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“Here’s the story of 14 shows and that dark moment when I realized they were heading into a tailspin.”
links for 2008-04-22
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We have lift off.
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Amazing photographs with an N95
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“And therein lies one of my biggest gripes with focusing so much energy on the release format. There’s been too much fuss over the wrapper, not enough focus on the package.”
Just wanted to say that Nokia Conversations is live
It’s been a long slog, but the site is now as tweaked as it can get, so we removed the password protection and we’re off on a new journey.
As with any site, we’ll be adding and removing things as folks give us feedback. And I know you all will have plenty to say.
I want to thank everyone involved and those who laid the ground work for me.
Now I need to get dinner ready.
Link: Nokia Conversations: Welcome to the conversation
ESPOO, Finland – Welcome to the Conversation. This one, though, is unlike any you’ll have seen before. It’s being written, presented and hosted by people in and around Nokia and pulls together all the conversations going on around the Nokia neighbourhood.
UPDATE: Oh, I meant to say that 21apr is the traditional day observed for the founding of Rome. And while Rome wasn’t built in one day, it sure had to start somewhere, by Jupiter.
links for 2008-04-21
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Very funny graphic of all the stuff dumped in the channel.
links for 2008-04-19
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Better living thru chemistry? “Hard-plastic Nalgene water bottles made with bisphenol A will be pulled from stores over the next few months because of growing consumer concern over whether the chemical poses a health risk.”
links for 2008-04-18
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“Personally, I am really excited to see Nokia move ahead and establish themselves once more as the kings of consumer and blogger interaction.”
Blood from stone: Don’t focus on ad revenue from social networking services
Ok, so it’s not a revelation when I say that you don’t need to make money off your core service. Your core service drives the interaction with the customer, but the money can come from some other area.
But, be careful where you _think_ you can get the money.
I’ve never been a fan of ads as a mean to make money. At least not for someone who is just displaying the ads. The real money maker is the one who _sells_ the ads.
But, for most services, it’s the best we got.
Bollocks.
I’ve never been satisfied with folks trying to build services that generate ‘eyeballs’ just to ‘monetize’ that traffic with ads. I’ve been even less enthused by social networking services that try to convert what is a personal interaction between the users of the service into a chance to score advertising views.
Online social networking services thrive because they are a form of social lubrication. They are a means to an end, but not the end. We’re social grooming to _do_ things together – learn, invent, trade, strengthen trust.
Then make money by promoting the activity, not by having folks mill about. Yes, social network is the concentrator, but what the folks end up doing is where the money’s at.
One good example is O’Reilly. Is it a social networking service? Sure is. Where do they make money? Selling info to the network, the info the network trades in when within the O’Reilly social network. For O’Reilly, it is the social network that differentiates them from just another publisher.
So, now I’m wondering about social networks overlaid on top of interest domains.
Social networks, such as Facebook, which do not have a focus for the _why_ people come together, might never gain the proper traction to make money beyond a few anemic ad clicks, or, like Facebook, will have to contrive sleazy ways to get money off the social network.
Someone like Facebook should optimize the service around the key reason folks use the service, rather than crate gimmicks to just keep folks around.
MySpace is at least trying to capitalize on Music and LinkedIn on business services. And there are a ton of examples, I am sure.
Just thinking out loud. These thoughts arose from noting that Google and Facebook are seemingly slowing down, and observing the interactions happening in my Twitstream. For some of you, I am sure this line of thinking is nothing new.
Comments?
links for 2008-04-16
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Awesome and huge article. Did I say it was awesome?
Loïc muses – Global Or Die: Is There A Future For Local Startups?
Loïc wrote a great article (with video) on global thinking for start-ups, with a ton of great tips (link below).
But, I think he’s being a bit narrow-minded about the death of local internet services.
In many ways he is right that being a copy-cat who makes a localized version of a global service is not an easy task anymore. Nonetheless, I do think there’s a future for local startups. Indeed, I think hyper-locality is the where a lot Web growth is. Much like social media is breaking down the power of Mass Media, I think we need to realize that in some segments, it pays to be local.
For example, a yellow pages or classified service, really does best with a local presence. A media service that is local would do better than some global service.
Just as mass media no longer is for everyone, not every service is at its best if global. Yet, it’s just hard to scale globally with a local business. Web-heads like to add servers, not people, to grow the company.
I know some people who are creating great local services that are not copy-cats and will do well specifically because they are local. Do you know of any?
Link: Global Or Die: Is There A Future For Local Startups?
My friend Loic Le Meur wants to convince startups to avoid the lure of focusing only on local markets. He asked to write the guest post below, which I think is worthy of debate.
*Also, Loïc’s a great example of someone who realizes the tyranny of Silicon Valley, that the Valley really is the only place in the world to run a tech business. I’ve railed against that tyranny, me not being from the West Coast. But, the past few years has shown some growth in cities like New York and Boston in the mobile and Web space. Also, I don’t know if it’s just because I have so many tweeps from there, but lately a lot seems to be happening in London, too. That’s good.
links for 2008-04-15
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