Wednesday, October 25, 2006
It's about the mobility, -- not an activity of last resort
Every day, I read about another media property making a mobile site. Business magazines, TV shows, you name it. Read and watch them on your cell phone.
This is like the days (1999ish) of companies rushing to put a mobile brochure on the web. At least everyone is thinking mobile, but really the only folks making money are the developers of these mobile sites. And that party always ends.
No one, except the deadly bored demogrpahic will care about these sites..."I have so much time on my hands, sitting in an airport without my laptop and internet access, and I already called everyone I can think of, oh... what's on my phone I can read".
No way are these the killer mobile applications.
A key to what will be a killer mobile application is something that you cannot do as well on the internet, or something that satisfies instant gratification. IE, its cool becasue it is mobile...not in spite of it.
Smarter Agent's mobile GPS search fits that bill: I wonder what that house costs. Bam. 1 click, you get the info. You don't have to know where you are, you don't have to know the address. It's fast, empowering.
Other applications that use GPS, like navigation also let you do something important. Your in the car, lost, bam, get right on track.
So as mobile grows, portals that let you do a lot of useful things when on the go will be valuable.
Reading or watching things on your cell phone is just about killing time in places where you can't wait to move on - where there is no one to watch or talk to, and all you really want to do is get somewhere else -- like home. Interesting, but not the applications of the future. Version 1.0 for and by the uninspired for sure.
This is like the days (1999ish) of companies rushing to put a mobile brochure on the web. At least everyone is thinking mobile, but really the only folks making money are the developers of these mobile sites. And that party always ends.
No one, except the deadly bored demogrpahic will care about these sites..."I have so much time on my hands, sitting in an airport without my laptop and internet access, and I already called everyone I can think of, oh... what's on my phone I can read".
No way are these the killer mobile applications.
A key to what will be a killer mobile application is something that you cannot do as well on the internet, or something that satisfies instant gratification. IE, its cool becasue it is mobile...not in spite of it.
Smarter Agent's mobile GPS search fits that bill: I wonder what that house costs. Bam. 1 click, you get the info. You don't have to know where you are, you don't have to know the address. It's fast, empowering.
Other applications that use GPS, like navigation also let you do something important. Your in the car, lost, bam, get right on track.
So as mobile grows, portals that let you do a lot of useful things when on the go will be valuable.
Reading or watching things on your cell phone is just about killing time in places where you can't wait to move on - where there is no one to watch or talk to, and all you really want to do is get somewhere else -- like home. Interesting, but not the applications of the future. Version 1.0 for and by the uninspired for sure.
Monday, October 16, 2006
LBS and GPS + Cell Phones, it's exciting, here's why:
Fast Growing Mobile Market
Over the next few years, more people will use cell phones than desktop computers to search for information. Already, mobile devices are the best selling consumer device of all time, outpacing computer sales.
The race is on to win viewers on what is being termed the ‘third screen’ in our lives. First there was the TV screen, then the computer screen for the Internet, and now the mobile phone screen.
“Mobile could be the greatest media vehicle ever created, greater than even television...we are still only sitting on the precipice of a consumer opportunity no one has ever seen before." Peter Chernin, COO News Corp
LBS uses mobile to the fullest
LBS is to mobile, like the Internet was to the computer. This makes mobile applications easy to use and highly personalized. LBS is a different experience than the Internet from a desktop or tapping the Internet from a mobile phone.
In the 1970’s Professor Marshall McLuhan, came up with the phrase, “the medium is the message” to explain how people interact and react to the technology determines the success of the content. For example, as noted by Shawn and the rabble that blog about mobile: the television medium is characterized by watching programming pushed from a centralized source. In juxtaposition, the Internet introduced a new medium, where one interactively surfs millions of distributed sources. Now, with mobile combined with LBS, there is freedom of movement where users access and interact with proximal information from cell phones carried at the ready.
Until recently, all the pieces, such as LBS, have not been in place for mobile.
While most everyone has a cell phone, carriers have just begun to launch LBS and these services will take time to be properly imbedded in a carrier’s marketing, retail and customer service practices.
Mid-2007 probably sparks widespread mainstream LBS awareness. Sprint-Nextel and Verizon already launched LBS content mid-2006 and Cingular and T-Mobile should launch LBS in 2007. The initial 2006 LBS application launches were primarily in navigation and tracking, things GPS has been used for in the past. While these applications will post the early gains, these are core functionalities of other applications moving forward.
Today, we are seeing the ramp of mobile content (mobile data) and the emergence of LBS, with a lot of room to grow. Even more lucrative is mobile content that ties back into commerce activities. This is what Smarter Agent does better than anyone.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
You Tube and Smarter Agent 1.5 billion degrees of separation
Guess what I started using YouTube for:
When I open my laptop, my 2 year old comes running over and says: "Rocket Ship" or Trains" or "Jet Plane". I type those terms into YouTube and he delights in watching the 50 sec to 5 minute clips of rocket ships blasting off, jet planes zooming by, or other folks experiencing Thomas the Train. He stares at those clips and shouts "there it goes" when the rockets launch and get's engaged far more than those hollywood videos we watch.
Interesting, but I get a lot less work done on the sofa these days.
Then I am talking to one of our broker partners in the Reading PA area, and he tells me one of the founders is from Berks County. Damn, the local Philly press did not even report that!
Of course we talk to Sequoia Capital from time to time, and have met with Roelof who made the YouTube investment...We understand from reports the investment was $5 with a $15 million pre-money valuation (which means they owned 25%) and then Sequoia did another $8 million for +/- 5-10% additional equity. That's how a good VC does it, keeping it clean, going for good ideas at an early stage, and leaving room for founders to go for it. Sequoia also did the Google Investment. They are a great group. I hope they come around for our 2nd round.
Here's some background on how You Tube came together from a prior Business Week article:
Hurley, 29, and Chen, 27, feel at home in turbulent times. They got their start in the business world during the dot-com bubble and the bust that followed. They were among the first 20 hires at online payment service PayPal Inc. (EBAY ), joining during the second half of 1999. They got to know each other well during the lean years, becoming part of a tight-knit PayPal mafia that remains close today. Their venture money came in part through their connection to Roelof Botha, a Sequoia Capital partner who had been PayPal's CFO.A key lesson Hurley and Chen learned from the PayPal days is flexibility. PayPal's founders started out providing security software for handhelds and then tried several other fields. Only later did they hit on the idea for their online payment system, a business that eventually was sold to eBay (EBAY ) Inc. for $1.5 billion in 2002.Hurley had an entrepreneurial streak from the start. He grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and as a 5-year-old tried to sell paintings from his front yard. He studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and landed at PayPal after reading about it in Wired magazine and sending an e-mail inquiry about a job. During his interview he designed a new logo for PayPal, one that executives liked so much they still use it today. He left after the eBay deal, working with a few companies as a design consultant.
When I open my laptop, my 2 year old comes running over and says: "Rocket Ship" or Trains" or "Jet Plane". I type those terms into YouTube and he delights in watching the 50 sec to 5 minute clips of rocket ships blasting off, jet planes zooming by, or other folks experiencing Thomas the Train. He stares at those clips and shouts "there it goes" when the rockets launch and get's engaged far more than those hollywood videos we watch.
Interesting, but I get a lot less work done on the sofa these days.
Then I am talking to one of our broker partners in the Reading PA area, and he tells me one of the founders is from Berks County. Damn, the local Philly press did not even report that!
Of course we talk to Sequoia Capital from time to time, and have met with Roelof who made the YouTube investment...We understand from reports the investment was $5 with a $15 million pre-money valuation (which means they owned 25%) and then Sequoia did another $8 million for +/- 5-10% additional equity. That's how a good VC does it, keeping it clean, going for good ideas at an early stage, and leaving room for founders to go for it. Sequoia also did the Google Investment. They are a great group. I hope they come around for our 2nd round.
Here's some background on how You Tube came together from a prior Business Week article:
Hurley, 29, and Chen, 27, feel at home in turbulent times. They got their start in the business world during the dot-com bubble and the bust that followed. They were among the first 20 hires at online payment service PayPal Inc. (EBAY ), joining during the second half of 1999. They got to know each other well during the lean years, becoming part of a tight-knit PayPal mafia that remains close today. Their venture money came in part through their connection to Roelof Botha, a Sequoia Capital partner who had been PayPal's CFO.A key lesson Hurley and Chen learned from the PayPal days is flexibility. PayPal's founders started out providing security software for handhelds and then tried several other fields. Only later did they hit on the idea for their online payment system, a business that eventually was sold to eBay (EBAY ) Inc. for $1.5 billion in 2002.Hurley had an entrepreneurial streak from the start. He grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and as a 5-year-old tried to sell paintings from his front yard. He studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and landed at PayPal after reading about it in Wired magazine and sending an e-mail inquiry about a job. During his interview he designed a new logo for PayPal, one that executives liked so much they still use it today. He left after the eBay deal, working with a few companies as a design consultant.
