Master of 500 Hats

SlideShare launches AdShare, LeadShare: Performance-based social media marketing is *here*.

Over the past 3 years i've been (in order) a user, fan, advisor, and investor in SlideShare.  I was first introduced to the product via a TechCrunch blog post, and i've been hooked ever since. 

Since October 2006 i've posted more than 60 presentations on SlideShare, had over 300,000 views and over 10,000 file downloads, embedded my presentations in numerous blog posts, and used the product for hundreds of talks and presentations at speaking events & conferences.  it's one of the single most useful web services for business i've come across, and because of that i sought out the founders several years back, offered to help them as an advisor, and subsequently became an angel investor in 2007.  In addition, Rashmi & Jon are close friends & some of my favorite people to hang out with :)

However, up until now SlideShare wasn't a service i could use to make money with directly.  While the website has grown from ~5M to over 20M users in the past year, and generates an incredible amount of traffic & visibility for my talks and presentations, i hadn't really thought about how i could use it to help my business other than via word of mouth.

This morning, that all changed.

SlideShare just released SlideShare for Business, & launched new services called AdShare & LeadShare for driving traffic & leads.

I am not exaggerating when i say these products have the potential to change business marketing as we know it, and are possibly the most notable advertising innovation since Google launched Adwords and AdSense.  They make social media marketing measurable & performance-based.

Let me say that again.

SlideShare has just released the most significant business-focused advertising and marketing technology innovation since Google launched keyword-based text advertising in 2001.

Up until now, there hasn't been a performance-driven way for people to drive on-demand traffic & leads using social media marketing for business purposes.  Now SlideShare makes it easy to use business presentations and related social media content to drive traffic (with AdShare), and collect customer leads (with LeadShare) using targeted, measurable, pay-for-performance methods.

Making social media marketing measurable & performance-based is no small thing.  This marks a dramatic shift in how to use professional presentation content to drive meaningful, predictable customer acquisition for their business.  Anyone can now upload their business presentations, generate targeted traffic, and start collecting qualified leads for their business.  That's nothing short of groundbreaking.

I encourage you to check out SlideShare for Business and give it a test drive.

Why Use AdShare

View more documents from Rashmi Sinha.

Why Use LeadShare

View more documents from Rashmi Sinha.

Startup Metrics for Pirates: FOWA/Miami (Feb 2009)

so i'm just re-arranging deck chairs here, i know... but there's at least 1 or 2 new slides. and a lot more funky colors, for those of you who enjoy my kidnapper-ransomnote fonts & unique style of raping the viewer's attention.  Also moved the embed of the original Startup Metrics for Pirates video (from Ignite Seattle / Summer 2007) after slide 23.

With no further ado, my talk from the Future of Web Apps (Miami, Feb 2009):

Startup Metrics for Pirates (FOWA/Miami, Feb 2009)

View more presentations from Dave McClure. (tags: revenue referral)

LinkedIn People Search: "It's People Alerts (via email), Stupid"

LinkedIn People Search - Email Alerts
Originally uploaded by davemc500hats

LinkedIn buried the lede on the recent launch of their new LinkedIn People Search feature set.

The new feature they probably should have highlighted more clearly is People Search Alerts via Email.

You can now save up to 3 searches for common keywords, job titles, company names, or other topic-specific searches, and get them emailed to your inbox on a weekly or monthly basis.

I do several of these types of searches via Google alerts for company- & product-specific searches on news & blogs. Now you can also do them for people as well on LinkedIn.

Yotify also allows you to do saved search notifications via email for products for sale & other classified listings.  Simply Hired does alerts for jobs.  Spock is another service that does comprehensive people search. (disclosure: i'm an investor in Simply Hired, and an advisor to Spock.  i'm a friend of the founder of Yotify, Ron Bouganim.  and i'm an informal advisor to LinkedIn, but not on this topic)

i haven't done a thorough review of these types of search & notification services, but there are many of them.  That said, their value is directly correlated to the quality of their search (crappy search with notification isn't that useful... however great, targeted search with notification is quite useful).

Some new & old startup blogs & presos i'm in love with

in no particular order, here are links to a few new books, blogs, & presentations i'm falling in love with lately (plus a few not-so-new-but-awesome old ones too).

• Startup Lessons Learned (blog, Eric Ries)
• Customer Development Methodology (preso, Steve Blank)
• Four Steps to the Epiphany (book, Steve Blank)
• LaserLike (blog, Mike Speiser)
• Revenue Metrics (preso, Andrew Chen)
• Futuristic Play (blog, Andrew Chen)
• Startup-Marketing (blog, Sean Ellis)
• Sit, Stay, Click!  Making Users Beg for More (preso, Ted Rheingold)
• Zappo's: Customer Service & Company Culture (video, Tony Hsieh)
• Designing & Optimizing the DNA of a Killer App (preso+sound, Dan Olsen)
• Putting the Fun in Functional (preso, Amy Jo Kim)
• Copywriting Tips for Online Marketing Success (blog, Brian Clark aka CopyBlogger)
• ProBlogger (blog, Darren Rowse)
• Reality Check (book, Guy Kawasaki)
• Groundswell (book, Charlene Li)
• The Altimeter (blog, Charlene Li)
• Almost as Good as Chocolate (Shripriya Mahesh)
• KISSmetrics (blog, KISSmetrics.com)
• Startup Founder Evolution (blog, Tony Wright)

apologies to all the amazing folks i'm forgetting about... i'm sure you are many and wonderful, and i'll remember just as soon as hit publish.  will try to add some more if i can.

Successful Developer Platforms Have 3 Things: Features, Users, Money.

[note: this post was originally a comment on TechCrunch post summarizing Max Levchin's panel on web platforms from the Web 2.0 Summit, with Facebook, MySpace, Google, & Microsoft.  i decided since my comment went past 3 paragraphs, i should probably expand it on my own blog...]

this is gross over-generalization/simplification, but platforms are successful if/when they have:
1) code libraries / feature abstraction -- so developers don't have to build everything
2) customer distribution -- so developers don't have to market everything
3) monetization -- so developers don't have to implement/collect payment

it's arguable there are many other platform issues & requirements -- security, scalability, standards, metrics, user authentication & support, etc.  however these 3 primary aspects are what make platforms tick.  sometimes platforms can be successful if only 1 or 2 of the items above are working, altho if you want a dominant platform it's helpful to have all 3.

Here are my incredibly unscientific and from-the-gut "Platform Bookmaker Odds" on Dominant Future Platforms:

Facebook (3:1) has arguably been the platform leader in the past year or so, at least in terms of innovation & inspiration.  They've done an excellent job with the first 2 points, but largely failed in terms of monetization to date.  And because their distribution incentives were creating a negative user experience backlash, they decided to dial back distribution & revise User Profiles in ways that dramatically limited the # of platform app winners (but there are still winners).  Also, until FB has payments in place, and has setup aligned monetization with their developer community, they are likely to be reluctant to really open the floodgates on distribution.  If/when they have payments rolled out, expect them to spin up distribution again, probably through 3rd-party news feed stories.  And people still underestimate how much power they can bring to bear if Facebook Connect starts working.  People were too hyped up on Facebook when they launched (maybe me too), but now they're too pessimistic.  Facebook will start kicking ass once they get Connect & Payments figured out... tho might be mid-2009 before that starts happening.  But the DNA of this company is all about Platforms & Developers... i'd be very surprised if they don't do very well over the long-run.

Microsoft (5:1) altho the platform Godfather historically, is far from having a functional web platform, primarily because they have not figured out a web distribution story for 3rd parties (nor a monetization story either, tho that's fixable quickly via acquisition or partnership).  while they have tremendous reach via Windows and the Web, they have not translated that into consumer internet platform distribution opportunities.  they also do not have a payments story (good reason to buy eBay/PayPal or Amazon, but don't hold your breath).  Still, given Microsoft's historical dominance & belief in platforms & developers, i'd expect them to get there eventually... but it may take years.  expect them to be a player, but i'd guess it may take a lot of acquisitions & luck for them to maintain the app dominance they had in the 90's.  They'll be around, but they're not leading the way right now. (update: Ballmer sez MSFT is planning to copy Apple's app store... not a bad idea.  again, like the GOOG, MSFT can KILL if they simply enable 3rd-party access to their amazing distribution & reach).

Google (2:1) certainly has the cojones & brainpower to do platforms, and they kick ass on features, but up until last year they were pretty piss-poor at developer evangelism.  However, you could argue Google's biggest "platform" is really just search (& indirectly SEO/SEM, and also analytics).   while they are a juggernaut in search, and their potential distribution is phenomenal, their initial platform efforts left a good bit to be desired.  But like Microsoft, Google certainly understands the benefits of a developer / platform strategy and there is good reason to be optimistic for the future.  OpenSocial has a long way to go, AppEngine is still fairly new, but Google is now headed in the right direction... and if Google ever *does* open up properties like YouTube and Gmail and the main search platform to developers, the sky's the limit.  Google has no lack of distribution, but again like MSFT it's mostly direct, not on behalf of 3rd-party developers.  Google also has Checkout for monetization when they get their shit together.  Expect them to put a lot of horsepower behind catching up to Facebook's surprising early platform leadership, and steamrolling ahead to a dominant position.  They're playing a bit of catchup, but they are certainly the odds-on favorite horse to win the long-term race.

MySpace (7:1) does seem to be following cautiously in Facebook's footsteps, and given their existing footprint in music & entertainment (not to mention their already significant spam issues with user communication), it seems appropriate for them to move slowly.  But they have shown progress over time, and if/when they implement payments they will likely attract a good deal of developer attention (and in fact, since FB dialed down distribution, MySpace has already drawn some of that audience in).  While i expect MySpace to primarily focus on their successful entertainment verticals in Music, Movies, Television, and perhaps an emerging presence in Games, they will likely do quite well due to their excellent distribution & monetization opportunities in those areas.  While everyone thinks Facebook is pulling ahead of MySpace, in fact MySpace is a much safer vertical play in entertainment.  They may only be successful in selected areas, but they will likely do quite well there.

not present on Max's panel / not mentioned in TC article or my analysis above: Amazon (2:1), Apple (3:1), SalesForce (4:1), YouTube (4:1), Yahoo (4:1), Mozilla (7:1), LinkedIn (10:1), Wordpress / Automattic (10:1), Twitter (10:1), FriendFeed (12:1), multiple other blogging platforms / social networks (15:1) Typepad, Blogger, Hi5, Bebo, Friendster, Orkut, other international players.  I'm sure i'm forgetting a lot here, but this piece wasn't meant to be completely comprehensive.

A few brief thumbnails on the other main contenders:

Amazon is the defacto platform leader in 3rd-party infrastructure.  They have yet to tie this back into the consumer Amazon platform in interesting ways -- largely AWS is completely disparate from Amazon.com -- but if they ever do, then watch out.  Amazon has been the quiet leader in personalization & e-commerce for the past 10 years.  If they decide to platform-ize that expertise, they will absolutely continue to be a very valuable company.  Only question is -- why in the hell haven't they been bought out by Google or Microsoft ?!?  They'd be SO much more valuable in either of those 2 larger players empires.  Answer?  Jeff Bezos isn't done having fun yet.  If he ever tires of that job, and decides to put the company up on the block, expect the mother of all battles by MSFT & GOOG to acquire that jewel.

Apple is kicking ass, but remains to be seen if they can parlay initial success in music & mobile into larger app platform success.  They don't have a terrific platform history, but the last 5-7 years they've done a great job on distribution, and recently on features & monetization.  Assuming they don't decide to screw the developer community into oblivion at some point -- always possible with a mercenary like Jobs -- then Apple will likely remain a force in consumer communication & entertainment platforms.

I'm not an expert on SalesForce, but they seem to be the leading player for hosted business platforms.  I'll refrain from much analysis since i don't follow them closely.  Yahoo continues to choke on both feet planted firmly next to its own tonsils, but they still do some great work on platforms & developer communities.  If only they can show a little business leadership & stability, they'll be around.  YouTube is a surprise here, and i list them separate from Google because they really are such a separately dominant player in video.  And like Facebook, the DNA of YouTube is all about developers.  They haven't really needed to do much since they are so far ahead of everyone else (in video), but i'm bullish they will figure out the monetization and as they do make it available to all of their developer community.  Mozilla has platform potential, if only due to an amazing ability to grab browser market share from MSFT.  LinkedIn has been a relatively plodding platform, but due to their audience specialization & demographics, they will be highly attractive to developers if they ever decide to open up more significantly (& revenue potential there is off the charts).  Of all the blogging platforms, Wordpress / Automattic is the most exciting & interesting... more to be revealed there, particularly if they continue on their recent micro-acquisition strategy.  Twitter is rocking these days, and i expect Ev & Biz & team to roll out some cool platforms stuff in 2009.  FriendFeed has so much potential it's not even funny, but i'd be surprised if they don't get swallowed back up by the GOOG before long.  Several other social networks have also embraced platform strategies, and may have modest success within selected geographies & demographics.

my apologies for any significant oversights or inaccuracies on the above.  and the "odds-on" stuff is really more for entertainment than serious discussion -- most all of these companies will be successful to some extent, tho they have widely-varying attention to platform issues. i'll try to make a few updates to this piece as my more-informed readers upbraid & correct me in the comments.

for more discussion of Platform dynamics, see Max Levchin's excellent masterpiece here (max: if you're reading this, please write more often!) : Developer Incentives in Social Networking Platforms

Andrew Chen also has many terrific articles on platform dynamics too numerous too count... i simply recommend you read as many articles on his blog as you can: http://andrewchenblog.com 

for praise / criticism of Facebook platform, and a few others on business models for social networks, integrating email & e-commerce platforms with social networking, etc see my previous posts here:

• Facebook's Problem isn't Privacy, It's Monetization
• Web 3.0 isn't the Semantic Web, it's Hailstorm 2.0
• Business Models for Social Networks: Monetizing Social Capital & the Long Tail of Cool
• Memo to GOOG, MSFT, YHOO, AOL: How to Turn 500M email logins into Facebook Platform (& a crapload of revenue)

Resumes are for *Shit*. The 4 Things You Really Need: LinkedIn, Blog, Keywords, Social Media.

Robert just penned a pretty good post on how to tune up your resume for the "economic slowdown".  He gets it mostly right (write?) -- do your best to stand out, write a regular blog -- however, i think he's a bit long-winded on his recommendations and overlooks some fundamentals (which he actually does practice, but doesn't mention so much).

So as i commented on Guy Kawasaki's blog almost 2 years ago, i'll summarize again why Resumes are for Shit, and why all you need are 4 basic things to get a kick-ass job (or whatever u want really -- still have to write that post later on why money-sex-power-drugs-guns are pretty much commutable):

1) get a LinkedIn profile, and pimp it out -- HARD. 

a simple LinkedIn profile is nice, but it's not what i'm talking about.  you better work, sister (sashay, chante!) -- get your connections into LinkedIn, fill out a work history with different positions you've held & expertise gained, get recommendations from people & partners who you worked with (not just your boss), answer questions on topics that matter in your line of work, etc.  most importantly, reference companies, products, skills, and other keywords that are important to you & others (see below).

note that other social networking profiles don't substitute for LinkedIn.  there was a time when i thought Facebook might eventually subsume LinkedIn, but i was clearly wr... wr... WRONG (ok there, i said it).  both LinkedIn & Facebook -- and for that matter, MySpace as well -- have broadly established & well-entrenched userbase that likely prefer one of those 3 primary SNS platforms.  but still most people who call themselves "professionals" should maintain a LinkedIn profile, even if it's not their primary hangout.  LinkedIn is *THE* place that most recruiting (or any) professionals use for people search, and LinkedIn search results generally rank at the top for many Google name searches.  note: if you have a common name like John Smith, even more reason to create popular content attached to your name to distinguish you from other John Smith's who rank for basketball, accounting, or other types of specialized content.

fyi, Guy was initially a bit of a Luddite re: my suggestion to use LinkedIn + Blog as alternatives to a traditional resume, however he came around later and penned one of the single most useful posts about LinkedIn i've ever read (tip: an old friend may have helped change his mind on that one).  if you haven't checked it out, i strongly encourage you to do so.  Guy doesn't really need LinkedIn, but his suggestions are top notch.

2) write a regular blog, and 3) ABSOLUTELY DOMINATE selected keywords (the ones that matter to you or others). 

surprisingly, this doesn't take as much work as you'd think. 

if you write regularly, passionately, & intelligently about topics people care about (ie: search for), use appropriate keywords in headlines & titles, you'll start to rank for that content rather quickly.  in fact, i've accidentally blogged about topics / keywords i don't really care about, but ended up ranking for anyway.

let me explain.

NEWSFLASH: there are a lot of people out there who blog.  a few of these crazy people blog regularly.  a few of those few know how to use keywords in headlines, and how link text & basic SEO fundamentals work.  a very small further few write well and are fun & interesting to read.  however, there are very very VERY few people who blog regularly, interestingly, & specifically with respect to the keywords they care about.  if you are one of these people, you can rather easily become king of your (perhaps small but focused) hill, by using regular & interesting blog posts that score well and rank for search keywords of note.  it also helps if you include or embed photos or other media (see #4).

you can of course use other search-friendly sites & services as distribution for your content & keywords, but blogs (& blog headlines) are pretty well optimized for search so it's probably the easiest place to start... tho twitter & friendfeed & a few other notable services work well to amplify & distribute original signal from your blog or other social platforms.  i'll describe some of these below.

4) create notable online social media (video, pictures, presentations, etc) relevant to your line of work and link [to] them / embed them on your blog, your LinkedIn profile, and other online sites.

this one is actually overlooked by a number of very thoughtful (but not very colorful) bloggers.  i once wrote a post about Facebook licensing their platform to Bebo in response to Google launching OpenSocial.  the copy was pretty much empty blather except for the somewhat insane graphic at right that i created using powerpoint, and then uploaded to Flickr (and also to SlideShare), then embedded in the post.  i probably spent about 5 minutes writing the post, but i killed most of an afternoon (3-4 hours) putting together one silly image to satisfy my own freakish psychotic social network addiction.  the photo later got picked up by several other bloggers, and when i checked just now the Flickr photo had over  6000 views.  the SlideShare presentation (just one slide) has about 5600 views.  and the photo comes up on the first page of google image search results for the term "social graph".  whaddya know: my crazy-ass graphic is DOMINATING the social graph term!  and i bet my post gets more awareness than any ten other high-and-mighty bloggers who wrote some in-depth intellectual analysis (yeah i know i do that shit too).

the simple thing is --

we are visual creatures. 

we dream in color. 

people love images, and they watch a lot more TV than they read.  you've heard "a picture says a thousand words"?  well as far as blogs are concerned, it's damn well true.  i'd even go so far as to say there is such a thing as keyword visual arbitrage -- essentially, that there are high-volume search terms with low-volume associated images or video, that you can draft off and use to discover & attract new audience. this may seem like link-baiting, but actually it's just satisfying market demand for visual imagery around key terms that people have expressed an interest in.

in fact, i'm often criticized by several folks who say that my trademark "ransom note kidnapper" font style choices -- bold, underlined, enlarged, or many-colored fonts -- clearly let people know i am both childish and insane.  and some folks may be right that it is incredibly annoying and odd, but it is a visual brand choice i've made (whether consciously or not ;)  whatever your perspective, i've developed my own special (olympics?) audience.  the choice of using "AARRR!" as an acronym for my "Startup Metrics for Pirates" is pretty much the auditory complement to the visual point above.

if you don't care to be quite as lunatic as i, you can simply use embed code and links to bring your popular social media from other sites & services into your blog or social profiles.  i'm particularly fond of Flickr (graphics), YouTube (video), and SlideShare (powerpoint), as these services are also destination sites in themselves, and drive their own unique traffic to content you distribute on those sites. many people who do embed rich content also overlook this fact -- that the same content redistributed on multiple platforms can draw incremental users & attention, and that some of these platforms may be better at driving relevant traffic than your own blog or text-based sites/services. 

in short, the rich media you associate with your blog and certain keywords also DEFINE WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU MAKE / USE / ENJOY.  if you can cleverly associate social media -- literally, media to share with other people -- with your persona, and with specific tags & keywords, then you can merge these things into one. 

in summary: you become a notable social object by associating rich media & keyword text with the person you are on blogs and social network profiles.

in closing, i include below examples of the graphic, video, and powerpoint content associated with "Startup Metrics" that i typically embed on my blog & social profiles:

Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR! (Startonomics SF 2008)

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: dealmaker media revenue)

Startonomics SF 2008: Yeah, We Rocked Your Face.

Summary of Startonomics SF 2008:

We Came, We Measured, We Conquered. 

  [mike drop to tha floor...]

all presentations & videos available via SlideShare and UStream, also on the Startonomics Blog.  additional coverage on CNet / Webware and Mashable, and other smart blogs. presos below via new SlideShare presentation pack widget:

| Get your Presentation Pack

look for us to hit the LA area sometime in January; other locations in 2009.  to hear about future Startonomics events, follow the Startonomics twitter acct @ STNX. much props to our speakers, sponsors, & supporters... and especially to Debbie Landa & the team at Dealmaker Media for kicking so much hiney.

STARTonomics is NEXT Thurs 10/2 in SF (seats going fast, register now b4 we sell out...)

Hope you folks are registered for STARTonomics next Thursday 10/2 in SF... if not, hurry up & register now, FOOL!  we've had a rush of signups in the last few days, so get in now before we sell out.

here's a preview of our speakers & sessions for next week:

Startonomics: Simple, Actionable Metrics for Startup Success

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: dealmaker.media 500.hats)

Time	Session	Who
9:00 - 9:30	Welcome to Startonomics & Startup Metrics for Pirates (AARRR!) Overview of conference agenda + Intro to Startonomics: how to create simple, actionable metrics to help startups make better decisions in product development & marketing.	Dave McClure 500 Hats LLC
9:30 - 10:00	Product Development 101: Designing & Optimizing the DNA of a Killer App What does it take to plan, research, and develop a great web 2.0 application?  Learn tips & best practices for setting the right process, goals, and metrics for your startup.	Dan Olsen YourVersion
10:00 - 10:30	Scalability for Startups: How to Grow Up without Blowing Up How do startups balance performance and scalability vs. fast iteration and cost efficiency? Learn how to scale your startup without blowing up, or overdoing it.	Frank Mashraqi Give Real
10:30 - 11:00	Break
11:00 - 11:30	Putting the Fun in Functional: New Trends in Applying Game Design to Web 2.0 Startups Find out how traditional game design mechanics can be used to make a website more compelling & engaging.	Amy Jo Kim Shuffle Brain
11:30 - 12:00	Marrying Design & Development: a Match made in Heaven, not Hell Learn about the basic fundamentals of web design, and find out how developers and designers can work together to create great websites and applications.	Jeff Veen Small Batch, Inc. Erika Hall Mule Design Studio
12:00 - 12:30	Sit! Stay! Click!  How to Create a Website that Makes Users Beg for More The best startups engage their users as fans for life.  Find out how to get users to fall in love with your website, and keep them coming back for more.	Ted Rheingold Dogster, Inc.
12:30 - 1:30	Lunch
1:30 - 2:00	Creating & Implementing a Web 2.0 Marketing Plan How to design and implement an online marketing plan for acquiring users from multiple marketing channels, how to prioritize & mix channels based on stage of startup growth.	Sean Ellis Startup Marketing
2:00 - 2:30	Searching for Users: SEO as an Engine for Customer Acquisition Learn SEO strategies and techniques for acquiring startup users & customers from search engines, links, & blogging.	Stephan Spencer Netconcepts
2:30 - 3:00	Social Media & Word-of-Mouth Marketing for Startups Digg, Delicious, Twitter.  Word of mouth has never been sexier.  Learn how to use social media & social bookmarking to spread the word to your mother.	Muhammad Saleem ACS
3:00 - 3:30	Arch Viral: Creating Social Apps for Social Platforms Facebook & MySpace are the largest social networks on the planet.  Find out how to create a social application for these platforms that's so viral it's an epidemic.	Lance Tokuda RockYou
3:30 - 4:00	Break
4:00 - 4:30	Revenue: The Internet Wants to Be Free, but You Need to Get Paid Learn how to generate revenue using a variety of business models & strategies including advertising, digital goods, subscriptions, lead generation, & e-commerce.	Andrew Chen Futuristic Play
4:30 - 5:00	Customer Service is the New Marketing Want more customers?  No problem... just deliver great customer service.  Find out how to make satisfaction  your most valuable viral marketing campaign.	Thor Muller Get Satisfaction
5:00 - 5:30	Funding Wisdom: What I Wish I Knew Then Forget the school of hard knocks - this is your chance to hear what 3 successful startup executives learned about the funding process, including timing considerations, types of funding, term sheets and working with investors.	Saar Gur Charles River Ventures Peter Pham BillShrink Manish Chandra Kaboodle Garrett Camp StumbleUpon
6:00 - 9:00	After Party Reception hosted by MySpace.com

STARTonomics.com: Simple, Actionable Metrics for Startup Success (10/2 in SF)

After much work & preparation -- mostly by folks at Dealmaker Media & ACSseo; a bit by yours truly -- Startonomics is coming together quite nicely :) 

The new conf site is mostly launched, speakers & sessions are up, and the first Startonomics blog post is now live here:

If Your Startup Looks Like This, You're Doing it WRONG.

Hope you can join us for a terrific event... so go register NOW, before your startup goes down in flames! 

(hurry up, dammit.  daddy needs a new pair of ass-kicking alligator shoes, pronto...)

Yang & Decker on Yahoo biz "focus": 1) homepage, 2) search, 3) mail, 4) mobile... or 5) none of the above?

(so admittedly this is a rather rough post that came out of some comments i was writing up over on a TechCrunch post about the Jerry Yang intvw at D conf... thought i'd just them up here as well)

first, let me start by noting i think the Yahoo SearchMonkey initiative is generally a good direction to be heading towards.  however, i also think there is a lack of executive cluefulness on tech strategy at Yahoo, as evidenced by the conversation with Kara @ D conf.  maybe Jerry just hasn't had enough time to cleanup from Terry's previous "strategy", but regardless i think neither he nor Sue have succeeded in setting a clear direction forward that is game-changing enough to give board members / shareholders reasonable fiduciary leeway to let them continue [mis-]leading the company.

maybe it's time for others with more cogent strategy to step in & give it a shot.

in particular, there was a telling quote from Decker about what the "focus" of the business is (or lack of one, really) that i think reveals the heart of the matter...

Sue Decker, on Yahoo core biz focus: 

"we focus on homepage, search, mail & mobile".

i guess Jerry & Sue would argue 4 priority areas isn't a lack of focus, but sure feels like that's at least 1 too many, if not 3 too many.  and curiously there's no mention of a transactional focus area, which given all their traffic & content properties & brand familiarity seems like a big missed opportunity -- one that others like eBay, Amazon, & Apple are taking advantage of.

anyway, here's my take on those 4 areas...

1) HOMEPAGE aka "sell the shit out of [limited] premium web portal real estate".  not really a great long-term business, imho.  short-term monetization is good, but long-term control is limited & therefore not likely good strategic bet.  the "home page" will fragment, become personalized, distributed.  switching costs are low.  Feeds & distributed news flow will be the model.  not sure if Yahoo's display advertising biz also fits in this box, but if so that might also be significant... sounds like what Ballmer wants.  still not sure it's most valuable asset long-term.

2) SEARCH: barely keeping significant #2 market share in search, but still pretty darn good monetization compared to the rest of their biz.  on absolute basis, great biz to be in.. tons of cashflow, even their declining market share in overall growing market probably not bad biz.  just sucks on a relative basis to look over at GOOG and think what could have been.   good near- to medium-term asset, if they don't keep losing too much share to the GOOG.

3) MAIL: tons of usage, but crappy monetization.  see my earlier posts for how to monetize the social graph data in the inbox.  imho, this is one of the more interesting assets that currently hasn't been realized in revenue. YahooGroups fits in here as well, which is just a travesty that there hasn't been more attention in past few years.  i have a friend there who may pull the bacon out of the fire, but it's a big task given how much they've squandered over past few years.  long-term, this has significant potential, but only if they really use it for something that creates user / 3rd-party value.

4) MOBILE: i don't really understand this part of their biz.  maybe some traction here outside US i'm not aware of.  (i'll refrain from commentary here, since i'm clueless)

anyway, just feels like there could be more being done with using Y! Platform as distribution play to get to all their users.  we'll see...