Flickr_Tag_WD06

TagCloud
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Just got back from WebDirections, which was a great event run by John and Maxine, with their many and varied tres interesting disciples. Great that it was run out of a uni, dejavu feeling. After I presented, people would come up to me and talk about their content management systems run out of Canberra government departments "built" in Word using macros, and other twilight zone tech platforms. Crazy. It did make me feel better about my tech problems and challenges tho. (presenting is like a fusion of therapy and marketing after all)

Unfortunately couldnt stay tonight for big party as Im off to the Grand Final tomorrow, but there were about 50 people out after the event last night (with a few hundred at the pre-drinks do too !) As usual I forget that not everyone spends too much of their time on rss'n'blogs'n'stuff but the audience and people seemed really receptive. My guess is by next Web Directions alot of the people at the event will actually have active or related 2.0 activities - however big or small.

In terms of 2.0 downunder at an industry level, It's the calm before the storm if you ask me, and the industry just needs more leaders; more indians; and more initiatives; At the credit card and bootstrapping level; At the corporate level; At the government level. I dont see this being driven by VC's downunder. It will be the geeks and cheque signers with initiative that get the ball seriously rolling. Venture Money follows activity and there needs to be more projects, case studies and viability of these new businesses being imagined.

The key will be to leverage all the interested capable people (most of which seem stuck in work/projects they dont like/love.. but i guess u just notice that stuff more when u r doing a startup.. u may be poor but u like what u do etc) The Web Directions guys are putting up the podcast of the event at some time in future, but in meantime check the flickr tag WD06.

On The Road.

poor f599
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I'm off to Sydney today to speak at Web Directions tomorrow which should be fun. (Podcast will be put up I'm told after event and I'll flickr my .ppt post2) It's a great tech audience (i'll be talking rss, vertical search, social networking, folksonomy, open source, api's, aggregation/filtering + all my day-day interests) so ping me/say hi (i have a few windows between tonight and Friday am)

Keroauc's "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose" would have made a great blogger manual (u gotta take his dexedrine dreams as such) :

*1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
*2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
*3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
*4. Be in love with yr life
*5. Something that you feel will find its own form
*6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
*7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
*8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
*9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
*10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
*11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
*12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
*13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
*14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
*15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
*16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
*17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
*18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
*19. Accept loss forever
*20. Believe in the holy contour of life
*21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
*22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
*23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
*24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
*25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
*26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
*27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
*28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
*29. You're a Genius all the time
*30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Sunny Side up for the Video-EggNetwork.

bold
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

The Video Ad space (and use of social networks as a pathway to monetisation) is getting more and more interesting, imagine what it looks like in 5 years (myspace was considered a no advertiser go only a quarter ago), yikes.

YFinance : "The Eggnetwork makes it easy for advertisers to reach the large, targeted audiences of social networks with a single transaction. Through its relationships online communities, VideoEgg delivers as many as 20 million video streams each day. Focusing on the end-users, the network also gives viewers a choice about which ads they want to watch. Its ad insertion options include permission-based video ads, sponsored content, and post roll. These options were created to maintain an uninterrupted user experience and enable publishers to increase content and activity within their own sites."

Gigaom say that these 20million daily video streams are somehow being screened by a real person, would love to know how that is going to happen. Without doubt, one of the biggest byproducts of blogging - text, image and video and one of the inflection points for mainstreamisation is the ability to knock out in appropriate content : Manually though doesnt sound like at all great economics. "To assuage those concerns, VideoEgg promises each video will be reviewed by a real person before it is paired with an ad. Sounds like a fun job."

It would also be interesting to know how VideoEgg source their ads, and what the profile of advertisers is, and any plans for self service. Paul Cashmore says "They’re also claiming a clickthru rate that’s 5 times better than banner ads." - If they are referring to 468 X 60's that's easy, I wonder how they compare against islands, leaderboard and more so Eyeblaster type formats.

"Driving bandwidth costs up means stealing the percentage share of the total audience from others. The higher the costs, the fewer can compete."

neutral
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

It's pretty boring people who complain about YouTube's $1m a month in bandwith, when google spends hundreds of millions or was that a couple billion on pipes, bandwith and the like. "The Google Test" is certainly getting a bi-polar response from people. Decide yourself, I lean more towards the argument than against when analysing YouTube's cost line and market leadership.

Proving the advertising case is different tho to the Google Test Thesis, but Targeted TV Ads I think will happen within 24 months, actually less. It's definitely where the next Adsense type play will come from - And at moment, it could be Google, YouTube or a startup that invent the technology and become the default video ad standard.

William Jolitz on VentureBeat : "Driving bandwidth costs up means stealing the percentage share of the total audience from others. The higher the costs, the fewer can compete. It’s a bold strategy not for the timid businessman or investor. Like the oil barons of another age (where do you think we got Stanford University), getting the corner on the market is mostly keeping everyone else out of it."

Fortune, care of New Webguru-RRW : "Schmidt's most compelling point -- and the most visible glimmer of a method to Google's madness -- is the power behind the not-so-secret data centers Google is building, particularly a 30-acre facility in Oregon whose existence he references without provocation. "That massive investment should translate into the ability to build applications that are impossible for our competitors to offer, just because we can handle the scale," says Schmidt."

"Sponsor Posts" : RSS Contextual Advertising.

mute
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

The biggest story on TechMeme today is TechMeme ! Yay. But naagh, the blog/rss ad model is a smart one, esp for the Mountain View market, and once interactive ad agencies get their head around developing tailored advertorial messages using blogs and rss there is something there. (obviously the big ones won't deal with it till audience is bigger and ad/tech formats are standardised)

The strong response on this neat innovation has been so big probably because of the lack of ad offerings positioned between the display/sponsorship (TechCrunch) paradigm, and the (Adsense) cost per click text placements view. Nice RSS contextual ads Gabe, who linked to the potential of a wordpress plugin (for the functionality) which would be way kewl.

Efuddle.com : "A simple Wordpress or MT plugin would make it easy for bloggers to implement the "Sponsor Posts" concept I've introduced on Techmeme. Given the growing number of decent company blogs, I believe there's a place for this. And and even bigger place should there arise a great variety of compelling product feeds containing affiliate links that pay republishers."

The other missing link which MacDaddy Winer wants is the adsense imprint of a dynamic auction for the space (Jeff Jarvis says the price comes out at around a $5-$8 CPM), and timeflighting, so he can buy particular days.

Scripting.com : "Will the sponsors actually have anything to say? We'll find out. A month is a long time to fill. Also, I wish I had had a chance to bid on an ad, I wonder how Gabe decided who to offer it to, and how he set the price. Will the value of an ad on Techmeme go up or down next month or the month after?"

RSS Advertorial models such as this (that link to recent advertiser blog posts) are akin to "content integration" deals in Web 1.0; Each of the sponsors have linked to their blog, 2 of which use very (very) basic Circa 2004 blue and white Wordpress blogs with only one (Wink) tailoring a custom "Welcome TechMeme" readers. (yes probably not effective either.. ie there is no call to action. nothing interesting.. this is where fmcg marketers really are so far beyond web 2.0) The other (Socialtext) have linked to a recent blog entry - which is better designed, but not tailored to TechMeme : Kinda like a late night informercial - "Wikis are good. You know you want a wiki. You are feeling very sleepy. Now buy a fn wiki already !"

For this to be an effective medium, the key will then be in getting the advertisers blog environment right. My gut feel is they will probably need to link to custom blog posts that have targeted messages : How this will work in displaying the last 3 posts of it's sponsors, may mean that advertisers will need to setup custom blogs for these campaigns. (or else the latest bug fix is going to have a lead far right column position that the whole world of tech influencers is going to know about - yeah i know people like transparency, and that can translate into positive brand feelings, which drives sales etc, but the rule of contextual is to target and tailor, to engage and drive further. You've got the customer, now what are you going to do with them.)

This is going to be interesting to watch how the creatives work this and similar spaces. Once the startup guerillas retreat and more typical tech advertisers kick in, I guess we'll see some giveaways, product announcements, and some interesting tailored outside the box ideas. (when you've worked in advertising it's good to say "outside the box" if you're not sure what else to say)

If you look further one more step, one of the structural issues with blog platforms today is they're not great or tailored for a business. Gets back to that fundamental difference between a corporate website and a business blog. Anyway, I see blogs for business having many more functions that a business need built into it. In effect Gabe has built the real estate, but now the advertisers have to understand the medium and tailor the message. (yes that sounds like standard agency junk but if u debunk the generalisations, this type of advertising will require different creative and skillsets.... eg blog writing... not just creating a flash banner or writing a newspaper ad)

Could be as simple as downloading or choosing a new wordpress theme. Anyway, for this webbased rss contextual and blog advertising to work ala TechMeme model, blog software too will need to accomodate better the needs of interactive marketers. It's going in the right direction tho, fo sure. Build it, and they will come. hehe.

Goodes on Brownlow Radio Remote Control

dead 2.0
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

So the AFL Best Player Brownlow Medal went to Goodes who had a killer year, jeez Scotty West seemed unhappy while gritting his teeth very well. Dave Winer is saying there has to be a better podcast player, and with my Shuffle falling apart and the latest victim has been my Apple Ipod FM Radio Remote, which now needs to be sensitively held in a position to get FM - can Apple build this into the Ipod already !!!

Scripting.com : "So, dear friends, is this really the best the industry can come up with for a podcast player? Perhaps some venture capitalist with a bit of guts, instead of dipping their big toe in the market (i.e. Odeo, Podtech, Podshow, et al) wants to go all the way and fund the development of a real podcast playing device? Give me a call if you want to pursue this. I have a few ideas."

Final 10 Australian Idol Episode - #1's.

idol yah
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I figure that being an entrepreneur and an idol is pretty similar (well the "journey" and "interpretation" anyway, and i guess u need to take the celebrity bit out, and the creativity too :) So I'm delving into some real time psychoanalysis of tonights episode. Dont expect this to be regular, instead a one-off distraction on Sunday night before FatherBob and Safran kick in on Sunday night. Oh and Sandy won the VFL Grand Final !

Tonight's Idol episode is all about number ones, and they confirm that Kyle hasn’t had a number one unlike Holds and Marshhiiia.

CLANCY OF COUNTRY : Awful. What is this song ? Kenny Rogers or Dolly Parton ? Her eyeshade looks like she has been crying beforehand, and it’s the best looking thing in her act. Totally forgettable. Send her back to dad. “Hi Clancy” says Mark and the “Snag was underdone” for him, which was putting it nicely. Will she cry….. No she hasn’t but Kyle wants to farmshed her. Week or two more and bye-bye.

DAMIEN TICTAC IRISH I’M A FREAK BUT DAMN I GOTTA FALSETTO : A top 3 singer in the competition, although his falsetto may be a one trick wonder. They’ve got him in the Seven type jeans and jacket thang, and let’s see if cranks out something with the F-A-L-S-E-T-T-O. “Tomorrow never comes” and well he’s playing a bit safe if you ask me. But he gets them. He is my favourite from the show. You gotta be tough on the ones you love. Top 2.

EMILY’S SISTER : “Hi Lavina” is always the last thing you want Mark to say after you’ve sang. Or when Marcia says “That was bad.” Kyle says there is a “Connection Problem” – he’s totally right. She will be voted off farely early because of her age, R+B focus, and the whole Lion King thang.

CHRIS I LIKE HIS BROTHER MORE MURPHY : Australia’s Jack Black. He’s going to stand still the stylists say. Doing Phil Collins. Seems a bit off key. I think I preferred the Phil Collins references in American Psycho. Oh. he’s walking…. To the front of the stage… He should have chosen an Australian song. His worst week. Mark Holden is going through it and him. “Your first mis-step.” Kyle : “Tonight that was lame.” Should stick to Australian Triple J Hits that crossover. Heck by end he'll be covering Shannon Noll. Top 3.

GEYER JUNIOR : Cant sing. Stylists and Aussie bloggers with no gender objectification issues :) dream though. Please stop asking audience to “Sing it with me”. Is that a fake American accent ? I guess the geny sms votes will get him through but he has to go soon. Anyway, because he’s been so bad the last few weeks, the judges are happy although Mark said to sing half a note up next time if he wanted to be in tune. The 2006 Robby Mills. Top 8.

NAFFO MUTTO : In my bottom 3 before singing as nice as he is etc. Like everyone else he is trying to stay still and use a seat. Open your eyes son. “The Reason is You.” “You’re Flatlining” Mark says. Love it. “no-one gives a rats arse” according to Kyle. “Vulnerability” he mentions, and he is, and old, bottom 3 beckons Monday. Idol is a young person’s game.

JESSICA FROM THE TERRITORY : She’ll go top 4 I reckon. They caged her a bit here, but she’s channelling Christina and Kelly and that smile will not be stopped. People will text for her too. Smack bang in the sms vote sweetspot. Holden gives her a “Touchdown”. That was unexpected. Kyle looks unhappy. The media juggernaut rolls on. “That is the best feeling… You guys… All the emotion… Thankyou for the support.. Thankyou judges.” Well we now know touchdowns are personal is political chess pieces. Top 3.

SIDESHOW BOBBY FLYNN : Crooning away didn’t do it for me tonight and I like him. Mark agrees saying he did get lost between “The Moon and New York City.” It might play out alright if he gets the SMSympathy vote. But the judges are playing psycho-analyst on him. 2 edged sword. Top 5.

GO RICKY PANTS GO : They’re working on his footy guy singing factory worker crazy eyes. Kmart version of Anthony Callea. Just wish he’d sing in tune. “You don’t have the control to pull it off” – I’m agreeing with Mark. “The Crazy Eyes” has a friend in James the wingman to Andy G, the Channel V boyz. So will the “swinging voters” put Ricky in the bottom 3 again ? Probably.

LISA WITH A TANG : The 16yr old gonewalkabout, but I love the song she is doing. “I’m homebound.” “I need you. I miss you.” Thank God she got off the chair. Figeting with her... Very nicely done. “That was lovely and you are lovely.” I’m agreeing with Holden again. “You bounced back” said King Kyle. Top 6.

Monday 7pm Forecasts :
BOTTOM 3 : Ricky Pants, Naffo Mutto, Emily's Sister.
EVICTEE : Ricky Pants. (back to the factory Ricky and maybe a lounge at Crown Casino)

Patrick Bateman: Do you like Phil Collins? I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual. It was on Duke where Phil Collins' presence became more apparent. I think Invisible Touch was the group's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. Christy, take off your robe. Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. Sabrina, remove your dress. In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, the sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Sabrina, why don't you, uh, dance a little. Take the lyrics to Land of Confusion. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority. In Too Deep is the most moving pop song of the 1980s, about monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive and affirmative as anything I've heard in rock. Christy, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your asshole. Phil Collins' solo career seems to be more commercial and therefore more satisfying, in a narrower way. Especially songs like In the Air Tonight and Against All Odds. Sabrina, don't just stare at it, eat it. But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist, and I stress the word artist. This is Sussudio, a great, great song, a personal favorite.

Sandy PodHail

white woman
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

It's a windy day here with hail later they are saying. Similarly the blogosphere or podshere, is receiving cease and desist letters from Apple that it cant use the word "Podcast" and such terms ("Podcasting") in company names. It's another sign of this going overground as big players start locking and loading their legal budgets.

Cam Reilly is probably thinking about what 90210 Calacanis has to say : "My advice to folks who get sued by Apple? Ignore Apple's legal department, publish every communication from them, and let them try to put you out of business. Nothing could be better for an entrepreneur then to have their company shut down by Apple or Microsoft. It's like Obi-wan getting cut in half by Darth Vadar with the knowledge that you'll come back stronger. Apple cuts your startup in half and you're made for live--you were killed by Steve Jobs. Wear it like a badge of honor."

Update : Golf today at Cape Schanck now cancelled thru weather so I guess Im watching Sandringham (in effect Melbourne's reserves team but also its own entity) on TV (ABC) play grand final against Geelong, great game and teams. Pity MCC didnt let them play the G' - I would have definitely gone to that, instead its at Princess Park. I really should be catching up on blogging, business plan writing and my presentation before that... but I'm undecided with the (relatively foreign) rain. Anyway, these are better problems that having to deal with Apple's declared ownership of a word like "podcasting". (which they dont even use themselves in their products) Later.

The Next Iteration of this Web Thang.

vvcdn
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Blustery winds on the Peninsula today and a double fatality @ 330am a couple km's from where I went to uni and not too far from where I spent my first 21 years in South Caulfield. It's sometimes hard to tell whether it's the calm after the storm (we've had alot of parsing, indexing and speed issues we are only 1/3rd of way thru fixing) or before the storm (approaching grand final week and Im off to Sydney Wednesday-Friday to present at Web Directions - which has a great audience of dressed down, smartedup geeks.)

So while I'm tweaking and fiddling with powerpoint on a Friday with the need for the file to be ported to Keynote, I'm seeing the $1.5B YouTube number hit the blogosphere like a feeding frenzy at Australia Zoo.

The $1.5B number shouldn't surprise anyone because irrespective of YouTube's monthly bandwith costs, video ad CPM's, and copyright issues, any web property that can affect the user (and thus ad) share of the tens of billions of dollar market cap'd GEMAYA (and their new Via-media brethren), means someone will ante up real dough at some time. It's as simple as buying more media usage, as long as its strengthens your reach and demographics to advertisers, not weakens the proposition or inventory. (and lets face it video will be the medium, i love text, but hollywood and tv wasnt built on image and sound for nothing !!)

I'd be more worried for Facebook though, as like Linkedin (which has a even better yet smaller audience and non-purposeful frequent user experience - it's far more targeted for next gen employment classifieds ads) Facebook has a known demographic in a relatively controlled environment, but the number of members that they have means the Price:User Multiple is very high vs other social networks. And while the leadership premium ala network effects is real (who is #2 to Skype again ?) Facebook may be more challenged in getting it's investors as many benjamins as YouTube.

Facebook will also have the Russian Roulette of having opened up its service to the broader non university market, which within the next quarter will mean there is enough user adoption data to extrapolate a few years out, to establish the total audience + long term mix of American University Students VS The Rest of Us. I would have thought they would have preferred to have sold before this, promising the blue sky of this unlimited audience to the acquirer but in its heart knowing its full of troubling assumptions. I also thought they would have rolled out to every university with more than x students globally, before they tried to get less educated Yanks onto it ;)

Facebook is betting on huge growth for its structured social networking (currently limited/skewed to US market - which all multibillion web businesses dont have as a feature), however if the same hook isnt there for the rest of us that Facebook has for uni students, and Linkedin has for white-collar tech execs, then its growth forecasts beyond university may be challenged. Which may affect the valuation. And the premium to be paid. Not to mention their current loyal users who have low switching costs dont like new features, let alone sharing the island with other non-keg connected people.

What's going to be interesting is what happens once Facebook and YouTube are absorbed by MediaCo/Gemaya in the same way Flickr and Delicious were into Yahoo - with probably a great example being Cuban's multi-billion dollar Broadcast.com acquisition by Yahoo (ironic Cuban isnt grokking YouTube)

Once the Facebook and YouTube acquisitions go down (i assume they wont ipo thru weak financials..) at that point (without having looked at traffic numbers) there will be a lack of independent monster ecosystems to buy that have the dual content/distribution characteristics. Sure you have digg, and that will probably be where the next deal buzz goes, and sure there will be some mopping up by ViaFoxGemaya of the Bebos, Cyworlds + Revvers who have either a top 5 market position (often with non US region leadership) and/or technology (can anyone say viral video ad insertion technologies :), but the monster traffic independents will be gone.

If the YouTube opportunity was created by Flickr's absorption into Yahoo, and MySpace was begat by Friendster's slide into Orkutness, then the vacuum will present another window for the New New Thing. Edge proponents will plead for the once renegade social and video networks to open up their API's to 2.1 WadgetCo's, but will end up on a dripfeed as they are stalled. Post big acquisitions, even more fund Money will accumulate and be funnelled into the new destination/edge ecosystems that get watercooler buzz.

If every user is at the centre of this overthrow as Fred says; And every user is a creator, then the Wordpress', Bloggers and Typepad become interesting (old) channels into the (new) markets. If they are willing to truly innovate and push in the direction of, but beyond Vox and Rojo. Or just as Google came into search, when that market was dead, NewCo's ala The Automattics may move beyond the text/image upload/video embed experience (and the parallel social networking sites of today) and (be funded to) deliver the new.

Ditto the potential opportunity with the search engine and news categories which still retain their old in'n'out user experience. (search'n'find but no microchunks to annotate and share) Buying and building a better shovel in these traditional markets (think about what Flickr should have done pre-YouTube and apply it to search and blogging), might be the quickest way to flank the Triple Play Portals.

I'd be betting on the new window being absorbed by more vertical, enterprise and regional plays. (disclaimer disclaimer :) Whether it's boompa.com for autos, Jobster for Jobs, Mobissimo for Travel, Prosper/Zopa for Finance, it's no doubt there will be more social media influenced category killers in jobs, home improvements/real estate, sports and trading; The new plays won't be verticalised imitations of Youtube or Facebook though; Nor will they be just edge or destination. It'll be the next iteration anyway of this web thang.

4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42

1994 MSdotcom
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Franky's a number guys and my brother is a lost nut (i watched the first series but as Australia was behind a series I read series 2 script and listened to the official podcasts done by the laidback writers of the show so i was happy enough by then....)

Anyway Hurley, the man mountain who gets the bootay offline since Lost, has his secret numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42) revealed on where else but YouTube. Well it was on TV but YouTube is where content ends up (almost immediately) and becomes useful to the masses, not just one geo-region of push TV. It's all about a formula for human extinction. (obviously they're not talking about the end of the world, but rather death of broadcast TV... ok maybe not ;)

SciFi : "The numbers represent the Valenzetti Equation, a mathematical formula having to do with the timetable for humanity's extinction. The show's sinister Dharma Initiative was an effort by the mysterious Hanso Foundation to ward off that inevitability. When Dharma failed, Hanso's nefarious acting leader, Thomas Mittelwerk, set in motion a plan to release a virus that would kill 30 percent of the world's population."

Synecdoche, New York + 24" Imac

The Desk
Originally uploaded by Paul Stamatiou.

It would be really kewl if one of those Dave Winer-esque inventors came out with a new medium slash app slash something, that was the online equivalent of writing a feature film script. Kaufman has a new one he's punched out "Synecdoche, New York." and this time he's directing.

Oh, and Paulstamatiou.com has the new 24" iMac. Schweet (Steve Jobs why do u do this to this - my 20" iMac + 14" ibook are so 2004/5), except Paul's Macbook like others sounds waaay problemattic.

LA-Times : "Synecdoche" nominally concerns a theater director who thinks he's dying, and how that shapes his interactions with the world, his art and the women in his life. But it is really a wrenching, searching, metaphysical epic that somehow manages to be universal in an extremely personal way. It's about death and sex and the vomit-, poop-, urine- and blood-smeared mess that life becomes physiologically, emotionally and spiritually (Page 1 features a 4-year-old girl having her butt wiped). It reliably contains Kaufman's wondrous visual inventions, complicated characters, idiosyncratic conversations and delightful plot designs, but its collective impact will kick the wind out of you."

Rye Wins Grand Final.

slow low
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Well Melbourne may have lost last night against the Dockers, and the Rye Seconds had a dubious free kick paid on the siren which resulted in a goal and loss of match, but the Rye Seniors, for first time since 1982 beat Langwarrin by 3 points : 105 to 102. As the opposing opposition captain said after the game, for $13 what more could you ask for. It was absolutely compelling football. And we won. Go Rye Boys !

The Jessica Biel Mixi Up

ipo time
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Paidcontent do great outside Mountain View coverage, and Da Bielster seems pretty happy about the Mixi IPO (where is Jim Clarke when you need him), which while frothy at a forecast $14m profit for $1.9B first day market cap, it's an interesting snapshot of the value of localised new web businesses.

Charlene Li: "Mixi has forecasted that revenues to be $40.8 million with pretax profit of $14.4 million. Advertising accounts for 80% of the revenue, with the rest coming from service fees. In the IPO, it raised $93 million. Another way to think of it is $18.60 for each user in the network. A rough back-of-the-envelope would value MySpace’s 100 million users at $1.86 billion and Facebook’s 7.5 million users would be worth $139.5 million."

So what does a $2b Japanese social networking website look like ? Click here. Mashable as usual also have a great product rundown. Being a user and fan of micformats, hreviews and structured blogging this soundbite caught my interest : "Interestingly, Mixi also includes user reviews: users can rate and review books, CDs, DVDs, games, electronics and other items. Clicking on a product takes you to the relevant page on Amazon Japan. This social commerce idea is great - it’s something that MySpace seems to have missed. Another notable feature is the blogging tool - in addition to writing posts on the site, I’m told you can resyndicate an external blog on Mixi. Free blogs are limited to 100MB of space, but for 300 yen per month you can buy more hosting space for your blog and photos."

The Hidden Formula for Success

valance prison
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I used to complain at least internally (and probably used it as a pathetic internalised rationalisation for bad behaviour) that I didnt use my brain in the corporatesphere. In a startup its the opposite : You use 110% of your brain, and usually come up short. Again and again.

Any of the non stoopid ideas are also often redundant as 110% of resources are focused on fixing indexing and speed issues, not to mention the 115,000+ splogs that have applied to be in our little Aussie Made engine and structured blogging platform.

Any spare technical resources in a startup are then allocated to (revenue attributed) bug fixing projects : And before you know it; It's the end of the week which culminates in Melbourne losing their 2nd final last night to the Dockers. It was so close you could touch it, but Fremantle played a perfect 4 quarter offensive game and it was over.

So I'm drawing a line in the sand and it's a new day/week today. And Rye (my other local team) is playing off in the grand final at Frankston. Evan Williams comments are so true from an entrepreneur, it's easy to say "i'll have what he's having" - well um, not that you would want to order the pain of the startup. But someone who wants a real challenge there is no better game.

Evan captures the essence of knowing the end game while fighting in the trenches. You are fighting because you believe that when you came out the other end, and the murkiness subsides, and the resources stockpile, you got to the right place, not a misadvertised holiday. My favourite one reported by Om : “It turns out long term is not soon enough for a startup if you’re trying to get a foothold.” These are pretty good too :

“Trying to build too much”
“Not building for people like ourselves”
“Not adjusting fast enough”
“Raising too much money too early”
“Not listening to my gut”

The great thing about 1.0 though is the case studies of what takes success, and empirical lessons on successful online ventures : Downunder examples of profitable companies with 130-250 employees and market caps in the hundreds of millions and billions include Hitwise, Carsales, and Seek - All of these have always been very focused businesses attacking large economic markets, which they have ended up leading with continued profitable growth.

Assuming you have the product strategy and focus, the big elephant in the room is technical execution. New technology is great, but that also means especially in Australia, not everyone is at a cafe coding away the next web 2.0 app and an expert in RSS, Blogs, Ajax and the like. You just dont have the same resource pool to draw on face to face. Unless you hunt and build relationships with trust. It's hard.

Companies that get their people dynamics right have a huge headstart, and very few really successful companies arent great peoplewise topdown and bottomup. BusinessWeek have an interesting if expected profile on Apple's designer Jon Ive (and his team of 12 industrial design mavericks), someone who obviously has a got a great formula for product design, which is protected very strongly. Interesting too that Yahoo is setting up an incubation arm around the same ideas.

BW : "Most of Ive's team live in San Francisco, and rumor has it that the starting salary for the group is around $200,000, some 50% above the industry average. They work together in a large open studio with little personal space but great privacy. Many Apple employees aren't allowed in, for fear they'd catch a glimpse of some upcoming product. A massive sound system pumps up the music. Ive invests his design dollars in state-of-the-art prototyping equipment, not large numbers of people. And his design process revolves around intense iteration -- making and remaking models to visualize new concepts."

OK I'm off to the footy. I wouldnt trade what Im doing for something else, especially with the great amount of opportunities locally. And getting the secret source formula is the art in itself. But right now Im going to go see Rye kick Langwarrin's arse.

"I think Fairfax sees the future of on-line as community."

nice brakes
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

All Men are Liars is Fairfax's man's man post metro-sexual blog that wingmans the high traffick'd Ralph-esque M not MA rated Sam and the City. Here he gets into corporate strategy of blogs downunder after a reader asks what Fairfax have to gain, hehe. He may be lying or not but it's all good. Just ask Mr Farmer.

Q : "What's the purpose of this blog? I mean, it's nice for we punters to be able to blow a bit of hot-air around the place but what's in it for Fairfax? (RandomGuy)"

A: "Ummm, to make money? Seriously? I think Fairfax sees the future of on-line as community. People come back to sites that give them a good feeling and blogs can deliver that in a way that straight news does not. Blogs also deliver you the wisdom of crowds, so the topic becomes much bigger than one person's perspective. This all translates to traffic, which translates to advertising revenue."

Content Management Systems of the Future for Newspapers + Encyclopedias.

i am paris
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

There's a classic 1.0 vs 2.0 debate going on about Encyclopedia Brittanica vs Wikipedia, with the takeout according to AOL'er Jason Da Calacanis that the news and fact collection/checking process of "publishers" should be opened up to the audience. I totally agree (which is almost too easy to do in retrospect), but the interesting point is what this actual digital output would look like to the consumer and how it would manifest for a publisher.

Would it merely be a nice to have text link at the bottom of an entry that noone clicks on, or would it become centre stage meta-data that people subscribed to and checked back on religiously (dejavu facebook's recent user backlash on ability to subscribe to your Marketing 101's crush relationship status)

My only worry that the reason such information isn't already online is because it's not interesting or substantial (who needs to know that the piece was just a rewrite of the some old stories and the first paragraph is clipped from a newswire) Even more likely why it's not online yet is because it's not transportable as digital matter. Yet. Or if it is, there is too much manual work involved to make it worth it. (eg mp3 recordings of a phone conversation with an unnamed source that needs to have the voice changed, edited and then made into a podcast) All a bit William Gibson really :)

Theres' got to be some reason beyond rationality as to why a story/definition/fact/bio hasn't yet been centralised in one source. (the internet is very disaggregated after all so it may be too much for one source to own the value chain of a story)

It is also a very interesting topic from a content management system point of view : Imagine when journalists and encyclopedians :) write a piece they could define the private and public tabs in their story creation tool, which could be viewable ala del.icio.us (and buildable on ideally) by the masses. Not sure if it will help vlogcasters that have gone back to fountain pens and Moleskins as a sign of digital rebellion.

Adopting the same perspective, why not have realtime data associated to the meta-journalistic VIP Navigators at Netscape Beta, Digg and other online news sites. (and heck blogs too)

Given it may drive more content, traffic and advertising, without much more work (once this new content management system is in place as well as new SLA's and copyright agreements with contributors : increased deliverables may mean a 3% increase in story cost) my guess is quite a few content owners would be up for doing this, if only they had the technology. That seems to be the gap here. And it's likely not to be done by one company (such as the NYT with its Microsoft partnership), or maybe it will by the Wikipedia spinoff ?

Either way it's next gen real time webbased footnoting technology for social media - that could be very interesting at both the publisher and consumer level. Now who's going to build it :) ?

Calacanis.com : "Companies like Encyclopaedia Britanniaca, Microsoft, or the New York Times, that operate out of control, secrecy, and opaqueness are suffering--and will suffer more--because they are losing the trust of Gen-p.. The NYT needs to open up their news gather process, Microsoft needs to open up their source code, and Britanniaca needs to open up their entry-building process. If they don't they will fall behind--it's that simple."

Neat Digg Feature "My #1 Story"

black jungle
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

We're spending alot of time on plumbing and fixes at moment as we deal with the benefits and challenges of indexing, search and filtering RSS, blogs and folksonomic flow. (as well as distribution and syndication) We are looking forward to getting these sorted and move into the funner field of new vertical indexes and subscription tools.

"My #1 Story" is a neat digg feature and the type of app that will be standard in 12 months time on all news sites.

Digg Blog : "Now you can showcase and separately store your favorite digg stories by using the new "My #1 Story" feature. Starting today, every time you digg a story an icon will appear next to the story title. Clicking the icon will save and lock that story to the top of your digg user profile. This will let your friends know what you consider to be the most important story on digg at any given time. These #1 stories are also saved in a separate "My #1" archive that keeps a chronological record of all your previous favorites."

TubePort + Steve Jobs.

Fashion Week
Originally uploaded by Pichichi.

Gizmodo are asking is this what Apple will release tomorrow my time :)

Announcement of iTunes version 7.0
Announces better search feature for Music Store
Announces Movie Store. Available Immediately will be movies from
Disney and Pixar, among other studios.
New iPod Nano Announcement (nice brushed casing, while it will have same features as first gen, only a longer battery life)
New iPod Announcement (Widescreen, Bluetooth, and featuring virtual touchwheel. Does not include Wi-Fi, or any other protocols)
One More Thing....

TubePort. A $99 2-piece set that includes a dongle that connects via
USB to your mac, and another dongle that connects via included HD
cables or regular Component cables to your TV. The movie is accessed on your Mac via an iDisk-like storage component hosted by Apple.

PayPal Developing Businesses in the Third World.

hooters
Originally uploaded by EquinoxeCL.

I stumbled across this on BubbleGeneration, and being a fan of the P2P microloan post ebay/paypal arbitrage I like Kiva's spin on the Prosper business model; It's the inverse of the Nigerian email scam. Get a high interest rate and low default rate. While feeling good. Neat dividend meets donation strategy.

Kiva.com : "Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back."

All Australian Team - AFL

Fashion Week
Originally uploaded by Pichichi.

Good to see James McDonald in and great choice as captain - Bulldogs Brad Johnson. I thought Nathan Carroll might have got a backpocket tho : Friday looms as Dees to upset the non September game style suited Dockers :)

The 2006 Coca Cola AFL All-Australian Team
Backs: N Bassett, D Glass, L Gilbee
Half Backs: C Bolton, J Bowden, A McLeod
Centres: S Goodwin, S West, A Goodes
Half Forwards: A Didak, B Hall (vc), R O'Keefe
Forwards: B Johnson (c), B Fevola, N Riewoldt
Ruck: B Lade, C Judd, B Cousins
IC:: S Burgoyne, D Cox, J McDonald, M Pavlich

"The 1% are not getting paid for exactly the same things as the 99%"

teched
Originally uploaded by Tim Wragg.

I'm with Jaycee that it makes proactive sense for a hunter in the social media news space to have a migration strategy for its premium 1% of content creators : who aggregate, annotate and filter the most relevant and recent content for its audience. (vs the 19% that comment/vote and the remainder who lurk/read/consume)

It's been Amex priceless (or was that BusinessWeek coveresque backlash) marketing to boot. The best byproduct of the strategy has been to watch the market leader's 1% eat itself. (and I'm sure its cheaper, more effective labour than that sourced from a job board and the HR d'pt)

Calacanis.com : "The 1% are not getting paid for exactly the same things as the 99% - which was Yochi Benkler's big complaint about our Navigator program (he said it made the other 99% of folks into suckers). It turns out that the public understands that the Navigators have more to do than an average user (i.e. killing spam, getting rid of duplicate stories, helping users), and that they are obligated to show up for "work" every day. That last part sets the difference--the 1% we pay are obligated and the 99% are not obligated."

The KKR MacBank Approach to Online Media.

Gran Modelos Venezuela
Originally uploaded by photochino`s.

I spent a couple days offline at Mr Edis' Eastern View Bellarine Peninsula pre-Marriage soiree. Even if I did miss the Friday kink, golf with the kangaroos @ Angelsea on Saturday was fun as we played Happy Gilmour with the R7's.

Come Sunday morning when everyone is retreating back to their life, I was playing the final pool game on the 3/4 table, and saying there needs to be a Macquarie Bank or Private Equity approach to tech startups. Both downunder and globally. And by techstartups Im particularly talking about the online assets of media groups, as well as the potential assets of large online players, who now have big enough market caps to not move as quick as they did 1997-9.

Private Equity obviously prefer to fund (that word) "infrastructure", and all those other utilities which governments stupidly give away like roads, airports, telcos, energy and gas.. then get voters to ante up $7 every time they drive on a previously free road for the next 30 years.

Technology and the online assets of a newspaper, TV or radio station is too small cap for MacBankers. They need to make $5B off a deal in 3-5 years for it to create the right annuity stream for The Firm, that then kicks the big Continental GT bonuses in. So they still dont really care about online advertising, and how to jumpstart assets that are still small in size or even worse, potential assets, such as the podcasting assets within radio groups, or online newspaper mastheads.

The hands on approach of private equity, in building management teams that are top notch, and heavily incented (vs crap and not) is needed within online media. As is a restructure of where the online group fits within the organisation, in that it needs to be independent. And then the rollup play and expansion plans are needed to kick start some of these assets.

Newspapers are prime candidates, and as private equity increasingly sees the value to players like Viacom to start unbundling, rebundling, restructuring, and ultimately arbitraging the new gen of media, entertainment and telco hybrids.

The Former Monopolies known as Gemaya will have to metamorphise. Execution will as usual be everything : And retail et infrastructure, tech definitely isnt. The timing is right though for big to be the new small for Web 3.0.

BJnr : Australia's Future Podcasting Champion

Beso
Originally uploaded by Pichichi.

Did podcasting peak ? An indie diversion absorbed by pro-radio + it's stars, digital archives and distribution ? Or was it beaten by stronger amateur video brethren ala RocketTube ?

Specht BeeJay Junior doesn't care : He's podcasting.

Specht : "Yesterday while driving home I was listening to Accident Hash 175 with my son and CC Chapman made a comment such as “anyone can get into podcasting”. My son looked at me a said “Can they? Don’t you need to ask the government first?”.. A bit more work, we had registered the domain, installed Wordpress, sources some music from the Podsafe Music Network. Mixed it all together and after about 4 hours work from start to finish he has a podcast!"

It Looks Like My Imac.

24" iMac
Originally uploaded by welovecats888.

Except the screen is 20% bigger.

On the flipside we have the 2dimensional Microsoft vs Open Source debate that Chris Pirillo linked to this Guardian piece on Vista : "The Vista saga has two interesting lessons for the computer business. It raises, for example, the question of whether this way of producing software products of this complexity has reached its natural limit. Microsoft is an extremely rich, resourceful company - and yet the task of creating and shipping Vista stretched it to breaking point. A lesser company would have buckled under the strain. And yet while Microsoft engineers were trudging through their death march, the open source community shipped a series of major upgrades to the Linux operating system. How can hackers, scattered across the globe, working for no pay, linked only by the net and shared values, apparently outperform the smartest software company on the planet?"

Apologies to Frank Arrigo + Dan Sullivan - 2.0

dees do it
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Sorry guys. Demons win.

That was one of the most pumped games and second halfs and last quarter ive ever been too. delirious.

Apologies again for my delirium. Saints are still my second favourite team.

The 24" CoreDuo2 PayPal Me Charity Starts at Home Micro-Fund.

24in imac
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

How much do I want to upgrade (well actually have them side by side with my 14" ibook with the 24" in the middle!) my first gen Imac G5 20" to a 24" Core Duo 2 : So much I wont even tell you, but ILounge have a few thoughts :

"This morning, Apple unveiled its most powerful iMac.. received brand new Core2Duo processors and a new 24” model.. It all happened without a major announcement, and with the Showtime keynote-style event planned for less than a week from now. Given that much of the world’s technology media will be gathering in San Francisco shortly, the obvious question is this: why did these new computers drop onto the radar screen before the event, rather than at it? In Larry Angell’s words, “they must surely have enough new stuff at the event to not need these there too.”

The downside of not upgrading : "Another interesting point is that every Mac computer shipping today is dual-core or better, from the lowest-end minis to the top-end, quad-core Mac Pro - a major potential selling point for the entire Mac lineup (think Mac versus PC commercials with one PC and twin Macs), and possibly a feature we’ll need for upcoming Apple video applications.

As we’ve noted across many prior articles and reviews, encoding speeds for MPEG-4 and H.264 videos can be atrocious on older computers; some old machines have trouble even playing these formats." (its time to go beyond a paypal donate button, not that I have one or even ads!, and get one of those Web 2.0 p2p prosper loans ! not..)

"Create a large community of like-minded smart developers who cluster around your company.."

Holly loves Libsyn
Originally uploaded by NickStarr.

Joel's Spolksy piece on "finding great developers" is taking up a large percentage of my time at the moment. Going to the next level, its probably the most important capability after cashflow management. One of the main strategies he suggests which I agree with (especially the hard bit) is :

"Build the community (*hard) : The idea here is to create a large community of like-minded smart developers who cluster around your company, somehow, so you have an automatic audience to reach out to every time you have an opening."

"The Guardian is no longer a UK national newspaper.."

hubba
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

The Guardian is global. From Paid Content interviewing Matt McAllister : "The Guardian is no longer a UK national newspaper: it could be audio, video; it could be in the US, UK, Australia or Japan; it could be continuous, once a day, twice a day, once a week, something you dip into through RSS feeds rather than something you see as a whole..

There are some people who work in newspapers for whom it’s a bit like working in bakery - it’s all about the sights and smells and sounds very physical thing of putting pages together and the excitement of that, and there’s a lot to be said for that. But there are those like Alan [Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian] who can see that’s an important part of what we do and that you have to do it incredibly well, but increasingly it’s just part of what we do. There are now pretty much as many people looking at our content digitally everyday as there are the paper. And there are as many outside the UK as there in inside UK. So, again, we are no longer defined by our means of distribution."

Pete Doherty + Viacom.

doubled rate
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

In a business school training wheels class they do a simulated exercise asking the 20 students how they would value a business; how they would pay for it; and to model the game theory of the deal negotiation with the suitors + acquirer. (u will know someone is doing an MBA because they talk about game theory alot) Yawn, yup. Kate Moss. Doubled her rates since saying she will marry Pete Doherty. (who's rumoured to be in talks with Viacom)

The business in question is Youtube. And substitute business school for da bloggychumpyland. There's no doubt in 12-24 months, major late to market media, vc and hedge fund players will complain the lack of independent high traffic next gen plays. Even with the much ballyhooed court cases (that will go away in this new Itunes world), $1m pcm server costs and a texas holdem no limits $900m-esque video ad deal - and while it may not meet the Ox accounting rules today, the business is certainly worth something. Quite a bit actually.

But what would you value YouTube at ? I'm filing it under more than MySpace and quite a bit less than Skype. (deal prices that is) Just a bit under a bill maybe - or round it up. But like a second hand Lamborghini owner will know (esp of Diablo) you dont just find a buyer overnight. But if it's well serviced and has low km's, not too many modifications, it will be of interest to someone. I'm guessing alot of retrospective wisdom on this deal that's still a few quarters away.

Apologies to Frank Arrigo + Dan Sullivan.

sorry saints
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

You know you are both my friends. And St Kilda is my #2 team and spiritual home. But your team is going to lose so bad on Friday night at the MCG while I watch. (i assume like the St Kilda players you guys wont turn up :)

Kosi better make sure he has 20 other spare helmets, because the demonic plague will hit the Saints at 730pm Friday. I hope Hamill plays again. That G-Train goes missing. Ball's O-P flares up.

You've had a pretty easy run up to the finals; We've played Adelaide and Geelong on their turf last 2 weeks, but at the G this year, we already beat you easy and have only lost one of 12 encounters - all of which I've been to. And will again Friday. I'm sorry you cant be there Friday : Your difference in a close match, could have made the difference. Or Not.

Apologies.

"The bad reviews helped us get better, because we listened."

post natal
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Gotta love the 2 edged sword that is hyperlocal reviews. The SF Gate has an interesting case study on cafe owner Fars who opened "Cafe Grillades" and after the opening weekend customers posted on Yelp : '"This place truly sucks," wrote one reviewer. "It's void of any atmosphere whatsoever, service is nonexistent, food not even worth mentioning. The hospital cafeteria at UCSF is more inviting."'

Poor Fars : "After those initial slams, he (Fars) posted a public apology on Yelp. He fired three employees and hired a consultant to train the rest. He contacted the critical reviewers privately and invited them back to the restaurant.".. "The bad reviews helped us get better, because we listened," Fars said. "To be honest, I can't tell if those reviews hurt us. But they hurt me personally. I didn't open this business to make people unhappy."

Hyperlink : Interesting article (while speaking local) written by a newspaper schooled exec over at Editor and Publisher : "It is instructive that after twelve years of the consumer web, not a single example of breakthrough online innovation has emerged out of a newspaper company. Not in recruitment. Not in auto. Not in classifieds. Not in shopping, directory, new ad models, or content aggregation. The Real Cities ad network, created by Knight Ridder, comes close, but lacks the scale or technology to earn the title “breakthrough”, as would Advertising.com or Google AdSense."

My Problems with Vox.

da alba
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

It's not about anything.
Not structured.
Faux.
Neighbourhoods aren't really local.
Home page isnt functional. Too advertorial and cropped.
Members dont hyperlink.
Seems to be full of pretend newbies.
Design distracts, as good as it is. Poor Mr White.
The whole invite pseudo class structure aint helped co-opt the world.
It could be really good if it connected more real dots.
When you go for a all in one feature-set, sometimes u dont end up with anything.
I want to see Mena's mom blog.
I didnt mean this to sound like a sledge.
As the judges say in Idol : "The interpretation just didnt connect for me."
It's very good looking though.
I hope it succeeds.

Comedic 2.0 Tragedy.

elle shoot
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Keith Malley of K+TG podcast (and local comedians like Dave Hughes - as popular as Hughesy's myspace account page is.. as well as true legends such as Daniel Kitson) will love this LA-Times piece about Dane Cook.

Spot on : "He's Seacrest-psyched, boy voted most likely. Cutest. Funniest. Coolest. For Cook, this is no ironic pose à la Andy Kaufman; it's a whole insufferable ethos, integral to the rise of his career. He's become huge by asserting that the comic mind does not come from alienation and restlessness but from adoration and social connection — the comic as your instant-messaging best pal... This is, for now, the Cook legacy: He signals the end of the comedian as we knew him - reclusive, angry, socially awkward, anguished, self-defeating."

TAR : Trust, Attention + Relevance

avril elle
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Morning caffeine here and while the new anti-meme du jour is VC and institutional angel investing being DeadWood 2.0, Brad Feld's RSS Industry Value Chain Investment Thesis late 2004 (when he invested in Feedburner, Technorati + Newsgator) was one of the pieces of thinking that got me into the business side of this whole RSS thang.

So I've been pondering Brad's new 2.1 investment acronym TAR; Trust, Atttention + Relevance - focused on "the dynamics of information". Brad often has a preference filter over his investments that his portfolio co's sell something to businesses ala Newsgator + Feedburner to a degree. So I'm interested in where TAR could go in the enterprise market. I don't have the answer yet as Im only half way through my coffee.

Feld.com/Blog : "I’ve chosen to call it “dynamics of information” deliberately – what I’ve been pondering is a broader issue than any of the specific TAR topics, although there is definitely value in attacking them one by one.."

Scoble's Road Trip to Hellay

barbie dior
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Scoble makes me laugh :) It seems the Web 2.0 audience aint that big and Lindsay Lohan is the answer : "I wish we had a conference on “how to find customers outside of the tech bubble?” The entire industry could use some creative thinking there." Time for the Scoble RoadTrip to Hellay with P Jr, and P.D'iddy Winer. Dogleg thru China. England. Australia :|

Fast + Furious Rocket Fuel Startups Should Gauge Probability of Success

911E
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Paul Graham, the partner in Y'institutionalised angel investing, is one of the kings of the upside down, yet so obvious why didnt you get it soundbite.

This one (about a startup needing to get "a lot of subtle, social things just right.") pretty much nails why taking VC too early can set you down a path - business, creative, design and socialwise that limits your flexibility and potential authenticity and success.

The stereotypes of Hansel and Gretel in Web 2.0 goes thus : Alot of (greedy) entrepreneurs talk about dilution like it's a really bad thing and end up failing because they didnt incent enough of the right people and resources to get behind the dream; Then another group (VC) talk about growing the overall pie so as to negate dilutionary impacts; The classic VC/Entrepreneur pig and bacon analogy.

However these archetypes and bed time stories are slightly distressed with the changing financing requirements of a 2.0 venture wanting to demonstrate a successful prototype/alpha/beta. This is the Graham arbitrage : Throw $6k at the next Reddit; Flip the old Kiko onto Ebay, and hope at the end one of them becomes the New New Thing.

I totally agree though that with the lower cost of starting a company now, entrepreneurs should look beyond just dilution and the overall size of the pie perspectives. They need to look at "Probability" - Probablility of their venture being a long term success.

Taking VC if you dont need it, or havent got the business stable enough to know exactly how you will use the money and generate the necessary return in set time frame, can actually mean the probablity of a successful outcome decreases the moment that 7 figures hits the bank. If you take $2m, then someone wants at least 10 times back.

Remember if a suitor does build/buy analysis on your startup and thinks they could replicate it (and its success) for a few million, but it would be easier to buy/partner with you : This option is not available to you if your shareholders already invested in you and want their $20m+

The dependent key variable to probability is time : At a certain point, without significant resources the probability of a huge success (ie bigger than Graham's flickr and delicious examples) a business will require more significant rocket fuel in most cases. Basically bootstrap for as long as humanly possible, pain and all - then nitro your turbo up at the right time. Fast and Furious.

Paul Graham quoted on TechCrunch : "Once you’ve taken a VC-scale investment of two or three million dollars, you give up the option of an early acquisition. You’re also under more pressure to grow fast, which can cause you to make design errors. It may not be a coincidence that both Flickr and Del.icio.us avoided the usual VC route. Both had to get a lot of subtle, social things just right. You’re more likely to do that if you can evolve organically."

Folksonomic Fires on Grindhouse Set

on set
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I'm behind on my reading and I'm linking to stories DW linked to again, shucks : this one is a good (slightly bland) list for newspapers online : It's not perfect or comprehensive or technical enough - but if they did it, they would be more ahead and not have taken much risk. Naturally I will push this line : Any Case Studies = Less Risk for a business to do something online. Newspapers included.

I'm positive that one of the next online trends will be once newspapers and indeed all content owners, start implementing all the relevant subscription, aggregating, filtering, blogging and folksonomic tools, and start doing it well (not just linking to digg here or there) - Suddenly they will have a lease of new life. Not to mention rapid traffic growth and more advertising opportunities. What they have which others dont is they own their structured content - which in some cases can be used more powerfully than just scraping user generated content off the net.

It's still slowly slowly though - anyone who thinks it all happens overnight is kidding themselves. (do u remember 2001-4 ?) OK off to footy now, I've caught up on my lack of blogging this week (as I have a ship date next week) I dont want to be one of those bloggers that blogs twice a month, mainly to announce the latest deal or Q+A for their startup :) Nor do I want to be a blogger who blogs about blogging, and the levels of meta-excitement or not around such behaviour. I'd like to be able to annotate my actual thoughts in real time, but again slowly slowly :) Dont want to end up like Jim Carrey in that Liar Liar movie.

The Bivings Report : "Sites like the Washington Post are already partnering with Technorati to show “Who’s Blogging” about the story you are viewing (see left). Why bother? If I’m a blogger writing about a news event, I’m going to link to the Post story as a way of promoting my entry. It is a great way to facilitate discussion about (and links to) your content. In addition, the “Who’s Blogging” feature serves as a real time letters to the editor page."

It's All Hyper-Glocal to Me.

grindhouse lead
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

If I was to summarise the business opportunity I have invested the last 2 years on (and worked on most of my career) it's Local. Whether it's shopping, family, friends, dating and a large percentage of the GDP which people create and consume in their live, Local is implicit. And media will always have demand for local, and the demand is accelerating so that city or suburb level isnt enough : People are demanding the exact location. And wanting online services built out from that geo-starting point : As one viewing point for the content.

There is a parallel trend of the internet having enabled and catalysed global 2 way connections between people, and facilitated boarderless communication and commerce markets, but once that online persona is shutdown for the night, people are still figuring out where to order dinner from, and watch their local TV station and read their local paper.

Where it gets interesting is what people consume when disaggregated is both global and local. Glocal as Dana says. So an Australian news service will lead with a local murder or event, and then syndicate globally relevant content, especially in categories where there is obvious leadership such as technology (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) or entertainment (Hollywood, CSI) Media has always been a mashup, but now the user has the tools to recreate the mix and priority to their suit their own concerns, local being one driver.

Global content that is consumed locally still has different characteristics : TV shows do not run at the same time; Movies are released at different times globally and even examples like cars have differences such as what side the steering wheel is on. Not to mention price and actually fulfilling the transaction. (Australia wont get $15 feature films on Itunes for years, guaranteed)

Local online services such as Citysearch also got a semi-bad name by not having huge home run billion dollar exits or sustainable leadership. So geeks and investors are tentative on local; Often you need to be able to aggregate enough eyeballs at a suburb and business category level to then sell to an advertiser, which done with a real ad sales rep can cost more than the advertiser insertion order they occasionally come back with. The difference this time with bigger audience and broadband is self service performance driven advertising technology, with contextual targeting, sold to small to medium sized businesses that are increasingly embracing online advertising. If anything the technology and case studies driving local targeting of advertising is holding back the growth rather than the advertisers not wanting to spend. (ie search demand is only 10-15% satisfied : "I want to buy more clicks!")

By definition, the core technology platform of online services - whether they be blogs, photos, videos, IM and search - do not necessarily have a local or social element. So you dont necessarily localise the actual application. Functionality merely allows you to upload a photo, post a page, watch a video. It's the content and community around the application that is local. Use China as an example - The market potential for local applications in China is much larger than California, New York or Australia - but the level of competition and PHd smarts working on the local solutions there is far less than the bubble cities.

The context around this functionality is increasingly social, and indeed affected by local concerns : What your friends and family watch, link to, and say matters more in many cases than what your online blogging buddy says. Especially once you get outside the echo chamber. And if you are looking for a job, buying a car or house - 3 of the biggest decisions out there along with who to spend your life with ;) the virtual community aint a huge amount of help, other than to help you pick up the pieces in a sad chatroom or comments section of a blog post. (cue melodramatic dripping with humour soundbite)

Sometimes you will need to rebuild the application to achieve your local goals because of all the noise and data associated with it. (not to mention the commercial licensing issues around it) The beauty of open source and commercial API's means the amount you need to build is 9-10 times less than last time : Where people used to build content management systems, ad servers, the applications themselves, rather than the most important proprietary one. This is the main reason Web 2.0 is much cheaper than Dot Com 1.0.

If marketing has the customer at the centre, and markets are moving to a customer of one, or mass customisation, then many Web 2.0 applications need to be implemented for non Mountain View and Manhattan markets around the local. The posterchild for this whole movement Google has realised (at least on a country level) the importance of localising it's services into as many markets as it can. Ditto Ebay. Just as there was Citysearch and Sidewalk in 1.0 days, 2.0 has spurned the Yelps, Judybooks and fascinating Plazes.

The recent Hitwise search that MySpace audience actually buy a hell of alot will also ultimately be broken down by geo-segmentation as well. Facebook members also have an obvious geo-component where the university they attend for 3-5 years is in a certain location. It is only a matter of time till these services plug in not just a karaoke or avatar service, but self service performance marketing programs which local merchants can utilise to tap into the tens of millions of local prospects that use these services.

This is why Flickr's Geo-Tagging and associated API is probably the most interesting product I've seen developed by GEMAYA for 2006; From the perspective of someone whose business and interest in the Local component of 2.0. The Global Village is great, but the Glocal one is even better.

Dave Winer linked to this great post by Jeffrey Veen on Flickr's Geotagging - so now when I search Flickr for "Shoreham" (on Mornington Peninsula Victoria, Australia - I dont get Shoreham in the UK) : "They could have waited for camera manufacturers to add GPS chips or asked cameraphone users to thumb in their location. They chose, however, to exploit the fact that metadata can be added asynchronously without much penalty. Finally, by including a very easy to use API, Flickr ensures success by giving up control. Send in a properly formatted URL and get back a list of photos - so easy even I could get it to work. I can get at my data whenever I want, do with it what I please, and inspire mashups nobody's even yet considered."