Disqus - Friends of fbrunel

Re: Conferences (continued)

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:01:11 -0000

yes

Re: Conferences (continued)

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:47:10 -0000

That fight was between arrington and the ceo of offerpal, not zynga

But it is true that arrington did go after zynga last week on his blog for things they and their lead gen partners have done relating to questionable lead gen offers

In many ways it was a good thing as it caused zynga to have some hard discussions with their lead gen partners

I think it will be a good thing for the social gaming industry long term, but I also think zynga was unfairly singled out in the process

Re: Conferences (continued)

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:41:46 -0000

Watch out where? Defrag, social recruiting, or bapi?

Maybe all three when I think about it!

Re: Conferences (continued)

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:41:05 -0000

Yes, I'll be there

Re: Conferences (continued)

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:38:57 -0000

I'll let Bug know. Very interesting. Thanks

Re: Conferences (continued)

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:34:07 -0000

Big horizontal gatherings don't interest me very much

Re: Conferences (continued)

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:30:54 -0000

The niche ones are cheap or even free. The cost of attendance/exclusionary nature is a good way to determine what to avoid

Re: No support on Twitter please. (Scripting News)

dave — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:45:10 -0000

Yes, that works. Tweeting "Comcast sucks!" is likely to get you a "Wazzup"
from one of their support people.

Re: Conferences (continued)

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:55:17 -0000

True. But its on my way to a board meeting in SF on friday

Re: Conferences (continued)

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:54:42 -0000

Me too

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:54:02 -0000

Boulder has an older ecosystem than NYC. I'd say late second decade. Maybe third decade

Re: Your readers are paying you — with attention

mathewi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:41:22 -0000

So newspapers fail to convert readers who come in through search. Is
that Google's fault, or the Internet's fault, or is it the fault of
the newspaper for not knowing (or caring) how to engage and convert
and retain readers? Better to focus on charging an ever-shrinking
number of devoted readers ever-increasing sums for the same old
content. Great strategy.

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

fredwilson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:24:50 -0000

The universities need to work with the city to foster innovation in areas like biotech and cleantech. Its happening. But not like MIT/Harvard or Stanford/Berkeley. Your observation is spot on

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

fredwilson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:21:42 -0000

Depends on the category. In biotech and clean tech, absolutely. In web services, I doubt it

Re: Your readers are paying you — with attention

mathewi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:18:28 -0000

Obviously he still has promotional power -- all kinds of it. So I'll be interested to see what happens to his business when he removes Google and virtually all of social media from that equation. Should be a fascinating test case.

Re: Your readers are paying you — with attention

mathewi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:36:03 -0000

Yes, I can see how Rupert would see things that way -- and so he is willing
to potentially endanger the long-term online growth (if not survival) of
some of his key media properties because he wants to take down Google so
they don't someday decide to compete with him. Classic.

Re: 30 predictions for the future of Twitter

loiclemeur — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:14:34 -0000

Yeah sure Facebook is not making a lot of money! Get fresh news my friend...

Re: Your readers are paying you — with attention

mathewi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:08:27 -0000

I didn't say that's all they should care about, Mark -- I said that when it
comes to search, all they should care about is that readers can find their
content, not whether Google or Microsoft or Yahoo is on top.

Re: Your readers are paying you — with attention

mathewi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:14:01 -0000

I don't see how it's a net benefit to News Corp. -- or any other major media
outlet, for that matter -- if they all pull out of Google and no one
benefits directly, but Google is somehow negatively impacted. The only
companies I can think of that benefit in that scenario are Microsoft and
Yahoo, but why should Murdoch or anyone else celebrate that? All they care
about (or should care about) is that people can find their content. So my
two things would be:

1. News Corp. pulls out of the index and nothing happens, in which case why
did they bother?

2. they pull out of the index and they lose all kinds of traffic and
mind-share and attention and promotional value through link-sharing, blogs,
etc. -- but they don't notice until it's too late, and by that point
re-entering the index doesn't help.

That sounds like a sucker bet to me.

Re: Your readers are paying you — with attention

mathewi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:03:48 -0000

Strikes me as a great approach, George -- the same way many blogs have
"landing page" boxes that promote their RSS feed, related posts, etc.

Re: Your readers are paying you — with attention

mathewi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:41:56 -0000

Fair enough, Mark -- although I think that the theoretical Fox News audience is more fungible than either you or Ian (or Rupert) want to admit. In any case, what you have described is a recipe for maintaining a certain audience, not increasing it.

Re: Your readers are paying you — with attention

mathewi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:36:47 -0000

I think news is more of a commodity than either you or Rupert wants to admit, Ian.

Re: Your readers are paying you — with attention

mathewi — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:53:18 -0000

Thanks for the comment, Mark; always a pleasure to hear from you.
Don't read too much into the "crusty old billionaire" crack -- I was
just yanking your chain a little :-)

As far as the whole business model thing is concerned, please read my
response to Ian -- I am not some kind of business naïf, or Internet
triumphalist. And I don't think advertising is the key to making
content pay online, in part because of the factors you describe.

But the fact remains that in order to prove value, or even
successfully create it, we have to use tools like Twitter and Facebook
and yes, even Google -- not cut them off and put roadblocks in their
way. People sharing our content is one of the best marketing tools we
have available; why would we make that even harder than we do already?

You should be thanking me for saying that you're right about the power
of Twitter etc. But you don't explain how that jibes with Rupert's
Google-blocking and pay-walling - which is understandable, because it
doesn't.

Go Mavs!

Re: People Will Pay for Surprise

byosko — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:58:08 -0000

Shocking / negative surprise can be an ad campaign that you find gross for example, but people talk about. One example in Andy Nulman's book is for a maker of slushy drinks. They're targeted at teenagers, so the names of the drinks are all disgusting. You and I might find that type of surprise unpleasant, but apparently kids love it.

The types of surprises you're referring to are not done intentionally by moving companies to please customers, they're fraudsters and scam artists cheating customers. That's not the kind of surprising I'm talking about.

I would say - given the frustration many people have with your industry - that there's AMPLE opportunity to surprise in a positive way. What could you do that would make a customer say, "Holy SHIT! No moving company has ever done that for me. You guys are incredible." Maybe it's just doing the right thing in the time and for the money you say you will, but those are things customers assume are true. What else could you do?

Re: Startups Aren’t Small Companies

byosko — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:55:05 -0000

Agreed 100%. That is a very unfortunate circumstance. I've seen it happen, but I'm not sure I have a great answer on how to avoid those types of conflicts.