Disqus - Latest Comments for David Gibbons

Re: We don't "get it"

David Gibbons — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 05:24:32 -0000

Joel; here's a translation to layman's English that I blogged up which may help you understand what Yochai was saying. It was actually one of the more substantive comments from these fascinating sessions. When you disagree with some-one smarter than you, you should really keep it to yourself, chances are, you just don't get them.

# the "non-economic" activities we all undertake in our every-day lives; our chores and hobbies ... have recently been discovered to be valuable to economic production,

# ... and are increasingly favored as a preferable operating strategy in new business plans and economic models.

# This is a NEW way of getting things done, it is creating new OPPORTUNITIES and will also result in new PROBLEMS to be solved, the most important of which is how to,

# ... use this new output for GOOD, while not exploiting and corrupting the social values and systems that gave rise to it in the first place.

Re: A Commenter’s Rights

David Gibbons — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:03:46 -0000

Chartreuse hits the nail on the head. Why would you allow anyone to change history?

The initial assumption here is incorrect; comments are not blog posts. Never will be. I certainly agree that *some* comments can stand alone and that those could be re-posted on blogs though I would caution bloggers that you don't win too many friends when you seek to control a productive discussion by hijacking it onto your blog. 'nuff said on that topic. It's certainly a comment author's right to republish their comment and "blog this comment" is a feature disqus should probably consider adding.

A comment is a part of a conversation. Altering a comment alters the conversation. The conversation does not 'belong' to the person that left the comment. Allowing users to remove or edit their part of a discussion will take you on a short-trip to moderator hell in a vibrant community (I learned this the hard way.) I personally believe the best implementation allows comments to be edited (for typo's etc.) only within a limited window of time (say, 10 min's) and thereafter, edits are disabled.

I was a fan of disqus but honestly, with this post, you've lost my trust. Disqus has an obvious bias for controlling comment content and that bias dents your credibility in this discussion; please reconsider your position on this issue.

Re: Waiting For The Fill

David Gibbons — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:38:36 -0000

Fred,

I've also been buying APPL and GOOG. You seem to be trying to call the bottom. What made you choose those price targets? If you're truly long you should be asking yourself if you'd be more upset about missing these prices or missing the next 3 years' gains.

Re: Waiting For The Fill

David Gibbons — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:53:00 -0000

Got it. Since I'm already all in I'm sorry to say I'll be rooting against you filling these but GOOG is looking very close ;-) Good luck!

Re: Waiting For The Fill

David Gibbons — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:27:52 -0000

You just got GOOG - congrats!

Re: What's next?

David Gibbons — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:27:03 -0000

Great post, Brad. For me though, I don't think you've taken a step up by the stack when you focus on governance -- if you are merely optimizing the data product, you're still focused on data.

As you describe in the craigslist example, good governance impacts the efficacy with which data is produced -- but the core offering (value proposition) of good governance is still data -- it may be fresher, more complete, more accurate data, but the product is still data. Same with values -- they're just good self-governance, or good governance on autopilot.

So, maybe the "content is king" phase of the IT revolution will continue for a while longer -- now entering its second term with increased focus on the efficacy with which data is produced -- and it comes with the knock-on innovation in governance and values required to achieve that efficacy. As an aside though, I must challenge the value of production efficacy as a differentiator in a peer-produced world where the community already bears most of the costs of production inefficiencies.

OK - so rather than just criticize this model, let me take a swing at what I think the next offering for consumers on the stack will be (after data) -- I think its time -- more specifically, I think it's "leisure time" -- the next phase of opportunity in IT will relate to giving consumers more leisure time. The types of opportunities I'm talking about are in industries like A-I, robotics and telepresence -- and we're probably still a decade away from any real scale there.

Thanks for the though-provoking post.

Re: Yes but....

David Gibbons — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:11:20 -0000

This is another great reason why you guys need to correct your use of the term "web service" - you are applying it too broadly - and using it inconsistently amongst yourselves. All future (technology?) business models will have some internet component - your investors should get that.

Re: Web Services and Devices

David Gibbons — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:15:26 -0000

Jacob - why not just use wsdl? If we're going the standards route, it really helps if everyone is on the same page - what we don't need right now is more standards.

Re: Web Services and Devices

David Gibbons — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:19:54 -0000

Your definition of "web service" is all over the map here Fred, and mostly incorrect.

Flickr and YouTube are websites, not web services. To get a website on any form-factor is simple ... just add a browser. Size is your major limitation here.

A "web service" is a software engine that is accessed via a web protocol (originally, web services == SOAP, but thankfully that's expanded to all integration protocols). A web service exposes its content and functionality to other devices over the internet via a predefined interface, namely an API.

Simple example ... RSS is a web service ... your blog is a web site. Your blog is only viewable via a browser, while your content is viewable on any device that "speaks" RSS ... be that other websites, or subscriber's iPods.

Web services are actually not the problem, quite the contrary, they are the first step to making content and functionality available everywhere ... because they do not rely on a browser to expose functionality previously limited to being distributed by (one) website.

This difference (between sites & servces) is important & is often misunderstood by web 2.0 users - because sites now provide so many cool "sevices".

The challenge in executing on your utopia is immense ... adding a web service to a device is like teaching a person a new language ... there's service-specific translation & collaboration expertise required to "adopt" any service in any device. From a support perspective, all problems are amplified because your product now constitutes features and products beyond your control ... bottom-line, any-service interoperability is a VERY EXPENSIVE product.

What's are the solutions? Simple --> standards or leverage.

Industry-wide standards ... or industry-leading leverage.

Standards like RSS (... check out SSE) are fascinating but not VC-fodder.

So, in this space, as a VC you're left needing to pick the next iPOD ... good luck!

Re: Sessions Top Ten Insights - Five

David Gibbons — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:45:50 -0000

Money has to be added somewhere for it to be business, right?

It's how it's extracted that corrupts.

Are you implying that to avoid "undermining social motivations", that only the company that fascilitates the commons should extract value from it?

Surely this is exactly wrong, not only lookign at mturk, but also judging by the eBay example (and goog (adsense), amzn (associates pre-mturk).

I think if you plan to trade in the product of the community, not just offer it a service, then it makes sense to be upfront about it - not doing so, and extracting value without sharing it, is probably the fastest way to undermine peer's contributions.

Re: Sessions Top Ten Insights - One

David Gibbons — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 05:38:16 -0000

The commons is essential & skype has one. You can't see the skype commons but it's there ... it's the shared bandwidth, network & directory we all contribute to at skype - and it's this commons that has made the application so robust.

Social and Peer seem to be the right two camps to understand. I think of the social offerings as the "utilities" of web2.0 (flickr, del.icio.us, goog) - and the peer production sites as the "companies" (istockphoto, eBay)

Interestingly, like their analogs, they create value for consumers in very different ways, yet both can be well monetized by their owners.

d

Re: We don't "get it"

David Gibbons — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 05:24:32 -0000

Re: What's next?

David Gibbons — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:27:03 -0000

Great post, Brad. For me though, I don't think you've taken a step up by the stack when you focus on governance -- if you are merely optimizing the data product, you're still focused on data.

Thanks for the though-provoking post.

Re: Yes but....

David Gibbons — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:11:20 -0000

Re: Web Services and Devices

David Gibbons — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:15:26 -0000

Jacob - why not just use wsdl? If we're going the standards route, it really helps if everyone is on the same page - what we don't need right now is more standards.

Re: Web Services and Devices

David Gibbons — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:19:54 -0000

Your definition of "web service" is all over the map here Fred, and mostly incorrect.

Flickr and YouTube are websites, not web services. To get a website on any form-factor is simple ... just add a browser. Size is your major limitation here.

This difference (between sites & servces) is important & is often misunderstood by web 2.0 users - because sites now provide so many cool "sevices".

What's are the solutions? Simple --> standards or leverage.

Industry-wide standards ... or industry-leading leverage.

Standards like RSS (... check out SSE) are fascinating but not VC-fodder.

So, in this space, as a VC you're left needing to pick the next iPOD ... good luck!

Re: Sessions Top Ten Insights - One

David Gibbons — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 05:38:16 -0000

Re: Sessions Top Ten Insights - Five

David Gibbons — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:45:50 -0000

Money has to be added somewhere for it to be business, right?

It's how it's extracted that corrupts.

Are you implying that to avoid "undermining social motivations", that only the company that fascilitates the commons should extract value from it?

Surely this is exactly wrong, not only lookign at mturk, but also judging by the eBay example (and goog (adsense), amzn (associates pre-mturk).

Re: Are you a user or a slave?

David Gibbons — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:10:58 -0000

Read up on "Commons Based Peer Production" - some of us think this is an evolution in how business gets done & stuff gets made.

Of note: Smoe communities will pay you for contributing to their service - compare istockphoto to flickr for example.

Re: Take Back Your SERP: New Real Estate Agent Grassroots Movement

David Gibbons — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:05:56 -0000

OK, you're gonna have to fill me in on this MLS issue you're talking about, Joe. What on earth are you accusing us of this time?

Re: Cheney on Hannity Regarding the CIA Memos - Release Them ALL! (VIDEO)

David Gibbons — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:52:20 -0000

You're assuming that they will cast a favorable light on these terrorists. Their intel has never been right before, so why give them the benefit of the doubt this time? Oh, that's right - you've got your guilt to deal with - get over it!

Re: 2005/11/15/yahoo-shoposphere-to-feature-revenue-sharing/

David Gibbons — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 20:55:41 -0000

Great observations ... wait till Amazon's reviewer's get wind of this ... they're gonna have to mturk reviews to avoid a mutiny.

Re: 2005/11/11/fotolia-buy-and-sell-stock-photos/

David Gibbons — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 21:05:20 -0000

In this space, istockphoto's the leader

Re: 2005/12/26/the-delicious-lesson-putting-personal-value-before-network-effect/

David Gibbons — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 16:57:58 -0000

errrrr ... so, the blinding insight here is that "users" begot "communities"; and that "use" begot "users" ...... Josh gets the uber-prize for stating the obvious

Re: 2006/01/05/lego-drinks-the-web-20-kool-aid-mindstorms-becomes-flickr-for-robotics/

David Gibbons — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 18:30:53 -0000

GREAT Post Pete ... now will some-one please tell Umair that "edge competences" is plain old outsourcing ... ;-) ... Mashable is MY fav. Web2.0 blog

Re: 2006/01/20/rootnet-too-innovative/

David Gibbons — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:55:37 -0000

call me a cynic .... but I think we have Web 2.0's "pets.com" here :-)

keep it coming Pete ...

Re: 2006/01/23/the-emergence-of-news-20/

David Gibbons — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:59:33 -0000

oi - thanks for ruining my day ;-)

seriously though, the one "feature" that I think will split this list into 2 camps is 2nd on the list .... "MSM content" ....

Re: 2006/01/23/the-emergence-of-news-20/

David Gibbons — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:43:42 -0000

not - but that's between us (and ur 10,000 readers, right?) - hit me up on skype sometime

Re: 2006/02/04/currenttv-a-ten-step-lesson-in-screwing-up-peer-production/

David Gibbons — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 13:06:17 -0000

It's probable that their content / model / pitch etc. sucks, I honestly haven't watched it ... but, I wouldn't write this production model off just yet;

... think "peer production on demand"; it's possible that there's stuff that should / could be peer produced that doesn't yet exist ... check out how istockphoto now provide a platform for designers to request a) images and b) searches "on demand" for imagery that they can't find - "google answers vs. wikipedia" etc. etc. etc.

... it's still peer production, but the "abundant resources" being tapped are member's future time, not their past products or assets.

What do you think, Pete?

Re: 2006/02/04/currenttv-a-ten-step-lesson-in-screwing-up-peer-production/

David Gibbons — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 13:46:51 -0000

It makes me think that we need to sit down and articulate the Demand Fulfillment Patterns for peer production - just like JIT / ext. fulfillment / BPO etc. were discovered for contract-based productivity .... the point is that just as in any other business strategy, there's probably more than 1 good way of producing "on the edge" - and soon, just being on the edge won't be good enough - and you'll need to find the BEST edge pattern to solve each W2.0 problem.

Re: 2006/02/23/googles-new-strategy-spray-and-pray/

David Gibbons — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 02:29:31 -0000

maybe it's better than pretending everything's related (yahoo) - google is the only GYMAE that's HUGE without being a protal - in this, they understand web users much better than Y & M

Re: 2006/02/23/googles-new-strategy-spray-and-pray/

David Gibbons — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 02:30:28 -0000

"portal" - when's this blog getting a spell-checker ;-)

Re: 2006/03/03/coastr-social-beermarking/

David Gibbons — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:21:51 -0000

great find Pete - on topic, check out Blowfly - the beer itself is peer produced !

Re: 2006/03/08/inkling-the-wisdom-of-crowds-returns/

David Gibbons — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 20:11:43 -0000

(far more interesting, in fact, than the non-social web applications that increasingly fall under the Web 2.0 umbrella)

AGREED -> actually, the companies that dont integrate their user into their product won't survive the web's next phase

Re: 2006/03/08/inkling-the-wisdom-of-crowds-returns/

David Gibbons — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 20:17:56 -0000

RE: "(far more interesting, in fact, than the non-social web applications that increasingly fall under the Web 2.0 umbrella)"

AGREED -> actually, the companies that dont integrate their user into their product won't survive the web's next phase

As to decision markets - this approach WILL NOT WORK - the stock exchange is already a decision market - when you build a decision market of a decision market, you need to take a different approach - we should discuss this sometime pete - I think there's real opportunity for a different angle on solving this problem

d

Re: 2006/03/14/castingwords-podcast-transcriptions/

David Gibbons — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 12:31:54 -0000

FANTASTIC product (asyncronous voice is the next big channel)

HORRIBLE business model

Hopefully they employ mashable for some strategy consulting before it's too late.

Re: 2006/03/28/insiderpages-user-generated-business-reviews/

David Gibbons — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:32:57 -0000

now how do I use this as a doorstop? all of the promise of the Yellow Pages but none of its usefulness

Re: 2006/04/01/email-harvester-launches-turns-down-750-million-offer/

David Gibbons — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 14:09:24 -0000

how many signups ??? are we bigR'n myspace yet??? when's the IPO???

Re: 2006/04/26/ebay-express-ebay-made-easy/

David Gibbons — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:31:46 -0000

I'm with Aaron; express is disruptive.

eBay has learnt that there are a ton of big businesses looking for new channels to customers and that those companies will gladly stock your (virtual) shelves at no cost and no risk to you - just like the garage sellers will. Think about it; for manufacturers and distributors, express is Walmart without the price pressure.

Robert; Amazon will definitely need to take note. AMZN is already considered less seller-friendly than eBay - now that eBay is no longer a flea-market, some disgruntled sellers will leave Amazon. The 3 determining factors for sellers will be:
1) listing costs
2) buyer demand
3) tools
eBay beats Amazon hands-down on tools and has the skills to make express a popular shopping destination - I haven't checked which marketplace is cheaper to list on. Also, with eBay, sellers are garuanteed they won't have to compete against the marketplace like they do on Amazon - that's huge - especially at a time when AMZN is growing a reputation for treating partners like dirt. If Express develops an enterprise-class offering rapidly, Amazon will loose all hope of growing its most lucrative "merchant" business (target.com etc.), sales of which have already stalled.

In a world where manufacturers are increasingy going "direct", eBay express will be a welcome new channel to ecommerce dollars. The potential for express to migrate "good" sellers from eBay is far less interesting than their potential to attract the world's best brands to this new marketplace.

Re: 2006/04/26/ebay-express-ebay-made-easy/

David Gibbons — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 14:42:37 -0000

"Is eBay Express a good vehicle for the small mom & pop sellers too"

Good Question ...

My gut says no, but if there's no cost to list on both ebay and express then why not?.

Express is a marketplace for "new" product - which is not typically the provence of mom & pop's (on eBay) - but eBay has proven that if you build it they will come, so it may actually create an entirely new opportunity for mom & pop's to get into liquidations & imports - the question is where do mom & pop's get "new" product at competitive costs?

Besides amazon, the e-tailer that probably has the most to fear from express is overstock.com

Re: 2006/04/26/ebay-express-ebay-made-easy/

David Gibbons — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 10:40:14 -0000

Robert;
RE: USP.
e-retailers all try to lead their product segment competitors in the 3 dimensions of "selection, price and convenience" - the "u" in their usp is usually a heavier weighting on one or two of those dimensions - but those are the 3 core KPI's - the e-tailer who optimizes all 3 wins the lions share.
dg

Re: 2006/04/27/google-sketchup-now-free-user-generated-content-goes-3d/

David Gibbons — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 10:44:54 -0000

hoooha - the google earth piece is fascinating

Am I the only one that jumped to the conclusion that this is how "virtual worlds" go mainstream?

Re: 2006/05/09/the-indiekarma-experiment/

David Gibbons — Tue, 09 May 2006 18:17:18 -0000

This won't be big because:
1) regardless of the cost / page, internet users now expect to get user-generated-content for free.
2) "honor systems" for micropayments to bloggers etc. are nothing new - and nothing big - granted this is a new "spin", but hardly a new idea.
3) these types of programs only reach your most passionate audience - why should they subsidize the "freeloaders"

Advertising is a MUCH MUCH MUCH better model ... not only does it have the economics to make free content viable but ... when done well, online advertising is actually content - at its worst, ads are annoying but at least they are free - the more ads that move online, the more targetted they'll become and the more useful they will be to us. The day will come when you return to a website because it knows you so well that its adverts help you to stay informed of your most important product choices.

Re: 2006/05/10/my-week-in-the-ether/

David Gibbons — Wed, 10 May 2006 16:06:13 -0000

Thanks Pete - this post saved us both an e-mail ;-)

15% does "feel" steep but its less than half of what skype (& partners VOXIO etc) charge for "canned" services - so definitely very competitive. When skype gets their act together for live services they're gonna have to come in cheaper than the 20% they currently extract.

15% is also inline with Rentacoder and you get the call infrastructure (however, that sounds like it's a minus).

So I think ether is probably priced right - but to justify their cut (an compete), MUST build out the marketplace and reputation piece etc. before skype lists services (on eBay?)

Re: 2006/05/10/my-week-in-the-ether/

David Gibbons — Wed, 10 May 2006 18:54:32 -0000

Thanks Pete - I actually blogged it up when skype was bought - but eBay's taking their sweet time in proving me right. The entire pro-services space is very very interesting; ether is the first step in a very disruptive and unexpected new edge-driven marketplace.

Original ebay / skype post is here:
http://poductivity.blogspot.com/2005/09/why-eba...

Re: 2006/05/11/google-co-op-google-embracing-social-search/

David Gibbons — Fri, 12 May 2006 10:35:56 -0000

If I know which info-provider I should subscribe to, then why am I searching in the first place? How did google think this was a good idea? The only way this service will benefit anyone is if they remove the subscription requirment - and have the content providers pay to play on a cpc basis - which is where I think this service will end up - so, just more advertising in the prime search real estate.

Ted - you just don't get it - google search is "open source"; none of the content you see when you run a search was produced by google, yet it's one of the world's most profitable businesses - you need to reverse your view of user-generated-products and become weary of any business online that doesn't have an open source component - community IS the internet value proposition.

Re: 2006/05/14/ourstockworks-web-20-stock-photography/

David Gibbons — Mon, 15 May 2006 12:53:50 -0000

Redundant and way over-priced - I don't think the suppliers or buyers who have built the the microstock industry will fall for this backwards step - and the lack of original features in this community should not be rewarded. From a quality & copywright compliance perspective; they already display images that wouldn't pass istockphoto's high standards - no-one who knows image buisness would fall for this site.

Re: 2006/05/16/stumbleupon-has-875000-users/

David Gibbons — Tue, 16 May 2006 22:14:20 -0000

Rutger - thanks for posting the graph - what do you think explains the step function in both curves in May?

Re: 2006/05/16/stumbleupon-has-875000-users/

David Gibbons — Wed, 17 May 2006 11:20:00 -0000

Thanks Rutger, *that* would explain it. So much for Alexa data pre-May.

Re: 2006/05/18/chipin-group-fundraising/

David Gibbons — Thu, 18 May 2006 10:17:01 -0000

I'm also a HUGE fan of fundable but I'm surprised how little it is used - I honestly thought fundable would be bigger.

As to the "big question"; Rob @ businesspundit looked into that issue (long and hard) with TBE - unfortunately the SEC has built a high wall around financing businesses and won't tolerate crowds of micro-VC's - you'd have to change legislation to unseat the VC's & their independantly wealthy 'donors' in the US. It's sadly a very protected business (except for the fact that demand for startup capital is waning - 'nother issue)

There seems to be only 2 potential solutions to that problem - 1) is take the concept offshore (a great idea IMO) and 2) is to list a VC fund onshore - I'd love to see either of those happen though (2) probably wouldn't allow me the control I would look for in how they spread my cash across their protfolio.

d

Re: 2006/05/26/swarm-social-browsing/

David Gibbons — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:46:54 -0000

Prediction: GOOG will buy this or something very similar - this is the evolution of Search - this is "Find"

Re: 2006/06/06/musical-chairs-20/

David Gibbons — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 18:36:13 -0000

bubble-icious, very bubble-icious - starting to feel like '99 again around here wot? Pity vonage threw a spoke in the wheel - we could've seen IPO-fever again by Q4 - now I think we'll have to wait a few more Q's.

Re: 2006/06/06/google-spreadsheets-goes-live/

David Gibbons — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 18:37:05 -0000

Finally, goog gets social software - RIP MS.

Re: 2006/06/13/qunu-is-a-killer-idea/

David Gibbons — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:50:12 -0000

Like I'm sayin' Pete - Pro-Services is where this is all gonna' end up - and like Helmar's sayin', it may still be ahead of it's time - we may need to get a bit busier still before we realize we need help

Re: 2006/06/13/qunu-is-a-killer-idea/

David Gibbons — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:03:12 -0000

Here's a potential google-replacement Pete - http://www.nownow.com/nownow/index.jsp

Re: 2006/06/20/the-daily-plate-helps-you-lose-weight/

David Gibbons — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:34:42 -0000

This is the last thing the bulemia-generation needed - hopefully goog buys them & shuts them down in the spirit of "do no evil" - IMO, this kind of stuff is pure evil !!!

Wait till the drug companies start letting you self-diagnose on their sites & take a print-out to your doc. demanding a script.

Re: 2006/02/23/thumbstacks-powerpoint-for-the-web/

David Gibbons — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 12:56:54 -0000

Adoption might not be that far off --> we are overloaded with text online --> many users have just stopped reading --> where-ever you see text on the web today, this approach could be a more effective way of communicating - that's a lot of potential

Re: 2006/06/26/automattic-launches-wordpress-support-network/

David Gibbons — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:53:00 -0000

geeez - this is way, way, way overpriced - I would have separated support from pro-services - sadly, this product will drive most enterprises to typepad - wp fans who lobby for wp as the corporate tool will now loose that argument in a side-by-side comp. with tp -

Re: 2006/06/29/google-checkout-launches-today/

David Gibbons — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 10:40:50 -0000

It's a good idea to enter this space w/out p2p payments - that should improve the debits to transactions ratio which will increase the margin of the program above that of paypal's even at the lower price point - once members have been "trained" to store a healthy balance in their ebay wallet, then turn on p2p.

Also, think about the real world and the % of your payments that are to b's vs. p's --> the p2p space is really a tiny niche - let paypal have that. This could be big.

Re: 2006/06/30/payperpost-bribes-bloggers-for-posts/

David Gibbons — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:34:23 -0000

I'm with Ted on this; the off-line analog here is those radio spots that have the DJ read the ad-copy. If a blogger decides it's OK to have ads on their blog, then why not these ads?

If your primary goal in blogging is to grow an audience, then you've already sold out - and your content is already biased - you are already thinking twice about what you write - the only question is how you monetize that audience. Note: I'm not saying that selling out is a bad thing - many bloggers need a money-motive to keep dishing out the goods. Selling out is a minor price to pay for being rewarded for pursuing your passions - if you do it obviously, you can easily retain your integrity.

Is this the best way to monetize a good blog? Probably not - I'd far rather go the ether route and use my cache to pull in some consulting revenues. ;-)

Re: 2006/06/30/payperpost-bribes-bloggers-for-posts/

David Gibbons — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:38:43 -0000

PS - and it seems to pay better (per post) than a gig at weblogsinc. does - of the many ways bloggers can sell out, there are worse examples than this.

Re: 2006/07/03/lulutv-pays-cash-for-your-videos/

David Gibbons — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 16:14:03 -0000

The Amway business model comes to Web2.0 - it was only a matter of time.

Why is this so hard?

Surely the correct model here is to slap ads (rich graphics or video) onto the start and / or end of popular videos - making it a right of passage to produce a video "good enough" for advertising - then split ad rev's with the content producer - simple - what's with all this freekin' thrashing about with horrible business models?

Re: 2006/07/05/skinnyr-starves-the-myspace-beast/

David Gibbons — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 09:55:53 -0000

James - right on!!! As I commented on "the daily plate", this stuff is no good - the developers here either checked their brains or their morals in at the door before they hacked up this rubbish. Again, I hope that goog buys 'em and shuts 'em down in the spirit of doing no evil.

Re: 2006/07/06/ebay-bans-google-checkout-why/

David Gibbons — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 14:45:46 -0000

It's time for eBay to decide what business they are in - and maybe look for a buyer for paypal (or integrate it to skype for pro-services payments). Checkout is going to be HUGE in b2c - now that eBay's attracted so many b's, they aren't going to be able to keep checkout out of auctions and also keep their bigger vendors - it will be one or the other.

Re: 2006/07/07/friendster-patents-social-networking/

David Gibbons — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 17:12:05 -0000

he he he - this is going to be interesting - imagine a court deciding to uphold this patent and effctively take your (non friendster) friends away

hopefully friendster do force this issue and thereby the realization that these rediculous US patents on logical processes with orthogonal applications is a total farce - at least this time around its not amazon claiming ownership of common sense (one click?)

Re: 2006/07/07/friendster-patents-social-networking/

David Gibbons — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:27:20 -0000

Just read it - rediculous - what was Abrams thinking?

The only good response to this is to KILL YOUR FRIENDSTER PROFILE - only after first pingin your friendster friends with the suggestion that they do the same - AFAIC, they no longer exist. Who is with me?

Re: 2006/07/07/friendster-patents-social-networking/

David Gibbons — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 19:14:10 -0000

ha ha ha - this ze-frank episode is suddenly very apropro - http://www.zefrank.com/smallworld/

full disclosure I never signed up; I find my friends on mashable

Re: 2006/07/07/zooomr-gives-free-pro-accounts-to-bloggers-why-not-myspace-users/

David Gibbons — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:46:55 -0000

And this marketing strategy is different from PayPerPost how, exactly? OH yeah, here the blogger is paid in stuff, not money - eh - so this is cool, but PPP is evil? ;-)

Swapping stuff for (the hope of) press endorsements is nothing new - I'm not saying that it's right or wrong - just that PayPerPost is not the devil-incarnate the blogsream painted them out to be. Let's face it, a-list bloggers' homes are full of the latest gizmo's - and so, their blogs discuss those toys - very few have scoble's maturity to call this what it is.

Bloggers (in the US?) who do take Zoomr up on this offer, please note that you'll need to pay income tax on the price of your free Zoomr account so be sure that it's something you'll use - nothing is free.

Re: 2006/07/12/cambrian-house-digg-for-software-development/

David Gibbons — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 11:01:37 -0000

Having lived through (and enjoyed) the business experiment (TBE), I was excited to see Cambrian House (CH) launch and have spent some time there over the past few weeks. CH have taken a few steps forward and a few steps back from where we left off at TBE.

On the plus side, CH does a much better job of communicating the overall vision - and it shows in the rapid growth of their membership. They've clearly thought through what it takes to build software. I like the way that creative and code contributions are managed by CH - definitely an improvemnent over TBE.

That said, Michi is right; the ideas submitted at CH do totally suck - I don't think they've attracted a single entrepreneurial mind yet - CH could really benefit from the involvement of the TBE crowd. CH's biggest downfall heer is that they don't really understand the collaborative nature of crowdsourcing and w.o.c. The ideas funnel at CH wouldn't be so littered with crud if they had let the community discuss the ideas - the idea submission part of the community badly needs some healthy criticism to end the flow of brain-farts being posted there.

The two main challenges that CH shares with TBE are a) no useful guidelines were set for the type of products CH could build and b) although the product creation model is better developed than TBE's there's no solid plan for contributing to the operations of the business. Beyond that, I'm also skeptical about CH's points system - it's nice in that it's simple and transparent - but sucks in that it seems very arbitary, did not solicit crowd input and is poorly tied to the total value of the products.

It'll be interesting to see how this evolves - CH has definitely attracted a far more creative team than we had at TBE. Regardless of whether CH eventually pays anyone, if it's anything like TBE, I highly recommend getting involved for the learnings that will come from this.

Re: 2006/07/19/spreadshirt-takes-funding/

David Gibbons — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:48:43 -0000

I LOVE THESE GUYS

Last week I bought 3 shirts from Ze Frank (yes, I

Re: 2006/07/19/spreadshirt-takes-funding/

David Gibbons — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 14:17:17 -0000

weird that that comment truncated - anyhow, bottom line is that their quality is excellent and fulfillment and communications were fantastic - for an EU business, they do ecommerce fulfillment in the US very very well

FYI - Pete - the next character before the comment was chopped was "

Re: 2006/07/20/37signals-takes-investment-from-jeff-bezos-why/

David Gibbons — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 21:43:52 -0000

Either you need the money, or you are cashing in (which is fine by me) - the signals claim not to need the money - they can't claim to be investing in product becasue that would be un-signal-like.

Before 37signals, a small team in seattle called robotcoop also played by their own rules & built simple, sticky, social web tools about achieving your goals and seeing the world. Then, Bezos invested and the robots launched allconsuming.net - a site dedicated to buying stuff - and helping friends buy stuff - on amazon - 'round that time, their other sites lost traction - & now in the myspace noise, it seems clear that 43things & 43places wont fulfill their potential.

Lets hope that the next product from 37signals is not "shop-pa-list" - if it is, expect mediocrity from there on out.

This investment is obviously a no-brainer. I salute amazon's biz-dev team for saying what the signals needed to hear & naming the right price - it must have been a competitive deal. But seriously, any "synergies" the signals see are imagined (& well sold).

Bezos also had a piece of the del.icio.us action - come a long way since pets.com? His online store sure could use some of that focus though.

Re: 2006/07/31/cnn-exchange-cnns-answer-to-youtube/

David Gibbons — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:01:49 -0000

Pete ... if they were trying to buid the you-tube of video, then they'd probably deserve this review -- they are definitely not. Check the site again --> CNN exchange is just an interface for sending stories to CNN -- if CNN were a blog, this "move" would be the equivalent of enabling comments. The second section on the page links to AC's blog for comments etc. etc. What made you think this was trying to be the youtube of news?

Also -- not paying for "incidental" news makes sense -- you don't want to turn this into a profession (that already exists) -- the idea is that news happens to people with camera's not people who are trying to find news to sell.

Overall, I give this 9/10 for old media embracing user-generated content - their challenge is going to be branding something that's only useful to you once in a lifetime (when news happens to you) - but they may overcome that by showcasing the best videos submitted - making the site a destination of sorts.

Re: 2006/07/31/cnn-exchange-cnns-answer-to-youtube/

David Gibbons — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 22:30:57 -0000

Just a page, not the whole playbook! Weathebug totally fits the bill though and cultspace just cracked me up -- thanks for writing, Pete!

PS. My 2c on these YouTube clones: What they (collectively) don't seem to get is that the really impressive part of YouTube is not (even) the video producers, but the distribution channel and audience that little talking window has amassed. Start there, then get fancy with producer rev-share etc.

Re: 2006/08/02/windows-live-spaces-goes-live-succeeds-msn-spaces/

David Gibbons — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 14:31:15 -0000

Pete - how do you think Spaces compares to Yahoo 360?

Re: 2006/08/07/favorite-thingz-earn-cash-pimping-products-on-xanga-hi5-and-myspace/

David Gibbons — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:07:44 -0000

DanD is right - while the technology & concept are cool, the usability of "create a badge" is well, unusable - it won't scale - that search was left out makes no sense - hopefully they fix that.

Also, it seems that launching with such a sparesly populated catalog of "things" is a mistake - the buzz they get today won't come again in a hurry, but I'd expect most visitors to the site leave without creating a badge.

Re: 2006/08/18/battleout-puts-photos-head-to-head/

David Gibbons — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 18:11:03 -0000

Nice - very nice. I hadn't thought about it before, but this type of thing could be the ideal strategy for taking content from a free-for-all posting scenario (flickr) and bubble it up to be monetized as microstock (istockphoto).
That's a viable web2 business model you can take to the bank.

Re: 2006/09/14/universal-music-myspace-and-youtube-owe-us-millions/

David Gibbons — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:56:08 -0000

Oooohh -- this is gonna' hurt myspace and for very good reason.

Probably the most damning evidence is that Myspace's head of PR recently made the analogy that myspace music is like the music you hear in a store -- she stupidly made that comment in defense of not paying royalties -- totally neglecting the fact that stores & malls do indeed pay to play the music you hear. Right there is the confession of guilt -- we don't even need to hear the verdict on this one -- myspace will pay.

It's actually astounding that the labels have let it go on this long -- which may be the myspace's only defense, but bottom-line, they're screwed here -- cheats never prosper.

Re: 2006/09/14/universal-music-myspace-and-youtube-owe-us-millions/

David Gibbons — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 23:30:15 -0000

dude, where did I get myspace from? Universal are sueing the wrong company -- and I need some sleep -- stories on mashable are all blending for me. thanks pete for dishing up the goods -- as always.

Re: 2006/09/14/universal-music-myspace-and-youtube-owe-us-millions/

David Gibbons — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 23:32:01 -0000

OK - it was about myspace (really, really need that sleep). If I post again, ignore me!

Re: 2006/09/28/facebook-to-launch-advertising-through-news-feed/

David Gibbons — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 16:02:26 -0000

Pete, I gotta call B/S on this post. What is your problem with advertising (far right sidebar = excluded, of course)?

Any time you provide new tangible value to users for free, advertising will be accepted by them - or at least ignored - but no-one's going to leave facebook because of this.

For the "faces" that "get" the feeds, there is huge value in their existence. Rolling them out without controls was a mistake but that doesn't mean the feeds don't have (massive) utility. Feed users now save a bunch of time and view a fraction of the ads they would have had to to stay equally informed. Every other feed post could be an ad, and users would still see fewer ads by using feeds than by checking the site.

Feed-based advertising is nothing new; feedburner's been doing it for ages. It actually accomodates better content distribution because publishers are garuanteed revenues even when content is syndicated on 3rd party sites - not that Facebook should go there.

The only time a community looses users is when it takes away their control or launches features that they can't control - that is not happening here. If you don't like the feed-ads, don't use the feeds - all that info is on the site - something tells me, the average user will choose the feeds with the ads.

Re: 2006/10/04/lonelybloggers-releases-dating-service-for-bloggers/

David Gibbons — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 17:59:03 -0000

That's actually a good idea - the blogosphere is a platform, just like myspace is - it's surprising you don't see more companies building on that. Interesting find, tx Pete.

Re: 2006/10/10/plinkme-free-photos-for-your-website-not-myspace/

David Gibbons — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:20:40 -0000

PlinkMe would be the perfect product if it werenâ€™t for one thing:

ummm ... how about revenue?

Re: 2006/10/10/plinkme-free-photos-for-your-website-not-myspace/

David Gibbons — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 21:23:31 -0000

ah - ads ;-)

This is a actually a content product that might not be able to employ ads - or if they do, it'll severely limit the number of publishers who'd use them. I haven't seen advertising and images combined (well) yet. Google images is useful - but do you think it makes money?

They will have to facilitate stores for photogs - that's a good idea, Pete - a smart way to do it may be to let the publishers not only have a role in marketing but also in merchandising - mashup style i.e. I offer the images on t-shirts - but you sell posters on your blog.

May be one to watch - not having the advertising option could force innovation - either way, this will be one that proves that even web 2 companies need a business plan - - or a gymae acquisition.

Re: 2006/12/14/19-ways-to-make-social-sites-pay/

David Gibbons — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 10:52:26 -0000

Interesting that these are all cash-for-media sites -- media wants to be free -- I don't expect any of these to make many members rich other than those that are just ad-serving engines like revver -- and even then, success is more dependent on your publishing prowess than your creative talent.

The most productive online community in terms of cash-paid-to-members is still e-bay. In the monetization of communities, media is not where the big $'s are. On the topic of weird social networks that are paying dollars though, there's probably nothing more ballsy than weblo.com.

Re: 2007/01/31/flickr-yahoo/

David Gibbons — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:15:33 -0000

i just went and did it. it is an incredibly intuitive account mergre experience. these are my steps:
1) goto www.flickr.com - unchanged
2) enter my y! p/ward and submit - first time I've used it on flickr but same cookie'd experience as on y! V.smart to create stub accounts for y! members.
3) it recognizes my gmail addi (how?) which is registered to my flickr a/c and asks if I want to merge the 2 accouts?
4) I click once to accept = the only extra step in the entire process.
5) done.
It doesnt get any better or more low-cost (i.t.o. churn) than that. I also think that they would have calculated the risk -- as you point out, y! had the 2005 backlash to help inform their assumptions. Desite the hype, they probably lost no momentum then and probably won't now.
imo, this is a calculated move with immense upside that was beautifully executed.
i think you'll still stax of user value added through this via integration of your flickr data with the rest of your your y! data. I'd imagine that a deep y!answers and deli.cio.us integration to flickr would add value to all 3 services for example.

Re: 2007/02/07/zlio/

David Gibbons — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 11:13:04 -0000

Popshops.com is another awesome startup in this space.

Re: 2007/03/23/myspace-ban/

David Gibbons — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:25:23 -0000

Let's face it, these priests, nuns and teachers could just be intimidated by competition on Myspace ;-) A simple comparison of the pedophilia convictions in the catholic church vs those of mysace users would probably put this great story nicely into its absurd context (no, I don't have the numbers - be my guest). Can someone explain to me why we haven't banned catholic schools yet?

Re: 2007/03/28/serph/

David Gibbons — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:36:27 -0000

Thanks Pete - the splogs on google have been killing me lately and Technorati is so far from comprehensive. This seems to be a much better solution. Google's competitors should really be paying more attention to this space.

Re: 2007/04/18/facebook-classifieds/

David Gibbons — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 09:30:25 -0000

Great idea but question 4 is incredibly dangerous. It suggests to me that the whole premise behind facebook's closed networks was in fact to create a false economy and was not purely in the interests of secure networking.

Re: Bicyclist dies in collision on 24th Ave. in Ballard

David Gibbons — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:47:44 -0000

So sad.

If you have lived in any other big city in the world you'd be shocked at how ridiculously Seattle deals with its cyclists. Everyone I speak to about this agrees that we have a cycling culture here that believes it's both indestructible and above the law. The fact that cycling on the sidewalk is legal in Seattle is a major cause of this attitude. We're telling cyclists that it's OK to ride wherever they want just so that they can get from A to B as quickly as possible. It's pretty laughable that in a city that still religiously polices j-walking, you're likely to get run over by a fat cop on his bicycle on the sidewalk. If we don't get the bikes off the sidewalks and start to fine riders when they pull these dumb-ass tricks in traffic this won't be the last tragic accident.

Re: Why don’t you use a memetracker?

David Gibbons — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:34:56 -0000

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,650,000 for "blog aggregator"

potato - pot-aato - this is a semmantic issue Robert

Re: Getty images: a photo business under pressure

David Gibbons — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 15:06:17 -0000

iStockPhoto, which was acquired earlier this year by Getty, already addresses your criticisms of Getty, Robert. As far as I know, iStock preceeded both Flickr and Zoomr -- and could teach both companies a lot about actually monetizing their great graphic content.

Getty has to still play to their traditional media customers but with time, I suspect you'll see the bulk of their business organically move to the iStockPhoto brand.

Last point on this is that photographers typically specialize. Those that specialize in Stock should probably stick with Getty, but those that specialize in events / sports etc. should absolutely use tools and networks like Flickr to promote their work.

Re: Getty images: a photo business under pressure

David Gibbons — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 15:59:27 -0000

Henrik reminds me that I should have disclosed --> I am a (lazy) contributor to iStockPhoto and have also purchased image licenses with my profits there.

That reminds me --> the primary reason I recommend iStockPhoto to photographers is that it's the site that is most likely to help improve your talent. On iStockPhoto, every single picture I upload gets critiqued by professionals - their feedback is sometimes brutal but my accepted rate has improved dramatically since I started listening to them.

Free photo communities will never compete for the same consumer as microstock websites --> buyers of stock images need garuanteed unambiguous commercial licenses and they need very targeted search capabilitiies where free sites don't actively enforce copyright and benefit more from browse than search.

So, iStockPhoto doesn't need to worry about ZOOMR but likewise, I don't think Getty's going to get into photo hosting and "interestingness".

Re: Apple blogger calls "bullshit" on me

David Gibbons — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 20:05:25 -0000

I'd also like to see apple blog. It's surprising that Steve doesn't - how 'bout a video-blog? c-mon?

To their credit, apple hosts one of the most lively and useful converstions on the web: got to discussions.apple.com --> their forums, by product are well used and content-rich.

Re: What is social media?

David Gibbons — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 07:22:18 -0000

Great post, thanks! I took a shot at summarizing the "9 things" here - let me know what you think. http://poductivity.blogspot.com/2007/04/scobles...

Re: Ballmer disses Google's Android

David Gibbons — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 03:47:00 -0000

gaetano - you want to put some money on that?

Re: Has the MySpace Downturn Begun?

David Gibbons — Wed, 31 May 2006 18:31:02 -0000

Dude - I'm usually the first to argue that MYSPACE won't last forever BUT .... pageviews are a totally false place to look for that trend.

Spring-break-Spring-shmake, the downward trend coincides with the MYSPACE IM launch - if you understand MYSPACE, you will expect PV's to be canobilized by IM because most MYSPACE pages are "chats" - so, an "offline" chat channel in the MYSPACE community means that (some of) the conversation moves off the web-pages and into IM. The reach curve above seems to support this theory - it also seems to be hitting some upper bound which may be the big story here. I'm not an insider, so don't have the data, but to me it looks like the IM tool's seen positive adoption - which is probably a good thing from a cost control perspective.

Re: Sessions Top Ten Insights - One

David Gibbons — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 05:38:16 -0000

Re: We don't "get it"

David Gibbons — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 05:24:32 -0000

Re: Sessions Top Ten Insights - Five

David Gibbons — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:45:50 -0000

Money has to be added somewhere for it to be business, right?

It's how it's extracted that corrupts.

Are you implying that to avoid "undermining social motivations", that only the company that fascilitates the commons should extract value from it?

Surely this is exactly wrong, not only lookign at mturk, but also judging by the eBay example (and goog (adsense), amzn (associates pre-mturk).

Re: Yes but....

David Gibbons — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:11:20 -0000

Re: Web Services and Devices

David Gibbons — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:19:54 -0000

Your definition of "web service" is all over the map here Fred, and mostly incorrect.

Flickr and YouTube are websites, not web services. To get a website on any form-factor is simple ... just add a browser. Size is your major limitation here.

This difference (between sites & servces) is important & is often misunderstood by web 2.0 users - because sites now provide so many cool "sevices".

What's are the solutions? Simple --> standards or leverage.

Industry-wide standards ... or industry-leading leverage.

Standards like RSS (... check out SSE) are fascinating but not VC-fodder.

So, in this space, as a VC you're left needing to pick the next iPOD ... good luck!

Re: Web Services and Devices

David Gibbons — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:15:26 -0000

Jacob - why not just use wsdl? If we're going the standards route, it really helps if everyone is on the same page - what we don't need right now is more standards.

Re: What's next?

David Gibbons — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:27:03 -0000

Great post, Brad. For me though, I don't think you've taken a step up by the stack when you focus on governance -- if you are merely optimizing the data product, you're still focused on data.

Thanks for the though-provoking post.