F8 Keynote
Posted by James Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:55:00 GMT
I’m sitting here with Jeff and Linus listening to Mark Zukerberg’s keynote at F8. He’s giving an overview of the new profile. This iPhone is really useful :)
How to be worth $100 million...
Posted by Linus Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:07:00 GMT
Last week it was announced that Microsoft would be buying Powerset for $100 million dollars. Powerset, for those who have never heard of it, is a search engine that was dubbed the “Google Killer” since it would allow users to do semantic searches. Unfortunately they have been years delayed and when they finally did release, 3 months ago, it was restricted to only Wikipedia and was severely inaccurate. However that was months ago and a lot can change.
After the acquisition was announced I decided to put them to another test and see how good they were at finding the title to the latest Bond movie (named Quantum of Solace) .
Here are the results:
Google won this contest by getting the answer in the first link:
Yahoo placed second with the answer in the 2nd link:
Finally Powerset rounded the rear and the answer was in the 4th link:
It seems like Powerset still has some ways to go. However Microsoft’s own search engine Live.com got the answer as the 7th result.
The morale of the story? Even if you’re bad at what you do, as long as you’re better than Microsoft, you can still be worth $100 million.
Is PR really necessary?
Posted by Linus Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:42:00 GMT
So the other day I was talking to some friends and an interesting issue came up. Are PR firms really necessary for a startup’s growth? I for one have never used a PR firm nor have I ever had an inkling to find one. This got me interested however so I went around to do some research. I wanted to know what exactly these people do and why they are useful.
I found several sites but the best article I read was from a guest writer on TechCrunch:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/25/pr-secrets-for-startups/
The author does makes compelling arguments for why these people are needed… they know the PR “secrets”.
However, being a skeptical person, I still had my doubts. Like I said above, if they were so important, why have I not already sought one out?
After more reading, my doubts were bolstered by this response from Loic le Meur (serial entrepreneur and founder of Seesmic, which is located right below us)
http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/05/pr-secrets-bull.html
I absolutely love this rebuttal and his response really strikes a chord. Basically, a good product and strong community is greater than anything a PR firm could do. Loic, I couldn’t agree more and I am going to adopt your belief as one of my own tenants as well. This argument (at least in my mind) has come to rest.
Apple and Mr. Market
Posted by Jeff Tue, 06 May 2008 20:48:00 GMT
It was more than 50 years ago (1949) that Benjamin Graham published the Intelligent Investor.
I am happy to report that - as far as I can see, despite the invention of TVs, the Internet, and real-time trading, Human nature in the Market has not changed at all in 50 years and people are just as emotional and impulsive as they were in 1949. Oh - and Efficient Market Theory? - needless to say, I’m not a fan.
What Graham said: Imagine that “one of your partners, named Mr. Market, is very obliging indeed. Every day he tells you that he thinks your interest is worth and furthermore offers either to buy you out or to sell you an additional interest on that basis. Sometimes his idea of value appears plausible and justified by business developments and prospects as you know them. Often, on the other hand, Mr. Market lets his enthusiasm or his fears run away with him, and the value he proposes seems to you a little short of silly.” (Intelligent Investor p.204)
Irrational pricing of stocks? Let’s talk about Apple (Disclaimer: I own Apple). Near the end of last year, hype of the iPhone and iPod Nano launches led to an Apple ROCKET. We saw the stock go up from $122 (Aug 17, 2007) to $198 (Dec 31, 2007) in just 4 months. This was based on great sales combined with expectations that Apple will come up with a 3G iPhone and maybe snazzier Macs in MacWorld in January.
And then what happened? 1) NO 3G iPhone, and 2) the country is going to be in a recession is going to affect sales. Stock TANKs to $119 (Feb 22, 2008)
OK - so let’s take a look at these items a little closer. The issue of the ‘3G iPhone’ - it is clear to me that there is no doubt that Apple is going to come out with a second generation iPhone with 3G technology and probably GPS also. This will probably happen in June or December 08. Is Apple going to loose their competitive edge because they didn’t come out with it in ‘07? Have you played with the iPhone? That thing is an innovation freak of nature: I think it’s going to take companies at least 18 months to come up with a comparable product, the iPhone is just way ahead of its time. What about earnings? Sure, earnings will be lower than if Apple came out with the 3G iPhone, but that will only be temporary, until they get the 3G version made.
Now let’s take a look at talks of a recession. Last time I checked people who buy Apple products are well-off individuals who are buying electronic gadgets. My argument is that most people who are considering buying Apple products are not going to be impacted very much. Even if there is going to be some slipping of sales, a 40% reduction to stock price is still very much uncalled for.
I bought at 160 and kept buying as the stock tanked in January and February. Being a long term investor, I’m looking at at least a 2-3 year hold for Apple. They have the most innovative hardware personal electronics on the planet and arguably the most innovative operating system as well.
Who knows if there will be more growth to the stock price of Apple, but I’m certain that the company will continue to innovate in the decades to come.
Enjoy the Ride.
The NEW Web 2.1 - The Viral Web
Posted by Jeff Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:18:00 GMT
So what the heck is web 2.1??? First, the meaning of web 2.0 isn’t even clear, so how can you increment versioning on something that no one really knows the meaning of?
Well - here is a little history of the web that should qualitatively give you an understanding of what I see Web 2.0 is and what is now Web 2.1, which I will call The Viral Web.
The web as we know it today came a long way. First, you had Yahoo listing pages on one website like the yellowpages, then more data grew and Google started to make searching easier and more accurate. As for the content of webpages up to around 2000 were generally made by one person and then consumed by the masses. Examples of this are like personal home pages, online newspapers, and corporate websites.
Then the web started to evolve, things like Wikis (collaboration of many people for consumption by many people), YouTube (many people uploading videos to be viewed by even more people), and Facebook (many people customizing profile pages and uploading pictures to be consumed by even more people). In one sense, Web 2.0 involves giving users power to create content and using people’s social network to distribute information.
For a majority of websites, the discrimination is less clear - what do we make of websites such as eBay, where users put up items to be sold to other people. Even though eBay has been around for a while, it shares the characteristic of empowering users. There are many more examples in this area, and you can feel free to dub them whatever you want.
Recently, ‘Viral Marketing’ and ‘Viral’ growth have become the Fad of the Valley. Everyone wants their application, website, or plain old company to ‘Go Viral’. What is this really about?
Well this is really about harnessing the users ability to create content (such as in Web 2.0) in a different manner. In fact, the content that users create are actually messages sent to other users. For example, within the Facebook platform, we see this happening on many applications that attain millions of installations after just a few weeks! This is already happening outside of social network environments Ning has accomplished this by letting users create their own social networks.
The Viral Web involves startups taking the learnings from Social Networks and companies like Ning and applying the concepts broadly across other traditional internet companies. Having users participate in Viral Loops that the website uses is going to give the traditional internet companies a run for their money.
1) Essentially Nil marketing costs 2) Brand Names develop quickly 3) Further leveling the playing field between large and small companies (small companies can get big very quickly) 4) Lower overall cost structure of startups will make things cheaper in general for consumers (yay for us!)
The next few years are going to be quite exciting - get ready for the ride!