Global Neighbourhoods

Dan Farber takes editorial helm at CNET

         

Dan Farber, the dean of tech journalists, has announced he will become editor in chief of CNET. He said there will be no more posts for him at his popular Between the Lines, ZDnet blog column.

It would embarrass Dan if I stated how highly I regard him. He's fierce as a reporter but kind as a human. He keeps secrets when asked, yet he's transparent about himself.

CNET was once the disruptor in terms of online reporting. But that was an earlier phase. I follow many members of the ZDNET team, but other than that I've pretty much forgotten about CNET itself. Dan knows news. He knows reporting and he understands social media as well as anyone. He also understands the information that the enterprise hungers for.

I expect to see no abrupt changes at CNET. But I expect to see a steady string of improvements. I also hope Dan finds time to come back to his blog column.

Mazel Tov, Dan.

Microsoft-Yahoo. Why I think it's bad for both.

1. History. There has never been a truly successful merger between giant tech companies. Compaq went from healthy to danger list after acquiring DEC.  The tech cemeteries are filled with companies who tried to merge with equals and failed. The closest to success, I can think of is HP-Comaq. H-P is doing okay now, but the operation almost killed them. And now that the dust has settled, just what did they gain buy the acquisition that cost them billions and took years to sort out.

2. Culture. Mergers and marriages bring together often disparate cultures. This often causes ongoing family feuding, children going out on their own and so on.  For those of us who know smart and capable people at both companies, their cultures are decidedly different. Financial analysts and M&A experts very often overlook  the issue of culture. But the employees don't and cultures that don't merge can cripple a company.

3. Microsoft doesn't solve Yahoo's problem. Best I can tell, Yahoo maintains a 1999 business model. It wants sticky eyeballs to come to Yahoo sites and never leave. While people are there they will flash as many ads in front of those eyeballs as the visitors will tolerate. People are tolerating less and less of that. Yahoo has not really adjusted to a mobile strategy, where the ads follow people wherever people wish to go, which is Google's very sharp strategy. What does Microsoft do to either enhance or change that core strategy? I don't know. You may mention Windows CE, but I do not see why tht will get people on-the-go to follow Yahoo any closer.

4. Yahoo does not solve Microsoft's problem. Redmond has so many strategic problems, but I think at the core of it, is that Microsoft is becoming as big and unimportant as did IBM 15 years earlier. It is the undisputed leader in the enterprise and in the world's desktop productivity software. That gives it a long life, but a steadily shrinking one. Microsoft will see some significant ad revenue increases by buying Yahoo, but how long will it take for Microsoft to realize $45 billion in, not just revenue--but actual rofit from this transaction?

5. Neither company scores high in GRAC. This is a term I coined in the 1980s: 'Generally regarded as Cool." GRAC is much more important than merger & acquisition folk realize. Companies whose perspective customers regard what they produce to be cool are the ones that revail, particularly among early adopters. IT folk says this doesn't matter, because their purchases of tens of thousands of something is where the real money is. True, but moving forward those numbers are less relevant, I think, than what and who early adopters generally regard as cool.

OK, I'm no expert. And nobody has ever envied my personal stock performances over the past 6-7 years. But we shall see how this proposed marriage of behemoths works out. We shall see.

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Demo 08 Day #1 was great as best I recall

I had planned to give an extensive report on companies I liked on Day #1, using my abundant Twitter entries as my notebook. This is difficult, because I cannot access Twitter this morning. Instead of railing about that, I'm going to try from memory to name the companies that impressed me most. Since I've been waiting for Twitter for over half an hour I'll be shorter than I wanted to be.
Here are some of the ones that I think will endure and change the marketplace in social media. Links are too sites:

• Livescribe of Oakland, CA has created a magic pen that may change the world for a few reasons. The device is a record, optical recognizer and translator. It uses regular paper that has been treated. You can copy the paper or make a PDX. If I'm interviewing you, I use the LiveScribe devise and write down a single word to remember the section. After the talk, I tap on the word and get a recording f what was said at the moment I write down the word. It translates between English, Spanish and Arabic as well as other languages. Which means I could use it to condust a conversation with another person who speaks none of the languages I speak and LiveScribe serves as a translator. The 1 Gig version is priced at $149 from their site in March and retail deals are allegedly imminent.
• Seesmic Maybe it was seeing friends Loic LeMeur and Cathy Brooks presenting that got me so excited, but I think not. Seesmic got it's start in the last half of last year simply by using Twitter (on good days) to attract it's 1st 2000 enthusiastic fans who have been spreading the word ever since. Seesmic is a clean, simple video producing platform that gives you a 5 minute maximum for content. The company introduced two new feature: (1) the ability to track conversations on each Seesmic post and (2) mobile capability, which I think greatly enhances the appeal of the service.
• Skyfire  Is a fast, tight mobile browser. In the demo it let you click and watch Videos and all sorts of stuff that today feels like your wwatching paint dry while waiting for. If it is that fast and clean in the hands of real people in realtime environments, then we all want it. At least the "we all" that have become mobile devoce dependent and see the day when that device is our primary computer on the road often travelled.
• iVideotunes Is a music teaching system. People more musically adept than me say it is really great. But it scored a high note for me at DEMO because they brought John Oates of Hall & Oates onstage to demo it. He sang a few bars of "She's Gone" and then joined n on the DEMO jam session last night, whoch I skipped because I'm getting on in years and I need my sleep.
• SceneCaster introduced DreamWeaver, which allows people to easily embed virtual reality elements into a flat website. You can also use the 3D technology to wander from scene to scene by clicking on doors. I think that the promise of virtual world technology is still nascent. It's nice to see it starting to move beyond the realm of SecondLife into other applications.
• GreenPlug Green technologies are just starting to come into the marketplace. This is the best and most financially viable I've seen so far. GreenPlug is really a chip the creates a universal AC/DC power adapter than (I think) goes into the cord. Fr mobile users it means you'll have one charge chord for the 97 devices you travel with. For the planet, it means less electricity usage. For the company, I think it means money and lots of it.
• Flypaper of Phoenix lets anyone create a Flash Demo without programming which should appeal to anyone who wants to look cool online. The core tools are simple drag and drop that you can customize. PowerPoint was introduced in 1987. It hasn't much changed. Flypaper may be the one that finally kicks it aside.
• Vidyo is a teleconferencing system that lets people using disperate technology to all videochat in HD Quality. I liked it, but am not convinced that it is "more better" enough to replace Skype. They would argue they are after different customers: workgroups, collaborators, but it remains to be seen if the market will agree.

• Voyant is not a social media company and I wasn't really that fond of its presentation. But it allows a simple personal finance management system that I need and I think a whole lot of other people need. This product should be acquired by the Quicken folk at Intuit and hopefully soon.

I'm out of time. Please realize that this list is incomplete and is focused on social media. I hope the Twitter gods will allow me to report on the morning session of DEMO Day 2 which starts in 20 minutes.

Henry Blodget: Why Apple position still rocks

[MacBook Air. Will world's thinnest PC thicken Apple profits? Photo by Shel]

As an Apple Computer stock holder, I've been getting nervous lately. I hear news and think it's good, and still stock traders are seling & selling. Personally, I see Apple as in an extremely strong position, but I am far from an expert in picking stocks. So I'm in the herd these days and the herd is restless.

It is somewhat calming, to read Henry Blodget's analysis of while Apple Computer is in the kind of business sweet spot that I think it is. At least one analyst see it the way I do. Some say the new MacBook Air is too expensive. As I recall, that's what they just said about the iPhone. I have a hunch those who argue it's too expensive have not yet seen and touched one as I have. Do I need one? Probably not. But I'm pretty certain, the next time I have some discretionary money laying around, I will buy one.

Macworld: The joint was jumpin'

[Very Interesting. MacBookAir was this year's show stopper.
Photo by Shel]

The last tme I walked a MacWorld Show floor was the year they introduced the iMac that looked like a desklamp.  The crowds were relatively sparse, dominated by middle aged men with graying pony tails. Steve Jobs had returned relatively recently and there was a buzz of hope that this new Mac in that festering anti-Microsoft Era just might pave the way to a revitalized Mac.

Even the most wide-eyed optimists of that day had no idea just what a half-decade could deliver. This was a jammed, crammed, vibrant MacWorld. Still consumer dominated, with nary a necktie on the exhibit floor, the aisles of tqo gargantuan halls were filled, the booths crammed, the dais exhibitors speaking to filled seats.

The joint was jumping. Apple has gone from the cool alternative for a Redmond-haters to the coolest thing in consumer electronics. Still not a place that  my two-hour stroll could discern as an enterprise hang, it was filled with all others sorts of business people from probably all continents not covered with snow.

That first desklamp iMac turned out to be a hit, even if it's stage setting wifi enabling Airport seemed silly for a non-portable desktop unit, it began a string of design genius hits that just keep getting better. Jobs in his Keynote named about a halff dozen, but one stood out.

The new 3 lb, 10-hour, .8 inch ultra portable MacBook Air is quite simple the most beautiful personal computer ever made. It is the apple of every road warrior's eye and I have little doubt that it will be a most significant hit, even with a $1799 price tag on it; even with no dock; even with some questions of compatibility with non-Apple peripherals.

This is a must-have for the intensive traveller. And that is important for the world of computers for the rest of people. Mac, I have been told by someone who knows, is growing more significantly than people realize in new buys inside the enterprise.  Road warriors are very often Enterprise people who influence the pourchase and desires of others.

I think this new Mac is  very important next step on what has been a relentless march of genius.  nd it really did start with that desklamp iMac, which looks these days pretty silly and clunky compared with the Macs of today.

[Seats filled. Audience engaged. No neckties.Macworld shows a flourishing
environment. Photo by Shel]

Zuckerberg a ClosedBook on 60 minutes

I spent the evening with some good friends, eating lasagna and enjoying a really nice old Caymus. It would have been rude to sneak upstairs to watch young Zuckerberg on 60 minutes.  I'm just now reading the blog reviews.

I had been hoping for something out of him, the way I keep hoping to see from John Edwards what I thought I saw from him earlier in that campaign. Duncan Riley seemed to give one of the most comprehensive reviews.  Executive summary: He sucked once again. He has become a suit at an early age.  He still thinks his business is about feeding employees rather than serving customers, which will continue to make it hard to feed employees. He defended Beacon, a horse than many of us thought was dead.

I keep writing that I am losing hope for faceBook. I guess the tense has now changed. I have lost it. If you are a Facebook friend, please come find me on Twitter (shelisrael). I will only now use FaceBook to plar Arik Hesseldahl in Scrabulous.  Why Ari? Because he consistently beats e and my ego needs the deflating.

Guardian Picks 6 promising start-ups

The Scoble Link Machine pointed me to this Guardian article, where Bobby Johnson lists six start ups likely to be among the Next Big Things of 2008.  It's a good list.  He picked companies like Twitter, and Seesmic who are generally regarded as hot by early adopters and investors I speak with.

The catch is that history says both Bobby and I will be proven wrong on at least half of these. Why?  Because technology always surprises and disrupts. On Dec. 25, 2006, who among you would have predicted that the iPhone and Facebook would be the two hottest techs of the year?

There is another problem, one that is plaguing Facebook and I fear is likely to plague bith Twitter and Seismic and that is the issue of monetization.  My friends at both companies talk about all the possibilities they have, just like Facebook did. The trouble is so many of the loyal customers at all three of these rapidly emerging companies are conditioned to think every day is Christmas, and the benefits they provide are free.

Advertising, subscription, sponsorships, etc., are all customer losing propositions. I dion't know how they fix this.  I think it is currently hurting the Facebook brand and I am hopeful that Seismic, Twitter and the other promising players on the Guardian list will fiond customer-embraceable solutions sometime next year.

Laughing Squid and the Muttering Retailer

Anyone who knows Scott Beale and Laughing Squid, understand he has a wonderful, slightly off center sense of humor.  His recent Best Buy Blue spiff shorts is a good example. But what made this interesting was not the nearly predictable Cease and Desist letter from the world's leading electronics retailer, but the speed in which the retracted it.

Fast Company's Valeria Maltoni has a good report on how the blogosphere got to follow the story as Scott reported on it via his Twitter.  But the most interesting twist is that--of all things--the Best Buy PR folk jumped in to save the day for Scott and prevent a huge wart on the public face of BestBuy

Dell Breaks New Ground with new IR Blog

I have been telling audiences that Dell Computer is my favorite case study involving social media and the enterprise. It follows the formula for the old True Confessions magazines--Sin, suffer, repent.

Dell's sin, from my perspective, was that it trimmed too much quality out of its products and services in the interest of winning a price war. It on the war, but the blood on the battlefield belong to a good customers and the shrapnel on that field were computers that died before their time.

Blogging played a role.  When Jeff Jarvis started it all with his now legendary "Dell Hell" post, he was disdained at first by the company. But Jeff revealed there was an entire community of angry Dell users.

Dell emerged as l'enterprise terrible in the eyes of the blogging community.  The were the poster child as a company that didn't get it.  A company that didn't care, a company that would spend more on advertising than on support.

Then Dell suffered record losses. Remarkably awful losses, and Michael Dell, a founder whose 20 years of straight talking had built solid credibility, returned to take full control of Dell helm.

I forget the order but two things happened: (1) Dell announced it would spend $1 billion to repair  its tainted customer support and  (2) Lawdy, Lawdy.  Dell started a blog.

For about the first month, Direct2Dell, as it is now called, must have set the Guiness record for angry comments.  They were shouted, shrieked, screamed, blasphemed at.  But they took it all, and they took it in.

It developed an attitude of, we had no idea, you customers were really that mad. In response, you could almost hear a collective sigh from the customers.  At last, Dell was listening.  Then, they started responding. New Dell machines are getting better marks. The blog has developed an ongoing dialog that creates either the reality that Dell is closer to its customers than any other PC maker.

A couple of weeks ago, Jeff Jarvis who had pulled the thread that nearly unraveled the company , interviewed Michael Dell for BusinessWeek.  It was a pretty favorable story.

Now Dell has gone a step further, announcing a couple of hours ago, Dell Shares,
an investor relations blog. It is a ballsy move. The conventional wisdom is that no publicly traded company would  allow a stock-related blog because of all the regulatory land mines.  This would only  be true, if the blog author was an idiot, I have previously stated.  Lynn  Tyson, the Dell VP for Investor relations appears to be no idiot.  Her first post is pretty good and she'll get better because most bloggers get better. And, I'll be she's pretty aware of what she can and cannot say.

So now Dell is breaking new ground. It is showing other companies what can and cannot be done in the blogosphere.  It is one Hell of a story. It would make a great ook... hmmm.

 

Ad Revenue Heading Up at Yahoo

Om Malik has a report that says advertising revenue is over at Yahoo Search spiked last quarter at a rate nearly four times the web average of 1.7%.  My question is why? Ever since Jerry Yang took back the helm, word in the Valley is that Yahoo people are hopeful.

Hope is one thing, but there is no evidence  that I've heard of anything changing over there. Certainly there s no hint that Yahoo Search is gaining on Google. No one seems to have a clearer articulation of a Yahoo vision.  The beta remake of My Yahoo is nothing to blog home about.

So why is ad revenue spiking? I don't know.  It's a mystery.