Thank goodness Andy Sack is trying to do something about the lack of startup/entrepreneur networking in Seattle because compared to the scene in the Bay Area there is seeming none. Since working with Spock and now Loomia down in the Bay Area and commuting back and forth between the two areas on a semi-regular basis, I’ve gotten to know more online startup folks then I have in probably the last 5 years in Seattle. Seattle’s been fortunate that has some of the all time home runs in the computing/online space, but there’s a lot more work to be done to end up with a startup environment like the Bay Area. Seattle really needs guys like Dave McClure to help grease the skids. Dave’s a natural connector for folks in the Bay Area – he has to be Kevin Bacon of that scene (ie. 6 degrees or less from everyone in the tech startup space). This week’s highlight was meeting Eric and Todd of MyBlogLog – great guys and it turns out we have a lot of similar interests. Now I guess I need to add the MyBlogLog widget finally.
Monthly Archives: April 2007
you’re so vain, i bet you think this song is about you
Ok I admit it - there’s a little bit of vanity when it comes to blogging. Part of that vanity is checking to see how one ranks in technorati’s popularity ranking. I am currently tied for around the 1 millionth most popular blog quite – i’m huge! 
Thanks to some friends recent linking I think I doubled my inbound links over the last week. What’s curious is that technorati doesn’t seem to have noticed yet despite the fact that those blogs are all relatively active. Not sure why technorati has missed them but it does make me wonder about its place as the index of all blogs. Google’s blogsearch does show their discoverable. It will be interesting to see if and when technorati finds those links. Personally I think their brand promise means they should have already done so, but maybe I am expecting too much.
quote of the day
adtech – measurement and analytics panel
Definitely a step up from the e-commerce panel from my perspective. Since analytics and measurement are now so core to online marketing this panel was right up my alley. Good perspective with two vendors - Atlas and CoreMetrics – and two companies – Macys.com and Scripps – on the panel. Here are some of the interesting outtakes from my perspective:
- Cookie deletion is a big, ugly thorn since measurement relies on cookies and with users and anti-spyware apps deleting these it can realy throw a monkey wrench into online marketing campaigns. For instance – conversions are undercounted typically 12-15% and as high as 20% depending on the system and scenario. Now relying on absolute sales against all marketing dollars can overcome that but it prevents a level of granularity that allows you to say X campaign did better then Y campaign since 12-15% is a large variance.
- The other amazing stat related as well to cookie deletion is how many impressions get chewed up by the 12-15% of users who delete cookies. Supposedly according to Atlas, up to 50% of impressions are delivered to the 12-15% of users who delete cookies. No wonder people that vocal minority (cookie deleters are typically more technical and early adopters of technologies) hates online ads. You see the problem is that most ad campaigns have frequency caps that limit the amount of times you see an ad. However, the ad delivery systems rely on cookies to tell them whether you have already seen a particular ad. So no cookie means you get to see a particular ad an unlimited number of times. In effect, you overstate reach (# of users touched) and understate average frequency (# of times ad seen by a user). What a mess.
- The new for a new metric beyond CPA especially with brand advertising and social media on the rise. Atlast proposed Cost per Minute of User Engagement. I like it. Makes a ton of sense. Of course, measuring that stat still relies on cookies
adtech – e-commerce panel
Quick post before hitting the Hitwise event tonite. Sat for the e-commerce panel which featured speakers from Levi’s and Lego’s Direct. Yep there was the expected discussion about how the sites are engaging user generated content and marketing which wasn’t anything that earth shattering. The main takeaway for me was around the use of behavioral targeting. Levi’s is trying to use behavioral targeting both with its advertising as well as in-site product targeting but is struggling with just how much it really wants to track its customers. Lego Direct has yet to do anything with behavioral because of concerns over privacy and COPA (Children Online Privacy Act) and needing the lawyers to sign off.
For better or worse for Loomia which uses behavioral information for product targeting, the market’s still early. Most sites are not using the technology yet. Clearly Loomia is hoping the market uptake over the next 12-18 months is relatively fast. It will be interesting to see if the timing’s right.
Does Google own the Internet?
My friend Andy pens that Google owns the Internet in the same way Microsoft owned the PC in the 90′s. I don’t know if I agree that Google owns the Internet but it does currently own monetizing the Internet or at least until someone figures out how to monetize social networking and media traffic. For anyone who has touched myspace traffic via ads or widgets will tell you – Myspace owns consumer traffic.
web 2.0 expo thoughts and feedback
First I tend to agree with this blog post that for the most part I was underwhelmed with web 2.0 expo. After the raging zeitgeist, that was the web 2.0 summit from last fall – it was probably too much to expect the show to live up to the hype in my own mind. Now this isn’t the fault of the organizers (including pal Dave McClure) – the challenge is the web 2.0 market has moved mainstream in only a few months. The companies that are going to make it are already making money or have enough investor’s money to figure it out, or have been acquired by a larger media copmany like Google or Yahoo!, or have already imploded and ending up on TechCrunch’s Deadpool list.
Now there were a few companies and/or products that I thought were interesting in no particularly order:
- Spock (disclosure – I worked with these guys for a little while this past winter) - great demo from Jay (one of the co-founders and vp of product even though Battelle gave him a promotion on stage from vp to ceo) showing how the idea of people as the object of the index of a search engine really can change a well known paradigm. Googlng yourself will soon be replaced by Spocking yourself.
- Adobe’s Apollo platform – this successor to flash potentially offers all the richness and advanced functionality that Flash lacks. However Apollo’s penetration will take years to build. Remember Flash roled out in the mid-90′s and took almost a decade to reach ubiquity. Whether Flash is eaten by its child Apollo or whether Flash continues to grow will be interesting to watch. Startups like Dekoh which offer similar platform vision will have a hard time swimming against the dollars, resources and entrenched developer network that Adobe has. Their best hope – get bought by someone who wants to go toe-to-toe with Adobe.
- G.ho.st – cool concept and plays on the computer in the sky concept that I have been writing about this time as a literal computer in the sky. It’s built on Amazon’s web services and I look forward to playing with it.
- Dapper – great concept – widgetize any website or build an api for any website that doesn’t have one. Potentially very useful service when trying to incorporate random third party services that aren’t built for it. Not sure I understand how they’ll make money (and thus stay in business) but it looks plenty cool.
One of the areas which I thought was missing from the expo was the lack of focus on monetization. This to me is still the elephant in the room that no one is talking about. Unless the web 2.0 world is happy living off of $0.25 to 0.50 cpm’s, then it’s something that will need to be addressed at some point (I have my own ideas naturally). Time will tell.
It’s a small world after all
One thing about working in online startups is to remember never burn bridges because you never who or when you will bump into someone from your past. It’s a small world after all.
I had a few such experiences this past week at the Topix party around Web 2.0 Expo (BTW – thumps up to Topix – great venue and guest list).
First I ran into Alison Macondary former GM of Wired News. Well a few years ago the company I was almost acquired Lycos including Wired News. It was fun to trade a few war stories about that deal which resulted in one Daum acquiring Lycos (ed. note – one of the major – huh? as in what are they thinking deals of the last couple of years).
Then I ran into Kurt Buechler currently SVP of Sales and BD for Aggregate Knowledge (as Loomia calls it – AK – they are a Loomia competitor). Kurt once upon a time was the head of BD for Windows Media back when I was at Loudeye. Kurt was a major partner of the company so I knew Kurt quite well as we were jointly trying to expand the digital music landscape.
Later Kurt “introduced” me to the CEO of AK – Paul Martino. Paul and I immediately recognized each other and then realized we had done a deal together back when he was at InterTrust many moons ago while I was at Loudeye. Needless to say Kurt, Paul and I wasted no time in trading all war stories. Even as competitors now, it is nice to see old faces in new places.
A little Loomia history
David Marks, CEO and co-founder of Loomia, has written a piece over at the new GigaOm site – Foud+Read – that talks about how startups including Loomia often change direction to be successful. Loomia’s position and success today is definitely related to the changes it made a couple of years ago. David, Ken and Francis - the co-founders of Loomia – deserve a lot of credit for shifting the business to a better place.
Loomia’s not unique based even on my experience - almost every startup I have been at has been through something similar before becoming successful – for instance Loudeye changed its model from service provider to ASP. And it’s still happening today – look at how Andy Sack and the Judy’s Book crew have had to change their model from local reviews to a deal search site.
