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Riya – The Story

Net — Wed, 31 May 2006 19:11:02 +0000

Riya‘s founder and CEO Munjal Shah, has written a fantastic account for the launch of Riya. The first post “Episode 1: March 21 6am PST to March 28 6am” is a great account of all the ups and downs a start-up goes through during its launch. I think that many of us really can identify ourselves with his story. No sleep, a lot of nervs, stress and satisfaction. Shel thinks he should write a book about it. Why not? It’s really good. Waiting for Episode 2..

Morten Lund Invest In Spearcast

Net — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 16:05:24 +0000

My good friend and Maxthon partner, Morten Lund (early Skype-investor) & his team at LundKenner has just made a strategic investment in Israeli Start-up Spearcast. I am very happy of being responsible for making this happen. Morten will take a seat on Spearcast’s Board of Directors (I am already on Spearcast’s Advisory Board). Spearcast, recently launced a service called Palore. Palore lets you call business for free, rate them and share them with others in a very smart way. Spearcast was founded by very talented Israeli entrepreneurs Hanan Lifshitz and Erez Chochva. Read more about the investment here (in Hebrew sorry). I see great potential for this service and I am delighted that Morten and I (again for the second time) will be partners in crime.

Screenshot of Palore

On SocialNets & The Power of The URL

Net — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 11:02:19 +0000

Robert Young, a frequent guest columnist on OM Malik’s Blog, has written a very accurate description about the changing media landscape and the power balance between consumers and corporations. The post is called: Social Nets and the power of the URL.

According to Young, one of the most effective ways to measure the shifting balance of power between consumers and corporations it to look at the web as a huge collection of URL’s (I would call it the WebDNA), and then distinguish those URL’s that are controlled by corporations vs consumers.

Simply put, each and every URL should be viewed as a container for content that, in turn, can be distributed and redistributed. And the control of such distribution is increasingly in the hands of consumers, not corporations.

I like that precise definition, it really is what it all boils down to. That is why I prefer to call the URL’s for the WebDNA. Towards the end of the post he envisions the future of people powered community based-distribution networks:

Looking out several years, it’s not too difficult to envision a media landscape where the majority of traditional media distribution outlets reliant on the benefits of natural monopoly economics have largely been replaced with a highly-fragmented layer of people-powered community-based distribution networks.

I really believe that this is what we are going to see, in a way one could refer to “people-powered community-based distribution networks” as a true democratic economy, really even going beyond democracy in the sense that it is both empowering and rewarding the individual.

The Personal Bee – Yet Another News Service?

Net — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 11:56:29 +0000

The Personal Bee is yet another news website, getting ready for launch of its aunch of its do-it-yourself news service. According to the company it self it is:

“a social media company that believe that the combination of RSS, smart analytics, and user collaboration will lead to a better way for you to find news on the topics you care most about”.

Hm, what does that really mean? It means that, users create and organize portals around topics like Headline News, Web 2.0 or Travel, Technolgy and Wine, for instance. Readers can then themselves subscribe to various existing “bees”, and can also create their own feeds around specific topics, keeping their portal private or letting others subscribe ( I guess that it is here that the company becomes a “social media company “). All the information is aggregated by the company’s software from various sites and blogs, but relies on portal owners, or “beekeepers,” to act as editors – vetting information as they go.

In general this is not really something new and the online news space is already getting very crowded. However, letting other portal owners act as editors is a very intersting idea. It reminds me of a discussion I had some time ago with the former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle John Oppedahl. He also believed that the news media as we know it is about to change, but the overflow of information is just too big handle. John meant that the need for news editors will be grow even stronger, and that we more than ever will need somebody to skim it all out for us, or make sense of it all.

I personally believe that the days of the big portals our counted and the direction we are moving towards are very rich personal, edited portals (not a la My Yahoo etc though) where we can share parts of the content or all of it with others.

Anyway, Personal Bee is plans to generate revenue through advertising, and is backed by Mohr Davidow Ventures . As a side note I can just say, that the future for online advertising looks very bright…(if anyone every doubted that).

User Created Content

Net — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 12:08:14 +0000

New York Times has a good write up about how user generated content and how it is changing the media landscape. The article’s conclusion, is that most amateurs are just happy for having their clips posted on sites for everybody to see. However, more and more media companies are offering prices or even paying for user generated content. Even Yahoo is said to have signalized that it is moving away from creating its on content in favor of user generated material – and are willing to pay for it.

So what is so compelling about user-created material?

It is cheap
It taps into the social aspect of interactive media

But while user-generated materials can attract a lot of attention and drive a lot of traffic to sites like Myspace , the article points out that so far it has not been regarded as a winning format for major advertisers. Myspace is adding up to a million registered users a week, but has attracted little advertising reveune relative to its audience.

In response to this, Viacom’s chief executive, Tom Freston, is qouted saying, “It’s like inserting the advertising into a conversation between two people, and there are still a lot of questions about advertisers supporting user-created content.”

Still, I believe that there really is a good window of opportunity for user-generated content sites and networks over the coming two years, because at the end of the day, its one of the things that makes people tick’. We are all looking for a stage, for a little fame even if it is not on a American Idol format level, but rather amongs our own little circle of friends and peers.

Podcasters Pushing The Limits In China

Net — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:57:14 +0000

NPR’s All things considered , has a very interesting piece on Podcasting in China.

Like everything else Internet-related in China, podcasts are exploding in popularity. From film parodies to pornography, audio and video downloads are pushing the boundaries of the law and decency.

There is any interview with Irishman Ken Carroll started podcasting Chinese lessons just over five months ago. His learn-with-Ken podcasts now attract more than 10,000 visitors a day, making it China’s No. 3 most popular podcast show. Quite amazing.

Another interesting story is about the video spoof of an epic film by Chinese director Chen Kaige. His movie, The Promise had a cast of thousands and cost $40 million to make. It took one 32-year-old sound engineer just four days to turn the film into a laughing stock. He re-edited the movie into a 20-minute parody, titled The Bloody Case of the Steamed Bun.

Hu Ge, the spoof creator, said he never intended it to become an Internet phenomenon. The film “was very bad, so I thought it would be fun to parody it. When I finished my video, I gave it to friends. They passed it around and eventually it ended up on the Internet.”

A copyright violation or true media democracy ? What ever you say, it sure demonstrates the power of user generated (or should I rather call it “user edited content” ?) content and the power of word of mouth. Now no movie director is safe anymore, if people don’t like your movie, they’ll just make their own version or it., and who know perhaps even a better one..

Tags: NPRÂ Tags: All things considered Tags: Podcasting Tags: China Tags: Ken Caroll Tags: Chen Kaige Tags: The Promise Tags: The bloody case of the steamed Bun Tags: Hu Ge Tags: Word of mouth Tags: Consuer generated content Tags: Film Tags: Movie Tags: Media

China Internet & Techology Key Take Aways

Net — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 10:27:57 +0000

Piper Jaffray held their third Annual China Internet & Technology Conference in Beijing last week. From the discussions & presentations held at the conference, the following key take aways emerged:

1. The economy is less of a risk, compared with last year
2. Leaders are emerging within the sector
3. Companies are more realistic about market opportunity and margin leverage
4. Regulation is helping moderate growth rate, preventing potential bubbles
5. New areas are emerging in blogs, social networking, etc.
6. Adoption of advertising and online medium by small businesses is increasing
7. Local companies enjoy home-grown advantage

Focus Media and Ctrip are emerging as leaders, Baidu and TOM Group as well. Baidu is dominating search and Google will have a difficult and uphill struggle in challenging Baidus domination. Online advertising is expecting to grow 35-40% during 2006 (an amazing oppertunity here). What I find particulariy interesting is the new areas that are emerging in blogs and social networking. According to Piper Jaffray, blogging is the big new trend catching on very rapidly. They also believe that it will continue to grow, and the existing players such as Bokee, Blog CN, Sina and surprise: MSN Spaces are likely to be market leaders. Other rapidly growing companies are: online match making, phone agencies and travel search engines.

Against this background I must say that Maxthon is very well positioned in China, we are already driving a huge percentage of Baidu’s search traffic, we are the second biggest browser in China and our user growth in China (as well as outside of) are just exploading.

Tags: Piper Jaffray Tags: China Tags: Internet Tags: Technology Tags: Focus Media Tags: Ctrip Tags: Baidu Tags: Tom Online Tags: Advertising Tags: BlogsTags: Social networks Tags: Bokee Tags: Blog CN Tags: Sina Tags: MSN Spaces Tags: Maxthon

The Art of Creating A Community

Net — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 15:53:23 +0000

Guy Kawasaki from “Let the good times roll”, by provides us with some valuable advice about the art of creating a community. Having been involved in quite a few “community building companies”, I think that Maxthon by far exceeds them all. The thriving, ever growing and passionate Maxthon community is build by users and with users around one common interest, namely creating the best possible browsing experience out there. Just to get a feel of the Maxthon community read Ron White’s article in Network Computing to get a feel..

Maxthon has several sites initiated and build by community members themselves from plug-in-sites, skins-sites, help-sites, to blogs sites and Wikis‘ and much more. The art of creating a community is, to constantly nurture it, let is develop by itself as an ever changing organic being. However, just as every beautiful garden needs the caring touch of a gardener – so a community needs the caring hand of its community builder.

Like Guy rightfully points out – it is very important to stimulate the discourse and not try to play down critical voices from within the community on stuff you’re doing. There will always be people who don’t approve of what your are doing etc, but ignoring critical voices from you community, is like not listening to one of your family members. Hey, they are part of the family, and many times the reason for why your company reached where it reached – you listen to your family don’t you?

Technorati Tags: Guy Kawasaki, Community, Maxthon, Let the good times roll