Valleywag tells about classic April fools' jokes, including the arrival of 30-year old Sun Microsystems' manager Eric Schmidt in his office to find a running VW Beetle, as shown in the video below. Perhaps the supply and demand of April fools' jokes were better balanced in those days as physical objects placed some constraints on them, whereas today's technology enables both mass production and mass distribution. However, Eric Schmidt finds himself in creative context this April 1 st as well, with Google teaming with Richard Branson on targeting human settlement on Mars, with perhaps this and this being part of the grand plan (via Techcrunch).
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
The money quote - true in 1873, 1907 and 2007-08
“Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone.”
From the book Lombard Street by Walter Bagehot (editor of The Economist among other things), published in 1873. Bank runs and its devestating consequences on old businesses (Bear Stearns was founded in 1923) seem to be a prime example of history repeating itself, with the banking panic of 1907 having other similarities to today's situation as well, including the key role played by J.P. Morgan.
From the book Lombard Street by Walter Bagehot (editor of The Economist among other things), published in 1873. Bank runs and its devestating consequences on old businesses (Bear Stearns was founded in 1923) seem to be a prime example of history repeating itself, with the banking panic of 1907 having other similarities to today's situation as well, including the key role played by J.P. Morgan.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
iPhone changes the mobile web landscape
Interesting new data arrived from M:Metrics on the usage of iPhones to consume content compared to smartphones and the total market. In summary, the iPhone seems to enable a user experience that is in several activities quite close to the web usage on a computer. 85% used the iPhone to browse the web for news or info, compared to 13% for total market (and 58% for smartphones). 50% accessed social networking sites or blogs compared to 4% for total market (and 19% for smartphones).
While some of the difference could be explained by different demographics and flat-rate data plans, the difference even between iPhones and smartphones (where demographics are very similar according to M:Metrics) clearly indicates that the iPhone is a giant leap for mobile Internet. Mark Donovan, senior analyst at M:Metrics concludes on the usage of iPhones:
Beyond a doubt, this device is compelling consumers to interact with the mobile Web, delivering off-the-charts usage from everything to text messaging to mobile video.
That Google was taken back by the fact that they've seen 5o times more searches on Iphones than any other handset also supports this thesis. As Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations told the Financial Times:
We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again.
So, how could this be explained? Of course, the 3,5'' screen, a computer-grade browser that enables actual layouts of web sites, the smooth zooming and navigating through the touch screen are some key benefits of browsing the web on a iPhone compared to other handsets. In addition, there's this seamless feeling of interacting with the iPhone through the touch screen, an almost haptic functionality (watch the list of songs roll and bounce at the end, like spinning a rolodex).
Also, the iPhones web capabilites are quite interesting as Apple's recently announced iPhone 2.0, including SDK, have the potential to change the game plan for mobile services. And should Apple decide to forgo the carrier lock, iPhone and the services its enables are really a disruptive force to the mobile services industry.
While some of the difference could be explained by different demographics and flat-rate data plans, the difference even between iPhones and smartphones (where demographics are very similar according to M:Metrics) clearly indicates that the iPhone is a giant leap for mobile Internet. Mark Donovan, senior analyst at M:Metrics concludes on the usage of iPhones:
Beyond a doubt, this device is compelling consumers to interact with the mobile Web, delivering off-the-charts usage from everything to text messaging to mobile video.
That Google was taken back by the fact that they've seen 5o times more searches on Iphones than any other handset also supports this thesis. As Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations told the Financial Times:
We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again.
So, how could this be explained? Of course, the 3,5'' screen, a computer-grade browser that enables actual layouts of web sites, the smooth zooming and navigating through the touch screen are some key benefits of browsing the web on a iPhone compared to other handsets. In addition, there's this seamless feeling of interacting with the iPhone through the touch screen, an almost haptic functionality (watch the list of songs roll and bounce at the end, like spinning a rolodex).
Also, the iPhones web capabilites are quite interesting as Apple's recently announced iPhone 2.0, including SDK, have the potential to change the game plan for mobile services. And should Apple decide to forgo the carrier lock, iPhone and the services its enables are really a disruptive force to the mobile services industry.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Not your average TV journalist
You've got to admire Charlie Rose, having protected his new Macbook Air when he tripped in a pothole in Manhattan, NYC, with the visible trade-off of having his face in a close encounter with the pavement. 
That was not stopping him to do the show yesterday, including an interview with the brilliant Larry Summers on the current financial calamity. Just a short comment on the incident, "I took 4-5 stitches" and the regret of not being able to say "you should see the other guy".
That was not stopping him to do the show yesterday, including an interview with the brilliant Larry Summers on the current financial calamity. Just a short comment on the incident, "I took 4-5 stitches" and the regret of not being able to say "you should see the other guy".
Monday, March 17, 2008
"The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed"
From Cebit 2008 and the T-Online booth - not so far from the Minority Report interface. (via FreshCreation). The title is a quote attributed to William Gibson.
The changing relationship of advertisers and consumers
From a campaign for Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions. The path-breaking Cluetrain Manifesto from 1999 stated that:
There's a new conversation between and among your market and your workers. It's making them smarter and it's enabling them to discover their human voices. You have two choices. You can continue to lock yourself behind facile corporate words and happytalk brochures. Or you can join the conversation.
The new blog from Wal-Mart, Check-Out, seems to pass the test, with the company having learned from earlier forays into the blogosphere, according to a New York Times article:
The lesson seemed clear: create an authentic blog or don’t create a blog at all.
What makes a good website? He should know!
A profile in Sunday Times chronicles the impressive story of Bebo, having launched in early 2005 and grown into the third most popular social networking site after Facebook and MySpace, and recently the selling of the site with 40 m users to AOL for $ 850 m. According to the article, co-founder Michael Birch once drew the following analogy:
...comparing a good website to “walking into a bar when it’s vibrant and buzzing”.
This captures the energy that has characterizes a good website, that it offers something more than just content and connections. Actually, the quote implies that conversations are an essential part of good websites; it's hard to imagine a vibrant and buzzing bar without that. Muhammad Saleem also has an interesting post about the distinction between the enabling of connections and conversations and the greater value of the latter.
...comparing a good website to “walking into a bar when it’s vibrant and buzzing”.
This captures the energy that has characterizes a good website, that it offers something more than just content and connections. Actually, the quote implies that conversations are an essential part of good websites; it's hard to imagine a vibrant and buzzing bar without that. Muhammad Saleem also has an interesting post about the distinction between the enabling of connections and conversations and the greater value of the latter.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Are we hardwired to be information junkies?
WSJ covers some interesting research about the insatiable demand for information. The research indicates that humans are hardwired to seek out new information that can be interpreted in various ways:
In other words, coming across what Dr. Biederman calls new and richly interpretable information triggers a chemical reaction that makes us feel good, which in turn causes us to seek out even more of it. The reverse is true as well: We want to avoid not getting those hits because, for one, we are so averse to boredom. It is something we seem hard-wired to do, says Dr. Biederman. When you find new information, you get an opioid hit, and we are junkies for those.
Now the constant craving for news, blogs and checking out Techmeme every other hour is explained! In addition, the research also could help explaining the success of Facebook's status message about the current activity of people (thereby continuously generating new information), similar to the micro-blogging concept. However, current activities are not that open to various interpretations, but probably more important, they are signals of the actions from people in our social network; that was important 10,000 years ago and hopefully will be for some time to come.
In other words, coming across what Dr. Biederman calls new and richly interpretable information triggers a chemical reaction that makes us feel good, which in turn causes us to seek out even more of it. The reverse is true as well: We want to avoid not getting those hits because, for one, we are so averse to boredom. It is something we seem hard-wired to do, says Dr. Biederman. When you find new information, you get an opioid hit, and we are junkies for those.
Now the constant craving for news, blogs and checking out Techmeme every other hour is explained! In addition, the research also could help explaining the success of Facebook's status message about the current activity of people (thereby continuously generating new information), similar to the micro-blogging concept. However, current activities are not that open to various interpretations, but probably more important, they are signals of the actions from people in our social network; that was important 10,000 years ago and hopefully will be for some time to come.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Advice for startups
Jason Calacanis initiated a quite interesting conversation about startups, beginning with a focus on saving tips that other bloggers branched out into full fledged startup advice. Techcrunch emphasized the critical factor of hiring the right people:
The most important part of hiring correctly is to not hire the wrong people. The second most important part of hiring correctly is to hire the right people. What that means is that it is better to not hire anyone at all if you can’t find the right person.
As the cost of reversing a faulty recruitment, both in terms of time and money, is quite high and risk being a distraction for the company, I think this is of utmost importance.
Marc Cuban has a range of interesting tips, among them:
1. Don't start a company unless its an obsession and something you love. 2. If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.......4. Sales Cures All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.
However, Tony Wright tells us (via Fred Wilson) that almost every startup advice is a lie, the world is too complex to be captured in a formula and everything is very situational. But he lists two generic ideas:
1. Build something people want. 2. Don't stop. Persist. Keep going.
While the first idea corresponds to the "does this solve a problem" issue, the second idea is essentially the requirement for the attitude towards the iterative process that is needed when most startups evolve. Tony Wright also links to a great essay by Paul Graham about the lowpoints that is inherent in the development of almost every startup.
Finally, as low costs enables a startup to have more time to try out different iterations, the focus on costs is one of the most important ones (besides that operating costs in the end are to be paid by customers).
The most important part of hiring correctly is to not hire the wrong people. The second most important part of hiring correctly is to hire the right people. What that means is that it is better to not hire anyone at all if you can’t find the right person.
As the cost of reversing a faulty recruitment, both in terms of time and money, is quite high and risk being a distraction for the company, I think this is of utmost importance.
Marc Cuban has a range of interesting tips, among them:
1. Don't start a company unless its an obsession and something you love. 2. If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.......4. Sales Cures All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.
However, Tony Wright tells us (via Fred Wilson) that almost every startup advice is a lie, the world is too complex to be captured in a formula and everything is very situational. But he lists two generic ideas:
1. Build something people want. 2. Don't stop. Persist. Keep going.
While the first idea corresponds to the "does this solve a problem" issue, the second idea is essentially the requirement for the attitude towards the iterative process that is needed when most startups evolve. Tony Wright also links to a great essay by Paul Graham about the lowpoints that is inherent in the development of almost every startup.
Finally, as low costs enables a startup to have more time to try out different iterations, the focus on costs is one of the most important ones (besides that operating costs in the end are to be paid by customers).
Michael Arrington on Charlie Rose - required watching
Great interview with the editor of Techcrunch, by Charlie Rose, a journalist amazingly well-versed in a wide range of topics, including technology.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Today's number - 15
According to a Fortune article (currently not online), the U.S. Internet bank ING Direct has had 15 foreclosures out of 100,000 since starting in 2000. Compare that to Countrywides 94,000 foreclosures last year. The difference? It has kept all of its $26 billion mortgage loans on its books and restrained from slicing and dicing loans into complex instruments, with underwriting standards suffering as the incentives drives management to maximize volumes.
Common sense often makes good business sense; if businesses develops in other directions its often a function of a malfunction of alignment of the incentives (between owners / board of directors / management).
Common sense often makes good business sense; if businesses develops in other directions its often a function of a malfunction of alignment of the incentives (between owners / board of directors / management).
Friday, March 7, 2008
Are Icahn's lawyers aware of the social benefits of blogging?
Reuters reports that the blog of Carl Icahn - The Icahn Report - is being delayed by his lawyers:
At a meeting last night, Icahn explained that he’s not suffering from writers’ block, but said his lawyers are stopping him. ”Every night, I write for an hour and they tear it up,” said Icahn with a sardonic laugh.
All while research from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne indicates that bloggíng "can help you feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face"; that is after they started blogging, but before there was more reason for worry:
We found potential bloggers were less satisfied with their friendships and they felt less socially integrated, they didn't feel as much part of a community as the people who weren't interested in blogging," Ms Moore said. "They were also more likely to use venting or expressing your emotions as a way of coping. "It was as if they were saying 'I'm going to do this blogging and it's going to help me'."
Therefore, a call to the lawyers - let Carl Icahn start blogging!
On a more serious note, it's quite interesting to follow the growth of high-profile bloggers, ranging from political to academic to the business areas. Blogging seems to evolve into an essential tool for PR and communication, or in blogging terms - conversation!
At a meeting last night, Icahn explained that he’s not suffering from writers’ block, but said his lawyers are stopping him. ”Every night, I write for an hour and they tear it up,” said Icahn with a sardonic laugh.
All while research from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne indicates that bloggíng "can help you feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face"; that is after they started blogging, but before there was more reason for worry:
We found potential bloggers were less satisfied with their friendships and they felt less socially integrated, they didn't feel as much part of a community as the people who weren't interested in blogging," Ms Moore said. "They were also more likely to use venting or expressing your emotions as a way of coping. "It was as if they were saying 'I'm going to do this blogging and it's going to help me'."
Therefore, a call to the lawyers - let Carl Icahn start blogging!
On a more serious note, it's quite interesting to follow the growth of high-profile bloggers, ranging from political to academic to the business areas. Blogging seems to evolve into an essential tool for PR and communication, or in blogging terms - conversation!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Late to the Twitter party
Micro-blogging is a quite an interesting concept which seems to combine the short and handy SMS format with social networking-style broadcast, enhancing our social peripheral vision, a term coined by Jaiku founder Jyri Engeström (to the best of my knowledge). Having been late to the blog authoring party as well, I'm currently trying out the Twitter service, after following Twitter stories for some time. One hilarious is the Jason Calacanis airport drama, leaving Paris and Le Web 3 2008, but forgetting his passport at the hotel and having to arrange for the passport to be transported to CDG in a hurry, all while Twittering about it. Today, the excellent video below also inspired me to start using Twitter myself.
Monday, March 3, 2008
The mobile services industry as an innovation ecosystem - inherently flawed?
The mobile Internet was the major buzz word in Scandinavia during the dot-com boom in the late 1990's. Extending the appeal of Internet services to a terminal that the user has more or less at hand every hour during day and night seemed and still seems like a no-brainer, especially as the number of subscribers in the mobile world is vastly larger. However, both native applications developed by third-party developers and a lot of fancy services created by operators, for example video telephony, have failed to establish the vibrant ecosystem of innovation that characterizes the Internet. Basic services such as voice and SMS still prevail, with the latter even being the inspiration for Twitter (albeit with up to 140 instead of up to 160 characters long messages).
What's the explanation for the very slow development of mobile services? One could be that it's an iterative (again) development in figuring out how to best use the specific UI of mobiles. That users prefer to communicate via SMS instead of video telephony is puzzling, but when taken into account that SMS actually allows for a lot more bandwidth than only the 160 characters due to that we share a context that a conversation takes place within, this starts to make sense. Danish author Tor Nörretranders calls this exformation in his brilliant book "The User Illusion". Add that video telephony in fact places extensive demand on the bandwidth and frame rate in order to be a tool for humans to read the tiny "microexpressions" of the face. Demands that turn the ordinary term of videoconference into telepresence, as demonstrated by the high-end Cisco solution.
But the specific characteristics of the mobile terminal as a platform for new services should not be an obstacle in an efficient innovation ecosystem. Here, Michael Mace, a former VP at Palm, describes in "Mobile applications, RIP" why the mobile industry is not a friendly environment for developers of mobile applications. Mace (together with Elia Freedman) basically puts it down to the developers business model, that the combination of the proliferation of operating systems together with increasing marketing and sales cost for reaching the end customers makes profitability from mobile application development too hard. Instead, Mace forecasts that web applications will replace native applications for mobiles. Mace's general theorem that he says applies to any computing platform is:
A platform that is technically flawed but has a good business model will always beat a platform that is elegant but has a poor business model.
Also, this will leave the mobile operators to be a bit-pipe player as the fixed broadband operators, with fewer options to differentiate strategically, thereby running the same race as everybody else (not a good strategy according to Michael Porter)
What's the explanation for the very slow development of mobile services? One could be that it's an iterative (again) development in figuring out how to best use the specific UI of mobiles. That users prefer to communicate via SMS instead of video telephony is puzzling, but when taken into account that SMS actually allows for a lot more bandwidth than only the 160 characters due to that we share a context that a conversation takes place within, this starts to make sense. Danish author Tor Nörretranders calls this exformation in his brilliant book "The User Illusion". Add that video telephony in fact places extensive demand on the bandwidth and frame rate in order to be a tool for humans to read the tiny "microexpressions" of the face. Demands that turn the ordinary term of videoconference into telepresence, as demonstrated by the high-end Cisco solution.
But the specific characteristics of the mobile terminal as a platform for new services should not be an obstacle in an efficient innovation ecosystem. Here, Michael Mace, a former VP at Palm, describes in "Mobile applications, RIP" why the mobile industry is not a friendly environment for developers of mobile applications. Mace (together with Elia Freedman) basically puts it down to the developers business model, that the combination of the proliferation of operating systems together with increasing marketing and sales cost for reaching the end customers makes profitability from mobile application development too hard. Instead, Mace forecasts that web applications will replace native applications for mobiles. Mace's general theorem that he says applies to any computing platform is:
A platform that is technically flawed but has a good business model will always beat a platform that is elegant but has a poor business model.
Also, this will leave the mobile operators to be a bit-pipe player as the fixed broadband operators, with fewer options to differentiate strategically, thereby running the same race as everybody else (not a good strategy according to Michael Porter)
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Dark alleys and failing faster
Two great posts about the inevitable outcome that things aren't going to work out as planned, both at a product and a company level. First Gmail creator Paul Buchheit about the need for an attitude of humility with continous iteration. Then Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures about why early stage venture investments fail, with 2/3 of realized investments having made complete or partial transformation during the time of investment. Also from this post:
My friend Dick Costolo, co-founder of FeedBurner, describes a startup as the process of going down lots of dark alleys only to find that they are dead ends. Dick describes the art of a successful deal as figuring out they are dead ends quickly and trying another and another until you find the one paved with gold.
Why the dark alleys? Well, that's a good metaphor for the complexityof forecasting and developing new businesses and products. Perhaps the tendency of humans to have inflexible mental models, revised stepwise only when the cost of not revising it gets to big, is a drag on the developments in new businesses.
So one conclusion on how to handle the dark alleys could be based on the motto "fail faster" - almost like an evolutionary development with lots of iterations, adaption to the environment (i.e. customers and competetitors) and quick shutdown of "dead ends". And the mental models? The book "The Opposable Mind" by Roger Martin (dean of Rotman School of Management) covers this brilliantly, but that's for another post.
My friend Dick Costolo, co-founder of FeedBurner, describes a startup as the process of going down lots of dark alleys only to find that they are dead ends. Dick describes the art of a successful deal as figuring out they are dead ends quickly and trying another and another until you find the one paved with gold.
Why the dark alleys? Well, that's a good metaphor for the complexityof forecasting and developing new businesses and products. Perhaps the tendency of humans to have inflexible mental models, revised stepwise only when the cost of not revising it gets to big, is a drag on the developments in new businesses.
So one conclusion on how to handle the dark alleys could be based on the motto "fail faster" - almost like an evolutionary development with lots of iterations, adaption to the environment (i.e. customers and competetitors) and quick shutdown of "dead ends". And the mental models? The book "The Opposable Mind" by Roger Martin (dean of Rotman School of Management) covers this brilliantly, but that's for another post.
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