Thumb Culture: Musings of a recovering Tech Geek

Weekend Media Festival 2009 Presentation

2010-01-22T09:58:00.002Z

The video of my presentation at the Weekend Media Festival in Croatia is now online. This was my last official Google event (literally) as I gave notice the day before. It was therefore a bittersweet event.

Weekend 2009. - EVOLUCIJA DIGITALNOG from WeekendMediaFestival on Vimeo.

Ian Goldin at TED - The decade ahead

2009-12-30T13:37:00.001Z

A seven minute video that quickly, succinctly (and perhaps scarily) outlines the biggest challenges of the next decade.

Technology will drive development around Miniturization and Nanotech to regenerative medicine. Population growth and longer living populations will change social dynamics. "Systemic risks" of interwoven, complex systems (financial, weather, biological) will make managing that risk "the currency of the next decade."

@ev on the BBC

2009-08-06T11:14:00.003+01:00

Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, interviewed by the BBC. He states that London is the top worldwide twittering city... And BTW for all you fans, Demi Moore's Twitter account is mrskutcher

15 seconds of fame... in Slovenia

2009-05-29T11:31:00.002+01:00

My 15 seconds of fame on TV... Slovenian TV. Video starts around 21:30. This was from the Seedcamp in Lubjiana.

Facebook Investment from DST: A new Potsdam?

2009-05-26T09:20:00.006+01:00

[Update 2: So it's true, Facebook has just formally announced that DST will invest $200M on a $10B valuation and make available up to $100M to buy employee options. No mention of any side deals around Vkontakte]

Over the weekend, the WSJ reported that Digital Sky Techologies would invest up to $200 million on a $10 Billion valuation plus the rumored $150 million to buy out internal shareholders at a $6.5 Billion valuation.

I will put aside the valuations or the benefits of insiders cashing out part of their options and focus instead on what I think are some social network geo-politics at play.

DST has an impressive portfolio of Russian internet properties including Mail.ru and, more importantly VKontakte, the leading social network in Russia. Valleywag had called VKontakte a Facebook clone and yet if you look at a map of the global social network world, a whole swath of it is covered in the light blue of Vkontakte.ru.

A post last March on Window on the Media had argued that russian users were switching to Facebook at a greater rate and that if it continued, Facebook would surpass VKontakte by November, 2009.

So this is where my Potsdam theory comes in [Using the WWII conference at Potsdam - where the allies defined "Spheres of Influence" and the post-war world - as an analogy]. I have to wonder whether, in an effort to both defend, and perhaps even exit their investment in Vkontakte.ru, DST has not done some sort of deal through which the investment in Facebook also comes with some provisions around defending Vkontakte's control in Russia.

This could come in the form of a commercial agreement or a JV between Facebook and DST properties in Russia. With the Russian President formally calling the Internet space a "strategic" area and warning against foreign investments, one might wonder whether Facebook just saved itself a battle, gained market share and won itself some cash for both itself and its employees.

Looking forward to further details of the DST-Facebook deal. Keep an eye out for any announcements of a Facebook-VKontakte deal in parallel...

[Update: It seems TechCrunch posted a similar theory last night also specifying DST's requirement for a Board seat along with the investment]

Tesla test drive

2009-05-19T09:58:00.003+01:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The Tesla Roadster...

0 to 60 in under 4 seconds
Max speed of 125mph
220 mile range on a charge

AND a beauty to behold.

Test Driving the Tesla Roadster from America.Gov on Vimeo.

Now the question is whether I would willingly fork over $100k for a 2-seater or wait a few months, pray for the Obama stimulus package subsidy and go for the family-friendly 4-door, 7-seater Tesla Model S instead with an expected base price of $50k.

0-60 in 5.6 seconds...is 1.6 seconds worth 50k???

Using Google Lattitude to Catch a Thief

2009-04-15T14:02:00.004+01:00

Interesting news report of a woman who used Google Latitude to track down the thief of her phone. Smart user, smart technology:

Video is here

(sorry for the link... the CBS affiliate won't allow embedding)

New role, new markets

2009-04-09T17:51:00.002+01:00

Some big news on the job front:

I wanted to share with you that as of April 1st I have transitioned from Google’s Strategic Partnerships group into a new role leading Google’s expansion across EMEA as our Head of New Markets.

I am very excited about the entrepreneurial nature of building out Google’s presence from scratch in over a dozen countries (or as “from scratch” as a $20B company allows), of leading a diverse and distributed team of country managers and account executives, and of the amazing upside in terms of revenue but also in terms of adoption of Google services and properties. This, combined with the ability to travel and do business across various emerging markets, made this an opportunity very attractive.

For the past 11 years I have had a job in which the primary focus has been the development, marketing or sales of mobile and wireless technology. I have seen the space mature from the days of WAP 1.1 to pure HTML 5, Blackberry going from a two way pager to the addictive e-mail business fixture it has become, Microsoft CE evolving into Windows Mobile, Palm being bought by USRobotics which became 3COM which became Palm, which became PalmONE, which became Palm and Apple finally getting rid of the Newton skeleton with the resounding success of the iPhone. As many of you can attest, I am passionate about mobile and, for the past 10 years, have been claiming that “this” was the year of mobile.

I do believe that 2008 was a transformational year in mobile as the iPhone, Android and mobile advertising all came of age. While this new role expands my scope across all of Google’s products, it will still allows me to continue evangelising mobile as wireless becomes a primary access point to Google across emerging markets.

As I return from my first trip to Croatia in my new capacity, I am amazed about the opportunity that lies ahead in these markets where users actively choose Google search, Maps and Youtube as their preferred properties, but where advertisers have yet to embrace digital marketing as a significant tool to reach the consumer.

Planned trips to Ukraine, Slovenia, Romania, Turkey and Bulgaria are already in the works.

Kennet puts €6.5 million into GoViral's branded video network

2009-03-26T15:27:00.002Z

Go Viral, a social video network that happens to hire very, very smart people (including my friend Rene) has received funding from Kennet.

This is a very interesting space... a bit like SEO for the beginning of search, handholding advertisers and linking them up with the networks...for a fee. As the Brits say, "watch this space."

Kennet puts €6.5 million into GoViral’s branded video network

Tencent in the news

2009-03-11T09:57:00.004Z

Most folks outside of China have never heard of Tencent, or their hyper-popular service, QQ.

Tencent is the most sucesful Chinese internet firm with a market cap of $80 BILLION (4x Yahoo!'s current value).

In terms of value to investors Oliver Wymann recently ranked them as the highest value creating firm in the Telecom and Media space, followed closely by the South African Media conglomerate Naspers...which happens to own 40%+ of Tencent.

Their success comes not only from their massive number of users, (355M according to this recent post by Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital) but more importantly by the revenue they generate per user ($3.38 in real dollars, which Bill equates to $17 on a cost-of-living adjusted basis).

Maybe it's a cultural thing, maybe it's an education thing, but QQ's over the top, in your-face selling of Avatars, gifts, virtual goods and cute penguins... but it works! Tencent's mobile deals and ability for users to extend their network from PC (internet cafe as primary PC based access point) to mobile with significant success.

Evan Williams of Twitter on Charlie Rose

2009-03-04T11:11:00.003Z

Interesting vision of the "human need" for communication driving Twitter and, 5 years from now "normal people" using Twitter like "normal people" use Facebook and MySpace.

Looking at "normal people" around me (wife, father, non-techie friends) I accept the notion of a need for communication and a general acceptance of social networks as a way of sharing more than we would have been comfortable with 5 years ago... The evolution from a phone call to an email to a text message to a facebook wall post to a tweet does sound natural. The question is whether the platform for that outreach will be Twitter or not.

Eric Schmidt seems to believe that GMail could take that place.

You know [the economy] is bad when...

2009-03-01T19:47:00.000Z

The Economist, Facebook and the Dunbar number

2009-02-27T16:20:00.003Z

The Economist has an article this week entitled "Primates on Facebook" which talks about the size of the average network on Facebook (120 "friends") and the connection to the often quoted (mis-quoted perhaps?) Dunbar's number in which British Anthropologist Robert Dunbar claimed that the human brain (more specifically the size of the neocortex) could only keep track of 148 connections in its network.

The question raised by the article is whether mediation of these networks by a computer makes the "cost" to keep each relationship alive lower. I might be dating myself, but in my early teenage years, I still wrote real actual letters to my friends across the world. My group of "friends" therefore was lept fairly small due to the cost of staying in touch.

Email lists allowed me to employ one-way communication and share my life with a much broader group (some were avid readers, others considered it spam). Now with Facebook, I feel that I have two networks: My friends (those that would have been on the one way email blast) who now have a 2 way dialogue thanks to wall updates, pictures, and social apps, and my "other" contacts, people that I would never add to my email but whom I am OK having on the periphery of my social network (they can consume but it is unlikely to be two way).

So, yes the article is correct that "people who are members of online social networks are not so much “networking” as they are 'broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,'" but I still disagree with the notion of a static number... and believe that social networks, twitter and the like do allow us to have less costly (and thus more frequent) interactions with a greater number of people.

A great book on some of the science behind social networks, made consumable for the common man, is Duncan Watts Six Degrees. Duncan had joined Yahoo! Research...I wonder whether he is still there.

Top highlights from Mobile World Congress 2009

2009-02-23T14:19:00.005Z

47,000 of us from 189 countries (down over 15% over last year) gathered in Barcelona last week for the 2009 version of the Mobile World Congress, formerly 3GSM. The tone, as many have stated, was muted relative to past years and there was certainly a different kind of buzz this year. Then again maybe it's just me being cynical after so many of these shows.

Looking back at the event I wanted to summarize my perception of the "Top 10" from Barcelona. in no specific order:

Nokia Ovi store
Yes, Nokia launched a store... no surprise there. Promise of personalization and cross selling makes it a bit more interesting than the other 1/2 dozen app stores launched in the last months
Skype – Nokia deal
Skype has been talking about mobile in a big way as of late, and made some noise at CES launching an Android app. The Nokia deal gives them the potential of large distribution but how Nokia and Skype's incentives align, and the role of the operator in all of this is still TBD.
Palm Pre GSM
Despite expectations, Palm did not announce a GSM version of the device, but leaked videos did show a Pre running on a Vodafone SIM.
Palm Pre supports HTML 5 (Google Maps demo)
My personal (very biased) favorite was Vic Gundotra showing off Google Maps running directly off the Palm Pre browser on full AJAX with panning, two-pinch zooming and all of that... without a single line of on-device code. Again: The browser is the platfom.
Android for Vodafone (HTC Magic)
A lot of expectations about the "G2" were finally realized when Vodafone and HTC announced the HTC Magic, the second device running Android. The key here is the marked difference between the G1 and the Magic as far as design and the ability to innovate quickly on the platform to incorporate new usage profiles (touch-pad keyboard rather than physical one).
Nokia ad layoffs
Not announced at MWC but it did hit the news last week and I found it particularly important...as Nokia spoke at MWC about the importance of services, it also sent a clear message that it was regrouping and refocusing on what it does well (shipping millions of phones) and stepping away from an over-crowded mobile display ads space.
INQ1 wins GSMA handset award
Impressive that a relatively unknown "ODM" would win the GSMA award for best handset but a testament to the success that a simple consumer value proposition ("skype phone") can have in driving sales and adoption.
Microsoft myphone
Badly leaked prior to the show, Ballmer did announce MyPhone and promised the integration of services along with OSs (see below)
Windows Mobile 6.5
No comments on my former colleagues. 6.5 was announced and will be seen live "in the near future." Unfortunately, still the same old browser.
Sol Trujillo vs Google and Skype
Sol seems to have something against services and hasn't been Google's biggest ally in the past. His quips and discussion with Josh Silverman from Skype was particularly sharp (and amusing?

Vic demo @ MWC 09: The browser is the platform

2009-02-20T09:38:00.004Z

I will post more on my thoughts on the Mobile World Congress, but I did want to share this video of Vic Gundotra's demo of Google Maps on the Palm Pre...

Google has been talking for a long time of the browser as the platform... Wekbit + HTML 5 plus millions of iPhones, Android, Pres (and yes eventually Nokia's) make this statement a reality.

Dear Nokia: Servers fail, get used to it

2009-02-13T12:29:00.003Z

I will first state that I admire Nokia and that it is one of the few companies that has managed to reinvent itself so many times in the past 100 years: From lumber to rubber boots, radios and eventually mobile phones and mobile networks.

It is currently in the midst of its latest transformation evolving from a hardware manufacturer to a service provider via its new Ovi brand. In a late night conversation with a Nokia executive last January a Google colleague made a bold statement about how Nokia would quickly realize that being service provider is harder than just launching a website and how we would realize that being in the phone business is harder than just launching a phone.

The statement seems to be holding true, as Nokia learnt yesterday when its Ovi Contacts system crashed because of a broken cooler. Folks, its not like just getting rid of defective phones.. ... build redudancy and backup capabilities. People might forgive a dropped call here and there but they will not forgive you loosing their contacts database!

Maybe Nokia will want to co-locate their data center along with Google's supposed new data center in Finland.

In any case, I look forward to having a front row seat to Nokia's latest evolution.

Google eye tracking study

2009-02-10T16:13:00.003Z

At Google everything relies on data... so what better way to understand how users scan a page than to analyze it...

Pretty cool insight into how your eyes will track across a page. Most interesting parragraph:

"Based on eye-tracking studies, we know that people tend to scan the search results in order. They start from the first result and continue down the list until they find a result they consider helpful and click it — or until they decide to refine their query. The heatmap below shows the activity of 34 usability study participants scanning a typical Google results page. The darker the pattern, the more time they spent looking at that part of the page. This pattern suggests that the order in which Google returned the results was successful; most users found what they were looking for among the first two results and they never needed to go further down the page."

Favorite job titles

2009-02-09T11:52:00.003Z

There are some job titles that I have always thought particularly attractive including

Supreme Allied Commander
Generalissimo
Master of the Universe
"Duncan Mcleod of the Clan McLeod"
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Grand Poo Bah

Any others come to mind?

Prof. Clemons follow up from Davos

2009-02-09T11:50:00.003Z

Following up to the link of the Davos Panel with Prof. Clemons from Wharton, he just posted his thoughts on TechCrunch.

Panel on mobile at Davos: Facebook mobile, LBS, video uploads

2009-02-03T15:27:00.006Z

Some interesting folks, Chad Hurley of YouTube, Zuckerberg, Craig Mundie, Shananu Narayen of Adobe, Hamid Akhvan VP at T-Mobile and my former professor at Wharton Eric Clemons got together to discuss mobile at Davos.

Techcrunch's Arrington moderated the panel and followed up with a post.

During the discussion Zuck mentioned 25M users of the apps (does not include browsing to x.facebook.com or facebook.com) a month... and Allfacebook posted that it was close to 4M a day with 1.6M from iPhone alone.

The real thumb culture: Obama's "special" Blackberry

2009-02-03T10:03:00.003Z

It's been dubbed the Obamaberry...Given his addiction to the machine we all know and love and that glitter of hope we get every time the little light goes red... as the leader of the Free World, Obama has convinced the secret service that he needs to keep his Blackberry.

And it seems that the new symbol of power in DC is not invitation to dinner and Camp David, but access to Obama's super secret new whitehouse email address (wouldn't it be obama@whitehouse.gov???)

And apparently, contrary to rumors, it is not a special WinCE device, the Sectera EDGE but rather an actual Blackberry.

Snowed under in London

2009-02-02T22:21:00.000Z

Mobile in Japan

2009-02-02T17:20:00.003Z

An interesting presentation by Christopher Billich on why the mobile web works in Japan...

My general take is that Japan is unique and gives us some lessons to emulate but what happens in Japan and stays in Japan...we cannot cut and paste to any other parts of the world!

Why People use the Mobile Web in Japan...and some Really Crazy Stuff

View more presentations from Christopher Billich. (tags: japan mobile)

Superbowl 2000 Ad

2009-01-31T11:09:00.003Z

9 years ago this weekend, surrounded by a massive winter storm, several thousand people made the trek to Fedex Field in Washington, DC to watch the Superbowl at a private party hosted by MicroStrategy

It also represented the unveiling of MicroStrategy's superbowl ad and the MicroStrategy pre-game show. Us, the Pets.com sock, lemurs... It came to be known as the dot-com super bowl. After searching for many year, I finally found that ad...A symbol to the "good-old days" of what could have been...of billions of dollars of "paper money" lost in a single day.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness" (Dickens)

People don't buy phones in bad economic times (duh)

2009-01-26T17:08:00.004Z

Filed under "obvious" Techcrunch reported that (Gasp!) mobile phone sales are down.

We have just surpassed 3 BILLION mobile subscribers, some countries have over 125% penetration (multiple phones per person) so yes there is a saturation issue. Add to that the replacement rate being affected by the economy (you don't go buy a new phone when you don't have a job) and the vocal statement by operators to reduce (ie make harder for you) the subsidized phones (marketing or customer retention expense for them, cheap way to get the latest gadget for you)..

Obama's speech

2009-01-21T22:11:00.005Z

Amazing technology coverage of the inauguration between CNN and Facebook, Google Earth, Twitter etc.

Since I was most inspired by his speech, however, I wanted to share the word cloud of Obama's first inaugural speech and point you to the word clouds for Clinton, Bush, Reagan and Lincoln.

Japan mobile ads and Location Based Services

2009-01-21T10:15:00.001Z

A great primer on the success of Mobile in Japan and opportunities in Location based ads from Cirius Technologies

Location-based Mobile Ad: A Lesson From Japan

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: lbs local)

Screenshots of Obama CNN livecast

2009-01-20T18:01:00.001Z

Some screenshots I took from the Obama livecast with the Facebook integration. Unlike others, I had zero problems watching it from London on a home broadband connection.

History of the Internet in 10 min

2009-01-19T22:00:00.002Z

Cute but super instructional 9 min video on the history of the internet...ARPAnet, TCP/IP and all that.

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

15 seconds to get a social game on the blog

2009-01-19T11:47:00.004Z

Awesome experience... 15 seconds flat for Heyzap to put a social game widget on this blog. Venturbeat had just covered them last week.

Apart from the cool idea of extending social games beyond social networks (and using ads to fund it) I was most impressed with the ease of use as a publisher. Sign in, define Blogger site, get code...automatically link to Blogger (Thank You!)and publish.

A nice rev share model would be welcome, but hey, in the meantime play some games and have some fun.

Robin Williams on Obama

2009-01-13T21:46:00.001Z

Absolutely hillarious... some love for GW Bush and some rara on B. H. Obama

Android rules...because of the apps

2009-01-06T11:28:00.004Z

I have been meaning to write my thoughts on my 2 months with the G1 but today's post in Gizmodo helps to summarize my thoughts.

Android is an amazing platform in its first try (as compared to some of the hiccups with Windows Mobile in its first and second iteration) but it still has some issues (not least of which is the ability to only associate it with one Google account).

I do love the ability to customize my "desktop" and make the experience my own and I do love the openess of the platform.

There are, however, a few things I dislike ...

Battery life: can't make it through 1/2 day with WiFi, email sync, MyLocation turned on. Miss the battery life of my BB.
Contacts: I live by my contact database. I have 1700+ contacts. I have finally let go of Outlook and posted all of them to the Google cloud to enable sync with the G1. When I start the Contact application it takes 10 SECONDS for my contacts to load, then I have to open the keyboard, then it takes another 10 seconds, then I can finally search for a contact.
There are a series of actions (lets say 5) that I do multiple times a day (call wife, sms wife, look up contact, turn off/on wifi, call boss). I don't want to click 3 times to do them.

The beauty of Android and its open platform is that each of my complaints below has been adressed by an independent developer and the application published to the Android Market.

The battery life issue is still an issue but Locale lets me make rules such as (if not at office turn off wifi) and Power Manager help me take control.

The contacts issue needs some serious fixing. I still think Windows Mobile is the best platform for a large contact database (Palm a close second) but in the meantime SpellDial allows me to quickly search for a contact without having to flip open the keyboard

The repetitive action issue is addressed by AnyCut with which I create one click shortcuts for each of my actions and place them on my destop.

This is the power of an open platform.... to foster innovation by making it open source, and thus making the user happy rather than (as closed platforms like RIM and Apple) hoping/praying that their developers will get around to it someday.

Loving Android...because of the Apps!

My life in gadgets 1995-2004

2009-01-05T15:32:00.006Z

As a way to get the year started right I figured I would do a recap of the last 14 years of my life ... in (memorable)mobile gadgets. Lets start with a some of the ones that come to mind between 1995 and 2004.

1996 Motorola Star Tac (TDMA) (courtesy of Mom)

1997 Palm Pilot (courtesy of 3COM/US Robotics)

1999 Neopoint (with WML 1.1 broswer!!) (before the company went under)

2000 Palm VIIx (with GPRS support... and ASK search preloaded)

2002 Compaq iPAQ with WiFi (Notice "Microsoft Mobile" branding)

2002 the first PocketPC with a mobile radio (called the 2020 by Orange in Europe)

2003 Motorola MPx200 (first Motorola Smartphone)

2004 MPx (never launched... the marketing campaign was going to be "Swings both ways").

2004 TMobile SDA Music the first "consumer-centric" Windows Mobile device (identical to the other HTC Smartphones launched...except for...wait for this... music control buttons! It was the first Smartphone I ever had that made it through a full day on a battery with heavy email use).

(need to go through my gadget box at home tonight to come up with some more...)

Doom and gloom drives action

2008-12-31T11:28:00.004Z

Remember the infamous Seqouia RIP slides... well it seems the company CEOs took it to heart. GigaOM has posted a table of layoffs by Sequoia-funded firms including 40 at Adbrite and 25 at Aliph (makers of the uber-cool Jawbone).

It totally makes sense to cut some fat and focus on the core business. Besides, these numbers pale in comparison to the Wall Street and City numbers (or the layoffs from 2001).

Techcruunch does one better and has a layoff tracker graph.

Pedro Aspe at Wharton

2008-12-30T14:09:00.001Z

An interesting speech from Pedro Aspe, former Mexican Finace Secretary during the last massive Mexican crisis, now Chairman of Evercore Partners speaking at Wharton.

He uses his experience and background in "financial messes" to eavluate the "mess" in the "neighbor of the North."

Ad market to grown (ONLY) 6%

2008-12-18T15:52:00.003Z

Doug Anmuth at Barclay's says that ad spend will grown 6%... That's 6% more than many would have expected.

PaidContent did a nice roundup of the forecasts with Nielsen seeing a 5.6% drop in first quarters of 2008.

EMarketer (anslyst of the analysts) forecasts 8.9% increase.

My assesment.... who the hell knows... With Ponzi schemes left and right, even Goldman doing layoffs and everyone being VERY cautious going into 2009, I would not bet my job on any growth percentage.

The new browser wars: FacebookConnect vs FriendConnect

2008-12-09T18:09:00.002Z

It's a year ending in 8... there are two technology titans standing in opposite corners of what is to become the stuff of tech legends... At stake is the underlying communications platform that will define the next evolution of the internet... It's not Netscape versus Microsoft... It's Facebook vs Google, Facebook Connect versus Friend Connect and the fight for the platform that will power the social graph and interconnectivity across sites, people and content.

CNET tips the current round to Facebook while the guys at AlFacebook keep tabs on the Facebook Connect implementations.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]">

Pains of entrepreneurship in Europe

2008-12-09T11:25:00.003Z

Martin Varsavsky, Argentine-Spanish-entrepreneur-excellence and the poster child for European founders just posted an insightful - but depressing - piece about the challenges facing entrepreneurs in Europe.

It focuses on cultural attitudes towards risk and failure

"USA has a lenient view of failure. Failure in America is not seen as a lifelong chronic disease but as a test of character. VCs in the States look for people who have had a combination of successes and failures as they are more prepared to deal with the tough realities of business life. In Europe however failure is seen as just that, failure, a stigma that stays with you for the rest of your life."

and the legal nightmares faces by founders (who become personally liable)
"In Europe going bankrupt is the same as firing all the employees and you as the founder, PERSONALLY owe the money that has to be paid to the employees for letting them go even if the business has done nothing wrong. "

Add to this the challenges of scaling a business across many countries and languages (incremental cost not faced by US start-ups) and legal issues of cross border transfers, capital repatriation, and "worker rights" (see french ability to manipulate this clause) and it does prove that building a globally-competitive start-up from Europe seems to have the cards stacked against the entrepreneur.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]">

Google Adwords supports iPhone and Android

2008-12-08T15:32:00.005Z

Today Google's mobile team announced the ability for all of our Adwords advertisers to target their desktop ads to high-end (Android and iPhone) devices.

There is a lot of speculation about how many advertisers Adwords has. The point, however, is that what is arguably the front end for the broadest online advertising platform now enables all of its advertisers to deliver appropriate ads (and deliver associated ROI).

I believe that one of the primary issues with mobile advertising has been the challenge of educating broad-based advertisers about how to discover the medium, create appropriate ads for the medium and track said ads' performance. That all goes away... Think about the implication of 10+ million iphones with Google ads and 30x the search usage of a typical device across many, many advertisers...

iPhone surpasses Windows Mobile

2008-12-04T18:27:00.003Z

Endgadget reports that iPhone has surpassed Windows Mobile sales.

Back in May, 2007 Ballmer stated "the future of the mobile handset business will primarily depend on software influence rather than hardware."

Android, RIM, Nokia open sourcing Symbian...I am not sure the world of dollars-a-pop mobile OSs supports Ballmers assessment.

Apple app store most downloaded apps

2008-12-02T21:16:00.003Z

Moconews reports that Apple released a list of the top iPhone app store apps... Happy to report that Lightsaber made it to the top. A great example of the self-selection of geeks who are actually buying and using the iPhone!

Nokia N97

2008-12-02T09:27:00.003Z

Earlier this week some Nokia exec told TechCrunch that the internet was not ready for what was about to be announced...

And then they came out with the N97 instead...

I think that the real announcement, however, is the definition of a new word. It seems there is humankind and now...mobilekind.

I love my finnish friends and their mul-ti-media com-pu-ters!

Mobile advertising piece in Venturebeat

2008-11-30T19:44:00.003Z

Venturebeat put together an interesting post on mobile advertising and the effects of the downturn.
Their point is that the iPhone is driving growth (as Admob, Google and other have touted publicly), and that advertisers are transitioning from "testing" the medium to actually planning spend against it.

Having interacted with dozens of agencies and advertisers over the past year, I continue to feel that mobile is seen as "experimental" for now, but with everyone eyeing iPhone, Android and other "true-web" phones to see how quickly they get a significant install base.

If you can have 100 million devices that leverage the technology (banner ads, tracking, analytics, targetting) of the web AND provide location based targetting and a deep personal attachment for users, then we have a compelling medium.

As always, I am very bullish on mobile and I am glad to see others begin to agree.

Google mobile app with voice

2008-11-21T14:25:00.002Z

In case you have been hiding under a technology rock you might not have noticed that this week Google launched an update to its Google Mobile App for the iPhone with voice support.

This is what Fortune said: "For tech bloggers, this was bigger than Obama."

To summarize what this is: Install app on your iPhone, click on nice blu Google logo, bring iPhone up to your ear, speak query, marvel as Google brings the result back to you.

What is happening behind the scenes: Using the accelerometer it determines that you are bringing the phone to your ear, and starts listening for your query. It takes your query (with some fairy dust to take into account the noise around you) and brings back results in the usual web-based format.

The media went mad on this. The NYT had a big article on it on Friday (before it launched) and bloggers picked it up

Google's iPhone app gets a voice: Yours
Google. iPhone. Voice search. Awesome. (If it works.)

As the application did not launch on the Apple store some even started speculating on some conspiracy:
Google Speech recognition app for iPhone delayed by Apple?
Even Google Gets Shafted By Apple's Ridiculous App-Approval Process

And then Monday, all was well as Apple made the app available and we posted our official post about the app along with a video by the Product Manager that built it, Mike LeBeau who is now world famous and has his own Facebook fan club:

Mobile browser test

2008-11-19T18:07:00.003Z

If you have heard anything from Google on mobile over the past year, it has probably centered on the importance of the browser (and unlimited data plans) in driving true mobile internet adoption.

Gizmodo just did a great test on the major Smartphone browsers side by side. In summary, the iPhone gets a not-undexpected A- with the Android G1 coming in second with a B+. Nokia rounds out the Webkit browsers with a B-. I was surprised by his B-/C+ for the BB Bold (no way!) but highly supportive of the big fat F for pocket Internet Explorer.

SGN ifun app - links mobile/social apps

2008-11-18T11:40:00.005Z

I am in tech geekdom heaven... I just installed and played with SGN's new application for the iPhone (iFun Golf). To the consumer, this simple iphone app allows you to use your iPhone much like a Wii controller to swing a golf club. The difference is that you are using your iphone to control a game on your PC screen.

On the backend, it's social network apps (SGN's) meets social paltforms (Facebook Connect) meets iPhone apps. Throw in a few ads (powered by Admob) and an ability to buy games and new courses (via Paypal from the device) and it's a VC's social network monetization dream!

Zynga just launched a phone version of its Live Poker game also connecting the iPhone user to players using the app via social networks.

Geekdom, web 2.0ish heaven indeed!

AA launches mobile boarding pass

2008-11-18T09:17:00.002Z

FINALLY... American Airlines is introducing mobile boarding passes

Mobile panel at Monaco Media Forum

2008-11-17T12:34:00.004Z

Last weekend at the Monaco Media Forum Rich Wong from Accel hosted a panel on mobile. Very interesting discussion on whether 2009 is the year of mobile (again). Same themes come out - iPhone, flat rate data plan.

Panelists: Alvin Wang Graylin, CEO, minfo;Omar Hamoui, CEO, AdMob; Alexandre Mars, CEO, Phonevalley and Head of Mobile, Publicis Groupe; Federico Pisani Massamormile,CEO, Hanzo; and Jon Medved, CEO, Vringo; Moderator: Rich Wong, Accel Partners.

Nikesh Arora also spoke at the event and served as co-chair.

Obama Mosaic

2008-11-14T14:22:00.002Z

An amazing mosaic of Obama made up by the covers of newspapers around the world following his election. Zoomable version here and high res version here

New facebook UI's impact on Apps

2008-11-12T09:26:00.002Z

Everyone, not least of all the Facebook app developers and the VCs that invest insane amounts of money into them, has been wondering the impact of the Facebook redesign on applications. Obviously finding and accessing apps has become a lot harder (in my view) but it seems facebook's core intent to increase usage, has been met. Stats by App from Developer Analytics below:

Facebook redesign impact on apps

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: platform developer)

Google Flu tool

2008-11-11T22:43:00.002Z

And a little something for Flu season...

A trends graph showing flu related searches as an indicator of the Flu, by state in the US

Flu Trends

What Obama did right

2008-11-11T22:39:00.003Z

An insightful blog post from The Atlantic on what Obama did right...

1. Practice what you preach. The preach: the neighborhood precinct captains are the linchpins of the ground effort. The practice: let them do the job. Staff didn't talk to voters. They were, in fact, two steps removed from voters. Responsibility was vested in tens of thousands of precinct captains and volunteer leaders; they identified volunteers, supervised canvasses, and reported back to field offices. The Obama campaign had ways of verifying the data that was come in, but in most cases it was accurate; the supervolunteers and precinct captains were empowered and incentivized to do their jobs, and they did them. (Note: the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign used this same model, as did the McCain-Palin '08 model, but the big difference was...)

2. Scale / Force Of Numbers: No matter how you measure this election, the Obama campaign was able to do so much because it had so much. What ifs abound. What if they were limited to the federal match? What if they weren't able to raise as much money? What if they didn't spend more than $150 million on field? Can this possibly be replicated? Can the Democrats ever again have hundreds of paid staff in states like Ohio weeks before election day? Can they ever find two million active volunteers?

3. Win Bigger / Lose Smaller. That was an Obama field mantra. The campaign opened up a field office in Warren Co., Ohio, where George W. Bush won by nearly 50 points in 2004. Well, Obama lost Warren County... but by 37 points. That's a big improvement. Losing by smaller margins in those smaller counties is how Barack Obama won Ohio. (His margin in Cuyahoga County: 243,000; Kerry's was 221,000...not a big enough difference.)

4. African Americans and the early vote. Problem: black voters habitually, historically distrusted in-person early voting. The solution: fix the problem. Contact black voters early and often about early voting. Spend money to habituate this demographic to early voting.

5. Finding new voters; this one's obvious, but the campaign spent its entire summer finding out who wasn't registered and registering them, and then compiling reams of data about these voters in order to figure out how to target them.

6. Technology (and Google): beyond the obvious, beyond MyBarackObama.com, it was the advances in technology that increased the efficiency of Democratic turnout efforts. For example: the campaign's VoteBuilder software had a turf-cutting tool. Look at a map. Draw a polygon around a neighborhood. And, boom: you could instantly print a "walk list" of voters. This year's version was based on Google Maps which made it infinitely easier to use than the previous versions...

7. Catalist. More on that in my next post, but this Democratic data consortium was a major behind-the-scenes force... UPDATE: Upon further review, I think the DNC's VoteBuilder program also deserves lots of credit, too. More later.

Mobile destinations

2008-11-07T10:22:00.004Z

Last May Opera has put out some data on where people are browsing to on their mobile phones. I came across it recently and feel the stats are still applicable and relevant as we think about what people are doing on their mobile phones. Opera publishes this State of the Mobile Web report on a monthly basis and its a quick read of what people are doing in different countries.

They state that 63% of US traffic is to social network sites... and that is evidenced from the list of the Top 10 sites below:

Top 10 sites in the U.S.

1. www.myspace.com
2. www.google.com
3. www.mocospace.com
4. www.yahoo.com
5. www.facebook.com
6. www.live.com
7. www.hi5.com
8. www.wikipedia.org
9. www.itsmy.com
10. www.ebay.com

Mary Meeker at Web 2.0 2008

2008-11-07T10:10:00.005Z

[Dying to post some thoughts about the election results... but it will have to wait...instead here is a video of Mary Meeker at the Web 2.0 Summit 2008]

Also here is the link to the PDF and a web version of the slides

I do wish she had spent as much time telling us all how over-hyped the market was LAST time she gave this presentation... As always, she continues to be bullish on Mobile with some interesting stats on Opera.

Great tool for election night

2008-11-04T20:58:00.001Z

Great little widget to track the election results state by state... What a historic night!

Watching Google watching world - Go Sumit!

2008-11-02T19:06:00.002Z

My Google mobile colleague and friend Sumit Agarwal seems to have brought down the house at a recent Informa event as evidenced by this post by David Wood, CTO of Symbian.

David's source of awe was both the content of Sumit's talk (summarized below) combined with his usual flair in demos (Steve Jobs has a long way to go!)

"Interspersed among the demos and the statistics, Sumit described elements of Google's underlying philosophy for success with mobile services:

"Ignore the limitations of today": don't allow your thinking to be constrained by the shortcomings of present-day devices and networks;
"Navigate to where the puck will be": have the confidence to prepare services that will flourish once the devices and networks improve;
"Arm users with the data to make decisions": instead of limiting what users are allowed to do on their devices, provide them with information about what various applications and services will do, and leave it to the users to decide whether they will install and use individual applications;
"Dare to delight" the user, rather than always seeking to ensure order and predictability at all times;
"Accept downside", when experiments occasionally go wrong."

A video of Sumit showing off his wares to Scoble on FastTV is below

Social media marketing examples

2008-10-29T15:29:00.002Z

In his blog, Peter Kim (ex Forrester analyst , ex Razorfish marketer) posts a great (and growing) list of how brands are usig online media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter) to extend their reach. Some of the examples were great for both the simplicity of the communication channel and the ability for community engagement.

Some of my favorite:

AMC's Mad Men. Microblogging: Fake Twitter accounts. [CHG: extend the life of your characters! brilliant]
BMW. Social networks: Facebook 1-Series Road Trip application. Rampenfest fan page.
Heinz. Online video: YouTube contest.
Motorola. Wikis: MOTO Q Wiki with how-tos on using the phone [CHG: because its so darn hard to use?]
United States House of Representatives. Microblogging: Twitter account. [CHG: really?]
Securities and Exchange Commission. Microblogging: Twitter account. [CHG: highly practical for hedge fund bankers to be alerter for upcoming regulation]
Virgin America. Microblogging: Twitter accounts for information and sales. [CHG: question is...any sales come out of this?]

Impact of new Facebook design on app usage

2008-10-27T09:57:00.003Z

There is enough emotional sentiment out there against the new Facebook UI with thousands signing petitions against it. From the business side of it, with Facebook app developers like SGN, Zynga, Playfish and others receiving millions from VCs, there has been some concern that the new UI will lower adoption and use of the apps (and eventual/possible/hypothetical monetization).

The guys at All Facebook have gone out and crunched numbers to determine the impact. Their full analysis posted here. The most alarming metric: "The average monthly active users for the top 1500 applications has dropped 15.6 percent from its peak toward the end of September."

At FOWA London, Mark Zuckerber, addressed the platform, the new UI and the impact on the apps ecosystem. His general comment was that applications that relied on long term engagement and sharing have grown while the ones that relied on a box in the profile will have seen a drop. (Also interesting comments on monetization and mobile and location).

Saul Klein of Index on European startups

2008-10-26T23:09:00.002Z

Saul Klein, Index Venture Partner, Seedcamp founder and Skype lucky-dog exiter, did a presentation on European startups and VC in Berlin last week. Fred Wilson posted it on his blog.

Some interesting insights around

- Three of top $1B+ markets for VC now in Europe
- Some pretty famous (and wealthy) firms were started in downturns (Apple, Microsoft, Skype, MySQL)
- Bootstrap as much as you can
- Use free resources (Gears, App Engine, Seedcamp)

Thoughts on European Start Ups

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: startups vc)

European VC (and European startups) still face several challenges around the cost to expand (localization, infrastructure, feet on the ground) across the region, the return from VCs (and therefore the funds flowing into it), and the public markets. That being said... Seedcamp and Saul's efforts are some of the best efforts going on to build up the next Skype.

The World of Marvel explained

2008-10-24T13:45:00.004+01:00

File this one under geeky, yet cool.

Mucking around with Marvel site I came across the Marvel Universe Connections app which blends years or Marvel character intertwinings with Web technology to finally explain the connection between Thor and Wolverine... (they were both part of the Avengers although apparently its not really Thor but rather the body of Thor with the soul of a mortal...). Anyways... hours of procrastination await on this site..

G1 launches, the Market business model, and hour-long lines in SF

2008-10-23T15:44:00.004+01:00

I don't think Andy Rubin and team had this in mind when they chose the date, but the T-Mobile G1 launch yesterday coincided with my birthday (wohoo!)

And so the day is finally here: The first Android device is out in the wild (aparently some folks who pre-ordered got it 2 days early). I have pasted some reviews at the bottom of the post.

Apparently the scene at the SF T-Mobile store was electric as people waited in line and had entertainment in tow.

In parallel news, Google announced the commercial model for the Market... fully open, Google gets none of the revenue, and the users vote for the best apps with their thumbs!

Review of the G1.
Gizmodo
Engadget
TechCrunch
Giga Om
Washington Post
Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal

Admob raises $15.7M from Sequoia and Accel

2008-10-22T14:08:00.004+01:00

Talk about a strong statement... A few weeks after Sequoia told its CEOs to buckle up for a tough ride, it turns around and invests $15.7M along with Accel in Admob. This raises Admob's total funding to $34.3 million...

And in all the excitement, they let it be known that they have turned cash-positive and are serving over 5B ads... How is that for a nice middle finger to the doom sayers!

I must admit I love what Admob is doing and how they are doing it. Their mobile metrics provides great insight into the growing trends in mobile advertising (even if it is very skewed towards the US and some emerging markets) and Omar Hamoui (CEO), Russell Buckley (MD Europe) and the team are ever-present in the mobile ecosystem (disclosure: I serve with Russell on the Board of the Mobile Marketing Association).

In any case, a great piece of news in this otherwise dire market...

Android now Open Source

2008-10-21T16:41:00.002+01:00

Android is now open sourced as promised...

This is huge. The concept of an end to end mobile OS stack, run time engine, Webkit browser, etc ALL open sourced.

For those not in the industry, what this means is that hopefully the Android effort and investments will enable handset makers to leapfrog into a best-of-breed high end mobile OS FOR FREE (as compared to paying Nokia or Microsoft on a per-license basis). Lets hope that savings is reinvested into innovation on top of the platform.

A video outlining the launch of the Open Source code is below:

Social networks global reach

2008-10-21T16:25:00.003+01:00

Oxyweb has a graph and post on social networks and reach. MySpace still leads in the US and local players (Skyrock in France, VKontakte in Russia, Orkut in Brazil and India :) their local positions.

Social times also had a post on this.

VC investments down [Shocker!]

2008-10-20T10:33:00.004+01:00

The PWC MoneyTree Q2 report has come out and shows a slowing down in VC investments. With a 16% QoQ drop.Techcrunch's post on the subject highlights that the $7.1 BILLION might be the first quarter of decline in investments since the dot-com implosion.

And so... Wall Street hit Main Street and has now hit Sand Hill Street. My assumption is a few quarters of slowed down investments with a lot of the $$ going to "inside rounds" leading to an upswing in 2-3 quarters as new valuations drop and " scarcity builds clarity."

Paul Graham's email: Go ahead, start up that startup

2008-10-17T15:24:00.003+01:00

Image via CrunchBasePaul Graham, of Y Combinator, just posted on his blog a message that goes against the negative theme of the Sequoia/ Ron Conway emails and presentations.

Titled "Why to Start a Starup in a Bad Economy" and the main point is that "[an] advantage of bad times is that there's less competition." and a great time to find opportunity while being scrappy!

October 2008

The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as the mid seventies.

When Microsoft and Apple were founded.

As those examples suggest, a recession may not be such a bad time to start a startup. I'm not claiming it's a particularly good time either. The truth is more boring: the state of the economy doesn't matter much either way.

If we've learned one thing from funding so many startups, it's that they succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a predictor of success it's rounding error compared to the founders.

Which means that what matters is who you are, not when you do it. If you're the right sort of person, you'll win even in a bad economy. And if you're not, a good economy won't save you. Someone who thinks "I better not start a startup now, because the economy is so bad" is making the same mistake as the people who thought during the Bubble "all I have to do is start a startup, and I'll be rich."

So if you want to improve your chances, you should think far more about who you can recruit as a cofounder than the state of the economy. And if you're worried about threats to the survival of your company, don't look for them in the news. Look in the mirror.

But for any given team of founders, would it not pay to wait till the economy is better before taking the leap? If you're starting a restaurant, maybe, but not if you're working on technology. Technology progresses more or less independently of the stock market. So for any given idea, the payoff for acting fast in a bad economy will be higher than for waiting. Microsoft's first product was a Basic interpreter for the Altair. That was exactly what the world needed in 1975, but if Gates and Allen had decided to wait a few years, it would have been too late.

Of course, the idea you have now won't be the last you have. There are always new ideas. But if you have a specific idea you want to act on, act now.

That doesn't mean you can ignore the economy. Both customers and investors will be feeling pinched. It's not necessarily a problem if customers feel pinched: you may even be able to benefit from it, by making things that save money. Startups often make things cheaper, so in that respect they're better positioned to prosper in a recession than big companies.

Investors are more of a problem. Startups generally need to raise some amount of external funding, and investors tend to be less willing to invest in bad times. They shouldn't be. Everyone knows you're supposed to buy when times are bad and sell when times are good. But of course what makes investing so counterintuitive is that in equity markets, good times are defined as everyone thinking it's time to buy. You have to be a contrarian to be correct, and by definition only a minority of investors can be.

So just as investors in 1999 were tripping over one another trying to buy into lousy startups, investors in 2009 will presumably be reluctant to invest even in good ones.

You'll have to adapt to this. But that's nothing new: startups always have to adapt to the whims of investors. Ask any founder in any economy if they'd describe investors as fickle, and watch the face they make. Last year you had to be prepared to explain how your startup was viral. Next year you'll have to explain how it's recession-proof.

(Those are both good things to be. The mistake investors make is not the criteria they use but that they always tend to focus on one to the exclusion of the rest.)

Fortunately the way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible. For years I've been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. The cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill. Fortunately it has gotten very cheap to run a startup, and a recession will if anything make it cheaper still.

If nuclear winter really is here, it may be safer to be a cockroach even than to keep your job. Customers may drop off individually if they can no longer afford you, but you're not going to lose them all at once; markets don't "reduce headcount."

What if you quit your job to start a startup that fails, and you can't find another? That could be a problem if you work in sales or marketing. In those fields it can take months to find a new job in a bad economy. But hackers seem to be more liquid. Good hackers can always get some kind of job. It might not be your dream job, but you're not going to starve.

Another advantage of bad times is that there's less competition. Technology trains leave the station at regular intervals. If everyone else is cowering in a corner, you may have a whole car to yourself.

You're an investor too. As a founder, you're buying stock with work: the reason Larry and Sergey are so rich is not so much that they've done work worth tens of billions of dollars, but that they were the first investors in Google. And like any investor you should buy when times are bad.

Were you nodding in agreement, thinking "stupid investors" a few paragraphs ago when I was talking about how investors are reluctant to put money into startups in bad markets, even though that's the time they should rationally be most willing to buy? Well, founders aren't much better. When times get bad, hackers go to grad school. And no doubt that will happen this time too. In fact, what makes the preceding paragraph true is that most readers won't believe it—at least to the extent of acting on it.

So maybe a recession is a good time to start a startup. It's hard to say whether advantages like lack of competition outweigh disadvantages like reluctant investors. But it doesn't matter much either way. It's the people that matter. And for a given set of people working on a given technology, the time to act is always now.

Mobclix and iPhone apps

2008-10-17T14:21:00.005+01:00

I came across Mobclix a month ago. They had just succesfuly presented at TechCrunch50 and were selected as finalists for Seedcamp as well

A good idea with brilliant timing, their service enables data analytics for iPhone (and eventually other platforms) applications.

Given that Apple provides such limited information to developers (and the industry in general) their dashboards are like gold. Borrowing from Admob's playbook they are becoming *the* source for insight into Apple apps.

9to5mac has a post on Mobclix as well outlinging the distribution of apps by category:

Games: 1,027 (31.4%)
Utilities: 476 (13.5%)
Entertainment: 407 (12.4%)
Productivity: 240 (7.3%)
Education: 213 (6.5%)
Books: 202 (6.2%)
Reference: 191 (5.8%)
Travel: 184 (5.6%)
Healthcare + Fitness: 176 (5.4%)
Lifestyle: 158 (4.8%)

I think these guys might be onto something... its no longer enough to know the install base of Symbian vs WinMo vs J2ME enabled handsets... its about the use that each platform will drive.

The Queen at Google

2008-10-16T12:13:00.003+01:00

The Queen (as in Elizabeth II of England) came to Google UK today. Apparently she had asked to come visit our offices to find out more about "The Google."

There was a big buzz in the office as her double stretch Bentley pulled up - apparently walking from her place to the office was too much:

View Larger Map

She walked around the office and Prince Phillip was obviously more engaged with the gadgetry than Her Highness. He stopped at several desks, walked into a conference room and interrupted a Video Conference call.

Pictures of the event from the Guardian here.

And a news report on the visit from the Telegraph

Value of the pipe (not the oil one, the data one)

2008-10-15T17:55:00.003+01:00

Facinating notion from an Editorial from last July in the New York Times.

"AMERICANS today spend almost as much on bandwidth — the capacity to move information — as we do on energy. A family of four likely spends several hundred dollars a month on cellphones, cable television and Internet connections, which is about what we spend on gas and heating oil.

Just as the industrial revolution depended on oil and other energy sources, the information revolution is fueled by bandwidth. If we aren’t careful, we’re going to repeat the history of the oil industry by creating a bandwidth cartel."

I agree with the dependence of my modern life on connectivity and the annoyance/fear when I loose that connectivity (damn you Tiscali!)

The ironic part is that free bandwidth being freed up in the transition from our analog TV and radio world of the 1950s to the IP based digital world of today... and yet we are not allowed to tap into it -or at least not freely, something that Larry Page seems to feel passionate about.

Bullish: Tonchidot gets me excited

2008-10-09T20:51:00.004+01:00

Despite the doom and gloom of my previous post, I am still amazingly bullish on the potential of mobile.

Tochnidot, a TechCrunch50 finalist, made me smile... THIS is the stuff that gets me excited about the mobile space, about the mobile potential, about what I have been preaching for close to 10 years... Brilliant! As the "pundits" say..this is what we have been dreaming of for years.

Ron Conway's email

2008-10-09T10:43:00.006+01:00

Techcrunch just posted an email from Ron Conway to his portfolio companies with some advice about the economic pressures (read: Wall Street implosion). I am pasting the email below, the full post is here. Aparently Sequoia also called a meeting of its portfolio CEOs.

UPDATE: The slides from the Sequoia CEO meeting are posted here. "R.I.P Good times" seems to be the theme.

——— Forwarded message ———-
From: Ron Conway
Date: Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 12:12 PM
Subject: IMPORTANT PLEASE READ ASAP …..REGARDING CURRENT MARKET CONDITIONS…Confidential

We have all been absorbed by the turmoil in the financial markets the past few weeks

Unlike the turmoil of 2000 when the “action” was centered right here in Silicon Valley this time is it centered on Wall Street…..but it has rippled to the west coast quickly and we will not be “immune” to its drastic effects.

I was an active investor in 2000 when the “bubble burst” and remember it vividly and want to give you the SAME EXACT advice I gave to my portfolio company CEOs back then.

I have pasted in the emails I sent on April 17th 2000 and May 10th 2000 and every word applies today.

Unfortunately history DOES repeat itself but I hope we can learn from history and prevent the turmoil from occurring again.

The message is simple. Raising capital will be much more difficult now.

You should lower your “burn rate” to raise at least 3-6 months or more of funding via cost reductions, even if it means staff reductions and reduced marketing and G&A expenses. This is the equivalent to “raising an internal round” through cost reductions to buy you more time until you need to raise money again; hopefully when fund raising is more feasible. Letting go of staff is hard and often gut wrenching. A re-evaluation of timelines and re-focus on milestones with the eye of doing more with less will allow you to live many more days, and the name of the game in this environment in some
respects is survival–survival until conditions change.

If you are in a funding cycle, you should raise your funding as soon as possible and raise as much as possible but face the fact that if you can’t raise money now you must cut costs.

While I do not own a large percentage of your company I hope you will consider this thoughtful advice.

I was here in 2000 and want to share what I learned through many years of experience and historical “pattern recognition”!

Here are the two emails from the year 2000 that I referred to above and all the statements apply in today’s market:

To: Angel Investors, L.P. Portfolio CEOs
Date: 04/17/2000 05:24 PM
From: Ron Conway
RE: Market Conditions Effect on Angel Investors, L.P. Portfolio
Companies

The down draft in the stock market sends us some obvious “signals” and we can’t help but mention them.

1. If you are in a funding cycle, you should raise your funding as soon as possible and raise as much as possible.

2. Many companies are ignoring certain VC leads we’ve provided in order to concentrate on the top tier only. While we have preached that in the past, this is no longer the case. Currently, top-tier VC
bandwidth constraints, coupled with the market down draft, make it very important to take meetings with any VCs where you can get their attention. We have been working hard to open up this new bandwidth.

3. You must aggressively examine and pursue M&A opportunities (unless you have over 12 months of cash reserves!) ro insure you have critical mass (including funding, customers, rolodex power, market
share, cash, synergy, etc.).

4. Be realistic on valuations - they will fall so be ready and willing to co-operate.

5. Look for corporate partners to invest so you can raise more money. You should also consider a sale of your company to your corporate partners.

6. If you are entering a funding cycle start raising money sooner rather than later.

7. While it’s safe to say entrepreneurs have had negotiating leverage with the “down draft” in the market, the VC community will start exercising their leverage.
—————————————————————————-
—————————————-

To: Angel Investors, L.P. Portfolio CEOs
Date: 05/10/2000 05:23 PM
From: Ron Conway
RE: Market Conditions Effect on Angel Investors, L.P. Portfolio
Companies

I want to “touch base” again; given the continued uncertainty in the capital markets.

As the market turmoil continues, we must underscore the advice that we have provided since mid April and it boils down to just a few points:

1) The capital market window is shut, including IPOs and VC Funding (VCs are looking at their existing portfolio funding needs - not new opportunities). Basically the market is now looking for PtoP (Path to Profitability) instead of BtoC, BtoB, etc! PtoE will prevail price to sales ratios! You must lower your “burn rate” to raise at least 3-6 months more of funding via cost reductions, even if it means selective staff reductions and reduced marketing and G&A expenses. This is the equivalent to ‘raising
an internal round” through cost reductions to buy you more time until you need to raise money again; hopefully when fund raising is more feasible.

2) If you have $10M or less in the bank you must do #1 above plus look at M&A options for your company; especially if your company is BtoC, content, advertising model, community, commerce, and even BtoB. An M&A transaction will allow you to gain critical mass and to get two sets of funding sources and rolodexes working on your behalf. M&A transactions take over 90 days so you need at least that much cash to fund your company. You must attend our M&A day on May 24th at the San Mateo Marriott at 3:00 PM. We will have investment banks there in addition to entrepreneurs who have
successfully accomplished M&A transactions. We will send you details.

We are still developing many new funding sources for our portfolio companies that are in funding cycle.

Digg Labs

2008-10-07T17:05:00.003+01:00

Digg has a visual representation of its data in its Digg Labs

As a story begins to attract Digg users, the Labs interface reflects the popularity of the story as a stack graph a swarm
or other display formats.

I find the display of digital data in graphical formats fascinating. One or my favorite is the Dopplr's Raumzeitgeist which maps Dopplr member's stated travel to world cities.

Bulletproof designer threads

2008-10-06T17:37:00.003+01:00

Technology (and security) meets fashion. Miguel Caballero, a Colombian designer now sells designer vests and jackets at Harrod's. They call him the Armani of Armour.

Ironically, guns are illegal in the UK so I am assuming the Harrod's sale are for the "export market."

Indian Yoga Ad pimps Chrome

2008-10-06T10:10:00.003+01:00

Hilarious advertising campaign for a Yoga center in India via this post

Hands on with the TMobile G1

2008-10-03T16:18:00.003+01:00

I finally got to play with the final UI of the TMobile G1 Android device over the last few days and I must admit I was impressed. Understand that my comment carries some Google bias, but more importantly strong skepticism having launched v1 mobile OSs before (ahem Motorola MPx200) and my recent frustration with the iPhone.

Here are some of the things I like the most:

Search: A lot of the features that we have implemented on the web including suggest and history make typing queries A LOT easier (the keyboard also helps. Video of the search features below:

The Android Market: Easy to browse, easy to find cool apps based on feedback, and a large number of FREE apps!

CUT AND PASTE!!! (enough said)

Mobile QR codes try to go mainstream

2008-09-29T09:11:00.003+01:00

I was surprised to find a full page Ralph Lauren ad in Esquire magazine with 10% of the creative being taken up by a QR code and instructions on how to use it...

I was surprised that RL would spend so much money on a technology that has had difficulties being adopted outside of Japan, but apparently they're quite bullish on it with a landing page around the campaign.

Given the phobia with US consumers around anything but the simplest SMS and voice call interaction with their phones I am skeptical. TrendWatch has a post on the pain.

Polo's QR Codes suck!

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: user poor)

Android G1 launched

2008-09-23T18:36:00.003+01:00

Wow, the day is finally here. The worst-kept secret in the mobilesphere became true and T-Mobile, Google and HTC announced the first Android phone, the G1.

Walt Mossberg had already posted some initial thoughts on the G1.

Huge Kudos to Andy and the rest of the Android team who started with a big vision to use an OS as a way to make mobile handsets more open and more web-friendly. Several years and a lot of work later, the G1 is the first incarnation of these efforts.

The first device will be available in the US for $179 starting in October with a planned launch in the UK in November and the rest of Europe soon after.

Zemanta and Seedcamp 2008

2008-09-18T15:50:00.001+01:00

I participated in the 2008 Seedcamp as a mentor. A great event to interact with new and innovative start-ups across Europe.

Last year's winner was Zemanta a Slovenian semantic search company that enabled the amazingly quick editing and addition of links and content onto blog posts.

Following on last year's success as the winner of Seedcamp they just received funding from Union Square Ventures, a VC with a variety of blogging-related investments.

Thumb Culture: Kicking it off

2008-09-17T16:17:00.000+01:00

I have been using my family blog to post geeky findings, notes on cool technology and stuff that relates more to my "techie geek" self rather than my family life. I have therefore decided to launch a separate blog in which I can expand on these subjects without embarrassing my wife or son.

The title of the Blog comes from Thumb Culture a book by Peter Glotz on the impact of mobile technology in society, which appropriately covers the subjects I expect to touch on on this Blog.

As to the author: I am currently the head of Mobile and Distribution Partnerships at Google, based in London. More info on my LinkedIn profile. I have spent the last ten years working in technology, primarily on mobile across the enterprise and consumer space.

Obligatory disclaimer: The information I post on this blog are my personal thoughts and do not reflect the official views of my employer.