Sep 10
2004
This pattern of innovators (usually startups) creating a market and then attracting followers (usually larger companies) is something that we all see again and again in the technology space. The billion dollar question for Netflix is, can it survive and continue to lead the market?
Jun 08
2004
Scott Sassa is an interesting choice to run a company like Friendster. I think it makes sense because internet companies are essentially becoming media companies. AOL was one of the first internet companies that went through this transformation and now they're part of a big media conglomerate. With the hiring of Terry Semel, Yahoo is also going through the transformation into a media company dependent on advertising and subscription revenue, just like network television and cable TV.
Jun 08
2004
There is a lot of useful information here, and my understanding from Jeff's notes is that service oriented flexible computing is about server side distributed computing. The conference seem to focus on the shifts that are going to occur in the software, hardware, and network layer as a result of this shift in computing architectures. This shift has been happening for some time and there are companies attacking the network, hardware, and systems software (ie. grid computing) side of the problem. However, I don't see how this is all going to work until you address the higher level integration and implementation of business processes in a service oriented architecture.
You can have the flexibility in network infrastructure, distributed storage and computing cycles, and distibuted web services, but you still have to link and orchestrate flows of information across this architecture to implement business processes. Providing tools and standards to make this orchestration happen is not an easy problem. Maybe this will be addressed in day 2 of the conference. I hope Jeff continues to write about it on his blog.
Jun 01
2004
One of the reasons cited for Sony's exit from the handheld PDA market is that the handheld PDA market is not a growth market. You could also make the argument that the handheld PDA space was never Sony's core competence.
May 31
2004
Apr 19
2004
The only other environment that comes close to the Silicon Valley environment of knowledge sharing and open discussions isn’t a physical location but an online medium: blogging. In Silicon Valley, you can read about thought leaders in mainstream media and find events or conferences where they are giving a talk on a hot topic. Nowadays, chances are that they also have a blog, where they have captured their ongoing thoughts, opinions, and reactions to hot topics and emerging trends. Just like most of the talks in Silicon Valley, they’re not blogging for the money. They’re usually doing it to share their experiences and insights or to express a point of view and influence people.
Apr 05
2004
It's not a surprise that some people thought the Gmail announcement was a joke since it sounded too good to be true. Google announced that they would be offering a free email service with 1 gigabyte of email storage. To put this in perspective, Yahoo charges $49.99/year for 100 MB of email storage. Apparently, Google has run their numbers and they feel that it's going to cost them $2/year to support 1 gigabyte of email storage. This must mean that either Google has superior infrastructure that is more efficient and cost effective than Yahoo's email infrastructure, or Yahoo has a huge margin on their email service which is not justified.
Feb 02
2004
The topic that I found to be most interesting in Paul's talk was his discussion of the technology adoption S-curve. Bascially, if you look at the rate of technology adoption, it looks like a horizontally stretched "S" when you map adoption/penetration on the Y-axis and time on the X-axis. What this means is that when a technology is first developed, it takes a while for either the technology or market conditions to develop to the point where it hits an inflection point and achieves rapid adoption. Eventually, you reach market saturation and then the curve flattens out. Some examples that he cited include the mouse which was invented by Doug Engelbart in 1968 while he was at SRI. It was only in the late eighties/early nineties that the mouse really took off with the arrival of the Macintosh and Windows. Other examples included pen computing which was around in the eighties with Go and Apple's Newton but only took off with Palm in the nineties.
So, how does this all relate to where we should be investing our energy, time, and money?
Dec 10
2003
There are many issues with social networking that could cause it to fail such as privacy and the lack of clear busines models. However, I think the single biggest thing that is going to kill social networking is also the one thing that is driving the boom in social networking today. Basically, social networking is going to end up being the victim of its own success. If you look at what's driving the investment in social networking, it's the viral spread and network effect of the technology. Bill Gurley from Benchmark states:
"Free e-mail like Hotmail had viral marketing but not increasing returns. I see both in this social-networking thing. As the network gets bigger and bigger, there's more value to incremental users"
If the appealing thing about social networking companies is their ability to create large communities of connected users, you then want to go out and sign up as many users as possible. After all, more users equals bigger network, more viral spread, and hence sustainable increase in eyeballs for subcriptions, targeted ads, etc. If you follow this logic, the ultimate end goal for social networking is to have everyone connected via six degrees of separation. In fact, this is exactly what's happening today with social networking and therein lies the problem.
Nov 29
2003
I'm glad to see people take a more balanced and skeptical look at Google's success and future prospects. Given what we know about their past track record, you have to admit that if they continue to execute the way they have done in the past, a $20 Billion dollar valuation is not unreasonable. Although Google has great technology, I always thought that the more impressive aspect of their success has been their ability to generate increasing revenue while maintaining high margins using Adwords, which is Google's take on search engine pay for placement that was pioneered by Overture. The other often overlooked part of Google's success is their phenomenal success in generating positive PR and coverage based on word of mouth and good will from their users.
As the article points out, there are some cracks that are starting to appear in the rosy Google success story. The obvious ones are management issues, cultural shifts, and other growing pains that a fast growing company will need to overcome. There is also the threat of competitors such as Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft who are starting to see Google more of a threat than a partner. However, I think the biggest weakness for Google is the lack of an ongoing relationship with their customers and advertisers.