Recent Acquisitions - Skype, YouTube, MySpace

Two questions I'm pondering in anticipation of next week's show.

(1) How is Web 2.0 defined (new tools? big financial deals? converging technological advances?)

(2) Is this a bubble? If so, is it likely to burst?

I want look at this from a mathematical perspective; I've heard so many anectodal comments, but it's surprising how many factual accounts I've heard. From what perspective could we look at this? # of IPOs per year? # of failed companies? VC ROI?

Well, I got to thinking about this after seeing the following illustration, courtesy of tnl.net and Google Blogoscoped.

Below is a list of many online tech companies have been sold in recent years, and for how much dinero.

Company Acquired, sorted by Price
Skype Ebay $2.6 billion
YouTube Google $1.65 billion
5% investment in AOL Google $1 billion
MySpace News Corp $580 million
dMarc Broadcasting Google $102 million
Grouper Sony $65 million
Flickr Yahoo $30-35 million (rumored)
del.icio.us Yahoo $30-35 million (rumored)
Bloglines IAC (Ask) $25 million (rumored)
Weblogs Inc. AOL $25 million (rumored)
Blogger Google $20 million (rumored)
Oddpost Yahoo $20 million (rumored)
Jumpcut Yahoo $15 million (rumored)
LiveJournal SixApart $20 million (rumored)
Rojo SixApart $10 million (rumored)
Picasa Google Under $5 million (rumored)
MeasureMap Google Under $5 million (rumored)
2.6% ownership of Baidu Google $5 million
weblogs.com Verisign $2 million
Writely Google Around $2 million (rumored)
Dodgeball Google Around $1 million (rumored)
Upcoming.org Yahoo Around $1 million (rumored)
WebJay Yahoo Around $1 million (rumored)
Urchin Google $???
Keyhole Google $???
Deja News Google $???

Any others that we're missing? See any interesting trends?

Podcast #6 - YouTube, YouMail, Audible Audio Books

Google YouTube Deal - $2.6 billion, all in Google stock (thanks to 'everyonesacritic for the correction'), Google now more than 50% of video market (depending on which statistical group you're asking, but a whole lot more than they were before buying Youtube)

Youmail - discussion with our first caller/guest, Matt Youngblood, his experience with this program - Customer support guy from youmail was pretty responsive and interested in helping our guest, Matt Youngblood, with what he needed. (also, the program apparently does work in Mexico and elsewhere, see comment below...)

Matt also shares his insights into IPods, Academik describes the IPhone, and the group discusses the convergence of different types of portable media - music, videos, and voice mails.

Mike shares a little about Google's growing Juggernaut, their deals with huge media companies, the power of their syndicated ad network. This story gives a glimpse into just how powerful Google is becoming, with the following remarks by a top MSFT exec hammering home the point...

"The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google. So media companies around the world are all threatened by Google. Why? Because basically Google is telling you how much of your ad revenue you get to keep. They better get some competition. Us. Yahoo!. Somebody better break through or you can short all media stocks right now.

As long as there are two (big companies like Google), you can hold onto media stocks. Google understands that. And that’s one reason why they’re willing to lose money up front. Just look at some of these deals. That MySpace deal (where Google provides the ad engine for MySpace). We bid a lot of money on that MySpace deal. And we got outbid. We wanted to win that MySpace deal. At some point, we said we can’t do this. Now Google can afford to spend more than us and Yahoo..." So how about that...poor MSFT can't even hang in this arena with G.

Anyhoo, one thing we got to thinking about with regards to YouMail - once we can actually have tools that record voice mails we receive, then this begs the next question: what kinds of new services will grow out from this? Will there be social networking sites where individuals can share and rate voice mails that they've received? I also wonder, what kind of privacy chaos will this reap?

Finally, Audible is a rockin' service that gives access to audio book downloads. Has awesome monthly subscriptions, decent collection, clean interface, and small file sizes.

Podcast #5 - VOIP Internet Phones, Frappr Mapping

So in this podcast, we learn a lot about the new, online phone services that have been enabled by the convergence of ubiquitous broadband among a certain demographic, and decrease transmission costs, etc. This is a valuable discussion for anyone interested in learning more about fun and useful options for chatting online.

Services enabled by VoIP:
Youmail - personalized voice mail for each person(Free), doesn't require alltogether new phone number,
Grandcentral - can categorize different friends, and give the different groups their own voice mail ($14.99 Premium Service), one phone number rings on all your phones
Jajah - for making international calls(0 - .65 cents/minute)

VoIP Companies:
Skype - massive network of users, because basic service is free, typically people speak through computer with voice being recorded with a pc mic, and sound playing out of speakers or headphones.
Vonage - huge marketing expense, large network, $30 per month, can use traditional cordless phones in your house, but voice data is carried digitally through the internet connection, rather than traditional (more expensive) phone lines

How will this impact the way we communicate with people? These global networks - how are relationships going to be structured in the future?

And finally, a really neat little mapping tool, Frappr. Another exciting tool made possible by Ajax programming technologies, satellite images that were made possibe by Google and Yahoo efforts in this area, etc. You can see these maps on the right side of our blog.

This is a cool concept that allows people in different areas to place a pin on the map that identifies what city / region they are from, plus personal information about each other. For example, see how the hardcore programming community of PmWiki utilizes this new tool.

Yougle? Or GooTube?

Wouldn't you know...

Last week, everyone is bemoaning how YouTubs is a litigation nightmare. "Once they start making money, everyone's going to sue them," "They're a copyright nightmare." "All the big movie companies are going to pounce on them."

Now look how different things look. Google, one of the smartest companies on earth, just decided to purchase this organization. Here's the press release.

No doubt, Google will have a pleasant time figuring out how to make lots of money by syndicating its advertiser network to video viewers.

Yowsers. While they're busy making big deals, they are also quitely buying up entire radio networks, brokering other 'traditional media' deals in TV and newspapers. If nothing else, Google is certainly jumping on the opportunity to apply their proprietary, world's best, advertiser network platform and delivery technology.

You readers think this is as crazy as I do?

Helio needs to know their market...

Helio needs to know their market…

I’m going to be honest. When someone told me that they were going to bring South Korean cellular technology to the US, I got excited. My Cingular contract was month to month, my Nokia 6230 was looking old and drab even though it did everything I needed it to do, and my mouth was salivating over the thought of a snazzy, well designed phone that would let me embrace more gadgets than I ever needed to use (upcoming iPhone anyone?). I never like to buy something as soon as it comes out though; there are always bugs to fix and feedback to receive from the masses before it achieves real greatness (see iPod generation 57).

I waited for a few months and kept up with the company, who made their initial offering public during the first week of May, while I was at the World Conference on Information Technology. I wanted to give Helio my business so bad, I had a check waiting to be signed and mailed to get me on the bandwagon. That check has long since been voided.

The company’s innovations like 2 megapixel cameras, strong video and music capabilities (including full stereo speakers in the larger Hero model), MySpace integration, and large bright screen were marred by things like no Bluetooth support, buggy software, no ability to attach to a laptop for internet access, no full web browser, and last but not least the fact that it only works in the 800/1900 bands meaning you’re restricted to the US (see this website for a good explanation of cellular bands http://www.cellguru.net/1900.htm)

So you’re bringing me South Korean technology but forgetting Bluetooth, an industry standard connectivity feature, and the phone doesn’t work internationally, including Korea. LAME. The whole campaign and marketing of Helio was to bring hot new technology to the MySpace generation and help us tie in all of our videos, photos, music, and social networking (ala MySpace) addictions.

Who is the demographic for this model – kids, aged between 13-25. While many kids these days have computers, or even laptops, I don’t think it’s rational to think that these kids want to carry their computers with them everywhere they go – that’s why they bought this hot new phone remember? In an act of sheer bandwagonness, Helio has announced that it will now be offering a cellular card for laptops so that users can be connected to the Internet via a high-speed EV-DO connection*. I don’t know who came up with this but it’s nothing new, it doesn’t appeal to their marketing demographic, and it will probably not function as well as a Sprint, Cingular, Verizon, or T-Mobile offering. So Helio, what’s the point?

My advice:

• iron out the kinks in your software
• design the Hero so it’s as attractive as the Kickflip (their two current phones)
• fix your website so it’s not so buggy
• implement tri or quad band, Bluetooth, and a fully available Internet
  

And finally...

• remember your demographic and your mantra – beautiful high-tech phones for the MySpace generation!

* where available

What's up with Nokia?

Nokia has been on overdrive this past week with announcements in a variety of different sectors.

The company released information on September 28th including its deal with Intel to include its cellular data transfer technology, HSPDA, in the next version of the Centrino processor. This means that all new Centrino laptops (beginning in spring 2007) would not only have built in WiFi hotspot access, but also cellular access for people who have internet via their mobile provider.

The same day, the company introduced a new dual slider phone with W-CDMA technology in it's N-line of phones. These phones are multimedia heavy with portable media players, >1 megapixel cameras, and web capabilities. The n95 model even has a 5 megapixel camera, wifi access, GPS, and can access networks in 5 bands - allowing it to be used across most of the globe.

As if these announcements weren't enough the company announced today its own version of bluetooth, called Wibree. This short-range wireless connection is smaller and uses less energy than traditional Bluetooth. The technology will be commercially available 2Q'07.

Just for good measure they also spoke about the ability to download podcasts to your mobile phone in the latest edition of Wired using one of their N-line phones. All this convergence begs the question... What other types of ideas is Nokia cooking up? Look for big things from them over the next 2 years as we see the computer, the cell phone, and the Internet become more integrated.

Nokia reveals Bluetooth competition Yahoo!/Reuters
Listening to podcasts via mobile phone? Wired
New Intel laptops to come with Nokia 3G technology Silicon.com
New Nokia line introduces dual slider, W-CDMA technology TWICE