DISQUS

6 months ago

in Phorm - back from the dead? on The Equity Kicker

Guys - thanks for the comments.

Alex - I'm not sure we will ever see explicit market places in attention - I suspect the values are too small for that. Rather I expect that the trade offs will be more implicit.

Warescouse - when I write a post like this there is often a trade off between keeping the post short and accessible and simplifying generalisations. You are spot on that the issue is more complex than McNealy's simple statement implies. I used it because it is directionally correct - I believe that people are more concerned about privacy than they need to be at the moment, and that they will get over it at some point.

Revrob - what you say is interesting. I had thought that Phorm's USP was their ability to track surfing and target on the back of that? Surely it is pretty simple for ISPs to make us view a page of their choice en route to the one we are trying to get to? A link to the discussion you mention would be great.

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1 reply

Revrob You wrote: Revrob - what you say is interesting. I had thought that Phorm's USP was their ability to track surfing and target on the back of that? Surely it is pretty simple for ISPs to make us view a page of their choice en route to the one we are trying to get to? A link to the discussion you mention would be great.

Thanks for responding. What lot's of people are missing is that there are at least two halves to the Phorm/Webwise equation. Firstly - the bit the ISP's do with their DPI./Layer 7 kit, intercepting (without user consent) and redirecting the browser of their customer (whether opted in or not) and inspecting for the presence of webwise optin/out cookies - there MUST be a Webwise opt-OUT cookie present or the user will get another Webwise invite - again and again - strange form of OptIN when you have to keep a cookie from the service you don't want to be part of...) - because before you even visit the site or service they are intercepting your browser requests...?

Then - if the optIN cookie is found - there is copying and profiling of the surfing behaviour - in ISP managed equipment.

Then, - passing the already collected surfing data and website content data to Phorm managed equipment for channel selction and ad serving.
Here is the official BT diagram -
http://webwise.bt.com/webwise/customer_choice.html

and here are some more reports that make it clear.
http://www.fipr.org/080423phormlegal.pdf
http://www.fipr.org/0811SCLarticle.pdf
http://www.reed.com/dpr/docs/Papers/ReedDPIHear...

Everyone seems to think the protest is about Phorms ad serving. It isn't. It is about the inerception by the ISP's without consent, and the copying and exploitation and making of derivative works (profiles, and forged cookies pretending to come from the visited website) from website copyrighted content without consent for commercial gain. the primary offenders in this are the ISP's - although Phorm designed the system, and are complicit in the breaches of civil and criminal law involved.

thanks for your attention to this - good blog.

6 months ago

in Advertising on social networks on The Equity Kicker

James - I totally agree. In fact one of the thoughts behind the post is that Google has as its mantra that advertising should be content.

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1 reply

Johny I'm not sure google see's it that way nic
it depends on cases, this one in particular MAYBE ... but thats not a rule or something

6 months ago

in Arrington on the entrepreneurial lifestyle on The Equity Kicker

Sorry Terry - I'd spotted this mistake and thought I'd fixed it. Sorted now.

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6 months ago

in Making the case for intellectual honesty on The Equity Kicker

Thanks for the comments guys.

Alan - you make good points, and having a collective misperception of the facts is obviously very dangerous, but remember also that many entrepreneurs are successful precisely because they push on and continue to believe in their visions when to other people it looks like the contrary evidence is overwhelming.

Terry - great article, thanks. It illustrates my point perfectly.

Sean - using metrics to drive a business is in general a good thing (clearly) and if done well can leave little room for intellectual dishonesty - but they are not the whole answer. Some things don't lend themselves to measurement and it is of course possible to measure the wrong things.

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6 months ago

in Facebook options debacle shows lack of liquidity is an issue for startups on The Equity Kicker

Hi Chris - tks for the comment. I think the thing that was a bit different about Facebook is that the option is still open to Zuckerberg to cash out his employees if he wants to - the issue is valuation. That makes it a little different to the markets closing for IPOs, which everyone understands is outside the CEO's control.

I'm sure you're right that nothing was promised in the legal sense. I used the word more loosely than that. The key here is what people expected, and if they really thought they were going to get some cash then they will be disappointed, and that will hit moral.

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6 months ago

in Google’s 20% rule on The Equity Kicker

Adam - I just tried to leave this comment on your T-Machine blog, but got a server error, so I'm leaving it here instead. Hopefully you will pick it up. Best, Nic

Hi Adam - tks for the comment on TheEquityKicker and sorry if I've hit a nerve here. My primary beef with the 20% rule is that it is held out to the rest of the world to be something that I suspect it isn't. Your comment made me reflect on what I had heard directly from people at Google, and what I had picked up from elsewhere, and whilst I have had some direct input you are right in your assertion that most of it comes from other 'observers'.

I say this to you though - please put us out of our misery of misconception and explain how it does work.

best,
Nic

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7 months ago

in Google’s 20% rule on The Equity Kicker

Thanks for the comments people. It seems the 20% rule is pretty popular!

Sean - I agree that the quote I cite only obliquely implies that 20% time is being discouraged - but it does do that much. I'm also with you in that people tinker and it is much better to harness that than be arrogant enough to believe you can stop it.

For me though harnessing means channeling - which means top down decisions about the areas in which tinkering will be encouraged, and discouragement of activities which go too much off piste. If strategy isn't set at the centre you don't get enough focus and the result is too many initiatives that don't fly consuming significant resource. This is something we have seen at Google, and the post I link to above lists a number of high profile initiatives that have been cancelled in favour of focus on Google's core strategies.

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7 months ago

in Social media: data versus interface on The Equity Kicker

Some great comments guys, thank you. I wonder if O'Reilly doesn't really think about money when he assesses technologies.

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7 months ago

in Ebay’s decline on The Equity Kicker

Interesting point James. I think we are seeing a similar trend with social networks too. It could be that on the web the economies of scale aren't strong enough to justify the product compromises necessary on these one size fits all sites.

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7 months ago

in Fear of failure spreading to Silicon Valley? on The Equity Kicker

Thanks for the comments people.

A couple of responses:

1) I agree with Fabio and Andy that results are an unreliable guide to ability and it is far better to look at what was actually done (where possible). Pay on results by all means, but judge on process.

2) As to how Judy explains the change, it is along the lines that Andy and Warren intimate. The VC industry grew too big too quickly from 1999-2000 and got used to quick returns (a problem exacerbated by some of the web2.0 successes) with the result that there is less experience of building great companies over time and less tolerance for short term problems. The result of this is less confidence (ability?) amongst the VC community in judging whether a previous failure is an indication of future failure or not combined with lower tolerance of mistakes in assessing entrepreneurs. I would agree with this to an extent, but with the caveat that some funds are much better than others. My guess is that a lot of capacity will come out of the market (i.e. there will be less VCs) and that might go some way to fixing this problem.

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7 months ago

in State of the nation on social networks on The Equity Kicker

James - niche socnets do monetise better, you are right. To generalise on Henry's comment - anything non-comms will generally monetise better, of which niche socnets focused around an interest area are a good example.

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7 months ago

in State of the nation on social networks on The Equity Kicker

Ah, good thought Alan, it might be because it is where friends are, and because you don't need to bother with an address book.

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7 months ago

in Online ad models breaking? on The Equity Kicker

Great comment Mason, thank you. These sorts of CPA deals are a big step forward, but I am hoping for deeper sorts of engagement from actual conversations about brands, probably in some kind of social networking format.

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8 months ago

in Lala - interesting business model for online music on The Equity Kicker

Hi Victor - if you can get it that cheap then I'm with you, it does sound like a better deal.

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8 months ago

in Phone industry becoming like the PC industry on The Equity Kicker

Hey Alan - good question. I guess if you have to pick a single company I would say Nokia or open source (maybe driven by Google). Google will be peripheral and mostly interested in pushing search and their internet products, which makes them a little different to any of the web companies.

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8 months ago

in Lala - interesting business model for online music on The Equity Kicker

Hi Victor - I understand your point. I guess whether the difference between a digital locker and simple web storage, as you describe them, is significant :)

best,
Nic

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8 months ago

in Creative destruction in the digital value chain on The Equity Kicker

Guys - tks for the comments and apologies I have been slow to respond.

James - with regard to written content, my gut is that there will be a lot of long tail content produced, but that much of it will be monetised in ways other than advertising/cash - a bit like TheEquityKicker. I guess that means a view of whether the market has grown or shrunk will depend on what you measure, but by some measures you are right that there will be growth.

Guy - you are of course right that bandwidth and storage costs will remain, and I am guilty of simplification in saying that they will be zero. Simplification, but probably not gross simplification. These costs are only a small fraction of physical distribution costs and they are trending towards zero over time.

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8 months ago

in Lala - interesting business model for online music on The Equity Kicker

Hey Viktor - what is the difference between a digital locker for my music and any standard web storage where I could back up my MP3s?

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8 months ago

in Make your product ‘remarkable’ on The Equity Kicker

rhhfla - I agree that ultimately you need to serve a customer need and sometimes simply asking customers what they want can be enough. Increasingly it isn't though, as Alex points out. Seth Godin says the same thing, if memory serves me right the way he puts it is that soliciting customer opinion is pointless because you can't trust what they say.

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8 months ago

in Sequoia Captial presentation on The Equity Kicker

Hi Fabio - to generalise I would I think the trick for pre-revenue consumer internet plays will be to keep the burn low over the next little while whilst perfecting the product.