What was still missing in the “Converational Web”, what I called the** “human heart”,** or “synergy” between human communication skills and AI NLP, just like between sub-systems, is now realized conceptually.

Human-AI-Hybridization in Chat-Sevices (note: different from chatbots), just like multi-channel-translation of diverging feature sets, is live at:BeyondDialog GmbH / 42DS GmbH in Cologne.

Namely in the form of:- “Chat.OS”- “ConvAdapter”- and “Magenta Dialog 2022”

IPs / rights are no longer with me. Instead, they are with the companies mentioned above.

I’m off to new shores, realizing the dream of democratic software systems (Blockchain and Decentralization) and a #NewDataEconomy with equal access and fair compensation for all humans.

Find me in #Web3 at Ocean Protocol and OceanDAO. 👨‍🎤

I left Deutsche Telekom two years ago, more than a year after I wrote this story originally. It was early 2016 and** Conversational Commerce was still in its infancy.** A crazy idea, scribbled into my Moleskine, about turning carrier messaging into an open, federated b2c platform for applications and businesses, hadn’t even started to take off. And it became something different and bigger than I expected. You might know it as “RCS Business Messaging” today.

In 2016, I wrote about working for a great company, also known as #Magenta, and about how I worked a few years to make a **moonshot concept **a reality. Which was made possible only thanks to my former team-lead and chairman of RCS at GSMA, Kobus Smit, and Petja Heimbach, at Deutsche Telekom who gave me the best backing and support imaginable.

Around the time of writing we started discussing to found a **GSMA task force called “ RCS Messaging as a Platform”, with colleagues from all over the world, from major carriers to other industry leaders, from Google to Huawei, **a group of few that managed to align and convince this formerly silo’ed industry to collaborate on an open conversational commerce platform, laying the groundwork for what is called RBM in short today.

The dream of RCS as basis to a global, federated, open ecosystem for conversational commerce & applications — as counter-model to Facebook and Amazon — came true. It’s worth billions today, with 100s of millions of daily active users and thousands of partners and businesses actively engaging today.

But not everything played out the way I planned. End of 2017, essentials were still missing when I left — to** enjoy life, **travel (go visit Costa Rica, it’s too beautiful) and further develop my concept outside one company.

Today, 2019, almost every major player in communication tech pushed into the space. AT&T, Verizon, China Mobile, all major european carriers, Samsung, Huawei and Google, huge messaging aggregators like Twilio or MessageBird joined the pack, just like Live Chat platforms like **LivePerson or **Zendesk started to compete for the number 1 in native messaging conversational commerce.

What is still missing from my original idea is: “synergy” and “the human heart”. You have to work in unity, in synergy, to pair Facebook (or Amazon in Voice, the next iteration of ConvComm). You must act as one platform in front of users and businesses alike and federate (cash and features) in the background. Instead, different groups sometimes still compete **within RCS. **Definitively some room for improvement (e.g. CCMI). But there’s another way in which synergy is missing. A more fundamental way.

When conceptualizing a new global platform, basically a new web iteration, you want something like** intermediality*, a different term for synergy. ****It’s *something from my field of studies, basically saying that new media iterations become dominant by merging aspects of former media iterations into oneselves, adding a new interaction paradigm to it and becoming something new and globally dominant by it.

The mobile web sucked in and shrunk the content of the www, the social web (Facebook, Instagram) sucked in and redistributed website content from the www and produser media from the mobile web (photos & videos), added their very own, unique interaction mode (“many to many”) and evolved into a brand new “web” after time.

So where is the structural synergy in Conversational Commerce? It’s not just about a new interface. It’s about a new interaction paradigm, one where all** former iterations** are incorporated into and serve to foster and help create it. Yes, cards and “roulettes” incorporate content from the www, businesses can send and receive photos and videos (mobile web). But where is the social (human to human), its incorporation, the serving of the former iterations and the truly new paradigm?

It’s “conversations” we are talking about. Something deeply, truly human. And I don’t see it realized as unique, new paradigm in Conversational Commerce yet. It’s not just about copying whatsapp chats, throwing cards and videos in and adding AI.

It’s about taking all of these, but make them serve to create a new “genre” of interaction . For Conversational Commerce, the b-party of conversations cannot just be a “business”, shooting out AI-managed messages, it’s supposed to be a human conversation, which is about much more than text and multimedia: empathy, individual speed, charm, memories and character, about a way to give human conversations with all its aspects an own, new “mode” of content distribution, on behalf of businesses in case of Conversational Commerce.

Which brings me to the second aspect I still see missing: “the human heart”. There is no human heart in the architecture of RBM today on both sides of the channel.

Even after I long left the space,** **this “human heart”, still missing, got stuck in my head. It stuck because that’s why I created the concept that lead to RBM in the first place. To create an ecosystem, a new business architecture to counter-hack central platforms like Facebook, to ensure a valued, valuabe and **sustainable spot for humans **in the **“Conversational Web”, as **I would call it today. And the economy it is about to shape.

So why is the crucial role of humans missing in most initiatives around Conversational Commerce today? Why the rigid focus on AI and Chatbots? Because humans don’t “scale” as fast as AI. They don’t make billions of dollars fast. What’s worth fast billions: AI. AI by Google, AI by Samsung, by Apple, by Salesforce, by LivePerson and so on. Everyone has their AI strategy, replacing humans in the Service Sector via Conversational Commerce and making great money with this promise. Just like Amazon replaces local stores run by humans.

Same applies to the group of huge brands targeted as customers: every player in the Conversational Commerce ecosystem is going after them: Lufthansa, Santander, Hyatt, Nike, L’Oreal, these kind of kids. They have seven or eight digit marketing or customer relationship budgets— and they are ready to spend it to optimize, hence get cheaper customer service and sell their global products with less cost. Which is promised by AI today.

We create a problem we will only see in full effect in a decade or two. The “human heart” and by that the **“human paradigm” **is missing. But it doesn’t work without it. Not ethically, but also not structurally, which is why we are stuck with what we have today: primary-school-smart chatbots and annoyed humans.

Only with humans at the **architecture’s core **on both sides of the new medium, in a solution that helps humans shape the medium and scales at the same time, we can create a truly conversational web.

The right tools, the motivation and the right interaction mode: human, yet globally present, with the effect of a positive economic vision, is to be “invented” on the b-side. That’s why Conversational Commerce is a **giant buzz **and billion dollar ecosystem, but 80%+of users are still sticking to websites and apps. And that’s where I personally find true beauty: where media theory meets a giant business challenge meets ethics:

7 years ago, I sensed Facebook and Amazon trying to bypass mobile operating systems, add AI, occupy the value chain with it, suck almost all revenue out of local, regional or national economies to finally leave millions of humans and their way to make a living behind. Not cool.

I wanted Conversational Commerce to be a safe haven “post mobile”, “post www”, for a more human economy, where every human in any company can make a difference, not the best bot or AI. To strengthen the service sector as employment field in a time where most others will be replaced by robotics and AI. Why didn’t it happen yet?

I guess because it’s hard. The platform’s story, its ethics, its mechanics, the software, the way to interact, how content generated, shared, and used, the business models behind it, the APIs and companies involved, the interfaces and the ecosystem-embeddedment all have to work together seamlessly like one, always with the “human factor” at its conceptual core.

It’s actually the real challenge when creating a new web iteration: the unique in the mode. It’s also the 70% of my concept I couldn’t get through. That’s why I left. And stayed away.

Until a few people changed my mind. Next to family and friends it was Bianca Löwemann, global partner manager for RBM at Telekom today and my former partner in crime when evangelizing on ConvComm back in the day.

I met her lately in a small café and she convinced me to revisit the topic. She said that a) the time is right just now and b) that realizing such a concept would actually be more probable outside a corporate.

Still wondering if it would get adopted, I thought: why not give it shot. Got back to my original concept and iterated it into something new, small, yet beautiful, turning Conversational Commerce into what it was supposed in the first place — at least for me.

—

The basic idea: Everyone uses Chat-Messengers all the time. And where there are tons of users, there will be businesses.

The bet goes: “Chat Conversation” is a great new way for businesses to interact with customers and vice versa.

Hence: many great ideas, messengers with existing platforms (Telegram, Slack, WeChat) & some major – as in industry-changing-major – releases this year: Facebook Messenger, Google Allo, iMessage Kit & Skype.

The hype could well end up making messengers as powerful as the existing e-commerce infrastructure. To catch up on the topic from the beginning, I recommend to read Messina’s great piece on “conversational commerce” that kinda kicked off the real buzz earlier this year.

Back in 2010 my focus at university was on applications inside messaging. I believed so hard that chat was about to become way much more than “just chatting”.

My hypothesis: interaction pivots have always been where 3rd party applications & new commercial ecosystems grew. New pivots developed due to social patterns. Messaging mapped personal relations perfectly. Ergo: Messaging was the next potential major pivot.

The hypothesis made up for both my final thesis at university and a startup concept: A messaging app that allowed for collaborative usage of 3rd party web services inside chat.

While the thesis helped me finish my degree and scored me my first job, the startup founding efforts did not quite work out that well. German investors in 2011 were neither willing to take the risk of investing in a new social concept, nor did they believe in messaging apps as a future dominant medium.

2 years later, when I started working at Deutsche Telekom, the topic of “monetization in messaging” came to my door. The question: “Where does the money come from if messaging as such will be free of charge?”

After many discussions, I was tasked to build a prototype around my concept.

I picked a small app agency startup — whose CEO I happened to know from desk sharing at my former startup job — to craft this app prototype with me:

A messenger app called “Smile” (I know, cheezy, but it made everyone smile using it) including webapps you could use from inside chats and group chats of your messenger — updating in realtime. It was like a steroid injection for “the mobile web” straight from the messenger.

These little In-Chat-Apps (Chapps) ran completely inside the messaging app, full screen displayed via an In-App-Browser.

We managed to connect web-services to all relevant features (device APIs) of the phone like accelerator, microphone, ID, etc. — through the messenger.

Believe it or not: in 2013 that was a big deal.

On UX side, the plan was

• to make collaborative decisions easier & more fun (rock-paper-scissors, pulling matches, creating a quick poll on where to spend friday night)

• to make everyday life easier (shopping lists, task lists, polls, etc. in chats)

• **to bring commerce into messaging **(chatting with businesses, voting on dresses with friends, buying gifts together, mutually booking flights & hotels, etc.)

On strategy side I wanted to fix certain aspects in current 3rd party platforms (aka. app stores):

• **lower the hurdle for users to use apps together **(install @ all parties)

• instant access to app history from chats

• **lower the hurdle for developers to build and deploy services **(html5 / webapps)

But: Since you never heard of “Smile” and won’t find a trace of it on the web, you can imagine what happened almost 3 years ago: it went straight to the corporate drawer.

The project I worked on was called RCS. The “planned to be” successor of SMS.

The focus of RCS back then wasn’t on conquering the future web with a new 3rd party platform. It was rebuilding SMS, agreeing on and deploying the new messaging protocol. With every carrier and every smartphone crafter out there.

It is like convincing all carmakers on the planet to agree on one common electronic battery — and stop charging for current cars at the same time.

Let’s not get into further details of RCS. There were slowing factors, most driven by the legacy of carrier messaging, regulators, data privacy and the federated structure of the carrier landscape. Until recent cloud offers by Jibe or SAP came out.

Coming from small startups I had a hard time seeing value in a standard driven carrier messaging protocol for a long time.

But analysing digital global ecosystems and the role of messaging over the past 3 years, I found it: Neutrality.

How else could players like Google, Apple or Microsoft (or Amazon, longer story) ever connect their walled-gardens without losing face?

An initiative like an SMS follow-up-technology, federated between all carriers, holds this value.

SMS did that for years. Connecting OS’s. Creating a neutral messaging web would fix the problem of global messaging lying in the hand of 1 single, private entity like FB or WeChat.

Every startup, every company on this planet can use SMS today and plug into APIs to do so. RCS will be the same. So goes the plan.

Facebook started shutting out startups, bots and aggregators from its platform already. Naming only a few selected partners at F8 ‘16.

Telegram and Slack are different: they are open. Anybody can build and deploy bots/services.

But: if adressability (what is called “reach” in the carrier world) is crucial to Conversational Commerce, will those services ever stand a chance?

Maybe they will. Or they use RCS one day for global reach — like iMessage with SMS. Google did bet on RCS last fall, announcing Android integration earlier this year.

If there is a need for an open, globally governed chat messaging that any company can use, it might be worth waiting for carriers and this new messaging protocol with the weird name.

Our prototype, even though never launched, brought a feel for platform mechanics, the value of apps, seemless UX & UI beauty to our teams at Telekom.

The startup partner I built the prototype with was acquired by Trivago a year later. The best app team I have ever got to work with was gone for good. Highlights:

• Whatever. I told the CTO and the Technical Project Manager of the startup what I imagined and conceptualized. It contained at least 5 features, hooks & connections of app-elements that had never been built before. Me: “I would really love the app to do this and this and that, but I know it’s not possible.” His answer: “Go on. Tell us whatever you think is best - and we will make it work.” If you ever want to create something truly unique, look for people with that kind of attitude.

• Speed & Quality via Respect. From the time the wireframes, features and user stories (if unfamiliar: the software concept) were set, it took the team of eight only 3 months to build the app. 3 months. A live-ready iOS Application (store, 3rd party webapps, access to all big device APIs, great design). I think this was only possible thx to the 2 founders being real A-Players. And nice guys. Who gathered even more A-Players & the best team-members around them. They respected every one 100%. And the developers respected them back, just like the designers and the project manager (and vice versa). For their talent and dedication. Just like they respected my concept. And I loved everyone of them. Something that will keep on inspiring me for the rest of my career. Like the 19y old senior developer Giulio who dropped out of university after tutoring his professor on iOS Development for the first 6 months. Rheinfabrik saw this raw talent and hired him immediately. The whole team’s dedication, guts and creativity still impresses me when looking back. Everyone just tried to make the next persons work better with their own work.

After 3 years I still think that using the web layer is one smart strategy on the way to a global messaging platform. For its openness.

That’s why I think WeChat did a brillant job. (I see more elements/aspects/features now, but can’t share).

Especially openness is a job that Facebook did not manage to pair yet. Actually: I think Facebook does not want to pair this.

IMHO Facebook wants any provider of content or commerce to use as many Facebook-exclusive features as possible.

Cause the more you depend on proprietary elements of a platform like Facebook, the harder it will be to move on (and of course: the less revenue you will get).

Like it went down with the App Store: 30% cut. No alternatives. Except Android, but with similar shares.

Facebook is building this App Store 2.0 Ecosystem around Messaging today — and much more. With chances for a monopole in both Communications and Commerce.

An ecosystem that is more closed and more complete than any other before: Google (Play Store, Search, Chrome, Ads, Payment…) or Apple’s (App Store, iCloud, Apple TV, CarPlay, Apple Pay…) or Amazon (Commerce, Prime, Instant Video, Music, (future) Logistics,…)

Examples:

• **Facebook App Newsfeed **(Replacing Ads: Major Distribution / Display Channel linkable to every other point in the Facebook world)

• Facebook App Search (Replacing Search & Phone Number: Discover pretty much any big, medium, large business in the world — as well as any event, article or person)

• Instant Articles (Replacing Ads & Browser by stripping news articles naked from non-facebook-ads and making them only displayable via Facebook)

• Atlas (Replacing Ads: Advertisement Network similar to Google Ads with the Kicker of Like-Buttons on almost any page on the web “reporting” back to Facebook)

• Facebook Pages (Replacing online directories & Google Places: 50Mio Businesses on Facebook today)

• Facebook Messenger (Replacing Communication: Free Chat, Voice Calls, Group Calls and Video Calls)

• Facebook Businesses on Messenger (Replacing all B2C: Chatbots instead of Apps, Live Chat Support instead of B2C Calls, Email & Support, Sponsored Messages replacing Marketing Tools & Ads,…)

• Apps on Messenger (Replacing App Stores & Mobile OS: A new store for collaborative/content apps & quicker access to existing apps on your phone — like Spotify, Flipboard…)

• **Messenger Payment **(Replacing Banking: long shot)

• Free Internet Access (Replacing internet access: Internet.org, Terragraph, ARIES)

• Instagram (Replacing magazine ads: Globally trending image/aesthetics-based marketing platform)

• Whatsapp (Replacing Competition)

If you connect the dots, you can see how a power-position like no other is growing here.

Almost unmatchable by any other single digital player — no matter how big.

Facebook merges dominance in future Search, Ads, Communications, Apps, Social, Commerce, Marketing and Payment under one umbrella.

I am not saying Facebook is evil, or more evil than Google, AT&T, Tencent, Telekom, Apple, Amazon or Microsoft. But at least I am naming several here, not one.

To match a future messaging web with all elements “dotted” above, a global communication network, governed and accessible in a federated way, might help.

With a distributed, diverse ecosystem growing around it.

There are many great startups around in this new messaging web space already (Userlike, Orat.io, Letsclap, just to name a few) — and amazing new opportunities we haven’t even figured out yet. Just because existing messengers are closed systems.

How all of this will play out, what role global software/cloud players, hardware players, carriers, publishers and startups can play, we’ll see.

A carrier messaging standard capable of more than just SMS sure is not the sexiest option. But it is one. Though, like with everything web & tech: we can’t tell, we can only try & see.

The biggest players in the ‘game of net’ will have the sh*t disrupted out of them soon (and haven’t fully understood it yet).

These players — together with new & brave startups — will have to step up and collaborate at a certain point — or we might face a branded, single-point-of-control web like we have never seen before.

Let’s not f*ck it up.

Note: The opinions expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect that of my employer.