BLOG STARTUPS, VENTURE AND THE TECH BUSINESS
Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’
October 28 2011
by Todd Hixon
One Network To Rule Them All
It’s not news that Facebook is the leading social network, but sometimes (as the U.S. Army says about the Chinese) “quantity has a quality all of its own”. I was amazed when I came across the chart below, which shows how completely Facebook dominates time spent on social networks. Source: Comscore Mark Zuckerberg and his ...
September 27 2011
by Todd Hixon
What the Political Crisis Means For Entrepreneurs
The recent downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt, and the ongoing debt crisis in Europe stem from a century-in-the-making political crisis, which is creating big economic uncertainty: inability to borrow could throw major countries into recession, and interest rates, tax rates, and government spending will see major change that is hard to predict. The crisis will ...
September 19 2011
by Scott Johnson
Direct Marketing 3.0 – The Social Era
One place where there is growth aplenty thesedays is good old direct marketing, which search reinvented last decade. This decade, social media is reinventing it once again. Picture this: You’re playing a social game like Mafia Wars on Facebook and you want more “credits.” So you type “Drink Dr. Pepper” into a box, and then buy a ...
July 7 2011
by Thanasis Delistathis
What’s in it for Skype?
Facebook announced a new feature that allows users to communicate with their friends via video calls. The backbone of the service is powered by the skype network. I was curious to see how the service worked so I tested it with a couple of colleagues. To enable it, I had to click on a friend ...
July 4 2011
by Todd Hixon
A Tale of Three Cities
In the past month I’ve been to venture conferences in three cities: New York, San Francisco, and Boston. (I rarely go to so many; events conspired this year.) This invites a comparison. The New York conference (TechCrunch/Disrupt) stropped its edge and trumpeted media, personalities, and disrupting everything, not least venture capital (more here). There were ...
June 6 2011
by Todd Hixon
Tech = Media?
I attended TechCrunch Disrupt New York recently. A few observations: Web/mobile advertising and “flash commerce” were sliced and diced on several panels. Google and Facebook execs advocated for their new products. Most interesting comments: from Mark Walrath/RightMedia founder: “The Meeker Gap (% time versus ad dollars spent on web media) exists because web advertisers have ...
February 8 2011
by Scott Johnson
Is The UnGoogle Economy Viable?
Is there enough market to sustain a startup that competes directly with Google? This is an increasingly frequent topic, as we find ourselves asking entrepreneurs and our CEOs “what if Google decided to do this?” Back in the mid nineties, we used to ask this same question about Microsoft, as the graveyard of companies ...
January 18 2011
by Scott Johnson
Mobile Monetization 2.0
Mobile monetization 2.0 is going to happen in 2011. Marketing budgets against mobile are showing up in the hundreds of millions, some new monetization schemes (CPL and CPD) are paying good eCPMs, 4G is coming, and this is all really great news for entrepreneurs and mobile app publishers as everyone everywhere taps into mobile apps. ...
November 17 2010
by Scott Johnson
Expanding “Opt In” to include “Claw Back.”
My partner Thanasis wrote a thoughtful piece about the trade-offs between privacy and convenience. Since I am a table pounding “opt-in” zealot, I felt compelled to weigh in. Opt-in is why Pontiflex is taking share so rapidly from legacy “email list brokers”. Opt-out is the reason Facebook got kicked in the gut when they launched Beacon, and how ...
November 12 2010
by Thanasis Delistathis
Privacy vs. Relevance (or Convenience): a tricky balance
According to today’s Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the Obama administration is taking steps to regulate privacy practices on the internet. That might include new laws and a new regulatory position. While Europe has always been more aggressive in this area, the U.S. government has largely left it unregulated, lest it might impede innovation. The WSJ ...
