, using service accounts with vastly higher folder quota / size.

My opinions do not reflect that of my employer.

Business, Economy, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Help, Media, Mobility, Music, Reviews, Technology

Hey Siri, Ready for an Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple? Guess Who’s Suing.

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The AI personal assistant with the “most usage” spanning  connectivity across all smart devices, will be the anchor upon which users will gravitate to control their ‘automated’ lives.  An Amazon commercial just aired which depicted  a dad with his daughter, and the daughter was crying about her boyfriend who happened to be in the front yard yelling for her.  The dad says to Amazon’s Alexa, sprinklers on, and yes, the boyfriend got soaked.

What is so special about top spot for the AI Personal Assistant? Controlling the ‘funnel’ upon which all information is accessed, and actions are taken means the intelligent ability to:

  • Serve up content / information, which could then be mixed in with advertisements, or ‘intelligent suggestions’ based on historical data, i.e. machine learning.
  • Proactive, suggestive actions  may lead to sales of goods and services. e.g. AI Personal Assistant flags potential ‘buys’ from eBay based on user profiles.

Three main sources of AI Personal Assistant value add:

  • A portal to the “outside” world; E.g. If I need information, I wouldn’t “surf the web” I would ask Cortana to go “Research” XYZ;   in the Business Intelligence / data warehousing space, a business analyst may need to run a few queries in order to get the information they wanted.  In the same token, Microsoft Cortana may come back to you several times to ask “for your guidance”
  • An abstraction layer between the user and their apps;  The user need not ‘lift a finger’ to any app outside the Personal Assistant with noted exceptions like playing a game for you.
  • User Profiles derived from the first two points; I.e. data collection on everything from spending habits, or other day to day  rituals.

Proactive and chatty assistants may win the “Assistant of Choice” on all platforms.  Being proactive means collecting data more often then when it’s just you asking questions ADHOC.  Proactive AI Personal Assistants that are Geo Aware may may make “timely appropriate interruptions”(notifications) that may be based on time and location.  E.g. “Don’t forget milk” says Siri,  as your passing the grocery store.  Around the time I leave work Google maps tells me if I have traffic and my ETA.

It’s possible for the [non-native] AI Personal Assistant to become the ‘abstract’ layer on top of ANY mobile OS (iOS, Android), and is the funnel by which all actions / requests are triggered.

Microsoft Corona has an iOS app and widget, which is wrapped around the OS.  Tighter integration may be possible but not allowed by the iOS, the iPhone, and the Apple Co. Note: Google’s Allo does not provide an iOS widget at the time of this writing.

Antitrust violation by mobile smartphone maker Apple:  iOS must allow for the ‘substitution’ of a competitive AI Personal Assistant to be triggered in the same manner as the native Siri,  “press and hold home button” capability that launches the default packaged iOS assistant Siri.
Reminiscent of the Microsoft IE Browser / OS antitrust violations in the past.

Holding the iPhone Home button brings up Siri. There should be an OS setting to swap out which Assistant is to be used with the mobile OS as the default.  Today, the iPhone / iPad iOS only supports “Siri” under the Settings menu.

ANY AI Personal assistant should be allowed to replace the default OS Personal assistant from Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana to any startup company with expertise and resources needed to build, and deploy a Personal Assistant solution.  Has Apple has taken steps to tightly couple Siri with it’s iOS?

AI Personal Assistant ‘Wish” list:

  • Interactive, Voice Menu Driven Dialog; The AI Personal Assistant should know what installed [mobile] apps exist, as well as their actionable, hierarchical taxonomy of feature / functions.   The Assistant should, for example, ask which application the user wants to use, and if not known by the user, the assistant should verbally / visually list the apps.  After the user selects the app, the Assistant should then provide a list of function choices for that application; e.g. “Press 1 for “Play Song”
    • The interactive voice menu should also provide a level of abstraction when available, e.g. User need not select the app, and just say “Create Reminder”.  There may be several applications on the Smartphone that do the same thing, such as Note Taking and Reminders.  In the OS Settings, under the soon to be NEW menu ‘ AI Personal Assistant’, a list of installed system applications compatible with this “AI Personal Assistant” service layer should be listed, and should be grouped by sets of categories defined by the Mobile OS.
  • Capability to interact with IoT using user defined workflows.  Hardware and software may exist in the Cloud.
  • Ever tighter integration with native as well as 3rd party apps, e.g. Google Allo and Google Keep.

Apple could already be making the changes as a natural course of their product evolution.  Even if the ‘big boys’ don’t want to stir up a hornet’s nest, all you need is VC and a few good programmers to pick a fight with Apple.

Business, Development, Economy, Entertainment, Finance, Media, Mobility, Music, Technology

AI Personal Assistant Needs Remedial Guidance for their Users

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Providing Intelligent ‘Code’ Completion

At this stage in the application platform growth and maturity of the AI Personal Assistant, there are many commands and options that common users cannot formulate due to a lack of knowledge and experience.  Using Natural Language to formulate questions has gotten better over the years, but assistance / guidance formulating the requests would maximize intent / goal accuracy.

A key usability feature for many integrated development environments (IDE) are their capability to use “Intelligent Code Completion” to guide their programmers to produce correct, functional syntax. This feature also enables the programmer to be unburdened by the need to look up syntax for each command reference, saving significant time.  As the usage of the AI Personal Assistant grows, and their capabilities along with it, the amount of commands and their parameters required to use the AI Personal Assistant will also increase.

AI Leveraging Intelligent Command Completion

For each command parameter [level\tree], a drop down list may appear giving users a set of options to select for the next parameter. A delimiter such as a period(.) indicates to the AI Parser another set of command options must be presented to the person entering the command. These options are typically in the form of drop down lists concatenated to the right of the formulated commands.  Vocally, parent / child commands and parameters may be supplied in a similar fashion.

AI Personal Assistant Language Syntax

Adding another AI parser on top of the existing syntax parser may allow commands like these to be executed:

  • Abstraction (e.g. no application specified)
    • Order.Food.Focacceria.List123
    • Order.Food.FavoriteItalianRestaurant.FavoriteLunchSpecial
  • Application Parser
    • Seamless.Order.Food.Focacceria.Large Pizza

These AI command examples uses a hierarchy of commands and parameters to perform the function. One of the above commands leverages one of my contacts, and a ‘List123’ object.  The ‘List123’ parameter may be a ‘note’ on my Smartphone that contains a list of food we would like to order. The command may place the order either through my contact’s email address, fax number, or calling the business main number and using AI Text to Speech functionality.

All personal data, such as Favorite Italian Restaurant,  and Favorite Lunch Special could be placed in the AI Personal Assistant ‘Settings’.  A group of settings may be listed as Key-Value pairs,  that may be considered short hand for conversations involving the AI Assistant.

A majority of users are most likely unsure of many of the options available within the AI Personal assistant command structure. Intelligent command [code] completion empowers users with visibility into the available commands, and parameters.

For those without a programming background, Intelligent “Command” Completion is slightly similar to the autocomplete in Google’s Search text box, predicting possible choices as the user types. In the case of the guidance provided by an AI Personal Assistant the user is guided to their desired command; however, the Google autocomplete requires some level or sense of the end result command. Intelligent code completion typically displays all possible commands in a drop down list next to the constructor period (.). In this case the user may have no knowledge of the next parameter without the drop down choice list.  An addition feature enables the AI Personal Assistant to hover over one of the commands\parameters to show a brief ‘help text’ popup.

Note, Microsoft’s Cortana AI assistant provides a text box in addition to speech input.  Adding another syntax parser could be allowed and enabled through the existing User Interface.  However, Siri seems to only have voice recognition input, and no text input.

Is Siri handling the iOS ‘Global Search’ requests ‘behind the scenes’?  If so, the textual parsing, i.e. the period(.) separator would work. Siri does provide some cursory guidance on what information the AI may be able to provide,  “Some things you can ask me:”

With only voice recognition input, use the Voice Driven Menu Navigation & Selection approach as described below.

Voice Driven, Menu Navigation and Selection

The current AI personal assistant, abstraction layer may be too abstract for some users.  The difference between these two commands:

  • Play The Rolling Stones song Sympathy for the Devil.
    • Has the benefit of natural language, and can handle simple tasks, like “Call Mom”
    • However, there may be many commands that can be performed by a multitude of installed platform applications.

Verse

  • Spotify.Song.Sympathy for the Devil
    • Enables the user to select the specific application they would like a task to be performed by.
  • Spotify Help
    • A voice driven menu will enable users to understand the capabilities of the AI Assistant.    Through the use of a voice interactive menu, users may ‘drill down’ to the action they desire to be performed. e.g. “Press # or say XYZ”
    • Optionally, the voice menu, depending upon the application, may have a customer service feature, and forward the interaction to the proper [calling or chat] queue.

Update – 9/11/16

  • I just installed Microsoft Cortana for iOS, and at a glance, the application has a leg up on the competition
    • The Help menu gives a fair number of examples by category.  Much better guidance that iOS / Siri 
    • The ability to enter\type or speak commands provides the needed flexibility for user input.
      • Some people are uncomfortable ‘talking’ to their Smartphones.  Awkward talking to a machine.
      • The ability to type in commands may alleviate voice command entry errors, speech to text translation.
      • Opportunity to expand the AI Syntax Parser to include ‘programmatic’ type commands allows the user a more granular command set,  e.g. “Intelligent Command Completion”.  As the capabilities of the platform grow, it will be a challenge to interface and maximize AI Personal Assistant capabilities.
Business, Economy, Entertainment, Finance, Legal, Media, Mobility, Music, Technology, Work

Microsoft Flow – Platform Review

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It looks like Microsoft created a generic workflow platform, product independent.

Microsoft has software solutions, like MS Outlook with an [email] rules engine built into Outlook.  SharePoint has a workflow solution within the Sharepoint Platform, typically governing the content flowing through it’s system.

Microsoft Flow is a different animal.  It seems like Microsoft has built a ‘generic’ rules engine for processing almost any event.  The Flow product:

  1. Start using the product from one of two areas:  a) “My Flows” where I may view existing and create new [work]flows. b) “Activity”, that shows “Notifications” and “Failures”
  2. Select “My Flows”, and the user may “Create [a workflow] from Blank”,  or “Browse Templates”.  MSFT existing set of templates were created by Microsoft, and also by a 3rd party implying a marketplace.
  3. Select “Create from Blank” and the user has a single drop down list of events, a culmination events across Internet products. There is an implication there could be any product, and event “made compatible” with MSFT Flows.
    1. The drop down list of events has a format of “Product – Event”.  As the list of products and events grow, we should see at least two separate drop down lists, one for products, and a sub list for the product specific events.
    2. Several Example Events Include:
      1. “Dropbox – When a file is created”
      2. “Facebook – When there is a new post to my timeline”
      3. “Project Online – When a new task is created”
      4. “RSS – When a feed item is published”
      5. “Salesforce – When an object is created”
    3. The list of products as well as there events may need a business analyst to rationalize the use cases.
  4. Once an Event is selected, event specific details may be required, e.g. Twitter account details, or OneDrive “watch” folder
  5. Next, a Condition may be added to this [work]flow,  and may be specific to the Event type, e.g. OneDrive File Type properties [contains] XYZ value.  There is also an “advanced mode” using a conditional scripting language.
  6. There is “IF YES” and “IF NO” logic, which then allows the user to select one [or more] actions to perform
    1. Several Action Examples Include:
      1. “Excel – Insert Rows”
      2. “FTP – Create File”
      3. “Google Drive – List files in folder”
      4. “Mail – Send email”
      5. “Push Notification – Send a push notification”
    2. Again, it seems like an eclectic bunch of Products, Actions, and Events strung together to have a system to POC.
  7. The Templates list, predefined set of workflows that may be of interest to anyone who does not want to start from scratch.   The UI provides several ways to filter, list, and search through templates.

Applicable to everyday life, from an individual home user, small business, to the enterprise.  At this stage the product seems in Beta at best, or more accurately, just after clickable prototype.  I ran into several errors trying to go through basic use cases, i.e. adding rules.

Despite the “Preview” launch, Microsoft has showed us the power in [work]flow processing regardless of the service platform provider, e.g.  Box, DropBox, Facebook, GitHub, Instagram, Salesforce, Twitter, Google, MailChimp, …

Microsoft may be the glue to combine service providers who may / expose their services to MSFT Flow functionality.

Create from Blank - Select Condition
Create from Blank – Select Condition

 

Create Rule from Template
Create Rule from Template
Create from Blank Rule Building UI
Create from Blank Rule Building UI

 

Update June 28th, 2016:

Opportunities for Event, Condition, Action Rules

  • Transcoding [cloud] Services
  • [IBM Watson] Cognitive APIs
    • e.g. Language:Translation; E.g.2. Visual Recognition;
  • WordPress – Create a Post
    • New text file dropped in specific folder on Box, DropBox, etc. being ‘monitored’ by MSFT flow [?] Additional code required by user for ‘polling’ capabilities
    • OR new text file attached, and emailed to specific email account folder ‘watched’ by MSFT Flow.
    • Event triggers – Automatic read of new text file
      • stylizing may occur if HTML coding used
    • Action – Post to a Blog
  • ‘ANY’ Event occurs, a custom message is sent using Skype for a single or group of Skype accounts;
    • On several ‘eligible’ events, such as “File Creation” into Box,  the file (or file shared URL) may be sent to the Skype account.
  • ‘ANY’ Event occurs, a custom mobile text message is sent to a single or group of phone numbers.
  • Event occurs for “File Creation” e.g. into Box; after passing a “Condition”, actions occur:
    • IBM Watson Cognitive API, Text to Speech, occurs, and the product of the action is placed in the same Box folder.
  • Action: Using Microsoft Edge (powered by MSN), in the “My news feed” tab, enable action to publish “Cards”, such as app notifications

Challenges \ Opportunities \ Unknowns

  • 3rd party companies existing, published [cloud; web service] APIs may not even need any modification to integrate with Microsoft Flow; however, business approval may be required to use the API in this manner,
  • It is unclear re: Flow Templates need to be created by the product owner, e.g. Telestream, or knowledgeable third party, following the Android, iOS, and/or MSFT Mobile Apps model.
  • It is unclear if the MSFT Flow app may be licensed individually in the cloud, within the 365 cloud suite, or offered for Home and\or Business?