"CREATORS, SYNTHESIZERS, AND CONSUMERS"... MAKEUP OF SOCIAL MEDIA SITES
Good post by Yahoo!'s Bradley Horowitz. He provides an analysis of social media sites with Yahoo!'s Groups as the base of his discussion. If you follow social media or social networking sites, his post confirms what most of us know already. My thinking has been that an active user base is about 5% or less of a site's membership. So only a handful of people start groups on MySpace, organize offline events, and comment on a blog. of course it depends on the context and content. If you visit Marc Canter's blog, he has zero to maybe three comments on each of his posts. His posts typically don't warrant comments, but I know he gets a lot of traffic on his blog. But some political blogs with less traffic get a higher response and comment rate because the subject matter of the posts elicit a response. Anyway, check out Bradley's post:
* 1% of the user population might start a group (or a thread within a group)
* 10% of the user population might participate actively, and actually author content whether starting a thread or responding to a thread-in-progress
* 100% of the user population benefits from the activities of the above groups (lurkers)
There are a couple of interesting points worth noting. The first is that we don’t need to convert 100% of the audience into “active” participants to have a thriving product that benefits tens of millions of users. In fact, there are many reasons why you wouldn’t want to do this. The hurdles that users cross as they transition from lurkers to synthesizers to creators are also filters that can eliminate noise from signal. Another point is that the levels of the pyramid are containing - the creators are also consumers.
While not quite a “natural law” this order-of-magnitude relationship is found across many sites that solicit user contribution. Even for Wikipedia (the gold standard of the genre) half of all edits are made by just 2.5% of all users. And note that in this context user means “logged in user”, not accounting for the millions of lurkers directed to Wikipedia via search engine traffic for instance.
Mostly this is just an observation, and a simple statement: social software sites don’t require 100% active participation to generate great value. (full post)
Junto Boyz
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
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FRED BARNES ON PRESIDENT BUSH'S RECENT MISSTEPS
Like Fred Barnes' analysis and thinking. He has a raw assessment of President Bush's recent moves:
Losing Friends and Influence
President Bush misjudges immigration and the ports issue.
The Weekly Standard
by Fred Barnes
Like few presidents before him, President Bush was poised for a consequential and potentially quite successful second term. It hasn't worked out that way (so far). Bush made one strategic error in 2005, guessing wrongly that the country was adult and serious enough to reform Social Security. Now he faces at least two immediate challenges: immigration and the Dubai ports flap.
Let's start with immigration, which the Senate is slated to take up in late March. On immigration, Bush is not a conventional conservative or any other kind of conservative. His instinct is to sympathize with immigrants. Bush believes that whether they come to the United States legally or illegally, they come for the right reasons, chiefly for economic opportunity and the chance to shape their own destiny in life.
This has put the president deeply at odds with most Republicans in Congress and the army of conservative talk radio hosts and their listeners around the country. They regard Bush as a slacker on immigration. Their primary aim is to tighten security along the border with Mexico. And the legislation that passed the House last December would do exactly that, partly by erecting a 700-mile wall. (full article)
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Like Fred Barnes' analysis and thinking. He has a raw assessment of President Bush's recent moves:
Losing Friends and Influence
President Bush misjudges immigration and the ports issue.
The Weekly Standard
by Fred Barnes
Like few presidents before him, President Bush was poised for a consequential and potentially quite successful second term. It hasn't worked out that way (so far). Bush made one strategic error in 2005, guessing wrongly that the country was adult and serious enough to reform Social Security. Now he faces at least two immediate challenges: immigration and the Dubai ports flap.
Let's start with immigration, which the Senate is slated to take up in late March. On immigration, Bush is not a conventional conservative or any other kind of conservative. His instinct is to sympathize with immigrants. Bush believes that whether they come to the United States legally or illegally, they come for the right reasons, chiefly for economic opportunity and the chance to shape their own destiny in life.
This has put the president deeply at odds with most Republicans in Congress and the army of conservative talk radio hosts and their listeners around the country. They regard Bush as a slacker on immigration. Their primary aim is to tighten security along the border with Mexico. And the legislation that passed the House last December would do exactly that, partly by erecting a 700-mile wall. (full article)
NATIONAL ARCHIVES ON GOOGLE VIDEO
Old news but cool news. There are some cool clips in The National Archive section on Google Video. Great idea to whoever thought about approaching them.
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Old news but cool news. There are some cool clips in The National Archive section on Google Video. Great idea to whoever thought about approaching them.
GOOGLE SLOWDOWN? REALLY?
Today's news that tech analysts are jumping on are George Reyes's, Google's CFO, comments on how their "growth rates are slowing. And you see that each and every quarter. And we're going to have to find other ways to monetize the business."
CNet News.com provide their analysis, which I think might be a bit overboard. How much of a slow will there be in online advertising? I believe the writing is on the wall that more and more ad dollars are moving online. The whole space is still smaller than the $15 billion Yellow Page Market. Yellow pages! Do you still use your Yellow Page book besides as a door stopper and weapon against would-be burglars? Let's see what happens with Google's revenue at year end.
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Today's news that tech analysts are jumping on are George Reyes's, Google's CFO, comments on how their "growth rates are slowing. And you see that each and every quarter. And we're going to have to find other ways to monetize the business."
CNet News.com provide their analysis, which I think might be a bit overboard. How much of a slow will there be in online advertising? I believe the writing is on the wall that more and more ad dollars are moving online. The whole space is still smaller than the $15 billion Yellow Page Market. Yellow pages! Do you still use your Yellow Page book besides as a door stopper and weapon against would-be burglars? Let's see what happens with Google's revenue at year end.
AJAX HOMEPAGES REVIEW
Blogger was down this morning, so I couldn't post until after my meetings got done. Anyway, Richard MacManus has a good review of some Web 2.0 homepages that you can use. I haven't tried out all of these, but so far I like Goowy the best even though I don't use it often.
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Blogger was down this morning, so I couldn't post until after my meetings got done. Anyway, Richard MacManus has a good review of some Web 2.0 homepages that you can use. I haven't tried out all of these, but so far I like Goowy the best even though I don't use it often.
Monday, February 27, 2006
"WHO'S WHO OF GOOGLE HIRES"
Interesting article by CNet:
Over the last two years, Google has lured some of the best and brightest minds in technology and science to join the search giant's lava lamp and snack-filled offices.
They include an award-winning physician, a pioneer of the Internet, the head of Amazon.com's A9 search unit, the former head of Microsoft's research group in China and an ex-top Windows architect.
If there's a master plan in recruiting all this top talent beyond the obvious benefit of having all that intelligence under the same figurative roof, Google isn't saying. (full article)
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Interesting article by CNet:
Over the last two years, Google has lured some of the best and brightest minds in technology and science to join the search giant's lava lamp and snack-filled offices.
They include an award-winning physician, a pioneer of the Internet, the head of Amazon.com's A9 search unit, the former head of Microsoft's research group in China and an ex-top Windows architect.
If there's a master plan in recruiting all this top talent beyond the obvious benefit of having all that intelligence under the same figurative roof, Google isn't saying. (full article)
ASSAULT ON EBAY... EDGEIO LAUNCHES AND GOOGLE BASE DOING PAYMENTS
Keith Teare (Realnames) and Michael Arrington (Techcrunch) has launched Edgeio, a new approach to classified advertising. TechCrunch (of course by a guest blogger:) has a review here.
Bill Burnham has a couple good posts on Google's move into eBay's space, "Uh oh EBay: Google Base is now facilitating payments" and "Google Base Is The Merchant of Record, Now That's Interesting."
Some more info from Google's Blog here .
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Keith Teare (Realnames) and Michael Arrington (Techcrunch) has launched Edgeio, a new approach to classified advertising. TechCrunch (of course by a guest blogger:) has a review here.
Bill Burnham has a couple good posts on Google's move into eBay's space, "Uh oh EBay: Google Base is now facilitating payments" and "Google Base Is The Merchant of Record, Now That's Interesting."
Some more info from Google's Blog here .
Friday, February 24, 2006
FARRAKHAN'S ADVISER ON ILLINOIS HATE CRIME PANEL... HEH?
This seems straight out of The Onion. Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois appointed Nation of Islam's Minister of Protocol, Claudette Marie Johnson, to his Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes. Hahaha... hate crime commission? Louis Farrakhan has said some of the most hate-filled words, especially about Jews, that I have ever heard. This is a complete joke.
Once again Governor Blagojevich confirms what an idiot he truly is. I posted about how he was a "brainfart of the U.S. political process" over two years ago, but now it just saddens me that he is still leading one of our more important states. Even for you Dems, from whatever perspective, Bush doesn't come within 10 feet of Blagojevich's stupidity.
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This seems straight out of The Onion. Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois appointed Nation of Islam's Minister of Protocol, Claudette Marie Johnson, to his Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes. Hahaha... hate crime commission? Louis Farrakhan has said some of the most hate-filled words, especially about Jews, that I have ever heard. This is a complete joke.
Once again Governor Blagojevich confirms what an idiot he truly is. I posted about how he was a "brainfart of the U.S. political process" over two years ago, but now it just saddens me that he is still leading one of our more important states. Even for you Dems, from whatever perspective, Bush doesn't come within 10 feet of Blagojevich's stupidity.
ADVISOR CAPITALISTS?... 1% OR MORE? HELLS NO!
So I came across Tom Evslin's post in response to Stowe Boyd's "Advisory Capital: A New Basis For Strategic Involvement" post.
Being cynical at times... well, a lot of the time, I see Stowe's post as part of his pitch to drum up business in advising startups and position himself in a better light. After reading his post, I really don't see much of a difference between an "advisor capitalists" and a regular advisor.
If I was building an advisory board, why would I give someone like Stowe 1% or more and others the typical .2%-.5% worth of equity (initial equity structure)? This can create a disincentive for the other advisors to put in their sweat since there would be such a large gap between an "advisor capitalist" and themselves in terms of equity but probably not in terms of time and effort. I'm speaking from my own experiences with advisors. As I posted before, some advisors you get to sit and be pretty on your board while others you have to play an active role in building your startup.
Even in my current role as an advisor to a mobile social networking play, I received the typical amount of equity (.2%-.5%). I communicate at least once a week with this startup, active in introductions, and active in their strategic development. Should I ask for more equity? No. From my own experience with advisory boards, I don't think such activity warrants more equity. Stowe goes as far to state:
I believe we will see this boosted 5X, 10X, or more, to attract and retain powerful ACs.
Again I see this as positioning, and I also see this as crazy. Why would I give any advisor 2.5%-5%+ of my initial equity? Maybe if a contract was created where this advisor devotes 20+ hours per week. Even then would I sign up someone like Stowe who doesn't have significant capital raising experience? Who cannot advise me on deal structure and provide their personal insights into the capital raising process? Hells no!
Fred Wilson discusses the importance of cash at risk in the relationship between entrepreneurs and VCs or angels that Stowe misses, but more important is the fact that most of these early-stage companies will need a significant amount of cash to succeed. Forget the del.icio.us and Measure Map acquisitions by Yahoo! and Google out there, the vast majority of startups need more than $20,000 or a few hundred thousand to become sustainable companies. Since this is the reality for most companies, so the only situation where I would even consider giving an advisor more than .5% is if they had signficiant experience raising capital and building out companies. For strategy sessions with an "industry thought leader," I would rather read their blog or buy a book than give up 1% or more.
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So I came across Tom Evslin's post in response to Stowe Boyd's "Advisory Capital: A New Basis For Strategic Involvement" post.
Being cynical at times... well, a lot of the time, I see Stowe's post as part of his pitch to drum up business in advising startups and position himself in a better light. After reading his post, I really don't see much of a difference between an "advisor capitalists" and a regular advisor.
If I was building an advisory board, why would I give someone like Stowe 1% or more and others the typical .2%-.5% worth of equity (initial equity structure)? This can create a disincentive for the other advisors to put in their sweat since there would be such a large gap between an "advisor capitalist" and themselves in terms of equity but probably not in terms of time and effort. I'm speaking from my own experiences with advisors. As I posted before, some advisors you get to sit and be pretty on your board while others you have to play an active role in building your startup.
Even in my current role as an advisor to a mobile social networking play, I received the typical amount of equity (.2%-.5%). I communicate at least once a week with this startup, active in introductions, and active in their strategic development. Should I ask for more equity? No. From my own experience with advisory boards, I don't think such activity warrants more equity. Stowe goes as far to state:
I believe we will see this boosted 5X, 10X, or more, to attract and retain powerful ACs.
Again I see this as positioning, and I also see this as crazy. Why would I give any advisor 2.5%-5%+ of my initial equity? Maybe if a contract was created where this advisor devotes 20+ hours per week. Even then would I sign up someone like Stowe who doesn't have significant capital raising experience? Who cannot advise me on deal structure and provide their personal insights into the capital raising process? Hells no!
Fred Wilson discusses the importance of cash at risk in the relationship between entrepreneurs and VCs or angels that Stowe misses, but more important is the fact that most of these early-stage companies will need a significant amount of cash to succeed. Forget the del.icio.us and Measure Map acquisitions by Yahoo! and Google out there, the vast majority of startups need more than $20,000 or a few hundred thousand to become sustainable companies. Since this is the reality for most companies, so the only situation where I would even consider giving an advisor more than .5% is if they had signficiant experience raising capital and building out companies. For strategy sessions with an "industry thought leader," I would rather read their blog or buy a book than give up 1% or more.
KILLING THE BLOGOSPHERE?
Playing catch up here after going to sleep early last night at 11pm (catching up on some zzzzs). I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday because of work, dropping by the first SF Tech Sessions that Niall Kennedy put together, and then meeting up with Christine for a gathering since one of her colleagues is taking a break from Google. Yep, those gourmet meals, massages, and kick-ass snack pantries are tough to deal with :)
Anyway, there were a couple interesting reads over at TCS Daily:
Blogger Buzz-Kill?
By Glenn Harlan Reynolds
For blogs, it is the best of times, and the worst of times -- depending on who you listen to. British business writer Tim Montgomerie is praising blogs for their "diverse wisdom:"
"All over the world bloggers have toppled leading politicians and journalists. Businesses are the latest targets of their campaigns. Disgruntled customers know that a rubbish reply from a plc's customer relations department is no longer the end of the road. They can start up a free weblog to highlight experience of a shoddy product or poor service. If that experience strikes a chord, hundreds of other disempowered customers are only a Google search away.
"The empowerment of the little guy is one of the most powerful and most democratic benefits of the internet age. The trade press is no longer the authority on the quality of a product. Conversation about politics is no longer monopolised by politicians and journalists who lunch together. The cosy and complacent relationships between big media on one hand, and big business and big politics and the other, are coming to an end."
Clay Shirky, meanwhile, wonders if blogs are becoming too commercially successful, rendering the old model of the lone blogger obsolete:
"Of the top 10 Technorati-measured blogs, (Disclosure: I am an advisor to Technorati), all but one of them are either run by more than one poster, or generate revenue from ads or subscriptions. (The exception is PostSecret, whose revenue comes from book sales, not directly from running the site.) Four of the top five and five of the ten are both group and commercial efforts -- BoingBoing, Engadget, Kos, Huffington Post, and Gizmodo.
"Groups have wider inputs and outputs than individuals -- the staff of BoingBoing or Engadget can review more potential material, from a wider range of possibilities, and post more frequently, than can any individual. Indeed, the only two of those ten blogs operating in the classic "Individual Outlet" mode are at #9 and 10 -- Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds, respectively." (full article)
Will Video Kill The Blogosphere Star?
By Edward B. Driscoll Jr.
Is there a WebTV box plugged into your TV set? Chances are, probably not. Since the mid-'90s, attempts to bring the Web to television have had only middling success. Lately though, the reverse -- efforts to bring TV to the Web -- have been skyrocketing. And that will increasingly affect both how we interact with video, and how the new media mavens of the Blogosphere deliver news and opinion.
Now that broadband is becoming more and more ubiquitous in American homes, several new Websites and technologies have converged to allow video on the Web to interact much more fluidly. Back in October of 2005, Google prominently added a video-oriented search engine. That was also the month that YouTube.com was launched, a start-up created by two key former employees of PayPal, and funded by $3.5 million invested by the Sequoia Capital venture capital firm. (full article)
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Playing catch up here after going to sleep early last night at 11pm (catching up on some zzzzs). I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday because of work, dropping by the first SF Tech Sessions that Niall Kennedy put together, and then meeting up with Christine for a gathering since one of her colleagues is taking a break from Google. Yep, those gourmet meals, massages, and kick-ass snack pantries are tough to deal with :)
Anyway, there were a couple interesting reads over at TCS Daily:
Blogger Buzz-Kill?
By Glenn Harlan Reynolds
For blogs, it is the best of times, and the worst of times -- depending on who you listen to. British business writer Tim Montgomerie is praising blogs for their "diverse wisdom:"
"All over the world bloggers have toppled leading politicians and journalists. Businesses are the latest targets of their campaigns. Disgruntled customers know that a rubbish reply from a plc's customer relations department is no longer the end of the road. They can start up a free weblog to highlight experience of a shoddy product or poor service. If that experience strikes a chord, hundreds of other disempowered customers are only a Google search away.
"The empowerment of the little guy is one of the most powerful and most democratic benefits of the internet age. The trade press is no longer the authority on the quality of a product. Conversation about politics is no longer monopolised by politicians and journalists who lunch together. The cosy and complacent relationships between big media on one hand, and big business and big politics and the other, are coming to an end."
Clay Shirky, meanwhile, wonders if blogs are becoming too commercially successful, rendering the old model of the lone blogger obsolete:
"Of the top 10 Technorati-measured blogs, (Disclosure: I am an advisor to Technorati), all but one of them are either run by more than one poster, or generate revenue from ads or subscriptions. (The exception is PostSecret, whose revenue comes from book sales, not directly from running the site.) Four of the top five and five of the ten are both group and commercial efforts -- BoingBoing, Engadget, Kos, Huffington Post, and Gizmodo.
"Groups have wider inputs and outputs than individuals -- the staff of BoingBoing or Engadget can review more potential material, from a wider range of possibilities, and post more frequently, than can any individual. Indeed, the only two of those ten blogs operating in the classic "Individual Outlet" mode are at #9 and 10 -- Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds, respectively." (full article)
Will Video Kill The Blogosphere Star?
By Edward B. Driscoll Jr.
Is there a WebTV box plugged into your TV set? Chances are, probably not. Since the mid-'90s, attempts to bring the Web to television have had only middling success. Lately though, the reverse -- efforts to bring TV to the Web -- have been skyrocketing. And that will increasingly affect both how we interact with video, and how the new media mavens of the Blogosphere deliver news and opinion.
Now that broadband is becoming more and more ubiquitous in American homes, several new Websites and technologies have converged to allow video on the Web to interact much more fluidly. Back in October of 2005, Google prominently added a video-oriented search engine. That was also the month that YouTube.com was launched, a start-up created by two key former employees of PayPal, and funded by $3.5 million invested by the Sequoia Capital venture capital firm. (full article)
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
"WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT THE PORT DEAL?"
Dan Drezner has great commentary and a summary of various chatter in the blogosphere:
I can certainly see why there's some political controversy about a firm owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates helping to run ports on the Eastern seaboard -- but after reading this Christian Science Monitor story by Alexandra Marks, I don't think there's any real basis for the kind of outrage I'm seeing. This section in particular stands out:
Companies like P&O don't provide security at the ports. The US Coast Guard and Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement do. For instance, in New Orleans, P&O is one of eight terminal operators responsible for marketing the port, signing agreements with shipping lines, hiring labor, loading ships, and moving cargo.
But P&O has no responsibility for security. "We have our own police force, harbor patrol, customs officers, and Coast Guard," says Chris Bonura, spokesman for the Port of New Orleans. "That won't change no matter who is operating the terminal." (full post)
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Dan Drezner has great commentary and a summary of various chatter in the blogosphere:
I can certainly see why there's some political controversy about a firm owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates helping to run ports on the Eastern seaboard -- but after reading this Christian Science Monitor story by Alexandra Marks, I don't think there's any real basis for the kind of outrage I'm seeing. This section in particular stands out:
Companies like P&O don't provide security at the ports. The US Coast Guard and Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement do. For instance, in New Orleans, P&O is one of eight terminal operators responsible for marketing the port, signing agreements with shipping lines, hiring labor, loading ships, and moving cargo.
But P&O has no responsibility for security. "We have our own police force, harbor patrol, customs officers, and Coast Guard," says Chris Bonura, spokesman for the Port of New Orleans. "That won't change no matter who is operating the terminal." (full post)
SOFTBANK INVESTS $11M IN OHMYNEWS
HatTip to alarm:clock. My old investor, Softbank, invested in OhmyNews.
Among other things, OhmyNews will spend the invested funds on the expansion of OhmyTV, an Internet television arm of OhmyNews, to advance citizen participation in video journalism and the development of OhmyNews' English language edition. Softbank will own 12.95% of OhmyNews' outstanding shares as a result of this investment.
If the site becomes a success, it will refute statements made by Dan Gillmor, whose failed Bayosphere ventures competes with OhMyNews.
A minor point, but I don't agree with alarm:clock's assessment that OhmyNews' success will refute Dan Gillmor's Bayosphere project. OhmyNews served as an inspiration to Gillmor's efforts and the first citizen journalism success story in the world. I wrote about this last summer, but the environment in South Korea was more conducive to citizen journalism due to the late and underdevelopment of blogging over there. The U.S. has so many individual bloggers along with the exponential growth of the blogosphere that most citizen journalism efforts will fail. I believe a successful effort in the U.S. will come from an established media player that decides to embrace the qualities of the blogosphere.
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HatTip to alarm:clock. My old investor, Softbank, invested in OhmyNews.
Among other things, OhmyNews will spend the invested funds on the expansion of OhmyTV, an Internet television arm of OhmyNews, to advance citizen participation in video journalism and the development of OhmyNews' English language edition. Softbank will own 12.95% of OhmyNews' outstanding shares as a result of this investment.
If the site becomes a success, it will refute statements made by Dan Gillmor, whose failed Bayosphere ventures competes with OhMyNews.
A minor point, but I don't agree with alarm:clock's assessment that OhmyNews' success will refute Dan Gillmor's Bayosphere project. OhmyNews served as an inspiration to Gillmor's efforts and the first citizen journalism success story in the world. I wrote about this last summer, but the environment in South Korea was more conducive to citizen journalism due to the late and underdevelopment of blogging over there. The U.S. has so many individual bloggers along with the exponential growth of the blogosphere that most citizen journalism efforts will fail. I believe a successful effort in the U.S. will come from an established media player that decides to embrace the qualities of the blogosphere.
"BUSH WAS RIGHT"... SADDAM'S PEOPLE ON TAPE ABOUT WMDS
I wonder if any major media outlet like The NY Times or CNN is going to cover this? From Investor's Business Daily:
The quote above is that of a former UNSCOM member after translating and reviewing 12 hours of taped conversations between Saddam Hussein and his aides. So what's on the covers of Time and Newsweek?
Funny thing about dictators and tyrants: Very often they are meticulous record keepers. The fall of the Third Reich, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein's Iraq all produced treasure troves of information. In Iraq's case, there were so many documents and records that even now only a small fraction have been translated and analyzed.
Among them are 12 hours of conversations from the early 1990s through 2000 between Hussein and his top advisers. They reveal, among other things, how Iraq was working on an advanced method of enriching uranium, how Iraq was conspiring to deceive U.N. inspectors regarding weapons of mass destruction and how these weapons might be used against the U.S.
The tapes were officially presented Sunday by former FBI translator Bill Tierney to a private conference of former weapons inspectors and intelligence experts in Arlington, Va. Tierney is an Arabic speaker who worked in the mid-1990s for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the agency responsible for overseeing Iraq's disarmament.
On one of the tapes, made in 2000, two years after Saddam kicked out U.N. weapons inspectors, two Iraqi scientists can be heard briefing Hussein on their progress in enriching uranium using plasma separation. If successful, their work would have given Saddam the fissile material he needed to make a nuclear bomb.
The plasma process got a brief mention in the 2004 final report of CIA arms inspector Charles Duefer, but only as a legacy program the Iraqis allegedly abandoned in the 1980s. "This not only shows the capabilities the Iraqis had, but also the weakness of international arms inspection," Tierney believes. (full article)
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I wonder if any major media outlet like The NY Times or CNN is going to cover this? From Investor's Business Daily:
The quote above is that of a former UNSCOM member after translating and reviewing 12 hours of taped conversations between Saddam Hussein and his aides. So what's on the covers of Time and Newsweek?
Funny thing about dictators and tyrants: Very often they are meticulous record keepers. The fall of the Third Reich, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein's Iraq all produced treasure troves of information. In Iraq's case, there were so many documents and records that even now only a small fraction have been translated and analyzed.
Among them are 12 hours of conversations from the early 1990s through 2000 between Hussein and his top advisers. They reveal, among other things, how Iraq was working on an advanced method of enriching uranium, how Iraq was conspiring to deceive U.N. inspectors regarding weapons of mass destruction and how these weapons might be used against the U.S.
The tapes were officially presented Sunday by former FBI translator Bill Tierney to a private conference of former weapons inspectors and intelligence experts in Arlington, Va. Tierney is an Arabic speaker who worked in the mid-1990s for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the agency responsible for overseeing Iraq's disarmament.
On one of the tapes, made in 2000, two years after Saddam kicked out U.N. weapons inspectors, two Iraqi scientists can be heard briefing Hussein on their progress in enriching uranium using plasma separation. If successful, their work would have given Saddam the fissile material he needed to make a nuclear bomb.
The plasma process got a brief mention in the 2004 final report of CIA arms inspector Charles Duefer, but only as a legacy program the Iraqis allegedly abandoned in the 1980s. "This not only shows the capabilities the Iraqis had, but also the weakness of international arms inspection," Tierney believes. (full article)
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
DEAR MSM, PLEASE CLARIFY YOUR DEFINITION OF "CHRISTIAN" AND "RELIGIOUS RIGHT"
The mainstream media, or more specifically the majority of journalists that populate it, is at it again (yes, i love these generalizations:). Two articles caught my eye:
"Anti-Muslim Riot in Nigeria Turns Deadly"
"Court Backs Religious Right to Hallucinogenic Tea"
The first article assumes that those rioting against Muslims in retaliation for at least 18 people dead and 30 churches burned down were Christians. Just because someone lives in a "predominantly Christian city" or because they attend church does not make them "Christian." For those that believe in Christ as their savior and the Bible as the undeniable truth, I believe their faith would have led them to a different path of action. It would be interesting to dig deeper into the history of religious turmoil in Nigeria, an analysis of this nation's Christian and Muslim organizations, and the practicing faiths of its religious leaders. I assume you'll find some glaring weakness or corruption under the masks of these "Christians."
In a more obvious twist against Christians, the ABC News article refers to a religious cult as the "religious right" in its headline. This is amusing because typically "Christians," or those "born-again loonies," are considered the "religious right." Also President Bush is labelled and grouped into this category. So why would a "religious right" administration want to shut down the practice of a "religious right" church? Maybe it should have been described as "religious left" group? This might be more appropriate since they sound like a hippie group masking as a church.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God.
In their first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, the justices moved decisively to keep the government out of a church's religious practice. In the decision, Roberts wrote that federal drug agents should have been barred from confiscating the hoasca tea of the Brazil-based church and that the Bush administration had failed to meet its burden under a federal religious freedom law to show that it should be allowed to ban "the sect's sincere religious practice."
The real definition most religious scholars would use is "cult." This church is considered a cult, but "Court Backs Religious Cult to Hallucinogenic Tea" doesn't sound as sexy does it? It would be a great missed opportunity to hit the Bush administration or those "fanatical" Christians with a good blow, wouldn't it? Yeah, we crazy Christians love those illegal drugs and get high to commune with God. Whatever.
The tea, which contains an illegal drug known as DMT, is considered sacred to members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal. Members of the church, which has a blend of Christian beliefs and South American traditions, believe they can understand God only by drinking the tea twice a month at four-hour ceremonies. (full article)
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The mainstream media, or more specifically the majority of journalists that populate it, is at it again (yes, i love these generalizations:). Two articles caught my eye:
"Anti-Muslim Riot in Nigeria Turns Deadly"
"Court Backs Religious Right to Hallucinogenic Tea"
The first article assumes that those rioting against Muslims in retaliation for at least 18 people dead and 30 churches burned down were Christians. Just because someone lives in a "predominantly Christian city" or because they attend church does not make them "Christian." For those that believe in Christ as their savior and the Bible as the undeniable truth, I believe their faith would have led them to a different path of action. It would be interesting to dig deeper into the history of religious turmoil in Nigeria, an analysis of this nation's Christian and Muslim organizations, and the practicing faiths of its religious leaders. I assume you'll find some glaring weakness or corruption under the masks of these "Christians."
In a more obvious twist against Christians, the ABC News article refers to a religious cult as the "religious right" in its headline. This is amusing because typically "Christians," or those "born-again loonies," are considered the "religious right." Also President Bush is labelled and grouped into this category. So why would a "religious right" administration want to shut down the practice of a "religious right" church? Maybe it should have been described as "religious left" group? This might be more appropriate since they sound like a hippie group masking as a church.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God.
In their first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, the justices moved decisively to keep the government out of a church's religious practice. In the decision, Roberts wrote that federal drug agents should have been barred from confiscating the hoasca tea of the Brazil-based church and that the Bush administration had failed to meet its burden under a federal religious freedom law to show that it should be allowed to ban "the sect's sincere religious practice."
The real definition most religious scholars would use is "cult." This church is considered a cult, but "Court Backs Religious Cult to Hallucinogenic Tea" doesn't sound as sexy does it? It would be a great missed opportunity to hit the Bush administration or those "fanatical" Christians with a good blow, wouldn't it? Yeah, we crazy Christians love those illegal drugs and get high to commune with God. Whatever.
The tea, which contains an illegal drug known as DMT, is considered sacred to members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal. Members of the church, which has a blend of Christian beliefs and South American traditions, believe they can understand God only by drinking the tea twice a month at four-hour ceremonies. (full article)
RANDOM NEWS QUICKLIST
"Justices tackle late-term abortion issue"
"Frist Calls for Halt to U.S. Ports Deal"
"RadioShack CEO resigns over resume controversy"
"IBM claims 193-nm litho record"
"Google Denies Report on China Operation"
"MashupCamp--a new kind of get-together"
"China blood test lapses fuel 'hidden AIDS epidemic'"
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"Justices tackle late-term abortion issue"
"Frist Calls for Halt to U.S. Ports Deal"
"RadioShack CEO resigns over resume controversy"
"IBM claims 193-nm litho record"
"Google Denies Report on China Operation"
"MashupCamp--a new kind of get-together"
"China blood test lapses fuel 'hidden AIDS epidemic'"
ACLU'S SCARE-O-GRAM
I got this link from the Identity Gang mailing list. Typical ACLU. Over-the-top, extreme brush painting to scare people about the "Big Brother" affect of digital identity initiatives, "fanatical" Christian right, and whatever else that keeps their hearts beating.
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I got this link from the Identity Gang mailing list. Typical ACLU. Over-the-top, extreme brush painting to scare people about the "Big Brother" affect of digital identity initiatives, "fanatical" Christian right, and whatever else that keeps their hearts beating.
"SEOUL SOUNDS ALARM AS ICAHN EYES KT&G"
Mingi has a good piece over at OhmyNews:
For anyone familiar with Oliver Stone's classic film "Wall Street" (1987), Gordon Gekko is a character as memorable (and ruthless) as Alec Baldwin was in "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992). Gekko is known to have been modeled after a real life character, Carl Icahn, who has recently made headlines over his efforts to break up Time Warner. According to South Korean media reports, Icahn also has his eyes set on KT&G, the South Korean cigarette-maker which maintains a dominating domestic market share of 75 percent.
Icahn, along with Steel Partners' Warren Lichtenstein and others, reportedly own 6.6 percent of KT&G, and there is growing fear among South Koreans that Icahn will seek management control or even a hostile takeover of the company, which is known to be financially stable with growing share prices. Icahn has already demanded that he and Lichtenstein appoint three board members to the 12-member board at KT&G, in addition to demands that KT&G drop its ginseng and other non-core units. (full article)
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Mingi has a good piece over at OhmyNews:
For anyone familiar with Oliver Stone's classic film "Wall Street" (1987), Gordon Gekko is a character as memorable (and ruthless) as Alec Baldwin was in "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992). Gekko is known to have been modeled after a real life character, Carl Icahn, who has recently made headlines over his efforts to break up Time Warner. According to South Korean media reports, Icahn also has his eyes set on KT&G, the South Korean cigarette-maker which maintains a dominating domestic market share of 75 percent.
Icahn, along with Steel Partners' Warren Lichtenstein and others, reportedly own 6.6 percent of KT&G, and there is growing fear among South Koreans that Icahn will seek management control or even a hostile takeover of the company, which is known to be financially stable with growing share prices. Icahn has already demanded that he and Lichtenstein appoint three board members to the 12-member board at KT&G, in addition to demands that KT&G drop its ginseng and other non-core units. (full article)
THE DEAL'S SIXTH ANNUAL HIGH-TECH M&A PREDICTIONS FOR 2006
The Deal's Joshua Jaffe has an interesting set of predictions for 2006:
Technology dealmaking rolled along in 2005, with all signs of gaining pace this year. Mergers and acquisitions among high-tech companies of all sizes picked up substantially as private equity firms and traditional media companies joined Internet and traditional tech companies in aggressive dealmaking.
Trend spotting is easy, though, which is why The Deal, in its sixth annual set of high-tech M&A predictions, doesn't just offer up general prognostications.
Following is a list of specific deals that will happen in 2006. Even if they don't all pan out, which is more than likely, these predictions highlight the hot M&A tech sectors this year. Specific deal predictions may not be the most accurate way to predict the future of technology dealmaking, but we hope it makes for better reading.
Liberty Media bids for IAC/InterActiveCorp.
.....
Yahoo! snares Web 2.0 minnows, buys movie studio
.....
VeriSign's Sclavos sees salvation in NeuStar (full article)
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The Deal's Joshua Jaffe has an interesting set of predictions for 2006:
Technology dealmaking rolled along in 2005, with all signs of gaining pace this year. Mergers and acquisitions among high-tech companies of all sizes picked up substantially as private equity firms and traditional media companies joined Internet and traditional tech companies in aggressive dealmaking.
Trend spotting is easy, though, which is why The Deal, in its sixth annual set of high-tech M&A predictions, doesn't just offer up general prognostications.
Following is a list of specific deals that will happen in 2006. Even if they don't all pan out, which is more than likely, these predictions highlight the hot M&A tech sectors this year. Specific deal predictions may not be the most accurate way to predict the future of technology dealmaking, but we hope it makes for better reading.
Liberty Media bids for IAC/InterActiveCorp.
.....
Yahoo! snares Web 2.0 minnows, buys movie studio
.....
VeriSign's Sclavos sees salvation in NeuStar (full article)
Monday, February 20, 2006
SIX APART GETS $12 MILLION MORE?
Om has another rumor, which typically turns true, that Six Apart will close a $12 million Series C round.
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Om has another rumor, which typically turns true, that Six Apart will close a $12 million Series C round.
"BLOGGING: FOR LOVE OR MONEY?"
Glenn Reynolds has a good commentary on the future blogging and whether it will keep its amateur character. I agree that the majority of the blogosphere will keep its amateur status. I don't believe this analysis is shocking. I do see a difference between the blogosphere and the tools that drive its growth.
I believe the same tools will enter mainstream media and change the manner in which they conduct their businesses. While I see newspaper revenues continuing their spiral downward, I don't believe this means the end to this industry. Its overall market size will be permanently shrunken, but I'm guessing the long-term survivors will have embraced the interactivity and features that the blogosphere takes for granted today. This will help to stop the bleeding and stabilize the newspaper industry for the future.
No argument there. But although worries about blog-commercialization aren't new, there seem to be more of them lately. Still, I don't think there's much danger of the blogosphere losing its fundamentally amateur character. In fact, I think it's pretty much certain to stay an overwhelmingly amateur activity, even if a lot more people make money off of it than are doing so now.
Making money off a blog requires a lot of traffic, and no matter how much the blogosphere grows, most blogs won't have a lot of traffic, as Clay Shirky persuasively demonstrated a while back. Shirky observed that blogs, like many other things, follow a power-law distribution in terms of links and traffic, with a small number getting most of the links and traffic, and a much larger number getting much less of either. This was, he argued, essentially a function of attention economics. (I've written on that subject here). (full post)
Related link from this post: "How to Almost Live on Blogging"
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Glenn Reynolds has a good commentary on the future blogging and whether it will keep its amateur character. I agree that the majority of the blogosphere will keep its amateur status. I don't believe this analysis is shocking. I do see a difference between the blogosphere and the tools that drive its growth.
I believe the same tools will enter mainstream media and change the manner in which they conduct their businesses. While I see newspaper revenues continuing their spiral downward, I don't believe this means the end to this industry. Its overall market size will be permanently shrunken, but I'm guessing the long-term survivors will have embraced the interactivity and features that the blogosphere takes for granted today. This will help to stop the bleeding and stabilize the newspaper industry for the future.
No argument there. But although worries about blog-commercialization aren't new, there seem to be more of them lately. Still, I don't think there's much danger of the blogosphere losing its fundamentally amateur character. In fact, I think it's pretty much certain to stay an overwhelmingly amateur activity, even if a lot more people make money off of it than are doing so now.
Making money off a blog requires a lot of traffic, and no matter how much the blogosphere grows, most blogs won't have a lot of traffic, as Clay Shirky persuasively demonstrated a while back. Shirky observed that blogs, like many other things, follow a power-law distribution in terms of links and traffic, with a small number getting most of the links and traffic, and a much larger number getting much less of either. This was, he argued, essentially a function of attention economics. (I've written on that subject here). (full post)
Related link from this post: "How to Almost Live on Blogging"
Friday, February 17, 2006
A FEW GOOD ARTICLES
Reading for Friday afternoon...
The Inside Story on Company Blogs
Corporate America may fear critical comments in public blogs, but it isn't ignoring the medium's potential for improving internal communication
Ending Microsoft's identity crisis
If Microsoft needs a lesson on how to do identity management wrong, it needs only look at its past.
With Passport, Microsoft had exactly the wrong approach as the software maker needlessly stepped between businesses and their customers--so says Kim Cameron, the identity expert who leads Microsoft's current effort, known as InfoCard.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Tuesday touted InfoCards as one of the technologies that could finally help cement the death of the username and password as the means of verifying identity on the Internet. (full article)
'Dodos' film pecks holes in evolution debate
There's nothing like evolution to get an audience riled up, scientist and filmmaker Randy Olson has discovered.
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Reading for Friday afternoon...
The Inside Story on Company Blogs
Corporate America may fear critical comments in public blogs, but it isn't ignoring the medium's potential for improving internal communication
Ending Microsoft's identity crisis
If Microsoft needs a lesson on how to do identity management wrong, it needs only look at its past.
With Passport, Microsoft had exactly the wrong approach as the software maker needlessly stepped between businesses and their customers--so says Kim Cameron, the identity expert who leads Microsoft's current effort, known as InfoCard.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Tuesday touted InfoCards as one of the technologies that could finally help cement the death of the username and password as the means of verifying identity on the Internet. (full article)
'Dodos' film pecks holes in evolution debate
There's nothing like evolution to get an audience riled up, scientist and filmmaker Randy Olson has discovered.
VALLEYWAG HOTTIES CORRUPTION
I didn't know that I was part of a ballot stuffing ring :), but I guess I was. I just wanted the loud emails to stop from Valerie. Of course, Valerie called me last night and told me that she didn't want me to post about it. Which is true but as a preventative measure (more loud emails and possible calls) I responded by going the extra mile.
Anyway, Craig Newmark was campaigning for his CEO, Jim Buckmaster, in the latest match up, which is now against George Zachary. Sooo... go vote for George! Of course how can you win against the Craiglist community?
UPDATE: George lost. Jim Buckmaster (52.2%) vs. George Zachary (47.8%).
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I didn't know that I was part of a ballot stuffing ring :), but I guess I was. I just wanted the loud emails to stop from Valerie. Of course, Valerie called me last night and told me that she didn't want me to post about it. Which is true but as a preventative measure (more loud emails and possible calls) I responded by going the extra mile.
Anyway, Craig Newmark was campaigning for his CEO, Jim Buckmaster, in the latest match up, which is now against George Zachary. Sooo... go vote for George! Of course how can you win against the Craiglist community?
UPDATE: George lost. Jim Buckmaster (52.2%) vs. George Zachary (47.8%).
Thursday, February 16, 2006
NEW SKIN FOR JUNTO BOYZ
This was at least a year overdue. I had the tan, old school template that Blogger phased out for over two years. I finally took some time tonight and made the transition since I needed a break from work. I'm still trying to figure out how to change the font size in the sidebar, but I'll eventually do it.
Along with the skin change, Christine asked me to change the name of the blog. In her words, "It's a stupid name. Can't you think of something cooler?"
To her displeasure, I'm keeping the name.
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This was at least a year overdue. I had the tan, old school template that Blogger phased out for over two years. I finally took some time tonight and made the transition since I needed a break from work. I'm still trying to figure out how to change the font size in the sidebar, but I'll eventually do it.
Along with the skin change, Christine asked me to change the name of the blog. In her words, "It's a stupid name. Can't you think of something cooler?"
To her displeasure, I'm keeping the name.
SARBANES-OXLEY IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL... FREE ENTERPRISE FUND SUES
This is a worthy effort. Prof. Stephen Bainbridge covers the story over at TCS Daily:
Peekaboo, the Constitution Doesn't See You
The Free Enterprise Fund, an activist think tank, has filed a law suit claiming that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB, nicknamed "Peekaboo") created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is unconstitutional. (Read the complaint.) The gist of the complaint is that the PCAOB is vested with extensive governmental functions and powers, including a quasi-law enforcement investigatory power and a quasi-judicial power to impose substantial fines for violations of its rules.
The Fund claims that the PCAOB thus violates a number of constitutional provisions, most notably the appointments clause of the US Constitution. The potential constitutional problem is that members of the PCAOB are appointed not by the President but by the SEC. (full post)
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This is a worthy effort. Prof. Stephen Bainbridge covers the story over at TCS Daily:
Peekaboo, the Constitution Doesn't See You
The Free Enterprise Fund, an activist think tank, has filed a law suit claiming that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB, nicknamed "Peekaboo") created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is unconstitutional. (Read the complaint.) The gist of the complaint is that the PCAOB is vested with extensive governmental functions and powers, including a quasi-law enforcement investigatory power and a quasi-judicial power to impose substantial fines for violations of its rules.
The Fund claims that the PCAOB thus violates a number of constitutional provisions, most notably the appointments clause of the US Constitution. The potential constitutional problem is that members of the PCAOB are appointed not by the President but by the SEC. (full post)
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
VALLEYWAG HOTTIES: VOTE GEORGE ZACHARY!
My colleague, Valerie, sent me two very loud emails telling me to vote for her friend, George Zachary, at Valleywag's "Hotties" contest. George is a VC over at Charles Rivers Ventures, and he's up against investment banker George Boutros. Anyway, if you have time, go vote for George Z!
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My colleague, Valerie, sent me two very loud emails telling me to vote for her friend, George Zachary, at Valleywag's "Hotties" contest. George is a VC over at Charles Rivers Ventures, and he's up against investment banker George Boutros. Anyway, if you have time, go vote for George Z!
"VC PRIMER FROM AN ENTREPRENEUR'S POV"
Tom Evslin has a great series on fundraising from an entrepreneur's point of view. All three of his posts are below.
Since I wrote about my ViewPlus days in the post prior, I'm cracking up recalling some of our fundraising experiences. My co-founder Jimmy was pitching our startup in front of four general partners, and one of them asked, "Why should we invest in you guys versus your competitors?"
Jimmy looked at him sternly and emphatically replied, "Look, do you want to drive a BMW or a Hyundai?..." After that meeting, our funding was approved and we got a signed term sheet of $33 million. I was still laughing for a few days afterwards because of what Jimmy said in his typical animated manner.
VC Primer from an Entrepreneur’s POV – Source of Funds
If you’re an experienced entrepreneur who’s had venture funding, skip these posts. If you’re a VC, please read on and tell me if I got anything wrong but remember that I’m writing from an entrepreneur’s point of view. If you’re an entrepreneur who hasn’t had VC funding – even a wannabe entrepreneur – read on. These posts are for you. (full post)
VC Primer from an Entrepreneur’s POV – The Funds
Most venture firms are general partners running one or more funds whose money is supplied by limited partners (aka investors aka LPs). In a previous post, I talked about three other types of types of VC fund you might find yourself dealing with; but, in this post, we’ll concentrate on this type because, if you’re an entrepreneur raising VC money, you’re almost sure to deal with a firm like this. You need to understand how their funds work. (full post)
VC Primer from an Entrepreneur’s POV – What About Angels?
Angel investors go where venture capitalists fear to tread. That’s an oversimplification but it’ll do for starters.
You’re a wannabe entrepreneur. You have a great idea. To go any further with your idea you need some money. Let’s say you’re gonna need to quit your day job but that you did build a prototype of your great idea on nights and weekends. You figure you need somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 to live on, to hire come contractors to do some programming, and to do a little bit of marketing. These being the days they are, you don’t think that hosting or Internet access bills will be significant until your service really grows and starts to bring in business on its own so you’re not worried about those bills. You already own all the computers you’ll need for a while and you’re planning to work at home so no office space to worry about. Your spouse is OK with all of this… sorta. (full post)
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Tom Evslin has a great series on fundraising from an entrepreneur's point of view. All three of his posts are below.
Since I wrote about my ViewPlus days in the post prior, I'm cracking up recalling some of our fundraising experiences. My co-founder Jimmy was pitching our startup in front of four general partners, and one of them asked, "Why should we invest in you guys versus your competitors?"
Jimmy looked at him sternly and emphatically replied, "Look, do you want to drive a BMW or a Hyundai?..." After that meeting, our funding was approved and we got a signed term sheet of $33 million. I was still laughing for a few days afterwards because of what Jimmy said in his typical animated manner.
VC Primer from an Entrepreneur’s POV – Source of Funds
If you’re an experienced entrepreneur who’s had venture funding, skip these posts. If you’re a VC, please read on and tell me if I got anything wrong but remember that I’m writing from an entrepreneur’s point of view. If you’re an entrepreneur who hasn’t had VC funding – even a wannabe entrepreneur – read on. These posts are for you. (full post)
VC Primer from an Entrepreneur’s POV – The Funds
Most venture firms are general partners running one or more funds whose money is supplied by limited partners (aka investors aka LPs). In a previous post, I talked about three other types of types of VC fund you might find yourself dealing with; but, in this post, we’ll concentrate on this type because, if you’re an entrepreneur raising VC money, you’re almost sure to deal with a firm like this. You need to understand how their funds work. (full post)
VC Primer from an Entrepreneur’s POV – What About Angels?
Angel investors go where venture capitalists fear to tread. That’s an oversimplification but it’ll do for starters.
You’re a wannabe entrepreneur. You have a great idea. To go any further with your idea you need some money. Let’s say you’re gonna need to quit your day job but that you did build a prototype of your great idea on nights and weekends. You figure you need somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 to live on, to hire come contractors to do some programming, and to do a little bit of marketing. These being the days they are, you don’t think that hosting or Internet access bills will be significant until your service really grows and starts to bring in business on its own so you’re not worried about those bills. You already own all the computers you’ll need for a while and you’re planning to work at home so no office space to worry about. Your spouse is OK with all of this… sorta. (full post)
BUILDING AN ADVISORY BOARD FOR YOUR STARTUP
Ross Mayfield has great post on "Advisorship" which I'll piggyback off of and discuss some approaches to building the best board possible for a startup. An excerpt from his post:
In this post, I'll describe the origins of Advisorship, what it takes to run an effective Board of Advisors and the benefits, how to handle conflicts of interest and best practices for disclosure.
Building a Board of Advisors is one of the first tactics any startup should employ. Initially, this construct was used by startups with a high degree of technical complexity with Technical Advisory Boards largely with experts from academia and research. Companies increasingly employed Business Advisory Boards to help them with business development and strategy beyond the activies of the Board of Directors. During the bubble, Technical Advisory Boards also played a role in driving sales and partnership. (full post)
Not everyone is a Ross Mayfield or another well connected entrepreneur to gather the leading thinkers and practitioners within his or her space. Especially if you're at the concept stage, it takes resourcefulness and persistence to build a solid advisory board.
I agree with Ross that this is one of the first action items for any startup because advisors adds credibility, practical advice, and can help in your fundraising and partnership efforts. I see advisors in three buckets:
"Prestige" Advisors
These people are well known public figures can help add a lot of visibility and good public relations for your startup. Of course unless it's a music related startup, Flavor Flav might not be the best person versus Bill Bradley or Oprah Winfrey. Since most public figures would not easily lend their name to a new venture, it states that they trust to you a certain degree.
"Credibility" Advisors
These are well respected academics or professionals related or not related to the market or business that you're building. Not every entrepreneur has a network that reaches former senators, sports stars, or world leaders. This is a bucket most entrepreneurs should be able to fill through their professional or personal network. Start with people that know you well and expand to people that know good friends of yours who would vouch for your abilities and trustworthiness.
Eight years ago during my first startup, ViewPlus (video-on-demand service), we first went for the low hanging fruit to build our credibility toward our dream adivsors. We pitched my former professor at Columbia University, Michael Crow, who happened to be the Executive Vice Provost (number three man on campus), advised in the founding of In-Q-Tel (CIA's VC arm), and started the university's innovation system of managing their intellectual property. Luckily he liked me from my graduate school days and understood our product and vision, so he agreed to help us out. Another target was one of my co-founder's father, which wasn't as easy as it seems. He was the former head of South Korea's NASA and former CEO of a large computer company. He said "yes" after some "please, please, please Mr. Chang... Peter will stop disobeying you!" :)
So once we got the first couple advisors to join it was a little easier to pitch and ask others. A spotty snowball effect. More rejections than commitments.
"Practical" Advisors
Last bucket are people who can be high level executives/experts/thought leaders or just middle managers/small business owners, but ones that you really want to provide your team the practical advice and insights from their experiences. Ideally, you do want these advisors to be from the industry you intend to enter, and if they are well known the better.
If you don't have a good network within your targeted space, I would recommend attending industry conferences. While conferences can be hit or miss, they are a place to meet industry leaders and pitch them face-to-face. Even in today's world of online social networking, facetime is still important in gaining the trust of people outside of your personal network. I remember attending a few cable TV and satellite industry conferences for ViewPlus, and I would scan through the speaker list for potential advisors. Next I would attend the session they were speaking at and if I liked their presentation, then I would hunt them down and pitch them.
Nowadays, online professional relationships can occur through sites such as Linkedin, OpenBC, or Go Big Network. I would just be cautious and have several conversations with the person to gauge their thinking, ability to solve problems with you, and their tolerance level for ignorance or the hundreds of questions a new or young entrepreneur would have.
Lastly, asking people to become advisors for your startup is a great time to practice your pitch to investors. The smart ones will ask similar questions investors will ask you, so use this time well.
|
Ross Mayfield has great post on "Advisorship" which I'll piggyback off of and discuss some approaches to building the best board possible for a startup. An excerpt from his post:
In this post, I'll describe the origins of Advisorship, what it takes to run an effective Board of Advisors and the benefits, how to handle conflicts of interest and best practices for disclosure.
Building a Board of Advisors is one of the first tactics any startup should employ. Initially, this construct was used by startups with a high degree of technical complexity with Technical Advisory Boards largely with experts from academia and research. Companies increasingly employed Business Advisory Boards to help them with business development and strategy beyond the activies of the Board of Directors. During the bubble, Technical Advisory Boards also played a role in driving sales and partnership. (full post)
Not everyone is a Ross Mayfield or another well connected entrepreneur to gather the leading thinkers and practitioners within his or her space. Especially if you're at the concept stage, it takes resourcefulness and persistence to build a solid advisory board.
I agree with Ross that this is one of the first action items for any startup because advisors adds credibility, practical advice, and can help in your fundraising and partnership efforts. I see advisors in three buckets:
"Prestige" Advisors
These people are well known public figures can help add a lot of visibility and good public relations for your startup. Of course unless it's a music related startup, Flavor Flav might not be the best person versus Bill Bradley or Oprah Winfrey. Since most public figures would not easily lend their name to a new venture, it states that they trust to you a certain degree.
"Credibility" Advisors
These are well respected academics or professionals related or not related to the market or business that you're building. Not every entrepreneur has a network that reaches former senators, sports stars, or world leaders. This is a bucket most entrepreneurs should be able to fill through their professional or personal network. Start with people that know you well and expand to people that know good friends of yours who would vouch for your abilities and trustworthiness.
Eight years ago during my first startup, ViewPlus (video-on-demand service), we first went for the low hanging fruit to build our credibility toward our dream adivsors. We pitched my former professor at Columbia University, Michael Crow, who happened to be the Executive Vice Provost (number three man on campus), advised in the founding of In-Q-Tel (CIA's VC arm), and started the university's innovation system of managing their intellectual property. Luckily he liked me from my graduate school days and understood our product and vision, so he agreed to help us out. Another target was one of my co-founder's father, which wasn't as easy as it seems. He was the former head of South Korea's NASA and former CEO of a large computer company. He said "yes" after some "please, please, please Mr. Chang... Peter will stop disobeying you!" :)
So once we got the first couple advisors to join it was a little easier to pitch and ask others. A spotty snowball effect. More rejections than commitments.
"Practical" Advisors
Last bucket are people who can be high level executives/experts/thought leaders or just middle managers/small business owners, but ones that you really want to provide your team the practical advice and insights from their experiences. Ideally, you do want these advisors to be from the industry you intend to enter, and if they are well known the better.
If you don't have a good network within your targeted space, I would recommend attending industry conferences. While conferences can be hit or miss, they are a place to meet industry leaders and pitch them face-to-face. Even in today's world of online social networking, facetime is still important in gaining the trust of people outside of your personal network. I remember attending a few cable TV and satellite industry conferences for ViewPlus, and I would scan through the speaker list for potential advisors. Next I would attend the session they were speaking at and if I liked their presentation, then I would hunt them down and pitch them.
Nowadays, online professional relationships can occur through sites such as Linkedin, OpenBC, or Go Big Network. I would just be cautious and have several conversations with the person to gauge their thinking, ability to solve problems with you, and their tolerance level for ignorance or the hundreds of questions a new or young entrepreneur would have.
Lastly, asking people to become advisors for your startup is a great time to practice your pitch to investors. The smart ones will ask similar questions investors will ask you, so use this time well.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS OF THE BLOGOSPHERE
I came across Clive Thompson's blog yesterday and saw that he wrote an article for New York Magazine. It's a well-written article that provides a different perspective on stories most of you already know about. The excerpt is from the end of the article, so avoid reading it if you prefer.
Blogs to Riches
The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom.
... Will professionalization turn blogging into media-as-usual? Or will the idiosyncratic voice of the lone blogger prevail? Elizabeth Spiers thinks that both statements are true. After she left Gawker, she learned about the power of the first-mover advantage the hard way, by trying to repeat her success. Last year, she spent three months launching eight media-gossip sites for Mediabistro, a career-development site for journalists. They amassed an impressive 1 million page views a month, a healthy amount, but hardly Gawker-class. Then in January, Spiers jumped back into the blog pool with a splash, announcing that she was launching her own blog empire.
When I call her, she is at her desk in her new company’s offices in Tribeca. She’s being backed by two angel investors—Carter Burden, head of the Webhosting company Logicworks, and Justin Smith, president of The Week, a news magazine. Their first blog, launching in March, will be called Dealbreaker, and devoted to Wall Street gossip. Her advertisers would be? “For Wall Street? Pretty much everybody,” she says. “It’s a high-income demographic, pretty attractive.” The start-up money lets her pay for a full-time blogging staff, which she’ll need since she wants her writers to actually do reporting and break news. And this, she argues, is the future of the professional blogosphere... (full article)
New York Magazine also has some good related articles. One is "Linkology" which is an overview of the top 50 blogs and their connections. It comes with an infographic of these 50 blogs and how they link with each other. I might feel geeky enough later on to print out the PDF file they provide of this graphic and post it on our office wall.
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I came across Clive Thompson's blog yesterday and saw that he wrote an article for New York Magazine. It's a well-written article that provides a different perspective on stories most of you already know about. The excerpt is from the end of the article, so avoid reading it if you prefer.
Blogs to Riches
The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom.
... Will professionalization turn blogging into media-as-usual? Or will the idiosyncratic voice of the lone blogger prevail? Elizabeth Spiers thinks that both statements are true. After she left Gawker, she learned about the power of the first-mover advantage the hard way, by trying to repeat her success. Last year, she spent three months launching eight media-gossip sites for Mediabistro, a career-development site for journalists. They amassed an impressive 1 million page views a month, a healthy amount, but hardly Gawker-class. Then in January, Spiers jumped back into the blog pool with a splash, announcing that she was launching her own blog empire.
When I call her, she is at her desk in her new company’s offices in Tribeca. She’s being backed by two angel investors—Carter Burden, head of the Webhosting company Logicworks, and Justin Smith, president of The Week, a news magazine. Their first blog, launching in March, will be called Dealbreaker, and devoted to Wall Street gossip. Her advertisers would be? “For Wall Street? Pretty much everybody,” she says. “It’s a high-income demographic, pretty attractive.” The start-up money lets her pay for a full-time blogging staff, which she’ll need since she wants her writers to actually do reporting and break news. And this, she argues, is the future of the professional blogosphere... (full article)
New York Magazine also has some good related articles. One is "Linkology" which is an overview of the top 50 blogs and their connections. It comes with an infographic of these 50 blogs and how they link with each other. I might feel geeky enough later on to print out the PDF file they provide of this graphic and post it on our office wall.
CORPORATE BLOGGING... DRUMBEATS CONTINUE
The Economist has an article on how blogging is affecting companies.
The blog in the corporate machine
Bloggers can be vicious, but they can also help companies avert disaster
THEY have always had their critics, but corporations are having an especially hard time making friends of late. Scandals at Enron and WorldCom destroyed thousands of employees' livelihoods, raised hackles about bosses' pay and cast doubt on the reliability of companies' accounts; labour groups and environmental activists are finding new ways to co-ordinate their attacks on business; and big companies such as McDonald's and Wal-Mart have found themselves the targets of scathing films. But those are just the enemies that companies can see. Even more troubling for many managers is dealing with their critics online—because, in the ether, they have little idea who the attackers are.
The spread of “social media” across the internet—such as online discussion groups, e-mailing lists and blogs—has brought forth a new breed of brand assassin, who can materialise from nowhere and savage a firm's reputation. Often the assault is warranted; sometimes it is not. But accuracy is not necessarily the issue. One of the main reasons that executives find bloggers so very challenging is because, unlike other “stakeholders”, they rarely belong to well-organised groups. That makes them harder to identify, appease and control. (full article)
Also Forrester's Charlene Li is conducting an evaluation of corporate blogging solutions. Too bad we won't be live in time for them to evaluate GoingOn's platform. Next year...
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The Economist has an article on how blogging is affecting companies.
The blog in the corporate machine
Bloggers can be vicious, but they can also help companies avert disaster
THEY have always had their critics, but corporations are having an especially hard time making friends of late. Scandals at Enron and WorldCom destroyed thousands of employees' livelihoods, raised hackles about bosses' pay and cast doubt on the reliability of companies' accounts; labour groups and environmental activists are finding new ways to co-ordinate their attacks on business; and big companies such as McDonald's and Wal-Mart have found themselves the targets of scathing films. But those are just the enemies that companies can see. Even more troubling for many managers is dealing with their critics online—because, in the ether, they have little idea who the attackers are.
The spread of “social media” across the internet—such as online discussion groups, e-mailing lists and blogs—has brought forth a new breed of brand assassin, who can materialise from nowhere and savage a firm's reputation. Often the assault is warranted; sometimes it is not. But accuracy is not necessarily the issue. One of the main reasons that executives find bloggers so very challenging is because, unlike other “stakeholders”, they rarely belong to well-organised groups. That makes them harder to identify, appease and control. (full article)
Also Forrester's Charlene Li is conducting an evaluation of corporate blogging solutions. Too bad we won't be live in time for them to evaluate GoingOn's platform. Next year...
THE SHAMEFUL PANDERING AL GORE
Thank God, Al Gore is not our president today. He might have been kissing the shoes of Saddam Hussein for all we know. Investor Business Daily has a good op-ed on Gore's recent behavior:
The Shame Of Al Gore
What possesses a former vice president of the U.S. to travel to the birthplace of Islamist terrorism and denounce his country? Only a special breed of demons, apparently, can explain Al Gore.
The chief demon, of course, surely must be Gore's continuing quest for the presidency. Embittered he may well be by his loss of the highest office six years ago. But showing such supreme disloyalty to his country, as he did in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, cannot be condoned as an honorable means of pursuing the prize once more.
Speaking at the Jiddah Economic Forum, an event staged by oil-rich Saudi royalty, Gore indicted the American government for its "terrible abuses" of Arabs since the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington. Such treatment, he charged, played into the hands of al-Qaida.
And just what was the nature of these abuses? Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable."
Understand: Fifteen of the 19 al-Qaida hijackers on that fateful day, a day that saw 3,000 Americans go to their fiery deaths, a day that created thousands more orphans, were Saudi citizens. Those hijackers lived undetected in this country precisely because immigration authorities had been permissive. (full op-ed)
The American Thinker with a brief commentary, "Al Gore panders to the Saudis"
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Thank God, Al Gore is not our president today. He might have been kissing the shoes of Saddam Hussein for all we know. Investor Business Daily has a good op-ed on Gore's recent behavior:
The Shame Of Al Gore
What possesses a former vice president of the U.S. to travel to the birthplace of Islamist terrorism and denounce his country? Only a special breed of demons, apparently, can explain Al Gore.
The chief demon, of course, surely must be Gore's continuing quest for the presidency. Embittered he may well be by his loss of the highest office six years ago. But showing such supreme disloyalty to his country, as he did in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, cannot be condoned as an honorable means of pursuing the prize once more.
Speaking at the Jiddah Economic Forum, an event staged by oil-rich Saudi royalty, Gore indicted the American government for its "terrible abuses" of Arabs since the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington. Such treatment, he charged, played into the hands of al-Qaida.
And just what was the nature of these abuses? Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable."
Understand: Fifteen of the 19 al-Qaida hijackers on that fateful day, a day that saw 3,000 Americans go to their fiery deaths, a day that created thousands more orphans, were Saudi citizens. Those hijackers lived undetected in this country precisely because immigration authorities had been permissive. (full op-ed)
The American Thinker with a brief commentary, "Al Gore panders to the Saudis"
WHITE CASTLE VALENTINE'S
For you boyfriends and husbands in the Midwest and Tri-state area (NY, NJ, DE) that didn't reserve a place for a Valentine's Day dinner, White Castle is taking reservations now! Check it out here.
I can only imagine if I took Christine to White Castle for Valentine's Day... I'd be dead. Hmmm.... but I can eat about 20 sliders for breakfast right now :)
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For you boyfriends and husbands in the Midwest and Tri-state area (NY, NJ, DE) that didn't reserve a place for a Valentine's Day dinner, White Castle is taking reservations now! Check it out here.
I can only imagine if I took Christine to White Castle for Valentine's Day... I'd be dead. Hmmm.... but I can eat about 20 sliders for breakfast right now :)
TWO NEW BLOGS ON THE RADAR
AOL's Ted Leonsis has a new blog called Ted's Take, which provides his thoughts on being an AOL exec and sports team owner.
Sand Hill Slave is a new blog by an unknown executive assistant at a venture capital firm. It's hilarious! One sample post:
Social Networking: VC stands for Very Clueless
In modern day courtships, particularly in the Seinfeld school of thought's elite 5%, women are measured by their physical attractiveness and men are measured by their occcupation (loosely translating into earning potential, net worth etc.). Guys are jackasses. They want you to know what they do for a living so that you will take an "initial interest" in them only to find out later that they consider you a "gold digger". This is what you get within that 5% percent. But there is another breed that I have encountered as well. The ass hat who drops the hint cooly that he's a "venture capitalist" in order for him to present to you...
.....
Tool in Question (hereon out referred to as TQ): Man I've had a bad day at work.
Slave Girl: Yeah we get those on occassion. It's not like you are going to get fired so drink up, dude.
TQ: Well I will be if we don't close this deal.
SG: I'm sure you are great at your job. Look at it this way, the weekends coming up and you can totally chill.
TQ: I have no weekends, I have to go into work. Such is the life of VCs.
SG: (Big Chesire Cat smile) Uh.. FECES? Did you just say FECES?
TQ: NO. I said VC.. Venture Capitalist?
SG: OH ok. Same difference. (full post)
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AOL's Ted Leonsis has a new blog called Ted's Take, which provides his thoughts on being an AOL exec and sports team owner.
Sand Hill Slave is a new blog by an unknown executive assistant at a venture capital firm. It's hilarious! One sample post:
Social Networking: VC stands for Very Clueless
In modern day courtships, particularly in the Seinfeld school of thought's elite 5%, women are measured by their physical attractiveness and men are measured by their occcupation (loosely translating into earning potential, net worth etc.). Guys are jackasses. They want you to know what they do for a living so that you will take an "initial interest" in them only to find out later that they consider you a "gold digger". This is what you get within that 5% percent. But there is another breed that I have encountered as well. The ass hat who drops the hint cooly that he's a "venture capitalist" in order for him to present to you...
.....
Tool in Question (hereon out referred to as TQ): Man I've had a bad day at work.
Slave Girl: Yeah we get those on occassion. It's not like you are going to get fired so drink up, dude.
TQ: Well I will be if we don't close this deal.
SG: I'm sure you are great at your job. Look at it this way, the weekends coming up and you can totally chill.
TQ: I have no weekends, I have to go into work. Such is the life of VCs.
SG: (Big Chesire Cat smile) Uh.. FECES? Did you just say FECES?
TQ: NO. I said VC.. Venture Capitalist?
SG: OH ok. Same difference. (full post)
Monday, February 13, 2006
AOL LAUNCHING CHINESE LANGUAGE VERSION IN THE U.S. MARKET
Interesting move by AOL. I know MTV has already launched a few targeted ethnic channels (i.e. Chinese, East Indian) and planning to target other markets in the U.S., so I wonder if they took it from MTV's playbook? CNet reports:
America Online on Monday said it has launched a public test of a Chinese-language version of its U.S. Web site to court Chinese Americans, offering features that in some ways are more ambitious than its main U.S. site.
The new site targets an estimated 2.7 million Chinese Americans and offers full-length features and episodes of TV series from China, viewable directly off the site. AOL's main U.S. site plans to offer vintage TV shows but does not offer full-length movies.
Up to 20 hours of video will be available at any time on AOL's Chinese-American Web site. (full article)
Maybe this move by AOL will help stop some bleeding. I haven't seen their latest user numbers, but I assume it's still on a decline. I'm not sure how this strategy will work because I assume they have to sign up foreign content partners, but why would a Chinese American go to AOL's Chinese version versus the website with the original content? I know Koreans or Korean Americans in the U.S. go to Korean TV websites to download and watch Korean dramas and shows. Let's see how this plays out.
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Interesting move by AOL. I know MTV has already launched a few targeted ethnic channels (i.e. Chinese, East Indian) and planning to target other markets in the U.S., so I wonder if they took it from MTV's playbook? CNet reports:
America Online on Monday said it has launched a public test of a Chinese-language version of its U.S. Web site to court Chinese Americans, offering features that in some ways are more ambitious than its main U.S. site.
The new site targets an estimated 2.7 million Chinese Americans and offers full-length features and episodes of TV series from China, viewable directly off the site. AOL's main U.S. site plans to offer vintage TV shows but does not offer full-length movies.
Up to 20 hours of video will be available at any time on AOL's Chinese-American Web site. (full article)
Maybe this move by AOL will help stop some bleeding. I haven't seen their latest user numbers, but I assume it's still on a decline. I'm not sure how this strategy will work because I assume they have to sign up foreign content partners, but why would a Chinese American go to AOL's Chinese version versus the website with the original content? I know Koreans or Korean Americans in the U.S. go to Korean TV websites to download and watch Korean dramas and shows. Let's see how this plays out.
ASHISH KUMAR ON GOINGON AND DIGITAL LIFESTYLE AGGREGATOR
Ashish, co-founder of Tekriti Software and the person who heads our development team for GoingOn Networks, posted yesterday his initial thoughts on building our platform and his excitement, which is cool. He plans to reveal more of his insights as we move closer to our alpha launch and beyond:
Lately I have been really busy with preparing for alpha release of the GoingOn product. I will wait a few days more to give my perspective on the product and what it takes to build a product of size of GoingOn. This is especially different from a regular product development experience because of the way in which we were refining features and that is primarily because of the way things are evolving in the Web 2.0 domain.
I will give more details later on this but I wanted to emphasize the fact that we have incorporated Marc’s vision of DLAs (Digital Lifestyle Aggregators) in the product and this is huge. We started working with Marc around 14 months back and we have been learning more and more about DLAs from him. But this will actually be the first time that we will be seeing the concepts live in a large product. Needless to say that I am so excited about that and at the same time it puts a lot of pressure on us to do it right. (full post)
Even though Marc can be a pain to work with :), he is a visionary and it's very cool to be implementing his DLA concept without our platform. So our team is glad to have him as our advisor, and we're definitely happy to be working with Tekriti and look foward to our product going live.
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Ashish, co-founder of Tekriti Software and the person who heads our development team for GoingOn Networks, posted yesterday his initial thoughts on building our platform and his excitement, which is cool. He plans to reveal more of his insights as we move closer to our alpha launch and beyond:
Lately I have been really busy with preparing for alpha release of the GoingOn product. I will wait a few days more to give my perspective on the product and what it takes to build a product of size of GoingOn. This is especially different from a regular product development experience because of the way in which we were refining features and that is primarily because of the way things are evolving in the Web 2.0 domain.
I will give more details later on this but I wanted to emphasize the fact that we have incorporated Marc’s vision of DLAs (Digital Lifestyle Aggregators) in the product and this is huge. We started working with Marc around 14 months back and we have been learning more and more about DLAs from him. But this will actually be the first time that we will be seeing the concepts live in a large product. Needless to say that I am so excited about that and at the same time it puts a lot of pressure on us to do it right. (full post)
Even though Marc can be a pain to work with :), he is a visionary and it's very cool to be implementing his DLA concept without our platform. So our team is glad to have him as our advisor, and we're definitely happy to be working with Tekriti and look foward to our product going live.
DEMO 2006 DEMOS
CNet has a good overview of Demo 2006 and the winners of the Demo God awards:
The 10 Demo God winners
• Network Streaming, and its appliance-based remote support offering.
• Panoratio Database Images, which has software designed to analyze large, complex data sets.
• VSee Labs, which allows people to access and share media files and computer desktops across the Internet.
• Iotum, for its service that intelligently filters phone calls depending on how important they are.
• Ugobe, which has developed a charming robot dinosaur that reacts to humans' voices and touch.
• Riya, a company that has developed facial recognition technology which can auto-tag photos in users' collections.
• Krugle, which has a vertical search engine designed to help programmers find open source code.
• Kosmix, for its service that automatically categorizes Web pages.
• Front Porch, a company that has built an appliance designed to alert users to viruses, spyware and zombies on their computers.
• Sprout Systems, for its business software that helps small companies manage e-mail.
You can see the actual demos at the DEMO site. One company I took a look at was TagWorld.
They overlap with what we're building at GoingOn since they provide a blogging and social networking platform, but we're going after completely different markets. They are focused on the consumer market while we're looking at the corporate sector. While some have called them the "MySpace for adults," it was interesting to hear TagWorld's Evan Rifkin, their President, say that their functionality is bringing teens to their site in droves. Definitely not our cup of tea. Lastly, they were presenting their "social commerce" product which was interesting, but ecommerce is not of interest to us at this stage.
Anyway, check out the other demos if you have time.
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CNet has a good overview of Demo 2006 and the winners of the Demo God awards:
The 10 Demo God winners
• Network Streaming, and its appliance-based remote support offering.
• Panoratio Database Images, which has software designed to analyze large, complex data sets.
• VSee Labs, which allows people to access and share media files and computer desktops across the Internet.
• Iotum, for its service that intelligently filters phone calls depending on how important they are.
• Ugobe, which has developed a charming robot dinosaur that reacts to humans' voices and touch.
• Riya, a company that has developed facial recognition technology which can auto-tag photos in users' collections.
• Krugle, which has a vertical search engine designed to help programmers find open source code.
• Kosmix, for its service that automatically categorizes Web pages.
• Front Porch, a company that has built an appliance designed to alert users to viruses, spyware and zombies on their computers.
• Sprout Systems, for its business software that helps small companies manage e-mail.
You can see the actual demos at the DEMO site. One company I took a look at was TagWorld.
They overlap with what we're building at GoingOn since they provide a blogging and social networking platform, but we're going after completely different markets. They are focused on the consumer market while we're looking at the corporate sector. While some have called them the "MySpace for adults," it was interesting to hear TagWorld's Evan Rifkin, their President, say that their functionality is bringing teens to their site in droves. Definitely not our cup of tea. Lastly, they were presenting their "social commerce" product which was interesting, but ecommerce is not of interest to us at this stage.
Anyway, check out the other demos if you have time.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
BACK FROM VANCOUVER... NORTHERN VOICE 2006 AND OSMCS SUMMIT
I didn't blog about it, but since last Wednesday I was in Vancouver. First couple days to attend the Open Source CMS (Content Management System) Summit, which was an international convening of Drupal users. GoingOn Networks sponsored some of this and it was a small step towards our greater involvement in the Drupal community. Boris Mann, Roland Tanglao, and others did a great job.
Friday was Moosecamp, like Foocamp and Barcamp, which was for the attendees of Northern Voice to conduct sessions of their own for everyone.
Finally, Saturday was the Northern Voice 2006 conference. Half the sessions didn't interest me and the others were fair to good. It was more interesting meeting various people throughout the whole week starting with Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal, David Sifry and many others.
How did I get away from home for so long? Christine was in Asia for work since last Sunday, so I was allowed to go :) Our flights worked out well too since I arrived this morning at 10:30am from Vancouver and she arrived at 11:30am. From the airport, we went straight to house hunting... (she's a slave-driver)
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I didn't blog about it, but since last Wednesday I was in Vancouver. First couple days to attend the Open Source CMS (Content Management System) Summit, which was an international convening of Drupal users. GoingOn Networks sponsored some of this and it was a small step towards our greater involvement in the Drupal community. Boris Mann, Roland Tanglao, and others did a great job.
Friday was Moosecamp, like Foocamp and Barcamp, which was for the attendees of Northern Voice to conduct sessions of their own for everyone.
Finally, Saturday was the Northern Voice 2006 conference. Half the sessions didn't interest me and the others were fair to good. It was more interesting meeting various people throughout the whole week starting with Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal, David Sifry and many others.
How did I get away from home for so long? Christine was in Asia for work since last Sunday, so I was allowed to go :) Our flights worked out well too since I arrived this morning at 10:30am from Vancouver and she arrived at 11:30am. From the airport, we went straight to house hunting... (she's a slave-driver)
Friday, February 10, 2006
BONO WITH A PURPOSE... BONO ON GRACE
Good article in BusinessWeek on Bono's activism and effectiveness in fighting poverty and disease in Africa:
Perhaps no celebrity alive today is more effective at leveraging his fame for social good than Bono. A day earlier, he had launched a new fund-raising effort called Product Red, an effort to exploit famous brands such as Armani, Gap, and American Express to raise money for efforts to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in Africa. Gap, for example, will sell an African-made T-Shirt (guess what color...uh, red), and Giorgio Armani is designing a pair of sunglasses. American Express will issue a Red credit card. A percentage of the sales that the products generate will go to the cause.
No question that Bono's intentions are good. But celebrity-led relief efforts still make some people uneasy. Star power generates publicity, but it's not so clear what the lasting effect is. "This could be something to put poverty on the map," said Douglas Holt, a professor of marketing at Said Business School at Oxford University, speaking between sessions at the Davos Congress Center. But Holt said such efforts are unlikely to motivate passive consumers to become anti-poverty activists. "It builds awareness, but what we need is a new social movement."
.....
To Bono's credit, his understanding of the issues is far from shallow, and he's articulate. He held his own against the intellectual firepower of Wolfowitz and Brown, at one point launching into a history lesson about how Alexander Hamilton's policies early in U.S. history had paved the way for economic expansion. (full article)
As the article states above, Bono's knowledge and depth is real, which I learned about in a different context. As a general partner at Elevation Partners, a private equity firm on Sand Hill Road, I heard that he wasn't part of their team in just name sake, but an active and contributing member of their team. Supposedly he's already seen over 80 potential deals.
On another issue, an interview of Bono I read months ago showed how insightful and intelligent he is to me because it was one of the best discussions on God's grace I've heard in a long time...
Assayas: I think I am beginning to understand religion because I have started acting and thinking like a father. What do you make of that?
Bono: Yes, I think that's normal. It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.
Assayas: I haven't heard you talk about that.
Bono: I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.
Assayas: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.
Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.
Assayas: I'd be interested to hear that.
Bono: That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s---. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.
Assayas: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.
Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled… . It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.
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Good article in BusinessWeek on Bono's activism and effectiveness in fighting poverty and disease in Africa:
Perhaps no celebrity alive today is more effective at leveraging his fame for social good than Bono. A day earlier, he had launched a new fund-raising effort called Product Red, an effort to exploit famous brands such as Armani, Gap, and American Express to raise money for efforts to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in Africa. Gap, for example, will sell an African-made T-Shirt (guess what color...uh, red), and Giorgio Armani is designing a pair of sunglasses. American Express will issue a Red credit card. A percentage of the sales that the products generate will go to the cause.
No question that Bono's intentions are good. But celebrity-led relief efforts still make some people uneasy. Star power generates publicity, but it's not so clear what the lasting effect is. "This could be something to put poverty on the map," said Douglas Holt, a professor of marketing at Said Business School at Oxford University, speaking between sessions at the Davos Congress Center. But Holt said such efforts are unlikely to motivate passive consumers to become anti-poverty activists. "It builds awareness, but what we need is a new social movement."
.....
To Bono's credit, his understanding of the issues is far from shallow, and he's articulate. He held his own against the intellectual firepower of Wolfowitz and Brown, at one point launching into a history lesson about how Alexander Hamilton's policies early in U.S. history had paved the way for economic expansion. (full article)
As the article states above, Bono's knowledge and depth is real, which I learned about in a different context. As a general partner at Elevation Partners, a private equity firm on Sand Hill Road, I heard that he wasn't part of their team in just name sake, but an active and contributing member of their team. Supposedly he's already seen over 80 potential deals.
On another issue, an interview of Bono I read months ago showed how insightful and intelligent he is to me because it was one of the best discussions on God's grace I've heard in a long time...
Assayas: I think I am beginning to understand religion because I have started acting and thinking like a father. What do you make of that?
Bono: Yes, I think that's normal. It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.
Assayas: I haven't heard you talk about that.
Bono: I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.
Assayas: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.
Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.
Assayas: I'd be interested to hear that.
Bono: That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s---. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.
Assayas: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.
Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled… . It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.
TIM BERNERS-LEE HAS A BLOG
Old news since Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, started his blog back in December, but it's cool that we can read his thoughts on the web now.
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Old news since Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web, started his blog back in December, but it's cool that we can read his thoughts on the web now.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
INTERNET & DIGITAL CONVERGENCE?
IBM's Irving Wladawsky-Berger has a good post over at AlwaysOn:
Some Thoughts on Digital Convergence
The emerging role of the Internet for digital media.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which took place in Las Vegas at the beginning of the year, is not one I have ever attended or followed closely through the years. It is primarily about consumer products, mostly for the home, and while I am personally very interested in the area, it is not one I have been much involved in professionally.
This year, though, as I read press articles about CES, I sensed that something was changing. The "gadgets" have grown up for sure. They have not only gone digital and added more and more capabilities, but they are now based on computing technologies that just a few short years ago would have been found only in high-end PCs. But the biggest change that caught my attention was the focus on connectivity, integration, and open standards—all areas that I generally associate with IT systems, not consumer products. (full article)
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IBM's Irving Wladawsky-Berger has a good post over at AlwaysOn:
Some Thoughts on Digital Convergence
The emerging role of the Internet for digital media.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which took place in Las Vegas at the beginning of the year, is not one I have ever attended or followed closely through the years. It is primarily about consumer products, mostly for the home, and while I am personally very interested in the area, it is not one I have been much involved in professionally.
This year, though, as I read press articles about CES, I sensed that something was changing. The "gadgets" have grown up for sure. They have not only gone digital and added more and more capabilities, but they are now based on computing technologies that just a few short years ago would have been found only in high-end PCs. But the biggest change that caught my attention was the focus on connectivity, integration, and open standards—all areas that I generally associate with IT systems, not consumer products. (full article)
DOES YOUR VC "SPRAY & PRAY" OR "HOLD & HUG"?
VC blogger, Fred Wilson, has an interesting post on venture capitalists' investment philosophy:
I think there are two ways to approach the early stage venture business.
You can make a small number of investments and become actively involved in the development of the companies.
Or you can make a large number of investments and let others worry about the development of those companies.
Both models work.
Which one would you prefer if you're starting a new company? I personally would want the active venture capitalist. Of course, Fred didn't clearly define what is meant by "active" since some "active VCs" have 30 hours work weeks while others push themselves beyond 80 hours. Also some really don't add value or they might not have the expertise you are looking for or that is needed to kick start your company. Hopefully, this situation only happens when you have multiple investors. Also in this scenario, I probably only want a couple really active investors since it can become a headache with too many cooks in the kitchen.
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VC blogger, Fred Wilson, has an interesting post on venture capitalists' investment philosophy:
I think there are two ways to approach the early stage venture business.
You can make a small number of investments and become actively involved in the development of the companies.
Or you can make a large number of investments and let others worry about the development of those companies.
Both models work.
Which one would you prefer if you're starting a new company? I personally would want the active venture capitalist. Of course, Fred didn't clearly define what is meant by "active" since some "active VCs" have 30 hours work weeks while others push themselves beyond 80 hours. Also some really don't add value or they might not have the expertise you are looking for or that is needed to kick start your company. Hopefully, this situation only happens when you have multiple investors. Also in this scenario, I probably only want a couple really active investors since it can become a headache with too many cooks in the kitchen.
BUSY, BUSY, GOOGLE... GMAIL+GOOGLE TALK, GOOGLE STAR OFFICE, TAKING TALENT AGAIN
Google has been pretty active in the news lately. This past week they launched their GoogleTalk integration with Gmail, which I have to say is way cool. You have GoogleTalk baked into your Gmail. No separate application launch, no clunkiness.
There is speculation that Google will be signing a huge bundling deal with Dell:
CNBC reports that Google is in negotiation with Dell on a $1 billion deal that would let Google install some of its software on all new Dell computers.
Fellow blogger Rich Tehrani writes that for that amount of money, we should expect something "radically" new. He surmises this could be a Google-branded browser, or even a Google counterpart to Microsoft Office.
"Something software-based and something customers aren't likely to download," Rich writes. "The goal would be to get the customers before they get hooked on something else."
Now, here is my take. I see a Google Branded version of Sun's StarOffice. (full post)
It will be interested to see what really happens and the terms of this deal.
Google went on another talent raid. This time no chair throwing or death threats. Can you image Jeff Bezos getting violent? Hells no. He probably giggled a few times and gave the guy a bonus. Steve Ballmer and Jeff Bezos are like Brooklyn and the Upper East Side... beef jerky and a porterhouse steak. Anyway, Udi Manber, head of Amazon's A9 subsidiary, will become a vice president of engineering at Google.
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Google has been pretty active in the news lately. This past week they launched their GoogleTalk integration with Gmail, which I have to say is way cool. You have GoogleTalk baked into your Gmail. No separate application launch, no clunkiness.
There is speculation that Google will be signing a huge bundling deal with Dell:
CNBC reports that Google is in negotiation with Dell on a $1 billion deal that would let Google install some of its software on all new Dell computers.
Fellow blogger Rich Tehrani writes that for that amount of money, we should expect something "radically" new. He surmises this could be a Google-branded browser, or even a Google counterpart to Microsoft Office.
"Something software-based and something customers aren't likely to download," Rich writes. "The goal would be to get the customers before they get hooked on something else."
Now, here is my take. I see a Google Branded version of Sun's StarOffice. (full post)
It will be interested to see what really happens and the terms of this deal.
Google went on another talent raid. This time no chair throwing or death threats. Can you image Jeff Bezos getting violent? Hells no. He probably giggled a few times and gave the guy a bonus. Steve Ballmer and Jeff Bezos are like Brooklyn and the Upper East Side... beef jerky and a porterhouse steak. Anyway, Udi Manber, head of Amazon's A9 subsidiary, will become a vice president of engineering at Google.
WEB ROLL-UP?... WELL, GOINGON IS LIKE HALF A ROLL
I like the alarm:clock guys as you might know. I heard for them it's a hobby, so they can't commit as many resources as similar sites, such as TechCrunch, but I've always thought if they invested more time into developing their blog they could do a lot better in terms of traffic and influence. Same with Tony's media business, AlwaysOn, I'm certain if he did some tweaks in the content and invested in marketing the site he would generate a lot more traffic. Of course, since I'm not involved in AlwaysOn's operations he just ignores the few words I throw out here and there. I think he doesn't care so much about its traffic since he makes a lot of money from his events and sponsorships, and the fact that he serves a very niche audience (tech execs in silicon valley) and does well with it.
Anyway, back to alarm:clock's recent post titled, "Web 2.0 Roll-up":
Our beef with Web 2.0 hype is that so many of the companies that fall in this category (we're not even sure it actually is a category) have limited ambitions and growth-management skills. Features are being launched as if they are companies. There is way too much excitement over $12M acquisitions of modest Web 2.0 start-ups by Yahoo and Google. So why not make a run at creating another portal? After all, it wasn't that long ago that Alta Vista and Infoseek were hot portals - and there will doubtlessly be another big-time portal launched in the next few years.
As I posted here before, I agree that there are too many one feature startups without real business models who probably pray for an acquisition as an exit strategy. In some ways GoingOn Networks can be a home for many of these "feature" companies and more developed Web 2.0 companies. While it's not our primarily focus, nor do we want to be the "Ellis Island" of the Web 2.0 landscape ("Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses..."), we have incorporated Marc Canter's vision of a DLA (Digital Lifestyle Aggregator) into our platform. People can integrate their Flickr and del.icio.us like many other platforms, but you'll see a lot more after our beta. We do want to provide a digital hub for people's favorite web services and we won't discriminate, so hopefully we can develop this effectively :)
A Web 2.0 Roll-up might start with Technorati for blog search, Rollyo for personalized search, and add features like Zimbra's calendar, a video search like YouTube or Revver, an IM app like Meebo, a comment tool like Digg, plus other doo-dads that you might find on the TechCrunch Index.
Alarm:clock has a good start above. Rollyo? Maybe. Carl, our CTO, joked that we've become the "search engine whore" hooking up with Endeca, a powerful enterprise search solution, and a few others we'll announce. YouTube? Revver? Maybe. Meebo? Maybe. It will be fun over the next few years to see how we develop our platform. Definitely we do not want to become a portal for Web 2.0 services. Our focus is providing a communications platform for companies, so that's why I would call us 'half a roll' or maybe just a 'handroll'.
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I like the alarm:clock guys as you might know. I heard for them it's a hobby, so they can't commit as many resources as similar sites, such as TechCrunch, but I've always thought if they invested more time into developing their blog they could do a lot better in terms of traffic and influence. Same with Tony's media business, AlwaysOn, I'm certain if he did some tweaks in the content and invested in marketing the site he would generate a lot more traffic. Of course, since I'm not involved in AlwaysOn's operations he just ignores the few words I throw out here and there. I think he doesn't care so much about its traffic since he makes a lot of money from his events and sponsorships, and the fact that he serves a very niche audience (tech execs in silicon valley) and does well with it.
Anyway, back to alarm:clock's recent post titled, "Web 2.0 Roll-up":
Our beef with Web 2.0 hype is that so many of the companies that fall in this category (we're not even sure it actually is a category) have limited ambitions and growth-management skills. Features are being launched as if they are companies. There is way too much excitement over $12M acquisitions of modest Web 2.0 start-ups by Yahoo and Google. So why not make a run at creating another portal? After all, it wasn't that long ago that Alta Vista and Infoseek were hot portals - and there will doubtlessly be another big-time portal launched in the next few years.
As I posted here before, I agree that there are too many one feature startups without real business models who probably pray for an acquisition as an exit strategy. In some ways GoingOn Networks can be a home for many of these "feature" companies and more developed Web 2.0 companies. While it's not our primarily focus, nor do we want to be the "Ellis Island" of the Web 2.0 landscape ("Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses..."), we have incorporated Marc Canter's vision of a DLA (Digital Lifestyle Aggregator) into our platform. People can integrate their Flickr and del.icio.us like many other platforms, but you'll see a lot more after our beta. We do want to provide a digital hub for people's favorite web services and we won't discriminate, so hopefully we can develop this effectively :)
A Web 2.0 Roll-up might start with Technorati for blog search, Rollyo for personalized search, and add features like Zimbra's calendar, a video search like YouTube or Revver, an IM app like Meebo, a comment tool like Digg, plus other doo-dads that you might find on the TechCrunch Index.
Alarm:clock has a good start above. Rollyo? Maybe. Carl, our CTO, joked that we've become the "search engine whore" hooking up with Endeca, a powerful enterprise search solution, and a few others we'll announce. YouTube? Revver? Maybe. Meebo? Maybe. It will be fun over the next few years to see how we develop our platform. Definitely we do not want to become a portal for Web 2.0 services. Our focus is providing a communications platform for companies, so that's why I would call us 'half a roll' or maybe just a 'handroll'.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
RANDOM NEWS QUICKLIST
"Presidents Join Mourners at King Funeral"
"4 More Alabama Churches Burned"
"Haitian election hailed a success"
"Wal-Mart to Open About 1,500 New Stores"
"Apple cuts iPod prices"
"Dell prepares to install Google software"
"Cisco gets ready for Scientific-Atlanta"
"'Kelly Blue Book' for homes"
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"Presidents Join Mourners at King Funeral"
"4 More Alabama Churches Burned"
"Haitian election hailed a success"
"Wal-Mart to Open About 1,500 New Stores"
"Apple cuts iPod prices"
"Dell prepares to install Google software"
"Cisco gets ready for Scientific-Atlanta"
"'Kelly Blue Book' for homes"
RAPID GROWTH OF THE BLOGOSPHERE
Dave Sifry put up the most recent numbers reflecting the rapid growth of the blogosphere:
The blogosphere is over 60 times bigger than it was only 3 years ago.
New blog creation continues to grow. We currently track over 75,000 new weblogs created every day, which means that on average, a new weblog is created every second of every day - and 13.7 million bloggers are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created. In other words, even though there's a reasonable amount of tire-kicking going on, blogging is growing as a habitual activity. In October of 2005, when Technorati was only tracking 19 million blogs, about 10.4 million bloggers were still posting 3 months after the creation of their blogs.
In addition to that, about 2.7 million bloggers update their blogs at least weekly. (full post)
CNet's view on these numbers:
According to the blog trackers at Technorati, a company that indexes and searches blog postings, the number of blogs online is doubling about every five and a half months .
As of Monday, the company is tracking more than 27 million separate blogs around the world, or about 60 times what was online three years ago. About 2.7 million of those blogs are updated at least weekly, with about 1.2 million total posts appearing per day, Technorati founder David Sifry said in his "State of the Blogosphere" post on Monday.
"At that rate, it is literally impossible to read everything that is relevant to an issue or subject," Sifry wrote. "A new challenge has presented itself--how to make sense out of this monstrous conversation, and how to find the most interesting and authoritative information out there." (full post)
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Dave Sifry put up the most recent numbers reflecting the rapid growth of the blogosphere:
The blogosphere is over 60 times bigger than it was only 3 years ago.
New blog creation continues to grow. We currently track over 75,000 new weblogs created every day, which means that on average, a new weblog is created every second of every day - and 13.7 million bloggers are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created. In other words, even though there's a reasonable amount of tire-kicking going on, blogging is growing as a habitual activity. In October of 2005, when Technorati was only tracking 19 million blogs, about 10.4 million bloggers were still posting 3 months after the creation of their blogs.
In addition to that, about 2.7 million bloggers update their blogs at least weekly. (full post)
CNet's view on these numbers:
According to the blog trackers at Technorati, a company that indexes and searches blog postings, the number of blogs online is doubling about every five and a half months .
As of Monday, the company is tracking more than 27 million separate blogs around the world, or about 60 times what was online three years ago. About 2.7 million of those blogs are updated at least weekly, with about 1.2 million total posts appearing per day, Technorati founder David Sifry said in his "State of the Blogosphere" post on Monday.
"At that rate, it is literally impossible to read everything that is relevant to an issue or subject," Sifry wrote. "A new challenge has presented itself--how to make sense out of this monstrous conversation, and how to find the most interesting and authoritative information out there." (full post)
RANDOM ENTREPRENEURIAL ARTICLES
"The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs" by Guy Kawasaki
"No regrets for ex-Google exec" by John Boudreau from the Mercury News
"Small is beautiful for Web 2.0 start-ups" by Martin LaMonica from CNet.
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"The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs" by Guy Kawasaki
"No regrets for ex-Google exec" by John Boudreau from the Mercury News
"Small is beautiful for Web 2.0 start-ups" by Martin LaMonica from CNet.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
"THE CARTOON CRISIS CONSPIRACY AND MODERATE MUSLIMS"
Great piece by The American Thinker's Thomas Lifson.
The cartoon crisis which has left embassies ablaze and sparked riots from Beirut to Bangkok and Jarkarta was a set-up job, planned and executed by a group of Muslim leaders from Denmark in concert with leading lights of the Islamic world. The conspirators used supremely inflammatory phony cartoons never published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten to gin up a campaign of violence and intimidation against Denmark, the EU, and the West.
The instantaneous availability of Danish flags for burning in obscure outposts of the Muslim world suggests a great deal of advance planning.
Those involved in taking a four-month-old incident in far-away Denmark and making it into a crisis roiling the streets of Beirut, Bangkok and Jakarta among other Muslim outposts, include Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam’s most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi, according to Lorenzo Vidino of the Counter Terrorism Blog.
These are very heavy hitters in the umma, the world community of Muslims.
Two questions raise themselves about this crisis manufactured by a who’s who in the world of Islam: Why was a plan created and put into effect? And why now? (full article)
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Great piece by The American Thinker's Thomas Lifson.
The cartoon crisis which has left embassies ablaze and sparked riots from Beirut to Bangkok and Jarkarta was a set-up job, planned and executed by a group of Muslim leaders from Denmark in concert with leading lights of the Islamic world. The conspirators used supremely inflammatory phony cartoons never published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten to gin up a campaign of violence and intimidation against Denmark, the EU, and the West.
The instantaneous availability of Danish flags for burning in obscure outposts of the Muslim world suggests a great deal of advance planning.
Those involved in taking a four-month-old incident in far-away Denmark and making it into a crisis roiling the streets of Beirut, Bangkok and Jakarta among other Muslim outposts, include Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam’s most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi, according to Lorenzo Vidino of the Counter Terrorism Blog.
These are very heavy hitters in the umma, the world community of Muslims.
Two questions raise themselves about this crisis manufactured by a who’s who in the world of Islam: Why was a plan created and put into effect? And why now? (full article)
SCOTT RAFER'S NEW GIG... WINKSITE MOBILE COMMUNITY
Scott Rafer, former CEO of Feedster, has new gig. Actually, it seems like a cooler gig than Feedster. Always nice to upgrade :)
Wireless Ink Corp (aka WINKsite, http://winksite.com) ties mobile users back into the user-generated Internet and to each other. WINKsite makes it simple for publishers to connect with their users on the move, and easy for those users to find their peers — mobile or not — based on shared interests or locations. The result is rich, focused communities that span mobile and broadband experiences.
Mobile publishing has always been a choice between over-investment and user neglect. Creating new mobile sites remains more art than science; the price tag remains high and the talent rare. Automated web-to-mobile site converters, the only established alternative, are notoriously unreliable and make it clear to mobile users that the site owner regards them as second-class citizens, relegated to a separate information silo, and ostracized from web-based communities. Add the complexities of Web 2.0 features like real-time chat, tagging, event listings, and mapping, and the task is overwhelming. (full post)
Definitely checking WINKsite this week.
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Scott Rafer, former CEO of Feedster, has new gig. Actually, it seems like a cooler gig than Feedster. Always nice to upgrade :)
Wireless Ink Corp (aka WINKsite, http://winksite.com) ties mobile users back into the user-generated Internet and to each other. WINKsite makes it simple for publishers to connect with their users on the move, and easy for those users to find their peers — mobile or not — based on shared interests or locations. The result is rich, focused communities that span mobile and broadband experiences.
Mobile publishing has always been a choice between over-investment and user neglect. Creating new mobile sites remains more art than science; the price tag remains high and the talent rare. Automated web-to-mobile site converters, the only established alternative, are notoriously unreliable and make it clear to mobile users that the site owner regards them as second-class citizens, relegated to a separate information silo, and ostracized from web-based communities. Add the complexities of Web 2.0 features like real-time chat, tagging, event listings, and mapping, and the task is overwhelming. (full post)
Definitely checking WINKsite this week.
CITIZEN JOURNALISM IN THE U.S.... STRIKE ONE
At the end of last year Dan Gillmor left his citizen journalism startup, Bayosphere, to start a nonprofit housed at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.
He also wrote a very reflective, open and insightful post explaining why he left Bayosphere a couple weeks ago. A few of his words:
A more personal lesson also emerged: As an entrepreneur, let's just say I wasn't in my element. The relentless focus on a single, limited project for long periods of time, combined with the inevitable compromises inherent in for-profit decision-making, turned out not to be my best skills. For almost 25 years I'd thrived on the constant deadlines and competition of journalism. So I assumed I'd easily handle the pressures of trying to create a business from scratch while also keeping my reporting and writing skills intact and helping other people join in. In reality, I was unprepared for what proved to be an entirely different kind of pressure, and didn't handle it nearly as well as I'd expected. I allowed myself to get distracted, moreover, by matters that were not directly relevant to the project.
During the summer, Michael and I realized that it was unlikely that we would land a key distribution deal in the immediate future, and without that we weren't finding the kind of business model for Bayosphere that justified raising more money beyond the seed financing. We had business ideas that might well have been funded, but they were not first and foremost aimed at boosting the citizen-journalism field, which was and remains my overriding goal. In September, we stopped spending our investors' money, and sustained Bayosphere ourselves on a relatively bare-bones budget from our own funds, putting in our own time.
We've never lost sight of this, however: A more democratized media is crucial our common future -- grassroots ideas, energy and talent. I believe this more than ever, as do Mitch Kapor and the folks at the Omidyar Network, who provided seed funding for the project. Their work is changing the world for the better, and I admire them.
MarketWatch's Bambi Francisco has some more words on citizen journalism:
Or, how does one rely on the audience to stay engaged in either watching and or participating in creating content? A site for the people by the people sounds great in theory. But it seems that individuals drawn to such "by-the-people" reporting aren't necessarily good in supporting roles or teamwork.
Consider Dan Gillmor, a writer at the San Jose Mercury News who left that job to start a grassroots news organization written by citizen journalists. He recently wrote about how his efforts failed. He said that "fewer citizens participated, they were less interested in collaboration with one another, and the response to our initiatives was underwhelming."
He's just one example of course.
Yet even the larger, populist news sites such as Pajamasmedia.com, Backfence.com, and Buzzmachine.com, aren't getting much traction. Backfence.com says it's local news written by you and your neighbors while Pajamasmedia is news written by anyone any time -- especially when they're in their pajamas. They received fewer than 360,000 unique visitors each in December, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
The other question is advertising. How do user-generated or citizen journalist sites attract advertisers, especially if trust and credibility may be lacking in many of these sites?
Al Gore's Current, which is a television show that's predicted to have 50% of its content produced by viewers in the future, has some advertisers unnerved because the audience-generated content lacks credibility.
I'm sure it's still early for such democratic, bottoms-up endeavors. And, I don't doubt that in five years or a decade newspapers and TV news will be redefined and will have incorporated such audience participation features.
As Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster at the Institute for the Future, once said: "In a In a two-year period, less happens than we would have thought and in a 10-year period, more happens than we could ever imagined."
So, for now, traditional media isn't dead. But it definitely is becoming less relevant. (full post)
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At the end of last year Dan Gillmor left his citizen journalism startup, Bayosphere, to start a nonprofit housed at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.
He also wrote a very reflective, open and insightful post explaining why he left Bayosphere a couple weeks ago. A few of his words:
A more personal lesson also emerged: As an entrepreneur, let's just say I wasn't in my element. The relentless focus on a single, limited project for long periods of time, combined with the inevitable compromises inherent in for-profit decision-making, turned out not to be my best skills. For almost 25 years I'd thrived on the constant deadlines and competition of journalism. So I assumed I'd easily handle the pressures of trying to create a business from scratch while also keeping my reporting and writing skills intact and helping other people join in. In reality, I was unprepared for what proved to be an entirely different kind of pressure, and didn't handle it nearly as well as I'd expected. I allowed myself to get distracted, moreover, by matters that were not directly relevant to the project.
During the summer, Michael and I realized that it was unlikely that we would land a key distribution deal in the immediate future, and without that we weren't finding the kind of business model for Bayosphere that justified raising more money beyond the seed financing. We had business ideas that might well have been funded, but they were not first and foremost aimed at boosting the citizen-journalism field, which was and remains my overriding goal. In September, we stopped spending our investors' money, and sustained Bayosphere ourselves on a relatively bare-bones budget from our own funds, putting in our own time.
We've never lost sight of this, however: A more democratized media is crucial our common future -- grassroots ideas, energy and talent. I believe this more than ever, as do Mitch Kapor and the folks at the Omidyar Network, who provided seed funding for the project. Their work is changing the world for the better, and I admire them.
MarketWatch's Bambi Francisco has some more words on citizen journalism:
Or, how does one rely on the audience to stay engaged in either watching and or participating in creating content? A site for the people by the people sounds great in theory. But it seems that individuals drawn to such "by-the-people" reporting aren't necessarily good in supporting roles or teamwork.
Consider Dan Gillmor, a writer at the San Jose Mercury News who left that job to start a grassroots news organization written by citizen journalists. He recently wrote about how his efforts failed. He said that "fewer citizens participated, they were less interested in collaboration with one another, and the response to our initiatives was underwhelming."
He's just one example of course.
Yet even the larger, populist news sites such as Pajamasmedia.com, Backfence.com, and Buzzmachine.com, aren't getting much traction. Backfence.com says it's local news written by you and your neighbors while Pajamasmedia is news written by anyone any time -- especially when they're in their pajamas. They received fewer than 360,000 unique visitors each in December, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
The other question is advertising. How do user-generated or citizen journalist sites attract advertisers, especially if trust and credibility may be lacking in many of these sites?
Al Gore's Current, which is a television show that's predicted to have 50% of its content produced by viewers in the future, has some advertisers unnerved because the audience-generated content lacks credibility.
I'm sure it's still early for such democratic, bottoms-up endeavors. And, I don't doubt that in five years or a decade newspapers and TV news will be redefined and will have incorporated such audience participation features.
As Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster at the Institute for the Future, once said: "In a In a two-year period, less happens than we would have thought and in a 10-year period, more happens than we could ever imagined."
So, for now, traditional media isn't dead. But it definitely is becoming less relevant. (full post)
DEMO 2006... CHECKING OUT THE HOT NEW TECH COMPANIES
Chris Shipley's Demo has kicked off, and I sort of wish I was there. It seems more than half are already known and tested by many thanks to blogs such as TechCrunch, but it's always fun to encountered the unexpected. The one or two companies that either make you say, "Wow," or loudly proclaim, "That's cool... very cool!"
TechCrunch has a review of some companies here, and so does Conferenza here.
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Chris Shipley's Demo has kicked off, and I sort of wish I was there. It seems more than half are already known and tested by many thanks to blogs such as TechCrunch, but it's always fun to encountered the unexpected. The one or two companies that either make you say, "Wow," or loudly proclaim, "That's cool... very cool!"
TechCrunch has a review of some companies here, and so does Conferenza here.
Monday, February 06, 2006
STEELERS WIN, WARD MVP, AND IFILM'S COMMERICIAL SHOWCASE
I wasn't rooting for the Steelers or Seahawks but just a good game. It turned out to be a decent game with some great plays, but I wish the refs wouldn't have made a couple big mistakes to become a focal point after the Super Bowl.
Anyway, the commercials this year were a lot better than the past couple years. iFilm has an Ads Showcase where you can checkout your favorites or see the ones that you missed. I think the server is getting pummeled because I couldn't access any of them this morning, so I'll have to try it again later today.
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I wasn't rooting for the Steelers or Seahawks but just a good game. It turned out to be a decent game with some great plays, but I wish the refs wouldn't have made a couple big mistakes to become a focal point after the Super Bowl.
Anyway, the commercials this year were a lot better than the past couple years. iFilm has an Ads Showcase where you can checkout your favorites or see the ones that you missed. I think the server is getting pummeled because I couldn't access any of them this morning, so I'll have to try it again later today.
"PUTTING ITUNES INTO PERSPECTIVE"
A reality check for iTunes from Eric Garland via Business 2.0's Erick Schonfeld:
Number of songs sold on iTunes in the past three years: 850 million.
Number of songs traded on P2P file-sharing networks during the same time: 90 billion
850 million iTunes songs/ 42 million iPods = 20 songs/ iPod.
Over three years that comes to people spending an average of $7 a year on music at the iTunes store.
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A reality check for iTunes from Eric Garland via Business 2.0's Erick Schonfeld:
Number of songs sold on iTunes in the past three years: 850 million.
Number of songs traded on P2P file-sharing networks during the same time: 90 billion
850 million iTunes songs/ 42 million iPods = 20 songs/ iPod.
Over three years that comes to people spending an average of $7 a year on music at the iTunes store.
GOOGLE AND SKYPE JOIN $21.7 MILLION ROUND INTO FON... CREATING A WIFI PLANET
This news on FON's investment round is interesting on a few points. First, it's the first time I've seen Google invest in a company versus acquiring. Maybe there is a change in the approach of Google's corporate development team? Second, Skype's investment makes sense and I'm assuming this move shows some level of autonomy from eBay. Lastly, they have rounded up a strong board and group of advisors: Niklas Zennstrom, Janus Friis, Danny Rimer, Mike Volpi, Joichi Ito, David Weinberger, Esther Dyson, Dan Gillmor, and a bunch of others I don't know.
FON, a company focused on creating a global network of shared WiFi connections, today announced that it has secured euro 18 million (USD$21.7M) in Series A funding from Index Ventures, Google, Sequoia Capital and Skype. Index Ventures led the round. The company also announced that Danny Rimer (Index Ventures), Mike Volpi (Cisco) Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis (Skype) joined the board. Existing board members include Martin Varsavsky, FON CEO, and Antonio Fuentes, FON CFO. This announcement illustrates the willingness of leading technology companies and venture capital firms to jointly invest in the development of a global WiFi infrastructure. (full press release)
Other clips...
"Google, Skype in Startup to Link Hotspots" (AP wire)
"Google, Skype Fund FON" (Om's comments)
"Skype invests in FON to increase Wi-Fi availability" (From Skype's blog where Niklas and Janus explain their investment)
UPDATE: More from MobileCrunch who wonders why here.
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This news on FON's investment round is interesting on a few points. First, it's the first time I've seen Google invest in a company versus acquiring. Maybe there is a change in the approach of Google's corporate development team? Second, Skype's investment makes sense and I'm assuming this move shows some level of autonomy from eBay. Lastly, they have rounded up a strong board and group of advisors: Niklas Zennstrom, Janus Friis, Danny Rimer, Mike Volpi, Joichi Ito, David Weinberger, Esther Dyson, Dan Gillmor, and a bunch of others I don't know.
FON, a company focused on creating a global network of shared WiFi connections, today announced that it has secured euro 18 million (USD$21.7M) in Series A funding from Index Ventures, Google, Sequoia Capital and Skype. Index Ventures led the round. The company also announced that Danny Rimer (Index Ventures), Mike Volpi (Cisco) Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis (Skype) joined the board. Existing board members include Martin Varsavsky, FON CEO, and Antonio Fuentes, FON CFO. This announcement illustrates the willingness of leading technology companies and venture capital firms to jointly invest in the development of a global WiFi infrastructure. (full press release)
Other clips...
"Google, Skype in Startup to Link Hotspots" (AP wire)
"Google, Skype Fund FON" (Om's comments)
"Skype invests in FON to increase Wi-Fi availability" (From Skype's blog where Niklas and Janus explain their investment)
UPDATE: More from MobileCrunch who wonders why here.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
GROUP BRAINSTORMING DOESN'T WORK? REALLY? I BELIEVE IT DOES
Once in a while I check out Ben Casnocha's blog. He's a high school student and entrepreneur that started a couple companies. The most recent one is Comcate, a CRM provider for local governments. Very cool and amazing that he's started at such a young age. I met him a few months back at an event through my colleague, Valerie, who jokes around that he's her boyfriend (she's married). Ben is mature for his age and seems grounded.
Anyway, he had an interesting post, "Group Brainstorming Doesn't Work; Be Creative on Your Own," and a link to a post and research study at The British Psychological Society's blog titled, "Why do we still believe in group brainstorming?"
Time and again research has shown that people think of more new ideas on their own than they do in a group. The false belief that people are more creative in groups has been dubbed by psychologists the "illusion of group of productivity."
While there may be some truth in the statement above, my past experiences tell me that brainstorming is an effective tool but most effective in a controlled environment. I'm guessing these various studies that found group brainstorming to be less effective were set up by psychologists that never really used brainstorming as a tool nor know the difference between 5 random people versus 5 focused technology entrepreneurs :) Of course if you pick from a random sample set you'll encounter all types of variables that will decrease the effectiveness of brainstorming... freerider problem or completely useless group members, lack of trust and comfort, motivation issues, etc.
Here are my comments on Ben's Blog for you lazy people :)
I believe the study is flawed. They were asking a sample set of students to perform a task most of them weren't capable or trained to effectively tackle. It's like asking a high school football team to run the Colt's offense within a week, and expect great execution for their Friday night game.
Brainstorming is a tool, so it depends on the structure (i.e. who's moderating), chemistry (i.e. strength of team, comfort level within the group), individuals involved, and probably a few other factors I'm missing.
If each person is committed to the process to effectively brainstorm for 20-30 minutes on a topic (I believe periods of 30 minutes or longer have proven to show decline in creative output), results can be productive.
There are studies and even simulation games that have proven groups consistently outthink and perform an individual's effort.
I agree with some of the previous comments that one good method is to individually brainstorm and then come together in a group. Jumping off other people's ideas to create a whole new idea is what I typically experience.
The brainstorming process to generate ideas is like the editing process for me. It's a tool that I use to either generate new ideas and get out of a deadend, or just to refine my existing idea. Also I prefer to work with certain editors that I click well with, and there are a handful of people I would brainstorm with if given the choice.
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Once in a while I check out Ben Casnocha's blog. He's a high school student and entrepreneur that started a couple companies. The most recent one is Comcate, a CRM provider for local governments. Very cool and amazing that he's started at such a young age. I met him a few months back at an event through my colleague, Valerie, who jokes around that he's her boyfriend (she's married). Ben is mature for his age and seems grounded.
Anyway, he had an interesting post, "Group Brainstorming Doesn't Work; Be Creative on Your Own," and a link to a post and research study at The British Psychological Society's blog titled, "Why do we still believe in group brainstorming?"
Time and again research has shown that people think of more new ideas on their own than they do in a group. The false belief that people are more creative in groups has been dubbed by psychologists the "illusion of group of productivity."
While there may be some truth in the statement above, my past experiences tell me that brainstorming is an effective tool but most effective in a controlled environment. I'm guessing these various studies that found group brainstorming to be less effective were set up by psychologists that never really used brainstorming as a tool nor know the difference between 5 random people versus 5 focused technology entrepreneurs :) Of course if you pick from a random sample set you'll encounter all types of variables that will decrease the effectiveness of brainstorming... freerider problem or completely useless group members, lack of trust and comfort, motivation issues, etc.
Here are my comments on Ben's Blog for you lazy people :)
I believe the study is flawed. They were asking a sample set of students to perform a task most of them weren't capable or trained to effectively tackle. It's like asking a high school football team to run the Colt's offense within a week, and expect great execution for their Friday night game.
Brainstorming is a tool, so it depends on the structure (i.e. who's moderating), chemistry (i.e. strength of team, comfort level within the group), individuals involved, and probably a few other factors I'm missing.
If each person is committed to the process to effectively brainstorm for 20-30 minutes on a topic (I believe periods of 30 minutes or longer have proven to show decline in creative output), results can be productive.
There are studies and even simulation games that have proven groups consistently outthink and perform an individual's effort.
I agree with some of the previous comments that one good method is to individually brainstorm and then come together in a group. Jumping off other people's ideas to create a whole new idea is what I typically experience.
The brainstorming process to generate ideas is like the editing process for me. It's a tool that I use to either generate new ideas and get out of a deadend, or just to refine my existing idea. Also I prefer to work with certain editors that I click well with, and there are a handful of people I would brainstorm with if given the choice.
Friday, February 03, 2006
HINES WARD... GREAT SON, GREAT STORY
HatTip to Mingi. Even if you don't follow the Steelers, and you're an NFL fan you probably know about Hines Ward and his devotion and love for his mother. The half-Black, half-Korean wide receiver is just a class act and this is a great story.
Ward to honor devoted mother with trip home to South Korea
Hines Ward is taking the trip of an NFL player's lifetime to the Super Bowl. It's the visit he's wanted to make since first playing youth football in Atlanta and, because of two AFC championship game losses, one he feared he might never achieve.
As much as reaching Detroit means to the Pittsburgh Steelers' four-time Pro Bowl receiver, the journey he takes in April will be equally significant for a much different reason.
For the first time in his adult life, Ward is traveling back to South Korea. One of the few Asian-heritage stars in NFL history, he's planning a two-week vacation there accompanied by the mother, Kim Young-hee, who came to America in the 1970s to be with her GI husband.
To the 29-year-old Ward, traveling to a country where the NFL is barely known represents much more than a chance to do some sightseeing, to be introduced to a culture he has been told about but has never seen in person.
This is about saying thanks to a mother who didn't know English when she moved to the United States, but knew of things far more important: the value of trust, honesty, hard work, loyalty.
And, most of all, of love.
"My mom is why I'm here today," Ward said Monday, shortly after the Steelers arrived in Detroit. "My mom worked her tail off for me. She taught me how important it is to work hard. I'm not here if it's not for my mom." (full article)
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HatTip to Mingi. Even if you don't follow the Steelers, and you're an NFL fan you probably know about Hines Ward and his devotion and love for his mother. The half-Black, half-Korean wide receiver is just a class act and this is a great story.
Ward to honor devoted mother with trip home to South Korea
Hines Ward is taking the trip of an NFL player's lifetime to the Super Bowl. It's the visit he's wanted to make since first playing youth football in Atlanta and, because of two AFC championship game losses, one he feared he might never achieve.
As much as reaching Detroit means to the Pittsburgh Steelers' four-time Pro Bowl receiver, the journey he takes in April will be equally significant for a much different reason.
For the first time in his adult life, Ward is traveling back to South Korea. One of the few Asian-heritage stars in NFL history, he's planning a two-week vacation there accompanied by the mother, Kim Young-hee, who came to America in the 1970s to be with her GI husband.
To the 29-year-old Ward, traveling to a country where the NFL is barely known represents much more than a chance to do some sightseeing, to be introduced to a culture he has been told about but has never seen in person.
This is about saying thanks to a mother who didn't know English when she moved to the United States, but knew of things far more important: the value of trust, honesty, hard work, loyalty.
And, most of all, of love.
"My mom is why I'm here today," Ward said Monday, shortly after the Steelers arrived in Detroit. "My mom worked her tail off for me. She taught me how important it is to work hard. I'm not here if it's not for my mom." (full article)
Thursday, February 02, 2006
TIPS FOR RAISING CAPITAL
A couple good articles for entrepreneurs looking to raise capital from The Wall Street Journal's Aja Carmichael.
"Searching for an Angel In the Money Game"
"VCs' Tips for Winning The Support of Investors"
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A couple good articles for entrepreneurs looking to raise capital from The Wall Street Journal's Aja Carmichael.
"Searching for an Angel In the Money Game"
"VCs' Tips for Winning The Support of Investors"
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
WHY IS GOOGLE GETTING WHIPPED IN SOUTH KOREA BY NHN?
Korea's Leading Search Engine and the Global Leader in Online Casual Games
I've been meaning to write about the online casual gaming space along with NHN's coming entry into the U.S. market ever since I read a post at alarm:clock about PlayFirst's $5 million round a few weeks back. Of course, I'm swamped with our product launch and typically write or link to whatever is in front of me, so things get easily pushed back.
Anyway, Mingi sent me an article in this week's BusinessWeek about NHN, so it served as a catalyst for me to try to blog about NHN again. First, here's the article:
NHN: The Little Search Engine That Could
Korea's NHN thumps Google at home, and it's teaching the big dogs a new trick
Quick. What's the hottest Internet search company on earth? If you answered Google, you'd be wrong by at least one metric. While the Silicon Valley sensation doubtless had a great year in 2005, shares of a Korean rival -- NHN Corp. -- have done far better. Google Inc.'s (GOOG ) stock climbed an impressive 103% in 2005, to nearly $415, but that paled beside NHN's 218% gain to $267.
.....
But in its home market, NHN's Naver.com search engine trounced Google's offering. Google's 4-year-old Korean-language search service accounts for less than 2% of search page views and search-related ad revenues in Korea. Under CEO Kim Beom Su's adroit direction, NHN sold about $228 million in online ads last year, nearly 40% of the country's total. "In the vibrant and volatile Korean Internet sector, NHN is clearly the star," says Jay Park, an analyst at Samsung Securities in Seoul. "NHN's user-friendly approach outshined its rivals." Google declined to comment for this story.
.....
"Google has a superb search engine," says Choi Jae Hyeon, NHN's search chief. "We have, however, built up knowhow and a database by extracting knowledge from users' brains."
GODS AND MORTALS
What he's talking about is a three-year-old initiative called "Knowledge-In." The program lets users ask and answer questions on anything from recipes for kimchi to the composition of rocket fuel. Readers judge the responses, and the millions of folks who have answered questions are ranked as "ordinary," "knowledgeable," "highly knowledgeable," "supernatural," or -- for 22 truly prolific answerers -- "gods." "Naver is great because you get all sorts of detailed information in very specific questions and answers," says Song Han Sil, a 25-year-old pianist in Seoul. "Many of my friends don't even know that Google offers Korean-language service." The database now has some 37 million questions and answers that can get returned with search results. The idea is so popular among Koreans that most other search engines in the country, including Yahoo! Korea (YHOO ), now offer their own versions of Knowledge-In services. (full article)
I've posted about NHN Corp before, but in bits and pieces so I'll give you some more information. I know NHN through my friend who has work their since its early days and because they were my client when I was at iRG, a boutique investment bank.
NHN is an interesting story because it was the marriage of two hot Internet properties in Korea back in 2001. One was Naver.com, a leading portal and search technology company, and the other was Hangame, the leading online casual gaming company in the world. Hangame was just starting its paid services and generating some incredible revenue numbers (i.e. $30,000/day from average user payments of 50cents) when Naver.com came in with a merger offer. The two decided to merge with Naver.com in the driver's seat since it was an already a mature Internet company and the expectation that Hangame was still developing. Within the first year of their merger, Hangame exploded and revenue from this side exceeded Naver.com. Over the past couple years, the revenues have been generally split since Naver.com's search technology group has been leading the charge.
As with many innovations in Korea, I believe the ubiquity of broadband and wireless was a catalyst. While recent startups, such as Wink and RawSugar, try to build community-based search services, as described in the BusinessWeek article NHN has been doing this for over three years and built it to such an incredible degree that Google can barely penetrate the fifth largest online advertising market in the world.
What the article misses is that Google was late in establishing any real operations in South Korea for years. While I lived in Korea, some friends and I would discuss once in a while how Google was missing an opportunity to capture the Korea market. If they invested beyond a couple sales people a few years back, this might be a different story.
Another important factor to note in NHN's search success was that the rapid growth and continuous activity of its "Knowledge-In" service was partially fuel by the integration of its casual gaming property, Hangame. One incentive for Naver.com users to build up its community search database was giving "Hancoins" as rewards. This is the currency that people can use to play various online casual games, such as Battle Tetris, poker, and virtual pool. Brilliant move by NHN.
Since I'm a former video gaming addict born from Atari's 2600 through the first Nintendo system and beyond, I had a bit of snobbery towards the Korean gaming market since I thought a vast majority of their games were poorly designed with horrible graphics, such as NCSoft's Lineage. Hangame was an exception. The quality of their graphics, design and gameplay was beyond any U.S. counterpart from 2001 to today, so it will be interesting to see how well NHN's online gaming effort does in the U.S. as they set to launch sometime this year.
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Korea's Leading Search Engine and the Global Leader in Online Casual Games
I've been meaning to write about the online casual gaming space along with NHN's coming entry into the U.S. market ever since I read a post at alarm:clock about PlayFirst's $5 million round a few weeks back. Of course, I'm swamped with our product launch and typically write or link to whatever is in front of me, so things get easily pushed back.
Anyway, Mingi sent me an article in this week's BusinessWeek about NHN, so it served as a catalyst for me to try to blog about NHN again. First, here's the article:
NHN: The Little Search Engine That Could
Korea's NHN thumps Google at home, and it's teaching the big dogs a new trick
Quick. What's the hottest Internet search company on earth? If you answered Google, you'd be wrong by at least one metric. While the Silicon Valley sensation doubtless had a great year in 2005, shares of a Korean rival -- NHN Corp. -- have done far better. Google Inc.'s (GOOG ) stock climbed an impressive 103% in 2005, to nearly $415, but that paled beside NHN's 218% gain to $267.
.....
But in its home market, NHN's Naver.com search engine trounced Google's offering. Google's 4-year-old Korean-language search service accounts for less than 2% of search page views and search-related ad revenues in Korea. Under CEO Kim Beom Su's adroit direction, NHN sold about $228 million in online ads last year, nearly 40% of the country's total. "In the vibrant and volatile Korean Internet sector, NHN is clearly the star," says Jay Park, an analyst at Samsung Securities in Seoul. "NHN's user-friendly approach outshined its rivals." Google declined to comment for this story.
.....
"Google has a superb search engine," says Choi Jae Hyeon, NHN's search chief. "We have, however, built up knowhow and a database by extracting knowledge from users' brains."
GODS AND MORTALS
What he's talking about is a three-year-old initiative called "Knowledge-In." The program lets users ask and answer questions on anything from recipes for kimchi to the composition of rocket fuel. Readers judge the responses, and the millions of folks who have answered questions are ranked as "ordinary," "knowledgeable," "highly knowledgeable," "supernatural," or -- for 22 truly prolific answerers -- "gods." "Naver is great because you get all sorts of detailed information in very specific questions and answers," says Song Han Sil, a 25-year-old pianist in Seoul. "Many of my friends don't even know that Google offers Korean-language service." The database now has some 37 million questions and answers that can get returned with search results. The idea is so popular among Koreans that most other search engines in the country, including Yahoo! Korea (YHOO ), now offer their own versions of Knowledge-In services. (full article)
I've posted about NHN Corp before, but in bits and pieces so I'll give you some more information. I know NHN through my friend who has work their since its early days and because they were my client when I was at iRG, a boutique investment bank.
NHN is an interesting story because it was the marriage of two hot Internet properties in Korea back in 2001. One was Naver.com, a leading portal and search technology company, and the other was Hangame, the leading online casual gaming company in the world. Hangame was just starting its paid services and generating some incredible revenue numbers (i.e. $30,000/day from average user payments of 50cents) when Naver.com came in with a merger offer. The two decided to merge with Naver.com in the driver's seat since it was an already a mature Internet company and the expectation that Hangame was still developing. Within the first year of their merger, Hangame exploded and revenue from this side exceeded Naver.com. Over the past couple years, the revenues have been generally split since Naver.com's search technology group has been leading the charge.
As with many innovations in Korea, I believe the ubiquity of broadband and wireless was a catalyst. While recent startups, such as Wink and RawSugar, try to build community-based search services, as described in the BusinessWeek article NHN has been doing this for over three years and built it to such an incredible degree that Google can barely penetrate the fifth largest online advertising market in the world.
What the article misses is that Google was late in establishing any real operations in South Korea for years. While I lived in Korea, some friends and I would discuss once in a while how Google was missing an opportunity to capture the Korea market. If they invested beyond a couple sales people a few years back, this might be a different story.
Another important factor to note in NHN's search success was that the rapid growth and continuous activity of its "Knowledge-In" service was partially fuel by the integration of its casual gaming property, Hangame. One incentive for Naver.com users to build up its community search database was giving "Hancoins" as rewards. This is the currency that people can use to play various online casual games, such as Battle Tetris, poker, and virtual pool. Brilliant move by NHN.
Since I'm a former video gaming addict born from Atari's 2600 through the first Nintendo system and beyond, I had a bit of snobbery towards the Korean gaming market since I thought a vast majority of their games were poorly designed with horrible graphics, such as NCSoft's Lineage. Hangame was an exception. The quality of their graphics, design and gameplay was beyond any U.S. counterpart from 2001 to today, so it will be interesting to see how well NHN's online gaming effort does in the U.S. as they set to launch sometime this year.
"YAHOO IS 'INTELLIGENT DESIGN'; GOOGLE IS 'BLIND EVOLUTION'"
Great clip of an interview with Esther Dyson from PaidContent.org:
@ SIIA Info Industry Summit
Safe to say Esther Dyson spoke some truth to power about users and control, telling attendees that not all user contributions are equal and not all users deserve equal consideration. She said too many companies are rushing in, not realizing how difficult building and operating community can be. She added, "The best check on bad behavior is identity." Meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, he told her: "The most important thing we do is set the rules."
-- On a different front, asked by interviewer David Kirkpatrick to identify the most interesting platform, she responded: "The most interesting platform isn't the internet; it's the cellphone." Kirkpatrick followed by asking if that was the same thing as saying the internet on a cellphone? Dyson: "The intertnet connects all this stuff. The internet is kind of the metaplatform but beyond that the cellphone is probably going to the mediating devuice in many markets." Rich media needs aren't likely to be served as well on a cell phone but real-time information is another story.
-- Asked about Google, Dyson said Yahoo gets "short shrift" and desrerves to be mentioned with Google. (She owns some friend-and-family shares in Google but has invested in two companies -- flickr and del-icio.us -- sold to Yahoo.) Her take: Yahoo is "intelligent design"; Google is "blind evolution." I had this backwards at first; thanks John and Jane for setting me straight.
I finally had time to listen to the audio so here's a more detailed version: "Google is blind evolution. They have this ... users-in-charge, bubble-up philosophy. Their employees can come up with ideas. There's this kind of Darwinian internal selection process. ? They have a very clear vision; they're not quite north to the North Pole. They're going west, they're going forward but they're blind evolution; they don't really see where they're going. Neither do we.
Yahoo, on the other hand, is intelligent design. They have the vision of what they're trying to build ? . Two very, very different models. The other thing that's really different is Google sees communication as a medium for the distribution of information. ? Whereas Yahoo, they see information as a medium of communication among people. They get people. They get communities and individuals in a way that Google really doesn't. Google is blindingly clever. ? You have very, very different models of the world. I like them both, and think they will both persist." (audio download)
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Great clip of an interview with Esther Dyson from PaidContent.org:
@ SIIA Info Industry Summit
Safe to say Esther Dyson spoke some truth to power about users and control, telling attendees that not all user contributions are equal and not all users deserve equal consideration. She said too many companies are rushing in, not realizing how difficult building and operating community can be. She added, "The best check on bad behavior is identity." Meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, he told her: "The most important thing we do is set the rules."
-- On a different front, asked by interviewer David Kirkpatrick to identify the most interesting platform, she responded: "The most interesting platform isn't the internet; it's the cellphone." Kirkpatrick followed by asking if that was the same thing as saying the internet on a cellphone? Dyson: "The intertnet connects all this stuff. The internet is kind of the metaplatform but beyond that the cellphone is probably going to the mediating devuice in many markets." Rich media needs aren't likely to be served as well on a cell phone but real-time information is another story.
-- Asked about Google, Dyson said Yahoo gets "short shrift" and desrerves to be mentioned with Google. (She owns some friend-and-family shares in Google but has invested in two companies -- flickr and del-icio.us -- sold to Yahoo.) Her take: Yahoo is "intelligent design"; Google is "blind evolution." I had this backwards at first; thanks John and Jane for setting me straight.
I finally had time to listen to the audio so here's a more detailed version: "Google is blind evolution. They have this ... users-in-charge, bubble-up philosophy. Their employees can come up with ideas. There's this kind of Darwinian internal selection process. ? They have a very clear vision; they're not quite north to the North Pole. They're going west, they're going forward but they're blind evolution; they don't really see where they're going. Neither do we.
Yahoo, on the other hand, is intelligent design. They have the vision of what they're trying to build ? . Two very, very different models. The other thing that's really different is Google sees communication as a medium for the distribution of information. ? Whereas Yahoo, they see information as a medium of communication among people. They get people. They get communities and individuals in a way that Google really doesn't. Google is blindingly clever. ? You have very, very different models of the world. I like them both, and think they will both persist." (audio download)
GOOGLE SELLING OUT... THE TEMPTATION OF CHINA
I sort of ignored the issue of Google's recent compromise to stay in the China market and choosing the lesser of two evils. Eric Schmidt stated, "We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil." What can you do especially if you are a public company? Even if you were private but as significant as Google can you pull out of China? It would be incredible to one day see a CEO with the chutzpah to keep their principles in ALL situations (don't you love words in other languages? sometimes you can't full express or describe things in english, and other languages capture some meanings so much better).
Andy Kessler has an interesting post, "WSJ: Sellout.com," on this recent situation.
Pajamas Media has a great blog called China Syndrome that lists various posts and news on this topic.
Over at TCS Daily (formerly TechCentralStation), James V. DeLong takes the other side, "Google Is Right on China"
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I sort of ignored the issue of Google's recent compromise to stay in the China market and choosing the lesser of two evils. Eric Schmidt stated, "We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil." What can you do especially if you are a public company? Even if you were private but as significant as Google can you pull out of China? It would be incredible to one day see a CEO with the chutzpah to keep their principles in ALL situations (don't you love words in other languages? sometimes you can't full express or describe things in english, and other languages capture some meanings so much better).
Andy Kessler has an interesting post, "WSJ: Sellout.com," on this recent situation.
Pajamas Media has a great blog called China Syndrome that lists various posts and news on this topic.
Over at TCS Daily (formerly TechCentralStation), James V. DeLong takes the other side, "Google Is Right on China"
STATE OF THE UNION WRAPUP
PoliPundit.com has a good summary and a bunch of links here. Instapundit's review:
Better than I expected, though that's a function of my low expectations. State of the Union speeches are generally weak, and Bush is no star as a speaker. But the delivery was, for Bush, good, and the substance was mostly good, too, though the cloning-ban stuff didn't thrill me. The Presidential Commission on entitlement reform was also very lame, though realistically it's probably all he can do.
.....
In the Democratic response, Tim Kaine's (rather repetitive) refrain is "there's a better way," which sounds like he's trying out a campaign slogan. He keeps citing state initiatives as examples. That doesn't reflect well on the national Democratic party, but it sets things up well for a 2008 presidential run by a Democratic governor. Hmm. Who could he have in mind? . . .
His brief Iraq discussion, however, notably lacked any specifics about the "better way" there, and quickly shifted to a discussion of veterans' benefits. That's been the problem that the Democrats have had on this subject all along. They can criticize, but if there's not an entitlement program, they can't get motivated. (full post)
Power Line's post "Another Good Speech":
The Democrats tried to distract from the substance of President Bush's speech by planting Cindy Sheehan in the House chamber tonight--she was reportedly the guest of a Democrat Congresswoman--but Justice Samuel Alito's presence in the chamber was much more significant. Plus, he lasted longer, as Sheehan was hauled out of the chamber when she tried to unfurl a banner. She is clinging tenaciously to her fifteen minutes.
On to the speech: The first question is whether anyone is watching. I hope I'm wrong, but my guess is that ratings are low tonight, and that most viewers are Republicans. (full post)
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PoliPundit.com has a good summary and a bunch of links here. Instapundit's review:
Better than I expected, though that's a function of my low expectations. State of the Union speeches are generally weak, and Bush is no star as a speaker. But the delivery was, for Bush, good, and the substance was mostly good, too, though the cloning-ban stuff didn't thrill me. The Presidential Commission on entitlement reform was also very lame, though realistically it's probably all he can do.
.....
In the Democratic response, Tim Kaine's (rather repetitive) refrain is "there's a better way," which sounds like he's trying out a campaign slogan. He keeps citing state initiatives as examples. That doesn't reflect well on the national Democratic party, but it sets things up well for a 2008 presidential run by a Democratic governor. Hmm. Who could he have in mind? . . .
His brief Iraq discussion, however, notably lacked any specifics about the "better way" there, and quickly shifted to a discussion of veterans' benefits. That's been the problem that the Democrats have had on this subject all along. They can criticize, but if there's not an entitlement program, they can't get motivated. (full post)
Power Line's post "Another Good Speech":
The Democrats tried to distract from the substance of President Bush's speech by planting Cindy Sheehan in the House chamber tonight--she was reportedly the guest of a Democrat Congresswoman--but Justice Samuel Alito's presence in the chamber was much more significant. Plus, he lasted longer, as Sheehan was hauled out of the chamber when she tried to unfurl a banner. She is clinging tenaciously to her fifteen minutes.
On to the speech: The first question is whether anyone is watching. I hope I'm wrong, but my guess is that ratings are low tonight, and that most viewers are Republicans. (full post)
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Place of Birth: Seoul, Korea
Hometown: Northbrook, IL USA
Lived in: Seoul, Chicago (Villa Park & Northbrook), Madison, WI, Springfield, IL, St. Louis, New York City, Chicago (Glenview), Seoul, San Francisco
Also blogs at: AlwaysOn, Coro Blog, SportsBlog
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Max Yow
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Sports: combative sports, sports you play with a ball, sports with no swimming, sports you can play while drinking and smoking (pool, darts, bowling, video games).
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forget the long tail!
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"You cannot go on explaining away things over forever or you will find that you have explained even explanation itself away. You cannot go on seeing through things forever because the whole point of seeing through something is to see something else through it." - C.S Lewis
December 11, 2005
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December 4, 2005
"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individual. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful." - Marie Curie
November 27, 2005
"One cannot step into the same river twice." - Heratidus
November 20, 2005
"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference and undernourishment." - Robert Maynard Hutchins
November 13, 2005
"We are moving away from the old idea of leadership -- leadership has less to do (now) with heroism. We don’t look for... unblemished omnipotent heroes, but leaders who are complex, dependent, changeable... We do not need one dominant authority structure telling all our inner voices to shut up..." - Walter Truett Anderson
November 6, 2005
"To know oneself is to know one’s [country]. It is also... paradoxically a form of exile from that world... to know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility, and that virtue is not conspicuous in any national character." - Flannery O’Connor
October 30, 2005
"Men content themselves with the same words as other people use, as if the very sound necessarily carried the same meaning." - John Locke
October 23, 2005
"In order to thrive in a world of change and chaos, we will need to accept 'chaos' as an essential process by which natural systems, including organizations, renew and revitalize themselves." - Margaret Wheatley
October 16, 2004
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October 9, 2004
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October 2, 2004
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September 25, 2004
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September 18, 2004
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September 11, 2004
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September 4, 2004
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations." - George Bernard Shaw
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