The NBA and YouTube announced a deal today, finally making a significant step towards real collaboration between a blockbuster brand and a user generated community.

David Stern gets it. Mixing original content with the pile of semi-legit content will improve the overall result and exposure. And yes, it will push the NBA brand to new markets and demographics it has yet to conquer.

According to the reports, NBA original clips will be aggregated under a dedicated YouTube NBA channel (Pete Cashmore reports about the details). Frankly, I am not going to watch any pre-edited channel, I have other websites and TV channels for that. To me, the most important thing is to find NBA clips will within search results.

Way to go. I wonder what Mark Cuban has to say.

Oh, and is there any chance EUFA will follow? Yeah right…

      

I am an amateur blogger. I don’t play with SEO tips and tricks, I don’t push my friends to blogroll me, I don’t tail Techcrunch fresh releases for trackbacks. Heck, I never even brushed elbows with Mike Arrington or with Guy Kawasaki!

Sometimes I Digg my own posts. I have also sent a few promotional emails in the past to my own email distribution list, but that’s about it. In short, I am the little guy, sitting comfortably somewhere in the middle of the system. 

This doesn’t mean I am not ambitious though. Last week I conducted an experiment. It’s time to share the results.

On Wednesday we hosted Francois Depayras’ Vista Dolorosa at Degardener, (his second post, hopefully of many more to come).  Since the post was Digg worthy, I dugg it. I then sent an email to 50 of my closest friends asking them to Digg as well.

The results?

24 of my original recipients Dugg. This generated 17 additional Diggs (and 8 comments) from people I don’t know, all in all stopping at 41 Diggs (you are most welcome, by the way, to continue Digging) 

For a while, I was a bit disappointed but then I started seeing the stats. My Google Analytics started climbing rapidly and the number of additional views was totally disproportional to the number of Diggs. At the end of the day, the post generated 500 additional unique viewers and over a 1,000 additional page views! We crossed 1,000 unique viewers and 2,000 page views for the first time in Degardener’s short, one year history. And most importantly - 75 more people subscribed to our RSS feed!

In short, 41 Diggs nearly doubled the daily traffic, each Digg yielding a 20x traffic factor and 2x subscription factor, give or take.  

Degardener is almost a year old now. Traffic has been climbing steadily, and while we do not have gazillions of readers, the few hundreds that do read seem pretty loyal. This is a VERY rewarding feeling.

One email generated 75 more regular readers resulting from a page 3 appearance on Digg. 

While not overwhelming, Digg is certainly friendly to the little guy! 

      

3GSM was overwhelming - Any trade show that takes you more then three straight days to walk through is. From system integrators, content providers, enablers, device manufactures - the industry has indeed matured.

Out of the hustle of such a big event, there is one mega trend that I’d like to focus on - the death of the closed garden and the emergence of the smart pipe.

To understand why this is happening I think we need to quickly examine the role of the ‘Garden’ and see how it came to be in the the first place.

Many Internet years ago, when the world wide web had just started reaching mobile devices, when such devices were few, when they were expensive and of with horrible quality of service - mobile operators felt obligated to fill the default Internet home page with mobile adapted content. This, in turn, was supposed to have given users a good enough reason to surf from their mobile. The mobile content market was non existent and there was simply depth for users to find their own content. In addition, the companies providing mobile content were inexperienced and scarce. WAP was a techie buzzword, but all consumers got was a poor and slow experience, very much inferior compared to what they were getting used to on the PC.

Ego was (and still is) another factor. Yes, pure ego. Mobile operator executives believed (some still believe) that the mobile Internet should not be free as the “PC” Internet. The basic “rational” was that since they controlled the ‘gateway’ already they could and should control the content. This attempt is similar to what AOL has done very successfully for a long time - provide your subscribers with a content portal through which most of the content was consumed.

Most users have supposedly basic needs and when information is prearranged for them - they supposedly just use it, many times being unaware of the rich world beyond the fence. In the regular (PC) world it would be unheard of to have your ISP control your content but in the mobile world it became the de-facto reality.

The accumulated result drove many operators to try and develop in-house content divisions whose sole purpose was to fill the portal with content and services. Since part of the problem was the scarcity of the content, this was a necessary evolutionary step for the mobile Internet to develop. Someone had to get the snow ball rolling.

Today, I believe, the snowball has reached its critical mass ad guess what? People want more. Almost all new devices come with Internet connectivity, screen quality is good, connectivity fast/er, mobile content is abundant, mobile applications easy to install, WAP is rich, an open mobile billing ecosystem is in place, there is an understanding that the mobile web is different (more passive then active), services and sites have developed accordingly and most importantly users are getting more sophisticated. They actually know how to reach the web, save bookmarks and change default settings, all in all leading to the maturity level required to change the closed garden model as we know it.

My argument is not that the portal is dead, but that it can no longer be closed. Operators must focus on two major and parallel agendas:

1. Provide users with selected, popular, edgy content through the portal - a good example is mobile TV. Mobile TV broadcast is not mature enough to be outside the portal.

2. open the portal and work hard on partnering / enabling third party, independent, niche content/service providers serve users directly. Let users roam the mobile Internet world and reach places that are far from the portal as could be - and actually promote it. When more users will roam free, the more they will understand how to use it better and increase their data consumption, overall benefiting the mobile operators more then anyone else.
The almost incredulous statement I am making is that there is such a thing as mobile Internet. There isn’t! The mobile device is only a terminal. The Internet is the same Internet only viewed by a different lens. Its the years of indoctrination that have led most people to perceive them as two separate universes.

For several years now I have heard Mobile operator executives fearful of what they call becoming a dumb pipe. I don’t know who invented this word, but the psychological association in it has made the industry paranoid of what can be (and in my mind should be) the modus operandi for making loads of money - and its far from being dumb.

Becoming a pipe that effectively channels content while creating adequate processes for billing, content delivery and quality of service assurance (and a ton of other things) is very sophisticated, far from dumb. Dumb is thinking you rule the world. Smart is understanding your users want more choice then you (as an operator) can ever supply. Happy customers and loyal. That is the focus.

Focusing on loyalty through openness and wide selection of added value service, whether in house or external, is the right challenge ahead. Trying to win ground by holding on to something that is not yours is a battle all ready lost.

      

The marketing genius who picked out “Vista” must have been looking at this definition: a far-reaching mental view: vistas of the future.

It is, after all, a pretty good name.

Right after though, was the following definition: a view or prospect, esp. one seen through a long, narrow avenue or passage, as between rows of trees or houses.

A week ago, high from caffeine and the arrival of a newly purchased PowerBook Pro, I decided to use Boot Camp to install Windows on my Mac (gasp). Now, now, prior to a slew of negative comments, I am not a complete Mac-head. I love my ThinkPad and its bulbous battery allowing for hours of fun-filled Excel exploration while flying to gay Paris.

Having learned from previous mistakes, I started with a gentle installation of Windows XP SP2. Smooth, done in 45 mn, works like a charm (I won’t go through the install procedures, they’re explained elsewhere and it’s not the topic).  5 gigs of space taken out of 20, I was close to fitting my 17gig of email (yes, the IT guys love me). Feeling gutsy, I erased XP and installed Vista.

Hot dog, this UI looks better than my beloved OS X??? Yes, yes, I can see the touches of genius here: the slick start-up and login screen, the dark toolbar with a very elegant background. Wait, are these good looking icons I see? Well, well… someone’s been learning.

Checking the hard drive size, this bad boy clocked at a hefty 17 gigs! It’s good to know that America is not the only thing that’s obese nowadays.

After getting a few blue screens of death and missing drivers (Boot Camp does not support Vista yet), I was impressed enough with what I’d seen – and a sucker for running the latest and greatest – I upgraded the Thinkpad… The IT guys had not heard from me in a couple of days and I figured they were getting bored without my antics.

Installation went without a hitch. Desktop looked good. I started noticing the blatant OS X parts.

Signed up as an administrator. Kept it clean with nothing but MS Office 2007 (oooooh, larger icons), Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, ActivePDF and Quicktime. That’s it. Pretty restraint.

Then it started.

Outlook Web Access wouldn’t work anymore (wait, it’s “normal” to see an “X” icon in the compose window with IE 7… Ok, so there is a patch. Alleluiah. I’ll download and run it.

Neuuuuh, not so fast my fearless friend. You could be a phenomenal foe and need to run this as an administrator (I guess that’s what it means because the error message was actually: “THE REQUESTED OPERATION REQUIRES ELEVATION.”)

My karma must be shit for Windows to tell me I need to elevate myself.

Not a problem, I’ll change the user setting. Nope, already an admin… Mmm, let me check online. Oh, I see, it’s quite simple really: one only has to right click on the application and select “run as administrator” to watch the install, er… fail.  
Alternatively, you can easily access the Command Line Interface and install as admin from there. Right then, like whistling in the shower. Expect for the slight disadvantage of HAVING TO RUN A COMMAND LINE INTERFACE TO LAUNCH AN .EXE!

Remember the joke on Windows 95 = Macintosh 1984, yeah, I thought that was funny too. Well, here we are with Vista (don’t be shy, read the definition above once more and let it soak in) and we’re back to CLI. I can’t tell you the joy of running an application through that puppy. Yeah, who needs a mouse? Finally, it told me that my 30 free gigs weren’t enough storage to install the hotfix.

I called my shrink.

I talked. He mainly listened.

It felt good.

He told me to update my version of Windows before doing anything I might regret. Then he hung up because he was on a VoIP line and downloading a file that was sucking his bandwidth.

I updated (there were 8 updates within 10 days of the release) knowing full well this wouldn’t change the problem but needed some fresh air. The screen went black and asked if it was ok if Windows Updater was unresponsive. I didn’t find the F U button combination, so I clicked on “yes”. It crashed.

After that, I added Firefox to my list of apps, just so I could run Outlook Web Access. Ironic

Ctrl+Alt+Tab doesn’t do much either. I haven’t been able to stop a crashed app yet. It‘s cool though; I actually like rebooting: it’s my favorite part of the OS.

I could go on. The “blackening” of the entire screen each time some communication with the outside world happens asking if “I allow”.

“Windows need your permission to use this program.” 
“Windows need your permission to continue.”

Why do I prevent pop-up windows on my browser if I get even more in my OS?

You can thank the User Account Control (UAC) for this, which basically transforms any administrator into a de facto user. Whhhhhaaat? Ok, thankfully, it’s fairly easy to turn off, once you know about it.

And that is my other gripe with the OS. I haven’t opened a manual in years but there are so many choices and funky details going on, I’m not comfortable with the basic functionality.

Yep, the Wow starts here. It’s taking me twice as long do tweak things in the control panel (good luck finding your way there) and I don’t understand half of the “features” – which is a bummer because I’ve always pride myself in being so computer avant-guardist and quite nifty for a non techy. Guess Microsoft finally wanted to show guys like me who was the smartest. Well done, boys, well done.

I like the icons and the 3-D thingy when doing an alt-tab. Interestingly, that’s the type of details that enhances the experience. It’s a shame that a fruit-named company has been laughed at for focusing exactly on enhancing the user experience for the past 20 odd years.

Bottom line? Love the icons, boys.

And the theme.

Kicks ass.

Really.

      

My buddy Ofer Kalisky referred me to, Musicovery, a BEAUTIFUL Interactive Music Discovery site. I have no idea who the people behind the company are (the corporate identity is hidden), but the creators seem both smart and fun loving!

Musicovery is an open, web radio service. You begin your journey with a navigation widget that helps you pinpoint your starting point according to genre, mood, and era. The widget itself is beautiful, but the real kick is when you start listening. The interactive music map is really cool and intuitive. I keep on playing with it.

Oh, the business model… It kind of looks simple as well. Referrals to Amazon and iTunes for purchasing.

Is simple beautiful or what?

      

I’ve been to enough trade shows by now to know that it is all in the eye of the beholder. A show is good if it was good for you, and 3GSM treated us very well this year. Our service received great feedback, we got covered by El Pais (English translation here) and in addition have generated very high quality business leads. That’s always a very good feeling. I have also managed to tie some loose ends and come full circle with people I lost touch (or good rhythm) with. I guess that’s what a show is essentially about. There were a few share-worthy notes, though:

1. Content is king, again. From low level switch makers, through middleware providers and all the way end user devices - EVERYBODY is betting on the convergence of content. Music, Video, Games, from the PC, from the Internet, it all seems to be rapidly maturing for mobile.

2. Google, Apple, MSN and MySpace did not make an impact at the show. Whether simply not into mobile or just planning to go solo, I question the outcome of this low-key approach. Yahoo! made an exception by pushing a Yahoo Go! booth right at the entry of Hall 7. Great service, by the way, although too “high end” and therefore limited to dedicated Yahoo! fans only.

3. Chauvinism - Are we all dirty old horny men or does someone in LogicaCMG deserve to get his ass kicked? Naked “booth babes” travelling the halls covered with body paint is not just tasteless, it is degrading. And what the hell do naked women have to do with Operator Middleware? I am no conservative, but this was simply bad PR, “gentlemen”!

4. Feminism - The year is 2007 and still, nearly all executives I met were men. Why? When will this finally change already?

5. Consumer - in, mobile productivity - out! I haven’t seen as many new Smartphones or mobile office suits as before. Every handset manufacturer has showcased at least a couple of new media players of different shapes and flavors. We should see a lot of Video and Music phones coming out this year! Good or bad news for Apple?

6. Nightlife - The parties were good this year, the locations were posh, the people were happy, the houses were full. Barcelona being such a beautiful city didn’t hurt either.

7. Connectivity - Can 3GSM finally get good 3G coverage? How does it look when we pitch the value of “not working so good” 3G for crying out loud?

See you next year!

      

Pete Cashmore reports about MyToons, “YouTube for Cartoons”, that has gone beta. Aniboom has been live for some time now and is quite an impressive site.

Which brings about the obvious question - can Cartoon or Animation communities hold their own against YouTube? After all, it’s pretty much the same territory. Theoretically, all YouTube needs to do is add a category and customize the interface a little bit. This, by itself, will deter most VCs on grounds of competitive advantage, or lack thereof.

But the point is different. Animators are not some kids sharing Coca Cola and Mentos videos. They need dedicated, undivided attention, like most of us would demand for our own passion. I haven’t seen MyTunes (I don’t have an invitation yet) but Aniboom definitely speaks to it’s crowd better than a generic site like YouTube.

The same applies, of course, to other horizontal services. Think of search for a minute. Do you really think Google search is good enough for all verticals and niches? Of course not! But would a VC invest in a search start up right now? Hmm….

      

I am hectically preparing for 3GSM in Barcelona next week. A great venue by all standards. As a presenter, there is a mountain of collateral to prepare - the service overview, the technical white paper, the content provider offering, the mobile operator offering, the stand background, the poster, the this, the that.

So here I am trying to do what most people do before a show and then it strikes me what a waste it all is. We all know but hardly admit that most of these papers will be thrown away or at best looked at very briefly. And what do we do about it? Nothing.

This stupid (sorry, couldn’t find a better word) march of industry clones that exchange papers from one hand to the next and on to the closest waste basket. We often even deliver the paper overseas and back into our offices and then throw it or put it on some shelf to stand there as a silent testimonial “we were there” … but rarely look at it again. The one or two times we do take another look is come preparation time for the next show – then we pick it up and see what interesting ideas we can use for this year’s show – and so the paper parade continues and no-one is shouting that the king has no clothes.

It’s not that the information within is useless, it has some (limited) value. That too is usually filled with empty promises and a stack load of buzzwords. That I could take. But why for heaven’s sake do we need to kill so many trees in the process?

The same info, the same sheets should not leave their original electronic formats. They should stay on websites, PCs, USB drives, you name it – put please do not print it.

We can be very critical of our politicians for not doing enough to save the world BUT WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT in our closed garden? NADA.

I would like to see the first mobile / web / telecom etc. tradeshow pick up the challenge and declare – PRINTABLE MATERIALS ARE BANNED!

Simple and to the point. It will not harm the venue quality, even help it. All these carry-on bags are useless. You want to give me something – tell me where to look it up online, transfer me an electronic file. Anything but paper.

It is we that are destroying the forests in Brazil, not someone else! Its about time we put an end to this killing spree.

Gil Rosen

      

Like many of you I read Steve Job’s thoughts about music today.

I, for one, do not understand why he wrote this letter.

Steve Jobs main points can be summarized to the following bullets:

1. DRM is stupid.

2. It’s the labels’ fault

3. Apple cannot solve it

4. Apple will embrace a DRM free world, but for now will stick with the existing model.

5. If only the labels were all outside Europe.

And the point?

You could argue that Steve Jobs is trying to push the labels into a DRM free world. Such a world would definitely help Apple go beyond selling a lame 3% of the music on their iPods alone.

You could argue, but I doubt it. There are much more effective (and cleaner) ways to work with the labels then writing a naive letter. Steve Jobs is anything but Naive, so there must be a different motivation involved.

My guess is that:

1. Apple has taken a lot of heat and Steve Jobs is trying to gain “cheap popularity” by bashing the big labels.

2. Apple is renegotiating music distribution rights and these are PR tactics.

3. Steve Jobs wishes to highlight the fact Zune won’t work with content from iTunes.

I agree that the labels are rearranging chairs on their Titanic, who wouldn’t, but I think the solution is with the proliferation of direct distribution models (MySpace) and with independent, smaller labels who will realize the opportunity they have. If Steve Jobs really wants to change the world he should encourage artists to sign with DRM free labels.

      

MetaCafe appointed a new CEO today. Erick Hachenburg of Electronic Arts will be replacing Co-Founder Arik Czerniak. This move is the most recent in a series of executive recruits which included new VP of Sales, VP of Marketing and Executive Chairman. A quick look at Mr. Hachenburg’s resume reveals deep experience in online media executive and business management. Perhaps more importantly, Mr. Hachenburg brings along recent and successful experience from the Asian market for which he was responsible at Electronic Arts.  

According to Allison Campa, MetaCafe’s VP of Marketing, MetaCafe had 17 million unique visitors in December, an increase from 16 million unique visitors in November. Such volume must be monetizable, period, and no one should know better how to monetize it than an ex-GM Asia from a company that generated $3B from online media last year alone. 

I argued before that YouTube has not conquered the market, simply because the market is still at it’s infancy. There’s plenty of room for MetaCafe (and others) to grow. The Asian market may prove more promising in the long run and MetaCafe have already established good presence there.

In online media market share means a little less than absolute traffic. People watch more than one TV station and read more than one newspaper. The same logic applies to the Internet as well. If video advertising takes off, so will both YouTube and MetaCafe regardless of their respective market share. If, on the other hand, video advertising will not live up to the promise then both will need to get creative.

In either case, most of the critiques would happily trade places with MetaCafe. 17 Million unique views per month means huge potential. MetaCafe have built a great end user product and have succeeded in creating that potential.  Now it’s time to shift gears and take it to the next level - securing market positions and generating a profit. Right now my impression is that MetaCafe are doing exactly what the doctor has ordered. 

      

I got a call from my accountant today. A nice guy, the accountant that is, but generally not one I enjoy getting phone calls from. Personal care taking was never my forte and I always feel way behind the curve. This call was different though. It started with the usual chit chat, then he started inquiring about the new company I have recently joined. Hmm, I thought to myself, he is trying to land us as customers! fair enough, let’s listen!

Sure enough he pitched his “new start up package (very good one, contact me for details) It’s what followed that made it interesting.

“Are you looking for an investment? ” - he went straight to the point - ”We have a new angel club that specializes in early stage start-ups and I’d like to set you up with our members!”

I admit, my accountant was the last person on earth I expected to hear that from, so I naturally went silent for a few seconds in shock. Finally I came back to senses and wondered about whatever drove him into that type of venture. After all, he always reminded me of a pacemaker, not of an entrepreneur. Turns out his customers are the classic type of angel investors and since he has developed intimacy with their finances, what could be more natural than opening new investment paths for them? And who wouldn’t want to belong with an angel club?

I told my partner about it and he wasn’t surprised. He was also approached by his attorney, dentist and plumber. Each one is leveraging their respective intimacy with a wide variety of customers in order to help increase returns and hedge risks. It really got me thinking. I have much more to say about it, but I have some forms to fill out now. My son’s kindergarten teacher is setting up “Bob the Hedger”, a promising new hedge fund, and the deadline for submission is tonight. I’ll keep you posted!

      

It so happens that I won’t have access to a TV screen tonight. I’m looking for a way to watch superbowl XLI using the internet and my laptop - any idea?

My Prediction? 27-10 in favor of Payton Manning and the Colts.