Neat there is an Orange Shuffle and it has a Local Web 2.0 Application innit.

tasty shuffle
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

So today is sit in front of computer(s) and get all the work done that I am behind on; From finding people for projects, speaking to prospects, and avoiding work by updating the blog. (it's my marketing budget right ?)

When I compare the meetings I've had downunder January 2007 and compare to same time 2006, they may well be the same meet and greet/kick off type hodowns, but for this local market : (Structured) "user generated content" is right in the sweet spot of the growth plans. (vs last year u were escorted out of the building by security - "Who are you here with Sir"; "I'm down with UGC bro. " - shoutout to the hilltophoods;)

And for most businesses it's a new brand, outsourced development, low-ish budget and thus achievable. (internal teams and legacy 1.0 technology means new projects are very hard to develop inside the organisation, heck its why i started a business in the first place, that and....) Reading Jeff Jarvis' great material from Davos07 makes me wonder what is next, if the current stage media is going through is the "myspace-ization" of their businesses/brands and "reader-reporters".

BuzzMachine : "I remain concerned about the lack of innovation in the news business. Too much of the discussion was a rehash of what we’ve heard before: blogs v. msm, print v. online, falling news budgets, objectivity, professionalism in journalism. Insert scream sound-effect here. This was the year when big, old media realized there is no going back — in the year of the collapse of Knight Ridder and Tribune, they realize that there but for the grace of a stockholder or two so they go. But too many of them haven’t yet realized that the only path out of this is brave, bold, strategic innovation. They can’t even buy the new kids anymore because the kids are worth more than $1.5 billion. I still heard too much argument and depression when what we should be seeing is cooperation and optimism. If I had any message at Davos, that was it."

And then you have Fred Wilson's 3 minute take on Web 2.0, and this also makes a great list which those in local markets can easily turn into a "pitch" / "education" / "evangelism" session on product development for Web 2.0. It's a great checklist skewed to folksonomy. I'd probably add in some more about users being able to customise/control the content they create and how it can be syndicated/embedded.

A VC's 3 Minute Web 2.0 Product Checklist
1) Making online content default to public instead of private creates community
2) Every web service needs to have a profile for every user
3) Users should be encouraged to comment on other user's posts
4) Tagging content is better than foldering content and the tags should be public
5) Users should be encouraged to tag their content when it is posted to the service
6) Widgets should be used to make content available off of the service
7) Content on the service should be "bloggable" with one click
8) Engagement metrics like comments, favorites, views, can and should be used to drive discovery (the most interesting algorithm)
9) Geotagging is great but we've yet to see a great interface for geotagging
10) Machine tagging (autotagging) is the next big thing in web 2.0

OK back to work here with one more soundbite from The Jarvis@Davos to which I'd preface that not everywhere is as advanced as the Valley and gulches, so traditional media brands do have the catchup time - but they need to move beyond blog comments and start providing the tools to their "reader-reporters" (a definition reported by Jeff from a media co' which i quite like) and aggregated, searchable communities. neat there is an Orange Shuffle and I won't even distract further on the sexpresso trend ravaging Seattle - I'm sure this bby barista trend will come downunder in 2-3 years as well.

BuzzMachine : "Every mogul wants a social network like Rupert’s; media people kept begging for clues about how to build social webs about and around their stuff. One of the young moguls at Davos said that media properties are not meant to be social networks. I’ll disagree somewhat: The sad thing is that old media don’t realize that if they had just opened up years ago, they’d have seen that they already had social networks. I tell magazine people that they have communities gathering around the good stuff they create or find that we all like; newspapers have local communities. But because they were closed castles that kept their communities outside, they didn’t realize this. And so the people outside have gone to build their own social structures — which they clearly always wanted — now that they can. Too late for the big, old guys? Maybe."

"You may have fooled some.. but those days are over, giftless. I'm not your agent your mommy, Im a white piece of paper, you wanna dance with me ?"

Last night could not sleep. At all. Well 30 minutes b/w 7-730am. And I have no amazing life story from the night. (30's vs 20's:) I've never been a great sleeper and I had one of those late afternoon meetings with caffeine, clauses and calcuations that creates a drip feed of adrenalin, or some wakkd out Maslow juice that is hard to turn off. I tried to counter the propelling body force with a lovely early eve sunny Elwood beach run, some thai chicken, and as laid back as you can be "Dude" Big Lebowski. At 1am I wasn't tired.

That's when the mistake happened. I started watching episode 4 of Studio 60 (didnt know it was on Peekvid), as I needed some Aaron Sorkin soundbites, even if his writing in this show is not as "i am so jealous how does he write this under the..." ala West Wing. Anyway, I tried to sleep (with ibook studio 60 on in background) but dammit, I just kept Peekviddn episode after episode. The Christmas show finale of the series finished at 6am (Matt and Harriet finally kissed/did the bondage thing), and it's morning radio time and I don't want to fall deep asleep now. On comes Hughesy + Kate.

Alarm was set for 730am to finish presentation by 930am (first meeting) followed by 1130am presentation, which went swimmingly given I'd had 30 mins sleep. (the old adage of preparation, of working on a presentation since Sunday - multiple hours a day does mean end product is superior, even if i did cull my 32 slide extravaganza at 1130pm last night to 10 slides at 930am this morning (who wants to edit that many slides) Presentations should be about impact, like newspapers, best slides first. Pictures, Pictures too.

It seems google is yelpn and feeln the nooky when it comes to local too (even if i cant really see how they are covering "reviews" - well i guess they are doing some basic meta-search of citysearch ? no yelp btw.. anyone know how algorithm could/might work?) See their examples below. From their blog : "We're really excited to offer this easier access to qualitative information about local spots. We find the reviews and ratings generated by others in the know to be quite useful when we want to head to a restaurant, catch a movie, or stay at a hotel -- and we hope you will too."

• Find the location of and driving directions to the Googleplex (or any specific address).
• Find and compare Mexican restaurants in Pasadena, CA
• Get directions to and read reviews about a local eatery in Pittsburgh.
• Find movie showtimes for films that are playing in your neighborhood.

Aaron Sorkin : "I love writing but I hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says. "You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, giftless. I'm not your agent and I'm not your mommy, I'm a white piece of paper, you wanna dance with me?" and I really, really don't. I don't want any trouble. I'll go peaceable-like."

"Screw you, we people say, we own our stuff; send traffic and even money to us."

iMac wall
Originally uploaded by soyburger.

So even though Federer couldn't hit a forehand in with the wind in the first set, he has another major to his collection to hawk. Gonzales was a worthy contestant though and great to watch throughout the week.

Now classic ebay scam : If you are an ebay buyer (as I was once when i had excess dollars:) you have to be totally sure about the buyer. And research all the scams. Here's one highlighted by accident from a UK seller who turned over 1.4m pounds last year, sheesh, wonder what his COGS were. Nice margin on items that weren't sold in his antiquity store I bet.

TimesOnline : “Well, if I put something really expensive (up for sale) and I was concerned that it was going for nothing, I would phone a friend of mine, even a client of mine who buys from me, and say: For Christ’s sake, I sell you 100 quids’ worth of items a week . . . just put two grand on it, will you?” The reporter was posing as a seller of valuable antiquities. He inquired whether Paraskevaides could sell them on eBay and guarantee a minimum price. He replied: “Leave it to me (laughs). Don’t call it shill bidding. Then I won’t be accused of shill bidding. Yes. I mean — I’ve got people. “I’ve got some of my big clients who buy big items off me, I look after them. So I can get on the phone to America and say: Mr XXXX . . . you’re a multi- millionaire. You buy a hundred grand’s worth off me a year. Do me a favour would you. Just put — yeah. Exactly."

Early night for me here tonite, big week of "Closing" deals :) and doing work on those already closed (so there is something to show for 2007) but thought I'd add some Jeff Jarvis, who is always fun when liveblogging, this time from Davos07. (nice self sponsored work if u can get it.... im jealous of people in exotic locations at moment... for me today that meant my 20" paper scrapbook not imac, and the cricket on tv after gym)

The BuzzMachine 411 on 2007 Media.
1. Big media lets you talk here.
2. Big media asks you to give us stuff to enrich its sites.
3. Screw you, we people say, we own our stuff; send traffic and even money to us.

aaagh i get hype-machine. thx jc.

LADYHAWKE
Originally uploaded by cybele malinowski.

Elevator Pitch : Hype-Machine scrapes blogs for music files then u can listen to it thru their player or Itunes. Name artists, just not underground. Less range but more today up to date bang than Pandora, which ends up sounding like annoying elevator music. Never end up hating that which u love, which overconsumption always leads to, as any obsessive, or those who have spent too much time in uni will know. You can listen to latest or search by artist, then click the "listen" button next to the first song which will boot up the player. There are also rss feeds + itunes integration which i assume buffers downunder unless u r adsl2 luvd. Thx to Calacanis who invokes the service as Napster 3.0 gattacaian utopia, and Cybele4pic.

Sometimes it Takes a Jackhammer to Escape Vanity Fair.

Top 20 Domains (by time online)
Originally uploaded by dmc500hats.

While big may be the new big, the weblite Applesque loved 37 Signals is recommending spoons not jackhammers : "Pouring tons of money, tons of resources, and tons of people at a problem is like using a jackhammer to break out of jail. Putting a few smart people on the problem, embracing constraints, not trying to solve the wrong problems, focusing on precision, not using seven words when four will do, and taking the time to get it done right is like using the spoon."

Aaron Swartz, the kinda co-Founder crossover Founding team member of reddit, would probably prefer a jackhammer than a spoon when dealing with The Publisher of Such Great Important Authoritative Titles such as Vanity Fair But We Really Want to Diversify Our Online Websites such as WIred so we can Increase our CPMs. While Aaron wasn't too ensconced in Conde Nast, it did make for great fictionblogdocudrama, as is perfectly capped off in what could be the latest tool for a 360 exit interview with HR (a blog post of course) :

AaronSW : "Paul Graham is indeed in that room, as is his girlfriend and my co-founders and the other Y Combinators I know and a bunch of people I don't recognize (probably this year's batch of Y Combinators). They start surrounding me. I begin to suspect a trap. "What's going on here?" I ask Steve. "Wait a second, you brought me here, didn't you?" "What are you talking about?" Steve replies. "I mean, I remember going to sleep, I remember kind of wanting to wake up, but then all of the sudden I'm in the Moscone Center? How did I get here? You must have brought me here, didn't you?" Steve denies all knowledge, but there's a gleam in his eye. The people surrounding me take a step closer. "Alright," I say. "I'll make a deal. If I can tickle every last one of you, I go free. Otherwise, you win." They seem to accept the deal. I begin tickling. People begin running, dodging, flying around the room. But I'm like a heat-seeking missile. I track down every one of them, extend my hands out, go straight for their armpits. I win."

HR Lunchbreak Manager 1 : "Did you read that Aaron guy's blog post about leaving that website we bought. He mentioned HR had to walk him out of the building."
HR Lunchbreak Manager 2 : "Yeah, fn blogs. Why can't people just use spoons."

Melbourne's Silicone Beach.

Front Page News
Originally uploaded by Lachlan Hardy.

Ok I'm definitely running out to the Silicone Beach at Rye now (Sydney can have their Silicon Beach, in Melbourne we have our own little SiliconE Beach), but these links (incl front page news flickr by Lachlan Hardy) I had to post; Technical scaling has been biggest hurdle I've faced in the business and given this story, it's only going to get harder considering MySpace's technical challenge in scaling (it's a must read and also shows off what the dot net guys are doing, ie MySpace is run by Microsoft technology if you didn't know.)

Brad Feld as usual nails the expansion reality for a global 2.0 business. (so for a local 2.0 business the numbers are smaller due to lower per capita requirements) His quotes for a Business Week Interview : "Many of the companies that were acquired by Google and Yahoo in the past 18 months were in this zone and they ended up getting bought before the moment of truth came. This prompted lots and lots of me too companies – none of which will be bought by Google, Yahoo, or anyone else. So – once these companies get a prototype up and running (their “beta”), the probably will need some money to get to the next level. We’re now in that zone – where the rapid prototypes have flooded the market – and the companies that emerge will actually need to build out infrastructure (that costs money), a team (that costs money), a salesforce or channel (that costs money), deeper technical capability to scale the business (that costs money), and so on. Fortunately, this time around, most rational people realize that it doesn’t take $75m to build a web-based software company – the number is more like $15m - $25m. So – the money is spent slower and more intelligently in the success cases."

BaselineMag : "The Web site architecture went through five major revisions—each coming after MySpace had reached certain user account milestones—and dozens of smaller tweaks, Benedetto says. "We didn't just come up with it; we redesigned, and redesigned, and redesigned until we got where we are today.."

500,000 Users: A Simple Architecture Stumbles
1 Million Users:Vertical Partitioning Solves Scalability Woes
3 Million Users: Scale-Out Wins Over Scale-Up
9 Million Users: Site Migrates to ASP.NET, Adds Virtual Storage
26 Million Users: MySpace Embraces 64-Bit Technology

"So is Silicone the new snark or what ?"
"Well I just came from the deconstructive unconference cumfy cushion session on Silicone the New, Better Silicon, or Regional Imposter, and they confirmed any class of chemical compounds consisting of long chains of alternating silicon and oxygen atoms, with two organic radicals, typically a methyl (CH₃) and a phenyl (C₆H₅) group, attached to each silicon atom is a totally better, more collaborative API."
"Web 2.0 isn't a Nip/Tuck episode y'know."
"Maybe, but America already knows who The Carver is."

"There's truckloads of money available for web startups in Australia if they've got a good business model."

Silicon Beach
Originally uploaded by Lachlan Hardy.

Australia is following the US perfectly 2 years behind, which is great if you started a business 2+ years ago :) Great coverage in the AFR on "Silicon Beach" for the Freshview guys ("Ben meet Ben." "Nice to meet you Ben." "Hi Ben.") who I met @ WD06 when we were both doing back to back presentations in a little lecture room for an intimate, unplugged, acoustic session. Now where do I pour the front page fuel, Surf's Up ! (i never thought I'd see the word "dotcommers" again on AFR front page)

Mark Jones (with Joshua Gliddon), whose quality stamp is on the AFR piece, says on his Filtered Blog - Real Customers, Real Revenue.. Real Businesses. (funded by less capital) : "I'll tell you why this is a big story. There's truckloads of money available for web startups in Australia if they've got a good business model. But many of the new companies Joshua quotes (such as Atlassian, Tangler, Quotify and the Freshview boys pictured on page 1 with their surf boards) are building companies with real revenues and real customers. That's a good story now, but think about what value they are creating for the future. Any potential M&A activity will be grounded in discussions about real numbers and not just pie-in-the-sky evaluations."

BB : I have no doubt the theme for 2007-8 in Australia will be the scaling of the real businesses that make it through the first stages successfully. There will be more capital spent building out technologies, staffing, customers and acquisition of scale.

With exception of Atlassian (whose totally awesome, exponentially revenue numbers are published in piece) most of the new wave of businesses are still small revenue/profit (and headcountwise) And it's well documented getting small amounts of money for small features is harder to get than large money for a big potential business.

The next inflection point we will also see that is only just starting is corporate adoption of the new collaboration technologies, and international expansion of leading 2.0 brands. Big companies will want to license from big brands or build their own. OK, industry promo piece over, back to work on Silicon Beach's remote office on the Mornington Peninsula.

20 Times Revenue for Your Website.

Originally uploaded by Like The Jetsons™.

Duncan Riley's been writing about this area (as does Yaro Starak), which I find fascinating given my (quite different) traditional startup background, which don't have subjects in PageRank arbitrage economics, even if the fundamentals of present and future cashflows are studied.

Just as Second Life has it's own economy, so do SitePoint/Ebay/PageRank websites have their own multiples. Similar to buying a cafe at a couple years time earnings, websites with adsense and other revenue are going at 20 times monthly revenue according to the latest seller who suspects he underpriced himself.

A similar economy is the more algorithmic domain name network trading business, which also calculate value of domain back to a present value. Interesting to note how much lower the (exit, cash, auction) values are than angel and VC Fundings, even well below I suspect Y-Combinator and TechStars entry valuations for tomorrow's undergrad world changer.

Should tomorrow's systemically incubated startup being buying-out undervalued unloved existing sites so their change the world beta can leverage a better jumpstarted pagerank ? Not long till there are quant valuation benchmarks for websites of all shapes and sizes. Lohan may be at the coffeeshop doing escape from rehab time, but me thinks market is now moving into next cycle of buyouts, cleanups, and rollitup giddyups.

TechSoapBox : "BlogCatalog was a top-notch quality site, and Eatonweb and 2RSS were two well established sites that need a bit of an overhaul. There is a lot of junk, and when you post something of high quality, it will get snapped up. I’ve sold about half a dozen sites, and all of them went for minimum 20 months revenue."

With Interactive 108" HD-Plasma's can a 48" Newspaper Help You.

Web2.0 - extended mindcloudmap
Originally uploaded by kosmar.

I'd think alot of newspapers are facing similar challenges as LaTimes.com; Only way is up with proactivity and give the tools of creation to the audience. Blog comments isn't enough. The age-old debate : Focus on channel of content or location, or both :) Obviously local's a much better bet in my world, as category killers are exactly that.

LaTimes.com : "A philosophical clash between the website's top two employees -- general manager Rob Barrett and senior editor Joel Sappell -- also "hampered the site's ability to grow," the report stated. Barrett wanted the site to focus on "hyper-local" reports, to deliver Southern California readers information about their communities. Sappell argued for building "communities of affinity" rather than geography, and focused on multimedia presentations to showcase Times projects, the committee said."

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Yes.

Legs
Originally uploaded by dreadfuldan.

I'm feeling NO (in a gospel salvation boogy wit'it sense) today from Mr Wilson's East Coast soundsbite of the week; As an entrepreneur lets say you have 100 credits to get to the next stage. You spend your credits across 2 major realms : The Business of business (sales, code, deals), and The Business of raising/retaining capital. (investors, accountants, lawyers)

You have to share your credits across employees, investors, customers, just to name 3 big ones. (oh and family, friends, strange hobbies...) And you always got to make sure you got credits in reserve or you are exposed and a carcass ready to be Deadpool'd.

Saying NO saves credits, for when you really need to cash them. (It's like when you are young and get paid, you want to spend da money, but that doesnt build appreciating asset). NO also means the chance of getting to your next critical milestone is enhanced. If the 93% of proposals you say NO to is more definitional than the 7% you yes to to, then what you do (and how you allocate your so small resources) is a consequence of what you didnt say no to. Serendipity outsiders call it. I'm all about NO today. Australia Day tomorrow.

A VC : "Apparently one of the senior team members is known for saying "the best answer to most questions is no". I liked that. Startups can go in many directions. There's always the desire to please the customers. But knowing what you are going to do and focusing on it is so critical. Saying yes might seem like no big deal. It's only a few lines of code, right? Wrong. It's never just a few lines of code. So say no as often as you can. It's counter intuitive to the entrepreneur mindset, but it's critical."

"Both of them spent a lot of time in the early days greeting individual users as they came in, encouraging them and leaving comments on their photos."

Se dejaba llevar
Originally uploaded by la_furia.

Watching a totally new audience (Australia/Melbourne : 30-60 years skew at moment, not heavy online users, passionate about their local community) has been a pretty amazing thing in the last week on nook. (my mum just got a nook for her church in Flinders who have a fete on Saturday)

Structured posting, reviews and questions, then aggregated begat replies, creates word of mouth, creates more sign-ins, create more posts, aggregations, replies and accounts. Vkewl. All about velocity.

Flickr's cofounder Stewart, explains the necessary non-technical ingredients. (with his comments about art being ironically interpreted by analysts looking at Yahoo's revenue potential) Extrapolating out a user growth term long term is similarly interesting, and success they could say is in the hands of the gods and the luck we make.

Sermon over. Sleep, long day/week/month and hoping to draw a line in the sand tomorrow (pre Australia Day holiday Friday) and even have a quasi break. (involving forcing myself away from the macs... although i may have the 3G crackberry 8707 by then :)

CNN : "A lot of our success came from George, the lead designer, and Caterina. Both of them spent a lot of time in the early days greeting individual users as they came in, encouraging them and leaving comments on their photos. There was a lot of dialogue between the people who were developing Flickr and their users to get feedback on how they wanted Flickr to develop. That interaction made the initial community very strong and then that seed was there for new people who joined to make the community experience strong for them too."

It's Wednesday night here so Numb3rs has been on. Yesterday it was bad accounting jokes, today it's science mashups using wikipedia :) Velocity : The average velocity (v) of an object moving a displacement (s) in a straight line during a time interval (t) is described by the formula:

nb : "Velocity" and "Liquidity" was terminology flung around on B2B exchanges last time, which haven't really turned up at all, with most enterprise activity being around productivity, collaboration, consumers taking over the enterprise using salesforce meets googlemaps type approaches. Night.

"Google would not reveal a total figure, but executives said they spend $10 per person per day for food, plus they pick up the tab for a significant number of guests and contract workers, meaning the corporate cost easily amounts to more than $100,000 a day... The staff nutritionist's mission is to squelch the "Google 15," the weight many new employees pack on in their first year. Google's on-site doctor is handing out free pedometers. Last month the snack system was overhauled to ban trans fats, and the help-yourself bins were replaced with baskets of appropriately sized snack packets, each under 300 calories."

"Last year, venture capitalists poured $4 billion in Internet startups, a 25 percent increase.." but some have gone Combat Fishing.

criss cross
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

4 hours of driving today for 4 hours of meetings. That's a farely normal equation for me, with the balancing factor (good vs bad) being quality of meetings (fun vs serious; likely to lead to something or not) Today : Good, worth the drive. Venture Capitalists dont disagree, although don't wait too long to sacrifice those $1200 dailies for a shot at the other side. (not that it's worth it, to take a play from the Denton book... although he had sold a company prior..)

Extended quote on VC sector investment breakdowns from AP here, interesting to see the energy investments and relative size of internet vs energy : "Last year, venture capitalists poured $4 billion in Internet startups, a 25 percent increase from $3.2 billion in 2005. It was the industry's largest commitment to the Internet since 2001 when the high-tech financiers pumped $10.2 billion into the sector. Venture capitalists also upped the ante substantially in biotechnology, which received $4.5 billion last year, up by 17 percent from 2005. The most robust growth occurred in the industrial and energy category, where venture capital investments more than doubled to $1.8 billion. About 40 percent of that money was earmarked for alternative energy projects."

Cheerleading no.. just interested in the ratio of Internet:Energy investments... blogs are the new uranium I'm told... or to use a Brad Feld email analogy "When the river that you have been fishing in for a while becomes the popular place for everyone to hang out and fish, it’s often time to go find a new river (or at least a new spot on the river) that doesn’t have anyone around." Or if you want the now for what Daddy Winer I want my HTTP Servers' TV Cool : "An event distributed across the wifi-enabled food courts of the world? Apple Stores. We need t-shirts, buttons and hats so people know who's a celebrant. A Flickr tag. I want a HyperCamp or two." CalacanisCast 9, Da'unGang is funny too. Whats happening with that RWC Chumpy like device btw ? We aint got no iphone here till 2008, open or closed... dont macshow it' till i can buy it, on the day already... ckteasejobs. im gonna rimm.

If You Had 5 More FTE Would Your Output Increase 5 Fold, More, or Less ?

biel galpals
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Been way too busy again, apologies to those I've missed. Life seems to be awaiting pieces of information from couple of places (which end up being late) then leading me to miss dates, times, sub-deadlines. Weakest link always means u can only move so fast, but grass is always greener and as a startup you always want to move fast. Not as easy as it sounds (with the related even bigger variable being finite resources - how I could empower 5 FTE* staff at moment :| seriously... soon, soon.)

Also need a push email phone device with kwerty keyboard and ideally camera.. but I need push email first/kwerty second/phone third/camera fourth. So I'm thinking Blackberry 8708. Looked at Pearl which would be perfect except for non kwerty crappy keyboard. And sorry Franky but cant do Windows Mobile anymore..

So I'm guessing its 8708, boring but it comes with Crackberry. Anyone done real life testing of 8708 and/or/vs Pearl ? Tips appreciated... Also any good retailers downunder, as long as they provide invoices y'know not that dodgey will they deliver it from Hong Kong on ebay thing. ("I bought this Pearl for my dad for XMAS but the sim card is wrong so Im selling it real cheap...." yeah right)

I'm off to Melbourne tomorrow for string of meetings (structured vertical communities for enterprise market yessir) so I'll hit ya with a link, n love u n leave u with this very excellent tidbit feature from Farecast, a meta-travel search engine, looking to add a consumer hedging price type feature.

VentureBeat : "Let’s say you’re planning a trip, say to Kansas on Dec 5, and Farecast shows a low price of $210 and further, predicts prices are going to drop over the next few days. Now, rather than waiting, you can buy something called a “Fare Guard,” which lets you lock into any subsequent price drop automatically. Initially, the product will come at a promotional price of $3 through Feb. 1, but later will be priced around $9.95"

*FTE : Full Time Employees used in business plan presentations as quick snapshots to show how many people a company employ and how this grows over time relative to sales... boring bb... boring.. is that jessica biel.. That I'm laughing at dry accounting jokes is a really bad sign.

"So how many FTE's are you planning for this year ?"
"Are you talking Calendar Year (CY) or Financial Year (FY) ?"
"Do I look like I care ? :)"

No IPO ? No Trade Sale ? Private Equity Your Technology

Originally uploaded by cymagen.

Very strange 24 hours (mainly vgood), characterised by Sydney like January rain. But Burnham's Beat 7 Steps for Private Equity Software plays did make me smirk. (esp interesting in the way they look for tech firms with enterprise maintenance revenue : Versus consumer web plays that look for viral eyeballs growth)

I've gotta bet this comes to Australia in 2008 once all the infrastructure and retail/brand turnarounds are done here. (ala Qantas sell your soul, lease your planes, then allocate your 1% management incentive to charity... ok whatever)

By then, there should also be a group of once were 1.0 net entrepreneurs now private equity harboured (that are about to start their blog arent they :) that will be able to give us mere operational mortals blow by blow insights of how private equity will attack the Australian technology market : Will it be second half CY 2007 or Q1 2008 ?

While Australian technology businesses that are local can list on ASX or even setup and go onto the British small cap tech market...private equity exits may be another channel for founders, owners and management that dont run/own sexy 2.0 businesses that are in "the (Time Magazine) pocket" as they say on Idol, but have nice economics that the retirement funds will bankroll to their Private Equity fellas. ("Just need another $200M for a technology rollup fund. No I don't need another $1b to pay down hedging debts from that airline we bought in Kazikstan.")

There are only so many old Aussie brands PE can buy ala Myer, Qantas or media JV's with Kerry and Juniors, and lets face it how many Megan Gale (lucky Andy Lee) and Jennifer Hawkins brand campaigns can we really handle away. Where is Wayne Bos and Steve Outtrim when u need them ? Fo comedy folk that's all. Fo comedy. Steve was doing an energy startup in Byron yeh ? I smell a sausage sizzle... Cant believe how many old faces are appearing these days. Fo some, frontline is home.

1.0 was an original time, everything is derivative now :D

Burnham's 7 Steps to PE in Software
1. Buy software company
2. Do dividend recap in which you simultaneously lever up the balance sheet and dividend out all the cash you just borrowed plus most of the existing cash on the balance sheet.
3. Raise new fund off of massive IRR created by dividend recap.
4. Do lots of acquisitions to make organic growth impossible to discern
5. Raise prices, slash R&D, increase sales and marketing.
6. Take company public/sell it at same PE you bought it for to investor/large company apparently unfamiliar with the concept of enterprise value.
7. Repeat.

"Hey guys, this is Tom. We are currently going through and eliminating all of the old, unused my space accounts."

the chickens
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I wonder why myspace comments for each user profile don't have an RSS feed given it's the juice of the community interaction there. Maybe there are plugins ? Wonder how the below comment on Hughesy MySpace from Famous Founder Tom will affect the overall disclosed member accounts numbers.

MySpace Hughesy : "Hey guys, this is Tom. We are currently going through and eliminating all of the old, unused my space accounts. If you don't want your my space account deleted, please click on the link and login to confirm that your my space account is still being used."

NYT : "Some blog hosting services, like WordPress.com, make it easy to incorporate widgets into a blog, by selecting one from a list and simply dragging it into the desired place on the page."

Embarrassing Avatar + Highly Commented Melbourne Vignette = Win One of 20 Silver Ipod Nanos @ nook.com.au

20ipodnanos@nook.com.au
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

It's been amazing to watch the increasing micro-velocity of hyperlocal Melbourne as readers of Leader Newspaper and the curiousphere, jump on and give nook a test run. If I had any doubts about blogging at the local level (vs the tech blogging echo-chamber) they have been totally dispelled. OK, I was always a believer, but the proof is always in the pudding. From the first member to the millionth. Just another 999,932 to go....

Oh, and totally kewl that Nook.com.au, yum parent booty, have 20 silver ipod nanos to giveaway - 5 a week - for all u people that dont want to wait or pay for the iPhone. Why does Australia get pencilled in for 2008 btw ? And if it's $500 with a plan in the US, it will cost like $2k or so here if you use German car currency conversion costs to Australia.

To get silver nano jiggy and be one of those bunnies running around Albert Park with your byo nike pack etc (just dont hide a camera in your sneakers ok and strap it up to your body then get on a St Kilda Road Tram pretending the base station is a Cliff Richard Walkman), you will need and an embarrassing avatar and have something to share about your favourite Melbourne pub/cafe/isolated life event that happened within the region currently governed by Bracks Formerly Kennett that is of some use to the Nookerati. It's also good detox from Web 2.0. Who cares about the Iphone ?

Nook Ipod Nano Competition : "Five nanos will be given away each week to random nook members who have posted an entry, made a comment, posed a question, or uploaded an avatar (profile picture) at nook.com.au"

I like small speakers-i like tall speakers
Walkin about with a head full of music
Casette in my pocket and Im gonna use it-stereo
-out on the street you know-woh oh woh...
Into the car go to work Im cruisin
I never think that Ill blow all my fuses
Traffic flows-into the breakfast show-woh oh woh...
Power from the needle to the plastic
A.m.-f.m. I feel so ecstatic now
Its music Ive found
And Im wired for sound
I was small boy who dont like his toys
I could not wait to get wired for sound
I met a girl and she told me she loved me
I said you love me then love means you must like what I like-
My music is dynamite-woh oh woh...
She said-Im not a girl you put on at a stand by
I am a girl who demands that her love is amplified
Switch in to overdrive-woh oh woh
Power from the needle to the plastic
A.m.-f.m. I feel so ecstatic now
Its music Ive found
And Im wired for sound
* get some cliff youtube love and just take it back.. let go... and feel it..

People, People, People : $,$,$.

birdy
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Elevators and doors metaphors, the best minds make a daily decision to enter your building and give 100% : If you want them to create web based software and sales backed by capital that creates Sopranos returns.

The rise for talent is increasing, the best of which have dot com cashed dollars (so may not need to work) and/or scars like alot of us (which indirectly can mean for example, their significant other won't let them work on a startup, potentially for their own protection) Anyway, it's murky and the blue-sky is not to be assumed.

The problem only gets worse outside Mountain View, esp if you are a 24 hour flight away - where huge market cap oligopolic banks and their hundred(s) of million dollars being invested in secure online banking, CRM and legacy transition projects mean your exciting 2.0 offer/opportunity can be directly compared to a 9-5 M-F $85-$150 per hour with benefits role. Not to mention scale issues, that most people want to work in teams of at least 5-10 FTE not these web 2.0 small scale variable cost adsense funded scrappy businesses.

VentureBeat : "After receiving a very respectable offer of $300K base, 50% bonus opportunity, $50K signing bonus and more than 500,000 stock options, the first candidate turned the offer down for a better offer of $400K base salary, 50% bonus, restricted stock worth approximately $1M on day one and a complete relocation package."

Aussies Sell Thank God You're Here to Yanks.

katies 33rd
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Who would have thought Aussies could sell anything to the world's most advanced television economy ? Well while Little Lohan is entering rehab; Keith urban gets out; Kate turns 33... Americans are getting "Thank God You're Here" TV show developed by the Melbourneite Working Dog crew, who look like they may get royalty retirement here, assuming the Mike Moore DVD series hasn't aleady put them on a Portsea Clifftop.

TVGasm : "Celebrity contestants get a costume and a prop and enter an improv scene that's already in progress. The celeb is greeted with the words "Thank God you're here," and the hilarity of improv ensues. David Alan Grier from In Living Color hosts the new version. One time comedy king contender and poker show host Dave Foley judges the performers. The pilot featured Christopher Guest movie vet Jennifer Coolidge, Bryan Cranston from Malcolm in the Middle, Wayne Knight from Seinfeld and Joel McHale from The Soup (Joel McHale from The Soup?).. Question: Will TV stations in the Southern United States air a comedy show with the word "God" in the title? Seriously."

Wonderland Rehab Centre : "Nice to meet you Lindsay, Thank God You're Here.."

Llo : "I have made a proactive decision to take care of my personal health. I appreciate your well wishes and ask that you please respect my privacy at this time."

Local Search meets Blogs meets Community Newspaper

nook leader newspapers
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

The marriage of bloggers and journos, newspapers and blogs, is one of my primary interests. (and has turned out to be my primary business model too:) Creating structured user generated communities (yes I'm using the vanilla buzzwords but the "structured" bit is important) is increasingly happening. To me, every vertical is going to require structured user generated content, aggregation, filtering and networking.

The first step by most newspapers has been to allow their staff to maintain blogs. (often written by journalists who can be less formal, more real time - sometimes for no more pay, sometimes for more pay or other benefits) These are often the first experience with blogs and social media for the mass market. And they are now taking 13% of newspaper's online traffic. Giddyup.

Marketwatch : "The number of visitors to the blog pages of the top 10 online newspapers grew 210% in the past year, far outpacing growth to the parent sites. Nielsen/NetRatings ound that while the unique audience to online newspapers grew 9% from December 2005 to December 2006, the number of visitors to blog pages at the top newspapers skyrocketed and accounted for 13% of the parent sites' total traffic."

In most cases however the consumer, or creator in this case, "You", has been limited to commenting on blogs (and digging them to the benefit of the paper), which as The Farmer says, is of lower quality than giving them the real thing; Their own blog with its own URL, theme, avatar and tools for interaction with their community. (BTW Newspapers are losing alot of potential word of mouth traffic by using blog comments - which are extremely well utilised - as the default conversation tool : I'm not going to direct someone to a page that aggregates my latest blog comment(s), but I will tell them the url of my blog, esp if it's easy to remember.)

That's why it's good to see the Nook community in Melbourne (a project with alot of TLC invested in it across companies), start to build a audience of creators totally new to blogging : Driven through the local Leader Community newspapers - with the first advertorials in the paper going out this week. (local newspapers are actually one of the stronger newspaper segments as they are local, with unique content, strong local advertising base, it's a free/low cost product to consumer, and has established a channel into the consumer's home on a weekly basis, with the paper often being kept for reference, re-reading by other family members and so on)

It's been amazing in the last 24 hours on nook watching parents blog about their favourite RSL, reviewing the best pizza place, and asking questions about why do men have nipples and how does a waterless carwash work. Still a few algorithmic bugs to iron out so be kind, but I'm confident the Local Search meets Blogs meets Community Newspaper segment is a winner. If you're in Melbourne get onto it.

2VC or-not 2VC

canu believeit
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

It was 31C degrees last night and I had a very strange nightmare. As do many entrepreneurs that need to understand basic VC math if going down that path.

VentureBeat : "Projects that can launch and grow with minimal capital infusion AND seek acquisition as the natural exit due to feature/function limitations, impending competition and/or limitations in the distribution model and market size are more appropriately funded by passing the hat. The minute venture dollars are put to work, the company will feel natural pressure to find ways to expand beyond what may be reasonable or optimal."

"You get $5,000 per founder, up to 3 founders. So at most, you'll get $15,000 for the summer."

RRRRR Eight
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

It's summer in Australia (as opposed to winter in Colorado), and imagine someone offers you $5k each to spend that long 3 month break between 2nd and 3rd year uni (or a postgrad PHD you never finish) doing a startup and before long you are hearing what convertible securities mean !!

Awesome idea by The Feld and Colorado Crew. But will there be a 24esque vidcast of what goes down over 3 months in Colorado ? This program is so suited towards being regionalised near big universities around the world. The TechStars Program. "You get $5,000 per founder, up to 3 founders. So at most, you'll get $15,000 for the summer. "

"The BBC plans to expand social networking using Top Gear, Radio Times and BBC Good Food.."

Life is stranger than fiction n the rest, and my day while simple in it's 6 and a half hour round trip for one meeting (payoff well worth it btw : no wasting time for me in 2007), has bounced around in some interesting ways. I believe I am somewhat stuck in my slightly excelled legalased head.

But not when it comes to the BBC and their social networking/blogging plans which every offline media brand owner should simply replicate (in a structured, unique way), then contact me :) Traditional mastheads and brands, be they newspapers, magazines, TV shows, networks, flying miles clubs, will end up being the (profitable) 2nd tier of major social networking playaz (using their cross-media muscle) after the tier 1 (myspace.facebook.linkedin.newentrant2008) ecosystems. Fo sure.

"So how you going to market this thing ? How will you compete with major media brands marketing muscle ? How long would it take them to replicate this ? It's all about barriers to entry."

ITNews : "The BBC plans to expand into the social networking arena using its big name commercial brands such as Top Gear, Radio Times and BBC Good Food to attract users."

That Monday Thing + PetNoPia 2.0

MiuraSV $1m+
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Seems alot of the outside world starts again here today; Hughesy backnmarried on the radio, Mattey courtcase Newton is on the afternoon shift on Nova (him and akmal are actually really funny... or maybe not I just read, be on radio that is), and workers are going back to the CBD. I'm into Melbourne today but it doesnt seem the Pet business is going online again, with the same execs anyway or with an ecommerce angle (a social network angle is ok and growth rates/market size seem ok too:) :

SFGate : "The premise of online pet supplies looked financially viable when Newman, a Harvard MBA, crunched cash registry data with co-founder Brian Sherman. The two discovered that the average pet store transaction was $35, which included low margin pet food plus a substantial chunk of more profitable toys, treats and shampoo. They figured the shipping costs would enable them to break even on food, but profits could be made on pet accessories."

The Vertical Particle Strategy.

everyone local
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

You can go vertical by selling to your own backyard geographically and calling it a vertical search strategy :) Rather than indexing all the worlds billions of html pieces and websites, you can go vertical by file type - video, audio, spreadsheets. (even rss if u r like me:) Or content type eg blogs, podcasts... Similarly you can pick a Superwoman demo like Glam, Popsugar etc. (did i mention i worked at a 1.0 startup that focused affiliate sales of PCS/ISP/Financial Services to catholics and unionists ? :)

And you can especially go vertical by looking at the offline marketplace sizes (faves incl mortgages, new/used cars sold, insurance, health, telco, energy, industrial market segments etc) and determing how your (soon to be built or once your initial horizontal strategy fails as Brad alludes to) technology can take share. You can even go vertical by looking at google high grossing adwords and looking for arbitrage (the seo industry is really a vertical strategy), as the smart guys at quotify are doing locally.

Like Brad, I love the vertical market play done well - Ever since launching MSN's Carpoint downunder, when I got obsessed by cars and car specs (till one day I was doing a meeting under implied NDA with 2 X 65+ year olds from Adelaide who were taking a day off from their jobs to secretly meet with me because they wanted to aggregate all the car tyre specs and manufacturers, and were then going to charge tyre retailers a lead model "TyrePoint" they were to call it etc etc and I didnt think it was a bad strategy : I thought I've gotta get more horizontal for a bit !) To me any multi-billion market is inefficient and just waiting for a better solution.

Except you need to thread te needle, and build scale even though your explicit strategy is to go narrow. There is also a big difference between vertical markets on the consumer side (matching consumer demand with sellers) and the B2B side (interactions between wholesaler and the business facilitated by your amazing technology) Remember when B2B marketplaces would just take 1% of the transaction value :)

A Vertical Eco-System play done well like the StarHub one mentioned (in which the business takes 25% of tickets sold on the aftermarket they facilitate incl fulfillment) is most challenged by getting critical mass into their market. "Liquidity" as the MBA's call it. It helps to be first; To be number one; To have authentic community; Great product offering; Large marketing budget too.

As always though, non-derivative vertical strategies, you need to watch for ones that are a technology looking for a market need rather than the other way around. Kinda the person that turns up to the party and annoys everyone.

Feld.com Blog : "Vertical specialization is different. Service Magic took the notion of a generic buyer / seller marketplace and applied it to an ecosystem around home ownership (contractors first, then home buyers / real estate agents, and finally mortgage financing.) Stratify took a horizontal enterprise search technology that was awesome but difficult to sell (“hey Mr. CIO – do you want to buy some horizontal enterprise search?”) and applied it to the business of electronic discovery, building in awesome company in the process. Granted - you could say that each company went after vertical markets (which is an element of vertical specialization), but the key is that they took a horizontal technology and applied it very clearly to a vertical market and then built out a robust business around that, rather than customizing a generic application for a vertical market and then expanding into the next vertical market after they had some success."

Ryan McIntyre : "StubHub's success can be attributed to the power of vertical specialization. While eBay may have a lock on generic merchandise auctions and Google may own generic web search, these markets are so vast that there are often extremely rich verticals that can be better served by specialization, be it shopping search, travel search, ticket auctions, or other as-yet-unidentified verticals. When vertical specialization offers a sufficiently more compelling experience than the generic approach, real value can be built. The trick is figuring out which verticals are ripe for this type of mining. Clearly StubHub found a rich vein to mine."

F430 Spider on Flinders + Web 2.0 Glocal Downunder in 2007.

flinders, mornington peninsula, australia.
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Gilchrist, Cameron White and Symonds won today's cricket so didn't watch out the whole game. Synch'd Ipodder Lemon for updated Podcasts and needed to blow off the cobwebs : To mainline some of that endorphin stuff to see if it can get me to closure on this deal, as well as some of that adrenalin that comes from riding my flat bar road bike now it's fixed (it's pedals not an engine btw :)

The Ride : Shoreham to Flinders clifftop stretch, which includes a couple of f-off wealth type digs. The first hill you go down you can get close to 60km/hs. As a winding road with gravel and lots of trucks and cars on both side of a single lane each way road, you gotta be on your game. I've had a few bad experiences with gravel and cars, so now I hold my line and stay towards the middle.

The first vehicle that rolled past though was a red Ferrari 430 Cabriolet with top down. Damn that are some fine looking rear cut-off lights and what an engine note. Oh to have half a mill.

I had some Daily Source Code on the Ipod and there were some replays from 2004 "podshows". It's funny to think that end of 2004 when I was stuck at home with a strange problem that couldnt get diagnosed with my knee and I bought the Imac 20" when it came out and the 1st G shuffle, was where it started for me. Well this part of the game.

With the deadpool meme, that is adding some lee harding wasabe twinged "neo-punk" 2.0, it's always good to remember why you first got into the game. Good strategy is learned execution, and definitely evolves. My experience at ninemsn, sensis and other success/failures :) told me the local part of this 2.0 equation is wide-open. And it still seems so. Technical execution is far harder from building a Web 1.0 classifieds, ecommerce or content site though. It is alot cheaper too.

Another insight a couple years ago was that successful (media/community/UGC) website development, whether you work at a corporate or startup, is alot like film making and less like corporate software/MBA consulting product development.

It seems easy to pick the latest genre ("video", "social networking") grab your camera (open source tools, APIs) and shoot some footage. More people shooting; More enter; More exit. Level playing field with low cost entry and high genocide with low replacement costs for the next venture. (sell it on ebay or sitepoint and use proceeds to fund the next one etc then blog about the experience and use it to pitch your local angel)

It's alot harder to execute. In fact, technical execution, esp from a remote location with a low level of people with the different types of competencies and skillsets (many who have been burnt by 1.0 and are earning $700-$1200 a day working 9-5 for a bank, and although they would love to work on something interesting + new.. but cant/wont - mortgage, kids, siignificant other and past experience at least downunder vs the US means it is still hard for the startup to compete to get the tech talent it needs when based outside US)

I don't expect the glocal Web 2.0 industry in 2007 downunder to be as barren (get it) as 2006. It will be great when more players like studentface.com.au are who executing awesomely and also major corporates start innovating. (that was my sales pitch, which seems to be working, can u believe it, blog it and they will come) I'm loving playing in both the consumer space and then enterprise enablement in this local 2.0 space. (thanku, clap, clap, blagh)

You think of films, very few have a harmonious set, that come in under budget and on time, that capture something magical that then go onto to do a huge box office, and also win awards. Alot fail, alot are stuck in the middle, some do pretty well. Just like a hedge fund manager thinks they can beat the market (and some do but most dont) so does any entrepreneur/filmmaker think they can beat the "average" delivery of the corporate or untouched market window.

The life of a successful venture is supposedly that of the business of a winery. By the time you plant everything, let the grapes mature, establish sales channel and harvest your first couple of crops its a 5-8 year window to get there. You can correlate this downunder to the first Internet entrepreneurs that started 1997-8 now having their value well and truly established.

Listening to the DSC podcast of 2004 highlights, makes you realise, especially in Australia far away from the echo-chamber and concentrated venture finance/universities/ geeks+entrepreneurs of the East and West Coasts, that 2007-8 will see an accelerated launch of new consumer websites and enterprise services. I can't wait, even if it is someone else hammering past me in the F430-Spider.

Google : 30K Monthly GBase Merchants; 125K on Adwords.

leather bubble
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Deep in deal delirium they tell me it's Saturday : I know Australia won the cricket yesterday (can we please play another country sorry Lords members) and there is a game again tomorrow. (against another team i think!) I have read the sports and business sections of all 4 papers (ok not the sun business, but the power of business blog advertising was profiled in the age, even if it was a washingtonpost article and afr is talking about property being on the up again) but other than that one day rolls into the next.

There are lots of ways to waste time : Excel game theory scenario modelling every participant in your deal, and wasting time reading abazillion feeds on google reader (days of using rojo long gone - still lots of ways to improve greader btw, its far too much of an isolated google app - looks like they really are the web based version of microsoft : which is ironically why apple is killing all its large cap peers as everything it builds is small and focused on a "simple" purpose, but totally integrated into the Apple OSX-Itunes-Ipod/Imac/Macbook-Pro Value Chain. I digress and won't even start some of the dejavu conversations I've been having with grups about The Newton's dna and the old apple pda days of handwriting recognition - I'm sure Apple will increasingly open up the iPhone btw, as long as u have an approved widget'n'all.)

Google Base is one of those 20% google projects sneaking towards importance as Google's biggest weakness apart from product and revenue diversity is the glue that connects its products and consumers. So The Bobby Brown GBase as boring as it was when it launched ("Google will kill Craigslist, followed by "Google won't kill Craigslist") allows web publishers and merchants using a google biased version of rss, upload their products and contents into goog et froogle et whatever else goog wants.

Comparison Search Engine blog is smelling something drifting in the wind. (excuse butchered metaphor which is so far away u probably dont recognise it) "But it’s not just Google Base that will be the story, it’s Google’s steady march toward supremacy of small and medium size merchants. Ok, I guess Google already is a leader in servicing small and medium sized businesses (in my estimates, aprx. 125K merchants - not affiliates - currently use Adwords), but the web it’s weaving with Google.com, Adwords, Base, Checkout, and Analytics is pretty awesome."

Elsewhere noted "I estimate that there are currently about 30,000 merchants actively submitting feeds to Google Base." OK I'm off for a bike ride - just had to add that final quote in, it was in another paragraph and given I put it in my heading, I thought I better add it in. Need to blog tonite, my day : post ratio is totally out of wak :| Oh, and 2 blogs I read quoted Sarah Silverman in under 24 hours (blame aussie fta tv programming for having no idea who she is), so I'm watching this too, before the ride that is.

"With the market valuing these sorts of companies (iVillage, IGN, etc) at 25 to 32 times unique users, he says Glam’s value is headed to $500million!"

classy ass
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Globe trotting Sydney setters with panache and a plan like a bit of Glam. Even if the business is largely a vertical ad network positioning for a premium content community valuation. As you do. It's also good for the PopSugar crew, who are rolling out their estrogen hubs very nicely.

VentureBeat : "With the market valuing these sorts of companies (iVillage, IGN, etc) at 25 to 32 times unique users, he says Glam’s value is headed to $500 million!"

"I've worked at The Truth, Ralph, The Picture - but it's only at Fairfax that I've received such stupid correspondence from readers."

another night
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Who said January was a quite month ? This is web 2.0, the new new new economy, where speed is the essence, small is big, and every1 is agoggle over the IdreallyfnlikethatPhone esp if it had a qwerty keyboard for crackberry twittering. The deal I was going to close before XMAS (June/Sep/Dec), has slowly, relentlessly and totally absorbed the first third of January.

Deep in Vietnam; getting the first chopper out of Iraq, I'll tell you. We won Cisco. Business is booming, who needs a life, growth "challenges", which bling prognoticians say are a good thing - Just never be the go to person for 8 different parties. It does get the alpha blood rolln tho. Almost done and back to the business of business, hoping. Final roll y'all.

Time slows down, repeats itself, you become Bill Groundhog Murray (and not in Tokyo) sentence wandering off now.. Steve sure can present by the way, dropping Computer from Apple, pranking Starbucks with cartoon character appearances from Revenge of Nerd Schmidt and 5th Wiggle Yang.

So Fairfax's The Daily Truth Blog's demographic segmentation of his employer's target market should give a chuckle to masters of the paper editions, and be a useful powerpoint companion for the sales team at their next beachside switski-vodka fuelled offsite (10 ways to market to an AB baby boomer audience using drinking games in condos with secluded swimming poolz etc.)

I read this and my brain went yup - put it on the blog - it makes sense. Daily Truth : "I've worked at some of the most allegedly foolish periodicals in the nation - The Truth, Ralph, The Picture - but it's only at Fairfax that I've received such stupid correspondence from readers. I don't think one can assume from this that the Fairfax readership is dim, but simply that it has a longer reach than the others, the capacity to mine the depths and scout the fringes of society where one finds a sub-species of humanity the existence of which I was previously unaware: the educated idiot, who can read and write, drive a motor vehicle and operate a computer, but lacks the simple complexity to comprehend such nuances of communication as intent, context, temper and humour."

China 2.0

My proposal to Connie
Originally uploaded by dj_junkfood.

Good to see Yelp.com helping people get married. And Business Week has a nice piece on China 2.0 : "You can get monster traffic with the right video, but you could get in big trouble for showing it. Still, the mainland remains fertile ground for so-called Web 2.0 startups. The country has more than 130 million Internet users, up 30% in 2006. To serve them, China has sprouted scores of homegrown companies hoping to become the next MySpace, YouTube, or Digg. Soon they'll be joined by the real thing. News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace is in negotiations to set up a Chinese-language version of the social-networking phenomenon. And Google is taking a stake in video-sharing site Xunlei."

"But social networking, like message boards, is now getting baked into vertical content sites as a mechanism to help drive user generated content"

GTC rolln
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

I'm definitely in agreement with Jeremy Liew in his predictions for 2007 about Social Networking and I'd add that in most of these categories (travel, small business etc), the Local element is very important. It's all about fostering the community to create the high value reviews.

Jeremy Liew : "Social Networking finally becomes a feature. I think it will be hard for new broad based social networks to emerge; the existing networks are strong and good and are serving their users reasonably well. But social networking, like message boards, is now getting baked into vertical content sites as a mechanism to help drive user generated content. Yelp uses a core of social networking to incent its Yelp Elite and other core users to write local reviews which then benefit any user of the site. Youtube absolutely uses social networking to reward video contributors. Tripadvisor reviewers get compliments and get told how useful their reviews are, as do Amazon book reviewers. Flickr has always had a core of social networking and profiles for regular photo contributors. Others are doing this in other verticals, including Flixster in movies, Kongregate in flash games, and many more. These are not social networking sites per se - they are city guide sites, or video sites, or travel sites, or book sites, or photosites. You can enjoy the specific content without ever joining the network, or even being aware of it, but the social network reward mechanisms are incenting the power users to contribute the content that we all benefit from. Watch this space."

Newspapers that want to be Job Boards that want to be Social Networks that want to be Job Boards that want to be Newspapers.

GTC dashn
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Still havent gone out for ride, weather is blowing, then raining, and still quite hot. Buzzmachine linked to the Newsosaur blog, which summarises the demise of "the shares of publicly held publishing stocks in the last two years lost nearly $13.5 billion in value, or 20.5% of their market capitalization."

I'm sure "convergent" publishers who have been investing increasingly in their online business are better positioned. You know we aren't going back, when online recruitment ads in the US have overtaken their print counterparts. The digital march is inevitable but having face to face sales reps and a news generating infrastructure are key assets within any bundled News NewCo.

Boral Associates research from the very readable localonliner.com blog : "The line was crossed in 4Q 2006 (now) and online now accounts for $5.9 billion, while print accounts for $5.5 billion. Borrell further reports that newspaper Web sites have 18.6 percent of that market, or $1.1 billion. But the prognosis for newspaper recruitment dollars isn’t especially good – despite the recent pacts with Yahoo and Monster. Borrell projects that metro dailies will lose 20 percent of their annual recruitment revenue from 2006 through 2011, which will translate to a loss of 3.1 share points. Suburban and community newspapers, which are more insulated from national competitors, will gain 25 percent in revenue by 2011, but this will only be enough to maintain their current share of 0.9 percent of the total recruitment advertising market."

The next interesting loop on this is that the job boards (Monster, Seek, Careerbuilder etc) that have taken the job seeker from Saturday job ads, are now having share attacked from Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace, etc. So the job boards have then partnered with the newspapers. That's a game of musical chairs on The Titanic :|

BusinessWeek via PaidContent : "In the past six months, visits to the big three online recruiters, Monster, Yahoo’s HotJobs, and CareerBuilder dropped by 23.7 percent, 18.4 percent, and 7.1 percent, respectively, Hitwise reports. The reason, BusinessWeek reports, is the rise of social networks and job sites dedicated to matching employers and job seekers in very specific pockets of the job market – sites where musicians looking for work on cruise ships, for example. To cope, The Big Three have been embarking on series of partnerships with newspaper chains – cases in point: Monster’s deal with Freedom Communications, which owns 36 newspapers and eight TV stations; also CareerBuilder.ca’s strategic partnership with portal Lycos Canada to serve up job listings to Lycos searchers. "

There appears a real window for newspapers to bypass (concentrating only on) the basic job board model or even the semi-passive world of linkedin (although it will be bought for a premium price - over $500M - because of its network effect leadership and latent growth potential eg recruiters are increasingly using linkedin to hire execs for 6 figure jobs in australia even though linkedin has no offices here)

Anyway, so newspapers could build strong online networking around their mastheads (or new ones) and ensure that they dont just lose the recruitment advertising dollar, which it looks like they will if the spreadsheets and online clicks continue. Now about that bike ride...

Denny Crane Gets a Vista Laptop but Forgets F430

997TT-F430 Shootout
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Got my Giant CRX-1 flat bar roadbike (of the pedal type) finally fixed (needed a new chain) so it's going to be Flinders or Portsea hills today, if the weather can cool. Photo Matt though wants to release more in 2007, scary !

"Release more — This has been yes and no. WordPress.com is the epitome of release more, with pushes sometimes dozens of times a day, but the space between WordPress 2.0 and 2.1 is way, way too long. (2.0 is over 1.5 million downloads now.) We’re trying an experiment after 2.1 to encourage more frequent release, since the codebase is pretty much “stable” all the time since it runs live on WP.com. I’ve heard about book writers who have to stop blogging to work on their book, so similarly maybe I should take a break to get some of my unreleased software out the door. On the bright side, I feel like everything currently released, from bbPress to Akismet, is getting all the tender loving care it needs, so nothing is really neglected. (Which is a bad feeling.)"

As Neosmart says : "In that sense, WordPress is hard or even impossible to beat. Not only does it already have everything you could want from a blogging script; it also has one of the largest and most extensively utilized online communities the web has ever seen. Coupled with a relaxed open-source model, friendly developers, and totally free hosting services, it’s damn hard to beat – especially coming from scratch. After WordPress 2.0 shipped, it became impossible for someone to write a script that would ever replace WordPress simply because of sheer quantity, fame, and support."

Also - I think this whole Microsoft/Ferrari thing is not bad for Microsoft, when I think of Vista, I'm thinking about Ferraris'. It has changed my hardwired brand dna associations, I kid you not. Funny eh ? Ferrari. Vista. Ferrari. Vista. My name is not Denny Crane.

"Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding of our intentions I’m going to ask that you either give the pc away or send it back when you no longer need it for product reviews." .. when you no longer need it for product reviews.. no longer... just keep it a bit... Denny Crane. Send round the F430 Vista.