Ventures in Pixels Blog

Verticals: Collaborate or Die

2008-05-13T08:06:00.003Z

It's easy to be distracted by the 'big guy's' in digital right now. But the innovation in this industry is always driven by the small garage ventures.

I came across GameSkoot today which is a really simple nice implementation of a vertical search engine for Video Games. Nothing ground-breaking, just a simple service that looks good and works. Whilst Google scoops the volume, there has to be a space for specialists to work with their industry peers, bloggers, advertisers and make this work.

Video Gaming is the perfect industry for this, it's a 'niche area' that's bigger than Hollywood, it is dominated by 'otaku' (obsessive designers, players, fans) but published by heavyweights such as EA, UbiSoft. There are a million blog sites, fan sites, gaming sites set-up by the 'otaku' that combined, makes up the perfect advertising vehicle for the next console, MMO or gambling site. But where will EA advertise? On big brand portals and AdSense.

The difficulty is none of these 'industries' are collective or collaborative enough to combine the power of their members. They don't combine forces they compete with each other. That's where Google is both smart (it's become the enabler via a one size fits all AdSense and now Open Social), but Google is vulnerable here too..

If the gaming industry adopted GameSkoot (for example) as it's search engine, they could create a market, an advertising industry and a distribution platform. And because it is run and developed by 'the otaku' it could beat the one-size fits all of Google hands down.

The big guy's have the advanced technology and the volume of audience to combine in an 'impartial' way. The small players love what they do, they just need to find a way to work together. Why not make that the focus of the next industry conference for... News, Travel, Games, Finance, Motoring...

Disrupting the Hosting Industry

2008-04-09T07:41:00.002Z

Google have done it again...perhaps. Following Amazon's lead into 'cloud computing' last night they launched the Google App Engine. And unlike Amazon's it's a free (so far) application hosting and development environment. Google get your data, personal and business, you get free hosting.

The established hosting industry will be reeling from this move. How do you compete with a free service provided by arguably the most reliable web-service in the world?

In international trade terms this might be called 'dumping' - they are peddling something below cost to take over a market. The approach is no different to what they did in Analytics, Books, Docs...

In all cases Google are helping bring costs right down. However, they are also crushing the infrastructure services and businesses that underpin internet business (payment, advertising, analytics, hosting). Where next? Content?

Strategic Heavy Weights

2008-02-06T12:20:00.000Z

Wow, 2008 has begun with a bang, following some late action in '07. The big digital guns are playing a game of top-trumps to make the most informed acquisitions and strategic moves.

Google's "hand" includes:

- Bids for Wireless spectrum in the US
- Google Universal search
- Google Mobile (Android Software Dev Kit)
- Google Open Social

Yahoo has been busy shutting services down and consolidating its position, whilst Microsoft, the slumbering giant, has been licking its lips at the prospect of Microsoft-Yahoo double-team.

Whilst these are huge plays, the big one for me at this moment is Facebook, and their "open" application platform. By allowing developers to create applications (and retain revenue generated from them) last year Facebook made a subtle master-stroke. (subtle because it was ignored by the competition). But in recognition of awakening industry competition (G Open Social, MySpace, Bebo), Facebook's move to allow these apps to run across other sites may make them the defacto platform....

...A whole profitable and creative industry has been created out of these Facebook apps, so allowing them to be unleashed on the long-tail of personal sites is a master-stroke. e.g. fancy adding a fun-wall to your blog?..Other platforms will probably be more open, more flexible, less controlled, but Facebook has first-mover advantage, and that could be the key to success.

If the future goes this way, Facebook becomes a distributed data platform, rather than a social-network per se. A platform for distributed widget advertising, in much the same way that Google's Adsense is the defacto contextual ad network.

Facebook's success in this gameplan depends entirely on getting us bloggers and publishers to start plugging in their apps to our pages. They have enough audience and apps to do so. But they'll need to be fast, because Google along with MySpace have a bigger audience to seed the same strategy through.

It's the HD/Blue-Ray (or BetaMax vs VHS) of online. A top-trumps battle to own the dominant platform by the industry heavy-weights. First blood to Facebook. But we, "user", will decide.

SEO: The light and dark side of the force

2008-02-01T14:02:00.000Z

A storm brewed last night in the world of SEO. Unfortunately the storm revolved around Times Online, a site I'm proud to say I played a part in growing until mid 2006. They, or more specifically, Sitelynx (the search engine consultants) have been accused of Link Spamming social news sites. A rogue employee admitted spamming and the rest is history.

In my days of marketing Times Online, with Sitelynx, we alway's stuck strictly to the 'light' side of the force (open, approved search techniques only). It's a shame to see this happen and the reputations get muddied against a lot of hard, legitimate graft.

This whole storm does really raise some important questions of anyone involved in internet media and marketing:

Where is the line between link building and spamming?

Should site-owners always disclose their intent on posting to sites like digg.com?

Is it legitimate for a Journalist to post a link to their own work?

Do the Guardian, The Mail and other similar organisations deny doing the same?

As a site-owner, I hate spammers. It's a constant battle to find intelligent ways to stop morons writing ever more sophisticated scripts that get through your filters.

At the same time, we would all be a little naive to think that blog owners, music companies, publishers, consumer technology businesses, car companies, wont want to spread the word through posting to social sites. In fact, talk about online PR and your already in this grey area. Offline word-of-mouth or Buzz marketing is a similar grey area and it's a technique employed by thousands of consumer technology and product companies.

So what's acceptible? It's down to the individual reader I guess and the company putting the messages out. The beauty of social news sites is that the user en-masse decides what's hot, and what's not. So people can spam all they like but if Joe Blogs isn't interested, it'll do the promoter no good.

It's hardly the stuff of a Soc Gen Rogue trader, but it's as good as it gets online. I wonder how many other rogue spammers will "come out" or whether they're busy changing IP addresses and deleting user accounts!

2 Months in Internet Years

2007-12-13T14:29:00.000Z

I've been travelling (Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam) for the last two months, so I've got some catching up to do.

Right now, it feels like the calm before the storm for digital natives (in Murdoch terminology). We had Ebay, Google Maps, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook (I think World of Warcraft Online deserves to be in this list). But nothing really new and innovative has recently has seemingly exploded into the mainstream.

The reason, IMHO, is that we've had the luxury of a deluge of innovative, useful and well finished applications over the last few years...and the mass market (the late majority) are now gradually catching-up. So the sites that were showcases for us in the industry are now adopted in the mainstream.

So what comes next? Well, with this mass market acceptance and use of internet applications comes the notion that the internet is more than just shopping or browsing content. Again, this is obvious stuff, but right now it actually matters because the mass market will finally use sites as applications. So Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Microsoft Picasa, Joost etc have a chance to grow exponentially.

Plus, I expect in the next 18 months, finally, web on your mobile will become accepted, useful and cheap. And as a result it will be the next boom in digital business. Nokia, Vodaphone, Google, Microsoft have been betting on this for years through acquisitions and marketing. But now the UK public are really beginning to accept it and this is the key.

Devices are suitable and easy to use (we can thank the iphone for forcing the hand of manufacturers/networks). Contracts are getting sensible pricing for internet data (the wifi threat forces the networks hand). And useful applications which people are already familiar with are available; cashless payments, maps, photo storage, skype...

All of this points to a new phase of digital entrepreneurship - growing from new uses of the web, on new devices, by new people. Most of these new future success stories are already out there as alpha/betas. And as with all digital successes to date the winners will be chosen by the public, not the corporates.

Google, disruptive and dumping?

2007-09-26T13:16:00.000Z

There's lots of talk of Google's push into ad-serving, with GoogleClick offering 'free display ad-serving' for publishers. So Google wipes out the economics of the ad-serving business in one short-sharp hit.

In the offline world there's an ugly word to describe these economics - "dumping" [offering a product below the costs of production to attack a market]. In digital we call it "disruptive".

Obviously it's not strictly free, as Google will make it's cut from the arbitrage in market pricing, but it wont charge the publisher for the priviledge. It's a master stroke if they get scale, which they surely will, and will crush ad-servering businesses all over the world. That perhaps, isn't quite in line with Google's moto "don't be evil". But it is certainly dispruptive (online), dumping (offline).

The Wisdom of Vietnam

2007-09-13T05:53:00.000Z

In Ho Chi Minh City right now and I've got a free moment not in meetings, eating or travelling. I've been here so many times now that sometimes I think that it is becoming so 'westernised' that the culture is fading, actually, I guess I'm simply becoming more familiar with the sites and sounds.

Understanding business here, however, is an entirely different ball game. The market moves sooo fast, everyone is an entrepreneur and has a fearless approach to business. In the UK we have near perfect information, for any market, industry, investment you can you can find free or paid analysis to help decision making. In Viet Nam this simply isn't the case, so to put your pulse on the market you have to be in it, speaking it's language.

Sitting on the back of a motorbike cruising through the crazy rush-hour traffic I thought "to understand business in VN look at rush hour motorbike traffic, from a distance it looks crazy, disorganised and getting nowhere fast, but if you're in it, everyone is moving ahead quickly and skillfully changing direction to avoid a crash.

It may not make sense but you can be sure that it is heading somewhere.

Right, time for a bowl of Pho and a strong coffee.

The Web by Tube

2007-09-06T07:49:00.000Z

Information Architects in Japan have detangled the top 200 sites on the web, and then put them back together on the Tokyo Metro Map! The interactive version is a really useful visual tool to look at trends, relationships and who the 'players' are.

Update: Mobile p2p and Mosh

2007-08-25T07:39:00.001Z

Nokia's 'not so secret' MOSH social network is now in open beta. And, it goes quite a long way toward the content sharing I described in my last post.

There's a problem for Nokia and it's a legal one. Given recent history, Napster, YouTube, it's only a matter of time before Jamster, Digital Chocolate, EA or one of the other big mobile content providers takes exception at this site. Why pay for a game, wallpaper, ringtone, when you can just 'swap it' at MOSH.

And then there's the Network Operators who wont be pleased as selling these 'added value' services is a big play for them.

The User Agreement says that users shouldn't publish copyright content...but that really excludes all games and all ringtones!

The mobile industry needs this to happen, it's a killer app that will drive use of mobiles in a different way. So it will get tens if not hundreds of millions using data services. But I can't see a Nokia, and their corporate legal team, 'getting away with it' for too long. We'll see.

Mobile Peer 2 Peer: the final frontier?

2007-08-22T12:25:00.000Z

I've been playing around with some ideas and trends today. It's high-time the mobile industry found it's killer app.

Sure Twitter.com is cool and an easy step for Joe Public to see his phone as more than, well, a phone. I hate to say it, but we really need a Napster(of old)/Torrent client for phones. $4 ringtones and picture downloads are so Y2k. I'm wondering if Nokia's mosh network will go so far? I doubt it.

Since I suspect that it will be non-drm'd content that will explode this into the mainstream, I doubt Nokia's corporate 'legal' machine will allow it to go this way.

There are some clients out there, but they're not simple and don't let you share what's on your phone - your tunes, pics, vids, ringtones, in a "Joe Public Non-Uber Geek way".

So it's really up to the internet developers and entrepreneurs to create. I'm plenty busy with other ventures, but would be happy to contribute marketing/commercial ideas if anyone wants to take this on? Drop me a comment here if you want to discuss.

I've seen the Internet's future in 3D

2007-08-08T08:30:00.000Z

I've long been banging on about the UI on the web being too flat and not making use of space and sense.

The ubersmart Open Source guru's have created PaperVision3D. i.e. Take flash, live data and merge them into truly 3D, interactive application. So, Second Life style 3D meets regular useful web sites - imagine your stockmarket portfolio in 3D for example.

Have a look at these early demos of what's possible:

http://www.rhythmoflines.co.uk/

http://www.mb3dengine.com/

http://mrdoob.com/lab/pv3d/ball_ao/

http://www.noventaynueve.com/2007/

Green: it's the little things

2007-07-27T12:28:00.001Z

Sometimes the little things can speak louder. Here's some support for www.blackle.com one man's quest to make us a tad greener. Cheaper than LiveEarth, and substantially less compromised.

All things being equal, Online Advertising isn't

2007-07-24T14:06:00.000Z

Yahoo, ComScore, Nielsen and many industry pundits are questioning the digital advertising industry's currency.

Page Impressions are outdated - they aren't a true measure of a users interaction or use of a site. Monthly Unique users are overly flattering given that they measure reach over a month, rather than a day, hour (like Newspaper, Radio, TV).

More worrying for industry beheamouths, Google and MSN (even Yahoo), between 4-6 percent of a users time is spent on Search. But search accounts for over 40% of internet ad revenue, so something is out of sink.

So advertisers and agencies need to work on new metrics to measure the value of their campaign? Perhaps.

Could this be a threat to searches dominance? Unlikely. You can't really argue with the results from a search marketing campaign and this is what has driven the industry. The fact people spend less time on search versus destination sites may actually favour the advertiser - since they less engaged and more likely to be pulled away.

If advertisers do follow time-spent or another metric, the big guns will want to have a hold on the market if it moves...and this could be what's behind their acquisitions of DoubleClick (Google), Aquantive (Microsoft) and Right Media (Yahoo).

Land of the Rising Sun

2007-07-09T09:47:00.000Z

For the last year, I've been working with the team at The Sun on their digital strategy and marketing activity. The Sun's digital product(s) have been a dark horse which are only now getting real traction with both consumers and the industry. It is truly unique and edgy, it appeals to the mass market (but may not be to everyone's taste) and has a wide portfolio of digital products, from editorial to commerce to pay to play.

The result of huge effort in the last year from editorial, tech, marketing has ramped up audience, making thesun.co.uk the most read newspaper site on a daily unique user basis. 'Newspaper site' is a strange measure, what's more important is the site is also in the top 15 of the fastest growing sites in the UK, alongside illustrious names like Facebook, Myspace and YouTube.

Sure, other sites are much bigger on a Global traffic basis, but head to head in the UK, theSun.co.uk is outgrowing the others hands down.

The results are a huge credit to the digital team. As for 'old media' going digital, I'll be hugely biased and say The Sun is one to watch over the next year. I just cant tell you why or how:-)

Sun wins Best Media award at the NMA's

ABCe: Sun overtakes Times as second-largest newspaper website

How a six-month-old startup got bought by Google

2007-06-22T15:59:00.000Z

This is a nice, fairy tale story for budding entrepreneurs. Over to Yi-Wyn Yen on Zenter's super fast sale to Google.

PhotoSynth: Content is king, but unlocking it creates value

2007-06-18T10:09:00.000Z

A friend of mine today skyped me a 'must watch video'. In this presentation at TED, Blaise Aguera y Arcas manages to live demo Microsoft's Photosynth and hints at the possibilities...

In many ways, the newest internet thinking and development is around semantic connections, using publicly available information. In English, that means that every Facebook profile has info about the person, their friends, hobbies, plus pictures, videos etc. So by discovering ways to link all of these traits to other people creates a whole new world of fun, relevance and connectedness.

MySpace and Facebook know the huge value they have in their data, if they can mine it and bring that value to bare with marketers. But Photosynth takes an entirely different, perhaps more valuable approach.

It creates value in the 'experience' rather than trying to apply it solely to advertising, and by making a product that is completely unique out of semantic data (photos in this instance). For me, this is THE approach to take with a digital product. So whilst the others are looking for intelligent ways to extract revenue from their data, Photosynth is using the data to create a unique, untouchable proposition - putting them into a whole new category of business.

Have a play with Photosynth and imagine what the future of search engines will look like. Text, photo's, audio, video, people all dropped into a 3D navigable environment.

Viet Nam; The Internet "Unplugged"

2007-06-05T17:05:00.000Z

One of the best stories I've heard this week, Viet Nam literarly has had it's Internet "unplugged" by a couple of scrap metal dealers in search of recyclable copper. It seems they found an almost bottomless treasure in the ocean.

Amongst all the new sophistication and technology coming to the country it's comical to think that things like this can happen. Can you imagine it in the UK or USA?

I had noticed that the internet was a lot slower in HCMC than the previous year. Here's the full story why:

Undersea Cable Thieves Slow Vietnam's Internet Access
By Matt Steinglass Hanoi 01 June 2007

Steinglass report (mp3) - Download 410k
Listen to Steinglass report (mp3)

Vietnamese Internet users are experiencing slower service after thieves stole part of the one of the country's main fiber-optic transmission cables from the sea floor and sold it for scrap. If one more cable is cut, experts say, Vietnam could lose almost all of its telecommunications capacity. Matt Steinglass reports from Hanoi.

According to Vietnamese press reports, the country's military signed a contract last August with several companies to salvage undersea copper cable left over by the former government of South Vietnam, which fell to North Vietnamese communist forces in 1975.

The contractors, or someone else, apparently went on to "salvage" at lot more than that.

Lam Quoc Cuong, deputy director of the Vietnamese telecom company VTI, says a stretch measuring at least 11 kilometers of the operational fiber-optic cable serving present-day Vietnam is missing.

Cuong says the line was initially cut in March, and Vietnamese police are continuing to catch people selling illegally salvaged cable.

Last week, police in the southern coastal town of Vung Tau said they had captured four boats carrying a total of 100 tons of salvaged fiber-optic cable. The boats allegedly belonged to one man, a Vung Tau resident.

But VTI said the fiber-optic cable seized in Vung Tau does not match VTI's own cable, and must have come from some other line.

Police have not determined who initially cut the operational cable, or how they discovered its location. VTI's Cuong says finding the cable would have been difficult for the thieves.

He says the cable runs through different locations and at different depths. He says thieves might have found the cable by accident, while raising an anchor.

VTI says fixing the cable will cost $2.6 million, and take almost three months. Experts say if VTI's second undersea cable were cut, Vietnam could lose 82 percent of its telecommunications capacity.

Uncle Ho or Colonel Sanders, so long as it's cool

2007-06-05T16:41:00.000Z

You might guess from the criptic headline that I've spent the last few weeks in Viet Nam. It's a fantastic place to experience for travel, and for business, the fastest developing market in Asia.

Suddenly, since Viet Nam's ascension to the WTO, it's hit investors radars around the world and is now the hot place to be. The country is diving rapidly into consumerism, to regain its former glories. KFC has arrived in Ho Chi Minh City and is a favourite of school children. Internet penetration remains low (18%) but is growing at one of the fastest rates in the world. Mobile penetration is a similar story. With 81m people, entrepreneurs can see the potential in helping Vietnam catch-up.

I've been doing business with Viet Nam for around eight-years, making me a relative veteran of the new economy there. And despite my frequent trips, I'm still astounded at the rate of technology adoption and acceptance. Really, MySpace is old hat to a 16 year old who spends their days chatting and playing with friends in 'online games'. These games generated $15m last year and revenues are expected to grow by 300% per annum. That's not a bad return in a country with per capita income of $620.

From a digital strategy perspective, what is most interesting is how these games are used and perceived. They're more about a social network than a game, you get avatars, profiles, chat and all the things you'd expect on Bebo. And they're not only in the WoWC genre, they appeal to both sexes equally. So Second Life is interesting in the UK/US but has minimal penetration. Vietnamese online games have huge penetration amongst under 25s and probably dominate their media consumption.

The West can learn a lot from its Asian counterparts, if it's willing to listen. At Ventures in Pixels we're building and developing a portfolio of web/mobile sites for both sides of the world. They're underwraps for now but should start going into to public beta later this summer.

For anyone interested that hasn't been, get over to Saigon (HCMC) for a holiday in the next few years if you want to get a taste of what it is/was like. Leave it much longer and you'll likely see a modern metropolis.

Google, probably the best online marketers in the world

2007-05-10T15:07:00.000Z

I hate to say it but I think Google must truly be the best online marketing organisation in the world. What! Why? I hear you say. Surely, Amazon, YouTube, Skype or even Adidas/Nike...

Google do little to market themselves in the traditional sense. That is, carefully crafted campaigns and intelligent presentation of the brand. In fact, I'd say they're pretty lousy at this kind of promotion judging by some of the Google Maps ads recently floating on the web.

Where Google excels above any other company (including Amazon) is in continuously listening to customers and adapting with them. The marketing is built right into the company, right there. The famous 'beta' testing is simply an excuse for the feedback loop, involving the customer in the development of the service. Seth Godin and his 'Permission Marketing' and 'IdeaVirus' concepts coin exactly what Google is doing.

The reason I'm writing this now is I've just seen Google's upgraded Analytics tool, which is truly excellent, but also their free Website Optimisation tools (A/B content testing made simple).

It's not the tools that are the smart part, it's the fact that Google knows who it needs to please. It understands its core and most influential audience, the smaller website owner. And, the Googlers have gone out of their way to make life as easy as possible for the millions of webmasters around the world. Free analytics, optimisation, etc. It keeps the core influencing audience, the long-tail of web-publishing and the same people that make AdSense a success, right under Google's wing.

Love em or hate em. This is much more sophisticated, in-depth marketing than anything from MSN, Yahoo or any other digital brand.

Online Advertising is a Google-opoly

2007-04-14T07:02:00.000Z

Google's announcement that it has agreed a deal to buy DoubleClick is a worrying move for the digital industry.

DoubleClick's dominance of advertising serving for top-tier websites means the majority of online ads on the biggest sites will now be served by Google. And when you consider 84% of display advertising dollars go to the top 25 websites in a market, Google further extends its vice-hold on digital ads.

Digital publishing is almost entirely paid for by advertising revenue, so it's a risk for all those publishing business models to be so dependent on one company. Not to mention all the web analytics data and advertising customers going through that same company.

We can only guess what Google's next steps might be, and whilst Orwellian conspiracy theories about Google ridiculous, it will be hard for the execs at Mountain View not to flex their new muscles. Some strategic moves they could take:

1) Shift the display market into a PPC/CPA model

How? Persuade some less savvy publishers to drop CPMs. Then, with combined insight of google Search and Display on reaching target audiences, demonstrate how planners can avoid CPM publishers.
Affect: Forces publishers into PPC, substantially reducing yields from brand advertisers

2) Consumer insight

With 70% of the market using Google as their preferred search engine and now with the publishers via Double Click, Google have an almost perfect knowledge of what we do at the start and end of our session online. With this they could see gaps in the digital publishing market, weaknesses in certain publishers models/audience, and what is most effective in any vertical market. That's a powerful position for launching and improving 'disruptive' businesses (aka Google Maps, aka GMail, aka Google Pay, Google News....)

The only other Global industries I can think of with similar dominance are Oil, Gas and perhaps Medicine/pharma...

It's to Google's strategic planners credit that such an open, free, dynamic and uncontrolled industry as ours can be dominated in this way.

Internet Video Face-off

2007-03-30T12:50:00.000Z

We're watching the internet video space unfold and grow right in front of us right now. This is what happened in radio, TV over 30 years, compressed into months. And it's moving the web head to head with traditional entertainment.

First up, I've been playing with the public/private Beta of Joost TV. Joost is the P2P video on-demand platform from the Skype founders. The useability is great, streams are the cleanest clearest video I've seen online and best of all, it behaves like an intelligent TV, with full program guides, content categorised, etc. The Joost team are signing up content partners - you can watch IndyCar, MTV, National Geographic...

They're betting on being THE TV distribution network for your PC and which effectively by-passes the Windows Desktop. My criticism is that it's proprietary, under lock and key, but they say they'll be providing APIs/SDKs soon for others to create plugins.

Next comes Microsoft, with it's suite of products around Media Centre and Vista. I was recently invited to Microsoft's digital home, for a demonstration of all their latest tools and platforms. Now my home set-up already does everything that the new MS kit does, but by pain of Mod's, plugins and config. Pitched at the mass market (Early Majority in marketing speak) they probably have it bang on. Easy to use, not too much to mess with and familiar. But there's certainly no 'WoW' I'm sorry to say for Microsoft marketing team.

By comparison Joost is offering a one-app, one use tool that requires no effort and has the media built right in. It feels like a new TV experience, rather than a media player. And that's the point, it's about the content, not the technology.

The chaps at Skinkers, who last year teamed up with Microsoft, are soon to release their own P2P internet TV platform. The interesting part is that it's based on Microsoft's IP and is based on distributing Live TV, rather than on-demand. It's not in public Beta yet so we'll have to wait and see.

All of this is making Google's YouTube look a little old hat. But YouTube is pitched right where the consumer is NOW and has the luxury of moving those millions of consumers at their own pace. They need to innovate to hold that audience, but that's not often posed a problem for Google.

The 'ace' card may just have been played by an unlikely motley crew - News Corp/MySpace, NBC, Time/Warner, MSN & Yahoo! In the announcement last week, they're combining the worlds largest pool of broadcast content with a combined audience bigger than YouTube. The statement says content will be 'free' i.e. ad-supported, but I imagine there's too much for them to lose in opening up the vaults for free. Not least from revenues via old TV distribution channels (terrestrial, satellite, cable).

Somewhere amongst all this corporate posturing there is the viewer - and they'll ultimately decide how, where and what to watch .... at what price. I don't see a winner takes all prize for any of the corporates, I see viewers using multiple players/sites for different content.

If I like cars, I'll go watch TopGear, where ever it is available.

User Interface: Use your Han's

2007-03-21T20:05:00.000Z

No need for words. Watch the video. Introducing Jeff Han and his amazing sidekick.
Just two questions where to buy and when?

My 1 Billionth Page Impression

2007-02-23T08:48:00.000Z

Grabs attention, huh?

It suprises me how fast and advanced our industry moves but how dumb metrics continue to grab headlines, with MySpace being probably the biggest offender (although SecondLife has been the one to be beaten up). In 1997 domain names was a boom industry and we'd frequently boast of no. of domains registered, which in reality was a one dimensional metric of little use. But the media and the markets bought it.

In the bubble days of 99/2000 monthly unique users and registered subscribers were the currency to value online businesses.

Now in 2007, you would think, we're looking at growth rates, subscriber churn, active/inactive customers, cpm's, time on site, single access ratios...

Not so. Social network sites continue to evade the metrics which we would all like to know.
SecondLife got what is technically known as a 'kicking' when it broke the 2m subscriber mark late last year. With commentators asking all the questions on active users,etc. But SecondLife are the small guys, the innovators in this space.

MySpace with 160m users or Facebook with 35m, is like Amazon talking of the number of sign-ups it has had, ever. Not ARPU. Not growth in average basket size. Not Purchase Frequency.

For the social networks, how many of these big user figures are active in the last 90 days? To follow EU data-protection acts dormant data over 2 years old should be deleted anyway, but that's another story. GigaOm-Hitwise managed to pull some metrics together but they still offer little insight.

I have a hunch that specialist sites like DeviantArt.com, SecondLife.com, last.fm, webjay.com are going to come out pretty well when indexed against the big guys for things like % active, frequency and depth of visit.

So why is this important? Well, from an advertising/marketing point of view the number of genuine, hard-core, active, passionate users is significantly more valuable to an advertiser than a mass of passing traffic. The advertising industry doesn't see it this way yet, but in time it probably will.

This is the long-tail of Social Networks. And it is a distributed web of small vibrant communities.

Chúc Tết

2007-02-16T09:02:00.000Z

This weekend is devoted to Tết, or Vietnamese New Year. We'll be taking the little ones to a banquet at the in-laws, and doing the equivalent of the festive Christmas eating marathon for the next three days.

Back to the almost serious business of work next week. For now,

Chúc mừng năm mới

Faster than a Speeding Bullet

2007-02-07T09:32:00.000Z

This industry moves so fast. I often take a day out to dive into genuine Alpha sites and see what people are doing outside my areas of interest. There are some genuinely useful, if not incredibly niche, sites out there.

First up is Swivel, a site for exchanging and exploring data - sounds dull, but for anyone involved in business there's no escaping the need for hard facts.

It is essentially a highly focussed search engine, so instead of hoping Google will pluck out the right chart for that presentation to the board, Swivel gets you straight to it.

Did you know:

The World's Highest Paid Athletes

How Old are MySpace Users (only 88 data points, against +100m users so not so accurate!)

Virtual Gold appreciates faster than Real Gold

Media Spend by US Consumers

Music Sales: From Vinyl to Ipod

Battle of the Search Engines

For each dataset, users get stuck in to flipping the charts in different ways and mashing-up with other info. If this was integrated into Zoho Sheet or Google Spreadsheet, you average user might start uploading data-sets from their harddrives. In time, this could disrupt an entire industry of analysts and researchers through the wisdom of crowds.

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UPDATE: 30th March 2007

I've just had a note from Chris Grisanti of Swivel.com that Google Spreadsheets are now integrated into their site, plus a bunch of improved UI improvements, particularly on the homepage. Now spreadsheets and data are hardly as exciting as data, but I wouldn't mind betting that this will become a pretty huge business before anyone really notices.

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