Friday Wrap: iPhone Schmaps; Spot Runner's war chest; Keynote's M&A tips; Bowling for autism; Plus .... Who else is knocking on Larry's door?

By Tom Foremski - May 9, 2008

Preview iPhone Schmap...

1. Open the safari browser on your iPhone.

2. Go to www.schmap.com

3. Enter the Pre Launch Preview access code: 724627

i) Some functions in this Pre Launch Preview - such as 'Local Search' - have yet to be enabled.

ii) Access code will not be required from Monday, May 12 (public beta launch).

Spot Runner rounds up $51m more...

Spot Runner enables small businesses to cheaply run TV and radio ads from a customizable library of commercials. This might not seem like a sexy business but this LA-based company has managed to generate a lot of industry buzz, and interest from investors. This week it announced it had raised $51m from a group of mostly European investors which brings a total of $110m in investments since 2004.

Earlier this year it attracted some heavyweight execs: Joanne Bradford, chief media officer at MSN, and Mark Rosenthal, president and COO of MTV Networks. Look for this company to build through acquisitions this year and next.

Keynote's acquisition tips...

I recently had dinner with Umang Gupta CEO of Keynote Systems, and some of his top execs. Keynote measures the performance of web sites from around the world. This is essential in this era of cloud computing and widgets because you can be hurt by the slowest performing component in your web page. [I've had to remove some third-party services because they were slowing my pages to a crawl.]

Keynote has done a lot of acquisitions -- 14 since May 2000. That was the job of Vik Chaudhary, vp of product and corporate development at Keynote. He told me that he really enjoyed the whole process. He also gave me some rollup advice that isn't much use to me but might be useful to some of my readers.

Mr Chaudhary said that despite the downturn from the dotcom dotbomb there were a lot of US startups that held out for higher valuations. He said that the trick was to go to Europe where you could find a startup with a similar technology but with a lower valuation. European startups historically haven't valued themselves quite as highly as their US counterparts.

Don't be surprised to see that strategy reversed this year with European companies using Euros rolling up US startups -- I know of at least two such ventures in the works.

Bowling for autism...

Cadence Design Systems is hosting its annual Stars and Strikes Bowling Fundraiser on Saturday, May 17 at the 300 San Jose Bowling Center from 11:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. PDT to raise more than $1 million for the May Institute Pediatric Specialty Center, a planned center that will provide services to children and adults with autism.

Coming up:

Look for some interesting news from Veodia on Monday - enterprise video services is a hot hot sector.

Semantic search powerhouse debuts its first product - will it live up to the power buzz ? Check back Monday you'll find it interesting.

Who else is knocking on Larry's door? They'll have to line up behind CRM. I'll tell you who it is this the weekend...

By Tom Foremski - May 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Silicon Valley
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Wow! GOOG's Comms Chief Joins Facebook

By Tom Foremski - May 7, 2008

Elliot Schrage, head of Google's corporate communications team, has left the building. He has joined Facebook. This is one of the most significant departures from Google even though there has been a long string of them. I say that because if the minister of propaganda doesn't believe the message then something must be going wrong inside Google [BTW my Goebbels reference is completely inappropriate.]

I was always impressed by Elliot Schrage and by Google's recognition that it needed a person of his stature, to deal with big issues-- almost as if GOOG saw the need to create a foreign diplomatic corps.[Please see: November 2005 - Google hires squeaky clean human rights/ corporate responsibility lawyer as PR chief]

Here is Thomas Claburn reporting from Information Week [My bold highlight.]:

Another Google Executive Joins Facebook - Yahoo! News

Elliot Schrage: There's a communications strategy where the communications people just answer the phone and dial up and read from a script," said Schrage. "And that just can't work in an environment where the messaging is so decentralized.

There's been some incorrect information about the sort of people that we're hiring, suggesting that we don't want to hire PR professionals. But that's of course not the case. But what it does say is we need people to be as effective on strategic development, on messaging and clarity as on tactical execution.

It seems Mr Schrage is referring to my post about GOOG preferring not to hire PR experts but to get them fresh from school - but it also seems as if that's part of the problem he is referirng to?! [Please see: GOOG Doubling its PR Crew--PR and Press Needn't Apply]

Mass media masses at the Googleplex

Google hires squeaky clean human rights/ corporate responsibility lawyer as PR chief: Is GOOG expecting more trouble ahead? Will Mr Schrage spearhead GOOG's attack on China's human rights abuses?

By Tom Foremski - May 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Google [GOOG]
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Updated: Experimental New Journalism From Chicago - Live Streaming

By Tom Foremski - May 6, 2008

Andrew Finlayson, VP and News Director Fox News Chicago writes:

I'm part of a team of journalists in a newsroom in Chicago who have put together something new that I thought might interest you.

Think of it as a little experiment in what some journalism might become.

We are working on a website called www.LiveNewsCameras.com The concept is simple, let people watch news as it happens anywhere in the world…raw, unedited on your computer at work or home.

It officially was made public on Super Tuesday (although we had been tinkering with how to do it for months) with just a couple of feeds focusing on the Republican and Democratic candidates that has grown to 150 streams around the world.

We think it will double that soon because we keep hearing from stations that are starting up live streams. This little newsroom experiment now has ABC, CBS and NBC stations involved…all with the permission and partnership of the newsrooms we link to.

We streamed the hearings about Iraq, we streamed the Pope almost from the moment he arrived to when he went home…nothing unusual about that…but we also stream the presidential candidates live every day…sometimes two or three times each a day as they go around the country. No one else is doing that.

You might have an opinion on this…or even a live feed that you know of that we could link to. Imagine what will happen when every mobile can stream live video…we are working with such a phone right now. That means “live on scene on every screen” is very close…including every press conference.

Like to see what you think. Our informal motto is “Veritas odit moras,” from line 850 of Seneca’s version of Oedipus. It means “Truth hates delay.”

Foremski's Take:

I'm interested to see how this develops. It sounds like an online CSPAN but with more channels. I like CSPAN but it seems that this approach misses the journalist, I don't have time to watch live feeds, I want a two minute summary or less. Beat reporters know which two minutes are worth watching and that's where journalists add value, imho.

Andrew Finlayson replies:

We have a moderator that gets notifications from the newsrooms about what they are streaming and points to this in the chat, the twitter and soon will be able to highlight content through a dynamic front page.

We have found many people appreciate these pointers but want to pick what they want to watch. They want the raw and unedited feed…like that we are offering of Obama right now (which CNN and Fox is doing…but often they do not carry all of the speech like we do from different places around the country)…

That is why it is an experiment…if we provide the live and unedited…what does that mean for journalists? I believe every newsroom (including newspapers) will want to cover major stories live and then provide the various versions from that point forward.

I won’t bore you with more of my thoughts but we brainstormed this up when we realized that soon technology will allow us to stream live quality video anywhere…and at a reasonably low cost

By Tom Foremski - May 6, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Media Watch
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Know Any Silicon Valley Bachelors?

By Tom Foremski - May 6, 2008

The producers of The Bachelor on ABC contacted me today for some recommendations for the next show. Let me know in the comments section or email me tom (at) SiliconValleyWatcher.com who you would recommend. Send some links to pics too if possible.

Here are the parameters:

• Age 27 to 36
• Handsome
• At least 6'0" (the women are requesting taller guys I was told.)
• Charming (that's a tough one around here :-)
• An "All-American look" - we've got a multi-national community here.

I recommended Mike Arrington but not sure if he fits all the categories. He's tall...

BTW I've had a several women offering to filter the candidates :-)

By Tom Foremski - May 6, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Culture Watch
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Out/About: Managing global teams...PaySimple for SMBs...TiE reaches out to SF...VentureBeat party

By Tom Foremski - May 5, 2008

[I'm a bit behind on my coverage due to a recent bug.]

- Four engineers for the price of one:

I had an interesting chat with Tom Laffey, Executive VP of products and technology at Tibco Software (Tibco is a founding sponsor of SVW). Tibco, like most US software companies, has been building development teams in India and China. I asked Mr Laffey about reports I'd heard that Indian software development teams were getting more expensive and the teams suffered from very high turnover. He said that Tibco had decided to avoid Bangalore and instead based its Indian development center in Pune, a similar high tech region but one with less competition from surrounding firms. He also said that Tibco offered programmers interesting and cutting edge projects which further reduced turnover. He admitted that employment costs had risen significantly in India. "But I can still get four Indian software engineers for the price of one in Silicon Valley."

Tibco has also been employing software engineers in China. "They speak English surprisingly well." Mr Laffey said that it is important to keep a lot of development in the US because it is closer to its customers and there are cultural differences in developing software that cannot be exported. The main problem with outsourcing development is the brutal travel time. "It can take about 34 hours from door to door to travel to India. I try to break it up with a stop in Europe to visit customers," he said.

- TIE reaches out to San Francisco:

I stopped in on an event in San Francisco organized by TiE, Silicon Valley's largest group of entrepreneurs. The organization's annual conference is coming up May 16 to 17 at the Santa Clara Convention Center and it has an excellent list of speakers and panels (and the best Indian food in the valley:). I said to the organizers that I was surprised to see a TiE event in San Francisco, I always think of the organization as very "deep" valley, almost San Jose, 60 miles from San Francisco. I was told that TiE is trying to reach out to San Francisco's high tech community. Peter Thiel (right) is one of the many top speakers at TiECon this year. Mr Thiel and he is one of the leaders of the SF high tech community, a former CEO of PayPal and a leading investor in startups. Here is this year's agenda.

- PaySimple looks to small business market:

I recently met with Eric Remer, CEO of PaySimple, an online service that lets small businesses accept electronic payments and credit cards while at the same time providing basic invoicing and financial reporting.

"I think that innovation can be incremental," said Mr Remer, referring to a recent post of mine. And I agree, as long as it is a combination of incremental improvements that add up to a lot more. That's what PaySimple has done, combining several financial services into one package that solves a problem for small businesses such as day care centers, dog walkers etc. Customers can pay electronically and the business gets its money sooner.

PaySimple is white labeling the service to smaller banks. It is also developing a way to automatically approve small businesses. It can take about a week to approve a merchant account at a bank. PaySimple says it will be able to do it all automatically -- the first such service of its kind. PaySimple plans to outsource this service to other companies.

- VentureBeat Party:

VentureBeat threw a great party to celebrate... something?! [Matt Marshall announced something from the balcony at the Ambassador but I couldn't hear much because I was behind him and I was distracted because it reminded me of Mussolini for some strange reason but without quite as much gesticulation :-)

I'm a big fan of VentureBeat and its journalists. It is run by Matt Marshall, the former VC beat reporter at the San Jose Mercury. Dean Takahashi is a recent recruit and also a former San Jose Mercury reporter. All the top media digerati were there. I asked Mike Arrington how his roll-up strategy was coming along but he just glared at me and said "I thought you said it wouldn't work." I said that his math was spot-on but I couldn't see how all the egos could be rolled up into the same company. [Actually, the VentureBeat party showed you could get almost all of the top media celebs/bloggers into the same room but it required a lot of alcohol.]

Here is some of the coverage:

Kara Visits the VentureBeat Party! | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Party Report: For VentureBeat, a profitable display of excess

down the avenue: VentureBeat Celebration Party

VentureBeat Celebrates Like It’s 2008-- bub.blicio.us

By Tom Foremski - May 5, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Silicon Valley
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Intel Widgets Is Up...

By Tom Foremski - May 4, 2008

Jeff Nolan and his team at Newsgator put together a great media widget for my sponsor Intel (over in the right hand column). This is much better use of this space than a banner ad or skyscraper ad that repeats a marketing message.

The Intel media widget showcases Intel's new/social media and it changes all the time. It shows off the human face of Intel rather than a slick ad with a slick marketing message.

I'm looking for one PR company that would like to become a sponsor of SVW and use the media widget format to showcase themselves and their clients. I only want one PR company for this slot - I need a Rooster PR company, one with cojones :-)

- - -

MediaWatch: Media Widgets Will Be The New Ads... Are You Feeling Innovative?

Will Online Advertising Turn Into Rich Media Widgets?

Silicon Valley Watcher Sponsors' Social/New Media Widget

By Tom Foremski - May 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: About SVW
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Yang Seeks To Boost Yahoo! Shares In Wake Of Lost MSFT Deal

By Tom Foremski - May 4, 2008

Jerry Yang, co-founder and CEO of Yahoo! Sunday evening said Yahoo! had become a stronger company following Microsoft's acquisition bid and its subsequent withdrawal.

Writing on the Yahoo corporate blog Yodel Anecdotal Mr Yang argued that the experience of the last 13 weeks had changed the company.

We’ve been living under the microscope in a way we never have before. There has been greater attention than ever on our strategy and our ability to execute against it.

. . . We’ve emerged a stronger, more focused company with an even greater sense of purpose.

Yahoo! shareholders are bracing themselves for a sharp drop in the company's share price Monday morning, which could return to under $20 a share.

Foremski's Take: Mr Yang has yet to prove that Yahoo! is back on track. The online advertising market is set to double over the next three years and a rising tide lifts all boats.

Microsoft may have dodged a bullet in that Yahoo! would require a lot of integration effort. MSFT could gain many of the advantages of a Yahoo! acquisition in other ways by exploiting Yahoo's weakness in its ability to execute on strategic programs.

By Tom Foremski - May 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Yahoo [YHOO]
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US = Five Percent Global Population And 25 Percent Global Prison Population - More Than China

By Tom Foremski - May 3, 2008

This is astonishing. Somebody should raise this issue during this political campaign.

Adam Liptak reporting in the New York Times April 23 2008. (What a great intro...)

- Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’ - New York Times

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

. . . Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

. . . The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College London. China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison.

. . . It [US] has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.)

The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England’s rate is 151; Germany’s is 88; and Japan’s is 63.

Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’ - New York Times

Hat Tip Dave Galbraigh's Smashing Telly - My number one fave 2008Watch Web Site.

By Tom Foremski - May 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Culture Watch
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SponsorWatch: Tibco News Related To TUCON 08

By Tom Foremski - April 30, 2008

Tibco Software is a founding sponsor of SVW and one of the top supporters of SVW--keeping it free to all readers. Its user conference TUCON 08 is on this week in San Francisco April 29 to May 2.

TIBCO ActiveMatrix to Provide Predictive Service Level Agreement Management for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

TUCON®, San Francisco, April 30, 2008 – TIBCO Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TIBX) today announced it has added new functionality to its ActiveMatrix™ Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) platform to automatically predict and fix IT service problems before they slow down access to mission critical business information. The new TIBCO ActiveMatrix™ Service Performance Manager capabilities mark the next wave of SOA infrastructure software technology from TIBCO by moving into the realm of predicatively taking action to solve technology problems before they occur.

TIBCO Expands Leadership in Ultra-Low Latency Messaging with its First Integrated Messaging Appliance

TUCON®, San Francisco, April 30, 2008 – TIBCO Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TIBX) today announced a significant addition to the company's market-leading messaging technology, unveiling a hardware messaging appliance specifically designed to accelerate the capabilities and performance of TIBCO Rendezvous® software. Building on TIBCO Rendezvous' breakthrough reliability, predictability and manageability, this tightly integrated hardware/software combination will offer improved application-to-application, ultra-low latency messaging throughput for mission critical data.

TIBCO SOA Management Platform Adopted by Business Service Management Market Leader

TUCON®, San Francisco, April 30, 2008 – TIBCO Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TIBX) today announced that BMC Software will embed TIBCO ActiveMatrix™ in its Business Service Management (BSM) platform. BMC selected TIBCO ActiveMatrix because of its ease of use and ability to provide service enablement and management on a single platform.

TIBCO Expands Strategic Alliance with Infosys

TUCON®, San Francisco, April 30, 2008 – TIBCO Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TIBX) today announced that it has expanded its existing eight-year relationship with Infosys Technologies (NASDAQ: INFY), the global IT consulting company. Infosys CEO, Kris Gopalakrishnan, will use his keynote speech at TUCON to outline how the strategic alliance has enabled TIBCO and Infosys to win new customers by delivering a unique value proposition based on the two companies' combined experience and market knowledge.

TIBCO Advances Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) with Closer Microsoft Integration

TIBCO Selects Silverlight for Rich Internet Application Development

TUCON®, San Francisco, April 30, 2008 – TIBCO Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TIBX) today announced that the company is working closely with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) to make it easier for customers to use their respective technologies together – giving them more power and flexibility over their service-oriented architectures.

TIBCO Spotfire Introduces Actionable, Real-Time Business Intelligence

TUCON®, San Francisco, April 29, 2008 – Spotfire, a division of TIBCO Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TIBX), today announced TIBCO Spotfire® Operations Analytics, which allows customers to deploy real-time process-specific analytics applications and streamline business process control across the organization. The new software embeds event processing into Spotfire's next generation business intelligence platform. With this announcement, TIBCO offers the only event-driven, closed-loop analytics software on the market for achieving actionable, real-time business intelligence (BI).

The Future of Software Infrastructure is set at TUCON® 08

Conference Gathers Leading Architects to Explore Best Practices and New Technology Across SOA, BPM and Business Optimization

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 24, 2008 – TIBCO Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TIBX) today announced TUCON® 08, the company's annual user conference, is being held April 29-May 2, 2008 at the San Francisco Marriott Hotel.

TUCON 08 will feature keynotes from global business leaders at Allstate Corp. (NYSE: ALL), BMC Software (NYSE: BMC), The Carphone Warehouse (LON: CPW), Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Infosys Technologies (NASDAQ: INFY) . They will discuss how they are leveraging TIBCO's software infrastructure to achieve business innovation and agility to stay ahead of the competition.

TUCON 08 features:

• A choice of over 60 in-depth educational sessions across TIBCO Products and Technology including:
• TIBCO's Product and Technology Direction
• Service Oriented Architecture: From Principles to Best Practices
• Development: From Ajax to low latency messaging to standards like SCA
• Optimization: Event processing based solutions to Next Generation Analytics
• Process Improvement: Success Stories, Best Practices, and Implementation Methodologies
• A Solutions Showcase that offers a place to engage in one-on-one discussions with TIBCO product managers, professional services consultants, engineers and other experts
• More than 60 partners from 24 countries form TIBCO's partner ecosystem

By Tom Foremski - April 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Sponsor Watch
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Web 2.0 On The Ropes? Dan Farber and Caroline McCarthy

By Tom Foremski - April 30, 2008

Here is an interesting interview over on ZDNet.

Is the Web 2.0 economy in limbo? | Videos on ZDNet

CNET News.com Editor-in-Chief Dan Farber interviews reporter Caroline McCarthy about Web 2.0 bubble mania versus Web 1.0 dotcom mania.

It would have been better for Caroline to interview Dan, since Caroline was too young for the dotcom dotbomb, while Dan lived through it all, and more . . . :-)

By Tom Foremski - April 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Web 2.0
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Steve Jobs Should Give Free G3 iPhones To Apple FANs IMHO

By Tom Foremski - April 30, 2008

I recently wrote an open letter to Steve Jobs (Silicon Valley's Babe Ruth) that he should set up a First Adopter Network (FAN) program to reward loyal customers first. Otherwise someone else will grab this valuable early adopter demographic.

Dear Mr Jobs,

I’ve had my iPhone since day dot–the day it came out. It is from the Palo Alto Apple store, you and your wife were there, and so were a hundred odd-people that had waited outside all night.

I’ve had a Macintosh since year dot. I used one with a laser printer to layout and publish a newspaper in the Haight/Ashbury from 1987 to 1989. I’ve used PCs too but I’ve always had a Macintosh and in the past year I’m back on Mac so that I can do video editing.

Loyal Apple customers have been your strongest evangelists. And they usually pay top dollar for Apple products when they first come out. Yet they also have to put up with lots of criticism from non-Apple users, being called zealots, fanboys, etc. . . .

Read more here: Open letter to Steve Jobs: Apple should have a first adopter network program and give discounts to loyal customers | Tom Foremski: IMHO | ZDNet.com

Continue reading . . .

By Tom Foremski - April 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Apple [AAPL]
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Log Off And Tune In To The Real World! A Great Social Network Animation Short From Super Josh

By Tom Foremski - April 29, 2008

This is very good:

http://current.com/items/88913552_social_networking_wars

Hat Tip: Ken Kaplan via Facebook (!)

By Tom Foremski - April 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Social Media
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News Analysis: Cox Acquires Adify For $300m Cash - Will Others Follow?

By Tom Foremski - April 29, 2008

Recently I had been writing about the business opportunities for media companies acquiring advertising networks and advertising networks acquiring media companies. We are starting to see this happen. Please see: The future battle between ad networks and publishers

Today Cox Enterprises announced it had acquired Adify, a leading ad network, for $300 million in cash. I spoke with Joelle Kaufman, VP of marketing at Adify, and Rodney Mayers assistant VP of interactive media at Cox.

Mr Mayers characterized the acquisition as being strategic to Cox and that Adify would continue to operate as an independent company. Cox would not receive any special treatment from Adify, such as favorable split in advertising revenues.

"Cox has a long history of nurturing companies and enabling them to grow. Plus Cox brings to Adify a knowledge of the advertising industry which will be beneficial to Adify," Mr Mayers said.

Will Adify's business suffer because its current customers might be discouraged by a large media owner? Ms Kaufman said that Adify had spoken with all of its customers and that they saw no problem with the acquisition. She said that some had said that if it were a media company other than Cox, they would have a problem with the deal.

Foremski's Take:

This is a very good acquisition for Cox because Adify has an excellent technology and console for publishers and advertisers that enables complex advertising placement. I don't know of any other company that has a competitive technology of this type.

Cox could help move Adify into radio and TV advertising placement, which is where Google is moving. Adify has a much better console than Google's ad network and with Cox behind it, it can scale more quickly and potentially become a competitor to Google in key markets.

However, Adify may find it more difficult to acquire new customers because there will be a natural concern about the Cox connection. Adify knows a lot about its clients such as: how much ad revenue they are making and how well those businesses are performing. This is valuable competitive intelligence and Adify will likely have trouble convincing clients that this data is kept confidential, even if it is.

Cox said it is a strategic investment. This implies that Cox sees value in terms of its overall business--which means it provides it with a competitive advantage. Mr Mayers also said that Cox brings expertise to Adify in terms of its understanding of the advertising business. This doesn't describe an independent company, imho. Which will mean that potential Adify customers will think twice and thrice before committing to Adify.

Cox can more than makeup for any loss of business because of its large media holdings but there is a clear question mark on long term growth because of the ownership. This will spur other startups to create a similar technology to that of Adify.

If a coalition of media companies had invested in Adify, that would have helped it scale even faster, and helped it become a potentially stronger competitor to Google and other large advertising networks.

Right now there are few ad networks left that have not already been acquired by Google, Yahoo or Microsoft. Cox is showing that this is a media industry and that GOOG, YHOO, MSFT are competing in the media industry. These are technology-enabled media business groups and not technology groups. It is an important distinction.

- - -

Please See:

Adify Blog:

As Adify began raising our third round of financing to fund our expansion, Cox Enterprises, based in Atlanta, expressed interest in acquiring us. Although Adify was not seeking an acquirer, Cox’s history, resources, and people demonstrated that it would be a very compatible business partner and the perfect home for our company. Cox is a 100+ year old diversified media company with a long history of investing in new media businesses, serving the advertising community and, above all else, a company-wide dedication to customer service. Their known reputation for superior service all starts with a deep commitment to investing in their employees. Operating Adify independently within Cox will enable us to continue building Adify by giving our company considerable new resources to deliver superior value to our customers and to compete in the online advertising marketplace.

FM Media Looks To Invest In Content Companies And Tie Up Multi-Year Ad Contracts

Arrington Should Watch Out Because J.B. Is About . . . Ad Networks Will Roll Up Media Companies

Toktumi and Adify...

By Tom Foremski - April 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Media Watch
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Incremental Is Not Innovative: Where Is The Next Big Thing?

By Tom Foremski - April 28, 2008

Excellent article by Jeff Nolan, an ex-VC, writing in SandHill.com on venture capital investments and locating the next big thing.

Incrementalism and "The New New Thing" - With all the venture capital moving around in the Silicon Valley, where is the real innovation?

He makes many good points especially that there is a lot of money flowing into companies that only offer incremental improvements over what is already available.

The situation may leave the technology industry in another downward spiral if none of the "incremental" ventures hit it big and no other genuine innovation appears soon.

Incremental innovation just won't cut it. In my opinion innovation has to be disruptive otherwise it won't succeed, because there is little incentive to change.

I certainly agree with the Web 2-point yawn factor:

In my opinion, the worst thing that happened in these last couple of years is that damn versioning of what is a simply the broader continuum of the evolving Web. Define Web 2.0… just try it and you will see the futility.

I totally agree with Mr Nolan on this point:

I am waiting for venture investors to once again discover that there is money to be made in enterprise software.

But what is next?

As I survey the landscape of consumer- and business- focused software and service providers I am struck by how much incrementalism there is at the moment. Something like Twitter is ground breaking in terms of breakout adoption, but what about the other 10,000 startups? There are few bold "aha" ideas, lot's of social "-this or -that", and mostly a bunch of companies hoping to draft on the perceived success of a few gorillas. . .

. . .The venture capital will no doubt continue to flow to these companies in the hopes that a few will rise to the top and get acquired. With the melt down in non-VC private equity I am sure that institutional investors will surge back into VC with abandon and this will prop up the Valley for the foreseeable future.

But I'm still left with the uncomfortable question of "What’s next?" When Facebook doesn’t deliver world peace, and FriendFeed fails to be better than sliced bread, what will we do?

SandHill.com | Opinion : Incrementalism and "The New New Thing"

I know when the next new thing will emerge...

It will emerge from this coming recession. The next new/big thing has always emerged from the bust cycles in Silicon Valley.

This last one produced a two-way communications technology platform based on RSS (a blogging platform) that led to the flood of collaboration apps known as Web 2.0. The next big thing will emerge from the same roots. Because it is during a recession that we have time to think about and invest in the next generation of innovation. Intel (an SVW sponsor) makes its investments in chip fabs during the bust cycle in the chip industry, then when the boom cycle comes it is ready to crank out tens of millions of chips.

If we are going to go into a recession the silver lining is that there will be gold at the end of the rainbow (mashup metaphor #34 :-)

By Tom Foremski - April 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: VC Watch
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MediaWatch: Why Some Journalists Won't Transition To The New Journalism

By Tom Foremski - April 28, 2008

Amy Graham over at Poynter.org has written a great article about the attitudes of some journalists towards the changes happening in the industry.

• The only journalism that counts is that done by mainstream news orgs, especially in print or broadcast form. Alternative, independent, online, collaborative, community, and other approaches to news are assumed to be inferior or even dangerous.

• Priesthood syndrome: Traditional journalists are the sole source of news that can and should be trusted -- which gives them a privileged and sacred role that society is ethically obligated to support.

• Journalists and journalism cannot survive without traditional news orgs, which offer the only reliable, ethical, and credible support for a journalistic career.

• Real journalists only do journalism. They don't dirty their hands or distract themselves with business and business models, learning new tools, building community, finding new approaches to defining and covering news, etc. As the Louisville Courier-Journal staffer Mark Schaver said just this morning on Twitter, "[Now] is not a good time [for journalists] if you don't want your journalism values infected with marketing values."

• Journalistic status and authority demands aloofness. This leads to myriad problems such as believing you're smarter than most people in your community; refusing to "compromise" yourself professionally by engaging in frank public conversation with your community; and using objectivity as an excuse to be uncaring, cynical, or disdainful.

• Good journalism doesn't change much. So if it is changing significantly, it must be dying. Which in turn means the world is in big trouble, and probably deserves what it will get.

She goes on to say:

I realize that right now is a scary time for journalists who crave stability. I have immense sympathy for good, smart people (many of whom have families to support and retirements to plan) who fear the unknown. Many of the news orgs that have sheltered and supported these journalists as they ply their craft are crumbling due to their inability or unwillingness to adapt their business models -- leading to layoffs, buyouts, attrition, dwindling resources, overwork, and general demoralization.

This is why I got out and why I urged my colleagues to do the same:

. . .when too many people in any culture are in despair, that culture can easily become toxic (overwhelmingly negative to the point of becoming self-destructive or self-defeating).

I strongly agree with this statement:

. . .right now is a time of immense opportunity for journalism and journalists to take on a broader and even more vital role in society. It's a chance for journalists to not only continue doing good work, but maybe also to have more impact than ever before.

Journalism: A Toxic Culture? (Or: Why Aren't We Having More Fun?)

The future of journalism is to help individuals, communities, and organizations tell their stories. And to teach them how to tell their stories. The more we know about each other the less strange we will seem to each other, and that will help eliminate conflict and help our societies make the best decisions.

This is the best time since the invention of the Gutenberg press to be a journalist, imho.

By Tom Foremski - April 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Media Watch
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