Bored of 2.0
I know I’ve been gone for a bit ... mostly cause I’m lazy and my dog ate my keyboard (honest!). So for the past 3 days, I’ve been surfing like mad, looking for an interesting topic / news / company to blog about to keep this blog from being a splog.
I found ...nada, zilch, nothing ...
There was some stuff about DRM, some more stuff about 10+ different social networking site getting more funding, more stuff about Google, some more stuff about enterprise 2.0, and oh ya, lots of bitching about Skype.
The only thing remotely interesting was a social networking site for exhibitionists (found it on TechCrunch, so don’t you get to thinking I was doing some sort of shady surfing) ... and that has nothing to do with the site being interesting ... it just had “interesting” pictures ... :)
Really though, this whole user generated content, community, and long-tail web 2.0 trend has gotten all the permutation it could have gotten for the past 2 years. (Digg for golfer, myspace for bankers, virtual world for LSD abusers etc etc).
I certainly believe that true that innovation never stops, and that we will never “run out” of new ideas ... interesting, ground breaking companies and concepts are being launched all the time ... even as I’m bored to death at this current moment. What I’m complaining about is that we (including me) tend to see the world in lenses ... and the current lens is so tainted with the “2.0 mindset” that we tend to filter out people/companies that does not fit in our neat little way of viewing the world.
I’m ashamed to say that if someone showed me Myspace in 2002 I would have told them that I already got tired of Friendster and GeoCities. (and that I refuse to visit any site where black background is still encouraged). Actually this is a true story, I bounced off the site in under 60 secs after signing up.
So I’m bored, and its all our fault ... wake me up when 3.0 happens.
P.S. I was bored before he was bored ... (and before he was un-bored).
eBay on Facebook
eBay just launched an application on Facebook called (unimaginatively) eBay Marketplace. As of now, there are only 250 people on the app so I’m guessing its only in beta. Otherwise just by encouraging the employees to get on, it would have a huge number of users.
There are a few cool features. For one, you can actually “push” an eBay item to your friends’ watch list. For another, you can solicit comments from Jasminlive friends on items you are looking to bid on. All very cool... I was surprised a third party app hasnt been launched to do exactly the same and make some money off eBay affiliate program (damn, another item crossed off my crazy idea to-do list).
Another thought is that Facebook has it’s own “marketplace” application which is somewhat competitive with this ebay app. Wonder what they will do. Speaking of conflict of interests, given that Rock You’s “super wall” has become such a big hit, it is inevitable that Facebook enhance the its own “wall” application to allow embeded codes... When that happens, I wonder if people are going to start screaming the usual “extend and embrace” MSFT-ish rants about Facebook stealing ideas from its api partners.
Not letting eBay off the hook either, why hasnt eBay’s own social networking app “My World” been given the same the same functionality? My World is a 2001 implementation of a social network ... ie more like friendster than myspace (win on personalization) or facebook (win on relevance).
I Have The Same Pagerank As Washington Post
My daily traffic all of sudden up up to over 2,000 uniques a day yesterday. This is ridiculous... 5-10x of what I usually get, especially since I blog at most once a week now... (yap, I’m getting a little bored of spouting my opinion on any random thing).
Of course this is due to the new PageRank update ... mostly to penalize companies that sell links or does reciprocal linking. My PageRank stayed the same, but a lot of top publishers got their pagerank demoted. For example, the Washington Post. Thus comparatively, I just got more “authoritative” overnight!
( I wonder what this is doing to glam.com ’s link scheme and if their investors are now a little worried )
Anyways, the point of this post is that by no mean am I more important than Washington Post ... and if Google’s PageRank starts diverging from the reality of the world (thinking that I am as important as Washington Post), its relevance will slowly but surely disappear as well. I applaud its efforts to fight search engine spam, but it seemed to me a little reactive, short sighted, not mentioning vindictive to go to this length - burning the forest just to punish off a few sick trees.
Its probably obvious now that Google believes it is the ultimate arbiter of relevance online AND offline ... and thus regardless of what I might think... overnight... Washington Post is (or is about to be) as important and relevant as little ole me.
The horror ...
Productizing Acquisition Channels
15 years ago when Microsoft, IBM, and the like ruled the earth, product management was mostly a “technical” function. Technical not in the sense of function (ie coding), but in the sense of its scope. Today, Product Managers have become the heart and soul of many technology companies ... extending its tentacles through out the entire organization, owning P/L’s, running strategy session, and generally holding court for the rest of the company. Ask any person at a technology company, if you have an idea or concept, who do you grab first? Your favorite PM, ideally with an offer of coffee or lunch!
Things have changed rather quickly. And it all started with Hotmail and eventually culminated with social networks (friendster -> myspace -> facebook).
So what happened? Back in the day (the days of pascal, assembly language, and C w/o the “+” ) software delivery and marketing was distinct disciplines. You talked to the Livejasmin customer, you asked them what they want, you build what they want, and you throw it over the wall to the marketing and the sales guy. Brochures and presentation are produced (sometimes even a prototype), and off goes the sales person knocking down doors trying to make a sale. For the shrink wrap guys (MSFT), it was a little different but still the same old. The marketing guy figure out the print and TV ads, while a partner/sales guy try to get your box on the shelves of ComputerLand and bundled with the latest PS/2 (no, not playstation 2).
The Internet came along and changed EVERYTHING. Instantaneous distribution, usage, installation, and ACQUISITION. Word of Mouth changed to the Spread of the HyperLink. The wall between acquisition (which used to be a pure marketing/sales) function and product definition / management crashed down... But no one quite noticed (too busy searching for porn? :) ) until Hotmail came along and BUILT ACQUISITION DIRECTLY into the product. Hotmail didnt need a sales guy, it didnt need ComputerLand, it didnt anything but a group of developers and a very smart Product Manager (who understood marketing, sales, and acquisitions).
Friendster came along and added fuel to the fire. It added Vanity & Peer Pressure into the “product as an acquisition channel” equation. Potential Hotmail users simply noticed the link and signed up. Potential Friendster users were FORCED to signed up by their friends. Back in the days of Jobs & Woz, they wold call it the transition from simple word of mouth to evangelism. Your existing customers were REQUIRED to advocate your company/solution as part of getting the most out of their own investment in the product.
The geeks who knew how to productize the acquisition channel, skipped the rest of the company and reached directly into the minds of the customer ... and became superstars for helping to build internet empires.
Today when I look at a new company or product idea, this is the first thing I looked for. Whether the company has productize (or the opportunity to productize) the customer acquisition channel. Whether the founders (or PM’s) understand the customer conversion funnel (from awareness to close), and built FUNCTIONALITIES to address each of the steps in order to drive potential customers towards usage, conversion, and retention. Its not always as simple as Hotmail or a social network; not all business models, fit so nicely into this framework. But all along the way, there are many many opportunities to use product features to shepherd potential customers towards an desired conversion event.
The shrink wrap machines are sitting pretty idle these days ...
Back to Regular Programming
I held off blogging for the month cause I wanted to show my solidarity with the hollywood writers union. ok not really ... Its mainly cause I have some reshuffling of priorities for the new years ... anyways more posts coming this week on this ... such as
when vertical search died and no one noticed
why pay by touch was/is destined to fail
how Revolution Money is promising but needs tweaking
and a personal update ...
anyways... I find that if I promise something upfront, it helps me get off my ass and do it ... so this is really just another way to get me back to my regular blogging schedule after being slammed at work for the past month ...
What Does MSN-hoo Live! Engine Mean to eBay
If Yahoo wants to fend off a 60% premium hostile offer, close to the ONLY thing it can do is to buy eBay inorder to make itself so big and the potential hostile merger so dilutive that Mr. Softie would say no thank. Chances of this happening is close to 1%.
If Yahoo + Microsoft does happen, eBay can kiss its chance of being acquired goodbye ... and thus, it better figure out a plan to turn itself around quickly or the stock price will tank cause there will be no potential acquisitions around to artificailly pump up the stock price. (why the hell did eBay go up 7%? today?). Outside of a merger/acquisition by Yahoo or a straight up acquisition by Microsoft, I really dont see anyone with a modicum of strategic fit with eBay. Google is way way too proud/smug to be interested in a web 1.0 business ... and even just looking at it financially I dont think there are many companies out big enough to buy ebay at a $30-$40B price tag. (adobe is the only one and thats really farfetched).
Another note. MSFT really saved the stock market today. Instead of crying recession wrt to the Google miss ... the market was pumped up by the acquisition offer ... and since most wall street models (quant and fundamental houses) use some sort of comparable valuation model, the jump in Yahoo really help keep the rest of NASDAQ afloat ... that said, this is a short term thing... great time to play short on the market starting monday.
Dirty Little Secrets of Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs
We’ve all heard about the “Half-Bill” financing rounds that have taken over the tech news wires lately. Just last week it was Ning taking in $60 at $500 pre. Before that it was Slide at $500 with $50 invested. Rumored Rockyou at $400. Glam with $85 on a $500.. And the motherlode, the Facebook quadtrillion dollar round with gazillian ruppees invested.
So whats the common theme in all the financings? A) An investment bank was involved and B) The entrepreneurs are all smiling very widely in the pictures I saw.
If this was 2000, they would have been scared shitless worrying about their participating preferred and liquidation preferences. But instead, these guys are building new houses at pebble beach and buying Euro denominated bonds instead.
So what happened? Well, a lot ... maybe most, of these guys cashed out. The investment banks were able to convince the so called”dumb” money (industry term, not mine... remember Bowman Capital?) hedge and crossover fund investors to fork over cash to the entrepreneurs for their founders stock instead of newly issued preferred sotck in the company. This means a portion of the money that was raised didn’t go into the company’s bank account but went into buying a Ferrari instead.
Just 3 years ago, it was completely unfathomable to the VC’s that anyone would allow entrepreneurs to have an “exit” before they do ... “what happened to aligning interest,” they used to cry. Not anymore. The tide has changed. For the better or worse I don’t know; but certainly great for entrepreneurs who deserves more than what we got in the dot-com era.
Of course, all of this is done on the down low ... without journalists asking too much questions. How would the employees feel if they found out? What would this say about the company’s prospects when the inside-insiders cash out? ... just smile and say no comment is what I would suggest ... or simply say “Its good to be the entrepreneur”
Jerry is my Obama
I’m with Jerry. Jerry can do no wrong.
Yes, that universally and recently controversial Jerry Yang. No, it has nothing to do with whether I want to see Yahoo sold to MSFT (yes I do) nor whether I wish Yahoo would put out but not get married to Google (no I don’t). It has to do with the fact that, Jerry is an Asian-American (Taiwanese American and/or Chinese American, depending on whom you ask) transcending the silent model minority stereotype that I (and he) had grew up with.
I rarely blog about the issue of race. I found it too polarizing and too nuanced to be communicated in a one way medium. But the imminent dawn of the first African-American President, ironically, has helped push the (non) issue of race finally out of America’s sub-conscious. We have learned to treat all issues related to race finally as a conversation rather than as a platform for evangelism. Don’t ask, don’t tell . . no longer.
I’m not that into politics, so Jerry is my Obama. He is someone that has transcended his race while embracing his identity. Jerry is doggedly passionate, smart, articulate and, most importantly, fallible. He goes toe to toe with Balmer ... another equally smart, passionate, and fallible but un-hyphenated man. He fails publicly. He takes the pains and arrows of his failures just like everyone else. No punches pulled, no skirting around the issues. Jerry sucks not because of his race, not despite of his race. He sucks cause we all suck at one time or another.
I’m with Jerry. Jerry can do no wrong.
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