1. John Battelle is an excellent journalist and interviewer. He did a great job interviewing Rupert Murdoch and Chris DeWolfe last night. Folks forget that before doing a blog company, John ran a series of very successful events at the Industry Standard. Ironically, both John and I have made a career out two specific businesses over ten years: internet publications (I did Silicon Alley Reporter) and blogs (he's doing Federated Media and I did Weblogs, Inc.). Which leads me to believe that John's next business will be in search... oh wait, he wrote the book on search!2. Had a nice discussion with David Carr from the New York Times about Rupert Murdoch who I spent a little time with last night. He asked me why Rupert was received so well at the event, when one mights suspect that "old media" would be the enemy. My response to David was two fold, touching on business and the individual. First, on a business level media companies with flat to declining advertising businesses are the buyers for internet companies. Doing an IPO is a real pain in the neck, so most entrepreneurs would rather just sell to a big media company. Second, on a personal level Murdoch is hard core. He's an entrepreneur. Last night he joked about killing his competitors like CNBC and the New York Times. When's the last time you heard a big company CEO throw down like that? Never. Murdoch STILL wants to win... he brings it, and that's very cool considering he could have moved to the South of France and phoned it in for the past 20 years. 3. I got to hang out with my brother Jamie who work for Dow Jones at the MySpace party last night. We sold Silicon Alley Reporter/VentureReporter to Dow Jones back in 2002. Newscorp has an investment in Mahalo, so we're both involved with Newscorp now. Small world! 4.Evan Williams gave the best talk at Web 2.0 yesterday--hands down. 5. Moritz gave a great interview to John Heilemann of New York Magazine. 6. Heilemann and I had a heated debate when he incorrectly reported that Silicon Alley Reporter/Rising Tide Studios went under a couple of years back... a fact he sort of corrected when he did a piece on me being a suit for AOL. I joked with him last night that I'm back and in full cowboy form, and that his profile of me being a pawn in the big media machine would be a great moment in time piece. Frankly, the press doesn't mean that much to me, but that piece did get to me a little when I read it. I have to say, I'm more suited for live "on the outside" and running my own ship. 7. A number of folks came up to me, including Jay Adelson of digg, to congratulate me on the traffic numbers at propeller and Netscape. Those numbers many people seem to feel show that the site was a great success (which it is). AOL owns the second largest social news site behind digg and they spend very little to create it and did nothing to promote it. If they put .1% of AOL's traffic behind it then it would give digg a real race. 8. Do I feel vindicated by Propeller/Netscape's success? Frankly, I don't care. I don't look backwards, I look forward. Don't get me wrong, I wish the team well and I hope they continue to grow. However, if you're going to be successful in life you have to close the books on things. I try not to think about Silicon Alley Reporter, VentureReporter, WeblogsInc, and Netscape. It's wasted cycles that I could put in Mahalo.9. In a related note I NEVER look at old press clippings. I put them in a box and tape the boxes shut. I have stacks of boxes with press clips and videos that I haven't seen in years. The press is a reflection of past events 99% of the time, so spending your time with those clips is wasted EVEN WHEN THEY ARE PUBLISHED! If you want to be successful focus on the stuff you're doing, not what you've done. 10. All that being said, if AOL wanted to sell me back Weblogs, Inc. or Propeller I would certainly consider buying them and letting AOL have the advertising inventory for their ad network. Could be a win-win. :-)11. Speaking of AOL, a bunch of my folks got laid off. I was sad for them for a moment, however a bunch of folks were HAPPY because the severance packages were so huge. In fact, AOL was so generous to folks that the people staying were JEALOUS of the 3-12 month packages with bonuses that were handed out. 12. Say whatyou will about the last 12 months at AOL, but they did do the right thing in terms of taking care of the employees that were laid off AND they are moving swiftly to take action. I think the advertising network move is going to work, and truth be told the current team is standing on the shoulders of Jon Miller, Ted Leonsis, Bankoff, and countless other folks who BUILT the advertising network that is there. So, kudos to both the old and new folks for reinventing AOL. Again, I think it's going to work. 13. I'm starting to hate travel. I'm getting old (37 in November) and my body doesn't like the redeyes and 18 hour turnarounds I have a habit of doing. I also miss my family and team at Mahalo when I'm on the road. I understand why some folks stop traveling and have folks come to them and/or miss the events in our industry. Travel is hard. 14. Google is a great partner of a company. I've been partners with them on three companies over the past five years and they've always treated us really well. They've been proactive and friendly. I compare that to some of the folks they compete with who I find, although they are super friendly, don't seem to reach out as much at Google. If you're a big company I highly recommend hiring someone to reach out to the young startups there and get to know them--Google does. 15. Blade Runner: The Final Cut was amazing. I went to see it 2x in 10 days, and I think I could watchthat film once a month and not get tired of it. It's like a fine wine, steak, cigar, or run.... it's pure pleasure. 16. We're looking for a VP of Product at Mahalo. Someone who has 5-10+ years at a search company. Position is based in Santa Monica and requires someone who is very self-motivated, hard working, and smart. I've got 80% of the product road map in my head, but it is obviously changing and evolving on a regular basis. We need someone to manage the zillions of great ideas we have, organize them, annotate them, and manage the execution of them with our tech and editorial teams. It's a VERY important position, and if you recommend the person for this job I will buy you a 24" iMac (or give you a $1,500 gift card) as a thank you.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
One of our guides made apple pie for the office on Monday. Never one to waste, we've made two how to articles based on the effort:How to Make the Best Apple Pie You've Ever Eaten Vote on digg, propeller, and delicious! How to Make Flawless Pie Crust (It's Easier Than You Think) Vote on digg, propeller, and delicious!Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
I'm in the workshop on how to spam Google... ummm... I mean, how to do SEO, at the Web 2.0 Summit. The speaker is talking about making great content and inserting yourself into interesting conversation. He's talking about creating community and then listening to the community for what is coming up next in terms of hot search terms, topics, and themes. This guy sounds more like Doc or Scoble than an SEO. ... more update to come.OK, I sat through the whole panel. They said very little... you could have gotten the value of this panel by reading a blog post or two on the subject. I think that SEOs have such a small amount of actual advice that they never say anything in these panels/clinics because if they did you wouldn't need to hire them. I've seen a half dozen SEO-related panels over the year and it's always the same thing... like some infomercial where they will tell you their five secrets... IF you give them $199.95. People are coming up to ask questions and the guy keeps saying "well you have to do social work on digg and reddit, but it's complicated and we need to talk about it." During the panel he said "it's complicated, we should talk about it after the panel." I'm sure folks will come to his office and he'll say "it's complicated, sign this contract and we can start working on it." Funny.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
You know, something is wrong in the world when a zombie comedramady doesn't make the fall lineup.... Babylon Fields could have been the next Cheers. The theme songs alone make this a winner: where everyone knows your name, where everyone wants to eat your brains... come on people, work with me here. Tough crowd. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Looks like 3,600+ people read my blog on their Google Reader. I had no idea... I would have guessed like 200-300. The URL of the "feed" for this blog is:http://www.calacanis.com/rss.xmlDepending on your browser you can click on it to add it to a "reader" program. Seems like more of my traffic comes off my website and in RSS readers.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
I never really thought this blog was so big, but it seems that a decent number of folks are reading it.... Here's a nice recap of the top tech blogs... which I guess this blog falls into when I'm not talking about the Knicks, bulldogs, and life. :-)Also, a really nice quote: "Don't underestimate Jason however, underneath his showmanship is an indisputable authority that rivals the most educated and experienced journalists and analysts out there."Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
TechMeme is brilliant. It takes conversations that are buzzing around in private and surfaces them for everyone to participate in. Is it perfect? No, of course not. However, TechMeme's imperfection is just a magnifacantion of our own imperfections. In the real world some folks get too much attention relative to their ideas, while others with great ideas sometimes get marginalized. The marginalization could be based on them not being popular, their inability to communicate, or any number of reasons--fair and unfair. At a party you might have a large group of folks around someone listening to their stories for any number of reasons. Perhaps the person is great story teller or really intelligent. Perhaps they're rich or powerful, or maybe they're really good looking. Is this fair to the ugly duckling in the corner of the room who has a good story to share that they are ignored? Of course not, but TechMeme releases so many of those biases that exist in the real world! Many of the folks on TechMeme have never meet each other.... in fact, many of the folks I know in the industry I found because of TechMeme.On TechMeme anyone with a great idea can take the top of the homepage. What the haters don't realize (or like to forget for their own self-serving, self-loathing reasons) is that before Techmeme the only folks with a voice in technology were those with a print publication for the most part. Smart cats like Walt Mossberg, John Markoff, John Battelle, Jason Pontin, and Steven Levy all had print publications that helped them set the agenda and tone for the entire industry. Great guys and friends of mine all, but they were part of small group of folks with a voice. I know, because I had one too in Silicon Alley Reporter (and I used it!). TechMeme has leveled that playing field, and truth be told you don't find most of those names leading the conversations any more. How often does Markoff, Mossberg, or ANY long-term print journalist take over TechMeme? Hardly ever. In fact, no one really "takes over" TechMeme... it just keep chugging along, giving everyone their 15 minutes of fame (maybe six hours if something really catches heat). In others words, TechMeme has given everyone a chance at the microphone when just ten years ago a dozen folks controlled it. Now, some folks take that chance and others don't. But to be sure, it's there for everyone to take.How anyone could hate on a open system like TechMeme is beyond me. Does the leaderboard change the dynamic? Sure... it's not a good thing to get folks obsessed with moving up the list, and if the leaderboard does that Gabe should probably play it down. Maybe he could release it once a month (as opposed to in real time). However, that's a small issue and Gabe is a smart and fair guy... in fact, he's kinda brilliant. He just keeps making Techmeme better and better while keeping it spam free. While Technorati and Blogger got clogged with spammers, TechMeme has none... that says a lot. Now, the fact that I've had a top story *twice* in two weeks with my tiny little 10,000 person a day blog speaks volumes for the power of TechMeme. The fact that folks who you've never heard of before TechMeme get the top slot 10x more than I do is EVEN MORE TELLING. So, next time you want to hate on TechMeme think about two things:What life was like before we had TechMeme's meritocracy arrived.How you could be on TechMeme at any point in the next 24 hours *IF* you have something intelligent to say. To the haters of TechMeme I say: nothing. * [ Note: If you're hater there is nothing anyone can say to make you stop being a hater. Haters are born and then haters die--but they don't change. It's in their DNA to hate and be bitter. It's their lot in life to be miserable. Their inner hate is, in fact, their self-imposed punishment. There is no reason for us add to it. ]Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
I'm not one to advocate violence... however, in the case of Ann Coulter the women who called 9/11 widows cry babies--and this week said Jewish people needed to be perfected to Christianity--I think a bagel with a shmear and some lox right in the kisser might be just be in order. In fact, if you want to leave that lox in the middle of Time Square for a couple of days all the better.Given the power of the "wisdom of crowds" and the web 2.0 distributed work-force I'm 100% certain that within the week someone will claim the $1,000 prize on Bragster. Note: When she is pelted with bagels this week I will post the video right here.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
At the Social Graphing conference on Tuesday our industry went in full-blown madness. A panel filled with Facebook fans (and some investors) got so worked up they claimed--among other things--that:a) Facebook was worth $100 billion dollarsb) Facebook would crush Googlec) Facebook would crush MySpaced) Facebook application platform is as important an innovation as the graphical user interfacee) The top Facebook applications were worth $500MNo, I'm not making any of that up. Those were the claims, and as Mike Arrington of TechCrunch correctly pointed out, this is the kind of madness that got us in trouble the last time around (i.e. 1999). Now, to be sure, Facebook is a great product. In fact Facebook is the best social networking product ever made in my estimation. It has the best design, best UI, and best platform. Their team has done the best job to date--better than MySpace in fact. That's just an objective fact, and I don't think anyone in the industry could disagree with that. They have done something very clever by opening up their application platform. At best, opening up their platform will be the creation of a new ecosystem for developers to leverage Facebook's social graph. At worst, Facebook's open application platform will be a way for Facebook to boost their traffic numbers and get a free R&D lab in the form of naive developers who will see their hard work incorporated into Facebook's default feature set over time. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.However, back to the ABSURD claims on this panel and my thoughts on them (and yes, I realize I'm shooting two-week old dead fish in a barrel filled with six inches of water):1. Facebook worth $100B.First, a growing company with ~$100M in revenue this year might be worth 10-20x top line revenue in a hot market like this, or $1-2B. A company with $25M in profits (if Facebook has that) would be worth 50-100x that in a red-hot market, or $2.5-$5B. Those number are the number we heard folks were willing to pay over the last two years (i.e. Yahoo). So, to say Facebook is worth $100B is to say that Facebook is worth... wait for it.... 1,000x top-line revenue. In other words if Google makes $14B this year in top line they would be worth--according to the 1,000x revenue metric--$14 trillion (I've check my math 10x... I think that's the number). I think you get the point... here's a graph:Facebook had 30M uniques in September. Let's take a look at the value of each of these are the various valuation metrics. I think you get the point... Facebook users at the top end of this market would exceed the value of even cable subscribers who are paying a fortune to monopolistic companies with absurd margins. 2. Facebook will crush Google.Yes, Facebook with no experience in the search business or pay-per-click advertising business will come in and crush Google despite the fact that MSN, Ask, and Yahoo have not been able to even *keep up* with Google. Facebook, with no experience in search, will just leap frog everyone with tens of thousands of brains working on the search problem. They will also do this while crushing MySpace. Sure they will. They will also move into autos since young people buy autos and they have young people eyeballs and attention. Look for a Facebook airline and cable channel soon as well. This is bubble talk at its best... oh wait, two more points to go!3. Facebook will crush MySpace.Facebook traffic is down 10% from August to September (33M uniques dropped to 30M uniques according to Comscore). MySpace was flat during that period with 68M uniques each month, or double Facebook's traffic. While Facebook is clearly a better product and a better platform, doubling your uniques is NOT an easy task. Additionally, people were speculalting that Facebook would have a major boost in September when people came back, but in fact it was the opposite (at least according to Comscore). I've heard some inside information on focus groups that were done by a VERY credible source outside of Facebook that found that students coming back found the applications to be annoying--the equivalent of spam. We in the technology industry have a bias towards bells and whistles, but the truth is the public may not in fact like all these new applications. These applications might be a LIABILITY to Facebook. I know that's hard for some folks to swallow, but it is a possibility. Clearly some applications have great value (top friends, photo slide shows, and casual games), but many are just annoying and stupid (Zombie, food fights,etc). Facebook's challenge will be to throttle the bad and feature the good. This of course dovetails with the "should you trust Facebook with your business" discussion. In order for Facebook to catch up to MySpace--and they have a long way to go--they are going to have to control applications. So, if your application is good for you, but looked at as bad for Facebook guess who wins? Facebook of course. Additionally, MySpace is going to announce some big changes in their partnerships with 3rd party applications developers very soon (yes, again, I have inside info). My gut tells me that MySpace will allow folks to run advertising on MySpace pages if they are approved (this I don't have inside information on). If MySpace does this then application developers should flock to MySpace's 2x user base over Facebook the same way developers flock to Windows of Mac. MySpace has stagnated over the past year or so in terms of product, and their focus on community over platform isa long-term issue. However, counting out an incumbent with 2x the traffic is a dangerous call to make. 4. Facebook is more important than the GUI. Facebook has connected their social network with a semi-open platform. This is neat, but it will NOT have anywhere near the impact of the Graphical user interface. Windows and the Mac made computing--the very idea of having a computer--mainstream. How can we compare the mainstreaming of computing to an application development platform that is not very powerful (by design) and not very open (by design) to the GUI?!?! That's just absurd. If you're going to make that claim then you can make the claim that the mainstreaming of the Internet is as important as Facebook applications (i.e. if the GUI is equal to the Internet, and the GUI equal to Facebook then Facebook is equal to the Internet... I don't think so). 5. Top Facebook Applications are worth $500M.I don't even know how to start addressing this one... I mean, this is straight up MLM thinking: If Facebook is worth $50-100B than the top applications are worth 1% of that. Sure... and the top users on the top Facebook applications are worth 1% of that, or $5M each! Also, the fans of those top users are worth 1% of that, or $50,000 each!All this being said Facebook is an AMAZING product. It is a better product offering than MySpace today, and it is obviously the best social networking system and management team in the business. If anything, the amazing team they have is the real value. Will Facebook be one of the ten most important internet brands over the next ten years? I think that's clear, but remember PointCast, Netscape, AltaVista, GNN, Lycos, Excite, and Geocities were also in the 10 most important companies in the Internet space for many years--and they went away. NOTHING is a sure bet in this industry. In fact, social network is NOT a huge business today. MySpace with 2x the user base is still figuring out how to make money. Social networking might be the message board, chat room, and IM of Web 2.0: lots of traffic, little revenue. As an industry we should NOT make absurd claims about companies as it does a disservice to the entire industry and the company itself. Facebook is really worth 2-5B right now, and maybe 5-10B if someone is desperate to make a move (i.e. Microsoft in terms of advertising), but let's not make ourselves look silly as an industry to say Facebook wins everything before they have. Facebook worth a $100B might be the AOL/TW merger of Bubble 2.0 in terms of a milestone for the industry. In fact, that gives me an idea... why doesn't Facebook just buy TimeWarner and settle this whole thing. :-) Sanity check request: Kara Swisher, Fred Wilson, Mike Arrington, Robert Scoble, Jeremy Liew, Don Dodge, and Henry Blodget... can I get a check on my math and thinking above?Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
More great How To articles from our team.... like how to carve a pumpkin today. If you're interested in writing how to articles like these be sure to ping us!Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Today I spent the day at the "Graphing Social Patterns" conference in San Jose. The conference has a fancy name, but truth be told the event is centered around Facebook and Facebook applications.Background: For those of you who don't know, Facebook is a social networking site like MySpace or Friendster. Facebook announced a very powerful program four months ago to allow 3rd party developers to create applications inside of Facebook. These applications let you do things like play poker or share photos. On a business level this developer program allows Facebook to:1. get free developer labor 2. generates tools for their platform and users3. get free research into which features their users wantsIn order to get these developers on board there has to be some payback. To date payback comes in the form of climbing the rankings of the most installed applications, and maybe some promotion for your brand. No one is really making money off Faceback applications with the possible exception of a cottage industry in selling--wait for it--Facebook application installs. That's right, the people with the most applications installed are selling application installs to the have nots. Additionally, Facebook doesn't give developers the ability to pull down the user information associated with their users. So, if you get 1M users for your chess game you don't really "own" those users--Facebook does. This is a big point of contention obviously. Facebook says they are going to continue to evolve the platform and open it up as much as users want. They say give them time it's only been four months and their concerned about opening it wide because they want to protect users. When I hear "protect users" in these open standards discussions I immediately think about AOL's instant messenger client which never opened up and the Apple iPhone. Both of those companies say they are protecting users by keeping their platforms closed, and that is true to a point. Apple's products work better in terms of stability because they are closed, and spam issues are somewhat minimized by AOL not opening up their instant messenger AIM. However, the truth is that folks who are in the lead don't open up. Why should they? It's typically a HORRIBLE business decision to open up too much when you're winning. Opening up creates competition, it educates your competitors on how your business works, and it allows folks to easily switch. "Switching cost" in terms of AIM comes in the form that if you move to Yahoo IM or Skype you have to get all your friends to move over. That's why over a decade later AIM is still a powerhouse. So, the question for application developers is should they trust Facebook to open up their platform? It's important to note that at no point today did Facebook say they would open up--they simply said they are going to evolve the platform, that it's early, and that they will do what the users want. Are those statements a major red flag? Feels like it. If someone wants to open up wouldn't they just say "our intention is to open up slowly over time." Maybe they would say "we're going to get there, we just have to put safeguards in place." However, Facebook didn't say anything close to that today. This again, reminds me of AOL which when faced with the request to support Jabber, the open source standard for IM, kept saying they would look into it. However, they are still a closed system. Here's the bottom line: Facebook will open up as much as they need to in order to win. The reason Facebook opened up their platform to being with was to compete with MySpace, which had blocked people from developing on their platform (and running ads for it). If Facebook finds that they can make a "half open" system and get to where they need, well, they will probably do that. If MySpace opens up--as folks expect them to--and catches up with Facebooks Application development program? Well, Facebook will probably open up even more. In other words, this is a business decision not an emotional one for Facebook. As it should be. If Facebook were to be 100% open a competitor could come along and suck out all the value they've created. It would be really dangerous for Facebook to do this, and irresponsible with regard to their contract with investors. If Facebook becomes a public company you can be sure that they will make there decision on how open to be based on one test: what's in the best interest of their shareholders. In fact, they have a legal obligation to do so. Now, sometimes the interests of users and business are aligned, but not always. In fact, we all know that business nirvana is a monopoly -1 (i.e. a monopoly that doesn't look like one).Microsoft has had a "monopoly -1" for decades. As a result they were able to crush Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect and replace those "open platform" applications with their own. Apple was going to change everything and release us from oppression (remember the 1984 commercial?), but they went on to lock down the iPhone to the level of absurdity (i.e. bricking people's iPhone).So, should you trust Facebook with your business? Should build your entire business inside of Facebook--or even around Facebook?Answer: You should trust no one with your business success. You should build your business around the most open platform in the world: the open Internet. Does this mean Facebook is evil? No, not at all. Facebook has opened up 100x more than MySpace and Friendster, so in truth they are the leading example of openness right now. It does mean, however, that anyone who builds their entire business on top of a closed or semi-closed system is a fool. Leveraging Facebook to get users for your website? Great! Use Facebook to market you website? Sure, go for it!If you look at history the companies that built on closed--or semi open--platforms have gotten their asses kicked. Build for the open web first, and use these systems as icing on your cake.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Since the "official" Web 3.0 definition was given down from the mountain--and accepted by 100% of the voting public--we've seen a bunch of Web 3.0 companies emerge. The latest is Veropedia which is using experts--aka "gifted people"--to verify the information in Wikipedia articles. It's a great idea, and we'll be watching it from the "official Web 3.0" organizing committee here at the InterWeb Verified Authority Counsel. If it works we'll be certifying them Web 3.0 compliant. ;-)Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
When we have a match for a person's need in the Mahalo database it's pure magic... we're only four months into Mahalo's alpha/beta and we're getting stories like this every day:So I asked Maholo for hotels in Paris and got this page: easy to use, straight-forward with a reasonable number of choices. In the "Moderate Hotels" category I found one that was in the right location: the Hotel Langlois - it looks nice, has a great rating on TripAdvisor. It even got free Wifi! I booked my room and was all set in less than 10 minutes. Wow!!Not sure how well Maholo works for other things. The idea of human powered search seems compelling, but keeping up with the Web is quite a task and I am not sure if humans are really up to it. Anyway, in this case Mahalo worked definitely as advertised. So, mahalo for the help, Mahalo! ;-)So, the only issue for our business is really how wide we can go (deep isn't an issue obviously since 99% of folks don't need more than 10-20 good links and our pages have 40-50 good links on average). Getting wide is our big challenge... and we're figuring it out every day. Have you got a Mahalo match story? Let me know and let us know how we can do more to save you time.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
