John Furrier

Open Source Media in Action

Adam Bosworth writes a good post that I read a few days ago after Brad Feld posted it on his blog.   I commented to Adam that it was a good post not thinking anything other than what a good post. 

What's interesting is the amount of interest that it's getting.  Two things are evident:  1) good content and ideas are easily accessed and distributed via the web and blogs and 2) the network effect of collaboration is so powerful with the blog computing and communication paradigm.  This continues to prove the point of Benkler about the open source movement and how Coases penguin theory can be applied not only to development but also communications and collaboration.

This open source communication theory follows Benkler's thinking. Blogging is a phenomenon. Like many Tony Perkins and others are doing "open source media" is a reality.  I've had the opportunity with posts like this to interface and virtually collaborate with many different people who I have never met.  Contribution on my ideas are affirmed or challenged therefore enhanced by this dynamic.   

Blogging evolution is the idea that involves thousands or even tens of thousands of individuals contributing to large and small scale ideas, or projects, where the central organizing principle is that the access remains free and most of the constraints are on the contributino of subject matter and personal credibility. No one "owns" the rights in the traditional sense of being able to command how it is used or developed, or to control its disposition.

The result is the emergence of a vibrant, innovative and productive collaboration, whose participants (in most cases) are not organized in firms and do not choose their projects in response to traditional ways but instead converge on common interests.

I see the blog platform and RSS in particular a lightning rod for accelerated change in communication, collaboration, and development.  The Adam Bosworth post (like many others) is just another example of this effect.

1.2 Billion RSS Ad Impressions by 2006

Taken from Pheedo's blog.

Recently, the blogosphere has been buzzing over ads in RSS. Overture made a statement that RSS ads are something they will explore. Topix made headlines because they inserted an ad for Overstock in a feed. Wired Magazine recently highlighted a few companies who are exploring ads in RSS.

Pheedo has been playing in this market for about a year. We have seen growth in RSS that reminds us of growth in email. There has been a lack of information on the size of the market. How big is it really? Should advertisers pay attention? Of course my answer is yes, but let the numbers tell the story.

The numbers below only include stats on blogs with RSS and are estimates based on our own research and data provided by Technorati. They do not include the feed traffic from traditional online publications like CNet, Forbes or Yahoo.

Blogosphere is doubling every: 5 months
Number of post created per day. 21,600
Number of feeds added per day: 3,700
Percent of blogs with feeds: 31%
Number of content feeds: 3.1 million
RSS consumers: 3.8 million
RSS Ad impressions: 2004 - 77 million, 2005 - 308 Million, 2006 - 1.2 billion

Tools, like the ones Pheedo is creating, to insert, track, and monitor ads in feeds will continue to evolve. Subscribers will grow expodentially and the market will mature very rapidly.

Business models in Blogs and RSS

Proven business models exist in RSS and Blogs.  You just need to look as Brad Feld points out in his post about business models in RSS and the blog movement.   Being in the market today allows firms to help invent & innovate the future.  That's hard to do from the sidelines.  So the point Brad makes of filtering and choosing categorical proven business models is good enough for today.  Fine tuning them over time as the protocols evolve will determine which mgt teams and board of directors are smarter. 

Brad writes:

RSS/blog related companies: NewsGator, Technorati, and MessageCast. NewsGator sells software. Technorati is a search engine. MessageCast is a next generation ESP (an email service provider, but for multiple channels such as Instant Messaging.) Another high profile blog investment that we aren't a part of is Six Apart which - voila - sells software - either on a stand-alone license or a hosted basis. Oh - and they are starting to help bloggers monetize their traffic with paid ads.

Please tell me these are well understood business models. I mean, there are at least 10 (or is it 10,000) software companies in America at this point, even with Oracle's best efforts to force consolidation. And search - well - even Microsoft is working on a search business. Last time I checked, there were even a number of on-demand (or hosted, or whatever you want to call them software businesses.)

.....

I've looked at a lot of RSS/blog related startups in the past 12 months. They bifurcate into two categories - those with a well-defined, easily understandible business model and those without. The vast majority - with a little effort - can fall into the first category. Now - like with everything - a bunch of the ideas are either stupid, small, or disorganized. But - once you filter these out - you are faced with traditional businesses based on a new emerging protocol. The good news - and the bad news - is we know how the game will play out - so with RSS it'll just happen faster than with SMTP and HTTP. I expect the victors will be the early birds that have a combination of conviction, compentence, and agility."

I agree with Brad but would add that the models are evolving and good companies will innovate with the growth some will not. 

RealNames is back

John Battelle wrote about Keith Teare's entry in his weblog about Keith regaining the URL and IP to RealNames.  I'm one for Keith relaunching RealNames with a new approach that builds on what worked for RealNames and to not use the approach that didn't work for RealNames. 

In 1996-1997 there were three little companies working on paid search:  Goto.com (Bill Gross), RealNames (Keith Teare), and Labrador Software (me and my brother Joe).  After living through the paid search/navigation wars one thing hasn't changed.  No innovation. The fact is that the projects that I was working on as Founder of Labrador and then as the VP of Product for RealNames are still relevant today.  These ideas and projects are either standard practices or are the future of search that everyone is talking about.

Keith had a big influence on the industry and should pick up where RealNames left off and vector into the direction the market needs now - providing search and navigation in a distributed environment.  The opportunity is still there.  In fact the distribution environment is more complex now than it was in 1997-2001 - back then it was easy do deals with the handful of portals and you're done.  Now it's about big deals, new markets like RSS, and devices.  This presents a greater complexity thus opportunities for a relaunch of a RealNames with a twist. 

Keith recognizes that he made mistakes in that folks like myself, Diego Fonstad, sales, and many others advocated hard to stay in what we called back then search optimization but Keith was locked into Microsoft which turned on RealNames in the end.  The sad irony of Microsoft is that if they came in and worked with RealNames then Google most likely wouldn't have the dominant position they have today (as Chris Zaharias vp sales points out in his post on Battellemedia.com on how we had to educate Google about AdWords and CPC .. I would add to Chris' comment that we basically has AdSense running with all our partners).  Big miss by Microsoft.   It was a big bet by Keith but nothing has changed so I think he should make a run at it again.  He has the vision to pull it off.   The opportunity is still there.

BLOHARD Revenge

"BLOHARDS" (The Benevolent Loyal Order of the Honorable Ancient Red Sox Diehard Sufferers).

Thanks Joe (my brother) back in Massachusetts for this link.  I just have to keep the memory living.  Go Sox.

http://www.theremyreport.com/pages/28/index.htm

Growing up in NJ in the 70s and early 80s we had our share of 'in your face' Yankee fans over the years.  Jackson, Chamblis, Nettles, Dent, Bobby Mercer..etc

And of course my good friend Brian O'Shaughnessy sent me this

http://www.hexachord.net/alcs/

Silicon Valley Picking Up - Funding Startups

I see Silicon Valley really heating up.  Venture capitalists are moving quickly to place funds in young startups.  In talking with friends both entrepreneurs and VCs it's clear the ideas are flowing and the money is soon to follow. 

Ideas are easy to come by but starting from scratch and getting funding is still a challenge. 

Funding strategy for entrepreneurs

Now lets see what ventures emerge.  I'm personally very interested in e-marketing, search, navigation, blogs, RSS, and broadband related ventures.

Family Pics

Tyler causing trouble at Caroline's preschool.

Caroline and friend at school

Going to school..Happy the Red Sox won the World Series

On a related note..

I'm really impressed with Our Pictures new application.  It's an innovative application and network.  No more burn a CD and share. This program is very innovative.  All you need to do is download the small client app and have an email account.   Some really smart people over at OurPictures.com are ahead of the curve on this one.

Getting ready for holidays

It's that time of the year when we get all the invitations to holiday parties.  This past weekend we took an attempt this weekend to get a family picture for our holiday card.

2004

2003

2002

Release on my new position

I am consulting and help a very small startup in the area of performance based ad network. 

What's interesting is that they've parlayed a small niche into building a network of targeted sites that provide excellent demographics for lead generation.  Think of Google AdSense for lead generation then combine e-marketing automation technology.

Google another NetScape?

Google has been compared to Netscape countless of times.  Just another Silicon Valley attempt to 'put it to Microsoft'.  I have a big opinion about this since I've worked with Netscape and Microsoft during those crucial browser war years. 

John Battelle commented on his blog about this.  In response I have to agree with John but also agree with Dave Winer in his comments.  Dave's comments .."what a joke to think that Larry and Sergey are the next Bill Gates. John, when Gates was younger, he was a constant evangelist, deal-maker, BOGUer. He'd do anything to win. Larry and Sergey are, by comparison, cloistered, insulated, aloof bordering on arrogant. I'm sure they're smart, but in an academic way, which isn't the same thing as being smart in a commercial way. All their second acts have been duds, they're still lookiing for another hit. Also, they pick the wrong battles to fight, ones that have no bearing on their success. And they're really shitty at building consensus behind a developer platform, something that Bill excelled at, in the old days, when he was trying."

My comment to add to all this is..Google his the big money before locking in a sustainable position way before Microsoft did.  Microsoft really extracted the revenues once they had the strangle hold on the market.  I'm not saying that Google should turn down all those ad dollars but to Dave Winer's point they (Google) should be doing more. I have to say they are coming across arrogant. 

I've contacted folks over there about working for or with them on some new project.  I haven't even gotten a call back. 

Until I hear back from Google it looks like I'll have to compete against them.  I've heard this from many other folks.  I was even at my dentist office and he said the same thing.  Not a good sign for Google.