Jessica Simpson's MahMahMooMooSpace

meth eyes
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Steph's muchadoaboutmyspace hehe : "I know that's suprising given my famewhore reputation, but in my opinion, My Space is an even bigger self promotional, attention seeking, circlejerky, wankfest than blogging."

Onto Jess - 'A source told Britain's More magazine:' : "After she split up with John Mayer, she set up a MySpace page to meet new people. She did it in a fake name but got really into it. She's totally addicted. Whenever she's at home, she's on her laptop" ..."Jessica loves the idea she can use the internet to look for a man who's interested in her personality. She pretends to be this shy Texan girl."

Rollyo Your Own 997-GT3-RS

pimp RS
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I've spent the last few days enjoying not the startup car breaking down 12kms from home in country forest land (minus mobile and payphones) in Main Ridge. Cue some (felt like) hiking home in the rain thru forest, then organising tow trucks after the 2.5 hr walkabout. The a priori company and sports car grass is always greener in such moments, leading to a you better know what u r doing, get your frk on.

So Dave Winer, the CTO every newspaper should be dying to have (well, um I guess they may actually die if they dont act) makes a point I'd been thinking about re people saying search and therefore technology startups are over because of the billion annual R+D spends of Google - followed by Yahoo + Microsoft. Just because I can rollyo on google co-op doesnt mean I want to build kewl or real stuff for them to own. (using google docs last night though was pretty impressive)

So the man with the RSS couch is right : Rethink the problem. Rethink the solution. Heck, invent a new standard like the man himself. It's Judo not GeorgeB. Until then the black orange tipped 997-GT3RS is a ways away, maybe.

Scripting.com : "The next layer comes on not by building on the old layer (a trick, the guy you're building on will eat your lunch), or re-doing what they did (what the naysayers correctly say you can't do), but by starting from a different place and building something new, and so different that the old guys don't understand it and don't feel threatened by it... There will be new technology enterprises that make the search engine as humdrum as the desktop OS is today. Bet on it and win. Think that all innovation must come in the form of applications of search and you'll be left in the dust."

YouTube Foreplay to Hollywood.

burga land
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Is YouTube now foreplay for Hollywood and talent agencies ? Robert Altman sequel to the player must be in the works. NYT : “Now we can look at an artist and say, that might be a goal, but in the interim, or while we’re doing that, or instead of that, how can we monetize their interests online?”

Google says Big Bubbles, No Trouble.

blow ho
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Early stage VC's like Fred Wilson are finally buying google (which is kinda like a Hollywood actor or director paying retail to watch their film at the local mall UPDATE : actually it's like watching one of your competitors/friends films :); GOOG stock is up 19% this month; 44% of revenues are international (which suits my investment thesis re regional opportunity) and analysts are upgrading.

This is like when you used to watch AOL stock going up percentages each day on CNBC and Cramer, Faber, Maria etc would rant to buy buy (Cramer's current buy goog soundbite is pretty good2 : "Google “is the eight-ton gorilla in the room that is crushing the competition and is the stock every mutual fund will have to own by the end of the year.” Simply put, he says that Google is just doing everything right. "Get a share or two," he advised. "Get on the Google train where the next stop is $500. All aboard!") Internet Stock Blog also blurbs :

• Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto reiterated a $525 year-end target, while setting a new 12-month target of $595.
• Citigroup analysts reiterated their “buy” rating and raised their target price from $550 to $600.
• Jefferies & Co. analysts reiterated their “buy” rating and raised their target price from $500 to $520.
• RBC Capital Markets analysts reiterated their "outperform" rating and raised their target price from $465 to $525.
• Prudential Financial analysts reiterated their “overweight” rating and raised their target price from $520 to $575.
• Lehman Brothers analysts reiterated their "overweight" rating and raised their target price from $530 to $560.
• UBS Analysts maintained their more conservative stance while reiterating their "neutral" rating and raising their target price from $450 to $500.

The new google stat I cant help but drop into conversations with Collins Street Bankers is that Google spent $332M on Research and Development in the last quarter. The Australian Online (Media) Industry (those driven by online advertising lets say) would be lucky to spend 2-5% of that number in aggregate. Which is worrying on one hand. (on the other it's not as it allows for startups to own that space although it can be more resource intensive R+D:)

I'm constantly told anyone that knows what machine learning is, and is any good at it (technically) isn't in Australia anymore. This issue is bigger than the gap between high net worth non-core angel tech investing and small size VC. Its more a people issue.

There's lots of money there people want to spend. But it's the engineering brain power that has either left the country, or braindead working on $800-$1500 a day dole cheques from the bumbling bureaucratic banks. The good news is I've seen more engineering driven smart startups or seeds of ideas in the last fortnight than all year (alot driven by Web Directions 06 ppl), so I think we'll see lots of small big websites that are engineering driven originated downunder in 2007. Anyway, bed time here.

Trivial Pursuit: Totally '80s: Sample question: What bubble gum brand was hyped by a Wild West gunslinger who noted "Big Bubbles, No Trouble?" Answer: Hubba Bubba.

The Default Featureset for Tomorrow's Online Newspaper.

mysun 2.0
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Caught up with a fellow ex-sensis friend that setup their own directory play since (successfully) and we were discussing the future of newspapers (as well as directories) Efforts like MySun from The Sun Newspaper are definitely the start of what soon will be the default for every newspaper.

It's especially pleasing to see rss reader functionality built in. Sometimes it's not about being cutting edge (although it would be nice) but just making a start. Will be interesting to see if there is a domino effect - given that there are newspapers in every city of the world. Similar to around 1995-8 when one by one, they got online sites, and then classifieds and so on.

Mashable has the juice again : "Usually, when newspapers try to get into social features, feedreaders and the like, it’s a disaster. Not so here: the discussion forums are particularly compelling, and the profile pages will have users racking up the pageviews like never before. The only change I would have made (apart from RSS support), is to favor users with photos over those without: a lot of pages are filled with blank profile images. And although this looks at lot like social networking, technically-speaking it isn’t: despite all the interconnectedness between users, you can’t build a network of friends. All in all, though, it’s a pretty good attempt when you’d expect a total failure. Will any US papers follow suit?"

The OC on MySpace First. Fox TV Second.

in da OC
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I cant wait to see how TV and the web integrate. Convergence (13+ years after the 1993 information superhighway) is finally happening ! I wonder whether YouTube, Bittorrent, Google etc will increase the valuation price/earnings ratio of a standalone TV station (as more video is consumed and advertising cross media deals incrase), or decrease it. (web video consumption creates cannibalisation and loss of market share)

Mashable : "News Corp announced today that they’ll air the premiere of spoiled rich-kid drama “The O.C.” on MySpace and Fox sites a week before it appears on TV."

The Terminator is going after Video, Social Networking Advertising.

translucent alligator
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Im in Melbourne next 36/48 hours, ping me if you want to catch up. (i try and coordinate melbourne stealth missions with bad boring weather) Anyway, BeyondVC makes a very salient point which is an area I've been spending alot of time on. (identifying gaps and problems. executing on opportunities)

As always in a new product category (web 2.0, blogging, rss - in a regional market eg australia) there is alot of tyre kicking, education, long sales cycle, which sometimes leads to some revenue positive experimentation - pre a real spend (ie 2007). I say it's alot like selling banner ads and sponsorships in 1998. 2007 will be a big year downunder, driven by more local startups and a far higher corporate spend in web 2.0.

May sound like stating the obvious, but just as video and social networking online ad spend will come from very little today, to alot very quickly in next 12 months globally ($900m myspace/goog, $1.6b gootube just the start), so downunder will adoption of the core technologies happen (i dont watch much tv and saw an ANZ ad where you can upload a pic online and that is used for your credit card graphic. vkewl : flickr meets american express - expect more of that type of convergence : ANZ's Designmycard.com.au)

Digging for $150M.

terminator
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Given Facebook want $1b, in a world of relativist valuations, digg supposedly want at least $150m according to TechCrunch, with newscorp a looker but not necessarily a booker. Suffice to say there are alot of newscorp newspapers round the world that wouldn't mind some digg automagic.

TechCrunch : "However, the company was unable to land an offer in the price range they’re looking for - at least $150 million - and will likely close a Series B round of financing instead."

Analysts Finally Grok the Sensis/Fairfax Deal.

lambo nera
Originally uploaded by redbarren.

Oh, the Nera ! Analysts are only just realising what the whole Sensis buying Fairfax plan was about. Duh. It's about owning on and offline advertising, skewed to small to medium sized businesses. (largely text based : editorial and classifieds)

Only problem is analysts were a couple years late - Shame. It seems Fairfax became the Apple Newton of the Telstra management of the period. So along comes the Ipod and family, and AAPL is a must own stock.

Funny then that Fairfax stock is up 40% since Sensis looked to buy Fairfax in the Greg Ellis days : With the stock probably having an additional 25% acquisition premium. All that needs to happen is Fairfax' online classifieds assets (incl their advertiser and consumer solutions in each vertical) need a 2.0 Redbull shot. From ABC Transcript :

EMMA ALBERICI: "Back in 2003, 2004 when you suggested Telstra should make a play for Fairfax, the analysts were saying Fairfax was too expensive. It's now 40 per cent more expensive now than it was then, when you were looking at it. Do you feel at all vindicated that it was a good value buy then?"

ZIGGY SWITKOWSKI: "A print organisation like Fairfax, with its large classified advertising business, was a magnificent combination that would have been terrific for both organisations and the shareholders of both organisations. But particularly from Telstra would provide an opportunity to access all of the strong editorial and newsgathering skills, which I think will be important for telecom companies into the future. So, the reasoning for our proposed move of a few years ago, I think was robust then and I regret that the opportunity was missed."

"The Google" is Xenu

pamee wamee
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

George Bush and John Howard would make a very good couple. Here's one of those classic dugg/youtube'd microchunks;

HOST: I’m curious, have you ever googled anybody? Do you use Google?

BUSH: Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see — I’ve forgot the name of the program — but you get the satellite, and you can — like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes.

On a totally different tip, Fred Wilson linked to this post from HipMojo.com about (to be known now as) The Google possibly being bigger than Microsoft by 2010 (although it assumes google continues its growth and microsoft's market cap stays same even if revenue and profit continue to increase) I found the revenue growth stats quite interesting :

- 2002 revenues grew 409%
- 2003 revenues grew 234%
- 2004 revenues grew 118%
- 2005 revenues grew 92%
- 2006 look like they will be growing at least by 70%.

"While Google is anything but mature, one can tell that its revenues are growing, but at a slower rate. We can estimate that its 2007 revenues can grow by 50%, 2008 revenues can grow by 40%, and thereafter, the company’s revenues will grow at some 30% annual clip...What’s the first thing you’re taught in finance class? Historical performance does not guarantee future performance. So there is no guarantee that Google can maintain growth rates of 70%, 50%, 40% and 25% in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010... We said that given our projected growth in revenue, Google can make $34 billion by 2010. We know that the entire US online ad market is set to fetch $25 billion to $32 billion in America alone."

hehe, the Australian equivalent would be when will ninemsn be worth more than Ch 9 : or when ninemsn will be bigger than seek; or when Google Australia is worth more than Ch 9 and even PBL Media, and most relevantly Sensis ! (their need to double revenue isn't just for Sol's fun) Anyway growth is good. More search terms; More revenue; More earnings. Less chance of industry bubble collapse. The Google + Xenu are happy.

The Founder Ferrari Syndrome

f599 heaven
Originally uploaded by redbarren.

Switters just sent me a good piece from the Australian IT, that continues the (old, regurgitated) flavour of the month about Australian startups and VC. (with Cam Reilly now surfing the Malibu waves) This quote's pretty funny tho.

"The founders tended to be a bit greedy prematurely. They wanted to go immediately to market, take their cash and buy their Ferrari. They weren't prepared, in most cases, to dilute their positions to get the right people and the right capital to do the job."

Can't say I've met too many entrepreneurs that drive Ferraris; Although I have seen the odd Macquarie Banker drive Bentley Continental GT's around Sydney Financial District. (we all know the real money's in private equity at moment :)

One of the big lessons I learnt last time, is that venture investments are not success in themselves (often it's the opposite) When it is the right thing, it's more the beginning than an exit. And now you have to make (insert Kerry Packer or investors name) 10 to 30 times back on the money. (which investors also prefer not be spent ie the best companies that raise money dont need it etc :) So you'd want to look at your business and think conservatively your business can be worth that much in 2-7 years. (and not by wishing or blue sky analysis)

Entrepreneurs that have literally been around a business when Kerry asks for his money back know that venture funding is only taken when they are certain that Kerry will be paid back (It's not free money to explore your dreams with a Hallmark lesson about failure at the end : "I spent $60m to learn to use a computer and email" etc is not what you want to hear at the end of a venture, and certainly not what an investor wants to hear.)

VC for a business that is executing on its space (which it has enough proprietary data on the industry to know financial attractiveness and the business model to unlock these untapped dollars : Let's face it, web 2.0 is like a new restaurant opening or any new business - you need to know how many bums on seats, how much you can charge, and how much less your costs are versus revenue : From today till exit)

Anyway I was saying VC is the best way to put a business into positive margin hyperspeed : And lock out other competition. It can also help attract and retain staff, which feedbacks to a better business. But more money will not solve fundamental technical, product or people (read structural) issues, nor buy momentum. For the wrong business, it's a noose; For the right one, it gets you to the real destination as quick as a Ferrari F599 GTB.

RagingBlogs + MachineLearning Bears.

emteeveehee
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

29 degrees here today (celsius duh) and already 23 - blustery and humid. (still better warm than cold) Been having some new meetings, part of which look at how we can verticalise this local and global rss blob of data we've built up. It's an interesting problem.

With millions of blog posts in the last day/week (even in a small index) how do you build a system which can syndicate the best and most recent vertical content for a designated website's audience. Whether it be finance, music, travel, employment - whatever your poison - it's kinda like a modern AAP/Reuters issue.

One of Brad Feld's TAR (trust, attention, relevance) investments in the space - Collective Intellect - is looking at this problem/opportunity in the finance area. (as are others like Monitor110) Wall Street aint a bad customer for vertically algorithmicised rss - and to me there are lots of next gen ragingbull.com/multex.com/thestreet opportunities.

It's an area I'm hearing more and more "machine learning" experts decide to quit their jobs and focus their brains on cracking these new web problems. The mixture of consumer/freemium vs a premium pay for Wall Street model - and the adoption within both these groups (or not) will be interesting to watch; Which will be largely driven by the signal to noise, and how quick, insightful and tradeful the information is.

Cnet : "The system examines about 150,000 new postings a day. Then it analyzes them for sentiment--is it causing a stock to go up or down?--and credibility. The company then sends out data feeds and e-mails on stock activity and interesting news to subscribers."

PBL Media Asset Breakup Value : What is ninemsn Worth ?

seek graph
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Yesterday I read every Saturday newspaper (all 4) including all the analysis on the PBL Media/Private Equity deal. (James vs Kerry, Media vs Gambling, Private Equity vs Public Co', Australia vs Russia/Macau etc) To be honest, I cant get enough of this stuff. It's the only interesting thing to me outside doing a startup.

Financial engineering and acquisition integration when it comes to new and old media assets is the bomb, as you plot how to blend assets, what prices to pay, and the war of negotiation, tied into kick ass expense accounts, remuneration as well as equity and fixed cash upside. (compared to a startup where u have a vbig equity stake and need to pain/bootstrap valuation as far as possible for as long as possible before going to next level - you also dont have to rely on technical systems, other than macros in spreadsheets and some of the new fandangled ways of reading encrypted documents and not making copies, circulating them etc as detailed in paper yesterday for the PBL deal)

What I havent read which I really want to know - please, any ultra-smart or inside analysts, what is the asset breakup/book value of the individual parts of the $5.5 Billion dollar deal ? Especially I'm referring to my second employer, ninemsn and what it is worth ?

There must be an established or market value for Channel nine, ACP and Foxtel. (based on earnings multiples of peers etc) PBL have also valued Carsales at a low to seek.com.au price of $270M. So what is ninemsn worth ? I often ask "smart" "corporate strategy" people if ninemsn is worth more or less than seek, and if they had the choice - which asset would they take ?

Feel free to add your preferences if u r aussies in the industry, most readers are probably asking who is ninemsn and these other regional websites ? :) Well the answer is they are part of a $5.5 Billion dollar downunder deal which is many times bigger than the funding of the web 2.0 industry globally and throw in youtube acquisition as well.. but tiny compared to google :)

Now PBL Media only owns 50% of ninemsn due to Bill Gates' stake. PBL also own only a bit more than half (27%) of this amount of seek percentagewise. Now what we do know is ninemsn's revenue of $87M in FY 06 (i remember doing the first ad rev forecasts for the network in year 1 hehe) contributed to $19.9m of earnings to PBL this year (slightly lower $16m dividend paid out) incl sale of realestate.com.au stake for FY 06 just gone.

While we dont know the future faure forecasts 2007-09 for ninemsn, we know the ad market is kicking 50% annual growth type numbers so the earnings assumptions moving foreward would be eg $60m FY 08, $90M FY 09 etc.

So what is ninemsn worth in an online advertising market that is absolutely booming downunder : Q2 of 2006 according to ABVS grew by 59% to $226m. (with general online advertising which ninemsn doing growing faster than search and classifieds - for that quarter, they are farely equally broken down in Australia in general) Can anyone say IPO ?

Now google trades at about 40 times free cashflow or a 67 time P/E; Yahoo trades at about 27 times. Im not sure what Seek's P/E is (Yahoo7 Finance doesnt tell me:) but they made a profit of $34.1m in FY 06, and with a market cap around a couple $au.bill, that puts their earning multiple in google territory. (and also puts their earnings at slightly less than ninemsn, if you assume ninemsn made earnings around $40m in 2006 vs seek $34.1, given PBL accounted for half that number)

So if ninemsn was worth a couple billion and I was a private equity banker like CVC or KKR, UBS, GSJBW etc, wouldn't I rinse and repeat the Ecorp deal ? (I wouldnt want to wait too long while google has a great multiple and 3rd qtr for 06) The irony is there has been much talk in the market about who Ecorp2 would be. (and even Ecorp3 plays to counter Ecorp2) So Ecorp2 may indeed just be Ecorp again with different management and owners; But same or similar assets floated again. (T2 becomes T3 etc)

The core asset being the ninemsn home page. Probably the most visited web page in Australia (there must be breakdown vs the google.au home page) but ninemsn home page is the gateway page to everything else that is recommended in the ninemsn network.

Either way step one was to unbundle gaming and bundle up media assets. (and bring in private equity bad cop so you can take a more ruthless operational approach) Step 2 would surely be (along with paying back debt) unbundle online and media assets, and find a public market exit, that's me guess. Get some of that gootoobjuice eh. Start with ninemsn, spread into the verticals. And by about that time, some of the local Web 2.0 businesses may have disrupted the established 1.0 leaders, well enough anyway to figure in future scrip deals (like the record labels did :) ala googtube.

Gary: Richard did not kick my ass, what Richard did was attack me while I was half asleep.
Brooke: Really? Is that how you see it?
Gary: There's a really big gap between getting your ass kicked, and having a dancing, singing sprite fool you with trickery, and then strike your throat before you know that you're even in the fight. But I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand that, because all you do is make moves from up in your ivory tower.

The SecondLife Realtor : 60,000 acres. $20 per acre. 8% monthly growth.

IMG_4334
Originally uploaded by gocarrt.

You gotta love the secondlife economics. PaidContent have the business model assumptions, which are driven by land rentals, which pull in "rates of $20 per acre and $195 per month. Land mass is growing at 8 percent a month and currently stands at 60,000 acres, and brands account for five percent of real estate sales. Linden Labs doesn’t release revenues figures but Second Life’s parallel economy is estimated to be worth around $500,000 each day and to be growing by 15 percent monthly."

Lose it. Findit.com.au Lose it. Findit.com.au

Scarlett Johansson and Dita Von Teese
Originally uploaded by vampirejeshika.

The Findit.com.au classifieds startup are in that lovely skys the limit stage of development. Rock it ! : "So while everyone in this office works for Mark’s one vision of fair classifieds www.findit.com.au connecting Australians with no gatekeepers, nobody hesitates to give their full and forthright opinion – on how to better Australian classifieds. Openness is truly fostered and not in the fashionable sense charading around the most expensive of cutting-edge furnishings."

"Dude... coach?!?!?!?? Really? Get some jet share/buy a Falcon!"

bollywood panache
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

The whole of Hollywood is in Africa adopting children, while helping the UN and promoting their latest movie. While Bill Gates has said he will give away a trillion dollars - because after he tried to give them a cheap pc he found out food and medicine was more important; So what about the newly minted twopointaires and doing good for the greater cosmos, esp the disadvantaged segments. Mr Jason Calacanis, the first to exit from blogging, cant believe one of the YouTube, ex designing, dudes is flying economy.

JC : "Dude... coach?!?!?!?? Really? Get some jet share/buy a Falcon!"

Nora Ephron (harry met sally yeh ?) on Steve Wynn putting his elbow through a Picasso he'd just sold for $139m : "Wynn was saying -- he was standing in front of the painting at this point, facing us. He raised his hand to show us something about the painting -- and at that
moment, his elbow crashed backwards right through the canvas.

There was a terrible noise. Wynn stepped away from the painting, and there, smack in the middle of Marie-Therese Walter's plump and allegedly-erotic forearm, was a black hole the size of a silver dollar - or, to be more exactly, the size of the tip of Steve Wynn's elbow -- with two three-inch long rips coming off it in either direction. Steve Wynn has retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that damages peripheral vision, but he could see quite clearly what had happened. "Oh shit," he said. "Look what I've done." The rest of us were speechless. "Thank God it was me," he said."

$5.5B PBL Media

PBL Media
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I wonder what it values ninemsn at, and is IPO of individual assets the exit strategy ? This is a big catalyst deal for the media and online media market. Love it. PBL as always is the first of the convergent media groups to use the private equity angle to unlock value. As they say, when money's cheap and there are new financial instruments to use, The Barbarians at the Gate can be of value.

The Australian : "PBL said it had entered into binding agreements to implement a recapitalisation of certain of its media interests, including ACP Magazines, Nine Network (including its interest in Sky News), its 50 per cent interest in ninemsn and its 41 per cent shareholding in carsales.com.au."

Yahoo's 3 Step Plan for GOOG-Catchup

nasty mofo
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Semel from Yahoo at their Q3, 06 conference call, bulletpoints Yahoo's stay up with google strategy : "Moving forward, we are going to be laser-focused on these three core things:

1. Close the gap in monetization of search;
2. Widen our lead in graphical advertising; and
3. Seize the opportunity in social media, video, and mobile..."

"Statistically, if you want to avoid failure, it would seem like the most important thing is to quit your day job."

m6 hamann
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Yup - you cant really be a startup if it isn't your primary business activity :) Paul Graham in 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups : "Statistically, if you want to avoid failure, it would seem like the most important thing is to quit your day job. Most founders of failed startups don't quit their day jobs, and most founders of successful ones do. If startup failure were a disease, the CDC would be issuing bulletins warning people to avoid day jobs."

The Closer + WD06 Podcast

62 F250 GTO
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I'm obviously not much of a TV person outside Idol + House (oh and Sopranos which i fell asleep before last night at new time of 12am Monday night aaagh) but I've kinda been getting into The Closer, with it's slightly B grade noir and Southern Belle lead; Good late night blogging TV.

My podcast from Web Directions is now online. I guess I should listen to it before I post it :| You can pick up the rss podcast feed so u can mainline all the (more) interesting .ppt's. Nice bon voyage Bulletin article for the future Steve Irwin of Aussie Podcasting, Cam Reilly; "G'day Mate" will be uttered all the way across California.

Brenda Leigh Johnson: Low-functioning autistics have no language skills; they cannot survive independently by themselves. Keith is not like that. According to his school records, he's very intelligent but he does have issues : he's unemotional, frequently says inappropriate things, he's literal-minded, he gets fixated on minor details, he gets agitated when his routine is altered and he's extremely uncooperative when anything or anyone gets in the way of him doing what he wants.

"Google is the revenge of the nerds, tackling the world as an engineering problem"

2012 928
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Hehe, this article has some funny postmodern riffs in it (well the best is from umberto eco who was a fun uni read) but this is an era of revenge of the nerds - Google Blogoscoped take google into the sociology classroom (which is sort of relevant to my day as I internally debate the importance of AI in customising syndicated RSS feeds for online publishers who want specific slithers of vertical popular data) :

"Google is the revenge of the nerds, tackling the world as an engineering problem, whose original PageRank algorithm no one wanted to buy. Even their organizational structure is another engineering problem, ready for analysis, logic, and the flow of rules. Research and development will always be their focus, and that means to think far into the future... where Artificial Intelligence, not stupid programs, answer users. The Googlebot, with a little training in Google’s AI labs, will slowly but inevitably start preparing for the Turing test."

"Krikey, he's got a Petrol Can and is asking for a light on Acland Street !"

Krikey!
Originally uploaded by meriamerica.

I told you Acland St was krazy. I was only 36 hours from seeing something pretty damn hilarious : "The man was involved in a dispute at the hotel in Acland Street, St Kilda, about 9pm yesterday, and he and two others were thrown out, police said. The man got into a taxi, went to a service station, bought a fuel can, filled it with petrol and returned to the hotel, where he tried to ignite the petrol, it is alleged."

The NYT Friendster Mash

agent moss
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Ex-Netscape Dude is offered $30 mill from Google.
Dude says no.
Kleiner juice him up.
$30m in stock would now be a billyen.
“Basically, Jonathan wanted to meet girls,” said Mark J. Pincus.
“Jonathan is very much an acquired taste,” said Larissa Le, a former Friendster employee.
"Mr. Abrams spoke of the all-star cast that had joined him at Friendster the way a Yankee fan might boast about the Murderer’s Row that George Steinbrenner assembles each year in pursuit of another World Series ring."
“Friendster ended up with three levels of V.P.’s, C.E.O.’s and board members who, although they had great résumés, they were not connected to the social networking concept and didn’t really use Friendster,” Ms. Gilbert, who described herself as the first investor in Friendster.
"As Friendster became more popular, its overwhelmed Web site became slower. Things would become so bad that a Friendster Web page took as long as 40 seconds to download."
“They were talking about the next thing. Voice over Internet. Making Friendster work in different languages. Potential big advertising deals. Yet we didn’t solve the first basic problem: our site didn’t work."
Founder is sacked as CEO. 3 CEO's in a row leave quickly.
“We completely failed to execute,” Mr. Doerr said. “Everything boiled down to our inability to improve performance.”
"Today, MySpace has more than 50 times the number of monthly domestic visitors as Friendster."
Mr. Doerr added: “There are plenty of second acts in American business.”
Then NYT write a 4 page piece on it, which gets mashblogged.

The Real T3 : TVrss, Torrents + Ted Get Married.

um oc
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I've never really got the torrents working on the Apple wireless network here using Azureus. (is this a common problem or just me being a tech idiot ? - just shows vvslow download speeds, close to zero.. something with ports etc ??) Anyway, This tvRSS/Ted thang which delivers TV shows for you to watch, using the automagic of RSS, is real tempting.

So this week, combined with the trade-off I have a broken windows box which the Apple wireless connects to the PC's modem (because Iprimus + Apple dont talk well last i checked ?) I'm going to get myself some Studio 60 Sorkin.

If TV is for idiots, isn't it great that RSS can dumb itself down ? As Dave Winer defines RSS : "Automated web surfing" - so too tvRSS should be "automated TV watching." TorrentFreak tell you how to do it. Where's my ADSL2 when I need it :| ?

No wonder I love RSS so much ! Imagine Australian TV networks got with it. Especially since the latest Sopranos got moved to Monday midnight (joke) and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is probably not likely to ever get a showing here, let alone the last series of 6 FeetUnder. TV networks here could sell shows that they didnt even program at a watchable time ? Duh.

I was reading last night about the post Skype (founder's) The Venice Project (just a codename but should be the real name) which is going to be fascinating to see what their p2p interpretation of TV will be.

TorrentFreak : "tvRSS just released some extra features that makes it easier to find the latest episodes of your favorite TV-show. They optimized their search options, and support “search based rss feeds”. This makes it easy for anyone to create a personalized TV-torrent feed. This means you can have all your favorite TV-torrents in one feed."

Lifehacker : "While Azureus and Torrent both have built-in RSS parsing and downloading features, Ted is the most user-friendly, simplest solution I've seen for downloading television on a schedule, and since all it does is download the torrent and open it in your favorite BitTorrent client, you can use it in conjunction with most popular BitTorrent clients."

The Venice Project : "We're working on a project that combines the best things about television with the social power of the internet - a project that gives viewers, advertisers and content owners more choice, control and creativity than ever before."

Janus Friis (the other skype/venice founder) : "It’s simple, really — we are trying to bring together the best of TV with the best of the Internet. We think TV is one of the most powerful, engaging mass medias of all time. People love TV, but they also hate TV. They love the (sometimes…) amazing storytelling, the richness, the quality itself. But they hate the linearness, the lack of choice, the lack of basic things like being able to search. And wholly missing is everything that we are now accustomed to from the Internet: tagging, recommendations, choice, and so on… TV is 507 channels and nothing on and we want to help change that!"

Sarah: Is that a Thunderstick A-200o
Tom: When did you become an expert?
Sarah: I told you about that night in college.
Tom: But you never told me about the hardware.
Sarah: Getting a visual
Tom: We gotta charge this thing
Sarah: That plug won't fit in European outlet.
Tom: I'll make it fit.
Sarah: Don't force it.

"This has been both the most exhilarating and weirdest experience of my life"

Koenigsegg CCX
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Jessica Coen on her last day at Gawker : "This has been both the most exhilarating and weirdest experience of my life, and I wouldn't take any of it back."

Rojo is Dead. To Me Anyway.

top gear
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I've been a web based rss reader guy from the start. Like gmail, I need access on whatever PC, Mac etc I'm on. Anyway, so I used rojo, especially when I had the tweek so I could read 500-700 results in a river of news way - http://rojo.com/recent-stories/?width=700 (pure recency from the 1500 feeds I subscribe to) This tweek is now turned off and the new system seems buggy as hell.

So I need a new web based reader. Since Rojo was bought, as well as not being able to read 500 -700 stories at once on one page (I can only read 100 now), but more so there are lots of errors (often once i get about 3 pages or 300 results in) with a blank screen etc and no way to navigate through ("next" yeah right, it doesnt work already). Not to mention the newest stories and RSS isnt updating. (eg page 1 results have stories from 2 days ago, when I should have 5 pages of stories in last half day or less) So no more Rojo.

I've been using Google reader by importing my OPML, but while I like the UI, and the cascading experience, it's got problems. The newest content seems to often/always be 16 hours old. The loading isnt always smooth, and you cant get to new content easy.

The worst result has been that by not having a handy, quick, comprehensive rss reader working it's been screwing with my blogging. Combined with type A business priorities (which you have to put first - you dont want to reflect on what happened and realised you blogged too much) not having an rss reader that worked, has made it waaay hard to block quickly and effectively. Damn 6Apart.

So I need a new web based rss reader : I was supposed to have one of my own by now, but that baby's not yet online, so I need something to fill in the gaps. Web based please. Or tips on google reader and why it's showing newest content is 16 hours old ?

It Would be Very Kewl if Rupert Murdoch had a Blog.

scarlett vanity
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

One of the Giga-Om boyz (Robert Young) is speculating that a blog platform will come Fox's way : This has always made sense, but I'm not sure if this is more wishful thinking than current deal flow that's about to happen. Who wouldn't take the (nerdy) Automattic team ? over the (nice) Six Apart news at 11 one ? Wordpress is mo' than the blue'n'white.

"If I was a betting man, Im going to bet that Murdoch's next move is to acquire a blogging platform, either Six Apart (which owns Moveable Type, TypePad, LiveJournal, and Vox) or Automattic (owner of WordPress). And if he does, it can prove to be his 21st century “Wapping”."

Web 2.0 Bluesky Freelancing

928 GTS
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Was just scanning latest global blog updates on gnoos, as I do :) and couldnt help but laugh at this list, which could equally be applied to selling Web 2.0 Solutions which is similar to selling banner ads, downunder anyway, circa 1997-9. It's sometimes a fine line between experimentation and not being commercial.

"It's all about education" is the painful line anyone who saw dotcom/dotbomb will remember which is being repeated in web 2.0. The ol' countdown for the tipping/inflection point and real budgets kicking in.

Mostly though, it's about delivering products which the end consumer loves and uses. No point building a portfolio of failures, whatever the budget. Often with new categories of products and clients, there are unforseen non controllable events that occur which impact upon delivery. (whether it be agreeing on a logo and the marketing plan, redesigning the home page, API integration issues, legal delays and so on.)

You can only move as fast as the weakest link, and as a startup you try and move fast, but (when/if) you are also bootstrapping other people's resources, these have dependencies in them. The more these can be planned for and incorporated into a deal the better.

Anyway Saturday here and my brothers birthday (over to Mornington at my bro's gf new place there) but main headache (that u dont want to wake up to) is the main windows PC here - a Virtual Communities Windows ME IBM PC (not mine) which is NOT powering on at all (the light quickly flicks on/off and fan makes a noise powering down quickly) So my research (great way to spend Friday night) says it could be a power supply issue, or dead motherboard, and I'm winworried about a virus (which had attacked Outlook express earlier in week) deleting registry files : aagh then not turning on. Anyway this PC is how my Apple wireless network connects to the Internet. So I lose the PC I lose the internet when here. (im a bit of nomad these days going between Shoreham, Rye, Elsternwick and generally use the wireless networks to connect - the things we do to make a startup happen) Shite. Help please :|

Top 10 Lies told to Naive Artists and Designers (by Painter Creativity)
1. "Do this one cheap (or free) and we'll make it up on the next one."
2. "We never pay a cent until we see the final product."
3. "Do this for us and you'll get great exposure! The jobs will just pour in!"
4. On looking at sketches or concepts: "Well, we aren't sure if we want to use you yet, but leave your material here so I can talk to my partner/investor/wife/clergy."
5. "Well, the job isn't CANCELLED, just delayed. Keep the account open and we'll continue in a month or two."
6. "Contract? We don't need no stinking contact! Aren't we friends?"
7. "Send me a bill after the work goes to press."
8. "The last guy did it for XXX dollars."
9. "Our budget is XXX dollars, firm."
10. "We are having financial problems. Give us the work, we'll make some money and we'll pay you. Simple."

You Mean They Blog in Europe ?

thong time
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I won't repeat my usual line about the importance and nuance of non-US regionalised services. Hard data care of Technorati though helps understand similarities and differences - The insights have been driven largely by ePR firm eDelmen.

Richard Edelmen : "Our most important finding is that bloggers generally do cover business and specific product categories but they generally do not report on nor quote representatives from specific companies. We also discovered that bloggers in the US and France tend to link to each other, while in Germany and Italy the bloggers tend to link to mainstream media. We learned that the top subject areas in the US are technology and politics, while in France, the UK, Italy and Germany there are more political personal blogs."

Steve Rubel : "For starters, using Technorati’s data we have identified the top 100 bloggers who write in these three languages. We also compiled a list of the most influential UK bloggers we could identify using a far more subjective methodology. (It's difficult to sort out blogs originating from the UK vs. those from Australia and the US.) While these are the most prominent blogs written in Europe, in no way are they the only important ones."

Overestimating the Advertiser Adoption Equation in Hyperlocal

baroque overload
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

The more things change the more they stay the same goes the entrepreneur cliche of the week to paraphs'e Mister Woodrow Wilson. Quote below from Andy the Judysbook founder, which reminds me of when I worked on Microsoft's Sidewalk (and later Citysearch) Getting advertisers on local online is always hard.

Google has been very successful, but esp for businesses that are already online (eg an etailer) vs the local hip cafe or diner that doesnt use online to turn over tables quickly. There is gold there though, but a physical salesforce selling a $100-$200 ad package is challenging economics if they arent bundling higher value components :)

"Local merchants and local marketing spend just hasn't moved online at the rate that we anticipated when we started the business. Moreover, the degree of fragmentation (location + category + size + etc.) and the inability to reach the decision-maker (I came to believe that self service for this market won't work -- I think you need feet on the street to address this market). We began to talk about this problem as the cost of sale problem at Judy's Book."

The Local RSS Feed Parsing Heatwave

A4 notebook
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

It's funny how different a startup is to working in a big company/portal. (i wont dwell on the company car/petrol card or thousands that go into your bank account each month) Or even a corporate startup as I used to call it. (a new company with major funding or resources) You might have 3 or 4 people and a network of collaborators in different places, at different times, doing different work, for different motivations and incentives.

As an employee you are surrounded by people/politics. As a freelance consultant you are a desert island. Being an entrepreneur or startup employee also has an element of Tasmania to it.

I think the major difference today from say working in "Corporate Strategy", "Product and Business Development" - all areas I've worked in, is that there is no safety net. No protection from market forces. It makes writing a plan for a big company that won't implement it, seem totally tame, and fundamentally different - so that when you speak to such people you empathise but also feel a mile away. It's raw like a 911 that uses 4WD, stability management vs one that doesnt or has the intervention levels turned off.

Come that fortnightly and monthly paytime though, and associated lifestyle, obligations, repayments and consumeristic urban lifestyle, it's also totally different :) Walking around St Kilda yday (given I live down coast but commute to our Elsternwick office on stealth missions) and seeing Gaelan from big brother, and other urbanites wannabee hipsters doing the midday brunch/beer thang in Melbourne's October heatwave, it's all a bit of a circus to me.

How is a latte on Acland st going to help my back-end feed parsing and indexing improvements we are working on :) ? DId I say startups are obsessive, which healthily suits me. Did I say being a startup forever, like a stunted adolescent also isn't the best idea in the world (which will keep moving irrespective of your startup ideals) You do the yards, and all you want to do is remain standing.

Some playaz with the midaz touch will walk out with the bling, most wont. Exception that proves the roolz. The X + 1% which will make one win, the other lose. While the increasing 2web trend is to boot it to the States and Delawareise, that is only attractive to me from a working with people who are total pros in what they are doing.

Marketwise I'm totally into this local thang. But when Gaelan appears in the dreamscape of your startup, you need to be able to read the signs : Scale, Monetise, Execute. Rinse n Repeat.

Greed + Fear + GooTubey Ad Servers

the woz
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

The impressive thing about "that (billion dollar) deal" which is even getting mainstream media coverage downunder, is that the company started in February 2005. As an entrepreneur who started blogging the month before that, and then a few months later started a company, that is a blueprint on building a successful franchise in this space.

It also cant help but make you feel a little stupid. But also glad that a real deal validates the space (skype was about the telco market) If VC (and M+A) is driven by greed and fear, the Gooey Tube et Skype got their "disruptive" business models spot on. These are rare companies that disrupt an industry, and are sustainable. (the greed of the copyright holders and their inability to monetise content will mean lots more big dell/fox/aol deals, but with studios, labels, artists etc.

Steve Ballmer, at the other end of the large cap tech company continuum, is a tad disturbed by the whole thing (scoble is dead right about that whole "not built here" mentality which is holding them back - imagine Microsoft bought these properties early 2005 when Scoble would write public letters to Bill Gate to acquire these new social media assets) Anyway back to Ballmer in BusinessWeek :

"That MySpace deal (where Google provides the ad engine for MySpace). We bid a lot of money on that MySpace deal. And we got outbid. We wanted to win that MySpace (NWS) deal. At some point, we said we can't do this. Now Google can afford to spend more than us and Yahoo because they have more people in their ad system, so they're getting better yield, effectively."

"41.6 percent of retailers will incorporate blogs or RSS feeds"

gravy train
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Yup this is what we need downunder - for all the classifieds sites, for the retail ones, for travel. etcetera. RSS inherently drives more traffic; more frequency and more sales, duh. Nooked quoting a recent etail report; "41.6 percent of retailers will incorporate blogs or RSS feeds into their holiday marketing strategy"

The Flickr ($35m) of Video ($1.65b) that Got Away

deal done
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

About when Flickr was bought by Yahoo for around $35m, Youtube was born (just after I started blogging) and the cynical line was it was to be the "flickr of video" - Well not much has happened to flickr since (a more white background) and gootube goes into the post cuban billion dollar web video exit - The first big/real web 2.0 acquisition. (i cant wait to see the fox-goog game theory evolve)

A RedEye VC is thinking about what could have been after their first round :

-----Original Message-----
From: Chad Hurley [removed@youtube.com]
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2005 12:09 PM
To: Josh Kopelman [removed@firstround.com]
Subject: Re: Great news!

Hi Josh,

Yes, it was great talking with you last week. We definitely would
like to have you on board with YouTube. Right now, we are just
exploring our options and I will let you know before we move forward
with any of them.

Chad

Free Nikon D80's via Flickr

inverted reality
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

And you didnt have to give the Nikon back ? Come on Australian marketers :) Crunchgear : "Nikon handed out D80s to a bunch of prolific Flickr photographers and then collected their shots in one handy website and featured them in an ad campaign. They even made a Flash-rich webpage that is actually usable and included lots of their best shots."

GoogTubesque.

996 GT3S
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I wonder where all the people who said YouTube was going to go under because of their Austin Powers 1 esque $1m dollars a month (a number that also wasnt even confirmed btw) in bandwith costs and legal issues. Where there's smoke there's fire, even if the deal or one like it, takes quarters to happen. Owning TV online is too big a prize. (esp if you already have a 12 figure market cap) Schmidt, Page and Brin, the Stanford Geeks are going to have full revenge of the nerds on Hollywood. Life is stranger than fiction.

John Battelle : "This is why I think Google and YouTube make sense: no one else can position themselves in this way to Big Media. Other Big Media companies will sue the shit out of whoever buys YouTube. But Google has one hell of a legal team, and it's entire business is based on the DMCA safe harbor. "We're not here to compete with you guys for content creation," Google says, "we're here to partner with you!"

"Bottom line, our customer likes the online community, shops regularly, doesn't like to pay retail"

colour me
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I cant avoid my interest in local (country/state/city) and hyperlocal (suburb/street level) businesses - Especially after 3 years at a business with over $1b in annual revenue that still is focused on providing business name, phone number and address in text. Reviews would be considered too big a threat to the Yellowpages rivers of gold : The fundamental difference with sites like Yelp and Judysbook are intermediaries for local reviews and recommendations, in the same way Wikipedia is for encylopedic knowledge.

Judysbook's founder has some interesting user segmentation on current Hyperlocal consumers : "Our users wanted more from our site than simply "reviews". Our users were interested in answers to their local purchasing decisions... Bottom line, our customer likes the online community, shops regularly, doesn't like to pay retail, tends to be more female than male, tends to be age 25-45, enjoys promotions, coupons and deals."

2006-9 : Absorption of Web 2.0 Downunder.

vertical_search
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

It's the first Saturday without AFL and local footy here so what does one do before cricket@daG starts. So Google/Youtube $1.5B deal is the talk. There is a definite backend fit - Google likes problems that Youtube have technically. Google Video/Youtube (combined with MySpace advertising) also dwarfs Jumpcut/Yahoo Video.

Google may well prefer to own the property rather than lease it through a bazillion dollar ad deal. (which for all we know could have been blocked as a negotiating strategy to get google to either buy Youtube or be forced to compete against it - rather than just pick up the advertising rights - so leasing it may not be a strategic option) The leaks, rumours and covert coffee shop negotiations may well continue for many quarters. (the sequioa bet)

There's been alot of industry deckwise shuffling this last fortnight which is interesting to me (b5, Yelp funding, Jumpcut acquisition - which had at least one aussie in it) : The overall 2.0 industry seems to be displaying a similar transition as happened in 1997/8 to 1999; Venture rounds are getting bigger (often followup rounds now) and acquisition prices continue to spike; Early adoption technology and seed funding/small cap acquisitions has now been superceeded by early majority usage and expansion funds.

Downunder, the reality is a bit more reserved (circa 1996/7) as established players (with booming online advertising busineses) admit to scaling and production pipeline problems in developing new solutions : Preferring to tinker with the new rather than commit to it. (there are some exceptions which prove the rule though)

The most worrying thing in driving a more competitive market downunder, is that most of the leading local startups or startups with locals in them :) ala Omnidrive, b5media - are primarily focused on the US, not Australian market. Rex Chung has a great list of Australian Web 2.0 companies here. Note how few are local focused in their online offer. On one hand this good, as Australia doesn't export enough technology companies. On the other hand, the risk factors of being "stuck in the (geo) middle" are more severe.

The combination of the low cost of starting a global digital business, venture investors who want Delaware businesses, and the lack of right skillset people/support locally is creating a vacuum. We are going to make sure we can at least have a cracking 2.0 industry XMAS party in Elsternwick late November ! It seems parties are a key driver of expanding the industry in Atherton.

2007 locally (and in other non-US regions like the UK) is likely to be a huge year, probably the definitional year for non US 2.0 industry structure. The localised activity will be less widgety and horizontal than the software focused, gravity defying Mountain View - but the online activity in new businesses will likely concentrate on established economic segments that have large cap offline players and online advertising.

ONLINE STARTUP ACTIVITY DOWNUNDER 2007 - VERTICALS

TELCOS
* Continued onslaught of Soul.com.au type cheap VOIP offerings that try and undercut Telstra
* Local search/community plays that go after the Yellowpages gravy train

NEWSPAPERS + TV
* A sustained attack on the big classified verticals that have lacked innovation : Automotive, Real Estate and Employment; Driven by meta-search and customer/community centric tools
* MSM vs Blogs coopetition will become a prime driver of newspapers retaining advertiser/reader share and growth; More A-List blogs, networks, and folksonomy tools used by large publishers as fairfax and News duke out the hybridised blogs/msm world.
* Local video offerings that will augment thru ninemsn/revver, yahoo7, but also lead to more TV competition for the 3 free to air networks;

RETAIL, TRAVEL + FINANCE
* Meta-search will also hit the travel market and aggregate providers and intermediaries;
* P2P online lending will also go after the high interest credit card, non-conforming loan market.

THE GAME THEORY :
Some companies will build their own local solutions of the above; Others will use open source tools; Others white-label API's from leading US companies in the space; Not to forget the straight importing of brands, their technology platform, and knowledge, under exclusive licenses/joint ventures.

Localising alot of these vertical opportunities will not be as simple as transporting a business ala YouTube, and then adding an Australian logo to the page and opening business up. People will just keep using YouTube if there are no local content or social benefits.

Unlike last time when there were often 3-10 funded players in specific verticals (eg ecommerce) at moment, there is a lack of local funded players in the majority of potential 2.0 verticals above. By next year, there may 1 or possibly 2 in each segment. The lack of focused startups mean if the ones that launch can execute, there may be a winner takes all outcome (with sometimes the proceeds not being large due to lack of competition/small market size)

This would then indicate a vacuum for potential rollup play(s) - I wonder if McKinsey, JBWere/Goldman, UBS or other bankers have done a macro-study modelling the size of the Web 2.0 opportunity in Australia (and other non US markets) 2006-11 ?

Either way, through organic product expansion, venture incubation or acquisition there is the opportunity to take a decisive chunk of new digital media downunder - Ideally the company would have Mini-Macquarie fund-like money + google-esque technical capabilities. (with overseas R+D/access to specialists/API's etc) This NewCo would become big enough to have staff, marketing and technical scale competencies.

The HoldingCo' of incubated businesses would then be of interest to large media, telco and retail businesses (that have blended offline/online assets) that needed a 2.0 injection by 2008/9.

So the last quarter of 2006 downunder for 2.0 will be continued posturing, discussions, signing off initial experiments. 2007 will see concentrated startup and large company activity in strategically relevant 2.0 verticals (that relate to real businesses/industries) And 2008 will see the consolidation of the best of these businesses and ideas - absorbed into Fairfaxes, News', Sensis', PBL, Telstra and Yahoo7. 2009 will probably be a digestion year and good time to have an extended sabbatical, hehe.

I'll Have $2m, make that $10m.

woohoo roadster
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

It's Friday, and just as Skype attacked telcos, YouTube TV, Yelp goes after Yellowpages : And having worked on Citysearch, and Sidewalk back in the day, it is much better economics letting people to review, than paying large per word fees to pros. So Yelp (which has "grown 200 percent since the beginning of the year" trafficwise) is now up to $16m in funding but rapidly scaling traffic. (congrats to the b5boyz/galz in getting $2m funding too - nice1)

VentureBeat : "Yelp, which has 30 employees, has raised $16 million to date — $10 million in this round, $5 million from Bessemer Venture Partners nearly a year ago, and $1 million from PayPal founder Max Levchin, who incubated the company before going full-time at sister startup Slide."

Hyperlocal World of One.

Yelp Holiday Bash 12.14.05
Originally uploaded by yelpdotcom.

Hyperlocal one day says me, tick, tick, Forbes to Yelp.com founders : 'At the end of the interview, I asked them where they thought they would be in five years. This is what they said:'

Stoppelman: "Sitting on top of a pile of money ..." [in unison with Simmons] ... "surrounded by women! Yeah!" [high five]

Online Job Classifieds PacMan

mediopoly
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Interesting Newscorp's second investment in online job classifieds, this time in the UK. PaidContent : "News Corp.: it has bought out Milkround, the UK graduate recruitment site, for reportedly around £20 million or $37 million. The purchase follows on the heels of an investment it made in April to buy a stake in Simply Hired."

Now all that needs to happen is to see what the more candidate, business networking, algorithmic shortlist scoring, self-service cost per click job ad world, post Linkedin/Monster/Careerbuilder/Seek looks like. Jobster is sitting in a very nice position. (ditto simplyhired.indeed.. if anyone has any recent stats for these companies re usage, revenue etc that would be very interesting) Milkround site here.

Yahbsoorbed Xoogling.

D'Ieteren Gallery ii
Originally uploaded by Djivy.

Over on the east coast the union squarers are talking about traction, and how they prefer to fund a web startup that has already beta'd. That makes total sense, but is also interesting when looked at from the perspective of the already launched website nay business. (that may or may not need VC; indeed may be a business unit within an online group)

When you work at a portal or large online group, often there are "build" teams, and then "maintain" teams. (this goes through cycles as with all organisational structure theories) Alot of builders dont want to be maintainers and so the mutation goes. For the lucky few that are able to innovate once they launch, the trick then is to listen to customers (and not just those really loud people who make a point of emailing/feedingback) - listening to what the right critical mass of customers really need sometimes doesn't align with what you already had in the business plan to build. (or leftover from the previous spec that you didnt finish)

Just as they say first impressions count, and people know within blaagh seconds they had met their soulmate, so too do websites often only get one chance. A few seconds on the home page, and bang you might hit it off. Or they just click back and haul ass out of there. Never to be seen again. Let alone visit you for your post beta-clean up :)*

Union Square Ventures : "So, we may love the idea but until we see the implementation in a live setting (closed beta isn't live enough for us) we do not feel like we can assess the social adoption issues that are so critical. We don't care if it's called beta or commercial code. As long as it has been in the market and we can use it, see how others are using it, look at internal weblogs, and external services like Comscore and Alexa, we can make a good assessment of the adoption curve."

* I have different theories on build vs maintain depending on stage I am in the cycle, and size of company/team unit makes a difference. (solo artist vs being in band) My experience in big and small companies though is that alot of energy can go into launch, and then innovative front end iterations get neglected due to techs being allocated to back end scaling that comes with increased use of site. Throw in a few sales and marketing projects which affect tech resource and bang, you can be just another Yahbsoorbed social media play. (the very best companies avoid this)

"The reason for doing financial models is to do a reality check and convince yourself that making a return on investment is a plausible possibility."

Podshow Pimp Limo
Originally uploaded by Madpod.

I been missing da blogging, but grand finals and startup pain been calling. And managing the family pets while the world holidays. I'm going to have to blog binge in next few days so I can average up to a decent daily post average ratio. Good list here on business myths :

Ron Garret - Myth #5: Financial models are bogus; "There is no way to know for sure how much money your business is going to make, or how much it will cost to get to market. The reason for doing financial models is to do a reality check and convince yourself that making a return on investment is even a plausible possibility. If you run the numbers and find out that in order to reach break-even you need a customer base that is ten times larger than the currently known market for your product then you should probably rethink things. As Dwight Eisenhower said: plans are useless, but planning is indispensible."

BB : Obviously financial models are great in understanding and planning for costs, and also understanding/tracking the mechanics of how revenue and gross margin is created. Oh, and then after you spend some money at the start it's supposed to scale into this billion dollar market cap beast !