Disqus - Latest Comments for UltimateFootballNetwork

Re: Why I Quora

UltimateFootballNetwork — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 19:00:22 -0000

Long Quora

Re: CBS Sports Offers Fantasy Platform, Potentially Significant Development For Fantasy Sports

UltimateFootballNetwork — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:12:52 -0000

Thanks, Brant. Your product is very cool and you are definitely moving in the right direction. Lots of opportunity....

Re: Yelp and foursquare are on a Collision Course

UltimateFootballNetwork — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 01:27:56 -0000

Good stuff as always. Worth noting that because Foursquare has social in its DNA, the "Explore/Trending Places" feature could be the big differentiator. Yelp's check-in offering seems DOA (much like Google trying/failing to offer social features) and thus they'll never be able to offer that. If Foursquare gets to scale, that feature has "killer feature" potential. Trending/Social proof (even without a user's social graph) for a venue could be as valuable as a 4/5 star review.

Also, I haven't used it much yet but Gogobot is the "sleeper" in this race. Early product seems to have the perfect balance of local directory and social graph so it's squarely in the middle of Yelp and Foursquare.

Re: The Fantasy Sports Economy: Infographic

UltimateFootballNetwork — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:11:22 -0000

Agreed Jon. It's much more attractive than many realize. The space is very large and fragmented and most in the industry have not understood how to seize that opportunity.

Re: Social Leverage, Social Proof and ‘Vertical is the New Horizontal’

UltimateFootballNetwork — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:13:23 -0000

Another great addition to the Angel List meme.

"vertical could be the new horizontal." That's good stuff, Howard.

Re: Start Fund: No big deal. Business as usual.

UltimateFootballNetwork — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 12:17:21 -0000

Interesting discussion here.

The resulting impact is certainly TBD and there are plenty of promising startups outside of YC, but doesn't this move mean real downward pricing pressure for seed/angel rounds? And doesn't this make potential Techstars/Seedcamp applicants try that much harder to get into YC first?

Re: Why the Washington Wizards will axe Arenas

UltimateFootballNetwork — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:45:25 -0000

I don't think Grunfeld needs to go either, but it sure looks like John Mitchell does. Any casual observer of the Wizards would recognize that many of the comments from "unnamed sources" in this piece seem difficult to reconcile.

You nailed it, King. Arenas is no cancer. That's lazy journalism and probably why this story is surfacing in "the Grio". That's a red flag right there. And if Arenas was the cancer, that would hardly explain why 4 other players were shipped out of town and Arenas remains. Sure there's no trade market for Arenas but since the team is rebuilding, why sell Arenas when his value is rock bottom? Why was the team simply awful for the 120+ games it played with Butler/Jamison if Arenas was the problem?

There's a lot to sort out now that John Wall is coming to town, but baseless rumormongering is not helpful.

Re: The most important question to ask before taking seed money

UltimateFootballNetwork — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:04:16 -0000

I have a slightly different take on this. The problem is not in the seed programs per se (unless they are tied to a fund that is $100M>), the problem still lies in the VC business itself.

Of course a large venture fund isn't going to be comfortable enough to know that there is a $100M+ exit after only a few months.

Once there are enough funds (and there will be) that are in the <$50M less range that will be fine with $5-$25M exits there will be far more options for entrepreneurs coming out of these programs.

This "problem" should be seen as part of the lingering VC shakeout and not an indictment of seed programs like YC/Techstars etc, which are playing a very, very valuable role.

Re: The Merchant of Page Views - Mike Monteiro can’t blog

UltimateFootballNetwork — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:06:54 -0000

For a change, I do not have a concrete opinion on this one so I am not coming down on either side of this issue, I believe in integrity but I also believe in journalism. So according to your own argument didn't @Arrington end up sitting on the info about your friend and other personally damaging content?

At the end of the day, I thought the stuff that was released was not very interesting or provocative.

If he posts everything, this comment is moot...

Re: Would You Spend the Next 20-30 Years of Your Career in Silicon Valley?

UltimateFootballNetwork — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:26:29 -0000

Alan Patricof had a relevant take in the NYT Dealbook today http://dealbook.blogs.nytim...

Re: Would You Spend the Next 20-30 Years of Your Career in Silicon Valley?

UltimateFootballNetwork — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:24:28 -0000

Great stuff, as always.

The round peg-square hole analogy is great. Most existing VC funds were raised before the new economics were clearly understood and are still targeting exit opportunities that are unlikely to work out given the move from product->service businesses. The new economics can support plenty of exits at good multiples as long as the economics/expectations are well understood and that will happen when we start hearing about Dogster as the Web2.0 posterchild rather than DIgg.

Re: Michigan Football and the U.S. Economy: Taking the Long View

UltimateFootballNetwork — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 14:13:54 -0000

Roger,

Having graduated from Tulane in 98, I have been following RichRod closely for 10 years now and am sure the pain will only last 1 year. The data for the RR transition at Clemson and West Virginia make that clear. As a startup CEO I would kill for that kind of visibility into the economic recovery.

Re: Go-to-market strategies for vertical social products

UltimateFootballNetwork — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:08:50 -0000

Thanks. That is what I was looking for!

Re: Go-to-market strategies for vertical social products

UltimateFootballNetwork — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:25:07 -0000

I am currently talking to companies with complementary technologies to work on some distribution partnerships. Any suggestions for other kinds of distribution strategies for vertical apps?

Re: Go-to-market strategies for vertical social products

UltimateFootballNetwork — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:54:53 -0000

I was really looking forward to your thoughts on this particular topic given that this is precisely something I am working through right now, but I found little other than your point that vertical products have a harder time getting that viral-type of rapid growth.

I think the recent economic developments and the associated the early stage fundraising climate are going to make the horizontal viral success stories harder and harder to come by. The very nature that makes them viral--- horizontal, simple and mostly free are typical of the Web2.0 features that may be unable to become products or companies, with Twitter being the most obvious example.

Vertical applications are much easier to monetize, both through advertising as well as via more traditional business models and are much more likely to be the focus of whoever is left among the early stage consumer internet investors. And because distribution strategies are harder for all the reasons you mentioned, a good discussion around how to identify complementary opportunities for distribution partnerships would be valuable for all.

Re: Fantasy football draft today | My Philly Network

UltimateFootballNetwork — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:23:44 -0000

Great start, Anthony!

Re: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/08/is-geek-tech-go.html

UltimateFootballNetwork — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:54:02 -0000

I agree that this is a good discussion and all of us need more data points. I've been doing some early product testing in the social news space and have been shocked at the number of people who can't identify Digg or "social news".

This discussion is an extension of Josh Koppelman's old post on the "Techcrunch 50,000". It's now the "Techcrunch 1M" but nonetheless it's still on the wrong side of the chasm and there is no doubt that the 24-hour cycle of social media has created an "echo chamber".

Re: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/08/is-geek-tech-go.html

UltimateFootballNetwork — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:51:06 -0000

Fred,

While I agree that this is the single most important issue for investors (and entrepreneurs expecting adoption) I would disagree with your conclusion based on my own data points. Being that we are in "wedding season" and I'm 32, I've had a chance to catch up with old friends on 3 of the last 5 weekends and I've gone out of my way to ask everyone I could if they were aware of certain web services.

All were "white collar"-types who used Blackberrys/iPhones and considered themselves "internet savvy", yet not a one of them had ever heard of Digg, Twitter or Friendfeed. One person told me that they had "heard of" Digg and Twitter but had no idea what they are. Facebook was the only one that seemed to have crossed over to the mainstream and more than a few folks I talked to were still reluctant to use it.

Perhaps these folks haven't been influenced by their children yet. Either way, I don't think we're quite there.

Re: Early adopters vs the Mainstream: Google Insights points out websites only used by Silicon Valley nerds

UltimateFootballNetwork — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:07:46 -0000

Now THAT is some interesting data.

It seems as though we're a ways off from consistent, reliable web traffic analysis tools.

Re: Early adopters vs the Mainstream: Google Insights points out websites only used by Silicon Valley nerds

UltimateFootballNetwork — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:45:17 -0000

Wow. Techcrunch's data is a little surprising.

Zero volume in places like NYC/Boston/Austin/Boulder/Chicago? I'm a big believer in the "echo chamber" problem but this seems a little extreme.

Re: louisgray.com: Developers Are People Too, Don't Forget

UltimateFootballNetwork — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:33:53 -0000

Failure is the overwhelming likelihood for any of these Web Services, it's not an insult to point that out. The startup world is pretty cut-throat, and those few who make it successfully across the chasm will be richly rewarded. As is often said, "There's no such thing as bad publicity", especially in the extremely noisy world of social media.

Re: Glam offers new video ad network, gets acquisition offer for $1.3B

UltimateFootballNetwork — Thu, 29 May 2008 03:38:48 -0000

Holy smokes! Glam turned down $1.3B?! That would be interesting.

Re: The Exploitation of Web Culture - what did you expect

UltimateFootballNetwork — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:31:25 -0000

While we would all agree that these social media presences will disappear at the end of the campaigns, the Republicans (gulp) are at least trying to understand web 2.0 as opposed to just using it for the time being. Newt Gingrich of all people is leading that charge.