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January 2005 Archives
January 31, 2005
Blogging is the most honest form of self-promotion out there...can corporations adjust?
Almost every type of commercial venture will be affected by the use of blogging-type communication technologies. The largest question facing businesses, of all sizes, is how to make best use of this trend.
Their thirst for answers can be seen in the explosion of interest in this subject lately, at least by my personal barometer of being invited to speak at conferences! I received two invites in a single day recently, and I’m also increasingly asked to meet with companies and PR firms to chat about blogging. This compares with about one invite per month normally.
I like to get out and about and hear about how companies are thinking of using blogs, and what types of issues/problems they encounter. It's all part of reporting on how media and PR and tech sectors are changing. And there are huge numbers of companies, and their PR firms, struggling to understand and figure out what all this means. Some get it, most don’t, but there are many that know there is something going on, they have a gut feeling that there really is something important happening, even if they can't see it just yet...
I like speaking at conferences and visiting companies to talk about blogging, because blogging is an extraordinary form of communication. And it is ALL about maintaining the best qualities of journalism. Yes, there are innovative forms of journalism emerging from this blogging/process/technology, some you will see here. But nothing has changed the fact that great blogs are about great journalism, which is about telling compelling stories truthfully and fairly (not impartially).
This is why blogging is the most honest form of self-promotion out there bar none.
If you can’t walk your walk, or talk your talk, you will be found out and ignored. Trusted relationships are the currency of Internet 2.0, in this new/next phase of the internet. And it is a message corporations need to heed. (Oh, BTW, watch out for the shift in power structures within your work groups that the use of blogging and wikis can bring...!)
Through the process of publishing Silicon Valley Watcher, we are collecting best practices for this medium and a wealth of information and skills. I want to set up a business that allows us to share this information and show individuals and corporations how to use blogging in the most effective manner -- by applying the best principles of quality journalism. And I want to work with the best journalists/editors, and other top professionals, to further develop this new media and enable the death of marketing.
My goal is to make the term marketing meaningless, obsolete and struck from the dictionaries of the future.
Instead, blogging will enable effective and honest communications. Companies will communicate with their communities of customers.
The future is about the enterprise as publisher/publication.
Here is some proof of this trend, I've been sitting on this one for a while because it is so hot: Did you know that Cisco Systems' highly regarded online magazine, news@cisco.com gets more hits than several of the largest US business and computer trade publications?!
I can step you through this one if you want ... but I think you already know what this means.
More on this topic later this week, with exclusive data on how many hits the Cisco magazine is getting. (Thanks Ron!)
Link:
in-house advert:
Are you trapped inside a crumbling print business model? Be a disruptor rather than a disruptee. Ping us...we're looking ;-)
dc451
January 31, 2005 |
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A plea to the blogosphere from a lady in distress....please find DHL's headquarters!
(My loyal readers have a mission to fulfill this morning. The first one with the answer wins a special prize and global recognition!)
It is very early in the morning Monday and the phone rings. A young woman's v. british voice says, hi, i'm samantha, am i waking you up? no, not at all, i'm a blogger i keep strange hours. could you help me? you are my last hope i cannot find the address or the phone number of DHL's global headquarters(!)
what do you mean in this day and age of the internet you cannot find DHL's corporate headquarters? i said this is a company that stakes it's reputation on delivering packages to a specific point in space and time yet it can't find itself?
i've tried searching everywhere and even their regional offices don't know the number. i found your article about DHL which was quite good by the way and figured you might know.
i said that wasn't my story it was jochen's but i'm sure my super intelligent geek readers would rise to this challenge especially since silicon valley is known for its ability to tackle some of the world's toughest problems. i can publish the request for help anytime i want, i said. you can? she said sounding very impressed (note to other bloggers). i can publish anytime i want because i'm a blogger.
what's a blogger she said?
i said ideas travel to the east coast in six months and take 12 months to reach where you are sitting. anyway it’s a long story.
dear readers please demonstrate the power of blogging and the blogoshpere and find and publish the address and phone number of DHL's global headquarters in our comments section. samantha promises to write back.
January 31, 2005 |
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January 30, 2005
Silicon Valley boom or bust? It depends on who you ask
Three very human stories illustrate the economic disparities that characterize Silicon Valley as the region struggles to bounce back, in today's San Jose Mercury News.
Chris O'Brien writes:
Ask K.B. Chandrasekhar, 44, about the Silicon Valley dream, and he'll tell you it's alive and well.Since arriving from India in 1992 with almost nothing, he is now on his third start-up, Jamcracker. His company is growing. His venture capital investments in India are going strong. It may not be the boom, but the view from the seven-bedroom house he built in Saratoga still looks good.
Ask Doroteo Garcia, 40, and he'll tell you the dream of prosperity is further out of reach than ever. Nine years after arriving from Mexico, Garcia spends his days cleaning the Stanford University art museum before pedaling his bike to a part-time job washing dishes. From the studio apartment he shares with his son in East Palo Alto, he laments that he has less money to send home since he lost his second full-time janitorial job.
Ask Steve Clough, 39, a former technical support worker who fell from Chandrasekhar's world to Garcia's during the tech bust, and he'll tell you the transition is jarring. Since losing his job in 2003, Clough has struggled to pay bills while piling up debt. From his part-time job as a high school math teacher, Clough wonders if the doors to high-tech prosperity have closed for good.
All three men are right. By the numbers, the economy is getting better and worse -- depending on who you are. Silicon Valley has developed two separate economies that have drifted further apart ever since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.
In the valley's technology economy, profits, revenues and average pay are up dramatically. But fewer people are sharing in the good fortune because tech companies are doing more with less -- they have cut tens of thousands of jobs and continue to do so, boosting the productivity of their remaining workers....
Links:
A tale of two valleys: Three workers' stories illustrate widening economic gap in area by Chris O'Brien, San Jose Mercury News, 30 January 2005
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
January 30, 2005 |
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January 29, 2005
Ooooh weeee!..... We just got back from the New Communications Forum--THIS is the new Demo
This was the place to be this past week bar none. The New Communications Forum conference leaders/organizers Elizabeth Albrycht and Jennifer McClure are grabbing onto the meta level of what is going on, and I was fortunate to be a part of the conference and speak on the journalism panel.
This was the place that gave proof that I/we are not raving lunatics, that blogging is the next killer game-changing/application/process/technology.
That statement will not be understandable to more than a few hundred people at most. And a few dozen of them were at the conference.
Even if you have read every article on blogging ever written--you do not know. You have to start blogging. And this is why Kevin Maney's article in USA Today, which came out on the opening day of the conference, urging bloggers to take a "chill pill," was perfect. Perfect proof that things are no longer the same.
Disruptive ideas/technologies always follow the same path: they are ridiculed, then grudgingly accepted, and then they are considered obvious.
Thank you Kevin, you have done your part in pushing this incredible thing forward.
(More on the conference, Andy Lark, etc to follow...)
Here is an excerpt from Kevin Maney's piece headlined in USA Today: “Chill, blogophiles; you're not the first to do what you're doing”:
Jeez. Take a pill, all you blogomaniacs. Blogs are fun. Blogs add a fascinating new element to public discourse. But blogs are another turn of history's wheel, not a radical departure.
It's a hoot, check it out: I wouldn't want my name on that one; that article will come back and bite you. But it does represent the way print journalists see things, and I was one of them.
cd1120
January 29, 2005 |
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January 28, 2005
How to Pitch Bloggers: Quick Notes from the New Communication Forum
I went to the workshop on how to pitch to bloggers, which I thought might be so bad as to actually be good; but, actually, it was good-good!
The workshop was presented by Alice Marshall, founder of Presto Vivace Communications. Presented to you here are some of her insights:
+ It is OK to pay bloggers to review a product; but you must disclose that fact, and not only disclose it, but brag about it very visibly on your web site. Make sure the blogger discloses it too.
+ There is an A-list, or what [I] call the "Box-Office" of blogs, and competition to reach them is fierce. It's better to look at who the box office bloggers are linking to; because that's who they are reading, and those are the bloggers you should pitch to.
+ [You can] tell a large newspaper that they should cover a story because several of the leading bloggers are covering it -- that is something that has worked for [me] in the past.
+ Do not lie. You will be found out and exposed.
+ Try to do some original reporting, because other bloggers will link to you. If you go to an event, write up a report. You will find out how difficult a reporter's job is -- making those deadlines. It takes [me] at least a week to write up a report on an event.
+ Offer exclusives and access to company executives to bloggers; but make sure that the information is exclusive. This is also a way to push bloggers into acting: by putting a deadline on the exclusive story.
+ Read the blogs and leave comments -- those are always appreciated and build goodwill.
+ Don't be afraid to make a mistake; a lot of this is new, and you will make mistakes. That's OK; but make sure that you highlight them.
+ Do not travel under false colors. It's a huge mistake and you will be found out.
+ Salespeople usually try to be direct and honest, and do not want spin. They want a happy customer, because referrals are so important to sales. Engineers can be worse, because they get religious about things.
+ Blogging is great, because it means we are no longer at the mercy of a small group of editors who control the news outlets.
+ Clients of PR companies do not pay for mentions on blogs; but I think that they should, and I think that will happen.
+ Keep your moral soul! Do not use underhanded techniques.
+ We have to remember that blogging is still new and there is so much more to discover. It's as if we discovered America, and have just landed on the beach and are trying to explain it to people back in Europe.
Links:
Alice Marshall's Technoflak blog
cd2144
January 28, 2005 |
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File under "They paid researchers to study that?"
The average Silicon Valley man is fatter and pays less attention to what he eats than his female counterparts, Associated Press reports
I could have told them that.
"At least three out of five men in Santa Clara County are considered overweight or obese, compared with two out of five women, according to a telephone survey of 2,645 residents," the AP reports.
And what are we going to do about it?
Nothing much, it seems. Quoting the AP again, "Despite the extra pounds that men are packing, researchers found that they're much less likely to diet - or even to try to maintain their current weight - than women."
But it can't be that bad. This is California, everybody eats lots of fresh, healthy food.
"According to the survey, only 18 percent of men in Santa Clara County eat two pieces of fruit a day," says the AP.
Guilty as charged.
Links:
Silicon Valley men are fatter than women, survey finds, Associated Press (in San Jose Mercury News), 28 January 2005
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
January 28, 2005 |
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January 27, 2005
The party Prince Harry should attend this weekend
The must-attend party in Greater Silicon Valley this coming weekend... here's the invite as I received it (with the addition of links to the web pages mentioned):
The Fascist Party
Saturday, January 29 2005
@ An historic SoMa building;
indoor parking available.
Location disclosed day of event
@ http://www.fascistparty.us
9pm-Late
21+ $15
Though we don't approve of Fascism as the preferred route our Government is taking, we cannot deny the Fascist sense of style...
Polish your boots and metal and attend the ball as if it were Nuremberg 1933. You might run into our despised dictator celebrating at the martini bar and discussing Laibach.
9:00 pm Gallery of Video art by propaganda visionaries:
VJ Culture, Videojon, Romeo Alpha, Marlon McKenney
Complimentary wine served.
10:00 pm Performances by:
Infinite Kaos
Extra Sensory Projection (Live Audio/Video)
http://www.extrasensoryprojection.com
11:00 pm The Dictator Fascion Show.
Designs by:
FierceCouture - www.fiercecouture.com
Laura Dawson - www.lauradawson.com
Jason Evege - www.evegestudio.com
Appearances by your favorite dictators and the unveiling of the latest
must-have Fascist accessory!
Presented by The Princess Kennedy
12:00 am Party with DJs:
- IKAMYO [Infinite Kaos]
- Adnan [Lush]
- Alaric [Video Salon]
- Electro/Breaks and a dose of German Industrial]
www.fascistparty.us
---
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
January 27, 2005 |
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January 26, 2005
Quick Notes from the New Communication Forum
Here are some quick notes from the workshop entitled “Forming Communities Online: Group & Conference Blogging & Wikis,” on the use of wikis and blogs within corporations to create online communities:
+ When you use a wiki for a collaborative project you can quickly identify who the slackers are because it is very clear who is working and who is not.
+ There are some interesting social effects that take place within organizations when wikis are used, and you might be surprised at how it affects an organization.
+ There are so many legal issues to be determined around who owns content, and how it can be used, that it can quickly get very confusing. Suggestion: Create a separate company for each project, which then separates it from the company's content and thus protects them from potential legal issues.
+ A wiki can be used as a knowledge base; and it rewards people who share knowledge instead of hoarding it. Previous knowledge management systems have all failed.
+ Don't be ambitious with a wiki project. Start off using a wiki for just one project.
+ Think of a wiki as a "room" where the users make the rules. They will be the ones deciding how it develops and how it looks.
+ Find a wiki gardener, to help encourage people to use the wiki and nurture its growth.
+ A wiki does not work well within a hierarchical top-down organization. It encourages a flat organization and you should let it build itself.
+ Consider the wiki as an adjunct to the blog.
Links:
Dan Forbush
Constantin Basturea
As an entreprise application, check out Socialtext
An especially easy-to-use wiki engine is EditMe
cd2156
January 26, 2005 |
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Digging Silicon Valley's roots: some Homebrew Computer Club & other newsletters online
While Tom and Candida are out digging up the latest Silicon Valley news live, up close, and personal, let's take a trip down Silicon Valley's Memory Lane and check out the collection of Homebrew Computer Club Newsletters (and more) at the online DigiBarn Computer Museum.
Among other firsts, the Homebrew Computer Club is where Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak showed off his first personal computer designs and prototypes in the mid 1970s. The newsletters are typewritten (remember typewriters?) and contain charming pencil illustrations - a fun and funky contrast to today's slick marketing materials.
The DigiBarn site also has newsletters from People's Computer Company, a non-profit foundation based in Menlo Park, California. The PCC newsletter morphed into Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia, with the tag line "running light without overbyte". (On a personal note, DDJ is where I began my career in technology business publishing, in the very early 1980s - but this old codger will refrain from telling any bedtime stories of the Golden Age of Microcomputing right this minute.)
The site also offers some images from Ted Nelson's groundbreaking 1974 book, Computer Lib. Nelson is a true cyberculture pioneer, credited as the inventor of the hypertext concept which he first published in 1963. DigiBarn links to Nelson's legendary Project Xanadu, described at the Project Xanadu History page as "the explicit inspiration for the World Wide Web (see Tim Berners-Lee's original proposal for the World Wide Web), for Lotus Notes (as freely acknowledged by its creator, Ray Ozzie) and for HyperCard (acknowledged by its developer, Bill Atkinson); as well as less-well-known systems, including Microcosm and Hyperwave."
Links:
Homebrew Computer Club Newsletters (at DigiBarn Computer Museum)
People's Computer Company & People's Computers Newsletters
Computer Lib/Dream Machines Retrospective
The History and Philosophy of Doctor Dobb's Journal
Thanks to Boing Boing for the heads-up
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
cd2159
January 26, 2005 |
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January 25, 2005
Leading bloggerists heading to Napa for conference...the end of marketing is nigh
If the cupboard is a little bare on Silicon Valley Watcher over the coming couple of days, it might be because I, and my colleague Candida Kutz, are out and about to bring you fresh, original content. This is a fundamental and fanatical core principal of our editorial goals: original reporting, exclusives, interviews, and scoops. Especially scoops. All the traditional attributes of compelling journalism in a format that makes full use of the variety of writing styles that blogging provides.
We're heading up to Napa to the New Communications Forum, where I will be on a journalism panel Thursday morning. The rest of the time, we'll be hanging out with some of Silicon Valley's leading corporate bloggers, and swapping notes about this powerful and perilous medium.
Andy Lark, who recently resigned as comms chief at Sun Microsystems, will be keynoting the conference. Andy pioneered corporate blogging at Sun and he might let slip something about his new venture. Various bods from Voce, the Silicon Valley PR firm, will be there too. The firm has been quick off the mark in this area and is already well on the way to establishing an enviable thought leadership position.
Unfortunately, our favorite PR blogger Mike Manuel (AKA, Media Guerilla) has been asked to stay behind and toil at the Voce server farm, getting ready to launch Voce's corporate blog. It seems a bit unfair. Mike was one of the first PR bloggers and developed a large audience the hard way -- with his writing. He didn't start off with a large personal brand, he built it with hard work and a focus on producing compelling content. I'd love to hear about his early experiences as one of the first bloggers in the PR industry.
I'm not the first journalist to blog; but I seem to have stumbled into the distinction of becoming the first journalist to resign from a newspaper to become a professional blogger. I didn't plan it that way, or even at first notice it, but that's how it turned out.
And I should add that I took a decent-sized risk and jumped out of a much coveted position covering Silicon Valley tech companies for the Financial Times, ---which I'm told is the leading choice in most airline business sections :-) , not to mention Europe and Asia, and holds a decent chunk of the US markets.
I resigned because I became convinced that the blogging format and blogging software could be used to build profitable media businesses with very low capital costs. Although there was no business model for blogging yet, I instinctively knew that we must be on the cusp of developing one that was not based on blog hosting services or aggregating blog feeds.
Media Guerilla knew something was up, way before everyone else. In the early summer, Mike was the first to ask who would be the first of the top tech journalists to jump ship and become a professional blogger. His readers voted for Dan Gillmor, an obvious choice and a maven of the blogging movement, with his famous San Jose Merc blog and recent best seller on blogging, We the Media, I received far fewer votes, but I got all the the savvy votes! (Seven months later Dan left the Merc for an outside blogging venture.)
Links:
Media Guerilla can be found here:
Media Guerilla
dc1635 / cd2206
January 25, 2005 |
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Joe Fay takes control of The Register as the UK IT news site seeks to increase US readership
Joe Fay leaves San Francisco at the end of this month to take up his new position as editor of The Register, the pithy, witty, acerbic, and very popular UK online IT news site. Joe’s former job was US Editor of Computerwire, a more analytical and far somber news service, operated by Datamonitor, the market research firm.
It’s a good move for Joe, even though he, his wife Jo, and infant son Gabriel must move back to London after living here for more than four years.
“I’ll still be around and talking with my contacts on a regular basis, just as before,” Joe told me recently. The new and the old jobs are certainly similar in many ways, and with his direct contacts into Silicon Valley companies, it will improve The Register’s access to the local movers and shakers.
The Register’s motto is “biting the hand that feeds IT,” and it relishes opportunities to write in a pugnacious, tabloid style. This is hugely refreshing to an American audience more familiar with a US trade press that is more serious, much more respectful of the companies they cover, and thus more bland in comparison.
Silicon Valley will take The Register more seriously now that Joe is at the helm of the news site. It is viewed in some quarters as entertaining rather than informative, often favoring the easy cheap shot over analytical depth. An unfair categorization, but one that Joe can help dispel and add to its already sizeable US readership.
The Register is ready for the next phase, and so too are its founders, Drew Cullen and John Lettice, who will be working on expansion projects. The Register's chief investor is reportedly keen to step up the pace of growth. Mike Magee, the other co-founder, split-off several years ago after an acrimonious dispute that has not been easy to forget. Mike publishes The Inquirer, a rival news site with very much the same look and feel -- not copycat but rather demonstrating the strong influence Magee had on The Register's editorial style.
Joe is not revealing any plans for big changes at The Register, if indeed he has them. What I would expect to see is that he would seek to sharpen the editorial team’s analytical teeth. After all, sharper analysis makes for a deeper bite.
Oh, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Joe decides to bring The Register into the new century and ask Andrew Orlowski, his SF bureau chief, to start writing a blog. I bet Andrew is chomping at the bit to get one started . . . and would only need the slightest of nods. And I think Joe should give Andrew his own blog, and encourage his vibrant enthusiasm rather than ignore it.
The Register’s motto aptly sums up a long standing tradition within the British computer trade press of living the life of a VIP at the expense of computer companies they write about. Taking multi-day excursions to other countries while staying at the finest hotels, quaffing the finest liquids -- brewed or distilled -- and developing a finely tuned gastronomic sense usually reserved for those in far higher tax brackets. All paid for by the computer/software/services industry.
Here in the US, reporters at many publications are not allowed to accept what often amounts to several thousand dollars in travel, accommodation and entertainment costs that British and other European journalists.
Links:
The Register can be found here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/
dc1523
January 25, 2005 |
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Google Adds VOIP
The latest in a spate of Google stories and rumors is that the company plans to launch a VOIP feature that will work in conjunction with its Search tool. The implications are massive, as they seem poised to enter the international telephone market.
Links:
See Yahoo News UK and Ireland story: Google plays it cool on VoIP rumours
January 25, 2005 |
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An intimate conversation in the global village
Do the Internet-based voice and multimedia communications technologies developed in the Greater Silicon Valley really bring us closer together? One wired world guru argues yes and tells a beautiful story that illustrates how.
Reports John Perry Barlow, in an article worth reading in full, about his experience in becoming friends over the internet with a stranger because he could hear her voice:
The bottom line is this: they reached at random out into the Datacloud and found a real friend. And I feel like I have been graced with a real friend in both of them. Given the fact that I've been getting interesting messages from distant strangers since 1985, why do I think the big deal? Why is this different? Because these strangers have voices. There's a lot more emotional bandwidth in the human voice. I'm always surprised by the Meatspace version of someone I've only encountered in ASCII. I'm rarely surprised by someone I've only met on the phone. But one doesn't get random phone calls from Viet Nam or China, or at least one never could before. Skype changes all that. Now anybody can talk to anybody, anywhere. At zero cost. This changes everything. When we can talk, really talk, to one another, we can connect at the heart.
Barlow tells a heart-warming techno-tale that shows how Internet telephone technology can make the global village a more intimate place.
More communication is generally a good thing, but I still have my doubts. Even in a best-case scenario as Barlow describes, won't we still wind up in front of our computer screens, talking into the aether, isolated?
Links:
The Intimate Planet, BarlowFriendz, 24 January 2005
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
January 25, 2005 |
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January 24, 2005
Thumbs up and down for Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley gets a thumbs up, thumbs down in a regional report that Gary Rivlin elevates to national attention in the New York Times.
Rivlin writes:
Venture capital is on the rise, and once again Silicon Valley is growing thick with startups. Research and development funding in the Valley has hit new highs and corporate profits at area firms are generally robust.And yet, despite an environment in which entrepreneurship is strong and established firms are by and large healthy, the Silicon Valley job market remains stagnant. Household income in the area is down, and troubling disparities persist in the areas of health care, education and housing.
Those are among the findings of a report, "2005 Silicon Valley Index," released today by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a nonprofit organization that assesses the region's economic health each year.
....The study found that the region lost an estimated 1.3 percent of its jobs between mid-2003 and mid-2004, and average pay fell by 1 percent. That drop came on the heels of the 200,000 jobs that were lost earlier in the decade - representing nearly 20 percent of the work force - when the San Jose metropolitan area, which includes much of Silicon Valley, suffered the worst collapse of any metropolitan area in the United States since the Great Depression, surpassing even Detroit in the early 1980's, which lost 13 percent of its jobs.
Links:
Mixed Report on Silicon Valley by Gary Rivlin, New York Times, 23 January 2004
Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
January 24, 2005 |
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Friendster in the NY Times spotlight
Social networking specialist, Friendster, gets the spotlight at the New York Times today in a profile that takes away more than it gives.
In Friendster, Love and Money by Gary Rivlin writes:
Fifteen months ago, Friendster enjoyed the kind of enviable status that Silicon Valley start-ups dream of: A-list investors and millions of users flocking to its Web site to browse profiles posted by friends and friends' friends, in search of dates or playmates.So great was the buzz surrounding the company in the second half of 2003 that Friendster, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., helped define a hot new facet of the Internet dubbed "social networking."
People are again buzzing about Friendster. But that is because the company, which endured three chief executives during 2004, has seen a spate of senior executives depart in recent weeks. Just as troubling, a younger, flashier rival called MySpace has eclipsed Friendster, at least in the United States, among those in the most highly coveted 18 to 29 demographic. And Friendster loyalists have groused that the company has done almost nothing to enliven its site.
Piling on is Mark J. Pincus, described by Rivlin as "an investor in Friendster and the founder of Tribe Networks, a budding social networking Web site that hopes to capture some of the print classified advertising market."
"I think Friendster really missed their big opportunity," Pincus told Rivlin.
Rivlin's article casts doubt on the viability of the social networking category in general, and raises the prospect that Friendster's history may scare away the venture capital that has only recently begun creeping into Silicon Valley again.
Rivlin's article also touts several Friendster competitors, including MySpace (which gets very favorable treatment in the story, as Rivlin contrasts MySpace's lead over Friendster in page views and number of unique visitors), the above-mentioned Tribe Networks, and Google's Orkut.
Links:
Friendster, Love and Money by Gary Rivlin, New York Times, 24 January 2004
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
January 24, 2005 |
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A googol of Google scoops…and much, much more!
Last week was a very good one for Silicon Valley Watcher with exclusives and scoops throughout the week. We almost ran out of bandwidth again, as the world wanted to read what the Watcher wrote.
We met with the Kanoodle boys, a media savvy gang who rode into town looking for Brin and Larry for a high-noon showdown. An impressive bunch, from Fifth Avenue, New York City, no less. That’s the media capital of the world—(at least for now…).
Geeks versus the Media City Slickers—the prize: a multibillion dollar text ads business doubling every two or so years.
Can the shy, retiring Google Geeks, armed with just software and hardware, take on the Kanoodle team bursting with media knowledge capital, and armed with a straight look in the eye and a firm handshake? Yes. No problem.
Googleplex in Mountain View: Epicenter of the multibillion dollar text ad industry
Kanoodle left town with a boot mark on their rear as Silicon Valley Watcher broke the news that Google will release an API for Adwords. It ruffled the feathers of the Yahoo Overture group too, who are keen to tell us their side of the story regarding APIs.
With access to a Google API, Adwords customer computers can interact with the largest distributed computer system on this planet. And that means advertisers can use Google as an ad server platform with unprecedented levels of control over their text ads delivery. That’s a genius strategy, because Google Geeks don’t need to be media savvy--they leave that to their customers. Google can stick to what it knows best, how to build complex software engineering that is easy to use.
Google doesn’t have to package their text ads programs in neat ways, as Kanoodle does, with a variety of permutations for customers. By giving access to the API, they let the advertisers execute and monitor ad campaigns any way they choose to -- no second guessing needed. Oh, and by the way, you can also track Yahoo Overture text ads too within the same tools.
Yes, it means more work for the advertisers as they come to grips with and integrate the Google Adwords API, as well as figure out best practices. But it will create a large ad monitoring and management tools market from third parties because Google is the largest IT platform, and that carries a a certain amount of lock-in that will discourage sonme customers from switching from the familiar.
But, let’s see it all in action first, and let’s see if Google can match or exceed Kanoodle’s claim of an average double-the-revenues- per-click compared with Adsense.
As I said before, may they both do well, so I and my blogger brethren can do well. And I can get somebody to drag my car out of the Googleplex parking lot where it has been stuck for a month following the holiday media party, (and no, the car is not filled with high-tech listening gear—-we get our scoops the old-fashioned way, people tell us). Another Google scoop coming your way this week. . .but you have to watch the Watcher.
January 24, 2005 |
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January 21, 2005
Friday Watch: Blogging & Health
Silicon Valley bloggers who aspire to be journalists, beware. It's bad for your health.
According to Beijing Today:
Checks of 1,182 reporters in Beijing conducted by the Chinese Physician's Association on Sunday showed that only 28, or 2.4% of them, were healthy.Stomach problems were the most common ailments of the tested journalists, all of whom were under 60 years old.
Results of the checks point the finger for the reporters' poor health at occupational stress. Among the people examined, 84.2% said they sufferd from chronic exhaustion, 72.1% complained of high work pressure, 62% said they did not get regular sleep, half had bad eyesight and nearly the same number were in chronic pain.
However, over 60% of them admitted it was the first time they had undergone a full-body physical test.
The 659 female journalists checked fared poorly. More than 290 suffered breast disease and over 30% had gynecological conditions, mostly the result of high pressure, nervous tension and unbalanced living patterns. The majority of the women were unaware of their health problems before the examinations.
Liang Wannian, vice director general of the Beijing Health Bureau advised all local journalists to regularly receive health examinations and build personal "health archives."
Reporters should also pay attention to their psychological health, get regular exercise, avoid foods hard to dist, minimize smoking and drinking and take vacations when they felt overwhelmed by work, Liang said.
Links:
Study shows journalism bad for health, Beijing Today via ChinaDaily.com
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
January 21, 2005 |
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News Alert: Michael Powell leaves FCC
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell plans to resign Friday. According to several news sources, the often criticized Powell plans to leave the agency in March, sometime after the agency's open meeting set for. Nothing official from the commission yet, but Powell apparently leaked the news to the Wall Street Journal.
Resigning later today: Michael Powell
January 21, 2005 |
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Google Adwords Tracking will also track Overture ad campaigns
Update on the new Google Adwords, in effect now: Improved Adwords Conversion Tracking so that you can track conversions not just from Adwords, but also Overture, emails, banner ads, and all other sorts of online advertising campaigns. This allows the merchant to compare the campaigns against each other.
Yes, you'll be able to track Overture campaigns within your Google Adwords account.
If you have an Adwords account, you can read more information under Campaign Management | Conversion Tracking.
January 21, 2005 |
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January 20, 2005
Scoop! Google to provide AdWords API to Advertisers
Google is about to announce technology that will allow its advertisers unprecedented levels of control over when, where, and who can view their advertising on Google search pages and those of Google partner web sites.
For the first time, the search giant will provide its advertisers with an application programming interface (API), which will enable them to link their computer systems with Google and control parts of the mammoth Google ad delivery system. The API will allow advertisers to self-administer the delivery, the timing and the price they will pay for their text ads.
This raises the bar in the online advertising market as Google turns to technology to try and outwit and pull ahead of media savvy competitors such as Kanoodle and others. Kanoodle says its average click-through revenue is twice as much as that of Google's because it gives online publishers greater control over what types of advertising is displayed ---and at which times--- and is better matched to page content or search terms. (Silicon Valley Watcher meeting with Kanoodle this week: Geeks versus Media City Slickers...)
The release of the API marks a transition for Google, from an online services company towards that of an IT platform for global ad delivery. The types of sophisticated management tools that will be available from Google and third parties should also help tie advertisers into its ad network.
It is but a short step from the global delivery of simple text ads to carrying commercial transactions also. This would pitch it against companies such as eBay and other online retailers.
The Google API is only available to advertisers and not to online publishers carrying Google ads.
Silicon Valley Watcher also learned that Google assembled its global salesforce of about 1800 people in San Francisco this week to brief them on the new technology, and how it will be marketed. It represents a complete revamp of its Adwords/Adsense text ads program. More details are here.
Google and Overture pioneered the development of advertising networks that deliver simple text advertising with a commercial message linked to web page or search content. In Google's Adwords/Adsense advertising programs, the customers bid against each other for choice keywords related to their advertising message. Google collects fees only when someone clicks on a text ad link. The system is highly automated with a low cost of operation.
Access to the Adwords API will initially likely favor larger companies with the technical skills to optimize their advertising delivery. However, a large third-party services market will grow around the Google API and allow smaller companies to run sophisticated advertising campaigns.
However, many online publishers want to control which Google ads are shown on their sites. This has been a sticking point with many large media groups who have turned to Kanoodle and others.
Some media groups are beginning to view Google as a competitor. The large computer industry trade publisher, IDG, has become increasingly hostile to Google. IDG views Google not as a technology company but as a media company and a competitor to its online publishing business. It has urged other publishers not to give Google access to their web content. A lot of online publishers carry Google Adsense ads because Google splits the revenue with them.
Google has a fraction of the publishing costs compared with a company such as IDG. Google publishes pages of links produced by computers, yet IDG requires large, non-scalable editorial staffs to produce pages of content at a far higher cost.
cd2215
January 20, 2005 |
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Silicon Valley 100 will generate "buzz"
Marketers are expecting the Silicon Valley elite to promote their products in exchange for free stuff.
According to Brad Stone in a Newsweek article called The Connected Get More Connected: Seeking buzz, companies will funnel free new products to Silicon Valley’s elite:
Connector marketing is coming to the heart of California’s high-tech zone, in the form of a new effort called the Silicon Valley 100.This month, 100 of Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, bloggers and promoters will begin receiving cool new stuff for free, delivered straight to their homes and offices. In return, these movers and shakers promise to sample the products and offer feedback to the their manufacturers. The companies hope that, if the mood strikes, the Silicon Valley 100 will chat up, blog on, or just plain recommend the products to friends and colleagues, generating that most invaluable of currencies: buzz.
The brainchild behind the Silicon Valley 100 is 31-year-old entrepreneur—and Connector—Auren Hoffman, founder of San Francisco marketing firm The Stonebrick Group. He hopes to turn the Silicon Valley 100 into a profitable enterprise. Companies will pay a fee for the privilege of gifting products to its elite members.
....It took three months on the phone, but the result of Hoffman’s detective work is a quirky, wide-ranging list of some of the Valley’s brightest lights, largest wallets and biggest mouths. Netscape founder Marc Andreessen is on the list. Venture capitalists Tim Draper, Stewart Alsop, Aileen Lee, Igor Sill, Bill Gurley and Ron Conway are too. Yahoo vice president Katie Mitic, Siebel Systems cofounder Pat House and Electronic Arts senior vice president Rusty Rueff are among the 100. So are technology-event promoters Esther Dyson, Tim O’Reilly, Tiffany Shlain and Chris Shipley. A local radio personality nicknamed Hooman appears, as does a young San Francisco club promoter named Trevor Hewitt. Sean Parker, one of the cofounders of Napster, also made the cut.
Hoffman says he avoided adding career bloggers or journalists to the list. “Those people have a different standard and shouldn’t be keeping free products,” he says (journalists are typically required to return products they sample for review). But many Valley execs who maintain well-read blogs are in the group, such as entrepreneurs Ross Mayfield, Brad Templeton, Joi Ito and Zaw Thet.
Silicon Valley 100 member Joi Ito speaks:
I think it is almost like an opt-in focus group. The obvious criticism would be these companies are trying to buy "buzz". The difference between this and some buzz creation companies is 1) it's not stealth 2) they don't tell you what to say. I checked with Auren and he says that we can write whatever we want about the products. When I get a product from Silicon Valley 100, I will state this clearly in any blog post that refers to it and will say what I think. I realize that the fact that we probably get to keep most of the products makes it a bit like bribery, but if it's crap, I'm sure most people will throw it away. I would be most interested in products that are still not on the market where our feedback could be incorporated in the product design. Then our feedback could be more constructive...
Links:
The Connected Get More Connected: Seeking buzz, companies will funnel free new products to Silicon Valley’s elite by Brad Stone, Newsweek, 21 January 2005
Silicon Valley 100, by Joi Ito, 22 January 2005
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
January 20, 2005 |
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Scoop! Google is about to unveil a completely revamped Adwords/Adsense program to counter inroads from competitors such as Kanoodle
As this is being writtten, about 1800 Google marketing people from its offices around the world are at an internal sales conference at a secret location in San Francisco, being briefed on a completely revamped Google Adwords/Adsense program and other new features.
Adwords and Adsense are what make Google such an incredible cash machine. The Adwords and Adsense programs deliver paid text ad links. Adwords delivers paid text ads to users of its search services and the ads are matched to the search term.
Adsense delivers text ads to readers of a web page and they are matched to the content of a page. Virtually anybody with a web page can become a member of the Adsense network and host Google ads and receive a cut of the ad revenue.
The text ads business is crucial to maintaining Google's pace of growth and its share price, which reflects high expectations for the dominant search giant. But Google offers few tools to advertisers to let them control where their ads appear and on which web sites. Similarly, web site publishers have virtually no control over what types of ads Google sends their way. This has caused some shifting to competitors such as Kanoodle that offer such controls.
That's why the revamped Adwords/Adsense will provide a suite of tools that provide greater control, management and monitoring data to advertisers, to better target their sales messages.
It's interesting to note that executives from Kanoodle hit town earlier this week, right when the secret Google internal unveiling is taking place. I haven't had a chance to ask them about whether they timed it because they knew about the Adwords relaunch or if it was a coincidence.
There are 18 coaches standing by to whisk the visiting Googlers off to Tahoe this weekend. If you are in Tahoe this weekend, look out for them on the slopes and in the bars, especially the bars. If you pick up any juicy tidbits, ping me!
cd2219
January 20, 2005 |
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Cutting journalism away from the old print models
Dan Farber, long-time Silicon Valley watcher, and a veteran journalist, has been around this industry for a long time. Dan kindly provided a report on the Churchill Club event I missed and dropped it into the comments section of the story.
Dan’s piece is a great example of online journalism, or rather, the new kind of online journalism that is emerging and made possible by this blogging phenomenon. It allows journalists to communicate ideas and tell a story much more efficiently than ever before.
Most online news stories currently mirror print stories in many ways —- they both look very similar except that there are some web links in the digital version. But journalists, even if they write for print and online, are often asked to write to a specific length. For example, news stories might all have a uniform length of 450 words, while a news analysis is 1200 words. That is clearly a legacy from the print business model.
Online, if you can tell a news story in 150 words why stretch it 400? If it’s a 50 word story—that’s fine. Yet a lot journalists are quite good at filling up space, because most started in print journalism. I need another 50 or 100 words, our desk editors might demand, because they redesigned their pages and the deadline is minutes away. So you quickly bash out words to fill the space, background info, a share price, a couple of sentences about what happened last week. It doesn’t take the story on further. It is just words taking up space, and that, IMHO, is unfair to readers.
But within the blogging format, journalists can be succinct and use their own voice. Dan demonstrates one of the core values an experienced journalist brings to this world of online information -— the ability to tell a complex story in very few words. That’s a skill that should be highly valued in today’s information overload society. And it would be, if it were scalable…!
January 20, 2005 |
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January 19, 2005
The Kanoodle boys are in town and gunning for Google: It’s West Coast versus East Coast, it’s the Geeks against the Media City Slickers…now it gets interesting
A three-exec Kanoodle squad is in town this week for a media tour, and within moments of touching down, they were on their way to visit Silicon Valley Watcher—the gateway to Silicon Valley.
Jessica Ryan Schweitzer from Hill and Knowlton brought them over to our deluxe conference meeting rooms, which are fully-staffed 24 hours a day, and feature all-day breakfast (the "Lucky Penney" diner on Geary and Masonic.)
Kanoodle has picked up a fair amount of buzz and momentum lately, with its different packages of text ads on its advertising network that has some large online publishers. Kanoodle directly challenges Google's Adsense network, its fastest growing, and most profitable, business.
The boys were hungry; cheeseburgers were ordered, and coffee came; and it wasn't far into the conversation when Lance Podell, the president of Kanoodle said, "We are a media company."
"Wow," I said, "because Google thinks it's a technology company: there is not a single media professional within the entire senior ranks of Google."
"Yes," he said, "we know." I think I caught a flash of smirk in his grin, but why not?
I've asked this before: Can engineers grow a large media company?
Or does a time come, as was the case at Yahoo, when you have to bring in the media professionals to help grow the next phase ---you can't get there on Geek power alone.
Lance belives that Google won't be able to take a Yahoo-type approach in recruiting media professionals, because Google has become even more tightly entwined into this idea of being a technology company, not a media company, he said. Still, similar things could have been said about Yahoo as well; but it changed, and decided it was a media company ---with great technology.
Kanoodle is a private company run by sharp and savvy Fifth Avenue media professionals with impressive pedigrees (check out their exec bio page.) They say that they understand what online publishers want, and they speak their language. "We know how they want to present ads, and what types of controls they need. Also, we use humans, not servers, to establish a relationship with publishers, and check out their sites to make sure we offer them the right types of ads," said Mark Josephson, senior vp of marketing and business development.
"The ability to be able to serve up text ads in different ways, on different types of content pages, has attracted many big name online publishers to Kanoodle," said Andrew Zucker, senior vp of sales. CBS MarketWatch and USA Today are among its 30,000 customers.
About 200 thousand online publishers use Google Adsense, an advertising network that publishes text ads and links, within a web page. Publishers add some pre-written code to their web pages, which calls up text ads from Google each time an online reader visits.
The Google text ads are designed to be contextual ---to be related to the content on the page. If readers click on a text ad link, Google pays the publisher part of the fee it collects (it won't reveal the revenue split; Kanoodle does.)
A lot of Google's Adsense members are small publishers such as bloggers, and that's because it was the only advertising vehicle that was available which didn't require high volumes of user traffic. Adsense has been a boon to many small publishers, allowing for easy online sign up, and a regular stream of (modest) checks from Google.
Larger online publishers, however, have not been as pleased with Google Adsense, especially its contextual advertising capabilities. And IDG, the huge computer trade publications group, has grown increasingly hostile towards Google, calling it a competitor, and advising online publishers to lock out the Google spider from their online content. (Now it makes sense why Google won't call itself a media company!)
Google recently said it had improved the contextual ad technology. We've been testing that claim after taking them off last year; and the Google text ads served up, indeed, seem to be better matched to the content.
But as an online publisher, I'd like to have different choices of text ad types, ads that are NOT content related, for example.
Why show tech product related text ads on a page about technology companies?
Before the holidays, some of our pages had a text ad that linked to Amazon's fresh lobster and caviar page. If a reader clicked through and bought a jar of caviar for $4,500, we'd get paid 5 percent. It feels a lot cleaner to sell caviar than tech products related to page content. There are some online publishers that specifically design their content to attract whatever are the highest paying text ads on Google. Advertisers will pay tens of dollars per click for some of the more hotly contested keywords.
How much they pay is established by an online auction system that gives the highest bidder for a keyword or phrase, the top listing on a web page.
It's a brilliant setup, because the market sets the advertising fees, and thus companies (such as Google, Overture and Kanoodle) can capture the exact market value of those ads without guesswork or lowering ad fees. For publishers, there is no need to do things the traditional way: to knock on doors, ring telephones or discount your ad rate card to what you think the market will bear. You always get the perfect price for your ads.
Kanoodle offers the same type of automated set up; but it offers much more. Advertisers and publishers have a wide range of choices. They can use contextual ads, or use keyword-driven text, or choose text ads that are targeted to user behaviors.
Ads can be published within specific time periods only, or only on specific types of web sites.
Publishers can ensure that exclusive advertising relationships are not jeopardized, and can specifically block competitor ads from appearing on their web pages.
And there are plenty more ways to slice and dice the ad type and delivery, especially if you consider that Kanoodle has hundreds of advertising categories and regional publishing choices.
Its customers include many well known media brands, such as CBS MarketWatch, recently acquired by Dow Jones.
Google offers no controls over ad content and where it is delivered. It just gets scattered out through its network chasing keywords in web pages. It's inefficient; but surely Google can just take notes and implement similar ad services packages and controls?
"They won't, because it's not in their genes; they are engineers," Podell says. He clearly likes that genetic metaphor; but he might be right. Josephson says there is ample proof that Kanoodle's ad network is more effective than Google's, because it collects fees that average out to about 70-cents per click. He estimates that this is about twice as much per click than Google gets.
Google Adsense is an important business for Google, and it relies upon publishers of web pages to continue to host its ads. If publishers can get more revenues with the Kanoodle ad network, then Google will have to fight back. It'll call out its top echelon Geek engineers, of which it has plenty. Don't underestimate the Geeks: software engineers are taught to believe they can accomplish anything. And when they do, it's a scalable solution: you just buy more of it. Fewer people needed, just add servers and electric power.
That's the beauty of the Geek solution. However, to engineer a solution to a problem, you need to know what the answer should look like. That's why it's good to have a few media professionals on the team if you are engineering a media solution.
Will Kanoodle persuade publishers to "can" Google? It will some; but Google isn't standing still. How many publishers deflect from Adsense will depend, I guess, on how well Google's engineers can respond to their varied advertising requirements.
As a publisher, I hope both companies are incredibly successful ---and build incredibly effective advertising networks--- so that I can pay to have my car towed out of Google's car park, where it has been sitting for nearly a month.
(It's the bloggers dilemma ---pay child support / fix car / buy groceries, or pay web hosting fees? If you are reading this you know my choice...)
cd2247
January 19, 2005 |
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Who will be the real Silicon Valley "New Century Leaders?"
Here was the line up for the Jan 18 Churchill Club's Silicon Valley's New Century Leaders:
Charles Phillips, Jr., President, Oracle
Dan Rosensweig, COO, Yahoo!
Jonathan Schwartz, President and COO, Sun Microsystems.
Sun Microsystems' Jonathan Schwartz: Valley's new century leader
Moderator:
John Markoff, The New York Times
Missed it. Because I'm pretty sure they missed it. All three are solid executives and they'd certainly make the top 100, but Silicon Valley's new leaders? Really? Are you sure? Could you double check?
John, please tell me you had no control over the picks, please. It was probably Tony, right? It's just so 1990s it has to be Tony, his fingerprints are all over it.
. . .
I like the Churchill Club, it has interesting events much of the time. My most recent visit was a lot of fun, here it is if you missed it:
Three funerals and a wedding described mood of Churchill Club CIO panel
January 19, 2005 |
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Silicon Valley's Machiavelli...or praying mantis? You decide....
Louise’s guestblog on Steve Job’s return to Apple made me wonder if Gil Amelio knew the likely outcome of bringing back Steve Jobs? Did he stand any chance at all against Jobs, a veteran of many, many, gruesome political battles?
I have an image of a praying mantis Steve Jobs holding a still, rigid Gil Amelio, and calmly and coldly munching him head first. A victim of Silicon Valley's Machiavelli. Or was the acquisition of Next a reverse takeover of sorts, engineered by Jobs but with the cooperation of Gil Amelio, happy to get out of a rapidly failing company?
Jobs’ wasn’t doing that great at the time. Next had been struggling for 11 years and Jobs had been forced to ditch the workstation hardware business and regroup as a software company. It had some good software technology and enterprise software development tools but it was trying to compete in the Fortune 100 enterprise software market. You need to have a ton of money over a long period to market your software in that space. I’d run home too . . .
(pleasedonthavemekilledsteveiamjustapoorbloggertryingtokeepitrealsmileysmileysmiley)
Gil was a man in trouble too, Apple was sinking fast and it had a dire need for operating system technology.
The development of its next generation Copland operating system had been a disaster and it had to junk the project. Yet it needed a next generation enterprise operating system to execute Gil’s strategy of making a last-ditch stand on Apple’s most profitable market—its corporate market. Next had a fair amount of enterprise software technology so Gil paid $400m in cash and stock to buy the company and the services of Steve Jobs as “advisor.”
Did Amelio buy Jobs or the technology? It’s interesting to note that Jobs was not the first choice. There was another ex-Apple senior executive that Amelio almost brought back to Apple —- one that was almost as charismatic as Jobs. About a year before, Apple had been in talks to acquire Be, a company founded by Jean-Louis Gassee, a former senior VP of Apple.
Gassee once famously said that Apple would not license its “crown jewels” to other computer makers, meaning its proprietary system and hardware technology. (Jobs is now doing exactly the same, refusing to license the iPod technology to others.) Be had great operating system technology that was very well respected within the software development community for its high performance multimedia and multiprocessor capabilities. An operating system far better suited to Apple’s needs than Next’s technology. But an agreement on money could not be reached. Be is now a “not to be” and Gassee is still floating around doing a bit of VC-ing.
You have to hand it to Jobs though, he’s hitting them out of the park -- he’s easily Silicon Valley’s Babe Ruth:
He co-founded Apple, which helped launch the PC industry.
He helped make the Macintosh a success, which popularized picture-based point and click computers, which are now everywhere.
He rescued Apple and refocused it on the less profitable consumer PC market rather than the enterprise market, with a line of bold, colorful home PC designs.
Let’s not forget Pixar, the extremely successful film animation studio. Jobs has led that company through a series of hugely popular animation movies--amazingly without any duds at all. And he took on the might of Disney, dictating new terms that favored Pixar.
And now, it’s the iPod -— the hugely popular handheld computer designed to play music, which is also boosting Apple’s computer and other businesses.
The recent launch of the Mac Mini is also a great move by Jobs and will be a sure-fire hit. This isn't about persuading Windows users to switch to Mac, as the media likes to always portray such things. Its about computer users using both. (My kids have used both systems for years -- the interfaces are very similar. If you can use one you can use the other.)
In regards to Apple today, it’s a great example showing how profitable proprietary technologies can be, if they become the “de facto” standard (look at Intel and Microsoft). Proprietary technologies has always been the way to make serious money in the computer business. There is absolutely NO reason Jobs should license the new iPod “crown jewels” anytime soon. He can milk this one for a good while longer.
The iPod platform can be gradually opened up and licensed to others but I bet Apple won’t give up control over its digital rights management technology. DRM is the lynchpin strategic sweet spot in the consumer entertainment market bar none. Microsoft would love to have that spot in DRM. (The music industry, and Hollywood too--isn’t that stupid to allow that to happen . . . Apple is far less of a potential problem than a giant company with out of control monopolistic behaviors deep within its DNA.)
January 19, 2005 |
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January 18, 2005
Introducing the first guest blog from Louise Kehoe--a true Silicon Valley Watcher
Many people know full well that Louise Kehoe, my former boss at the
Financial Times, is the true Silicon Valley Watcher. Which is why it is a huge pleasure to introduce this first guestblog from Louise, a friend and mentor for many years.
Louise is well known in the valley from her more than two decades of world class reporting for the Financial Times. When she first started, gaining access to top execs and captains of industry was difficult because the newspaper was not only an unfamiliar color but unfamiliar altogether. In those days, the Financial Times had a circulation of less than 100,000. It was because of the continued excellence of her reporting that the almost unknown Financial Times brand was raised to that of a top-tier publication in the minds of Silicon Valley's gatekeepers.
Louise recruited me to the Financial Times in 1999 and we worked together in an apartment-turned-office just off highway 101 and Hillsdale. A large highway exit sign close to the office said "Kehoe Way." I would often joke that Louise has been in the valley so long, they built it around her.
We were in the midst of the heady dotcom days and we were pumping out
enormous amounts of news copy. We were draining cups of tea and creating huge clouds of nicotine laden smoke.
And when a really big story would break, maybe ten minutes before our very latest afternoon deadline, that's when the adrenaline kicked up a notch or three and we'd work together, (Andrew Heavens was working with us too) and we'd get a stock price, get a quote from a contact, check the whisper numbers, get whatever was needed to write that news story. Louise would usually take the lead and pound out the story, just seconds to go. And then London calls and wants another 60 words! And copy editors are calling and saying it has to be sent now, now! and Louise gets it done and squared away. No problem, we go and have a cup of tea.
This type of right-on-the-wire-deadline-news-journalism is a rush and
something that I enjoyed. It leaves little margin for error--you have to be spot-on with your angle, research and knowledge. But there is no choice in the matter because London deadlines ruled our world. While our US competitors had all day to file the news of the day, we did not. Our first big deadline was 10am Pacific for the UK edition. Leisurely awakenings at the office over a muffin, coffee and e-mail were non-existent. Waking up was always quick.
Our next big deadline was 3.30pm Pacific, to catch the US edition and most probably file a story for the 3pm European edition, and also an earlier version to catch the very last UK edition at 2.30pm.
During earnings season, news stories are written in real-time while
listening to financial conference calls. It is not uncommon to have to quickly analyze quarterly numbers and knock out a preliminary 150 words story for the FT.com web site by 1.30pm, then jump into the earnings conference call and update the story for later editions.
Then in between there is filing of news to the FT.com web site at any time of the day, there are analysis pieces on the news to be written, meetings with tech execs, etc.
I would head home about 8pm, Louise usually still working. Then 7am the next day we could come in and do it again. Then the dotbomb landed, but more on that at a later
time...
dk181040
January 18, 2005 |
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Guestblog: Louise Kehoe recalls Steve Jobs' rock star comeback to Apple
1997 MacWorld was a memorable event, in many ways. I was sitting in the front row wedged between Muhammad Ali and Ellen Hancock (Muhammad is a large man, the seats were small). This was Gil Amelio’s last MacWorld appearance. He talked for nearly 3 hours. I don’t remember much of what he said, only that Ellen was suffering on his behalf, I was suffering on her behalf and we were all suffering for lack of seating space. Then Steve Jobs walked on stage. He spoke briefly, to wild applause, in sharp contrast to the reaction that Gil received. We all knew then that Gil was on the way out.
Louise Kehoe chatting with Steve Jobs: So what have you been up to, Steve?
And perhaps I can turn the clock back a little further, to the day when Steve came back to Apple. With typical arrogance, Apple called a press conference with just an hour or so notice – late afternoon on the Friday before Christmas (that must have been 1996, I think). The press pack rushed down there…those based in SF arrived late. Gil took the stage in the Apple auditorium to announce Apple’s plans to acquire Next…and that Steve would return to Apple as a “consultant”.
Enter Steve, from the back of the room, bounding down the steps.
When the formal proceedings ended, we reporters rushed the stage. I had just one question for Steve: “What are you up to?” He assured me that he had no intention of reclaiming his role at the head of Apple. “Oh no Louise, I have other interests now. I have a family….” Then I asked Gil if he knew what he was doing. Wasn’t he opening the door for Steve to oust him, in the same way that Steve had attempted to oust John Sculley a decade earlier? Gil seemed sure that this could not happen. The rest, of course, is history.
But perhaps I can add one more reflection. If we are comparing notes on the most memorable Steve Jobs’ presentation, then I would have to say it was in 1984 when he and John Sculley introduced the original Macintosh. Like later events, this one was carefully choreographed. But that, in itself, was an innovation in those days. I, and many others, had been pre-briefed on the Macintosh product and I had written most of my story in advance. But the news desk wanted to add some “color” from the event at the Flint Center in Cupertino. As the event got underway, I made my way to the back of the theatre to use a pay phone (no cell phone in those days) and got through to the crusty FT news editor just as Steve Jobs walked on stage, the music started blaring and the crowd (mostly Apple employees) started screaming!
I attempted to describe the scene, but the background noise was overwhelming and the news editor was skeptical. “Where are you?", he kept asking. “You are supposed to be at a computer event!”
dk181040
January 18, 2005 |
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January 17, 2005
Where do all the PeopleSofties go? Social Networking!
The ax finally fell, or at least started falling on Friday: About 5,000 PeopleSoft employees will lose their jobs in the wake of the controversial take-over by Redwood Shores based archrival, Oracle. The first pink-slips were sent over the weekend by express mail.
So what’s next for the hordes of Ex-PeopleSofties? They flood professional social networking sites on the internet, the business equivalents of Friendster.com. The increasingly popular virtual contact plattforms such as Mountain View’s LinkedIn, Google’s Orkut, or Ryze seem to be the last hope for thousands of current –- and soon to be unemployed –- staffers of Pleasantons’s business software maker.
According to LinkedIn’s co-founder and VP of Marketing, Konstantin Guericke, more then 50 percent of all PeopleSoft employees are now registered at LinkedIn -- two thirds of them registered in the last 30 days. "That proves that more and more people realize how important and effective social networking is to find a new position," Guericke says.
A look in the LinkedIn database this morning showed at least 2428 current PeopleSoft employees: hundreds of developers, product managers, and application analysts as well as top managers such as David Thompson, PeopleSoft's Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President, who is recognized by IDG's Computerworld as a 2004 Premier 100 IT Leader.
LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman: Build social networks before it's too late
Chances for finding a new position through a social business network seem promising: Over 20,000 hiring managers have signed up for LinkedIn, which is used by about half a million registered users in over 80 countries. The company is headed by CEO Reid Hoffman, who co-founded SocialNet in 1997 and was an Executive Vice President at PayPal.
Meanwhile, Oracle is hosting a big party later this week to celebrate the "new Oracle." The majority of the 6,000 or so "left over" PeopleSoft employees will most likely not be able to share the fun: The number of layoffs at PeopleSoft is sure to grow. So "Old PeopleSoft" or "new Oracle" folks, better listen to social networking protagonists and move quickly to manage your virtual contacts: "Start buidling your network before it is to late," Guericke says. "Anyone listening at Siebel or Lawson?"
Another helpful online source for laid-off PeopleSoft employees: the PeopleSoft Alumni Network: http://www.psftalumni.net/
January 17, 2005 |
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January 14, 2005
That old black magic: Steve Jobs transforms crusty old hack Om Malik into one of the faithful
Here is an excerpt from my good buddy Om Malik's hugely popular GigaOm site, in which the crusty old hack has fun reporting on the Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld--in the style of one of the "Mac faithful."
Apple CEO Steve Jobs: Always a pleasure to write -- and complain -- about the "old black magic"
Quite a few readers didn't get the spoof at first...but, those that have met his Om-ness, the universal sound of all that is broadband, would know that such breathless, enthusiastic reporting could not come from one with such a finely tuned nose for hype and spin. Take a look at these telling excerpts from:
The Steve Jobs Experience
By Om Malik
A very gaunt looking Steve Jobs, in his classic Levi’s-black turtle neck outfit walks on to the stage, with a purpose and a tentative smile. The hair is a little more gray, but it is still the same old Steve. A master salesman selling to the faithful. I shudder when [I think what] he could do had he focused on religion instead of computers. He works the room with [the] ease of a comedian on a good night.
...
On stage, Jobs displays emotions with the veracity of a Hollywood thespian. The smirk he reserves for iPod pretenders, the innocence of a man who finds out that the Apple stock is trading down a bit. Some machismo when he says - well there is more to come in the keynote. Perhaps that will lift the Apple stock. Like a young Bobby DeNiro, he mocks the desktop search by Google and Microsoft.
...
And he switches gears, and shows an emotional sensitive side ala Nick Cage, and thanks the Apple engineers, and loyalists. A big smile, a hesitant wave and then he is gone.
By the way, when I was at the show last year, I noticed that some of the enthusiastic clapping and shouting during the Jobs keynote came from a small army of hired ushers that were standing along the sides of the enormous, and cavernous Moscone auditorium. It looked scripted to me...and it seemed designed to encourage similar noises from some of the audience.
My absolutely flat-out best ever experience at a Steve Jobs keynote was in 1998 when I found myself one seat away from Muhammad Ali. I was completely star-struck. To me, he has always been such an incredible icon of the turbulent 1960s. His eloquence and heroism in protesting the war in Vietnam was astounding and outstanding. And his explanation for refusing the draft was so succinct and so powerful—perfectly connecting the war for civil rights with the war ten thousand miles away: "No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger."
January 14, 2005 |
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January 13, 2005
Digital Hollywood redux
Hollywood wants to get closer to Silicon Valley's video game industry, a return to the hoped-for synergy of the "digital Hollywood" fever that first erupted in the early 1990s.
In a MediaPost article today, Hollywood Talent Agency To Open Silicon Valley Satellite, Ross Fadner reports:
United Talent Agency, one of Hollywood's largest agencies representing actors, writers, producers and artists in the entertainment industry, plans to open a Silicon Valley office catering to clients looking to market to video gamers. The new San Francisco office will be led by Jonathan Epstein, a 20-year industry veteran who was founding CEO of video game portal GameSpot.com, and former president of GameSpy, which he helped merge with IGN Entertainment this past summer.
....Epstein said the expanded operation will focus on negotiating branded sponsorships and takeovers for clients with online industry trade publishers, game publishers' Web sites, and online retailers such as EB.com. "I hope to work with all the media players in the market," Epstein said, which incidentally includes both GameSpot and IGN Entertainment-companies he previously worked for. "Online sites are a great way to reach gamers," he said--particularly the coveted 18-34 male demographic.
Links:
Hollywood Talent Agency To Open Silicon Valley Satellite by Ross Fadner, MediaDailyNews, 13 January 2005
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
January 13, 2005 |
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The three most common words people use to describe Steve Jobs: “visionary, genius and ***hole,” says angry author after being ejected from the MacWorld show
Fredric Alan Maxwell, the author of the book “Bad Boy Ballmer” and a journalist for Newsweek, The New Yorker and Harper’s, claimed Michael Sponseller, head of PR at IDG, the organiser of the MacWorld trade show, stopped him just as he was about to walk into the auditorium where Steve Jobs was to give the keynote speech.
Mr Maxwell said his conference badge was removed from his neck and he was refused access. He had registered for the show about a month ago and was issued a badge earlier that morning. Mr Maxwell was told that there had been a mistake and that there was a limit on the number of authors allowed into the event. Even though Mr Maxwell is working for Penguin Putnam, a major book publisher, it didn’t matter. In his 18 months of research for his forthcoming book on Jobs, Mr Maxwell noticed that three words were common in descriptions of Job’s by his former colleagues: It seems Mr Maxwell was able to verify at least one of those terms.
Did Steve Jobs put out an APB on Mr Maxwell? His book on Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer apparently pulled few punches, something that Mr Jobs might expect is coming his way too when the book is published. My mother always told me you can catch more bees with honey than vinegar, Mr Jobs obviously prefers a preemptive strike with lots of vinegar.
dk1310
January 13, 2005 |
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Finn and Phillips clashed at Oracle say insiders
Jim Finn, who recently left as head of Oracle PR, had at least two big disagreements with Oracle president Charles Phillips. No word yet on what those disagreeable issues were. Jeff Lettes from Applied Materials is his replacement.
Mr Philips, a former star Wall Street software analyst at Morgan Stanley has risen quickly at Oracle and is Larry Ellison's current favorite wonderboy. He joined the enterprise software giant in May 2003 and just six months later, he was appointed president and given a seat on the Oracle board.
David Miller, the recently appointed Applied Materials head of Worldwide Media Relations tells Silicon Valley Watcher:
"Since Jeff left I've assumed the head of corporate PR role here at Applied Materials where I worked for 6 years before leaving in January 04 for a short nine month stint at Newport Corporation before being asked to rejoin to take Jeff's role.
January 13, 2005 |
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Media bristles at arrogant treatment from Jobs and PR team
Steve Jobs and the Apple PR team have been upsetting a lot of media attending MacWorld. I did not go to the show but I’m told that virtually no media access to Apple execs was made available.
Steve Jobs was reported by one person to have acted in a very rude manner towards the press. And Apple’s PR team is providing almost no staff to administer events. In one instance, Apple invited a large group of visiting journalists to a pre-MacWorld dinner and only one company representative was availale to deal with dozens of journalists. All requests to visit the Apple HQ in Cupertino were denied.
See, I told you before, that "Silicon Valley is Back, Baby." The first sign of the business cycle upturn is a marked increase in arrogant behavior by Steve Jobs.
I’ve been covering the valley scene for 20 years and I haven’t caught the dark side of Steve Jobs, but there are plenty of entertaining stories out there.
He seems to shares a trait with Bill Gates in that both cannot be controlled in anyway by their staffs; they have zero patience for people they size up for fools; they will walk out of interviews without any warning, and they can merciless in verbal attacks on others if they feel they are being criticized or not understood. It’s the 1600-pound gorilla syndrome, what are you going to do about it?
Even if he act's badly, you've got to give him his dues, however greudgingly he pulled off three big success stories: Apple twice and Pixar, and four if you count Next, which was bought by Apple in order to get jobs back into the CEO job. He took a buck a year salary and reinvented Apple into this premium brand ofthe computer sector.
The Digital Mercedes of the Internet age—if you want a Windows Chevy--walk around the corner and into the dreary warehouse store.
Or, walk into the art-museum-store-like-natural-light-filled Apple Store in San Francisco on Market Street, right opposite the Virgin Megastore. How quaintly 80s is the term “Megastore” I hear they still sell CDS in that store.
I sometime wonder which of these rock star CEOs, Branson or Jobs is going to make the bigger splash? (I'm not counting any errant hot air balloon rides.) Both are on a collision course of sorts, and both are master brand managers, know just how far they can push their brands into new markets.
January 13, 2005 |
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January 12, 2005
Macworld shows why Apple Computer is the world's most profitable and innovative PC company
I got into a discussion over on Cnet's News.com regarding Apple in response to Michael Kanellos' column today about Apple's focus on style, and that he himself might not fit into Apple's target market. "Macintosh: It's a Madison Avenue thing."
See who we watched at Macworld: Steve Jobs chatting with actor Robin Williams (middle), former vice president Al Gore (right) just leaves the scene.
I wrote that Apple is using "style" to make money within a commodity market. And that nobody gives Apple credit for being the most profitable PC company in an industry in which other PC company profit margins are at best miniscule (Dell) or non-existent. (I'm defining the term PC in its original, broader form, as a personal computer based on a microprocessor and operating system--not as just a Windows/Intel personal computer.)
Apple has figured out that style and design are a value-add that has very good margins. And having its own operating system, and developing its own unique application suite, such as iLife, is an additional cherry on the cake that is highly profitable and distinctive.
Since Apple is a niche player, it fits perfectly into a niche market for computer products for upscale/status/design/niche conscious customers. Apple has become the "Sharper Image" of the PC sector, with its own stores too.
I've used Windows and Mac machines over the last 20 years, but have mostly been using a Windows laptop for the past five years. I've found that both types of computers are familiar to all users and will do whatever you need to do, but the Mac generally does it with a few fewer clicks and far fewer compatibility problems.
You also get a stylish design, and you get some excellent software bundled with the system. And probably more importantly than ever these days, you don't get bothered by all the malware that constantly hit Windows systems. The Mac malware is a tiny fraction of the Windows malware. I've lost tons and tons of productivity through having to deal with viruses and spyware and the admin tasks that Windows requires.
And the new Mac Mini, at just $600 for a fully loaded, stylish desktop unit just 6.5 inches by 6.5 inches and 2 inches tall, is extremely tempting. The Mac Mini looks very portable and I can see a lot of uses for that kind of form factor. Here's one: combine it with a $1,000 digital projector (also very portable) and plug it into a sound system and you have a party in a box that you can set up anywhere.
And as far as the iPod goes, Apple is demonstrating yet again that proprietary technology continues to be the way to make money in the computer industry. Don't believe me? Then consider this: what was the reward for Windows PC makers in adopting a common PC platform? Microsoft and Intel sucked in most