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Clothe Stowe: The First Mover Disadvantage.

Posted on May 9, 2006 ·

Stowe Boyd “created this market” : his eBay bid on wearing logo’d t-shirts totaled him $3,600 – he sold his body for a year.  As we know, in business being a first mover is not always an advantage – the second player comes in having learned all the mistakes an conquers the market.

In this case the second player is likely not smarter, but most definitely cuter  : Baby Jake will wear an advertiser’s clothes for a whopping $10,000 a month, or .. are you ready for this?… $100,000 for an entire year. (via Steve Rubel)

My prediction: I doubt any company will pay $100K for the year, but someone probably will be “crazy” enough to cough up $10K for a month. 

Prediction #2: we’ll soon see (baby) Jake in a movie.

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Filed Under: Marketing / PR, Misc ·
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Why I “Cleaned House” on LinkedIn – When Less is More

Posted on May 7, 2006 ·

Social Networking is all about connecting People, not linking dumb Data Records…

I’m a fan and early user of LinkedIn, and am really happy with the recent enhancements, including a public web profile and a badge:

View Zoli Erdoss profile on LinkedIn.

However, I’ve recently spent hours combing through my list of contacts, compiling a long list that I asked Customer Service to disconnect me from (why it’s not a self-serve option is beyond me…). Why do such an insane thing, the more connections the better, isn’t it? – No, it’s not.

What differentiates LinkedIn from some of the very early social networking services is the business focus, and the fact that it attempts to map one’s existing network in the real-world. Link-mongers drove business users away from Ryze, one of the very early players, and LinkedIn opened just in time to shelter the “Ryze-refugees”: the invitation-only feature was supposed to keep link-spammers away. It worked … for a while. Then “superconnectors” with thousands of contacts showed up who bombed everyone with link requests. I made the mistake of accepting most link requests in the early days, thinking rejection was rude. No, it’s not rude, it’s playing by the rules, and keeping LinkedIn what it’s meant to be, so from now on whenever I receive a link request from someone I do not know (these tend to come with the boilerpate text) I take the only reasonable action:

Today I received an email from one of these “superconnectors”: apparently I was not the only one who disconnected him, in fact LinkedIn canceled his account. He negotiated his account back, but is now complaining that LinkedIn limits invitations to 3000 individuals. He is trying to rebuild his “empire” of 16,000 contacts (yes, that is 16K!) by circumventing the rules and trying to convince his former contacts to invite him back.

I used to think LinkedIn was a better place without such link-collectors, but I guess I no longer care: let them play their game, I play by my rules. If having 16,000 contacts makes him happy, so be it. I tend to think that Social Networking is all about connecting People, not simply linking Data Records, so his 16,000 database empire is quite useless. It’s the good old rule of Quality vs. Quantity. As a result of my housecleaning my LinkedIn network has shrunk by 30%, an the extended “reach” of 3rd-level connections by a much larger margin, but it’s no longer just a database: it’s a true reflection of my social-business network. Just the way it’s supposed to be.

Update (5/8): Konstantin’s comment below is well worth reading, he hints at future LinkedIn features…

Update (5/9): A new debate on the usefulness of Online Social Networking. I think it reinforces my point: useful, but purely online (in a business context) does not make sense, should be based on real-life connections. You can’t expect to build a new network online (unless you’re happy owning 16K dummy records), but online systems help stretch your own network a little further by reaching out to contacts of your own trusted contacts.

Update (5/10): Oh, now we have guides out there on How (Not) to Get Banned from LinkedIn. Gee … how about just playing by the rules?

Update (7/25) : Vinnie LinkedOut! (?)

Update (1/22): On the other hand, Phil Wainewright may just give in … I mean Link in 🙂

Update (1/31): A major improvement in LinkedIn: breaking connections is self-serve now, you no longer have to ask Customer Service. Finally! Steve Rubel is about to clean house, too….

Update (11/29/07):  Even Facebook-ers are starting to realize that Less is More

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Filed Under: Business, Collaboration, Social Networking ·
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In the Technorati 10,000

Posted on May 6, 2006 ·

I’m #9851 on Technorati  – I know,  this is nothing compared to Guy Kawasaki being #46, but hey, he was already a celebrity before starting his blog.   The funny thing is, I broke through the barrier on a week when I barely posted anything.

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Filed Under: Blogging ·
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Vonage Playing Lingo

Posted on May 6, 2006 ·

Finally Vonage is offering a subset of Lingo’s free calls to Europe:  if you’re on the unlimited ($24.99) plan, calls to France, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK are now free. Too bad Lingo whose unlimited plan is five bucks cheaper has been offering free calls to most Western European countries ever since they launched. 

Before anyone thinks I am on Lingo’s payroll: no relationship whatsoever, in fact I’ve been a faithful Vonage customer since the beginning. I still  am – just don’t know why… probably since I am too lazy to switch, and $5 a month savings was not a strong enough incentive (hm… let’s see… Lingo has been in business for about 2 years, that’s a $120 in “lost” savings…).

But the real threat is not Lingo:  ZDNet crunches the numbers for us: 

“Let’s just say that I am a U.S.-based caller who talks to other U.S. local and long distance numbers 16 hours a month, as well as spends four hours a month speaking to colleagues and friends in the nations now part of Vonage’s new plan.
If I am on Vonage’s Premium Unlimited, I can do it all for $24.99. If I am on SkypeOut, 20 hours= 1200 minutes or around $25.00.
So that’s pretty much a wash.” 

But Skype is not the only threat, there are zillions of competitors – Yahoo IM is less expensive than Skype, but I don’t even want to do the math on it, let’s jump to almost-free right away:  VoipStunt  allows (almost) free calls to landlines in 46 countries.  “Almost”, since there’s a flat fee of 10 euros (roughly $12.70) that has to be renewed every 4 months – that’s about $3.25 a month.   That’s what I call a squeeze.

And that’s why the Vonage IPO is a dud.

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Filed Under: Business, Personal Productivity ·
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AttenCrap

Posted on May 2, 2006 ·

My (so far) favorite feed reader, Attensa had an auto-update today.  It turned out to be an auto-downgrade, or should I say auto-disable?  All I am getting now is post titles, article body blank, can’t even click to go to the source – have to pull up the config menu to figure out what the URL’s are.

I am not happy.

Update (5/2):  As it turns out, newly dowloaded post come through with the full content – albeit with less attractive formatting than in the previous release, and I have to enable image dowloads to Outlook domain by domain – this was working properly in the previous release.  The crappy (unreadable) posts were all downloaded between 10pm yesterday until just prior to the upgrade. What happened there is a  mystery.

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Filed Under: Blogging ·
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Gold Medal for Listening to Customers

Posted on May 1, 2006 ·

(Updated)
And the Gold goes to: Vyew.  

Dennis and I both posted about this free “browser-based conferencing and always-on collaboration platform that provides instant visual communication without the need for client downloads or installations.”  I also had a follow-on post, this time about product names and branding.  Perhaps that’s the reason that the lively comment-conversation these posts triggered focused more on Marketing on my blog, and product features chez Dennis.

Commenters on Dennis’s blog quickly noted that Vyew does not allow full desktop sharing, so while it’s a handy collaboration tool, it cannot be used for software demos. Oops, it was a bit  premature of me calling Vyew a “Free Webex-killer” – well, it’s not quite that … just yet.  But not for long! 

While I was exchanging emails with a very responsive Fred on the Marketing team, Tim, a member of Vyew’s development team came to Dennis’s blog and announced: “As a direct result of various conversations with some of you and on other blogs, I met with our team and we decided to push out a LIVE DESKTOP SHARING feature this week. This may not be as snappy as webex, we’ll be looking at about 3 seconds between each screen refresh. But keep in mind this is a quick fix until our real release in 2 months.”   Wow!  Talk about responsiveness!

I don’t know how well the new feature will work, but these guys are definitely market-driven, if anyone, they definitely know how to “turn customers into evangelists“. Customer goodwill can go a long way – some companies are good in earning it, others manage to lose it fast…  it’s good to be in the first camp.

Update (5/2):  Vyew just got Naked: “Talk about listening to your customers. This has to set a new record

for responsiveness for user-requested refinements. My congratulations

to vyew. My advice for next steps: start your own blog, vyew, so that

you can have more direct exchanges with customers.” – says Shel Israel.

Update (5/2):  Dennis sums up the story under A Naked Conversation with a vyew.  His conclusions in the second half of the blog are really interesting, go way beyond the Vyew story.  (Btw., I don’t get this naked thing… just got back from swimming and everyone was in swimwear  )

Update (5/2):  Vyew got TechCrunched – well, almost, on the French edition.  Here’s the Google-translated English version of the originally French article.

Update (5/4):  The Vyew team really listens: following Shel’s advice, they’ve just started their own blog.  Congrat’s .

Update (5/7):  The story reverberates:  Shel Israel talked about Vyew at MeshForum 2006 – not the product features, but their  customer responsiveness.  (souce: Christopher  Carfi and Howard  Greenstein).  Being customer-focused has already paid off for Vyew: they’ve become a “showcase”, enjoying increased brand-awareness.

Update (5/13):  Guy Kawasaki just profiled Vyew.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Collaboration, Customer Service, Marketing / PR, Startups ·
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SVASE VC Breakfast Club with Trinity Ventures

Posted on May 1, 2006 ·

The next  SVASE  VC Breakfast Club session I’m moderating is this Thursday, May 4th in Menlo Park – the VC Mecca, Sand Hill Road.  As usual, it’s an informal round-table where up to 10 entrepreneurs get to deliver a pitch, then answer questions and get critiqued by a VC Partner. We’ve had VC’s from Draper Fisher, Hummer Winblad, Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Mohr Davidow, Emergence Capital …etc.

Thursday’s featured VC is Tome Cole, General Partner at Trinity Ventures.  The Zvents post  has all the info and a map, but please remember to click through to register either from zvents or directly here.  

These sessions are an incredible opportunity for Entrepreneurs, most of whom would probably have a hard time getting through the door to a VC Partners.   Since I’ve been through quite a few of these sessions, both as Entrepreneur and Moderator, let me share a few thoughts:

  • It’s a pressure-free environment, with no Powerpoint presentations, Business Plans…etc,  just casual conversation, but it does not mean you should come unprepared!
  • Bring an Executive Summary, some VC’s like it, others don’t.
  • Follow a structure, don’t just talk freely about what you would like to do, or even worse, spend all your time describing the problem, without addressing what your solution is.
  • Don’t forget "small things" like the Team, Product, Market..etc.
  • It would not hurt to mention how much you are looking for, and how you would use the funds…
  • Write down and practice your pitch, be ready to deliver a compelling story in 5 minutes.  You will have more time, but believe me, whatever your practice time was, when you are on the spot, you will likely take twice as long to deliver your story.
  • Last, but not least, please be on time!  I am not kidding… some of you know why I have to even bring this up.

See you on Thursday! Zbutton

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Filed Under: Bay Area, Business, Social Networking, Startups ·
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Are All Good Product Names Really Taken?

Posted on May 1, 2006 ·

Previously I wrote about How a Good Name Turns out to be Crap – Literally – well, whatever the meaning, it did not hurt Jobby.  Guy Kawasaki was lamenting on the difficulty of finding a good name/domain (Oops, are you sure you want all that comment spam left there, Guy?)

Now Robert Scoble comes up with a very simple rule: only pick names that do not come up on Google, Yahoo or MSN Windows Live search at all.  It makes sense to me, but of course it’s easier said then done.  Case in point is Vyew, which I just wrote about yesterday.   Dharmesh  (whom I just got to know very recently but am already hooked on his blog) says in his comment:  “Though I will certainly agree that the name is cute, I think it a bad choice as spelling is too strange for a common word. Those that hear it spoken are highly unlikely to know how to spell it.”

What do you think?  Can intentionally misspelled common words that in  pronunciation describe the product, but are only available as domains and are only unique on search because of the “typo” actually become Brands?


Create polls and vote for free. dPolls.com

The poll may not properly display in feeds, please click back to my site to vote…. thanks.

Update (5/1):  I’ve just realized there is a pretty good existing precedent: Wyse, the thin-client company.

Update (5/2):  In another naming related news Jeff Nolan reports that SAP & Microsoft renamed their Mendocino project to Duet.  I can see Mendocino being a project name, but Duet  is more telling for the product – certainly better than Duel.    Obviously Duet by itself fails the Scoble-test, but “Duet SAP” or “Duet Microsoft” works pretty well.

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Filed Under: Marketing / PR, Software, Startups ·
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ThinkFree, the Microsoft-free Web Office

Posted on May 1, 2006 ·

Are you  losing track of the plethora of  WebOffice applications?  I certainly am, as a matter of fact, today I just said half-jokingly that soon we will need a directory of all Web 2.0 directories, let alone app’s. 

My favorite editor so far has been Writely, but that may very well be by pure chance, since I tried Writely first.  I recently checked out the Zoho writer, and liked it.  Zoho has been the first one (as far as I know) to come out with a cool Web Spreadsheet application, which btw. is not only function-rich, but also esthetically pleasing. Sooner or later I’ll spend some time checking out their Virtual Office.  There hasn’t been a lot in the area of presentations though, the only one I am aware of is Thumbstacks – a simplified presentation app, without the fancy animation ..etc effect, but more than enough for a typical presentation.  Obviously all these applications are web-based, and so are the data files that create (in sharp contrast to AjaxWrite, AjaxSketch ..etc which are not true Web 2.0 apps, since they can only save your work on a local harddisk). That actually presents a potential problem where one’s digital life is stored on several sites and not easily shared between applications: some of the online storage services like Box.net Omnidrive, Openomy ..etc (sorry guys, can’t list all, there’s too many of you )

The entire landscape changed today – at least for me it was today, when on the Qumana blog  I read about ThinkFree.  The South Korea-based company claims to have “The Best Online Office on Earth”  (affirmatively, not just probably… ).

 ThinkFree handles documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and is compatible with MS Office file formats.  You can create / save / share new documents, or upload existing Microsoft ones.  Oh, have I mentioned the 1G free storage?  I haven’t had the time to test all features in detail, but I think the fact that the first complete WebOffice exists is significant, and the initial reviews are positive.

Update (4/30):  Of course while we’re all caught up in the WebOffice craze, it doesn’t hurt to remember that a lot of Net-users are still stuck in dial-up prison, like Vinnie is now, in India..

Update (5/1): It just occured to me that a combination of ThinkFree (MS

Office replacement) and Central Desktop

(Online Collaboration, “wiki without the wiki”) is likely to be a

perfect online combo for most small businesses. I’ll cover the latter

in another post.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Collaboration, Personal Productivity, Software, Startups ·
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Vyew – Free WebEx Killer ?

Posted on April 30, 2006 ·

Reading TechCrunch’s profile on  Wyaworks, a new startup that “aims to do for web development what blogging has done for publishing” reminded me of another product I placed in my Web 2.0 Bookmarks a while ago and forgot to check it out: Vyew.  (no relation to wyaworks other than being remote namesakes).


It’s interesting how some brands become verbs: back in my last “corporate” job even after we switched from WebEx to GotoMeeting, we kept on saying “we’ll webex it”.  But Vyew is a cute name, I wonder if the same will happen as users switch.  Because they will switch.  Nothing beats free.

Of course Vyew has more going for it than just being free. Nice features, easy-to-use UI (I’ve just tested it with Dennis)  , and it’s even PC, being green.  A key value for people on-the-go is that it doesn’t require any download, you just start collaborating from any browser.

Vyew is a product of the team that created Simulat – I am not sure if it is the same company or another venture of the same individuals. They launched 2 weeks ago.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Collaboration, Software, Startups ·
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