companies from outside the US and entrepreneurs under 30 to keep an eye on. via
July 2007
nice way of vizualising search results from a bunch of wikipedia sites
So you have a product or a service and you're thinking it might be a good fit with Google, Microsoft, Adobe or SAP. Here are some guidelines for making a play.
I must say that I was a bit suprised by it - apparently it's about the traction not about the biz model, kinda like delicious' theme investment.
Now, Fred is a smart guy and has seen lots of things but delicious was solving a problem. I can't seem to understand what problem "microblogging" is solving as of yet, especially given that there is a fair number of substitute products. The upside, which I bet was one of the triggers of the investment, is that there's a fairly large ecosystem built around twitter, and Ev's also the kind of guy who can gather a significant community around his product. At least he did it with Blogger.
So I guess the next level challenge is growing that ecosystem and make it attractive for a strategic investor. Quite difficult but not impossible. The chemistry seems right.
Now, Fred is a smart guy and has seen lots of things but delicious was solving a problem. I can't seem to understand what problem "microblogging" is solving as of yet, especially given that there is a fair number of substitute products. The upside, which I bet was one of the triggers of the investment, is that there's a fairly large ecosystem built around twitter, and Ev's also the kind of guy who can gather a significant community around his product. At least he did it with Blogger.
So I guess the next level challenge is growing that ecosystem and make it attractive for a strategic investor. Quite difficult but not impossible. The chemistry seems right.
Reversed product placement that is - Fox decided to launch some of the brands from the newly launched The Simpsons movie into the real world, as a 7-Eleven product offering. This move includes (some of the) the entire rebranding of the 7 Eleven stores into Kwik-E Mart.
...in Time magazine, I haven't seen too many interviews with him actually. We're not focused on the exit, be it a strategic investor or an IPO, we're just trying to build a useful product, with more international exposure. We call it a social utility.
...between Europe and US, Michael's got a great post underlining some very upfront observations.
In business it's not about you, it's about them, the customers. Though it is not always applicable when it comes to blogs - I read a blog because I am interested what its author has to say about a certain issue or perspective.
So it's been blogged for a while, quite for a few times by Fred or Brad
What is it? A search engine that treats your blog and your social network created around it as an ecosystem - my first analogy was "spotlight for the OS".
Does that make it that we officially have an online operating system centered around our social network with the blog as its center? It would make sense actually, our main presence online is not our facebook or myspace or linkedin account even though newbies might give it a primary try in the beginning when they might not be as familiar with the online medium.
But our online needs evolve and our ego would ultimately require that our own online presence will be a personalized page updated on regularly basis and this is what a blog is for. We put our blog url in our facebook profile so *it is* our most important online spot. And this is from there we start to build our online social circle, be it under the form of a mini-facebook (welcome Ning) or pure and simple placing addons with our flickr, lastfm or linkedin accounts.
And this is where Lijit comes into play -- it is a product that might fly given the hypothesis that we build our network starting with the blog and then adding on. But what if we had toolkit ala wordpress or typepad that would create our social presence exactly mimicking facebook? Yeah, that would include a blog, a photo gallery, an incoroporated music player from our own repository aso. Then its search engine would be a fairly thing to do, methinks. But we don't have such a toolkit. Yet.
What is it? A search engine that treats your blog and your social network created around it as an ecosystem - my first analogy was "spotlight for the OS".
Does that make it that we officially have an online operating system centered around our social network with the blog as its center? It would make sense actually, our main presence online is not our facebook or myspace or linkedin account even though newbies might give it a primary try in the beginning when they might not be as familiar with the online medium.
But our online needs evolve and our ego would ultimately require that our own online presence will be a personalized page updated on regularly basis and this is what a blog is for. We put our blog url in our facebook profile so *it is* our most important online spot. And this is from there we start to build our online social circle, be it under the form of a mini-facebook (welcome Ning) or pure and simple placing addons with our flickr, lastfm or linkedin accounts.
And this is where Lijit comes into play -- it is a product that might fly given the hypothesis that we build our network starting with the blog and then adding on. But what if we had toolkit ala wordpress or typepad that would create our social presence exactly mimicking facebook? Yeah, that would include a blog, a photo gallery, an incoroporated music player from our own repository aso. Then its search engine would be a fairly thing to do, methinks. But we don't have such a toolkit. Yet.
...is the equivalent of the amount of CO2 emitted by the average European car every 250 kilometres, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days. link
it is possible, it is a function of creativity and inspiration of course - here's a tool that might come in handy
There is a very, very thin dividing line between survival and failure. You've just got to fight and fight and fight and fight to survive.
from a last year interview with Richard Branson
from a last year interview with Richard Branson
Part of the problem, according to retailers, is that Prince's move helped solidify a growing perception on the part of consumers that music is free. [context is that Prince gave away his newly launched CD with a newspaper edition from the UK. for free]
This, however, is not part of the problem but part of the solution for the music industry.
This, however, is not part of the problem but part of the solution for the music industry.
A week long event held in September targeted at young entrepreneurs from EMEA. 20 teams will make the final and there will be 5 winners of 50k euros pounds for 10% in equity. A very good initiative, I wish we had more like this across Europe.
