Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes

I have been in sunny San Francisco for the past couple of days attending the Web 2.0 Expo (first time in SF if you can believe it) and I thought I would take a quick minute to share a couple interesting thoughts that have come up in the last 48 hours.

1. Why do we think of mobile as separate from the web?

This came up in the Media 2.0 panel the other day and it’s a fantastic question. When you think of it our phones are and will become just another interface to the web. It’s simply a browser with a smaller screen. It seems so simple yet a lot of us think of mobile as a whole other world.

2. Microformats and Feeds

After attending a panel on microformats I started thinking about how microformats could be used in conjunction with feeds. Since feeds are, in and of themselves, a form of structured data adding microformats into the feed wouldn’t work (at least as far as I can tell). However, if you were to include microformats in a blog post for example we could perhaps create a flare that scans the content for the microformats (that would end up in the CDATA element) and when it finds them it can display a flare that users can act on. I am planning to play around with this idea a bit when I have a few minutes.

That’s all I have to share for now but I will definitely put up a quick post today if anything else gets my mind going.

Side note: You can check out my Web2.0 pics if you’d like. There are some really sweet ones from the Computer History Museum.

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

For all of those who haven’t read or heard of the Sam Zell (the new owner of Tribune Corp.) comment on Google and newspapers here is the quote:

“If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?”

You can read the full Washington Post article if you’d like as well to get more of a background on the situation.

As you can imagine Zell’s comment generated a lot of negative reaction from a lot of smart people like Jason Calcanis. I was almost quick to dismiss Zell as well. Sure, he now owns the Tribune Company but he’s a media and newspaper newbie. What does he know? Well, I wonder if he may know more than we all think he does.

After watching the Frontline documentary series News War I was compelled to write a piece on the state of the newspaper business which I am sure some of you read (I know it was super long so I don’t blame you if you didn’t slog through it – basic gist: public ownership of newspapers might not be the way to go if we want to retain the hard news we all need). Soon after writing that post I read the Valleywag piece defending Sam Zell and was reminded of the quotes I used from Google CEO Eric Schmidt the most pertinent of the quotes being:

“We’re [Google] in fact critically dependent upon the success of these newspapers so anything that screws up their economics, that causes them to get rid of reporters, is a really bad thing. The fact of the matter is that the consumption of news is up but the way in which people consume news has changed and its affected newspapers, in a business sense, pretty negatively.” (from Frontline’s News War program)

After reading that I am sure you’re thinking Zell might not be as crazy as everyone made him out to be. The Google CEO himself has publicly stated that Google is dependent on newspapers and the content they create afterall. But where is the connection?

Most people immediately thought of Google News when Zell’s comment popped up and were quick to point out that Google News is a pro bono venture (i.e. they don’t put ad sense around it) and, on top of that, doesn’t show the full content of the articles. That is true but there is more to the story than just Google News. Google makes money from contextual ads, as most people know, but it seems that a lot of folks forgot where those ads are placed – that is they are places around content.

Search results are one place Google puts their ads and a lot of times the top search results for current (and not current) news are newspaper articles which makes sense seeing that newspapers are a trusted and quality source (yes, I know they have had issues but fact checking works most of the time – I hope). Without those articles the Google results may not be as useful. However, I think the big money lies in the derivative works and conversations started by major newspaper coverage.

The blogosphere is a great example of this. A lot of media in the blogosphere is generated in response to or in order to talk about news that was originally reported by newspapers (heck, this post is a prime example). So what? Well, a lot of those blogs run ad sense ads which make Google money. If the bloggers, myself included, don’t have the newspapers to do the original reporting then they won’t be able to write as much and generate as much ad revenue for both themselves and for Google.

In the end of the day Google is an ad provider that works mainly with content driven sites. Because of that fact Google is dependent on the original reporting done by the newspapers. If all newspapers suddenly took their content away, or even worse, stopped producing their original reporting, things would be much different for Google and for all of us (until of course someone else picked up the ball on original reporting which would no doubt happen).

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

Apparently there was a lot, and I mean a lot, of talk about Twitter at SXSW. I guess when Mr. Scoble is a big fan lots of talk, and use of your product, will follow. Twitter seems cool enough. I can alert my friends to where I am or what I am doing via short messages that can be sent via text message, displayed via blog widget, etc. but what I don’t understand is how much some people post on Twitter. It is becoming an addiction for a lot of folks. I know I am in the minority here but I just don’t get Twitter quite yet.

Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users is right there with me and describes the issues I had been thinking about in a much more detailed and entertaining way than I ever could so I won’t recreate the wheel. Check out Kathy’s two posts and I think you’ll rethink the amount of Twitter usage as well:

• Is Twitter TOO Good
• Face-to-Face Trumps Twitter, Blogs Podcasts, Video…

Ahhhh – I can’t stop there. Here are some of my quick thoughts.

Kathy breaks the issues down to three main points:

1. Intermittent Rewards Beat Predictable Rewards (Slot Machine Effect)
2. Feeling of Connectedness
3. Twitter is a Cause (a decent size one for some) of Continuous Partial Attention

The first reason is more of a psychology thing so I am going to go ahead and trust the psychologists on that one. The second two points are a lot of what I had been thinking about.

Side Note: I still don’t quite get Second Life. I mean, I get it technically and I see it as a good communication device (especially for hearing people speak that I never would be able to in real life) but I don’t see it revolutionizing the world as a lot of people do. Why? Well, quite simply I like my first life and in my free time I’d rather hang out in person or even talk on the phone or via skype rather than spend a lot of time in Second Life. What does this have to do with Twitter? Twitter seems to create the same feeling of connectedness in the brain that Second Life does which is probably why it is catching on.

I’ll admit that I do feel connected when I use the two services. However, I have a nagging thought that I am not so connected when I use them even though I feel connected. Why do I have that feeling? Because it’s true. In the end of the day nothing beats face time (or at least phone time) and that will always be true. There is something that meeting face to face does for us as human beings that nothing can ever replace.

Constant partial attention is another issue that is evident with continuous Twittering. How can I focus on a task or simply think about a problem and how I am going to solve it when I am constantly updating people on my status and receiving updates on theirs? The answer is I can’t focus and I don’t think others can either. A state of continuous partial attention is not a good thing. We need to think deeply at times and focus. It makes us feel good and it also helps us solve intricate problems and come up with new ideas.

So, count me in the minority on this one. Perhaps I am just missing something though and this thing will turn out to be big. I’ve been wrong before and I reserve the right to change my opinion at any time (disclaimers rock!).

A Couple Afterthoughts: 1) Why do I want people to know what I am up to all the time?  2) Twitter is great for use at conferences.  Finding friends at a super busy conference like SXSW can be tough especially because they’ll have their phones off while in sessions (but you know their laptops will be on).

Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes

Slacker Music Player: Is it the iPod killer?

Heard about a new music service called Slacker the other day. This is a music service I can get into. Basically, the service works like Last.fm or Pandora but it is not only a web based service. They also have devices that are satellite fed which allow for a portable version of “your station.” You customize your station by using the “love it” and “ban it” features (much like Pandora’s thumbs up and thumbs down approach). As you put more input into Slacker it will keep looking for music you might like based on what you’ve told it (it doesn’t not analyze the music itself like Pandora though). From VentureBeat:

Slacker is so named because it is designed for the estimated 70 percent of people who like music, but who can’t be bothered to constantly update their playlists.

I have to believe that stat is close to true. I love music but I despise scrolling through my giant list of music on iTunes and my iPod for something I want to listen to. More often than not I leave both on shuffle but this does not help me find new music of course. For more detail on Slaker check out the VentureBeat post.

Side note: If XM/Sirius start to offer this type of service Slacker will have a tough time competing.

Failing Cheap

Josh Kopelman put out another great post recently. This time he tackled the difference between the funding cycles of companies “this time around” versus back in the 1999 – 2000 time frame. I won’t be able to do this post justice in just one paragraph so please go read it. Josh made some nice graphs as well which are worth the trip to his site alone.

Bill James is Smart

Chad Finn has a nice analysis of Bill James’ predictions for the 2007 Red Sox and he starts off the piece with how right James was last year about Youkilis’ performance. It’s eerie.

VC Performance by Quartile and Vintage Year

Paul Kedrosky has a quick analysis and nice graph of VC performance data by quartile and vintage year. I especially like this post since the data comes from my prior employer Cambridge Associates. I worked on the team that was responsible for, among a lot of other things, the VC and PE performance data and benchmarks. Nice work guys!

The Funded

I caught a VentureBeat post about a new site called simply “The Funded” the other day. The basic gist of the site is that it lets its’ members rate VC firms and these ratings are then made public on the site. However, not just anyone can become a member. VentureBeat explains:

… you can’t be a member if you are partner or an agent of a firm. Also, you can only become a member if you are invited by another member or somehow convince TheFunded that you should be a member.

Looks like they have some decent controls in place but I would like to see, as would VentureBeat, some sort of disclosure as to whether or not the entrepreneur making the comments or adding the ratings was rejected by the VC firm(s) in question. This is hard to do of course since most rejections are oral and, to make matters worse, are usually cryptic (the old I didn’t say no specifically in case I want to invest down the road issue). There aren’t a ton of reviews on The Funded now but over time I figure there will be more contributors. In any case it is a really great idea and could be very useful to entrepreneurs.

Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes

Since early bird registration for the Web 2.0 Expo ends today I thought I would go ahead and remind all of you that you need to check this conference out. My buddy Dave McClure is one of the co-chairs for this event and has spent the last six months lining up great speakers to make sure you get your money’s worth.

This conference is about learning how to do Web 2.0, not just hearing people talk about what it is, which is why I am a big fan. They have seven education tracks for geeks, designers, entrepreneurs and all the other types of folks that have a hand in building the next version of the Web.

The cost is always a concern so it’s good to know that there are discounts for students, educators, etc. There is even a free track for those of us who can’t afford anything but want to take part called Web2.Open. That is a nice touch!

If you are willing to break out the credit card before the day is out (Monday – the 12th that is) you can save $200. But wait, there’s more! If you use this code – webex07mk35 – you’ll get another $100 off for a total of $300 off the ticket price.

Basically, register today if you’re pretty sure you’re going to go since you’ll save big bucks.

If those reasons to attend weren’t enough for you I should note that I am pretty sure I am going to make it out for the expo and our own Don Loeb is speaking which means they’ll be some FeedBurner schwag floating around for ya. For more on the conference and the different tracks check out Dave’s blog. Hopefully I’ll see you all in San Francisco in a month!

Side note: If you’re going please drop me a line and we’ll meet-up.

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

After reading a post on Valleywag the other day discussing Facebook’s poor advertising performance and reading about the huge financing Eons just took I began thinking a lot about this whole social network trend.

Most of the social networks out there are relying on advertising to pay the bills. While there is nothing wrong with that approach overall it does leave these companies in a lurch when the advertising either doesn’t work or they simply aren’t getting the eyeballs they need for the business to make sense. These companies remind me a lot of the portals from the first web go around for these reasons:

• They are reliant on eyeballs
• There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of them popping up

Of course if one of these companies can’t get eyeballs they are done from the start since the value of the company is only there if the users are. However, let’s say they have the eyeballs like Facebook does. What then? Monetization via advertising of course. Well, in Facebook’s case the ads just aren’t performing right now meaning advertisers probably aren’t placing more buys which means the business model is in a bit of trouble. Why wouldn’t the ads be performing though? Valleywag puts it best I think:

Media buyers — the agency people who book campaigns — report that the college social network is a truly terrible target. They’re mainly students, with low disposable income, of course; but, beyond that, the users appear to be too busy leaving messages for each other to show much interest in advertising.

Exactly. This target group has no extra money and they are usually coming to Facebook as a reaction if they are anything like myself and my friends. What I mean by reaction is that they get an e-mail alert that someone has added them as a friend or that someone has left them a message, etc. They react to that, head to Facebook, take action on the item, perhaps poke around for a minute and leave the site. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for looking at or acting on ads.

Like the portals before them (i.e. Yahoo!) they could diversify into other businesses that they could charge for in addition to running ads. Facebook, for example, could possibly set up a job board for entry level post college jobs and internships. They could take on MonsterTRAK for that market and, due to their large installed base of users, probably do pretty well. Not only that, having something like a job board would keep users on the site longer potentially leading to better ad performance.

This bring me to Eons. Taking such a large round of financing recently ($22mm second round) has got people talking about the social network/content site for people over 50. At first I thought the idea was a little strange but over time I have begun to see the value in Eons. If you look at Eons in comparison to Facebook you’ll see the value too.

I’ll bet that Eons has a lot of well educated users who have a decent amount of disposable income therefore Eons, in theory, should be able to sell high value ad campaigns to companies like Mercedes, BMW, and Rolex along with vacation ads, health ads, financial services ads and drug ads (drug ads = big money). These ads will most likely perform well since Eons has good content on the site that will keep users there for a little while.

Basically, Eons is the exact opposite of Facebook.

So it seems that some target groups are better than others in terms of making a social network into a business but what else can help a social network grow? One critical (and obvious) thing is the networks ability to become an indispensable part of the users life and add to the users productivity. What better way to do that than to tie into the business life of users like LinkedIn has done? Interestingly LinkedIn also probably sees more of a post college crowd (although not as old a crowd as Eons) which leaves me to wonder if, contrary to popular belief, building social networks for older people is the way to go. I think it might be.

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes

I was invited to try Criteo’s AutoRoll today which is still in beta. Normally I try to keep my site clear of a lot of widgets but this one was pretty compelling so I hopped into the system and put one together. The basic gist of the AutoRoll is that it will display links to the blogs my readers (i.e. you) read most so that all of you can see what the rest of your fellow readers are reading.

It reminded me a lot of MyBlogLog but the fact that it suggests other content that may be interesting to all of you made it more worth while to me. You can now find Criteo’s AutoRoll widget under the “VC Deals” section on the far right side bar. I am calling it the “Reader Roll.” As always, please let me know if this addition to the site is useful and feel free to chime in via the comments on what you think of the AutoRoll concept.