Category

Business Models

08.28.07

Frengo
Business Models
I had the chance to talk with a new player in the mobile-meets-social-networking space several weeks ago. Frengo allows members to create content channels which can be used for private communications and media sharing (publicly or privately) and which can be monetized via a reward system. Mobile allows users to better experience first responder and gut-reactions’ Twitter, for example, allows someone to cover a news event as it happens. Frengo differentiates in its robust feature set, very next-generation, allowing for much greater interaction and community than any other mobile offerings I have seen. Frengo was the brainchild of co-founders Dan ...
06.07.07

Give Me My Facebook Back! What’s a Social Utility Anyway?
Business Models, Campus Chatter, Pop Culture, Social Networking
Currently the most-emailed New York Times article is ’omg my mom joined Facebook!!’ The article is a humorous recount of a Mom who, feeling disconnected from her daughter, joins Facebook (now open to everyone) only to find that her daughter isn’t exactly happy with her decision’ The article highlights an issue that became apparent to me tonight while talking with my youngest sister. A college senior who has been on with Facebook from its very beginnings, my sister shocked me tonight by announcing that she was DONE with Facebook and plans to delete her profile. ’It sucks now’ was her ...
06.04.07

The Truth About Truemors
Business Models, Entrepreneurship, My Experiences, Venture Capital
There has been a ton of blogosphre buzz lately surrounding Guy Kawasaki and his launch of Truemors. Today Guy came out with a transparent ’by the numbers’ look at the Truemors production. Specifically, Guy seems very proud about only spending $12, 107.09 to build his new company. However, I think a lot of people are missing a crucial point: it’s not what it costs to build, so much the length of the payback period that an entrepreneur should be concerned with. In this case, since Guy made a free website that will likely make a minimal amount of money on advertising, ...
05.23.07

The Day StumbleUpon Decided to Become Lame
Business Models, Social Media, Social Networking
I used to really enjoy using StumbleUpon as a means for social book-marking, learning about new sites and helping to drive traffic to my blog. Around April 17th, StumbleUpon removed the audience feature. Pronet Advertising has a nice write up about all this. The reason cited for the move was that Audience apparently had an adverse effect on SEO. Lame. Shortly after April 17th I realized that the only reason I had previously chosen StumbleUpon over del.icio.us was because StumbleUpon gave me incentive for using it. One a given day 15-25% of my blog’s traffic came from StumbleUpon and the amount ...
05.22.07

Spyware’s Savior: Rep. Zoe Lofgren
Business Models, Social Media
Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation cracking down on the fraudulent use of spyware, setting a five year sentence for anyone caught using the subversive software "in furtherance" of a federal criminal offense. See legislation here. However, notably absent from the Internet Spyware (I-SPY) Prevention Act (sponsored by Silicon Valley Rep. Zoe Lofgren) is legislation allowing the government to regulate software companies. Why is this important? Lawmakers were hoping to force software manufacturers to get consent before uploading programs onto the computers of unsuspecting internet users (you and me). In swooped Zoe Lofgren like the Silver Surfer, and successfully ...
04.26.07

Friday Moment of Zen: Natzke
Business Models, Social Media
A friend of mine had THIS LINK showing in her GChat window, so I checked it out and loved it. It's sort of a combination between graphic art and music...very "2.0" - make sure you have your volume on for this one. The art is by Eric Natzke, but I'm not sure who does the music. I will update this entry when I find out... Also check out Tobey's Valentine (bottom) and the artist's brief bio on Flickr.
04.10.07

Hiding Behind the Mask of Technology
Business Models, Social Media
Discovery Communications, parent company of such television stars as Discovery Channel and Animal Planet announced a 200 person layoff today with more cuts likely in the coming months (200 persons = ~3% of their global work force). Most of the layoffs affect the Washington, DC area. According to Discovery, the restructuring is necessary for building a ’strong brand and creating a lean, aggressive company that can successfully compete in the cable and new-media industries.’ David Leavy, Executive VP stated that the move will allow Discovery to ’take advantage of new opportunities across television and digital platforms.’ Chief Executive David M. Zaslav ...
03.14.07

Want to Know What’s Wrong with Friendster?
Business Models, Social Networking
I received this email from Friendster.com today: Hi Friendster User, We noticed you haven't logged into Friendster in a while. Please take a few minutes to fill out this short survey to tell us about your experience with Friendster and what we can do to improve our service. We value your feedback and appreciate your help in improving Friendster. Please click on this link below to take the short survey: http://websurveyor.net/l.dll/JGs50C7A5F972lRbD9U1136483J.htm Thanks, The Friendster Team The thing is, I have logged into Friendster twice in the last week! How does this make me feel as a member of the community? Also, now that I am regularly ...
03.06.07

I Just Don’t Get It: Do You?
Business Models, Social Networking, Venture Capital
Eons, a social networking site for old people has raised $22M in a second round of financing (they raised $10 million on the first round!). Who invested? Charles River Ventures in addition to Sequoia. It just makes no sense to me. First if this firm has raised $32M it implies that the pre-money valuation was at least that, but more likely something higher like $40+. No way! Any entrepreneur with a social network and no innovative advertising strategy should immediately sell at price like that (IMO). Looking at the site I was not impressed. They own a search engine called Cranky.com ...
02.01.07

Black-Boring
Business Models, Campus Chatter
I have never liked Blackboard. The problem with taking a company public is that the added red tape makes shifting direction very difficult. Blackboard is no exception. Widely criticized for its dismal user interface, Blackboard has hinted that it wants to make its software more interactive and user friendly. Yet, according to press releases: ’don’t expect to see this for a couple years’ A couple years?!? Meanwhile, Blackboard in an attempt to "go 2.0’ has added its own social bookmarking feature. Why not integrate with Del.icio.us? Does Blackboard really think that it can reinvent the wheel? How is Del.icio.us not academic enough? Most ...

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