John Furrier

Search is in Play

Search is back in play.

I've been involved in search since 1996 and I can say that I see some real innovations and new ideas that can really change the landscape.

The current advertising model is turned upside down with control and direction taken over by the end publishers, Web 'zine editors, online reporters, news bloggers. Call it "transitive advertising", bottom-up advertising, open listings, ethical grassroots marketing, it is the realization in vision and strategy of what many have been saying and paving for the last four years.

John Battelle writes:

"In essence, this new model for online ads reverses the relationship between publishers and advertisers.
In traditional advertising models, the advertiser holds all the cards. They decide what they want to spend, and most importantly, where they want to spend it.

But the rise of pay-for-performance networks like Overture and AdWords/AdSense has changed this relationship in significant ways.

First, advertisers are only paying when their ad performs - this alone is a huge shift in media.

But as I've pointed out repeatedly, these networks also disaggregate advertisers from publishers.

The advertisers are no longer choosing the publisher with whom they are doing business, they are instead choosing keywords, concepts, context."

In the new bottom-up advertising scenario advertisers release their banners, promoboxes and text links on the Web for final publishers to be picked up at will.

These new type of ads would self-contain enough intelligent code to be able to report back to advertisers how well they are performing, how many people are potentially seeing them (page impressions), how many are effectively clicked, and how many lead to an immediate sale.

Open Source Advertising - Reverse the Online Advertising Vector

I call it Open Source Advertising or Cost Per Influence as Ross Mayfield calls it ...either way this is the new model. Just found out as I write my good friend Marc Canter posted his Open Listings

I have been working on this model for some time...then I ran into Ross at the Alwayson Summit and heard him descibe it. I said right on Ross.

This is the reverse vector to the current online advertising vector and I believe it fits.

I will post more news as the work finished as we are developing... there are already 500 advertisers in the system already.

Putting the "Sting' in Ebay

Is it Netflix the next Ebay for music, movies, and games? The Fool.com writes an interesting story on Ebay and what's next. eBay's rivals couldn't catch up when eBay was much smaller, and the tall order to challenge eBay grows stilts with every passing quarter.

But that doesn't mean that companies aren't carving a niche around the eBay premise of exchanging goods and services online. These players can survive -- and even thrive -- if they specialize. What's next?

This could be the paradigm for legal online music trading. Great idea! I love it.

Google getting out of Search?

I have been saying to friends that Google's real competitor is IBM not Microsoft. Google will transform itself into a 'big virtual iron' company. Their IP is in large systems development deployed on the Internet as a platform where Internet advertising is today's app. You will see Google sequence into other apps with similar network-effect revenue models.

I agree with Steve Gilmore in his article G-Spot.

One way to handicap Google is to deconstruct the notion that Google’s intellectual property is bound solely to search. In fact, it’s bound to the emerging platform known as software-as-a-service. Fellow IPO salesforce.com offers a hosted software service, which can easily plug into legacy enterprise systems. The underlying fabric for enabling software-as-a-service is XML Web services, which are commoditizing the cost of integrating disparate hardware and software systems, and enabling a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

RSS aggregators are spending a greater percentage of their time retrieving RSS feeds instead of browsing websites, and shifting their attention from the onslaught of unwanted corporate spam and e-mail newsletters to the consensual contract of the RSS publisher/subscriber relationship.

As adoption of RSS and blogs as enterprise communication tools emerges, a new software category is also emerging. Standalone RSS aggregators on the client, such as NetNewsWire on the Mac and Outlook plug-in NewsGator on x86 machines, let you manage micro-content using e-mail-like, three-paned user interfaces. Like salesforce.com, server-based services such as Bloglines and Feedster are hosted on IE, Mozilla's FireFox, and Safari, requiring no client install and easy upgrading to new services.

Piece-by-piece, RSS tools and services will work across a range of devices, operating systems, and server platforms, reducing switching costs and taking an increasingly larger bite out of legacy file formats such as Word, PDF, and proprietary multimedia formats.

Back from Vacation - Time for School

The family is back from a long three week vacation to Beantown. What a great trip we had the last week staying at our summer home in Hull, Massachusetts. Hull is famous for being a nice beach community south of Boston and most recently the home of Napster founder Shawn Fanning. I just love it because the beaches are great for my four kids. Unlike Northern California you can actually swim in the water.

Now it's time for the 2004-05 school year. My two oldest started school yesterday here in Palo Alto. Back to drop-offs, pickup, play dates, and afternoon activities. Someone in Palo Alto should start a busing company.

WiMax puts citywide wireless broadband in sight

Emerging broadband wireless technology gives users more room to roam. It offers flexibility, ease of use and built-in security. WiMax wants to be your wireless everything. With a line-of-sight range of up to 30 miles, WiMax is the next step in the evolution of the wireless local-area network concept of Wi-Fi, which has only a 300-foot reach.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/data/2004-08-10-wimax_x.htm

Mike Moritz Modern Day Picaso?

I like any person who's in the business of entrepreneurship who compares themselves to an artist.
the post about Mike Moritz and his comment "If he weren't a venture capitalist, he'd be an artist,"

Some artists, much like some venture capitalists, seek to create a world of possibilities. They paint or draw or write because it means something to them first. When it's commercialized, money is byproduct but the real reward and real lasting satisfaction is the meaning it gives to others.

It is so true that building ventures is like being an artist. It truely is a gift. Right on!

I've posted before that entrepreneurship really can't be taught...you can learn techniques but at the end of the day you're born with the talent. When you start you have a vision and raw materials and have to make something of it. Sometimes it's shit and sometimes it's great...it's almost that simple. That is why most entrepreneurs aren't afriad of failing because they know that they can regroup and make another attempt.
For some people they get it right the first time, for some it takes some time, and for others they just don't get it right at all.

Hey Mike: Yeah you've painted a few picaso's in your day. Lets see you put up some new ones.... around the convergence of broadband, wireless, e-commerce, security, and IP networking.

Wi-Fi industry shows solid Q2 growth

The bundle of wireless networking technologies collectively known as Wi-Fi has shown solid growth in the second quarter of this year. Different factors are driving this growth in the consumer/SOHO sectors and in the enterprise. In the former, broadband adoption, and its accompanying purchases of access points and adaptors, have been boosting consumer spending. And there's still plenty of room for more.

Wi-Fi adoption has been slower in the enterprise sector. Over the past few years, prices for consumer equipment have been falling faster than those for enterprise-grade systems, and the SOHO and consumer spend has outpaced that of enterprises by a good margin.

But a bigger factor preventing greater Wi-Fi adoption in organizations has been security -- or the lack of it. Now, however, 802.11i -- the protocol intended to ensure Wi-Fi networks' security -- has been ratified, giving organizations a much greater level of comfort with the technology.

This development should ensure that enterprise adoption will continue to grow. It won't be dramatic, but it will be solid.

John Dorvak reports on the 10 worst laptops - I think everyone might think that they owned the worst at one time or another...The HP Omnibook 4000 comes to mind.

VisiCalc: Most important software written

Marc Canter posts: Dorvak of PC Magazine post of the Top 10 Software programs written.

This then makes Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, the visicalc pioneers, the most important developers.