Carrot Beats Stick
WooHoo: You’ve just unlocked the URL of Blogville Badge! With Hostess becoming as bankrupt as the nutritional information in a Ding Dong and Kodak redefining the Kodak moment of another kind of bankruptcy, I immediately thought of my childhood. Thankfully those cheerful marketing images that blanketed the store shelves were replaced by a different set [...]
What to do When a Tech Giant Decides to Eat Your Lunch
An edited version of this post originally ran on TechCrunch. This version has some additional details on a portfolio company I’ve invested in, which are disclosed below. WWDC. The annual Apple event where no real hints about what products they plan to release are floated in the public domain in advance. No private head [...]
Mobile Devices Privacy and GPS
We all love our smart devices that latch onto anything so we can surf the internet, do e-mail, and basically roam at will with our handy mobile devices. A bonus of this is the idea that we can also share our GPS coordinates with people through games like Foursquare and other programs that keep track [...]
This Post Has Nothing to do with #SXSW
This post originally appeared on TechCrunch. For the next four days if you’re in the tech industry you’re going to hear a non-stop stream of information about SXSW. It’s the time of year when many new startups are struggling to rise above all the noise and be heard. And when everybody is shouting it [...]
API, API, API, API, API, API
If you imagined a tech CEO or an evangelist or a pundit jumping up and down like Steve Ballmer and shouting “API, API, API, API, API…….”, it may come true faster than you ever expected. In this cloud based world where every service wants to be a platform (see my PaaS Is The Future of [...]
Angel Investing Skill 2 – Domain Knowledge
This is the second article in a series on what it takes to be a great angel investor (and why this should matter to entrepreneurs). Part 1 – Access to Great Deal Flow – is here. I have talked extensively about “social proof” in fund raising in the past. But the problem is that most [...]
AbleAdvisory: Foursquare Halts Talks With Facebook, Completes Next Round
According to Kara Swisher, Foursquare is close to completing a funding deal with the Andressen Horowitz, the firm that "had publicly dissed the hot social location site and walked away from earlier talks.The last curve came with serious talks for Foursquare to be acquired by Facebook, which very close to happening–”one inch to the end [...]
Foursquare Check-in Etiquette
Anyone remember the early complaints about Twitter? That people were posting updates about what they’re eating for lunch? Robert Scoble noted this phenomenon in a blog post from last September about Twitter’s rise: It tells me that Twitter isn’t lame anymore. Remember those days when Twitter was for telling all your friends you were having [...]
Facebook Big Mac Attack – Not For Me, Thanks. Top 10 Reasons to …
Oh, just what the Doctor has ordered: more junk food coming your way, left and right, from the social network that’s taking over the Internet: Facebook. McDonald’s will be the first advertiser taking advantage of Facebook’s soon-t0-be-releasing location feature. The first reaction from most is this will kill leading location-based services: Hey Foursquare, Time To [...]
Reputation and Game Mechanics Are the Future of Social Software
I still think that reputation and game mechanics are the future of social software. Tweet by Paul Pedrazzi, VP, Strategy & Innovation at Oracle Corporation What an intriguing, and provocative, statement by Paul Pedrazzi. At first blush, I can hear your thoughts…”What? C’mon!” Which is exactly how most innovations start. The reason it’s provocative is [...]
Competitors Rush to bring the Latest Timesinks to the Enterprise
It’s nice to see competitors come together to bring the most popular timesinks productivity boosters to the Enterprise. We’ve long been predicting Foursquare would soon hit the Enterprise, and no the wait is over, with Atlassian releasing Fourwalls. There’s a lot we can learn from this app – otherwise how would I know that @barconati [...]
Google Maps Experiment with Hotel Prices – Just Remember to Check In
How many times were you looking for the right hotel at the right price, close enough to your conference, customer or just a particular location? Finding the right one typically includes juggling multiple sites – hotel search, price comparisons, many with teaser prices that turn out to be unavailable, maps, reservation systems…etc. Not for long, [...]
The Two-Year Lag from Web 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0
The Enterprise 2.0 sector draws heavy inspiration from innovations in the Web 2.0 world. Indeed, the name itself, Enterprise “2.0” reflects this influence. From a product management perspective, Web 2.0, and its derivations social networking and social media are great proving grounds for features before coding them into your application. A fruitful area to review [...]
The FourSquare Spy Guide – Customer Dashboards for SMB 2.0
I’ve been writing about FourSquare for business recently by promoting the potential benefits to businesses with customer foot traffic. Now with their release of a Customer Dashboard for businesses, they’ve taken the concept of social location-based networking to a whole new level. A level that businesses need to understand as it will significantly impact their [...]
What Enterprise 2.0 vendors can learn from FourSquare
It struck me in a lengthy discussion with an old CIO friend of mine this weekend at Big Bear Ski Resort. As the great Mark Twain once said, “All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.” Brandon Matthias wasn’t aware of FourSquare or Gowalla or even Google Buzz. Not surprising given [...]
