CTIA fueled some significant mobile news this week as Google, Nokia and Yahoo are about to crash helmets over the next mobile killer app.

Google has made a couple of significant steps this week. The more significant announcement came on Monday, as a strategic deal with LG was announced. Mike Evant reports that Google and LG will preinstall Google Maps, Gmail and Blogger on a wide variety of LG phones, making it a no brainer for carriers to ship and for users to try.

In addition, YouTube will be launching a mobile site as soon as the exclusivity period with Verizon Wireless expires. Unlike the Verizon version which is client based, the mobile YouTube will be WAP based. It will be interesting to see how YouTube deals with video streaming issues across different carriers, networks and devices. All in all a “two punch strategy”, Google for text and YouTube for video, could end up being very effective.

Nokia has not kept quiet. Unwired view is telling us about Nokia’s patent bound semantic visual search engine, screen shots and further explanation of the search process is provided. Katie Fehrenbacher speculates about the natural synergy with Nokia’s camera phones and if half the rumors are true, Google will soon have to go back to protecting home turf, at least when it comes to search innovation.

Yahoo has not kept silent and may very well be making the most concrete steps to date. The introduction of Mobile OneSearch is a promising mass market step, taking search to every internet enabled phone. Yahoo already offers Yahoo Go, the full blown Yahoo experience, to the high end, and together with OneSearch a comprehensive strategy seems to be forming. 

These seemingly little steps are very significant for a number of reasons. Such proactive steps by handset manufacturers and web titans take the carriers further out of the “next killer app” equation. In addition, these provide indication that search, rich content discovery and messaging are the areas where the leading players look for the next killer app. Search has never been carrier territory and carriers have struggled with putting together winning propositions around content. On the other hand carriers do make a lot of money from content and tons of money from messaging. The battle over who owns what asset is definitely not over, but this time, I believe, the space is mature enough to focus on the criteria for splitting the larger pie rather than fighting over who gets to burn it.

      

We all know this problem. How can we get our hands around the research that is relevant to our business? Research tracking has become impossible, particularly in an Internet start-up where the full time job is already filled with several full time tasks.

Danny Cohen of Gemini decided to grab one bull by the horn. He opened a research library that covers web 2.0 and Venture Capital. In the process he has also spun his eSnips account very cunningly, showing that the potential for sharing is basically infinite given the right environment. The folder can be reached here:

I personally plan to use it.

      

MacNN reports that “iPhone makes rare appearance at CTIA - Apple’s iPhone has surfaced in the public eye after a long absence”. Have we all gone insane? I mean, I wrote a poem about it but even that can be excused as a ‘momentary lapse of reason’ driven by the peer pressure that surrounds the digiworld we live in.

A few months passed and I thought we all kicked our hangovers by now. There are still open issues such as battery power, touch screen usability, price, quality of service (no one really knows) etc.

When you encounter a beautiful craft for the first time you tend to ignore the obvious impediments and focus on the romantic and the fantastic. That’s great. Then we should snap out. That is what separates the “men from the boys”. The responsible adult can get excited but also keep realistic.

I found this hilarious widget on apples website - the sasquatch news tracker. If you haven’t snapped out of it yet I this one is for you. Never miss a public appearance, a mysterious unveiling, a behind the scenes glimpse…ooooh

having said that…I still want one badly

      

GigaOM reports that Symbian is about to announce a significant upgrade to its operating system on Monday at CTIA. According to ABI Research, Symbian held a commanding 73% market share of the loosely defined Smart-phone market in 2006, resulting in about 50 Million shipments. 

Improvements include battery and memory management, camera and multimedia enhancements and the introduction of transparent and automatic roaming between WiFi and 3G. MobHappy brings the full details.

The upgrade is very significant for a number of reasons. Symbian is reaching out of the Smartphone niche. The multimedia boost, for example, is clearly a consumer focus. Push email and Voip are communication apps and not “business apps” anymore. Symbian is slowly but surely building an attractive and real consumer position, realizing that the higher end market would pay a little more for high quality feature phone.

The introduction of transparent WiFi - 3G roaming is even more significant. While full handset OEM support is needed, this has the potential of making operator independent mobile internet actually usable. Very few users actually bother with switching networks on an ongoing basis. Making the switch automatic would not only reduce costs for the end user, it would also break a wide open hole in the walled garden. And this does not only apply to browsing but to the very core - phone calls. Now, I don’t see Mobile VOIP going mainstream very soon, but I definitely see a gradual uptake, mostly by the cream of the crop from an operator point of view - the travelling professionals.  

How will Operators deal with this? Good question. So far everybody’s happy with the containment of Symbian devices as “Smartphones”. It makes it easy for everyone to avoid a clash. Some operators force vendors to take off the WiFi feature for now (Cingular and Nokia E62 for example). Some put a more constructive focus on upgrading their 3G networks. In any case, it’s all a prelude to the unavoidable reshuffle of the mobile universe.

      

PayPal is about to make a strategic entry into mobile web with the launch of Mobile Checkout, a mobile service that will allow anyone with a PayPal account to buy things using their mobile browsers. 

Rumors have been flying around as PayPal apparently has been diligently working on the product for quite some time. In fact, I wouldn’t rule out an announcement next week at CTIA. The product is in beta right now and is planned for release later this year. Once out, PayPal Mobile Checkout will allow people to buy stuff they’re searching for on their mobile phones.

We could not get an official comment from PayPal of course, but a credible and passionate inside source has indeed verified the rumor and was kind enough the leak the following screen shot:

The payment process is the same as PayPal online – you enter your PayPal user name and password. Along the way you can create a pin so that future transactions are much faster. You don’t have to fill out a long web form of addresses and credit card numbers – which is unsafe and a pain on a mobile phone.

The mobile web has been yearning for payment solutions for a while now. Premium SMS is commonly used for mobile payments but mostly for single, micro transactions such as voting, media and alerts. While premium SMS is very intuitive, it is not trouble free. Mobile operators grab roughly 50% of the revenue and there have been quite a few reliability issues. The opportunity for real ”Mobile Payments 2.0″ is definitely there.

PayPal announced last week that it has reached 35 Million subscribers in Europe and about 150 Million subscribers worldwide. It was only expected that the successful web giants would start porting their services to the mobile space and PayPal is apparently the first significant player about to make an entry.

      

I have Joost on my computer and it’s practically a new world wonder. Finally, a TV app that looks great and works even better. The user experience is absolutely flawless - sexy, simple, cool. It blends the benefits of TV and Computer interaction very well and the quality of the video itself is the best I have seen. Even the inserted ads don’t look intrusive, perhaps because we are all so used to ad-raping by network TV by now. These folks are doing something right. 

But will it succeed? I see one, huge, problem. It can’t be used at work! And what is the only place left without TV access? That’s right. Work!

Let’s take a look at the successful viral apps of the last decade - Instant Messaging, P2P File Sharing, Skype, Blogging. All have one great thing in common - we can safely use them at work. I am not referring to IT security because most of us couldn’t care less about IT security. I am referring to job security. The ability to play hookie without getting caught. IM and Kazaa could simply run in the background and consume very sporadic attention. You can download a file and write a post without drawing the attention of your roommates, or worse, of your boss. And you can minimize all in a split second if someone walks behind your back.

Can you do that with Joost? Nope. TV is TV. It takes up your attention and it’s intrusive to the environment. Wearing headphones is possible in some places, but then the detachment from the environment is so complete one cannot really sit back and enjoy without keeping an eye on the door. This practically means Joost will hardly be used at work but at home. Except that at home we have a great alternative already - a 30+ inch TV with gazillions of channels.

Which means the premier target audience, for now at least, are kids playing in their room behind closed doors, assuming they have attention span left to squeeze between MySpace, TV and PlayStation. While I don’t underestimate the huge potential of that target audience, I don’t think it’s up to par with the wide audience and virgin attention span IM, Kazaa or Skype enjoyed.

Then again, Joost has all the right ingredients. P2P technology is definitely mature enough for Video on Demand. You couldn’t ask for better founders - both in terms of technology and of marketing. We are all really, really tired of outdated TV content distribution models and Joost will have no trouble at all getting a first time look by any reasonable user.

They should be smart enough to have a plan for that problem too. I am just curious to see what that is.

      

Jerking off.

What exactly is the deal with the “Are We in a Bubble” symposium? Is there a point to this conversation?

What started with a soft spoken debate seems to be going religious. It’s not enough to have just a point of view anymore, you need to subscribe to a camp.  You either think we are about to burst, or the exact opposite.

It’s not that I don’t have my own point of view, of course. Personally, I think some portions of the tech market are somewhat inflated with gold diggers. I see investments in “over valued” start-ups (can someone explain what “over valued” means exactly? over valued compared to what? to the personal taste of the critique?). I see a lot of activity in what seems to be over saturated niches and in technology that will not mature so fast. Most importantly, I see a lot of desire for short term short cuts.

On the other hand, I see so much exciting stuff out there. So many bright, thinking entrepreneurs and so much venture capital - 2 sides that still, for the most part, simply fail to meet. I see so much need for better communications, information management, medical solutions and programs, fun and entertainment, recreation, financial and equity management, personal accomplishment and so much more.  

The debate is not about a bubble but about the road to success - it’s length, it’s mapping, it’s challenges. Long distance runners don’t see a bubble and don’t care for the debate. The term “Bubble” is abusive because it overshadows the industry instead of referring to what it should refer to - the potential for short term speculations.

While this debate is important, it is secondary to the whole scene.

      

This is not a real news flash. It just makes sense. Here is why:

Its not long before we see these icons added to the www.google.com/a page

All that remains is to fill in the $__,___,____ for the figure.

On a more serious note. 37signals , the smallest-biggest SME SaaS provider released “Highrise” a new contact, lead management tool (see the most updated review on mashable).

My bet is that Google is already having talks with 37Signals. These companies are so compliant it just makes sense.

In a totally unrelated event (TheMarker’s Internet Convention) - Dr. Yoelle Maarek Director at Google’s R&D Center in Haifa-Israel, said Google does not aspire to compete with Microsoft. After repeating the mantra of “we organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” she went on to say Google is about moving data to the net (only to organize it and make it more useful, of course). Well, the recent launch of Google Apps its a definite “military march” as far as Microsoft is concerned.

If you run a small business (and this will apply to Fortune500 in 5 years as well) you have got to make a decision - how do you set up your communication infrastructure? how do you manage your enterprise? How do your workers, clients and suppliers collaborate? etc. etc.

Without dwelling into a long “KPMG type” of analysis, Aner’s recent experience of selecting an online provider for his business applications proves the point. The bottom line is that he is very close to running his business “Microsoft free”. True - this is not competition - its more like a brutal hijack!

As if taken out of a sci-fi movie - users are being snatched into a new parallel reality were ‘things’ are managed away from the desktop, where new software is not measured by the length of the feature list, where the interface is simple, prices are fair and the language is friendly.

Google Apps is a step in the right direction but it doesn’t deliver the 1-2-3 punch. And we all know that Google likes to knockout.

The 1G mail was a huge knockout.

Now let’s connect the dots. Out of all the good companies which provide SaaS today, which one, joining forces with Google, could deliver the 1G knockout or more like the 1MT (mega ton) punch? I believe its 37signals.

This is why I believe tomorrow’s headlines will read “Google to acquire 37signals”

      

After I got busy trashing Google Apps, I finally received a human support callback today (thanks Sonya!). We managed to fix the CNAME and MX issues, got it up and running and ladies and gents, it Rocks!

I still think this whole domain administration challenge is an absurd, but the result is rewarding:

1. Straight forward company Intranet.

2. We are all on the same calendar,  each one of us not compromising access to the personal one as well.

3. Our docs and spreadsheets are aggregated.

4. VERY easy administration.

5. We already know how to use it from our previous experience with Google.

While clearly not an enterprise solution (and not even a medium size business solution) Google Apps is an excellent solution for the Internet Savvy / SoHo.

      

A year ago, following TheMarker’s “Com.vention” (a very high profile Internet convention in the local Israeli scene) I wrote a post about my Uncom.ventional thoughts.
I pulled this post out of the closet when I registered this year, to recap my after thoughts. This time I am adding my ‘bet’ in advance. My notes are inline in CAPs - tell me what you think:

• Internet Access - All the conventions I have been to in the past 2 years had wi-fi. In all of them going on line is a nightmare – no connection, slow connection, bad connection – am I missing something or are the organizers cheap?

THE ANSWER IS YES - AND NO CHANGE THIS YEAR.

• Web 2.0 - to be cool or to be fool?

HMMM - STILL A TRICKY ANSWER. YOU DEFINITELY HAVE TO BE MORE SOPHISTICATED THIS YEAR BUT MORE OF A CHANCE TO BE A FOOL

• Truth or Dare? - How can an Ex entrepreneur, now successful VC panelist answer the question “Are we witnessing the emergence of a second bubble” with a straight face? He as well as many other “guru’s” fluked their way into money during the big bubble – what do they know?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING - AND THIS TIME I HAVE PROOF (TO BE DISCLOSED AT A LATER DATE)

• Yossi Vardi 1 - Israeli’s go- “Remind me what Yossi Vardi did after ICQ?” The rest of the world - “ICQ is one phenomenal success – respect”

THE ULTIMATE PRIME MINISTERS/ PRESIDENTS PENSION PLAN - WELL PAID LECTURES.

• Yossi Vardi 2 - Having said that….does every dot.com convention in Israel have to turn into a Yossi Vardi “we are not worthy” fest?

YES - ALSO KNOW AS “VARDIGRAS”.

SERIOUSLY THIS TIME - HE IS A TRUE PHENOMENON WHO PROMOTES THE LOCAL INDUSTRY A LOT

• Dress code - Do lucky individuals who have made a huge exit get an automatic ‘pass’ to under dress? Will I do that (not if…when ).

YES…AND YES

• Babble’bation - Is the internet the mother of all channels or just another channel – I heard “definitely yes, but in certain ways not, when it comes down to it we’ll have to see how it plays out”. Oh’ by the way, it was the same person who gave that answer…hiding it in a cleaver 10 minute babel’bation . Some panelists have no shame.

NO SHAME - PANELIST ARE UNDER AN OBLIGATION TO MAKE 20 SECOND ANSWERS AT LEAST 2 MINUTES LONG (I SAW THEIR CONTRACT )

• The Google Shadow - There was a Panel called – “How Google disrupts and creates businesses” - copy paste the answer from the above. Its like dah…can I get some answers please…

HERE’S A CHANGE - NOW ITS HOW DO OTHERS DISRUPT GOOGLE FROM MAKING TONS OF MONEY. SEE ANER’S GREAT LAST POST

• The Blogsphere is a myth - Amit Shafir - President of AOL’s premium services said that the recent blogging / self reporting trend will come and go – unofficial quote - “the effectiveness of writing and distribution is maximized through centralized portals” (such as AOL). Is he a fool or prophet? BTW – he admitted that he gets much better information by speaking to his 14 year old daughter then he gets by paying tons of $$ to marketing research firms at AOL – with that I won’t argue.

IF SOMEONE TURNS OUT TO BE THIS STUPID THIS TIME - I AM PULLING MY MEGAPHONE OUT AND INTERVENING

• The Long Tail - I was exposed to the “The long tail” theory for the first time – like it! This is the one time I am for the tail that waggles its dog.

MY GUESS IS THAT ITS NOT GOING TO BE MENTIONED AS MUCH. IT WAS A HOT BUZZWORD LAST YEAR. THIS YEAR DRM, UGC AND MOBILE SEARCH ARE.

• ROI - Conventions in general – wasted time or invested time?

NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE DAMM MEASURED. WE ALL NEED SOME TIME AWAY FROM THE OFFICE TO REGROUP AND SEE EACH OTHER FACE TO FACE. PRICELESS. AND DON’T GIVE ME THIS “OHH NO I LOST 8 HOURS OF EMAILS AND MEETINGS…BOOOHOOOO”

• Real time blogging - What’s the maximum sentence for breaking the blogger’s sacred law #23? – you must report live from any visited convention floor with short and succinct posts loaded with info and smart insights.

WILL PROBABLY NOT DO IT - SEE WIFI EXCUSE ABOVE.

BOTTOM LINE - WE GO, WE MEET, WE ENJOY THEN WE COMPLAIN…AND REGISTER AGAIN THE NEXT YEAR.

SEE YOU THERE.

      

I may be just a tad over my head here, but Mark Cuban is taking a problematic stand in the Viacon - GooTube charade.

In my previous post I wondered about the sense behind this suing. It didn’t take a prophet to predict high satisfaction from the Mark Cuban front and the prophecy indeed came true.

In his You Go Viacom! post Mark Cuban praises the old litigators. That’s no surprise. His criticism of Google’s self righteous de facto piracy has very often gained my sympathy as well.  

What I didn’t appreciate is the patronizing rational this time:

it never ceases to amaze and amuse me how little understanding of the content business, or the business world in general that many in the blogosphere have.

Let me provide a simple scenario for you.

HBO. HBO charges a monthly fee to subscribers. If someone can watch an HBO show on Google Video or Youtube, even if its divided into 1,3 or 6 parts and re assembled into a playlist, they have far less incentive to subscribe or retain their subscription(s).

HBO in turn, syndicates those shows to cable networks. As an example, A&E paid a reported $2.2 million dollars PER EPISODE of the Sopranos. If the content is available online, do you think maybe it might reduce the value to A&E and HBO of the Sopranos ? And that’s before we even get to overseas syndication. Youtube and Google Video have a great deal of popularity overseas because in many cases US shows are not as readily available. Online international viewing reduces the international revenue opportunity.

Then of course there are DVD sales. YouTube downloads every video right to your PC. Google Video not only downloads to your PC, it provides the option to convert it into a PDA format including the iPod.

So tell me why it makes good business sense for HBO to let users post the content they sell for a ton of money ?

Now some of those who are so self absorbed in net culture and have no idea how the real world works might think that all of this leads to more viewing and consumption. Maybe it does. Maybe for some shows, like those on broadcast TV, it really does help to have as much promotional video for the show, even to the point of full episodes available both on YouTube and Google Video. There are definitely situations where it could help a show gain viewers and increased sales of DVDs. All of which has nothing to do with whether Viacom or any content provider should let users upload video.

I have a secret for you. ITS EASY FOR END USERS TO UPLOAD video to Youtube and Google Videos. ITS EASIER FOR THE CONTENT OWNER to do the same thing.

Hold it Mr. Cuban! You maybe smart but we aren’t all stupid. I first intended to re-battle the argument (posted a comment), then I saw a much better comment than mine, one that I agree with 100% and that is worth sharing in whole:

Mark, I think you’re a smart guy but I think on this issue your are myopic. Everyone who doesn’t have their head jammed up their portfolio doesn’t care. This is purely an issue for people who are already rich who want to exploit their IP to become richer. Real artists are happy when people see their art.

If you make money on a business model which relies upon withholding your content from the masses your model is over. Maybe there is money to be made by fighting content-sharing for another decade (maybe a lot). In the long run the more you get your content out the better. There are a lot of people out there who can get it for free who will pay for it especially when they know the companies they are dealing with are not the corporate equivalent of retarded whores. I honestly think people should go out of their way to download corporate music rather than buy it because the RIAA is such a dastardly organization.

…

Peace and keep posting
Roland

Loved to have said it that well myself.

      

For those of you who missed the Viacom vs. Google suit

1. How did you come with $1 Billion? Is it the highest number you could think of? A random exponent of 10? And why such a neat number? why not $3.141 Billion? or $2.71 Billion? or simply $GOOGOL?

2. Do you realize what kind of damage this may cause to the MTV brand among young people who actually love music?

3. Are you going to sue gazillion of video sharing sites? Go back to film? Stop technology?

4. How many start-ups have just lost their funding because of this lawsuit?

5. How many artists can be funded by the fees of your legal team alone?

6. What is the magic number for settlement out of court?

7. Is Mark Cuban happy? [Apparently yes!]

I’d like to quote Om Malik on this:

I have argued in response to that comment that Viacom Inc. could have done something about this a long time ago, but didn’t and basically are using this lawsuit to paper over their own incompetence.

Here is proof: Viacom’s MTV vs YouTube traffic and visitor comparisons. See for yourself, who really missed the boat here! (Data Source: Compete.com) So why sue now? My guess is that they have been reading Google’s SEC filings and trying to figure out how to get some of those billions sitting in the bank! 

Do us a favor guys, stop listening to your lawyers, solve it some other way for all of our sake.

      

The devils greatest trick was convincing man that he didn’t exist, Baudelaire

Our informal corporate motto is “Don’t be evil.” Google Code of Conduct

It’s been a week since I tried moving my company to Google Apps.

(1) My domain has yet to be verified.

(2) My Partner still has no access to his old calendar.

(3) My support call has yet to receive a human or a relevant response.

I did get an automated response though, a totally useless one that copied text from the website, text I was intelligent enough to read in the first place.

Hello Google Support!! Anybody Home??

      

“Laugh and the world laughs with you. Take out the garbage, and you walk alone”
- The Wizard

What a feeling it is to bump into a new blog that really really stands out. Anil Dash (one of the smartest bloggers at own merit) points out Ask the Wizard with the following recommendation:

Ask the Wizard, written by Feedburner CEO Dick Costolo is, flat out, the best new blog of 2007. The thing I love about great writing is it makes the pervasive truths seem self-evident and even obvious. Plus it’s actually funny, not another tech exec wearing a goofy tie and claiming to be full of ha-ha.

I tried and I so totally agree. Furthermore, if you’re in the start-up scene you MUST add this blog to the top of your RSS reader. Attacking Dominant Market Shares, Strategic Advantage Part I, Quantum Hidden Barriers to Entry, Company Culture and the Non Profit Hard Parts provide real insight.

      

Yaron Orenstein is the editor of the blog the.co.ils. Yaron is organizing an Internet event called TWS2007, with the pure purpose of bringing entrepreneurs with great ideas and investors (VCs and angles) together.

The goal is to Identify and present up to 10 small startups with great technology and strong teams. In addition, it’s an informal networking environment - a “pro bono” event with the sole purpose of promoting the Dot.Com industry in Israel.

All necessary information is given on the TWS2007. The event’s organizers have also launched a group in Linkedin, which aims to gather all Israeli enthusiastic Internet people under one roof.

I’m going, hope to see you there!

      

Shnick-Shnack is not a word you’ll find in Webster or in Wikipedia but it should get there soon. In one of my recent trips to Europe, someone quoted a big shot CEO for one of the leading mobile operators as saying early in 2000 that “ringtones are shnick-shnacks” or in other words “irrelevant” OR “not significant” ….yada yada yada, 7 years later, they have generated a multi-billion dollar industry.

The context of the conversation was one of humbleness. One should not dismiss what seems like a shnick-shnack service at a wave of hand, with a dismissive ..“…this will never catch on…” attitude. Sometimes people want shnick-shnacks. Sometimes shnick-shnacks let you get personal, express yourself. Fontip is just that kind of thing.

Is this shnick-shnack of what

Incredimail is another perfect example for a shnick-shnack service. Do you really need it?No. Does it solve any technological barrier? No. Is it innovative in a way that can’t be duplicated? No. Yet these are ‘VC type’ questions. People have psychological motivations and drives and look for services that answers such needs regardless of passing the ‘investment benchmark’ checklist.

If Fontip is first to serve the need to personalize sms’s and does it well, there is no reason why it can’t be a huge success. Making communications personal (and cool) has landed Incredimail with a huge install base with around 50 million client downloads!

Will Fontip follow suite? I’m no prophet but there is no reason why they shouldn’t. There is no reason why out of the billions of SMS users there will not be enough ‘personalization’ freaks that will go ahead and down load it.

Competition may come from the handset providers, with them creating built tools or similar services, but with such a wide audience there should be a room for them all.

Is this another 7 billion dollars shnick-shnack market, probably not, but the power of shnick-shnack has surprised before.

Gil Rosen

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Rock Bands and Start Ups Part II - The Battle
by Aner Ravon

Tuesday March 06th 2007, 11:22 am
Filed under: web 2.0, social, Aner Bio

My Buddy Danny Cohen read my Rock Band post and gave me a big compliment by battling back. In his post, Danny highlights an interesting similarity in the area of naming. On the other hand he dismisses the more fundamental point I was trying to make, saying that Rock bands don’t live in the world of “Barriers to Entry” or “Unfair advantage”, and most of them don’t “Fulfill a need”.

This is probably my own subjective point of view, but I argue that rock bands face these exact issues!

Let’s start with barriers to entry. I’ve heard more stories about the long, painful and ugly journeys of rock stars than I have of startupists. Artists, unlike high tech professionals, do not have a decent fallback. Many, Most(!) go through waiting tables and living in misery for long years before they get discovered. If they ever get discovered. After all, do we realize how difficult it is to make a national radio play list? MTV? Billboard  Charts? The journey from a local basement in Cleveland to Madison Square Garden is definitely not shorter or easier than the one from seed investment to millions of daily page views.

Moving on to unfair advantage. If you’re a new-be singer with your own unique style, for example, Britney Spears, Byonce and Madonna can copy you in a split second and use their well oiled machine to produce and distribute. All it takes is a decision. As a matter of fact I would argue that Madonna made a career out of “scout and copy” techniques, but that would be a different discussion. When environments are so educated and so competitive, every trick is easily copied and the incumbents have a huge advantage. In that respect a Google / YouTube and Sequoia are not different than Guns n’ Roses and Geffen. 

Finally, we get to fulfilling a need. I always considered this term to be slightly abused. Unfortunately it’s very hard to rationalize the exact solution to an exact need because needs have powerful intangible ingredients. Take a look at YouTube for example. What need does it answer exactly? Is it something rational, like free storage or free bandwidth? Or perhaps something much more emotional, such as discovery, creativity or personal recognition?

All these factors didn’t deter Gemini from investing in an interesting company like eSnips and for the right reason. I’m sure there are always rational reasons, but there is one force that is much stronger than everything - the need to regenerate. We love new rock bands and we love new start ups. VCs, like Record labels share a common target - finding the new stars and helping them materialize. That requires predictive judgment and gambling on the right, that’s right, superstars.

Aner Ravon

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Google Apps? Na-ah!
by Aner Ravon

Monday March 05th 2007, 5:13 am
Filed under: web 2.0, social, Aner Bio, My Web Life Experiment, user experience

I was really excited when Google announced the rebirth of Apps. My expectations were high due to two main reasons. First of all, it takes a mega brand to do mass market education. I love Zoho, Clarizen and 37Signals, but they are not big enough to drive non-high tech SMEs to the web in masses. Perhaps more importantly, Google have so far managed to apply a “creative chef touch” to online office. GMail, Google Talk, Google Spreadsheets, Google Docs have all displayed freshness that kept the good essence of MS office but went beyond just mimicking; They managed to capture the value of the web over desktop - simplicity, easy collaboration and pure web elements such as free, advertising and blogging.

Then something happened. I really needed a solution for my company. A Solution for simple task and project management and for document sharing. Something not too expensive. Naturally I went online and started with Google Apps. I sadly found out that not only is Google Apps just a new marketing wrap for old stuff, it also has major flaws.

First of all, you need to manipulate your domain DNS to get started. Repeat, manipulate your DNS - CNAME, MX record and other Latin names. Why? Why do I need to touch the CNAME in order to start doing online task management on my domain? Can’t you verify my identity in some other way? It took me an hour just to figure out what to do (and I used to work at this!). Oh, one more little details, it takes about 48 hours for DNS changes to populate the Internet, which means I am still waiting for a verification in order to get started. Hard work and a 48 hour wait! What a contradiction to the whole concept! Do you seriously expect businesses to migrate this way?

During the process something “funny” happened. My partner’s Google calendar (which was registered to his work address, the one I was trying to activate) was deactivated. deactivated! He didn’t understand why he lost access to his calendar all of a sudden. I had to unregister his user at my still not working Google Apps suite. Luckily his calendar ”returned” after about an hour.

I put a stop to it right there. This was clearly half baked. All I needed was effective task management for 15 people in the first place. I checked out Zoho Projects, which seemed like a great web application but an overkill for simple task management. I finally landed on 37Singal’s Basecamp and got started. What a relief! Simple, easy to get started, works. it took me 15 minutes to get started. My colleagues got the hang of it in less than 10 more. 

I’m going to stay off Google office for a while. Let me know when it’s usable.

Aner Ravon

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Why Rock Bands and Start Ups are Similar
by Aner Ravon

Thursday March 01st 2007, 7:00 pm
Filed under: web 2.0, social, Aner Bio

I was a junior at Forest Hills High School when Guns N Roses released Appetite for Destruction. About 6 months later, Sweet Child O’ Mine hit the radio waves and I was hooked. Back then, as a Metal-head wannabe, I could not afford to admit to liking them without risking outcasting. After all, the proper namedropping included icons such as Metallica (Oey Vey) and Ozzy Osbourne (have mercy). Still, these new guys with this new sound were so charismatic I just had to buy the album. Less than a year later GnR were packing stadiums all over the world and got classified as Bon Jovi’s angry rival. It seemed like a pretty comfortable position to be at and the release of the half baked, mediocre 8 track GnR Lies reinforced that impression. I almost lost interest, but then, three years later, came Use Your illusion I and II and instantly blew me away. Wow! what a masterpiece! It was evident Guns weren’t just a successful rock band, but much more - real superstars, the stuff legends are made off.

I could go on forever about Guns and Roses. To me, they were the best of their era and in many ways still are. If you happen to disagree, just listen once more time to Axl’s unique style in Sweet Child, or to the back to back solos by Slash in November Rain. As a matter of fact, GooTube, sit back and rejoice.

Guns were not a VC production. Slash and Axl had their own bands prior to being hooked up by a mutual agent. They have toured (and trashed) L.A. bars with very little success before Tom Zutaut of Geffen Records signed them to a $75,000 record deal. I am not familiar with Mr. Zutaut, of course, but I doubt he had Axl pitch his go to market plan or Slash prove Guns could out duel Bon Jovi. I don’t think it’s was the resumes that did it either. Axl was 21, Slash was 17, neither of them has done much before to show for. And to top it all, they were a risky play in a risky market. You would agree that a rock-punk-blues-trash band with two savage, ego-maniacs filled with testosterone is not the safest bet on earth. How could that compete with Metallica’s genuine fan base or with Jon Bon Jovi’s million dollar smile?

So why did Geffen sign Guns? Very simple, really. Their outstanding star quality was so obvious it was a crime not to. They were passionate, talented, charismatic, with outstanding presence. They refused to play the game; they drank and smoked in their video clips and they ended concerts prematurely when they didn’t appreciate the crowd. They insisted on (and got) absolute creative freedom, a prerogative which they exploited to the full extent and which resulted with 200 full house concerts and over 70 million albums sold. Oh yeah, Guns were a great exit for Geffen. They were the YouTube comparable.

Start ups and rock bands are more similar than different. While not everyone is Guns and Roses (or YouTube), startupists are star hopefuls hopping between auditions looking to get discovered. There is no recipe that defines a star, you either have it or you don’t, but this doesn’t mean it’s easy to get discovered. You need to be in front of the right people, at the right place and at the right time. You need to work extremely hard, be extremely motivated, be very talented and have quite a bit of luck. You need to rally the crowd behind you - be it A&R execs or investors, fans or users, Rolling Stone or TechCrunch. You need to be true to your own faith and desire but be extremely open to your environment. You need to be ready to perform in front of an empty bar when needed and not give up, but you also need to know when it’s time to sign a talent deal.

Start ups are not about presenting a plan, they are about star quality. You can’t expect to spell out where you want to be in five years and why you will be the one getting there. And if, as a startupist, you feel like you are being overly pushed in that direction, just move over to the next scout. Don’t practice the ”pitching to VCs 101″ manual because it’s useless, it won’t help you. The investors don’t believe in that manual either.  

At a certain point, if you have that star quality, the right scout will come along and recognize it, pick you up and hand you the opportunity. While good scouts are as scarce as stars, once in while they all get aligned.

Aner Ravon

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