azeem azhar

Seasons greetings

To all.
Our christmas card is here. Comments below...

Last words on Loic Web 3

Loic responded to the Le Web criticisms in comprehensive style.

His overall case is that 'the time for blogger conferences is over',  is no doubt the case. This stuff is deeply embedded in the early majority, penetrating the late majority and even companies have tuned in.

But there is still space for tech conferences in Europe--and I'd be happy to pitch in. Loic points to that last year  DailyMotion and Netvibes both found financiers. Hopefully the dedicated start-up track this year will prove even more valuable.

He also makes reference to the breadth of talks. Yes--there is benefit in breadth. That is what makes Ted a fine conference. In its heyday, PC Forum was powerful because it did roam wide. Le Web 4 could do with that breadth and some determined thinking on how to build the non-obvious connections across participants.

At Le Web, bloggers talking about their blogs or blogging tools made for the weakest and lowest value-add sessions. There is a series of workshops and detail-oriented conferences and seminars that can support those. (You can Google for them).

The nude avatar of the light shift

Clay Shirky, for it is he, shaven headen and brilliant, has unpicked the current fad for SecondLife.

Clay suspects that:

I suspect Second Life is largely a "Try Me" virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use. Pointcast was a Try Me virus, as was LambdaMOO, the experiment that Second Life most closely resembles.

The data on the SL home page don't give much clue to its real popularity, although Linden's economist statistics do suggest some growth. But it's worh noting that the number of residents who are making real Linden $s has doubled from May 2006 to November 2006--what I don't know is whether that reflects the beta of SL's growth or whether this group of economically sustainable citizens is growing faster than the market.

Adam Reuters  latest story seems to support Clay's thesis, pointing out that the number of in-game hours has only grown 29% between September and November compared to a doubling of the user base. This snippet of evidence would support the 'try me' thesis. Lots of one-off newbies fumbling about could easily account for the vast bulk of growth in user hours.

Le Web: crap or not

Return from Paris after two days, into a blizzard of review meetings, raise my head and the top search on Technorati is Le Web.

I didn't find out until after I had emailed Loic to say (sort of quoting)

The confernce was awesome, one of the best I have been for a while and extremely reasonably priced too. I wd have paid twice as much in hindsight.

What was awesome about it?

The first was the frantic energy of the schedule. There was a constant stream of talks for two days backed up by a frenzied start-up room. 47 start-ups in two days. But the best bit were the people. Conferences are, after all, soylent green. If you went there to get data, you were in the wrong place (check the Internet, it is better for it.) If you went their to have great conversation, you were in the right spot.

Looking for a COO

One of the projects we've launched through the Reuters Innovation group is Reuters Market Light.

This is a 'bottom of the pyramid' (really a 'top of the bottom of the pyramid') business delivering agricultural pricing and real-time weather information to farmers. The business is progressing strongly and we're now hiring a COO.

If you are interested, read the job spec below and get in touch with Gouthami directly.  It is based in Bangalore with regular travel to the customer base--and frankly an amazing opportunity for anyone wanting to build a genuine BOP business.

The job spec follows below.

Off to Le Web 3

Just heading off to Paris for Le Web, looking forward to catch-up with old friends and meeting some great new companies.

I'll be on +44 7990 561 220 if you need me (or want to meet up.)

Swivelling

So quite excited by the launch of Swivel, since as a data head and being the guy who wished he'd invented the TrixieTracker, I can see exactly why this is interesting.

So many activities are defined by their data and we're probably increasing data junkies.  Five years ago, who would have thought that millions of people would analyse the log-files of their computers on a weekly or daily basis?

You could  imagine social networks emerging around data models--like training schedules for the London marathon. 

Or finally an easy way for non-designers to weave cute looking charts into their blogs.

Swivel seems to batch process uploaded data, a process which is quaintly called 'swivelling' but it is batch processing in my book, and in it's current state has failed to process my data at all. (I've uploaded it three times using two different methods.)

Moo v Last.fm logos

So we know there is a certain sameness about 2.0 logos but you could at least hope on finding the difference in the detail.

Not so with Moo Print and Last.fm, two hot British startups. (Hot in the sense that, well they are pretty cool. 400m scrobbles a month at Last and cool stuff happening at Moo.)

But on ordering  another batch of Moo cards in advance of Le Web 3, that there is something very similar about their logos.

Web 2.0 isn't about the Internet

I spoke on a panel at the Communications Group on 28 November.

The panel featured Chris Seth, Ajit Jaokar and Nic Brisbourne on the topic of Web 2.0. As I had to speak last, I quickly mashed up some ideas so I could say something different.

Here is a moderately amended version of those remarks.

Web 2.0 is not about the internet. Well, it isn't just about the Internet.

It is about a 'new mode of production with exciting economics'. What do I mean by that?
Take a quick walk down memory lane and look at the history of industrial organisation. You started with the sole trader, the blacksmith working on his own clanking out a horseshoe or hammering out a sword. You then moved towards partnerships particularly for trading and expeditionary businesses but the structure of industrial production broadly speaking didn't change until the 17th century with the arrival of the joint stock company. This was the firm raised money from shareholders and as a structure it was appealing because it allowed you to spread risk across many different ventures.

It was this form of organisation which powered the industrial revolution allowing capital to be deployed effectively and firms to reach an efficient point of scale. And this led to the growth of verticalisation: firms which owned industries soup to nuts. Many of the great industrial firms of their time, like the Ford Motor company, took this shape. When Ford rolled out the Model T just before World War I, the company grew its own rubber trees, refined its own steel and even built and ran railroads to deliver cars. (see The New Industrial Revolution by Bernstein for more details.)