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January 29 2012
Twitter, Democracy, and Internet Freedom
1620349_pic_1299261234
Twitter has taken fire in recent days from activists and bloggers who fear that the company’s new censorship policies will muffle online freedom. News reports recall the ways in which protestors have had made use of Twitter to oppose dictatorships, and dissidents express concern that their ability to communicate will be harmed. The more immediate issue, however, may lie elsewhere. Twitter’s new policies demonstrate vividly the complicated relationship between Internet freedom and democratic government.
1620349_pic_1299261234
Twitter has taken fire in recent days from activists and bloggers who fear that the company’s new censorship policies will muffle online freedom. News reports recall the ways in which protestors have had made use of Twitter to oppose dictatorships, and dissidents express concern that their ability to communicate will be harmed. The more immediate issue, however, may lie elsewhere. Twitter’s new policies demonstrate vividly the complicated relationship between Internet freedom and democratic government.
The Emergence Of The Content Creation Class
online-content-creation
The content creation class shall inherit the Internet. Richard Florida coined the expression the Creative Class, his belief being that these 30 to 40 million would be the driving force for economic development in a postindustrial world. Instead of driving the macro economy the Content Creation Class refers to the group of people who drive content on the internet those that write blogs, those that upload video to YouTube, and those that upload pictures to share with the world.
online-content-creation
The content creation class shall inherit the Internet. Richard Florida coined the expression the Creative Class, his belief being that these 30 to 40 million would be the driving force for economic development in a postindustrial world. Instead of driving the macro economy the Content Creation Class refers to the group of people who drive content on the internet those that write blogs, those that upload video to YouTube, and those that upload pictures to share with the world.
7 Reasons Why Pinterest Isn’t Yet Ready for Tech Brands
Pinterest_logo
Managing a tech brand means you always need to be on the lookout for innovative and creative ways to engage your community. Lately, the rise of Pinterest, a social content curation platform, has been making headlines. As early adopters and community managers, we naturally jumped on board right from the start. So far, our overall experience with Pinterest has been a positive one, and we realize its potential. But we've also found that it's not yet ready for most tech brands – especially those that have no visual products. In other words, Pinterest seems to expect brands to adapt their content to fit Pinterest’s platform, rather than Pinterest optimizing their platform for brands.
Pinterest_logo
Managing a tech brand means you always need to be on the lookout for innovative and creative ways to engage your community. Lately, the rise of Pinterest, a social content curation platform, has been making headlines. As early adopters and community managers, we naturally jumped on board right from the start. So far, our overall experience with Pinterest has been a positive one, and we realize its potential. But we've also found that it's not yet ready for most tech brands – especially those that have no visual products. In other words, Pinterest seems to expect brands to adapt their content to fit Pinterest’s platform, rather than Pinterest optimizing their platform for brands.
How Google+ Can Win: Make Publishing Universal
Google-Plus-Logo
Larry Page recently announced that he is quite thrilled with Google+’s explosive growth -- with 90 million registered accounts and 80% of the people engaging on a weekly basis across all Google properties. The problem, of course, is that very few of these 90M users are actively publishing on Google+. The Google+ strategy of fine-grained sharing of personal content using Circles has not been very effective. It takes a lot of effort to create and maintain circles, and Facebook has proven that most users seem to be comfortable sharing personal content such as family albums and baby pictures with their complete social graph.
Google-Plus-Logo
Larry Page recently announced that he is quite thrilled with Google+’s explosive growth -- with 90 million registered accounts and 80% of the people engaging on a weekly basis across all Google properties. The problem, of course, is that very few of these 90M users are actively publishing on Google+. The Google+ strategy of fine-grained sharing of personal content using Circles has not been very effective. It takes a lot of effort to create and maintain circles, and Facebook has proven that most users seem to be comfortable sharing personal content such as family albums and baby pictures with their complete social graph.
(Founder Stories) Jeff Clavier: On Getting Your Product In Front Of A VC (And Keeping It There)
JC FS Video 4 Advice.mov-1
Because every VC's inbox is overflowing with pitches, and because VC's don't take meetings with just anyone, SoftTech VC's Jeff Clavier, (who just raised $55 million for his third fund) offers advice to founders who hope to cut through the clutter, schedule a meeting, and score some financing from prominent investors.
JC FS Video 4 Advice.mov-1
Because every VC's inbox is overflowing with pitches, and because VC's don't take meetings with just anyone, SoftTech VC's Jeff Clavier, (who just raised $55 million for his third fund) offers advice to founders who hope to cut through the clutter, schedule a meeting, and score some financing from prominent investors.
Games Decreasing In Popularity On Android, Entertainment Apps On The Rise
games-ios-android2
The mobile app ecosystem is growing so quickly - exponentially, even - that sometimes it's hard to see the larger trends occurring in the space. To really gain insight, it helps to look back over a longer period of time, like a year for example, in order to take stock of the changes taking place. To that end, I reached out to mobile app search company Chomp, who kindly obligated my curiousity by packaging together its first ever annual app search analytics report. The report digs into the data from Chomp's 1 million app searches per month, to reveal trends in app prices, category share, top apps and more.
games-ios-android2
The mobile app ecosystem is growing so quickly - exponentially, even - that sometimes it's hard to see the larger trends occurring in the space. To really gain insight, it helps to look back over a longer period of time, like a year for example, in order to take stock of the changes taking place. To that end, I reached out to mobile app search company Chomp, who kindly obligated my curiousity by packaging together its first ever annual app search analytics report. The report digs into the data from Chomp's 1 million app searches per month, to reveal trends in app prices, category share, top apps and more.
10 Ways to Leverage Facebook for Startups: Part II, On-Site
ryan_dogpatch_reasonably_small-121
Yesterday I discussed how to improve user acquisition, activation and activity by building Facebook directly into your web experience. There is of course another half to the equation: leveraging Facebook.com to expand your reach and engage your users. On-Facebook success is less product-heavy than success off-Facebook, although they both ultimately aim for the same outcome: engagement. While it is as much an art as a science, if you optimize for engagement and continually test your way across Facebook’s myriad of products – you may well find yourself sitting alongside The Rock (Facebook’s best personality?) and Spotify (terrific example of being a platform first-mover).
ryan_dogpatch_reasonably_small-121
Yesterday I discussed how to improve user acquisition, activation and activity by building Facebook directly into your web experience. There is of course another half to the equation: leveraging Facebook.com to expand your reach and engage your users. On-Facebook success is less product-heavy than success off-Facebook, although they both ultimately aim for the same outcome: engagement. While it is as much an art as a science, if you optimize for engagement and continually test your way across Facebook’s myriad of products – you may well find yourself sitting alongside The Rock (Facebook’s best personality?) and Spotify (terrific example of being a platform first-mover).
The Ecommerce Revolution Is All About You
Amazon
Personal recommendations have always been a part of ecommerce, but there has been little innovation since Amazon introduced retail and product personalization 10 years ago. But with the increasing mountains of data at digital retailers' fingertips, ecommerce is about to get even more personal. The fact is that right now there is little iteration from personalized ecommerce beyond what is taking place on Amazon. So you'll see suggestions of what other shoppers who bought a certain item also purchased, or recommendations to similar items to what you have purchased, but there is a whole world of social data, and even more-in-depth purchase data that can be mined by retailers to help increase sales.
Amazon
Personal recommendations have always been a part of ecommerce, but there has been little innovation since Amazon introduced retail and product personalization 10 years ago. But with the increasing mountains of data at digital retailers' fingertips, ecommerce is about to get even more personal. The fact is that right now there is little iteration from personalized ecommerce beyond what is taking place on Amazon. So you'll see suggestions of what other shoppers who bought a certain item also purchased, or recommendations to similar items to what you have purchased, but there is a whole world of social data, and even more-in-depth purchase data that can be mined by retailers to help increase sales.
Google, Facebook, Privacy — And You
google privacy policy
Editor’s note: Guest author Keith Teare is General Partner at his incubator Archimedes Labs and CEO of newly funded just.me. He was a co-founder of TechCrunch. Like millions of other people, I got an email from Google this morning. It was entitled “Changes to Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service”. The first sentence describes the intent of the changes as shortening 60 policies into one, and improving their readability. Then there is a longer explanation captured in the graphic above. The email goes on to assert that Google has not changed its privacy policy and will not sell our personal information to third parties – “Our privacy policies remain unchanged”. So what is going on here? Facebook is the shiny object that Larry is focused on. This is a week where Sheryl Sandberg – Chief Operating Officer at Facebook – spoke at Hubert Burda’s DLD conference in Munich and stated that we were in the middle of 3 trends. First, a trend “from anonymity to real identity”. Secondly, a trend from “wisdom of crowds to wisdom of friends” and third, a trend “from being receivers of information to broadcasters of information”. See the video below for the actual points she made. It was a thoughtful and at the same time a polemical speech, a speech with a strong point of view. In thinking about Google’s privacy policy changes it helps to listen to Sheryl’s remarks and reflect on the context. Facebook is saying that the Internet as a pure information retrieval mechanism is dead. That the “readwrite” web that began as long ago as cheap web site hosting in 1998, has entirely replaced the read-only web. That the identifiable author has replaced the anonymous one. We are broadcasting and we are identifiable. That reading what friends say is now dominant in that world. Facebook envisages a future in which we all broadcast almost everything to almost everybody. Google’s problem. In that world, Google’s PageRank algorithm is seriously out of date. It promotes pages based on the number of links to it. Today, pages are no longer the unit of publishing. Far smaller items than a page dominate our senses. And those smaller messages are produced in huge quantity and in real time. So the signals that make something relevant have now changed. Facebook (and Twitter) have oodles of such signals. Google, until recently, had none. Google’s solution. The changes
google privacy policy
Editor’s note: Guest author Keith Teare is General Partner at his incubator Archimedes Labs and CEO of newly funded just.me. He was a co-founder of TechCrunch. Like millions of other people, I got an email from Google this morning. It was entitled “Changes to Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service”. The first sentence describes the intent of the changes as shortening 60 policies into one, and improving their readability. Then there is a longer explanation captured in the graphic above. The email goes on to assert that Google has not changed its privacy policy and will not sell our personal information to third parties – “Our privacy policies remain unchanged”. So what is going on here? Facebook is the shiny object that Larry is focused on. This is a week where Sheryl Sandberg – Chief Operating Officer at Facebook – spoke at Hubert Burda’s DLD conference in Munich and stated that we were in the middle of 3 trends. First, a trend “from anonymity to real identity”. Secondly, a trend from “wisdom of crowds to wisdom of friends” and third, a trend “from being receivers of information to broadcasters of information”. See the video below for the actual points she made. It was a thoughtful and at the same time a polemical speech, a speech with a strong point of view. In thinking about Google’s privacy policy changes it helps to listen to Sheryl’s remarks and reflect on the context. Facebook is saying that the Internet as a pure information retrieval mechanism is dead. That the “readwrite” web that began as long ago as cheap web site hosting in 1998, has entirely replaced the read-only web. That the identifiable author has replaced the anonymous one. We are broadcasting and we are identifiable. That reading what friends say is now dominant in that world. Facebook envisages a future in which we all broadcast almost everything to almost everybody. Google’s problem. In that world, Google’s PageRank algorithm is seriously out of date. It promotes pages based on the number of links to it. Today, pages are no longer the unit of publishing. Far smaller items than a page dominate our senses. And those smaller messages are produced in huge quantity and in real time. So the signals that make something relevant have now changed. Facebook (and Twitter) have oodles of such signals. Google, until recently, had none. Google’s solution. The changes
Curebit Apologizes for Copying 37Signals: “Stupid, Lazy, and Disrespectful”
curebit logo
That's awkward: Just as it was announcing a $1.2 million round of funding, online referral startup Curebit was caught lifting designs and code from 37Signals, the company behind popular collaboration tools Basecamp, Highrise, and others. The copying was called out on Twitter by 37Signals partner David Heinemeier Hansson, who, after an exchange with Curebit co-founder Allan Grant, called the Curebit team "fucking scumbags." It probably didn't help that Grant's initial responses didn't seem particularly contrite — he defended the copying as a "quick test" and at one point told Heinemeier Hansson, "Chill dude :)" (VentureBeat has a great blow-by-blow account of the initial controversy.)
curebit logo
That's awkward: Just as it was announcing a $1.2 million round of funding, online referral startup Curebit was caught lifting designs and code from 37Signals, the company behind popular collaboration tools Basecamp, Highrise, and others. The copying was called out on Twitter by 37Signals partner David Heinemeier Hansson, who, after an exchange with Curebit co-founder Allan Grant, called the Curebit team "fucking scumbags." It probably didn't help that Grant's initial responses didn't seem particularly contrite — he defended the copying as a "quick test" and at one point told Heinemeier Hansson, "Chill dude :)" (VentureBeat has a great blow-by-blow account of the initial controversy.)
January 28 2012
Apple Buy Hollywood? That’s A Terrible Idea
hollywood fire
Apple should not use its $100 billion in cash to buy, or buy into Hollywood. While it would most assuredly (ahem, cough) disrupt the system, it would not spur the kind of creative chaos and innovation that would lead to the Emerald City of any show, on demand, for free, to rent, or buy, or subscribe, and organized by taste or popularity, or you! In fact, Apple buying into Hollywood, would actually kill Hollywood. Here’s why:
hollywood fire
Apple should not use its $100 billion in cash to buy, or buy into Hollywood. While it would most assuredly (ahem, cough) disrupt the system, it would not spur the kind of creative chaos and innovation that would lead to the Emerald City of any show, on demand, for free, to rent, or buy, or subscribe, and organized by taste or popularity, or you! In fact, Apple buying into Hollywood, would actually kill Hollywood. Here’s why:
Founder Soup: Stanford and Andreessen’s New Startup Generator
founder soup logo 4
A single entrepreneur alone is vulnerable to shortsightedness, to fatigue. But with a team comes diverse perspective, encouragement, and the wherewithal to push through problems. That's why a group of Stanford computer science and business students started the Andreessen Horowitz-backed Founder Soup program. It's designed to give entrepreneurs with an idea or a fledgling company a chance to pitch, not to raise funding but to recruit co-founders. At its first full-scale event on Thursday night I saw an effective model for fostering startups, and several brilliant ideas in health tech and energy (reviewed here) that could turn into successful companies.
founder soup logo 4
A single entrepreneur alone is vulnerable to shortsightedness, to fatigue. But with a team comes diverse perspective, encouragement, and the wherewithal to push through problems. That's why a group of Stanford computer science and business students started the Andreessen Horowitz-backed Founder Soup program. It's designed to give entrepreneurs with an idea or a fledgling company a chance to pitch, not to raise funding but to recruit co-founders. At its first full-scale event on Thursday night I saw an effective model for fostering startups, and several brilliant ideas in health tech and energy (reviewed here) that could turn into successful companies.
Kindle Sales Growing Faster Than The Nook’s
kindle fire
Barnes & Noble may be challenging Amazon's dominance of the e-book world, but the Kindle sales are still growing faster than the Nook's — at least if you connect the dots between some of the numbers included in a recently-published article by The New York Times.
kindle fire
Barnes & Noble may be challenging Amazon's dominance of the e-book world, but the Kindle sales are still growing faster than the Nook's — at least if you connect the dots between some of the numbers included in a recently-published article by The New York Times.
Apple’s Off-The-Charts iPhone And iPad Sales
Apple Quarter Asymco
Sometimes you have to see things to truly appreciate their magnitude. Apple's latest quarter was so massive that MG had to write two posts about it: $46 billion in revenues, 37 million iPhones sold, 15 million iPads. The chart above, which comes from Asymco (see a fully interactive version here), shows how unusual this quarter was for Apple.
Apple Quarter Asymco
Sometimes you have to see things to truly appreciate their magnitude. Apple's latest quarter was so massive that MG had to write two posts about it: $46 billion in revenues, 37 million iPhones sold, 15 million iPads. The chart above, which comes from Asymco (see a fully interactive version here), shows how unusual this quarter was for Apple.
Let’s Get Personalized: Moving Beyond Recommendations
name tag
Hank Nothhaft is the co-founder and chief product officer of Trapit, a personalized content discovery platform currently in beta. Trapit was incubated at SRI and the CALO project. eBay’s recent acquisition of the recommendation service Hunch was an important score for the online retailer, giving it a way to mine the ever-mounting mounds of structured and unstructured data for more relevant and accurate consumer recommendations.
name tag
Hank Nothhaft is the co-founder and chief product officer of Trapit, a personalized content discovery platform currently in beta. Trapit was incubated at SRI and the CALO project. eBay’s recent acquisition of the recommendation service Hunch was an important score for the online retailer, giving it a way to mine the ever-mounting mounds of structured and unstructured data for more relevant and accurate consumer recommendations.
Gillmor Gang 01.28.12 (TCTV)
Gillmore Gang test pattern
The Gillmor Gang — Doc Searls, Danny Sullivan, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — debut the latest Google catchphrase to replace Do No Evil: We Really Don't Care! @stevegillmor, @dsearls, @dannysullivan, @jtaschek, @kevinmarks, @tinagillmor
Gillmore Gang test pattern
The Gillmor Gang — Doc Searls, Danny Sullivan, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — debut the latest Google catchphrase to replace Do No Evil: We Really Don't Care! @stevegillmor, @dsearls, @dannysullivan, @jtaschek, @kevinmarks, @tinagillmor
10 Ways Your Startup Can Hook Into Facebook, Part I: On The Web
ryan_dogpatch_reasonably_small-12
Having already covered how startups can use search and Twitter to find customers, here's 10 steps for finding people on another key marketing platform: Facebook Facebook has evolved from a social network into the fabric with which much of the web is constructed: identity, product, data, experience and so on. Even if you chose to no longer use it as a social destination, you would still find immense value in it through your every-day web usage: registration, personalization, sharing, interaction, etc.
ryan_dogpatch_reasonably_small-12
Having already covered how startups can use search and Twitter to find customers, here's 10 steps for finding people on another key marketing platform: Facebook Facebook has evolved from a social network into the fabric with which much of the web is constructed: identity, product, data, experience and so on. Even if you chose to no longer use it as a social destination, you would still find immense value in it through your every-day web usage: registration, personalization, sharing, interaction, etc.
Motorola Droid Razr Maxx Review: 4G LTE With Solid Battery Life Just Got Real
Droid Razr Maxx
The Droid Razr Maxx by Motorola is a very special phone. You see, I had a bit of a thing for the Droid Razr when it first came out, but it wasn't quite perfect. It felt a bit light, and I had trouble holding it in my hand since it was so big and so thin at the same time. Plus, battery life was a bust. It wasn't awful, but it only lasted about nine hours, meaning most people would need to bring a charger along every day. The Droid Razr Maxx throws all those problems into the trash can, and only gains about 18g and 1.89mm in return.
Droid Razr Maxx
The Droid Razr Maxx by Motorola is a very special phone. You see, I had a bit of a thing for the Droid Razr when it first came out, but it wasn't quite perfect. It felt a bit light, and I had trouble holding it in my hand since it was so big and so thin at the same time. Plus, battery life was a bust. It wasn't awful, but it only lasted about nine hours, meaning most people would need to bring a charger along every day. The Droid Razr Maxx throws all those problems into the trash can, and only gains about 18g and 1.89mm in return.
Steve Jobs, Superhero
jobs-superhero3
When I was a kid, I read tons of superhero comic books. I fantasized about superpowers, but the storylines about heroes with massive Achilles’ heels really held my attention the most. They saved the world but had screwed up personal lives, made lots of mistakes, and often acted like complete assholes. In retrospect, I related to their flaws. And, probably not coincidentally, my favorite characters exhibited core weaknesses I had experienced: Spider-Man (immaturity), Iron Man (overconfidence/hubris), and Wolverine (rage). Ironically, when the character’s weakness comingled with the superpower, it would often spur them to succeed against impossible odds.
jobs-superhero3
When I was a kid, I read tons of superhero comic books. I fantasized about superpowers, but the storylines about heroes with massive Achilles’ heels really held my attention the most. They saved the world but had screwed up personal lives, made lots of mistakes, and often acted like complete assholes. In retrospect, I related to their flaws. And, probably not coincidentally, my favorite characters exhibited core weaknesses I had experienced: Spider-Man (immaturity), Iron Man (overconfidence/hubris), and Wolverine (rage). Ironically, when the character’s weakness comingled with the superpower, it would often spur them to succeed against impossible odds.
(Founder Stories) SoftTech VC’s Clavier: How To Avoid The Series A Crunch
Clavier FS3
At the top of this Founder Stories episode featuring SoftTech VC's Jeff Clavier, Chris Dixon mentions much has been written about the "Series A Crunch." It's the occurrence of seed stage companies hitting the end of their initial funding cycle at roughly the same time and having to compete for big checks from a limited supply of VC. There's just not enough money or VC interest to keep all entrepreneurs afloat for another round.
Clavier FS3
At the top of this Founder Stories episode featuring SoftTech VC's Jeff Clavier, Chris Dixon mentions much has been written about the "Series A Crunch." It's the occurrence of seed stage companies hitting the end of their initial funding cycle at roughly the same time and having to compete for big checks from a limited supply of VC. There's just not enough money or VC interest to keep all entrepreneurs afloat for another round.
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