I think TechMeme is great, but something tells me that Alexa wildly over-estimates its actual traffic. If you think about it, tech bloggers are heavy Alexa-weighters and they skew most tech blogs. Seeing how so many rely and link to TechMeme.com you can imagine that TechMeme gets a favorable bounce. It’s all good, it’s definitely deserved: the site is efficient and a great source of great new content. I do sometimes wish that it penalize some of the me-too blogs that simply rehash what others post, but hey, that’s where your brain should kick in and determine where to pay more attention to.
But I also think - like most people - that the intricate and intuitive way that it indexes and organizes news is very interesting, and it has the potential to really dominate across many categories, not just tech.
Some people have said “TechMeme is what Google News should be,” and while I might sound drunk when I say this, TechMeme’s modus operandi on some days reminds me of Google back in 2000, when you sort of knew it had a lot of potential.
Its founder Gabe Rivera has applied the TechMeme mojo to Entertainment (well, smut anyway), politics and baseball, and he explained to me a couple of months ago why he did not open it up to more categories. For a second I thought Gabe wasn’t a business guy but his rationale proved to me how savvy he actually was, for we apply the domain specific vertical search engine methodology at MetaMojo.com to a myriad of categories even though only a handful yield really good results: health, music, film, video games, travel and a couple more…
Focus Ash, focus Ash… Anyway, when I see that the once-upon-a-time much ballyhooed Topix.net just/finally cracked the Top 20 news sites according to Hitwise, I wonder why TechMeme does not get more aggressive and really kick ass in all-things-news.
Frankly, the site should remain independent. My theory is that Topix.net slowed down once the major newspapers invested in the company. Alternatively, while the hard working guys at Topix.net deserved a pause, maybe they paced themselves a bit too much once they partially cashed out. Who knows. That last comment wasn’t a knock, it’s simply to say maybe it’s not all the newspapers fault.
Whatever the case, the argument could be made that TechMeme should remain independent to avoid it from becoming skewed in its “coverage” but also so it could execute anywhere it wants to.
In the past, I’ve encouraged TechMeme.com to launch a similar product for comments, this would effectively suck out a lot of traffic from the usual suspects such as TechCrunch, PaidContent, Valleywag, GigaOm and company and get the “conversation” going on his site. It’s a pretty ballsy move, but let’s face it, if Rivera really wanted to do, he could turn the tables around and become the next Michael Arrington… just that he does not need to work 18 hour days (or who knows, maybe he does).
Today, I realized another thing that Gabe should do (welcome to “open source management” - I guess, to be filed under “advice you didn’t ask for / assuming you care”) is to develop a TechMeme Grid that would allow readers to:
- list all of the posts that have been indexed from a given source (say you like what this blog has to say on topic X, you can then jump around and read other things I’ve written, and then from there jump onto other blogs, if you wish).
- list all of the posts that have been indexed under tags, be it company, or topics.
If Gabe did that, overnight his sites would grow by leaps and bounds. I know what you’re thinking, Topix does some of that, and Technorati does some of the rest, but TechMeme does the tracking of “conversations” much better, so it could move into the other areas quite well and really suck a lot of traffic, and send out more.
These are just peripheral things he could do to really turn it up a couple of notches. As I see things, while there are plenty of other social news services - be it aggregators, “memetrackers” or bookmarking tools - I repeat once again that social news is really just getting started. I guess by way of disclosure I should also say that we have a social news/bookmarking tool ready to go, and we have search technology on hand. At some point we might launch into the space, but if you have not noticed we’re busy trying to kick ass in online video content, and a few other fields.
But I really hope that Gabe and TechMeme remain independent and don’t succumb to the tempting offers to cash out, because the more I think about news, the more I think of search in 2000… will TechMeme (or Topix) become the king of the mountain? Who knows… the company has many challenges and obstacles in scaling. And frankly, money alone or more resources won’t do, it needs some kind of raison d’etre beyond the tech crowd, basically.
But right now, to find the answer to most news related queries, it remains a crapshoot, and indeed that’s quite reminiscent of search back in 2000… in other words, that spells a massive opportunity for both Topix, TechMeme, Technorati and all things in between… which come to think of it makes it very, very odd that Greylock just plunked $8M into Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson’s Revision 3, when they should be honing in on Digg.
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WatchMojo NewsletterThis should probably go under WorldMojo.com, but we’ve covered the Wall Street Journal here on HipMojo.com so it’s worth asking here.
While we’re not all really aware of it, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia rank as America’s greatest lenders. It’s not just debt, it’s equity, too: Blackstone, the private equity firm that went public last week and netted George W. Bush’s Yale classmate with an $8B valuation sold 10% of his company to the Chinese government.
Yesterday I wrote how most of the civilized world is against Rupert Murdoch’s bid for Dow Jones - parent of both Wall Street Journal and Barron’s - even though he would, in all honesty, be doing the world a service by opening up the site and making it free for readers. Yes, I know, he’s doing this to sell more advertising, but who can blame him, especially if the consumer wins by doing so.
It’s clear, of course, that the staff at DJ would lose, that’s why writers, shareholders, union members such as Eric Savitz are [rightfully/thankfully] against the idea of selling DJ to News Corp. After all, Murdoch is the kind of man, who according to a New Yorker article would “replace human beings who quit like he replaces furniture…”
But then I wonder, if Pearson won’t move in alone (even though their venerable Financial Times and The Economist are at risk) and GE won’t either (even though their CNBC franchise is clearly in Murdoch’s crossfires), then is it crazy to wonder if DJ’s current shareholders, including the Bancrofts (without whose vote a deal won’t materialize), would prefer selling DJ to the Chinese, Saudi or Russian government for $5B.
Imagine that. China or Russia owning Wall Street, or for that matter, the Saudis owning Wall Street…
Oh wait…
In case you’re wondering, I was a part of News Corp. from Oct. to Dec. 2005 and Mr. Murdoch promptly showed me the door, though I don’t hold any grudges. I am against Mr. Murdoch’s move, largely explained why here. What I am doing here is calling out some of the other otherwise proud companies (or famous investors) that should be stepping up to the plate to avoid either one of this nightmare scenario to materialize.
Somewhat odd, and interesting, to see Google’s official blog list down the reasons why they’re buying DCLK:
“In summary, we’re buying DoubleClick because:
I definitely questioned the rationale here, but I think ultimately, Google + YouTube + Doubleclick can go crazy in the video and display business as it did in search.
Apparently, Flickr’s images, which Yahoo! bought back in is finally being indexed in Yahoo! images. That’s surprising. You’d think all things Web 2.0 would seamlessly mesh into one another, but apparently, not so.
I was always very disappointed (in hindsight) as a Yahoo! shareholder that YHOO did not integrate Flickr’s sharing capabilities with Delicious’ tagging and unleash the mutant that would spawn out of that into what went on to be YouTube (YouTube was after Delicious + Flickr for video) but seeing this explains why they never did.
Lesson for M&A guys: the theory is grand, but implementing it is not so obvious.
Valleywag is reporting that MySpace’s Chris and Tom are suffering from seller’s remorse and are holding out for a $50M ransom to extend their contracts by two years.
Hmm. I covered this some time ago and broke down the numbers in Seller’s Regret? Too bad.
But I think that more fitting, is this article I saw this morning via Paid Content:
Meanwhile the New Yorker’s Ken Auletta draws on his deep knowledge both as a journalist on New York magazine when Murdoch was about to buy it and as a journalist whose coverage of Murdoch as a modern-day pirate earned a spot on the “no interview” list. Auletta: “To try to forestall a Murdoch takeover of New York magazine thirty years ago, about forty writers and editors and art directors went on strike. I was at the magazine then, and, with delusions that I was on a diplomatic mission, led a small delegation to visit Murdoch’s outside counsel, Howard Squadron. I was certain that, once Murdoch understood that the staff would leave, he would retreat. Squadron listened politely, and replied, “You don’t understand. If you leave, Rupert will replace you like he replaces furniture.”
Ross Levinsohn left under murky details… maybe he too wanted a “bonus” for landing Murdoch the best web M&A of all time. Perhaps Chris and Tom can poke Ross to see how that fared.
Disclaimer: I’m a former employee of NWS circa October-December 2005.
LinkedIn’s Chairman Reid Hoffman is going to make a lot of money regardless of whether Facebook beats his company LinkedIn to the finish line by filing for an IPO first. He is after all an investor in both companies.
But the folks over at the company pretty much understand that while there have not been too many Web IPOs recently, it’s imperative for them to get to the markets before Facebook.
While the companies are very different (consumer vs. business), fundamentally, they are one and the same. And LinkedIn - who this Sunday announced that in nine months they’ll open up their APIs - knows that it’s in a rush to sell shares to the public, because if the public had to choose between Facebook or LinkedIn, irrelevant of fundamentals, they’ll jump on the Facebook bandwagon like the media, bloggers, mainstream press and VC investors have. This is noteworthy since the finance crowd has of note began to fancy Facebook, not only as an investment, but also as an actual business networking tool.
Incidentally, Eric Savitz of Barron’s agrees with this assessment, too.
John Dvorak.
Agree or disagree with him, this line is genius:
This is the last week of Apple iPhone hype, hyperbole, and hand-wringing. Oh wait, I mean the last week of pre-iPhone hype, hyperbole, and hand-wringing—we have a few more post-iPhone months left on the calendar. I am sick of it. It’s all anyone talks about. It dominates the news. It dominates the podcasts and videocasts and magazines.
Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland.
Wow. That’s funny…
Read the rest.
I’ve always believed that content, while messy to develop, is a hedge against any downturn because if done right, has an infinite shelf-life and protects you from “adoption risk.” You know, the risk that no one uses your product. It’s one thing for a search company to launch amongst a myriad of competitors, because as a consumer, I use a bunch of search engines to this day. But as a business consumer, there are very few video advertising products I will use in our company’s lifetime.
Every day when I see a new video content site pop up, I think it’s a validation of people’s insatiable need for quality programming online.
But every time I see a new ad video technology launch or get funded, I just pray: I hope the video ad market will be huge because otherwise there will be way too mouths to feed at the table when the music stops.
I initially addressed this last week in “Has the ‘Bubble Pocket’ Moved From Video Sharing Sites to Video Ad Networks?” and today’s announcement that Digitalsmiths has raised $6M in Series A funding (the company is not a newbie, though) reinforces that question.
Let’s examine some numbers:
Search advertising, while slowing down, remains the top dog, commanding 40% of the total online ad pie.
Video and display, while clearly outgrowing search, remain relatively tiny. Video advertising in particular is a crap shoot, as the estimated video ad market has grown (not the actual market folks, the estimate of what this might be) from it being $1B by 2010 to now being upwards of $3B.
I am personally seeing some things on the front lines that suggest that indeed (especially if ad dollars leave TV to online), these numbers are all in fact conservative, but I would not mortgage my house on it.
Digitalsmiths today joins a cornucopia of players competing in this space: the list includes Brightcove, Brightroll, Video Egg, Tremor Media, Broadband Enterprises, Yume, Scanscout, Instream, VideoMovement… oh yeah and Google. That little company out of Mountain View that just bought YouTube last year for $1.65B.
Of course, that raises the other question, that search will potentially trump these enabling/intermediary/platform plays, and if that is the case, then companies like Pixsy, Blinkx, Podzinger/Everyzing, and oh yeah Google might have a better sot at winning.
Anyway, let’s hope video advertising does materialize. Because if there’s anything sadder than seeing 5 pounds of meat being stuffed in a 1 pound bag it’s seeing 1 pound of meat try to feed a 5 pound bag.
Disclaimer: We run and operate WatchMojo.com, a video producer. We’re partners with a bunch of these sites on the syndication front. We have gotten inquiries about using most if not all of these services, some of which are great, some of which are less so. Our search unit MetaMojo.com runs a video meta search… We wish all of these great companies much success and hope the weight of the financing does not kill them before the market actually develops.
Canadians use the Web more than anywhere else in the world, and broadband is miles ahead of where it’s at in the US (67% north of the border), so with that in mind, we’re quite to announce yet another syndication deal we signed at our web video unit, WatchMojo.com.
Today Canoe.ca - a unit of Quebecor Media - relaunched to focus more on broadband video content, and you guessd it, we’re on deck, and as of now one of the larger content providers. Its sister company Quebecor World is the world’s largest printer, they actually print Time Warner’s Time, Fortune and a plethora of others.
Anyway Quebecor Media’s Canoe.ca portal is pretty large for Canadian standards: there are 30M people in the country, yet it alone greets 7.8 million unique visitors per month in Canada according to the comScore Media Metrix survey for March 2007 (so you can imagine the actual number is more, I’d say we now reach 33% of Canadians, if not more, just from this one deal alone, which is not too shabby).
You want crazy/a little side story? Last summer I was trying to find a business development contact at Canoe.ca and suffice to say it was not an obvious thing to find… so one night I’m at a nice restaurant in Montreal and lo and behold who do I see? Former Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney, who I recalled was the Chairman of Quebecor World. That’s a sister company, but big balls and all, I basically figured I’d email him, and ask him to kindly refer me to someone at Canoe.ca (he’s a lawyer and let’s face it, lawyers are notorious for making their emails very public). Anyway, from there it took a few more connections, but here we are now on their site.
True story.
Here’s one example of our clips on the site. Pass the bread, please.
CNET’s Charles Cooper wagging a finger at blogs led me to wonder:
Exactly when did CNET - founded in 1992 and historically a symbol of new media - come to represent old media and traditional publications?
I won’t chime in on the merits of his post, because others have done a great job. In all fairness, there is some merit to his post, though I largely disagree because indeed, mainstream media has grown useless. We’re making a big deal out of it as it pertains to technology when the real disservice comes from politics and foreign policy coverage, but hey, who said either tech writers or bloggers saw the forest through the trees.
But what really makes me think is that the company life-cycle has shrunk enormously.
Products, or companies, typically follow the following pattern:
- product or company conception and development
- market introduction
- growth stage
- mature stage
- declining or stability stage.
This is not to imply that are companies or products end up declining, but that requires innovation or invention.
What occured to me reading the CNET criticism of bloggers meshing church with state (ironic, since most blogs don’t even have real ads on them and ’tis old media that blurs that line, but hey, I said we won’t talk about that), is that while the PC already shrunk life cycles, the Web has only accelerated that.
Think of it, MSFT was founded in 1975, IPO’d in 1986, and what, by Windows 95 it was a corporate machine. So, say 20 years from startup to conglomerate (of course, the introduction of W95 was an innovation that reinvigorated MSFT as a company, we’re now talking about going from upstart to incumbent).
CNET, founded in 1992 was by 2002 a big media machine, if not sooner. It could be argued that by 2002 blogging software was really spreading and 15 years later, it’s true that I get far better news and commentary elsewhere than on CNET. This isn’t to paint all new, old media with one brush… it’s just a commentary.
Yahoo!, founded in 2004 was certainly a decade later a big blob of a corporation, with 10,000 employees.
In fact, this shrinking of a company life cycle seems to be accelerating: take MySpace. The company’s been around since 2003 and today, a mere 4 years later it’s still growing but not exactly a startup.
