is it a feature or a business?

May 24th, 2012 § Comments Off on is it a feature or a business? § permalink

YouTube business model canvas sketch by Alexan...

YouTube business model canvas sketch by Alexander Osterwalder (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

this article hits on a very important distinction but their point so short-sighted:

The new business reality: a feature as a business model

It’s almost comical to say there is a new business reality at play. This is because there are so many forces at work lately, that it seems as though new realities are created and killed almost every quarter. Opportunistic turbulence is probably the best term for it. I’d like to call one out for review Features can be business models.

via: www.cruc.es

‘feature’ is just a different way of calling the product’, or maybe, a ‘small product’. but to make it a business, you have to build the business infrastructure around the ‘feature’ – user acquisition, sales, financial controlling, hr, etc…

the only thing that changes is, that you can start with a ‘feature’ and build the rest later. but you better be prepared to do that, or you’ll miss your opportunity.

 

putting instagram into perspective

May 19th, 2012 § Comments Off on putting instagram into perspective § permalink

it’s always wise to check and keep in mind data from the wider field, not just the outlier. everyone fascinated by instagram and facebook should know all these other acquisitions by heart before talking about ‘the bubble’:

Instagram’s Buyout: How Does It Measure Up?

Instagram’s billion-dollar sale to Facebook raised eyebrows yesterday, renewing cries of a new bubble. But relative to other major acquisitions of the past, how does it measure up? I crunched the numbers, pulling together data from a selection of 30 notable internet acquisitions over the last ten years, from Broadcast.

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via: waxy.org

Everything you need to know about digital marketing for your business

May 18th, 2012 § Comments Off on Everything you need to know about digital marketing for your business § permalink

Dashboard 1

Dashboard 1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lot’s of entrepreneurs are struggling with marketing these days. in fact, I hear that marketing and user acquisition is the single largest bottleneck for new startups.

This is truly remarkable step-by-step how-to guide for kickstarting your online marketing. understanding this is bare minimum that every person should know and understand. if you hire a consultant, make sure you know all this, so that you can asses if (s)he knows more.

Starting

If I were a business person looking to understand how to use various digital channel making tools to build up my business, where would I start? What’s the right mix of tools to make this all make sense and work?

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via: www.chrisbrogan.com

Union Square Ventures adds technology ‘advocate’ to its payroll – how about other experts?

May 8th, 2012 § Comments Off on Union Square Ventures adds technology ‘advocate’ to its payroll – how about other experts? § permalink

"WE ARE SAVING THROUGH PAYROLL SAVINGS&qu...

“WE ARE SAVING THROUGH PAYROLL SAVINGS” – NARA – 516067 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Great and important move, that USV probably decided to do because it has to be done right and there is nobody else who would take it on themselves.

Union Square Ventures adds technology ‘advocate’ to its payroll

It’s an established fact that technology and politics are increasingly finding themselves at loggerheads with one another, as issues of privacy, piracy, and copyright, not to mention net neutrality and media consolidation cut a larger profile on the national stage.

via: thenextweb.com

I was actually thinking recently that a different kind of activity would make sense for early stage VC – provide experts in residence for their startups, for instance: cutting edge virality ninjas, scalability/big data experts, startups finance expert… these guys should be seasoned, amazing, unaffordable by a normal startup, but if shared amongst a portfolio, they could really make a huge difference.

not gonna fly: hyperink, ebooks from everyone

May 2nd, 2012 § Comments Off on not gonna fly: hyperink, ebooks from everyone § permalink

i like books, i like blogs, i like long tail models, but i don’t think this will work:

With the “Blog To Books” program, Hyperink assigns a staff editor to curate a blogger’s posts, structure them into a narrative format, and then create a book in PDF, epub, and mobi formats.

from: Techcrunch

it’s not the amount of work really, but the available supply and demand – there is not much of either:

  • i’d guess there is less than 20k blogs that will ever want to create a sellable ebook
  • i’d guess that each of them will sell 50 ebooks, mainly as gifts for their friends

it saddens me when investors and media pump up the expectations of otherwise interesting startup teams. sure you can argue that if the team is right, they will pivot from this idea anyway. but in b3c marketplace businesses like this, it usually takes a lot of energy to get enough disproof that you can actually decide to pivot.

meh.

ComScore: Value And CPMs Are Out Of Whack

April 12th, 2012 § Comments Off on ComScore: Value And CPMs Are Out Of Whack § permalink

Onomatopia "Whack" hitting ball. Cre...

Onomatopia "Whack" hitting ball. Created in Adobe Illustrator by Jeremy Kemp, 2/24/05 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

the wild wild web is not a romantic place, it’s just senseless, and here’s another proof:

ComScore: Value And CPMs Are Out Of Whack

Not only are an average of 31% of display ads never even seen , but there’s little to no correlation between the CPMs sites are charging and the value they’re delivering to the advertisers – where value is defined as ads being viewed and delivered to the primary demographic target.

via: marketingland.com

as a geek i’m sad that in a world driven entirely by data and algorithms, well on the way to the promised land of perfection and frictionless and justice, such stories are a normality, rather than anomaly.

meh.

time for “Push PR”

April 7th, 2012 § Comments Off on time for “Push PR” § permalink

An Empire of Silly Statistics…A Fake War for P...

An Empire of Silly Statistics…A Fake War for Public Relations (Photo credit: Marquette University)

Ernest is entirely right – PR companies just don’t get the fact, that we don’t care what they think should interest us – that’s what it means being ‘independent’:

www.ernestbarbaric.com

How PR fails at Blogger OutreachMarch 29, 2012

At some point in the last year or so, someone pegged me as an influential blogger… and then it started. A constant and never-ceasing stream of daily e-mails from various PR companies mindlessly clogging up my inbox.

It does not, however, mean that PR is dead – there clearly is a need for ‘public relations’. the need is actually much larger than it ever was, on both sides – corporate communications as much as on the receiving end – bloggers have to be current and informed, just like journalists had to be.
I believe the solution is in making PR more pushy.
As a writer, I expect the right content to come to me, I don’t want to seek it out. In that sense, I expect it to be pushy, but also highly targeted and personalized. Just like it used to be, back in the days when there was roughly as much PR professionals as there were journalists, and the two crowds well managed eachother.
as the new media grew, keeping up with targeting became impossible, and now they rely on ‘curated’ lists of thousands of bloggers, they never really looked at. I believe that’s where we at Zemanta make a huge difference – I often link PR messages from my posts, because they are recommended to me exactly when I’m writing about the topics they adress, so they actually provide value to me – I would never go look for them otherwise.
Pushy is not spammy, if done right. But there is no way you can do PR right without help from algorithms these days.

First printed book was the not most important one

April 4th, 2012 § 1 comment § permalink

I’m reading Guttenberg the Geek, fantastic essay / biography by Jeff Jarvis, focusing on entrepreneurial aspects of famous inventor.

Several topics here are super interesting, like similarities between inventors, geeks, entrepreneurs, and what it means for the future of mankind.

Guttenberg Bible

Guttenberg Bible (Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik)

However, one is not so obvious, but it might be inspiring for new generations of entrepreneurs around the web – Guttenberg spent a lot of time, energy and risk in building out the typeset and printing the first book.

The situation was much harder than anything today – he could not know if he will even survive the project, but let’s still compare this risk and emotional investment with today’s entrepreneurs – geeks between 20 and 30, who choose the uncertain but shiny path of building their business.

The project you are working on, should compensate for the conditions of extreme uncertainty. Compensate by reward and/or importance for yourself, human kind, the planet.

The product you will be judged upon should encapsulate the shiny core of the promise, of the better world. That’s why Guttenberg wouldn’t stop until he fulfilled his mission and printed the Bible – there were several smaller projects before it, to perfect the technique, but nobody really talks about them these days.

He was able to change the world because he endured on his journey until he could crown the disruptive technology, with a really memorable crown. Respect.

SeedTable – finally a decent overview of startups

April 1st, 2012 § Comments Off on SeedTable – finally a decent overview of startups § permalink

I love projects that make large datasets usable. This one took way to long to be done, but finally – now we can stop wasting clicks and get an executive summary of our city’s startups. 🙂

Also, I will take this opportunity to invite you all for a sneak peek at East Start Map – please let me know what we’re missing.

SeedTable Is A Stunning New Way To Interrogate CrunchBase – And Find Investors

I have a love/hate relationship with CrunchBase. On the one hand it has great information about startup tech companies. On the other hand, it relies on a wiki-like structure which means it is sometime not updated as frequently or as accurately as old-style databases which used to employ people go over the data regularly.

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via: techcrunch.com

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Is Social Media Strategy Required or Redundant?

March 26th, 2012 § Comments Off on Is Social Media Strategy Required or Redundant? § permalink

Funny argument going on here:

Is Social Media Strategy Required or Redundant?

I don’t have a problem with Guy Kawasaki. I enjoy his books. His track record in business is substantial. We have friends in common. But on the subject of social media strategy, we disagree in every possible way. Last month, Guy was interviewed (that happens a lot) in Inc.

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via: www.convinceandconvert.com

I think ‘strategy’ here actually means “I am serious about my content marketing“, and nothing else. And yes, more people should accept that they have to be serious about their content, as it is the only thing that represents them out there these days.

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