Here are some obvious core products, that companies should have already engineered:
Email service by Linked-In:
Advice: Follow Oracle, SAP, and Salesforce, and invest in cloud-based business software
Set-up a proper email service (call it LMail if you wish). If Linked-In created a proper email system (IMAP or POP3) like GMail, I would switch in two seconds. Gmail is for playing with family and friends. It's not for professional business people, who hate fun.
Linked-In's organization is horrible: photos and text are thrown about the site randomly. Stop treating it like a sales funnel - internally that works, externally it's awful.
There are two kinds of message services:
1. Personal - For those who like to connect with friends; best organized as a feed system with chat. Twitter / Facebook / Google
2. Professional - For those who connect with co-workers and professional networks; best organized as a traditional email system with photos. Skype / Linked-In
I want to use Linked-In like I use Google. Photos of the person when they email me, with access to their professional background and connections.
iCar by Apple:
Advice: Follow Tesla and Google, and invest in automobiles
Get some guts and go bold. Apple has enough cash to revive the City of Detroit, and could surely push Apple Computers into transportation. Knowing that they haven't done so yet, while Elon Musk did - seems a little ridiculous to me. iWatch? Give Steve Jobs his iCar already. Cars don't work so well with websites, but iOS apps and real-time services run great.
Public Wi-Fi Trash Cans by Google:
Advice: Partner with Starbucks, and invest in public utilities
Your strengths are public service and advertising. Give our communities free WiFi service built into public recycling bins (you know the green kind with the recycling logo) for our mobile phones. Send us ads from them, and increase the usage of the Google Search engine at the same time. Or offer it to Android phone users only - if you want to be evil.
Email me when the stagnation has ended.
Tim Montague
8-16-2013