A recent post in BusinessInsider highlights that Facebook is experimenting with a payments platform as a way to further spur commerce happening on Facebook. Here's the post
I think there's a huge and untapped business opportunity that has yet to be mined around the transactional side of the internet. For example, in 2009, less than 5% of all retail sales were online. AMZN, with its $22B in Revenue and $50B market cap pales in comparison to Walmart's $404B revenues and 210B market cap. So, Walmart's monthly revenue is double that of Amazon's yearly gross. Think about it.
I don't think the relative lack of online commerce penetration is due to consumers/businesses hesitant to complete transactions over the internet; Paypal's total payment volume in '08 was $60B, but instead, we ought to look at:
1. A poor shopping experience, modeled after the days when consumers were narrow band connected. We ought to give consumers more of a brick and mortar shopping experience, but where a crowd is a positive instead of a negative. Scott Stone, the founder of a new commerce company (which I am backing) calls for an end to the 'buy then bye' commerce experience
2. Stored value cards are slicing through the demographic mosaic with teens and now Tweens. Amazon's innovative PayPhrase program facilitates parents setting up an online allowance for their children. Better to have a stored value, where parents have the ability to monitor disbursements, than to hand over cash for a trip to the mall.
3. Returns- Pioneered by Zappos (and again Amazon) whereby returning goods purchased through the site, or via an affiliate is as easy as eating pie.
4. Trust- Returns and payments are only part of it. Security is the big elephant in the room. My personal data, credit card information, and purchasing history is safe with you. I will never hear of someone stealing a laptop from the IT manager of a site I visit, which happened to have my data on it.
5. One size does not fit all. My kids moved from Club Penguin, to Stardoll, to MissBimbo. A natural progression that was optimized for the demographic each step along the way. All they want to do is have some fun...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
People
The folks at Business Insider posted an interesting Netflix presentation on why they are so focused on hiring, and retaining "A" players.
Too often we have to plead guilty of settling for good enough as various pressures reach cause the kettle to boil. Not all companies are built for this type of culture, and not all practice what they preach. Nevertheless, it's a provocative read, both the article and the presentation.
Too often we have to plead guilty of settling for good enough as various pressures reach cause the kettle to boil. Not all companies are built for this type of culture, and not all practice what they preach. Nevertheless, it's a provocative read, both the article and the presentation.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Looking forward by scanning back
I've been reading many of the 2010 prediction lists. So many folk have done such a great job thinking about the future of the web/IT, I thought it would be interesting to list the web/IT oriented things that I have done recently that were not in place for me 12 months ago.
1. Signed onto PC using Chrome browser...faster than Firefox, but crashes Gmail more often. Can't wait for HTML5 for the next generation browser experience and saying goodbye to another layer of installed software as the browser sucks away more market from the software domain (as MSFT did in the 90's).
2. Sifted through 27 overnight e-mails. The majority were social oriented (Twitter following, FB friend requests, LinkedIn stuff). Amazing how quiet the house is with the shift from phones to texting/social. Thinking about how noisy offices were in the 90's (remember the noise containing containers on printers) and how the Enterprise is going to embrace many of the social tools with a vengeance that will bring a smile to long suffering shareholders.
3. New FB Friendfeeds this AM were 2x the e-mails received....and the gap is growing by the week
4. Looked at Tweetdeck, where the number of new Tweets from people I follow were 2x the FB feeds...got to filter these better. Craig Newmark...too many squirrel photos and bird posts!!!!
5. Scanned my 3G BBerry for BBM's and Chats (4 overnight). A device optimized for an aging metaphor (mail)
6. Took the wife's 3G iPod and spent an hour catching up with Meebo, YourVersion, Twitter, FB and chess with nephew (who wants a piece of me). No doubt there is a big role for a big screen Touch like device in my life (iSlate?)
7. Using TVersity to stream web content to the big TV (installed N router with a Wifi enabled LG BlueRay player)
8. Scrolled through GoogleLabs, now 5 pages long (including 1 1/2 pages of graduates) to see what could complement my move to GOOG apps for '10. GOOG is an innovation machine; too bad MSFT is in maintenance mode...the IBM of 201x
9. Interrupted my daughter's Hulu watching to do homework (no TV in her room, and doesn't ask for one)
10 For the first time, mailed driving directions to an inanimate object (my car)
11. Forwarded a Skype call via GoogleVoice.
12. Ordered another book on my Kindle; can't wait for it to evolve to a more open platform as it follows the rest of 'Amazon as a platform'
13. Lost a bet to my son (is Philadelphia a top 5 US population city?). Verified via WolframAlpha. This computational knowledge engine (just another way to say search for things that require some computations). This is serious technology. Hope it evolves to find a market.
14. Reached 575 family members and traced the family tree back to the Austrian Hungarian empire in 1825 via MyHeritage.com
15. Experimented with Geo location apps; FourSquare, GOOG Latitude, Loopt and Gowalla. GEO and profiling will capture intent to bring me better shopping, unlock more 'implicit' social relationships, and continue the shift from a 'pull' driven internet to a highly relevant 'push' experience
16. Though it's a stretch for '09, as the Apple App store is now 16 months old...its success has changed the software business (cratered prices, shifted web platform to mobile, and unleashed a tsunami of programmer creativity), while extending the web to your every second fingertips.
17. Sent a message to Scott, Yair and Laurie, co-founders of PlumWillow, a new and potentially exciting e-commerce company I am pleased to be investing in.
Feel free to expand this list with your personal '09 'Newbies'.
Wishing a great New Year to all my Friends and Followers.
1. Signed onto PC using Chrome browser...faster than Firefox, but crashes Gmail more often. Can't wait for HTML5 for the next generation browser experience and saying goodbye to another layer of installed software as the browser sucks away more market from the software domain (as MSFT did in the 90's).
2. Sifted through 27 overnight e-mails. The majority were social oriented (Twitter following, FB friend requests, LinkedIn stuff). Amazing how quiet the house is with the shift from phones to texting/social. Thinking about how noisy offices were in the 90's (remember the noise containing containers on printers) and how the Enterprise is going to embrace many of the social tools with a vengeance that will bring a smile to long suffering shareholders.
3. New FB Friendfeeds this AM were 2x the e-mails received....and the gap is growing by the week
4. Looked at Tweetdeck, where the number of new Tweets from people I follow were 2x the FB feeds...got to filter these better. Craig Newmark...too many squirrel photos and bird posts!!!!
5. Scanned my 3G BBerry for BBM's and Chats (4 overnight). A device optimized for an aging metaphor (mail)
6. Took the wife's 3G iPod and spent an hour catching up with Meebo, YourVersion, Twitter, FB and chess with nephew (who wants a piece of me). No doubt there is a big role for a big screen Touch like device in my life (iSlate?)
7. Using TVersity to stream web content to the big TV (installed N router with a Wifi enabled LG BlueRay player)
8. Scrolled through GoogleLabs, now 5 pages long (including 1 1/2 pages of graduates) to see what could complement my move to GOOG apps for '10. GOOG is an innovation machine; too bad MSFT is in maintenance mode...the IBM of 201x
9. Interrupted my daughter's Hulu watching to do homework (no TV in her room, and doesn't ask for one)
10 For the first time, mailed driving directions to an inanimate object (my car)
11. Forwarded a Skype call via GoogleVoice.
12. Ordered another book on my Kindle; can't wait for it to evolve to a more open platform as it follows the rest of 'Amazon as a platform'
13. Lost a bet to my son (is Philadelphia a top 5 US population city?). Verified via WolframAlpha. This computational knowledge engine (just another way to say search for things that require some computations). This is serious technology. Hope it evolves to find a market.
14. Reached 575 family members and traced the family tree back to the Austrian Hungarian empire in 1825 via MyHeritage.com
15. Experimented with Geo location apps; FourSquare, GOOG Latitude, Loopt and Gowalla. GEO and profiling will capture intent to bring me better shopping, unlock more 'implicit' social relationships, and continue the shift from a 'pull' driven internet to a highly relevant 'push' experience
16. Though it's a stretch for '09, as the Apple App store is now 16 months old...its success has changed the software business (cratered prices, shifted web platform to mobile, and unleashed a tsunami of programmer creativity), while extending the web to your every second fingertips.
17. Sent a message to Scott, Yair and Laurie, co-founders of PlumWillow, a new and potentially exciting e-commerce company I am pleased to be investing in.
Feel free to expand this list with your personal '09 'Newbies'.
Wishing a great New Year to all my Friends and Followers.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Hey Hey..Oh My?
I had a spirited conversation with Elad Baron, CEO of Bitwine, yesterday about the effect of real-time search, coupled with proprietary data stores (Facebook + Twitter come to mind). Bitwine, Elad, and his members live in the 'now' and soon to be 'now' world, so he follows this closely.
The conversation was spurred by Google's announced partnerships with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter for real-time updates to their search results. So, the real-time web has naturally spawned real-time search which unlocks another avenue to mine demographic/profiling information with intent. Probably a good thing for advertisers, definitely a positive for shareholders, and if advertisers get great results, it will accelerate the downward pricing trend for purchased 'bytes' (e.g. software, music, information).
But isn't it revealing that, in an era where billions of dollars are being spent on SEO and buying keywords to 'direct' traffic, Google (and MSFT's Bing) need to ink deals with vendors for access to data within their built proprietary applications? It's the inverse of the 'norm' where companies, beg, borrow, or steal (yes, that is SEO) search engine mind share. The world's gone upside down...or perhaps, reverting back to the status quo.
On one hand, it's great to see so much timely information available and innovators building oodles of shareholder value by adding utility for many in the value chain. On the other hand, we need to think about emerging from an era of proprietary applications, with attended vendor 'account control' to an era of proprietary data prisons, again with vendor 'account control'. We ought not only to be wary of the effect of data prisons, but also the impact on exposing so much data, often from quite young folk. For example, Facebook's recent 'update' of their privacy settings brought an outcry of protest from the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others.
It seems as if Twitter's yet to be announced advertising plan just may be the tipping point for a data vs access battle royale. Crawlers vs content. Unlike the traditional content business, however, in this case the content, or personal profiles/links are really proprietary, at least for awhile, to the content sites. Till recently, FB members could control who has access to their profiles, on the other hand, Twitter was far more 'open', enabling people to mine profiles of unrelated 'followers'. Postings to FB had a more intimate feel, Twitter for more universal content. Each building an ecosystem that balances breadth with depth, united in their interest to mine user data. These ecosystems are linking with each other, perhaps leading to a cacophony of time slicing for viewers, and maybe a lessening of the emerging power of the closed data systems.
John Battelle takes a look at the implications of an element of the strategic battle looming between FB and Google, as it pertains to the exposing of member data. So, it's fair to say that MSFT, GOOG, FB, Twitter, et al are preparing to, as Tiger reportedly said 'go ghetto' on access to the data which members entrust to their repositories. I would not be surprised if one of the scorned players, and surely there will be scorned players, raises a new front on the 'fair use' debate, broadening it from bandwidth, to data.
It's unclear if 'there's more to the pictures than meets the eye'
The conversation was spurred by Google's announced partnerships with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter for real-time updates to their search results. So, the real-time web has naturally spawned real-time search which unlocks another avenue to mine demographic/profiling information with intent. Probably a good thing for advertisers, definitely a positive for shareholders, and if advertisers get great results, it will accelerate the downward pricing trend for purchased 'bytes' (e.g. software, music, information).
But isn't it revealing that, in an era where billions of dollars are being spent on SEO and buying keywords to 'direct' traffic, Google (and MSFT's Bing) need to ink deals with vendors for access to data within their built proprietary applications? It's the inverse of the 'norm' where companies, beg, borrow, or steal (yes, that is SEO) search engine mind share. The world's gone upside down...or perhaps, reverting back to the status quo.
On one hand, it's great to see so much timely information available and innovators building oodles of shareholder value by adding utility for many in the value chain. On the other hand, we need to think about emerging from an era of proprietary applications, with attended vendor 'account control' to an era of proprietary data prisons, again with vendor 'account control'. We ought not only to be wary of the effect of data prisons, but also the impact on exposing so much data, often from quite young folk. For example, Facebook's recent 'update' of their privacy settings brought an outcry of protest from the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others.
It seems as if Twitter's yet to be announced advertising plan just may be the tipping point for a data vs access battle royale. Crawlers vs content. Unlike the traditional content business, however, in this case the content, or personal profiles/links are really proprietary, at least for awhile, to the content sites. Till recently, FB members could control who has access to their profiles, on the other hand, Twitter was far more 'open', enabling people to mine profiles of unrelated 'followers'. Postings to FB had a more intimate feel, Twitter for more universal content. Each building an ecosystem that balances breadth with depth, united in their interest to mine user data. These ecosystems are linking with each other, perhaps leading to a cacophony of time slicing for viewers, and maybe a lessening of the emerging power of the closed data systems.
John Battelle takes a look at the implications of an element of the strategic battle looming between FB and Google, as it pertains to the exposing of member data. So, it's fair to say that MSFT, GOOG, FB, Twitter, et al are preparing to, as Tiger reportedly said 'go ghetto' on access to the data which members entrust to their repositories. I would not be surprised if one of the scorned players, and surely there will be scorned players, raises a new front on the 'fair use' debate, broadening it from bandwidth, to data.
It's unclear if 'there's more to the pictures than meets the eye'
Friday, December 11, 2009
Time, again and again
In the past couple of weeks, while having a number of meetings with bankers and financial folk discussing the environment for Company exits, Fund fundraising, and valuation dynamics, I have also committed to a new investment in the commerce arena (more about this in a later post). Of course, the tenor of these meetings is quite different, but a common thread runs through them 'what's the prospects for future company performance' and its close sibling, 'what's the dynamics within the industry segment'?
The software and internet industries are known for shifting paradigms, false prophets and explosive adoption that create wonderful opportunities that, when they hit, truly are globe changing.
Marking a new decade is an arbitrary reference to the passage of ten consecutive years, with little significance beyond noting ten years passage from the previous arbitrary point in time. Yet, there is a perspective gained by the look back, if nothing else as My smart friend Larry says 'pattern recognition is one of the important things a VC brings to the table'. He's right.
Ten years ago, billions of dollars were (mis)spent around the Year 2000 'bug', Microsoft was touting Window 2000, the U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered Microsoft to be split in two, Apple was pushing iTools and iCards, and AOL was skewered by reviewers for it's latest 'upgrade'...'AOL: You've got bugs'. While we were busy debating all these issues, from nowhere came Facebook, Google, the iPod/phone, and the Wii. Disruptive Black Swans all.
Courtesy of the Internet Archive, here's a number of links, taken from Year 2000, that highlight the shifting sands that make our industry so 'interesting':
Apple's home page
AOL's home page
Amazon's home page
Computerworld's top 100 Companies to watch
Here's my favorite
All welcome to add your favorites too.
The software and internet industries are known for shifting paradigms, false prophets and explosive adoption that create wonderful opportunities that, when they hit, truly are globe changing.
Marking a new decade is an arbitrary reference to the passage of ten consecutive years, with little significance beyond noting ten years passage from the previous arbitrary point in time. Yet, there is a perspective gained by the look back, if nothing else as My smart friend Larry says 'pattern recognition is one of the important things a VC brings to the table'. He's right.
Ten years ago, billions of dollars were (mis)spent around the Year 2000 'bug', Microsoft was touting Window 2000, the U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered Microsoft to be split in two, Apple was pushing iTools and iCards, and AOL was skewered by reviewers for it's latest 'upgrade'...'AOL: You've got bugs'. While we were busy debating all these issues, from nowhere came Facebook, Google, the iPod/phone, and the Wii. Disruptive Black Swans all.
Courtesy of the Internet Archive, here's a number of links, taken from Year 2000, that highlight the shifting sands that make our industry so 'interesting':
Apple's home page
AOL's home page
Amazon's home page
Computerworld's top 100 Companies to watch
Here's my favorite
All welcome to add your favorites too.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Just get us behind the wheel
In an important area, the internet has failed me and it took my son to put it into perspective. After too many years in my vehicle it's now time to pony up and get a new car. Following a time worn path, my son and I trekked to the dealer where our objective was to compare the handling of two interested models. It took us nearly 90 minutes to get into a car. Here's what happened:
1. we were first ignored;
2. then deemed unworthy for taking up the time with a 'Senior Consultant';
3. pawned off to a junior salesperson as the person we were speaking with was expecting an appointment to arrive soon;
4. told that it's too bad we are looking to buy a car this month ("last month we had much better deals")
5. explained that, despite purchasing 2 cars from this dealer, we were not 'loyal' customers because none were now being financed
6. asked to cut short a test drive (5 minutes into it) as the dealer was going to close soon and paperwork had to be done
My son put it best...'dad, these cars are great, if I were a salesperson, I would do everything I could to get someone behind the wheel and let the product sell itself'. Sadly, the salespeople we saw were unnecessary friction in this process.
This brings me to the disappointing internet experience that's exasperated the turkey stuffing left in me. Vowing to 'get respect' I configured a car at the manufacturer site and, using a link, sent the configuration to the closest dealer for a quote. Unfortunately, the dealer was not interested in reciprocating electronically and wants me to visit prior to talking turkey. Grrrrr.
Enter 'the Club'. I am biased; I love shopping at Costco as it's a brand I really trust. Value, quality, discovery, it's all there. But not with cars. I filled out their forms, knowing my shopping was done and now hoping for a clean buying experience. Instead, I am barraged by emails with the subect "Hi, Please contact me' or 'your VIP number is enclosed'.....Grrrrr.
AAA is no better. The no hassle, no negotiation promise, from the dealer AAA directs you to is only for vehicles in stock. You want a configuration they don't have on the lot and the gloves come off.
Perhaps, the Zipcar experience is my salvation. In any event, it's unfortunate that too many organizations let their business processes get in the way of exposing a great product to their perspective customers.
1. we were first ignored;
2. then deemed unworthy for taking up the time with a 'Senior Consultant';
3. pawned off to a junior salesperson as the person we were speaking with was expecting an appointment to arrive soon;
4. told that it's too bad we are looking to buy a car this month ("last month we had much better deals")
5. explained that, despite purchasing 2 cars from this dealer, we were not 'loyal' customers because none were now being financed
6. asked to cut short a test drive (5 minutes into it) as the dealer was going to close soon and paperwork had to be done
My son put it best...'dad, these cars are great, if I were a salesperson, I would do everything I could to get someone behind the wheel and let the product sell itself'. Sadly, the salespeople we saw were unnecessary friction in this process.
This brings me to the disappointing internet experience that's exasperated the turkey stuffing left in me. Vowing to 'get respect' I configured a car at the manufacturer site and, using a link, sent the configuration to the closest dealer for a quote. Unfortunately, the dealer was not interested in reciprocating electronically and wants me to visit prior to talking turkey. Grrrrr.
Enter 'the Club'. I am biased; I love shopping at Costco as it's a brand I really trust. Value, quality, discovery, it's all there. But not with cars. I filled out their forms, knowing my shopping was done and now hoping for a clean buying experience. Instead, I am barraged by emails with the subect "Hi, Please contact me' or 'your VIP number is enclosed'.....Grrrrr.
AAA is no better. The no hassle, no negotiation promise, from the dealer AAA directs you to is only for vehicles in stock. You want a configuration they don't have on the lot and the gloves come off.
Perhaps, the Zipcar experience is my salvation. In any event, it's unfortunate that too many organizations let their business processes get in the way of exposing a great product to their perspective customers.
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