January 2006

Indeed!!



update: more here

On an HBS student gathering from last month:

"Markets everywhere follow three stages--innovators, imitators and swarming incompetents. Opportunities are discovered, people swarm in and the opportunity is competed away." [ link]

It's taken out of context (he was referring to the hedge funds) but it certainly makes sense in a broader sense.

Another one here.

For newbies out there struggling to catch up with the rest of the blogging world. :)

...or 69% good. Am glad we cleared that up.

It's been a while since I've filled out a meme, but here we go (via Tom)

Four jobs I've had:

• sales assistant
• museum guide
• financial analyst
  
• product strategy
  

Four movies I can watch over and over:

• Pulp Fiction
  
• Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
  
• Trainspotting
• As good as it gets
  

Four places I've lived

• Oslo
  
• Prague
• Toronto
  
• Bruxelles

Four TV shows I love -- none

Four places I've vacationed:

• The Czech Republic, in the countryside
  
• Paris
• Croatian coast
  
• southern Italy
  

Four of my favorite dishes:

• grilled beef
• grilled pork ribbons
  
• broccoli chicken
• apple pie with icecream

Four sites I visit daily:

• Romanian Daily
• BBC News
• Techdirt
• Om

Four places I would rather be right now:

• on the beach
  
• NYC
  
• London
• Bed.

Four Five bloggers I am tagging:

Kit
Espen
Jeff
Umair
Fred

...or the China and Google story from the past days -- PK has a nice catch: it's this versus this.

Fred on the investors/entrepreneurs relationship:

"Be the entrepreneur's partner. Help him or her. Be there for them. Support them. Counsel them. Share the risk with them. Have fun with them. Laugh and cry with them. And make boatloads of money with them. It's a time tested formula and it will work forever."

A code that you can take a picture of and which will transform in an url. tres kewl

...can cost as much as $30k. I think it is a lot, but most likely it is a necesarry evil methinks. Please note that the product development costs are around a similar figure - mainly that low because of the team location. Great time to start something up, indeed.

...is testing a new interface for the search results displaying.

link via

I just did a 16 seconds time which most likely makes me a lousy multitasking person. But perhpas I shouldn't practice it at the end of the day when I am tired. Same with multitasking, right? [via Morten]

Stefan has a good roundup, if you missed that.

Oh yeah, it's frickin' cold in Romania too, it has been like this for two days already and this can be very depressive and affect the productivity of whatever you may try to accomplish. Including going to get your lunch from around the corner - 5 minutes for a mere 300-meter walk that can seem an eternity of swimming against the freezing wind.

Everything seems surrealistically paralyzed downtown Bucharest, very few taxis and this evening was looking as if Romanians were waiting for the glacial times to come. Oh well, that's why I am being unfriendly and acting cold these days...

update: for what is worth, I just learnt that January 24 is the worst day of the year. According to the Brits. [via Raluca]

...was messed up in Europe today - SAS Braathens and Alitalia are the cases du jour. Please note that while both companies have labour problems causing the incidents and flights chaos, Alitalia is trying to use some of the funds from the last year's 1bn euro capital increase for acquiring the bankrupted Volare. For a mere 38 mill.

"It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share." [link]

Throwing the towel or a simple strategy for buying more time? On the other hand, I doubt that Yahoo can play very well "everything for everybody" with a web 2.0 label on it. Strategy requires direction and direction requires focus, and I hardly see Yahoo focusing on a clear direction. Besides, statistically by February 14 they shall announce a new acquisition, right? :)

PK puts it very well -- Jobs bought @ $10 mil in 86 and sold @ 3.52bn 10 years later. No further comments needed.

Healthline -- for anything health-related, you guessed it. Interesting. [ via]

Via the fine guys from Sproutit here's an article presenting the living costs from Prague. I thought it would be interesting to throw in my 2 cents about the similar costs in Bucharest, they are not prescriptive and of course YMMV.

However, having been living in Prague for a year, I think that the prices, while a bit higher in Prague than in Bucharest, are reflected somewhat in a better quality of life. But, as always, there are tradeoffs everywhere, some things you can get only in Bucharest. :)

RESTAURANTS	ROMANIA
	RON	EUR	USD	GBP
Meal, Inexpensive Restaurant	15	4.1	5.1	2.8
Meal for 2, Mid-range Restaurant	50	13.8	16.9	9.5
Combo Meal at KFC/McDonald's	15	4.1	5.1	2.8
Sausage at Wenceslas Sq.
Domestic Beer (0.5 liter draught)	4.5	1.2	1.5	0.9
Imported Beer (0.33 liter bottle)	8	2.2	2.7	1.5
Coke/Pepsi (0.33 liter bottle)	3.5	1.0	1.2	0.7
Water (0.33 liter bottle)	3	0.8	1.0	0.6
MARKETS
Milk (1 liter)	2	0.6	0.7	0.4
Loaf of Fresh Bread	1.5	0.4	0.5	0.3
French Baguette	2	0.6	0.7	0.4
Eggs (10)	5	1.4	1.7	0.9
Cheese (100g)	1.5	0.4	0.5	0.3
Water (1.5 liter bottle)	2	0.6	0.7	0.4
Bottle of Romanian Wine	10	2.8	3.4	1.9
Domestic Beer (0.5 liter bottle)	25	6.9	8.5	4.7
Imported Beer (0.33 liter bottle)	50	13.8	16.9	9.5
Pack of Cigarettes (Marlboro)	4	1.1	1.4	0.8
Pack of Cigarettes - Romanian Brand	3	0.8	1.0	0.6
TRANSPORTATION
One-way Ticket	1.1	0.3	0.4	0.2
Transfer Ticket
24-hour Pass
Monthly Pass	40	11.0	13.6	7.6
Annual Pass		0.0	0.0	0.0
Taxi (airport to center)	35	9.6	11.9	6.6
Taxi (within center)	8	2.2	2.7	1.5
ACCOMODATION (Monthly)
Single Room in Bucharest 1/2	700	192.8	237.3	132.8
Single Room Outside of Centre	500	137.7	169.5	94.9
Apartment (1+1) in Bucharest 1/2	1200	330.6	406.8	227.7
Apartment (1+1) Outside of Centre	900	247.9	305.1	170.8
Apartment (2+1) in Bucharest 1/2	2000	551.0	678.0	379.5
Apartment (2+1) Outside of Centre	1500	413.2	508.5	284.6
UTILITIES, ETC. (Monthly)
Basic (Gas, Electricity, etc.)	150	41.3	50.8	28.5
Phone (Land Line)	50	13.8	16.9	9.5
Mobile Phone	150	41.3	50.8	28.5
Internet (512 kbps ADSL)	150	41.3	50.8	28.5
rates	RON
USD	2.95
EUR	3.63
GBP	5.27

the xls file is also available.

Looks like now it's cool to outsource your homework - link via

In 1997, shortly after Mr. Jobs returned to Apple, the company he helped start in 1976, Dell's founder and chairman, Michael S. Dell, was asked at a technology conference what might be done to fix Apple, then deeply troubled financially.

"What would I do?" Mr. Dell said to an audience of several thousand information technology managers. "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

[ link via Iulian]

...you do this as a background for your recent rebranding. Hmm, am I the only one who's thinking that this is simply wasted marketing money and that the one billion could've been spent wiser (read with higher ROI). Or am I just old school? :) [ via]

Most of them seem similar to the ones frequently appearing in the emails headlines from my spam folder.[via]

If you want to start seriously doing it, besides the handy means Apple offers some tips for doing podcasts as well. [ via]

For all the newbies out there -- my corrolary is that if you ain't anything to say, don't.

$140 for a 40-minute lesson on how to use the iPod ( one-to-one Ipod survival sessions) Oh man, can I get a piece of that action? [via]

It looks like some things are kinda similar everywhere -- in this case in most of the Eastern Europe parts. Just a few days ago a friend of mine almost run into a fight for allegedly taking somebody else's parking spot, even though it was on a public space and there was not even a sign of indicating some sort of a property reservation. Oh well...

Happy weekend!!

Via James here is a study about the subject of innovation in Europe. As expected Romania is not well placed, actually very poorly situated to be realist, being among the laggards in all the innovation dimensions that were evaluated (very last in IP).

What I find striking though is that in spite of the country not seeming to be a good environment for innovation emregence, Romanians are among the highest ranked when it comes to the enthusiasm or innovation adoption from the consumers' point of view.

Other than that, Sweden, Denmark, FInland, Germany and Switzerland seem to be leading the European pack.

[ everything is pdf downloadable]

He certainly seems to be the man of the moment, he's got a lot of momentum. And profiled in The Economist.

It's been for a while already in Europe (Holland, Norway and UK) -- now in Singapore.

People who often use their mobile for quick browsing might have noticed that the experience is not really compelling - on the contrary, most websites are difficult to browse and slow to load while the info is cluttered and hard to find. The reason is very simple, mobile (browsing) is not mainstream yet, we are still in the early adoption phase and accordingly not too many companies have a strategy encompassing internet mobile. That means this is potentially a place where innovation might emerge from - both in terms of technology and of business models.

Till then, it looks like after optimizing their Gmail for mobile, Google also optimized the personalized page for mobile experience.

I had plenty of arguments and endless discussions about this topic -- whereas a website has a model of aggregating pieces of news specific to a topic (let's say technology), then wraping them up and making available to the online world. Plus that most often than not it makes money out of it (that is the Acheele's heel). I ran into various arguments against them - from stealing content or IP property to childish excuses regarding the fairness of it.

Now, under most circumstances, this is simply an indication that people argumenting either don't get it or are jealous on others who actually figure out a way to make a buck or two. Over at Techdirt there is an old thread explaining in detail why this (aggregation) is a good thing for both the individual content providers and for the online media landscape per se -- I also like Mike's "one shouldn't be jealous if other people figured out a business model and we didn't".

I would just add that those aggregators (strategically Umair calls them reconstructors) are simply new distribution channels that would actually help the content writers to be easier found and hence get more publicity. Once you decided to make your content available online the inability of not being able to monetize individually what you write should not reflect on others who figured it out. As long as the credit is given where is due, of course. The thives are not really worth going after anyways as there a slight chance the market (i.e. readers) would validate them.

Definitely a good one!! :D

More than 7% of the people drink at the workplace and 9% have a hangover. In US. I guess Romania is somewhat along the same lines, my question would be how many call in sick because they're too hangover to do any work. :) [link]

summary or full report [via]

A list of some that matter

a subjective comparison. [via]

It's just like back in college -- saved for further reference. [via]

Porta turns an image directory into a neatly formatted web photo album. nice

Remember this, this and this? More than a year later Clayton Christensen expresses his concerns that Apple might mess it up. Btw, Clayton is going to be in Oslo later this month, don't miss him if you have the chance.

Because it may prevent innovation from the private companies given that the government (taxpayers' money) is behind its management and traditionally innovation is not a public strength. A bit counter-intuitively at first given the short term outcome, but it certainly makes sense in the longer strategic context. What if we have an open spectrum though? :)

I got 2381 points, whatever that means. The one from the top has something like 25k.

Very interesting read

Webjay this time - a web-based playlist community, situated software app that is.

update: More on it here, including an IM interview with Webjay's founder.

He does seem to have gotten softer. I had the exact impression by watching him a few days ago, he didn't seem to have geeky sparkles or at least induce me with some passion about the products he was presenting. Unlike Larry.

Bob Cringely has a good take speculating that Google is on its road to offer contextualized ads to IP-Tv. This would be a grand solution to the wasted marketing problem and which I somewhat predicted about two years ago, I just couldn't figure that Google might be the one to provide it. :) But now the circle seems to close.

Old news for the people in the know, of course, but besides the usual media coverage I just believe that even more important is the exercise of thinking about different verticals (other than video) with a similar model (i.e. getting the middle position by indexing and providing most or all of the value from the chain for a hefty wholesale percentage retainer - 30% in the Google Video case). Food for thought.

Other than that - Battelle's obligatory reading about the strategic implications: paradigm shift indeed on the Video and a defensive move in the Pack's case. The marketing wrapup over at Engadget - it surely looks like Google's grown up.

Good read about the big picture of the industry. [via]

Rob is getting back on the corporate track after a 2-year entrepreneurial experience. Been following his blog for more than 2 years, go read it all, it's written from the heart -- coincidentally, lately I have been giving a lot of thoughts myself to what he is talking about. At the end of the day I guess that being 100% honest with yourself and knowing who you are and where you want to go are crucial for enjoying the ride. And making it worthwhile.

nice