Posted by John in Technology.
I am launching a new blog next month and I really wanted to get a pulse from the twittersphere on what pisses them off about blogs. I put out a tweet today about what pisses people off about blogs – the responses poured in so I thought I’d keep the list here.
I will use the comments to document the things that piss you off about blogs: could be anything – My goal is to incorporate this feedback into my own blog. Extra points for funny useful comments.
Go comment away – What features of blogs do you hate?
Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Jason Baer, social media
Here is a great post by Jason Baer on the fallacies of social media. Social media is the email marketing of our web 2.0 everyone will do it but how is the question. I’ve been doing it for years and I agree with this post. I’ve added some of my comments in { } below. Thanks Jason for a great post.
1. Social Media is Inexpensive
False. Done correctly, social media – even a simple reputation monitoring program – is a time intensive proposition that requires daily vigilance.
2. Social Media is Fast
False. Social media is by definition slow. Done correctly, social media is about developing meaningful relationships with customers and prospective customers in their natural habitat. You have to create content, be part of many communities, and proceed incrementally. Many successful social media programs take months (or even more than a year) to really germinate.
3. Social Media is “Viral Marketing”
False, in the same way that a square is also a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t a square. Can a social media program go viral? Absolutely. But if you’re engaged in a social media program in an effort to go “viral” you’re not really engaged in social media at all. You’re engaged in an advertising and marketing campaign that uses the Web as its distribution platform.
{I will agree but add something here to Jason’s post: the conversation is the advertising campaign and the social result of the conversation if done correctly is the definitive word on the topic – hence an ad-like message or effect}
4. Social Media results can’t be measured
False. Especially in comparison to many other communication programs like traditional PR, TV advertising, outdoor advertising and others, social media actually offers pretty solid metrics. Can those results be tied back directly to sales, and therefore ROI? Probably not yet, but other than search and email (and maybe banners) where CAN you do that?
{I will add that the metrics are not online and this is the opportunity to bridge both offline and online experiences and benefits to users}
5. Social Media is optional
It doesn’t matter what the demographics of your customers are. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. Your customers and prospects are talking about you online. Your company needs to be part of that conversation. Today. Online is where many people do their talking, so that’s where you need to be.
6. Social media is hard
False. It’s not hard, it’s complicated. It’s about having a strategy for making your company or organization more like a person and less like a machine. It’s about humanization.
If your customers and prospects feel like your company is more human and actually cares about them, they’ll want to be part of it….use technology to be yourself, and don’t overthink it.
Update: Thanks to Ben Smithson for point out the mistake in the title..
Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: entrepreneurship, Silcion Valley, startups
Comparing Silicon Valley to Detroit is ridiculous, but Dan Lyons does bring up a big issue worth discussing – innovation problem. Silicon Valley is not setup for long term research in a way that made it what it is today. We are seeing institutional research vaporize in front of our eyes. Checking around it’s apparent that there is very little core and applied research going on. If there is research it is controlled by short term horizons like business profits and venture capital horizons. I’ve said before that we need a new approach.
I posted about this before about a new venture development paradigm that will emerge soon – one based upon open principles and collaboration.
Here is a snip of my post from last year – Silicon Valley – The Rebooting Meritocracy
Silicon Valley is a special place for entrepreneurship, and it continues to be. The issue is not that there is a wrench in the machine, but that the machine is broken. It’s rebooting.
One thing I love about Silicon Valley is that there are no handouts. It’s the ultimate entrepreneurial meritocracy. Change happens and it happens both from the bottom up (entrepreneurs) and the top down (capital market). The question is which force is driving the change.
Redistribution of wealth is upon us. The entrepreneurs and investors that move on this current market opportunity will capture the proverbial “chips on the table”. As an entrepreneur, I love this market. Opportunities are everywhere. Unlike the dot com bust, this tech (entrepreneurial) market never really crashed. Everywhere I look I see discounts and new opportunities. Smart money will move around, but in select places. Is the market scary? If you’re an incumbent it sure is scary.
Silicon Valley Web 2.0 is hurting, but not for the obvious reasons. A bigger force is at play here – massive redistribution of wealth is taking place. Some are scared, and some are welcoming the opportunity of possibly acquiring the wealth “on the table”. I think that Facebook and Twitter are great examples of what might be possible. Facebook will become the next Google. The only thing holding them up is that the ‘new revenue’ model that is soon to arrive at the “station”. When that “train” arrives (and it will) Facebook will say Goodbye to all the naysayers.
Research & Development Void?
The bigger picture is more long term and that’s all about research and development. Judy Estrin recently came out to talk about something really important – the innovation gap. Let me translate her thesis – we are screwed if we don’t have steady research unencumbered by short term agendas. Think how important institutions like Stanford, MIT, and SRI have been to Silicon Valley and entrepreneurship. Without these deep research institutions we would not have many innovations that created wealth – hello Ethernet; hello Apple; hello Cisco; hello Google, ..etc.
The lack of institutional research leaves a void in the Silicon Valley ecosystem. John Markoff postulates in his book “What the Dormouse Said” that the culture and research of the 60s drove the PC revolution. The question now is what revolution are we developing and where is the research? Will we miss the next important energy, medical, or tech breakthrough? Where is our modern day moonshot mandate?
Even top HP executives agree with me. At HP, the concern reaches the very highest levels of the company. Shane Robison, HP’s chief strategy and technology officer, says he’d like to see the following: a permanent research-and-development tax credit, which would encourage tech companies to do more basic science research, which in turn would benefit everyone, not just the company that conducts the research; more government funding for basic science research; more spending on education; and changes in immigration laws to help foreign-born students who study in the United States to stay in this country afterward. “The technology industry is one of the crown jewels of our country,” Robison says. “It’s the one industry where we stand head and shoulders above the rest of the world. We need to protect that.”
Posted by Linda Miola Furrier in social media, Technology.
Tags: facebook, Linda Miola-Furrier, Parent For Facebook.
NOTE: Visit the siliconANGLE blog for a community of bloggers on Social Web and Technology Opinion and Analysis. THANKS
My kids have Facebook accounts and we have a Facebook policy in our house. I guess that you’d put me in the camp of “parents for Facebook”. As a new and avid user of Facebook and someone keenly interested in social science and child development, I attended a Facebook meeting last night with parents in Palo Alto with great interest.
Every social media network is searching for the best method to create large audience leading to large amounts of advertising revenue. With over 200 million users and increased R&D budget to develop 35 new foreign language interfaces….I would say that Facebook’s goals are clear … to increase the social graph as quickly and dramatically as possible. It is working. 70% of Facebook’s users are outside of the US. Every day new members are added. Friends of friends become friends of friends…and so on and so on. Facebook is our children’s present social communication culture. Bravo to Facebook.
How many of those “friends of friends” do you want your child interfacing with…regularly, publicly & not in the real world? Being the inquisitive parent I am, I attended a local high school Parent Ed meeting last night.
The event l was billed as an event to increase your knowledge of your kids’ cyber culture on Facebook. The Facebook employee panelist was informative enough, but I couldn’t help feel that he really didn’t “get it”. His youth was indicative of the Facebook employee culture, but I am guessing he has never worried about a child getting home safely or being stalked on the Internet.
Questions were answered relating to privacy settings & Facebook procedures for blocking inappropriate posts and or members. The slide show was informative, but didn’t really reach the heart of the matter. The high school principal spoke with us about how the administration disciplines kids who post inappropriately in the high school network. The two high school age panelists spoke to their methods of protecting and sharing their information on Facebook. Yes, interesting, but I still left the event feeling hungry for more parenting tools.
I was left wondering, who is monitoring cyberspace outside of school hours? Whose responsibility is it? Should Facebook default to the most restrictive privacy settings for minors? Wouldn’t restrictions to spreading networks be highly counter to their business goals. Is Facebook’s sharing and connecting utility and business growth plan in conflict with the best interest of the kids?
Some parents felt that the school needed to become more proactive in teaching our kids to be safe, and even went so far as to suggest a mandated course. Others indicated that the cyber businesses which interact with youth need to take more responsibility.
My take: This is a new parenting frontier – an opportunity. We are two steps behind our kids, even if we think we know what they are doing online. It is a parent’s responsibility to discipline (Latin root = teach) our children how to protect themselves. Many kids balk at the idea of sharing their online communications with parents. Until my children are 18, I am the authority. We need to set expectations for our kids & walk them through this uncharted territory with guidelines. Parents: require your children to share passwords with you. Set time aside to see what your children are doing online. Invite them to browse through their accounts with you. Ask questions and really listen.
It is only with the cooperation of the businesses, schools and parent communities that we can hope to enjoy the benefits of social networks AND keep our kids smart & safe online.
Posted by John in social media, Technology.
Tags: Digg, Jay Adelson, Jim Louderback, recession, Rev3
Memo from Jay Aldelson from Digg. I really love to see how companies are trying to survive. No doubt Digg will survive – Jay’s a good manager and he would have to seriously screw up royally to fail (that’s certainly possible but highly unlikely). Techcrunch says it’s growth is flat. Digg’s sister company Rev3 is hurting and has laid off staff as well. Rev3 is now being run by Jim Louderback who has media experience, but the economy isn’t favorable to video at the moment. Well see about them. (note: I saw Jim at CES and they were doing some great stuff there with NBC).
Here is Jay’s public post on Digg’s priorities in 2009: goal cut staff and focus on 5 major bullets to manage. I would have expected them to have only 3 bullets but maybe there is more coming from Jay and his team.
Hey all,
Wanted to reach out to folks with an update on Digg and our priorities for 2009 as well as address some of the recent speculation about our business.
As we’ve often stated over the past couple of months, given the current economic climate, we’ve made the decision to take a more conservative approach to our expansion plans and aggressively focus on reaching profitability within the year.
This means we’ll be taking proactive measures to manage our costs including a headcount reduction in certain areas that are less core to this year’s objectives while continuing to hire for roles that will help build on our leadership position and get us to profitability faster. This includes hiring a direct sales team, in addition to other targeted hires in 2009.
As part of our aggressive path to profitability within the year, I also wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the major priorities for the company:
- Rolling out new features to grow and engage our community
- Building on our advertising infrastructure
- Building on our successful partnership with Microsoft
- Ongoing sponsorship opportunities
- Ongoing publisher and trade partnerships
I’m confident that with commitment and focus on these priorities, Digg will be an even stronger company in 2009 and will continue to create innovative features for our more than 35 million community members. I want to thank you all for your continued support and commitment – helping us achieve our vision of the democratization of media, and revolutionizing the way people consume and discover information online.
Thanks,
Jay
Posted by John in social media, Technology.
Tags: Cloud Computing, Cloud Connect, Infrastructure 2.0, Paul Buccheit
As I sit in the CloudConnect Event at the computer history museum (twitter stream here), I was wondering about how to talk about cloud computing and the meaning of all this. It became clear to me when I saw the Paul Buchheit post today on “Communicating with Code”.
He writes (talking about his experience with the development of Gmail..)…“From that day until launch, every new feature went live immediately, and most new ideas were implemented as soon as possible. This resulted in a lot of churn — we re-wrote the frontend about six times and the backend three times by launch — but it meant that we had direct experience with all of the features. A lot of features seemed like great ideas, until we tried them. Other things seemed like they would be big problems or very confusing, but once they were in we forgot all about the theoretical problems.”….”The great thing about this process was that I didn’t need to sell anyone on my ideas. I would just write the code, release the feature, and watch the response. Usually, everyone (including me) would end up hating whatever it was (especially my ideas), but we always learned something from the experience, and we were able to quickly move on to other ideas.”
What we have here is a real time web waiting for real time code. All of the discussion about cloud computing is really about rapid development,provisioning of resources..etc. – in the end a better product for users (hopefully). Paul talks about this in his post -Gmail turned out pretty good.
Cloud computing allows developers the ability to get “stuff” up fast. Speed and feedback is critical to success and more important than having some “hardened app” that no one wants. This is only way to develop in the web today. Success is about speed and product acceptance is dependent on that speed which drives relevance. Build a great product and it will work.
The motto “build it they will come” is irrelevant. Instead the motto today is “Build it because they are there already”. Having a robust, easy to use, easy to provision, and reliable cloud and services will flow to users for critical feedback The rest will take of itself. The good apps and services will “come to us” – Welcome to Infrastructure 2.0.
discussion on twitter via tag #cloudconnect
Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Anton Wahlman, Economics, Gas Crisis
By Anton Wahlman
American memories are apparently becoming shorter and shorter. Various
misguided references to the alleged causes and cures of The Great
Depression aside, people don’t remember that we once upon a time, less
than 100 years ago, didn’t have a Federal Income Tax, that drugs were
legal (and then alcohol prohibited), and that inflation and interest
rates were double-digits less than 30 full years ago.
Among the most recent things to be completely forgotten are the high
gas prices, peaking in July 2008 with nationwide averages over $4 per
gallon and people in California paying $5 on occasion. Politicians and
pundits blamed this on “speculators” and called for the government to
“do something.” Toyota (TM) Priuses were selling at MSRP or higher.
Less than six months thereafter, gas prices had fallen by over 50%,
and Toyota Priuses now come with $750 rebates to make them move. Never
before did gasoline prices fall so far, so fast. Not even close.
What was the government program that fixed this economic problem? The
answer is none at all. The government didn’t lift a finger to solve
this problem. It let the market do its magic, curing the issue with
its own natural self-healing mechanism first described in Adam Smith’s
The Wealth of Nations [1776]. Sure, there was a lot of huffing and
puffing about what people suggested the government should do, but in
the end the government did nothing. The problem just went away. No
government intervention solved the problem.
Think about it: The one recent problem which the government left to
the free market to solve, got solved in record-short time. Contrast
this to the ever-ballooning demands for the government to “do
something” about the financial and economic crisis. The demands from
almost all ends of the political spectra suggest that we drop all
economic common sense and instead spend money we don’t have.
Think about it again: We got into this mess by borrowing too much,
spending too much, and making too many loans. What’s being proposed?
Let’s spend even more, borrow much more, and make even more loans.
It’s like an alcoholic trying to cure a whiskey bottle’s hangover by
drinking a whole case worth of whiskey the next morning. If there ever
were a more self-evident disaster outcome guaranteed, I can’t think of
one.
The free market cured the high gas problem in less than six months
without the government lifting a finger or spending a dollar.
Likewise, the free market would cure the imprudent debt bubble by
allowing it to be pierced, seeing prices falling, wages falling and
allowing bankruptcies and foreclosures to clean up the imprudent
investments into orderly liquidation. Adjusting wages to demand, would
guarantee full employment as with any other market price.
In a free market, the current recession would probably be cured within
a year or two, and it would allow the government to cut expenses
instead of increasing them. Only by dramatically cutting the size of
our government, so that we can eliminate the deficit and start paying
back the debt, can we restore sanity to our financial and monetary
equation, which includes saving the value of the dollar.
As it stands, we are on a path that will put us in Germany’s World War
I surrender rail car and its 1918-20 aftermath. We will be left with a
debt burden so great that the only way out will be massive inflation,
as we essentially default on government bonds. Germany was left with a
huge war debt after World War I, but because the debt was not
denominated in British Pounds or French Francs, Germany simply
inflated itself out of its obligations, causing dramatic
mis-allocation of resources, societal chaos, the rise of Hitler and
the bloodiest war (World War II) in its wake.
In our case today, the debt-explosion path that we will apparently be
pursuing, will most likely also mean a massive inflation when we
eventually print the money to pay off the bond buyers (read: The
Chinese). China has one of the soundest economies in the world today,
with low or nonexistent public and private debt, and high growth, but
it has invested its surpluses largely in U.S. government bonds.
Whoops! All that the Chinese worked for during the last decade, will
go up in smoke. And in the wake of the Chinese losing their savings
invested in U.S. government debt – another war? We are clearly playing
with fire, taking on all this debt to finance unprecedented levels of
government spending.
Posted by John in social media, Technology.
Tags: David Hornik, entrepreneurship, silicon valley, startups, venture capital
I love this post from David Hornik. I guess that I have an addiction because I love starting companies – I can’t help myself. His real message is simple – many entrepreneur friends are starting companies in this market. Personally, I think that doing startups is like taking a vacation each startup is like a good journey.
The post is worth of a full posting here on Furrier.org. Thanks David for a great post.
By the end of 2008, Venture Capital had been officially declared dead. Startups were laying people off so fast that even TechCrunch couldn’t manage to keep up. University Endowments and Foundations, the source of the “capital” in Venture Capital, were hemorrhaging so badly from their public company investments that many long-time believers in “alternative assets” declared a moratorium on Venture Capital. And the IPO market was a distant memory. Good times!
Welcome 2009. The public markets remain closed. Venture investors and the investors in venture investors remain “challenged.” Follow on financings have become increasingly difficult, in some instances impossible. And, while there may well be light at the end of the tunnel, it would appear that we haven’t gotten far enough down the tunnel yet to see that light.
So why am I optimistic about investing in 2009? Because entrepreneurship is an addiction, it isn’t a choice. Great entrepreneurs aren’t driven to create companies because it is easy, or because capital is plentiful, or because the public markets are swallowing anything the venture community will throw at them. Great entrepreneurs start companies because they can’t help themselves. They see a problem or a solution or white space or an opportunity and they have to do something about it.
Innovation doesn’t take a vacation during an economic downturn. Innovation is a constant. While the resources an entrepreneur may be able to bring to bear on a problem may vary with the economic climate, the desire — the need — to innovate never goes away. And Venture Capital is the fuel of that innovation. [1]
So I remain excited about the companies that will be started in 2009. There will be great companies started during this economic crisis. Some of them will be born out of the crisis itself. Others will simply be born during the crisis. But, rest assured, there will be important tech companies hatched in the next year or two. And I am certainly hoping to fund them.
Some of you reading this will say to yourselves “starting companies today is so inexpensive that we don’t need no stinkin’ VCs.” More power to you. I don’t mean to suggest that innovation will die without Venture Capital. There are many great ideas that can come to fruition without a meaningfully-large capital infusion. My hat is off to the 37 Signals and Smugmugs of this world. But for those ideas that require investment ahead of revenue to reach their full potential, Venture Capital remains an important resource for company building.
Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Inauguration Speech, Obama Inauguration, Obama Inauguration Speech Alternative
By Anton Wahlman
My fellow Americans, change has arrived in Washington. Not as much in
the area of foreign policy and homeland defense, because I realize
that my predecessor and distant cousin Dick Cheney had it right in the
hours and days following 9/11 when he set this great Republic on a war
footing to defeat the enemy and protect the homeland. Seeing as I
would rather not have another 9/11 – or worse – on my watch, the
change will come primarily in the area of economic policy, where my
predecessor presided over many failures and set a dangerous course for
this country, particularly in the last year.
My new administration promises a clean break with the failed policies
of the past. In the last eight years, government spending grew to new
heights, from $2 trillion per year to over $4 trillion this year.
This stratospheric rise in the growth of the US government’s burden on
the people is nothing less than a crime against our beloved
constitution and the intent of the Fathers of the 1776 Declaration of
Independence. In recent times, the US government has failed to impose
on itself any of the restraints that have made this country so special
for so long.
To the contrary, the US government is now engaged in a long list of
activities and spending not authorized by our most fundamental
governing document. Working with Congress, I will seek to restore the
US government to its constitutional limits in my first year in office.
What this means in practice is a rapid shut-down of all government
departments except the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland
Security. This means that all these other unconstitutional creations
of the 20th century, such as the Departments of Education, Energy,
Commerce, Health and Human Affairs, Interior will all cease operations
in this glorious year of 2009.
The Federal government’s budget deficit, which the first time exceeds
$1 trillion, will also be eliminated this year. Yet, I will also
abolish all of the destructive and unjust taxes that have mushroomed
over the last 95 years in particular: the income tax, the death tax,
the capital gains tax, the corporate tax and the dividend tax. These
tax cuts will once again make the US economy competitive with the
countries around the world where economic growth and liberty has
recently exceeded our own.
My first budget, which I intend to deliver to Congress already this
afternoon in the hope of a speedy approval, will authorize total
Federal expenses of less than $1 trillion over the next year, which is
an amount ten times greater than President John F. Kennedy’s 1961
budget. This will fund an efficient Federal judiciary, our military
defense, and the ongoing war against terrorism.
What the new budget will not do, because it is being returned to its
constitutional limitations, is to send checks – to anybody or
anything. If you or your company has an addiction to receiving money
from the government, this will be the year when you sober up. It will
not matter whether you are rich, poor or in-between – the time of
government spending money on you are now over. Every single
government program providing services or sending out checks, will come
to an end. You and your company will live in the freedom of keeping
what you earn and receive in voluntary help from your friends, family
and any charitable institutions, but the mirror image of this blessing
of freedom is that government will not support anybody or anything. I
am breaking the back on welfare state dependency and entitlement by
going cold turkey on all recipients, large and small.
This restoration of the constitutional legitimacy of the US government
will be funded by a simple flat tax on US adults: At $1 trillion in
total annual Federal expenses, a number which may end up even lower,
it represents a flat $5,000 tax on each of our 200 million US adults.
There will no longer be any need to file an income tax return, keeping
any receipts, paying a tax preparer, or equivalent. This flat $5,000
tax will be due in monthly installments of $417, equivalent of $13.70
per day.
I expect the impact on the economy from this simple flax tax to be
profound. People will be able to work as much as they want, and
invest in any way they want, knowing that every incremental dollar
they earn will be theirs to keep. All of the lost productivity
resulting from tax-avoidance and the administration associated with
corporate payrolls, will remain with us only in the form of an
unpleasant memory, similar to the memories of living behind the Iron
Curtain and Berlin Wall before 1989. Small business will be able to
form without any bureaucratic hassle. The entrepreneurial spirit will
be unshackled from all red tape, bureaucracy and tax disincentives.
My plan to cut over 75% of all Federal government expenses, and fund
the remainder with a flat $5,000 tax, will also help cure political
corruption in Washington DC. Lobbyists come to us because we have
money to spend, and they seek to maximize their share of the pie. My
cold turkey approach to restoring the US government to its
constitutionally legitimate size will make almost all lobbyists
obsolete: If the size of the pie is zero, there is nothing for which
you can lobby.
So in closing, I can say with confidence that the 75% or greater
reduction in size of the US government will bring about a rebirth of
the era of freedom, rugged individualism and self-reliance. It will
allow the US government to focus on its constitutionally narrow
purpose of securing the property rights of our individual citizens,
and to protect our country from those who seek to do us harm. This
focus will enable us to perform these duties better. With this, I
salute our constitution, our Founders and our Declaration of
Independence. Now let’s get on with it. Thank you, and God Bless
America.
Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: bill watkins, Ken Kannappan, Plantronics, seagate
What a sad week for Seagate. CEO Bill Watkins (whom I like and have interviewed many times) was ousted and now they are cutting almost 3,000 jobs. Folks we are seeing the beginning of the massive recession or depression. Ok we are knee deep in the financial depression. This is only going to get worse.
Seagate said in an 8-K filing with the SEC that the restructuring moves will result in pre-tax charges of about $90 million, with most of that to be taken in the December 2008 quarter. The company expects the stafff reductions to save $130 million a year.
The company also said it will cut the salaries of its senior staff, with a 25% cut for new CEO Stephen Luczo, “named executive officers” and executive vice presidents, a 20% cut for senior VPs, a 15% reduction for VPs and a 10% reduction for other management, sales, supervisors and professional employees. The savings cuts should save about $80 million annually.
In related cuts in Silicon Valley and Santa Cruz Plantronics is cutting almost 1,000 jobs. Ken Kannapan (a neighbor of mine) is trying to keep the company cash flow positive. Plantronics needs to move the “ball down the field” big time if they want to compete in Unified Communications.
Company officials said revenue and earnings per share for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 will be lower than originally expected. They had projected net revenues of $205 million to $220 million but now are expecting revenues to be $184 million for the third quarter. Final third-quarter earnings will be announced Jan. 27.
The revised revenue estimate is mostly the result of lower-than-expected sales of Bluetooth headsets, but also reflects the impact of broad economic weakness across different product categories, officials said.
As a result of the workforce reduction and other restructuring, officials expect savings of approximately $7.7 million to $8.2 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009. Yearly savings are expected to be more than $50 million. The company also plans a 50 percent reduction in capital expenditures in fiscal 2010.
“As global economic weakness persists, our key objectives are to remain profitable and cash-flow positive, continue to invest in strategic initiatives such as unified communications, and to improve our profitability in our consumer businesses,” said President and Chief Executive Officer Ken Kannappan. “We believe that our strong financial position combined with ongoing strategic investments will allow us to emerge from this downturn in a significantly stronger competitive position.”
Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Channel Marketing, Enterprise, google, IT, microsoft
In an big move Google is taking the classic enterprise sales move – set up a channel. Indirect channel marketing is great leverage and if pulled off is very disruptive. I’ve spend many years in the channel business with Hewlett-Packard and the channel model is based upon a simple formula – get thousands of people selling your product everywhere. However, the key to success is money which Google has plenty of. If Google can incent channel partners with good products and great margin, they will put a dent in the Microsoft dominance.
Here is more detail. Web search leader Google Inc took another step on Wednesday toward direct competition with Microsoft Corp by recruiting IT resellers to market its Web-based applications to business clients.
From the end of March, authorized resellers will be able to sell, customize and support premium versions of Google Apps, which includes word processing, spreadsheets, calendars and email.
Google Apps is broadly similar to Microsoft‘s top-selling Office package except that Apps is completely Web-based and is part of Google‘s push into so called ‘cloud computing‘ or software-as-a-service. Microsoft said in October it is also looking at adding Web-based features for its Office applications.
Since it launched Google Apps in February 2007, Google has only sold directly to business users over the Web. Analysts said the move to work with third parties is necessary if Google hopes to compete seriously with Microsoft or IBM.
Microsoft, which is the world’s largest software company, sells more than 95 percent of its software through more than 440,000 third party resellers, according to Gartner Research, and intends to spend around $3 billion on managing those sales channels in 2009.
Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Apple, Apple Computer, Steve Jobs
This email went out to Apple employees. Steve will take some time off to focus on his health. I would like to wish Steve a speedy recovery. Meanwhile, COO Tim Cook will take over day to day operations.
Here is Steve Job’s memo to employees:
Team,
I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.
In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.
I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.
I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.
Steve
Update: For more information on Steve Jobs health that has been reported check out this playlist put together by DJ
Playlist of Steve Jobs Videos
Posted by John in social media, Technology.
Tags: CEO, jerry yang, silicon valley, yahoo
Yahoo Inc. is expected to announce that Carol Bartz, former chief executive of software company Autodesk Inc., has accepted an offer to become the Internet company’s next CEO, according to people familiar with the situation. Boomtown’s Kara Swisher was the first to break this and now it looks like Kara had her ear to the ground in the right spots.
Hiring an operational Silicon Valley insider is a good move for Yahoo. What Carol needs to do is filter the signal from the noise internally at Yahoo. I’m sure everyone there is jockying for position. Carol needs to hire from the outside and bring in some ‘mavericks’ to get Yahoo relevant again in both the product side and the corporate side. She has a big job ahead of her. I think the thing that no one is talking about is that she makes a great partner to Jerry Yang who obviously has the desire to make Yahoo great again.
From WSJ today. Ms. Bartz, 60 years old, will face a number of challenges as she tries to turn around Yahoo’s flagging performance and stock price. Some investors have been lobbying for a break-up of the Internet giant, for instance. Yahoo faces tough competition from Internet rivals such as Google Inc.
Ms. Bartz still serves as executive chairman of Autodesk, of San Rafael, Calif., which she ran as chief executive from 1992 to 2006. Autodesk is around half the size of Yahoo, with approximately 7,000 employees world-wide.
Ms. Bartz was also an executive at Sun Microsystems Inc. and she sits on the board of Cisco Systems Inc., with Mr Yang. She is also a member of the Intel Corp. board with Yahoo President Susan Decker, who was also interviewing for the CEO job.
In afternoon trading, Yahoo’s stock fell 2% to $11.96 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock remains well below its 52-week high of $30.25.
Ms. Bartz’s appointment will likely reopen questions of Yahoo’s strategic direction, potentially clearing the path for the company to restart negotiations with Microsoft over a sale of its search business. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who tried and failed to buy Yahoo last year, has publicly said in the past few weeks that a search deal with Yahoo should be made when there is a management transition at both companies. Microsoft late last year hired a Yahoo search executive Qi Lu to lead its Internet business.
Ms. Bartz and Yahoo’s board will also have to turn to other ways to right the business, which is being hurt further by the down economy. That could include striking a deal with another partner like Time Warner Inc.’s AOL or divesting of smaller business units.
With these major strategic questions in mind, Yahoo’s board focused its CEO search on experienced executives with deal and operating experience, according to people familiar with the search. Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock led an informal committee of directors in the search; the group also included Frank Biondi, the former chief executive of Viacom Inc. Directors quickly zeroed in on a short-list of external candidates, such as former Vodafone Group PLC Chief Executive Arun Sarin, among others.
Posted by John in social media, Technology.
Tags: online advertising, social media, web 2.0
Web critic blog – Drama 2.0 has a post about the realities of Web 2.0. Not to toot my own horm but if you’re interested in Web 2.0 business models just read my posts from the past 2 years – the monetization answers are there.
Here’s the conclusion that Drama 2.0 came up with – pretty right on.
As we head into 2009 facing one of the toughest economic environments in decades knowing that the fun and games are over, it’s time to face the reality: the Web 2.0 we have today is not the Web 2.0 we envisioned a few short years ago.
The most popular Web 2.0 creations have not been cheap to grow and operate. They’re still struggling to find revenue models that will serve as the foundations of self-sustaining businesses and even those startups that generate significant revenue in absolute terms (namely Facebook) cannot justify the valuations they’ve been given. And profitability is still largely a pipe dream.
While it’s possible that Web 2.0 stars like Facebook, Digg and Twitter will turn things around, it’s quite clear that these companies are not like many of their hot Web 1.0 counterparts, which, despite having to battle challenges of their own, were able to develop viable revenue models and turn a profit relatively early on.
Given all this, for Web 2.0 proponents who continue to make the same asinine argument, “Don’t treat Web 2.0 like Web 1.0!”, it’s 2009 and I concede defeat. Web 2.0 is not like Web 1.0. It’s in a special (ed) class of its own.
Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Cisco, Future of Networking, Infoblox DNS
Network World is reporting that Cisco has done deal with Infoblox for managing DNS at the edge. In enterprise speak this is about the branch office – in tech speak this is about intelligent addressing and control of the edge. Infoblox vNIOS™ software for Cisco Integrated Services Routers (ISRs) empowers branch offices by automating core network services, providing the performance benefits of local service delivery with unparalleled resiliency and centralized visibility while reducing branch network capital and operating expenses.
Here is Yankee group perspective worth noting on this Cisco Infoblox announcement…“Remember the ‘Trapper Keeper?’ That’s what Cisco’s routers are becoming for enterprise branch office: a single place to keep all critical network applications and services,” says Phil Hochmuth, senior analyst at Yankee Group. “This is being enabled largely by the AXP, which allows organizations to cram as many services — even ones beyond Cisco’s own scope, such as Infoblox IP address management — onto a single platform.” …hmmm DNS in core and edge routers.. hmmm policy at the edge… interesting.
There is a bigger picture here. DNS is the small little Internet feature that will be the focal point for the upcoming Internet war between Google and networking vendors including Cisco. Why? DNS is the Internet Oxygen. DNS made Google – no DNS – no URLs; no URLs – no Web; no Web and URLs -no search. Here we go again except instead of web pages and search, we have web services up for grabs – that includes enterprise and cloud services.
Having a technology that is automated and programmable (i.e. policy) will gives the winner the viable solution to deliver the next generation search and application paradigm from advertising to brokering transactions.
Over the past 8 years insiders at Cisco have been debating the future of Cisco. Many back in 2000 were arguing internally at Cisco that they have to “move up the stack”. Well they never did it. In fact Cisco has been spending a ton of time rewriting IOS and figuring out what to do. Meanwhile back in 2000 a little growing company named Google was scaling their DNS offering (aka URL search) to take over the online advertising market. Now it’s apparent that Google has a mission in the cloud and networking space – they have been moving down the stack – right into Ciscoland.
This middle ground (Cisco moving up and Google moving down the stack) will be where the battle of the titans will take place. This feature from Cisco is an indicator of what the battle will be for.
Update: I just found out that this has not been officially announced yet. I believe it will be discussed here at this event in San Jose this week.
Posted by John in social media, Technology.
I have been on the ground here in Las Vegas at CES 09 since Wed morning. I am not rapidly blogging the show because the flow from the news outlets are good enough (G4 has good coverage). I’ve been busy in meetings all day everyday and wanted to share my observations.
CES is not dead. In fact the focus seems more peaked than ever. There is a real emphasis on doing deals not a lot of BS.
Social media has evolved to be bigger than ever. I really enjoyed watching the social media stars letting down their hair (Sara Lacy and Julia Allisson) at the after hours parties. Check out Brian Solis for all the photos.
Intel in spite of their bad finanical results is showing some great stuff – it’s seems to all be coming together with Intel’s stuff – WiMax, Widget TV, tons of intelligent embedded technologies at their booth.
Convergence is still happening
New marketing trends developing and all have social media components
The WiFi is horrible here at the show – I’ve been relying on my iPhone for internet access.
Twitter is huge for coordinating among all the social events and helping participants navigate the show.
All in all a very good CES this year.
Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Micosoft, Mike Arrington, techcrunch, yahoo
Mike Arrington has a report that a group of investors are circling Microsoft for money to take over Yahoo. Finally, someone is making a run at Yahoo. The wounded beast is begging for a takeover and what a bargain that would be. I would love to have the cash to take over Yahoo. Yahoo has amazing assets.
This is the easiest arbitrage and the best investment if the group can get the company at the right price. Also a huge win for Microsoft. I am happy to see some life in the technology financial markets. This would be a fun deal to work. Can’t wait to see the debate – obviously I have an opinion with a ‘capital O”.
A group of well known Silicon Valley executives and top investment bankers are putting together a Yahoo takeover deal that would be financed largely from debt supplied by Microsoft, we’ve learned from sources with knowledge of the proposed transaction.
Under the terms of the proposed deal, the investment group would make a takeover bid for Yahoo at a relatively low premium of around 20% to its current price of around $13 per share, valuing the company at just over $20 billion.
Simultaneous to the transaction Yahoo’s search and search marketing business would be sold to Microsoft. Following the transaction the new executive team would take over the top ranks of Yahoo. A key goal of the new team would be to attempt to attract back much of the executive talent that has fled Yahoo in the last year.
