Disqus - Latest Comments for Alex

Re: CBS inflates the bubble with Dotspotter

Alex — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:39:59 -0000

Seems unrealistic that they would pay that much for what looks like a fairly simple blog with some web 2.0 features bolted on. Perhaps it's 10% cash, the rest on earnout?

Re: Online news ads up — just not enough

Alex — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:30:04 -0000

I believe there are several problems which newspapers face, but there are also tremendous opportunities for these publishers. The biggest problem is that their basic medium is outdated-- I'm not just talking about printing, but rather the idea that a local newspaper needs to be a source of every type of news under the sun. There is tremendous overlap in what's reported every day by the major dailies and news services. This made sense when the only way to get the information was via local delivery, but with the web this is a huge cost which is unjustified by the distribution.

Because of the near monopoly most newspapers have on their cities, they have been able to charge insane ad rates to reach people. What they need to do now is provide ways for a larger advertiser base to reach their local readers more efficiently. Targeting their web experience to individuals based on information they can get is the very best way to do this. In short, newspapers need to stop relying on a few huge advertisers to pay insane rates, and instead need to provide those advertisers with much more targeted ads perhaps tied to some CPA type ads, and at the same time create a huge self-service, targeted ads program for every single local advertiser in their region.

Without a consolidation of newsgathering, a hyper-local approach to news and media, and a highly targeted, innovative ads system, newspapers will die. And it will be their fault, because they are positioned better then anyone to reap the massive rewards local/regional news and media can provide.

Re: Among venture firms, DFJ maintains global leadership

Alex — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:37:18 -0000

Interesting. Israel is definitely a hotbed of innovation in the web space and elsewhere. What Israeli startups have had big exits? ICQ comes immediately to mind, what else?

Re: On Competition

Alex — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:37:27 -0000

Competition is definitely a good thing, it shows you're on to something and also allows you to sharpen your vision.

Every time I start to think about competition too much, I remember a Jeff Bezos quote which is something like: Focus on the customer, not the competition. At the end of the day, competition is a form of validation but ultimately your users only care about what is going to work for them.

In a network economy though, competition takes on some different aspects. People don't want to be where other people aren't... this is the toughest challenge facing entrepreneurs on the web-- building community is a lot harder if someone else already has a big, diverse, and robust community

Re: Introducing Publish2: Networked News

Alex — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 01:15:13 -0000

Love the model, great conclusions and idea. Running a company and making it into a real business is the hard part, but I think you guys are on the right track and I really wish you well.

Re: Five Guiding Principles For The Transformation Of Media Companies

Alex — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:03:54 -0000

Fantastic list. They all should be obvious, but it's clear that in most major mediaco boardrooms, they're not. People are still thinking distribution, not network.

Re: Finding The Best Coverage Of The New Hampshire Primary Results: Digg vs. Google News vs. Memeorandum

Alex — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:18:49 -0000

Great post-- I've had the same problem. I want to find a good mix of newsy stuff and bloggy stuff, opinion and facts. So far I've basically been bouncing around between politico.com, nytimes.com, and memeorandum.com

Re: WSJ.com Remains A Paid Site And Bets On The Value Of Its Niche Audience

Alex — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 03:49:19 -0000

You must work hard during the week, because all your best posts seem to be late on saturday.

It's trivial, $$$-wise for WSJ.com to set up 15 blogs that engage regularly with the web ecosystem, but still point people back to their premium content. The audience that can afford such content automatically creates a subset of users who are more affluent. It also creates a special class of user that truly cares about your content, and isn't there by mistake, by accident, or just to mess around.

Re: Interview: Henry Copeland, CEO, Founder of BlogAds: To Make Money At Blogging, Rein In Comments

Alex — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 11:26:06 -0000

Blogads is a great company that gets little press due to its not being located in Silicon Valley or New York. I remember when Copeland was first starting the service, and a few people chastised him for even wanting to put blogs on ads, which at the time seemed antithetical to the ethos of blogging. Now he's able to put millions of dollars in the pockets of bloggers-- the vast majority of whom aren't trying to make a living from blogging, they just want to get paid for their work.

Re: Pluck on The Block; Sale Could Fetch Around $75 Million

Alex — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:36:45 -0000

Do they have any serious revenues? Do they have a way to capture any real value through their service? It seems highly unlikely, but who knows.

Re: Google's OpenSocial Designed To Blunt Facebook's Growth, While Building Up Lesser Social Nets

Alex — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:09:36 -0000

I guess you could also say on the flip side, if this challenge doesn't scale up rapidly and doesn't make a huge impact, it will further along the perception (or reality) of Facebook's dominance.

Re: Free WSJ.com Would Need 12x Traffic To Offset Loss; DJ Buy To Shave A Penny From NWS: Analyst

Alex — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:04:39 -0000

Excellent and important analysis from Bear Stearns. While free content makes sense for the vast majority of web publishers, it's not a be-all end-all for those who have content 'worth' selling. Ad sales, especially if you're an independent publisher without other interests (as FOX does), can be fickle, while paid-content limits growth but also provides far steadier revenues.

Re: eduFire Raises $400k Angel Round For Online Language Learning

Alex — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:07:59 -0000

I've been using the site and it's fantastic. Good to see education-related startups starting to spring up in SoCal!