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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

SMS Still Leading Big In China

Net — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 14:12:18 +0000

Piper Jaffray summed up China’s 2005 Mobile Market Share, revealing these takeaways:

SMS still remains a major revenue contributor
KongZhong, Hurray! and Tom Online dominate WAP and are best positioned for the transition to 3G
KongZhong and Tom Online are the most diversified players

Subscribe to Safa’s excellent China reports here & here.

Isolatr The Cream of Social Networking Sites?

Net — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:01:19 +0000

Isolatr – is a big laugh in the face of all the Web2.0 companies. It is consists of 2 pages, the front page and a great FAQ. I love this stuff + Go Flock Yourself. They show the real value of many of these companies and puts them in their right place. Love the name too. I should add though, that there are a few gold corns out there – but you have to sort out the rubbish first. Via Ouriel.

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

Michael Arrington With The Maxthon U3 Key!

Net — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 09:03:47 +0000

Dinner in Tel Aviv with Techcrunch

Here’s a group picture from the Techcrunch dinner in Tel Aviv. From the right, Michel Arrington (look he’s got Maxthon on a U3 key around the neck!). I’m the happy guy between Michael and Ouriel.