Category: Technology

Posted on

World Wild Web

Some of the wildest technology news I noted from the past year:

The last one really hits close to home for me. I remember when I was a younger engineer designing computer chips perhaps seventeen years ago or so when state of the art chips were running at like 33Mhz. At the time, I recall that the DEC Alpha chip was running at like 50-60Mhz and people were saying that it was pretty much impossible to go faster. The clock signals simply couldn’t propagate fast enough or something like that (basically a limitation of physics). Well I guess we were wrong about technology progress slowing down. To put things in perspective, 1 Terahertz equals 1,000,000Mhz.

So as a message to those young engineers out there, in less than two decades one can see a tremendous amount of change in technologies. But more generally I suppose, in that period of time a lot can change in life too. Makes me reflect upon the kind of life we want to leave for future generations.

Edit (2/15/07): And as another technology one, I don’t if some people remember the early nineties. The World Wide Web was just developing then. I think I remember someone showing me the web, and there might have been something like 2 or 3 websites out there (well perhaps there were only a few interesting ones out there). No graphics at all from what I remember. Maybe a dozen hyperlinks or something. Now were are at a point where there are tens of millions of blogs out there, not to mention websites. Wild.

Posted on

For My iPhone Diary

The sneezers are singing the praises of the iPhone today:

  • Om Malik (communication and telecom blog) here on the end of an era (or mark of a new era) and here on form factor and packaging
  • Mark Evans (Canadian telecom blogger) here
  • Paul Kedrosky (finance, VC, and tech blogger) here on capital market reactions of Apple, Nokia, Motorola, Palm, and RIM/Blackberry to iPhone showing
  • Matt Marshall (at VentureBeat) here
  • Esme Vos (Muniwireless blog specializing in municipal wireless coverage) says here that we need more muni WiFi just for the iPhone
  • Kottke (uber independent blogger) here

Some of the competitors are shrugging or more lukewarm:

  • Microsoft’s pre-emptive pooh-pooh
  • Nokia VP’s statements that the iPhone confirms convergence but that 2G device slant (versus 3G device) was a surprise

Other notes:

  • Cingular has 58.7 million subscribers (see here)
  • "iPhone will be available in the U.S. beginning in June 2007 in a 4GB model for $499 and an 8GB model for $599, and will work in combination with Apple’s iTunes running on either a PC or Mac." (Cingular news release)
  • Note that I am not clear whether the prices above are retail or inclusive/net of typical handset subsidies that are borne by carrier as part of subscriber acquisition costs. There have been reports that a 2-year contract is required, but it is still not clear whether the prices mentioned are net of subsidy.
  • Apple wants to sell 10 million in 2008 (here). (Note: That’s a lot of subscribers and/or channel pumping given my first bullet point above in this section and given an exclusive carrier relationship)
  • Random history on iPod pricing (post includes graphs)

It will be interesting to see what the mavens of the world uncover about the iPhone specs. It looks like a cool device presentation-wise for sure. I am curious how the battery life will be though. I am used to running my iPod down on power, but I don’t like running my cell phone down on power.

Updates (1/11/07):

Posted on

For My Google YouTube Diary

My short roundup of articles and posts covering the Google acquisition of YouTube:

  • CNN reports Google buying YouTube for $1.65 billion. YouTube founded in February 2005. Steve’s note to self on another billion(s) dollar acquisition with a short total life as an independent company: Skype acquired for $2.6 billion. Some of my older notes here. I am neither following Skype nor YouTube that closely, but I expect that Skype had both more revenue and more of its revenue model "proven out" relative to YouTube.
  • Why Mark Cuban thinks Google is crazy (and here). Too much hidden liability. Steve’s note to self: The $1.65 billion "in theory" has liability priced into the deal. Additional note to self: the Kazaa damages were on the order of $100 million (? – here). Could potentially calibrate size of liability from this and other data.
  • Excellent post by Susan Mernit which outlines what Google didn’t buy in such a way that provides much deeper insight on Google’s strategy and the leverage of the web.
  • Fred Wilson’s great summary of what YouTube did right – really right. Provide some micro-level insight about what can be tapped into using the web, viral mechanics, and great user interfaces (while keeping it simple).

Update (10/18/06): Also make sure to check out David Dalka’s post here. Thanks, David!

Posted on

For My Vonage Diary

Steve has to try out the VoIP thing because of network flexibility it offers.
Steve has some problems with Vonage service quality compared to landline. Or not?
Vonage hits 1 million lines.
Skype, the much different P2P VoIP player, is acquired for $2.6 billion.
Vonage leads the VoIP pack in terms of number of subs.
Vonage files for IPO.
Jeff Nolan tips me that Vonage is offering customers a piece of the IPO action, but Steve has already cancelled service (was it for qualified investors only though, even though "everyone" got email?)
Zoli Erdos calls the Vonage IPO like he sees it and provides some other good background links.
Vonage pricing/market capitalization seems similar to the Skype exit value.
Vonage IPO off to the year’s worst start (also here).
However this turns out, it will be an interesting lesson in venture capital money, stock markets, and pure play vendor versus bundled offering versus P2P play versus …

Update (6/1/06): Crazy stuff. Om reports on angry customers (plus some stats on number of takers) that took Vonage up on getting a piece of the IPO deal.

Update (6/5/06): Kedrosky points to and sums up the pre- and post-money valuations of each round so one can estimate how much each tranche participant "made out" with (note no down rounds). As another recent link to fill out the story, here is a recent class action lawsuit filed by shareholders.

Update (6/19/06): Vonage is half the IPO price.

Update (4/12/07): CEO resigns. Situation at Vonage goes from bad to worse.

Posted on

Perceptual Mapping: What Does Your Cell Phone Say About You?

Last week I was reading a detailed research report regarding cell phones in order to get a more structured understanding of the consumer marketplace as it relates to upstream B2B vendors.

Now in business school (e.g., in a marketing analytics course), one may learn about concepts such as perceptual mapping, a combination of numerical factor-analysis and marketing technique that may be used to graphically place vendor products in a two-dimensional chart, where the products may have many more underlying features which actually makeup the products. Wikipedia has a sample chart here, to give you an idea of what perceptual maps look like. What is nice about certain-types of perceptual maps is that the charts are borne out of people’s actual market behaviors or expressed preferences (as opposed to some ad-hoc or opinion-driven marketing method).

In the report I was reading, there was a picture of a less-frequently used perceptual map that grabbed my attention. Basically instead of products, the perceptual map placed cell phone features (e.g., calendar, push-to-talk, text messaging) on a two-dimensional map with the axes ranging from a) low- to high-technological advancement and b) high-entertainment to high-utility.

Based on the features (each a point) on this perceptual map, one could identify five primary clusters of points. These clusters were essentially viewed as market segments of mobile phone consumers and were divided as follows:

  1. Picture people (camera phone lovers)
  2. Gotta-have-it-all types (e.g., Motorola RAZR types)
  3. Plain old telephone people (basic phone users)
  4. Organized telephone people (e.g., like calendar features in the phone)
  5. Always on-the-road types (e.g., like productivity & synchronization functions)

It’s funny when you look at the high probability demographics for these mobile phone segments (and I will take some liberties here to boil down the paragraph of demographics to a few words – note: demographics match the listing order above and have *not* been written to be politically correct):

  1. females, without children, poor
  2. males, dumb, low income
  3. females, married, dumb, poor
  4. females, married, poor
  5. males, married, highly educated

I fall into the organized telephone or plain telephone crowd with my basic Siemens flip-phone. What does that say about me? I’ve never really cared too much about image, but what am I communicating to people by my use of phone? Is your ringtone a mating call in disguise? What does your phone say about you?


Update (2/15/06): Zoli, I can’t log into your blog to comment on your post since I forgot my login, but I have to say that the idea is creative. Why be canned in by what’s already been done? Maybe it’s the next category leader. 🙂

Continue reading “Perceptual Mapping: What Does Your Cell Phone Say About You?”

Posted on

Little Disappointed About Del.icio.us Acquisition

Let me preface this by saying that I’m really glad for del.icio.us and its prior financiers. Let me also preface this post by saying that this post only reflects my initial reaction to the recent acquisition and has nothing to do with Yahoo specifically acquiring del.icio.us.

I think social bookmarking tools are a great innovation. But I think that tools like del.icio.us could have gone further in terms of becoming a productivity tool for corporate users.

I am one of the biggest fans of Post It Notes. I tag everything with them … reports I need to read, sections that my collegues need to read on a printed emails, key pages in journals, magazines, Powerpoint presentations, etc.

Del.icio.us, or perhaps another bookmarking service, could have become (in my wildest dreams) the Post It Note of mixed media, not just traditional Internet stuff. Would have been nice for me to have such technlology cut across the internet, intranet-only enterprise content management systems, and email and files on computer systems. In the early 90s, Apple computer used to have a way to highlight certain files with a special color (e.g., red). Such a feature enabled users like myself to create ad-hoc priority or classification schemes for files. That feature wasn’t the same as what del.icio.us currently is, but we don’t have that old Apple feature anymore with Windows. How are we supposed to tag and bookmark files these days?

Day-to-day work in a business often cuts across multiple technologies, and I have found that bookmarks are a good way to put briefing packages together (while attaching notes). Briefing packages might be customer prospect research, competitive intelligence, market studies, or ad-hoc technology primer packages. I’ve used Web 2.0 technology to accomplish these tasks productively in a business environment, and given the right technology I probably would pay for this as I pay for Post It Notes in the physical world. Of course, it would be best if a given technology was ubiquitous across user bases.

Now del.icio.us was probably never targeted for the corporate user as its primary target. All said, when innovative companies like del.icio.us are swooped up, I often wonder whether the essence of the innovations will ever hit mainstream use in corporations.

Update (12/21/05): Ed Sim posts about the web as a platform in the enterprise. This is exactly the productivity kind of stuff I am talking about in this post and that I allude to in my other post. Productivity in the enterprise using web 2.0 stuff is a largely untapped area.

Posted on

Finally Getting Used To Tech.Memeorandum

Having followed tech.memeorandum casually for a couple of months, I’m getting a little more used to its user interface. The politics thread is here, and the technology one is here (the latter being the only one I’ve traveled).

The one problem that I have had with the user interface for memeorandum is that I don’t generally consider myself to be a news junkie or maven that combs through copius amounts of internet information.

But I am finding that the tool can be useful to help me find information clusters on current topics. It is helping me to locate other information sources more passively and to determine whether my current list of information sources may be lacking in any way. New sites might benefit by having this type of interface.

What has been difficult for me to assess, however, is how high quality is the main thread of information that travels through tech.memeorandum? Just because there is a lot of dialogue around topics picked up by tech.memeorandum does not mean I will have much  interest in any of the main threads. Would be interesting if the main thread could be more customizable or trainable. Alternatively, if the main thread had coverage reputation like a mainstream media publication, then I would commit more eyeball time to the site.

Proudly powered by WordPress