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Jeff Jarvis
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3 months ago
in Dear Jeff Jarvis - Here’s Some GoogleJuice on Dan Reich
Dan,
Wow. Thanks so much. It's gratifying that you understand how this is about much more than Google. It's about change, eh?
jeff
Wow. Thanks so much. It's gratifying that you understand how this is about much more than Google. It's about change, eh?
jeff
1 reply
7 months ago
in The Jeff Jarvis conundrum on Technovia
I am working on that post.
1 reply
ianbetteridge
Thank you Jeff - I look forward to it.
9 months ago
in It's Time To Open Up The Feeds To Marketers on A VC
Fred,
I agree. I first started begging for ad revenue on feeds back in 2004.
Back then, we discussed the need for cookies in RSS and feeds to enable what you're talking about.
This is also about the end of the pageview and the need to measure new things.
I haven't played with Chrome yet (being a Mac user) but I sense we'll start to break down the notion of both the browser and the page. We will have feeds and searches. The feeds will often be ones we create when we follow someone or some topic. Those are spectacular opportunities for targeted and valued advertising.
I agree. I first started begging for ad revenue on feeds back in 2004.
Back then, we discussed the need for cookies in RSS and feeds to enable what you're talking about.
This is also about the end of the pageview and the need to measure new things.
I haven't played with Chrome yet (being a Mac user) but I sense we'll start to break down the notion of both the browser and the page. We will have feeds and searches. The feeds will often be ones we create when we follow someone or some topic. Those are spectacular opportunities for targeted and valued advertising.
1 reply
Stephen Pierzchala
Jeff: Your idea that we should measure new things is right on. I advocate that we measure the degree to which a post, tweet, micro, etc. draw together a community to have a conversation - see http://newestindustry.org/2008/09/18/blog-adver... .
Go for the attention, that idea that was bounced around a few years ago.
A measurement summit sound like a solid idea, because to be able to base an advertising model on a measurement of conversation and community, we (the content creators and the advertisers) better have a pretty iron-clad way to measure the value of these items before we start charging for them
Go for the attention, that idea that was bounced around a few years ago.
A measurement summit sound like a solid idea, because to be able to base an advertising model on a measurement of conversation and community, we (the content creators and the advertisers) better have a pretty iron-clad way to measure the value of these items before we start charging for them
11 months ago
in When Will A Comment Be Treated Like A Post On Techmeme? on A VC
I think there's something bigger, architecturally, going on here that involves highlighting and alerting/updating. I've written about this in the context of corrections:
If (well, when) I write something wrong, I want to (a) correct it openly and visibly on the top layer of the blog -- not just in the comments when it is and important correction -- and (b) it would be wonderful if I could alert all those who linked to and even read my post to the fact that there has been a correction.
We could do the same thing with substantive responses to a post, especially by parties to it -- the Hornik example.
Some of this is necessarily qualitative; we don't want every comment brought to the front; we don't want a feed of every correction someone makes. So this needs to be a judgment probably by the post's original author who responsibly says, 'I need to update my linkers and readers to this.'
This isn't true just of blogs but also of news stories. And it becomes all the more important as news is viewed less as a product and more as a process.
If (well, when) I write something wrong, I want to (a) correct it openly and visibly on the top layer of the blog -- not just in the comments when it is and important correction -- and (b) it would be wonderful if I could alert all those who linked to and even read my post to the fact that there has been a correction.
We could do the same thing with substantive responses to a post, especially by parties to it -- the Hornik example.
Some of this is necessarily qualitative; we don't want every comment brought to the front; we don't want a feed of every correction someone makes. So this needs to be a judgment probably by the post's original author who responsibly says, 'I need to update my linkers and readers to this.'
This isn't true just of blogs but also of news stories. And it becomes all the more important as news is viewed less as a product and more as a process.
2 replies
isayusay
If they were hyperlinks, users will always see the latest.
12 months ago
in Startup Idea #71: WWGD: Fashion edition on wild illusions
Great thoughts. Fun, eh?
On your i: cool.
On your ii: There are, of course, T-shirt companies that now encourage public designs and then the public votes them up: diggfashion.
iii: I like that and I think it can go a step farther: We'll make it if you order it, change the order of the industry around.
I also wonder about opening up the design process (I'm speculating on this in the book regarding other industries): Why not enable people to see what you're designing and make suggestions as the process goes; you don't have to accept them but why not hear them?
jeff
On your i: cool.
On your ii: There are, of course, T-shirt companies that now encourage public designs and then the public votes them up: diggfashion.
iii: I like that and I think it can go a step farther: We'll make it if you order it, change the order of the industry around.
I also wonder about opening up the design process (I'm speculating on this in the book regarding other industries): Why not enable people to see what you're designing and make suggestions as the process goes; you don't have to accept them but why not hear them?
jeff
1 reply
Aaronchua
Thanks for comments, Jeff
Have been a great fan of your blog so it is an honor to receive your comments.
I am currently advising a young startup who wants to take over the fashion industry : ) So any ideas you have on disrupting the status quote will be most welcomed.
Looking forward to your book!
Aaron
Have been a great fan of your blog so it is an honor to receive your comments.
I am currently advising a young startup who wants to take over the fashion industry : ) So any ideas you have on disrupting the status quote will be most welcomed.
Looking forward to your book!
Aaron
1 year ago
in My Vision For Social Media on A VC
And I believe that the business/investment opportunity is in those things that provide a platform for that or bring -- in Mark Zuckerberg's words -- elegant organization to the social network that the internet (and life) already are.
That's my grand vision, expressed with uncharacteristic brevity.
That's my grand vision, expressed with uncharacteristic brevity.
1 reply
fredwilson
Sometimes less is more Jeff
1 year ago
in The Difference Between Wordpress and Facebook on A VC
But I think there's another difference: Beyond automatic trackbacks among WordPress blogs, Wordpress is not a network. Wordpress is a platform. Facebook is a network that added a platform. Should Wordpress? No. One blog has no connection to another. And I wouldn't want that.
This raises a larger opportunity, though, one we've discussed: I've long said that the internet already is a social network and the big win goes to he who helps organize that. There's an opportunity that scales past either of these.
Another opportunity: Wordpress should come with OpenX and Google AdManager and AdSense preinstalled and ready to roll (getting a marketing fee from both).
(BTW, to size Wordpress, I do believe this does not include blogs like mine, which aren't at wordpress.com but use the platform. That's potentially huge.)
This raises a larger opportunity, though, one we've discussed: I've long said that the internet already is a social network and the big win goes to he who helps organize that. There's an opportunity that scales past either of these.
Another opportunity: Wordpress should come with OpenX and Google AdManager and AdSense preinstalled and ready to roll (getting a marketing fee from both).
(BTW, to size Wordpress, I do believe this does not include blogs like mine, which aren't at wordpress.com but use the platform. That's potentially huge.)
2 replies
Philippe Bradley
But it's not really if they can't monetize it, which at present, they don't in the slightest, and would probably draw a lot of criticism/rejection from the open source community that is building it if they attempted to. .Org is of value to .Com, but only for marketing/brand/reputation/development/design purposes - not for direct revenue purposes. There's not much evidence that it ever could be.
bijan
I can't remember who said it first but i've heard the line "facebook is like renting a house and blogging is like buying a house."
I thought that was clever.
User control is a big difference.
I think that blogs are rapidly changing. you are right Jeff, in hte past blogs weren't connected to each other.
but blogs are becoming more social and they are connecting in ways that weren't possible or conceived of in the past.
I thought that was clever.
User control is a big difference.
I think that blogs are rapidly changing. you are right Jeff, in hte past blogs weren't connected to each other.
but blogs are becoming more social and they are connecting in ways that weren't possible or conceived of in the past.
1 year ago
in We Need A New Path To Liquidity on A VC
Why don't you?
1 reply
Alex Hammer
Investors can inded be part of the solution in regard to maintaining innovation post acquistion, and in fact it may turn out that they are central too it. They have both the vision and influence to be a (if not the) determining factor.
1 year ago
in We Need A New Path To Liquidity on A VC
Fred,
I think what we really see is a new opportunity to buy up good startups without even trying to integrate them: the unsynergy corp. AOL has ruined everything from Netscape to Moviefone to ICQ to Mapquest to Tacoda Being bought by bigco is a disaster for an application's users and fans; the only reason it is done, you're right, is liquidity for the founders and investors.
If I were, say, Carlyle today, I'd raise a fund to buy up and manage -- but not synergize -- some of the best applications and startups out there. I'd give them decent management and shared services (a la a later stsage Idealab, I suppose) but let them still operate independently and entrepreneurially. I also wouldn't want to buy 100 percent of the equity; the founders should stay and have earnouts that motivate them to improve their products, give them the control necessary to do so, and still let them and their investors cash out.
What I'm really proposing, then, is networks over corporations. If small is the new big -- but, as Mark Potts said at my conference, "If you want to be small, you probably have to be part of something big" -- then we need a new definition of big with all the benefits and none of the stupid corporate ruination.
Just a thought
show all 5 replies
I think what we really see is a new opportunity to buy up good startups without even trying to integrate them: the unsynergy corp. AOL has ruined everything from Netscape to Moviefone to ICQ to Mapquest to Tacoda Being bought by bigco is a disaster for an application's users and fans; the only reason it is done, you're right, is liquidity for the founders and investors.
If I were, say, Carlyle today, I'd raise a fund to buy up and manage -- but not synergize -- some of the best applications and startups out there. I'd give them decent management and shared services (a la a later stsage Idealab, I suppose) but let them still operate independently and entrepreneurially. I also wouldn't want to buy 100 percent of the equity; the founders should stay and have earnouts that motivate them to improve their products, give them the control necessary to do so, and still let them and their investors cash out.
What I'm really proposing, then, is networks over corporations. If small is the new big -- but, as Mark Potts said at my conference, "If you want to be small, you probably have to be part of something big" -- then we need a new definition of big with all the benefits and none of the stupid corporate ruination.
Just a thought
- 2 points
- Jump to »
ambrosini
What Jeff describes does seem like the obvious next phase of tech "growth/later-stage" funds, especially as vc/pe firms are looking to more money to work. As Fred mentioned, it seemed this was where Velocity was headed (which didn't really happen).
This strategy extends to many of the types of deals that are probably viewed as successful as well. At the time of its acquisition, Myspace HAD to get acquired by someone like News Corp. because the company and its backers--Redpoint--couldn't fund its huge and growing cost structure. Was Myspace worth more than $150mm (remember it was Intermix that sold for $580mm...Myspace was just a piece of that overall deal)??? In hindsight it would obviously seem so, but without News Corp. coming in with its big balance sheet the cost of business would have killed growth and Myspace would not be Myspace as we know it today.
However, a Carlyle-funded late-stage Idealab would have been a great buyer/investor. Redpoint gets a good return on its earlier stage/higher risk investment, and Carlyle funds/grows Myspace into a fast growing, highly profitable business. The story would be the same for Youtube and many other top start-ups.
However, for many micro-services/applications, I agree with poster Nathaniel above who writes:
"To me selling a micro service to a large web company is like a production company selling content to a major media company. They attract eyeballs for advertising revenue, nothing more. Some micro services are more or less content, not businesses. If they can't generate profits independently then how valuable are they?"
Not all applications or services should be viewed as long-term, sustainable businesses. As the cost of starting a company--or more accurately, building and launching an application--goes to basically zero (other than human capital) innovation will continue at an increased pace. As soon as an application or service gains some traction and users/customers the new, cooler application will be launched. Follow Techcrunch for a day and you see this all the time. However, I think there can still be value to Big Media as Nathaniel describes: the application/service can be viewed like a production company selling content to a major media company. I think we've already seen this with some Facebook applications...and I'm sure we'll see more with the launch of the iFund and the trend toward "Level 3 Internet platforms" (Marc Andreessen). Big Media would buy up some of the apps and monetize the users as much as possible (and in a way that the company couldn’t on its own) with the expectation that interest in the app/service has a shelf life (how long can Survivor actually run?!?). Obviously, those deals would need to be valued accordingly.
This strategy extends to many of the types of deals that are probably viewed as successful as well. At the time of its acquisition, Myspace HAD to get acquired by someone like News Corp. because the company and its backers--Redpoint--couldn't fund its huge and growing cost structure. Was Myspace worth more than $150mm (remember it was Intermix that sold for $580mm...Myspace was just a piece of that overall deal)??? In hindsight it would obviously seem so, but without News Corp. coming in with its big balance sheet the cost of business would have killed growth and Myspace would not be Myspace as we know it today.
However, a Carlyle-funded late-stage Idealab would have been a great buyer/investor. Redpoint gets a good return on its earlier stage/higher risk investment, and Carlyle funds/grows Myspace into a fast growing, highly profitable business. The story would be the same for Youtube and many other top start-ups.
However, for many micro-services/applications, I agree with poster Nathaniel above who writes:
"To me selling a micro service to a large web company is like a production company selling content to a major media company. They attract eyeballs for advertising revenue, nothing more. Some micro services are more or less content, not businesses. If they can't generate profits independently then how valuable are they?"
Not all applications or services should be viewed as long-term, sustainable businesses. As the cost of starting a company--or more accurately, building and launching an application--goes to basically zero (other than human capital) innovation will continue at an increased pace. As soon as an application or service gains some traction and users/customers the new, cooler application will be launched. Follow Techcrunch for a day and you see this all the time. However, I think there can still be value to Big Media as Nathaniel describes: the application/service can be viewed like a production company selling content to a major media company. I think we've already seen this with some Facebook applications...and I'm sure we'll see more with the launch of the iFund and the trend toward "Level 3 Internet platforms" (Marc Andreessen). Big Media would buy up some of the apps and monetize the users as much as possible (and in a way that the company couldn’t on its own) with the expectation that interest in the app/service has a shelf life (how long can Survivor actually run?!?). Obviously, those deals would need to be valued accordingly.
fredwilson
i thought that was what jon and ross were going to do, but it didn't happen
someone's going to do it Jeff. and that will be a good test of a new model
fred
someone's going to do it Jeff. and that will be a good test of a new model
fred
1 year ago
in The Declining Power Of The Firm on A VC
Fred,
Of course, corporations won't end. But I believe they are being supplemented by a few models that are not about command-and-control at the center, as all old corporations were. They're the obvious ones you know:
* Platforms. Take Google, of course. It is the anti-Yahoo, built on the distributed model of enabling countless companies to start atop what it provides. Yahoo, I've said, shouldn't just break up into smaller pieces; it should make its entire self exportable and reusable. Ditto AOL. Ditto, for that matter, Microsoft. Amazon and Google are offering up their infrastructures as the bases for others' companies and that's smart. Pardon the plug for my book, but they should all be asking WWGD?
* Networks. A little less-loose than platforms; they come together to benefit from critical mass but do not join into a corporation; there is still ownership and control at the edges. I believe that Right Media is part of a larger trend toward open ad networks, for example; see OpenX and Google AdManager. Again: WWGD?
* Metaorganizations. That's made-up but I want to encompass more than just open-source. This is the loosest affiliation: gathering around standards or standard-making efforts to gain some benefits of critical mass with all control and ownership at the edge.
As Google proves, though, this isn't an either-or. A corporation can, as the examples above have shown, still be a corporation but scale much larger by creating a network, loose or tight, and adding as much value as possible while extracting as little value as possible while growing as big as possible. This is what I learned at your event from the likes of Yochai Benkler, Tom Evslin, Tim O'Reilly, Umair, and you. From the top view, size still has benefits so it still matters but there are now alternatives to size that also demands ownership and control. From the bottom-up view, enterprises at the edge will join whatever gives them the benefits of size -- whether that's building on a Google platform, or adhering to a Web standard, or selling on eBay, or using Amazon infrastructure, or joining an OpenX or other ad network. To quote Mark Potts from my conference on networked journalism at CUNY: To be small, you have to be part of something big.
The thing is, nobody can own big anymore. And that is what will keep big -- the corporations and organizations of the future -- more honest, I hope (but then, I'm an optimist). That control is what allowed them to corrupt.
How do you make money on this? I think you already are, by supporting companies that create platforms or take advantage of others' platforms or standards. Are there more ways? Well, that's an interesting conversation. Time for lunch. I do think that one could look at any of the industries Umair links to and complains about above and try to figure out what platforms would be needed to utterly disrupt them. Pardon the last plug, but that's part of what I'm trying to do in the book. So I'll buy lunch.
*
show all 3 replies
Of course, corporations won't end. But I believe they are being supplemented by a few models that are not about command-and-control at the center, as all old corporations were. They're the obvious ones you know:
* Platforms. Take Google, of course. It is the anti-Yahoo, built on the distributed model of enabling countless companies to start atop what it provides. Yahoo, I've said, shouldn't just break up into smaller pieces; it should make its entire self exportable and reusable. Ditto AOL. Ditto, for that matter, Microsoft. Amazon and Google are offering up their infrastructures as the bases for others' companies and that's smart. Pardon the plug for my book, but they should all be asking WWGD?
* Networks. A little less-loose than platforms; they come together to benefit from critical mass but do not join into a corporation; there is still ownership and control at the edges. I believe that Right Media is part of a larger trend toward open ad networks, for example; see OpenX and Google AdManager. Again: WWGD?
* Metaorganizations. That's made-up but I want to encompass more than just open-source. This is the loosest affiliation: gathering around standards or standard-making efforts to gain some benefits of critical mass with all control and ownership at the edge.
As Google proves, though, this isn't an either-or. A corporation can, as the examples above have shown, still be a corporation but scale much larger by creating a network, loose or tight, and adding as much value as possible while extracting as little value as possible while growing as big as possible. This is what I learned at your event from the likes of Yochai Benkler, Tom Evslin, Tim O'Reilly, Umair, and you. From the top view, size still has benefits so it still matters but there are now alternatives to size that also demands ownership and control. From the bottom-up view, enterprises at the edge will join whatever gives them the benefits of size -- whether that's building on a Google platform, or adhering to a Web standard, or selling on eBay, or using Amazon infrastructure, or joining an OpenX or other ad network. To quote Mark Potts from my conference on networked journalism at CUNY: To be small, you have to be part of something big.
The thing is, nobody can own big anymore. And that is what will keep big -- the corporations and organizations of the future -- more honest, I hope (but then, I'm an optimist). That control is what allowed them to corrupt.
How do you make money on this? I think you already are, by supporting companies that create platforms or take advantage of others' platforms or standards. Are there more ways? Well, that's an interesting conversation. Time for lunch. I do think that one could look at any of the industries Umair links to and complains about above and try to figure out what platforms would be needed to utterly disrupt them. Pardon the last plug, but that's part of what I'm trying to do in the book. So I'll buy lunch.
*
3 replies
Amanda Chapel
God save us.
fredwilson
Jeff
This comment is a post in and of itself. We need a reblog button in disqus badly!
Fred
This comment is a post in and of itself. We need a reblog button in disqus badly!
Fred
1 year ago
in Live-blogging from Mozillla press meeting (Scripting News) on Scripting News
Have the fixed the memory leak problem that slows things down to a crawl? (I had to switch to Camino.)
1 reply
quodlibetor
yes. Check out http://blog.pavlov.net/2008/03/11/firefox-3-mem... for some details, especially about two-thirds of the way down the page there is an amazing graph. It looks like Fx3 has got the best memory usage of every publicly available production or pre-production browser.
1 year ago
in Social Blogging on A VC
Fred,
I think it's a misnomer to group Facebook and Myspce -- even though everyone does. Myspace is a blogging with a little bit of social added as a cherry on top. Facebook is an organizational tool that includes, as a fringe benefit, a touch of light social blogging.
I think it's a misnomer to group Facebook and Myspce -- even though everyone does. Myspace is a blogging with a little bit of social added as a cherry on top. Facebook is an organizational tool that includes, as a fringe benefit, a touch of light social blogging.
1 reply
fredwilson
Jeff
You are right, of course, that FB and MS are very different animals.
But neither of them are optimized for blogging, at least as far as I can
tell.
Fred
You are right, of course, that FB and MS are very different animals.
But neither of them are optimized for blogging, at least as far as I can
tell.
Fred
"It's about change."
Without question.
Just funny to me when I see people envy the likes of Google, Facebook,
Amazon, yet those people can't seem to adopt the "Google" practices in their
own lives or business.
Quick story:
When I was in school, one of my electrical engineering professors began the
class with the following statement..."Today, it is Google, than G-d, than
everyone else." (The class was taped in a studio and made available for
students abroad).
Seems as if you were both on to something.
In any case...I'll be awaiting your next book...whenever that may be..
Best,
Dan