So Google CEO Eric Schmidt has joined Apple's board of directors. Count on the blogosphere to put two and two together to five…or six or seven. Does this portend an Apple-Google mega-merger? Will Google provide iTunes with even more momentum to sell millions of those white earphones…er, I mean iPods? People have to remember Silicon Valley is an incestuous, tightly-woven spider's web where everyone knows everyone else. Speculate all you want about what Schmidt's appointment could man but don't let your imaginations get too carried away. What I can tell you is Apple has an intriguingly divergent board – ranging from environmentalist/ex-U.S. VP Al Gore to J. Crew CEO Millard Drexler to Mr. Jobs.
Hey, I'm #10!
Well, here's a pleasant late-summer surprise: I'm one of 30 people named to Garrett Smith's list of VOIP bloggers – joining pals such as Om Malik, Alec Saunders and Andy Abramson (aka #1). While flattered, I'm secretly hoping to make another VoIP list this year (video) by posting on YouTube's every move…:) Thanks for the compliment, Garrett.
Where are Canadian Corporate Blogs?
I've almost finished reading Naked Conversations, which is part of my summer reading series (The Long Tail, The Golden Spruce). Although I share Robert Scoble and Shel Israel's ardent enthusiasm for blogging, Naked Conversations comes across as almost too evangelistic. They believe blogs are/will be an essential marketing/communications tool that few companies should be without. They cite examples such as Kyrptonite, which was savaged a couple of years ago in the blogosphere when someone discovered you could open one of the company's locks with a Bic pen. Kryptonite didn't have a blog so it had no way to fight back other than using traditional PR tools. It lost the battle and ended up paying $10-million to compensate customers. Scoble and Israel's belief in blogs got me thinking about the Canadian corporate landscape and who's blogging. To the best of my knowledge, I don't think there is a large Canadian company that has a blog. Nortel, for example, would be a good candidate but the only blog dedicated to the company is one I write. Another good candidate would be Canadian Tire, one of Canada's largest retailers and one that's part of the country's cultural fabric. A corporate blog strikes me as a great way for Canadian Tire to talk about issues such as new products, store re-designs and new internal developments. So why are so many Canadian companies so blog-free? I'm not exactly sure other than Canadians, by nature, tend to be conservative. This includes the Internet where we lag behind the U.S. in e-commerce and online advertising even though we have the second highest broadband penetration in the world.
Update: Someone who left a comment suggested other potential corporate blog candidates include Tim Horton's, WestJet, Loblaws and the banks.
Next Up: Google Browser?
Sorry, one more G-Thought. Now that Google Apps is out in the wild, the inevitable question is when Google will launch a browser. I mean, it can't hide behind Firefox forever, right?
Google Finally Unveils Office 2.0
After much braying from the sidelines, Google watchers are finally getting what they wanted with the launch of an Web-based productivity suite. According to InformationWeek, Google will unveil Google Apps, which will feature e-mail, calendar, instant messaging and Web site creation services. Later this year, it will also include word processing (Writely), spreadsheet and collaboration features, and start selling the package for a fee to corporate users. Apparently, Google doesn't want to go head to head with Microsoft. Instead – and I find this difficult to believe - little, old Google wants to grab foothold with corporate users by offering tools so that people can open Office documents shared on the Web. That does not seem to make much sense given most corporate computers have Office installed. You have to believe Google wants a chunk of the lucrative Office market that Microsoft has dominated for far too long. With broadband becoming more ubiquitous and Web-based services increasingly accepted, Google must see the multi-billion dollar productivity market as a natural vehicle to drive revenue beyond its Golden Goose, AdSense. Over time, I can easily see lots of people adopt Google Office as their primarily productivity suite given documents can be accessed from any computer connected to the Web. It will also help that it appears Google Apps will be free for individuals, and I suspect reasonably price for business users.
Reaction across the blogosphere as been refreshingly pragmatic.ZDNet's Dan Farber said business users aren't going to “defect” from Office or other products overnight, and that Microsoft is developing its own suite of hosted Windows Live applications. “But, there is disruption in the air, and the Microsoft Office monopoly is definitely going to face a major competitive threat in the near future,” he said. Read/Write Web offers up a nice list of Office alternatives. Scott Karp doesn't buy into the idea Google is not aiming to butt heads with Microsoft. “It’s so plainly obvious that Google wants to take over the enterprise software market from Microsoft and the rest of the old guard — the question is not IF but HOW, i.e. what’s the business model? Will Google use enterprise software as a Trojan horse for advertising inside the corporate firewall, or will they fall back on the old model of licensing fees?”. Paul Kedrosky, who has tried and been impressed with Google Apps, said Google new suite is “mostly directed at people sending “Enterprise 2.0″ business plans my way: If you're thinking of doing something squarely in Google's enterprise-lusting aim you need to ask yourself one question only: Why? What makes you think that you can do it so much better than Google can that the inevitable free Google Apps product doesn't kick your ass out of the office market?” It's an interesting comment given his VC firm, Ventures West, recently made a first-round investment in DabbleDB, online spreadsheet service.
Bubble Free 2.0?
Amid the talk about Bubble 2.0 (count me as one of the the-sky-could-be-falling-chickens) is John Battelle's take on the lack of Web 2.0 failures. Fred Wilson makes some excellent points about low burn rates and reasonable VC behavior so far. That said, there will be failures and lots of them when all those once bright and shiny Web 2.0 start-ups can't raise another round after creating some cool services that failed to attract enough customers and/or advertisers. We've already seen a few start-ups go down while dozens of others will quietly close their doors with no media coverage, fanfare or TechCrunch notation. Perhaps one reason why failure this time around will have a lower profile than the dot-com boom is the lack of IPOs. This means fewer investors are involved and companies have much less notoriety. So when they disappear or go bankrupt, it's less of a public event. While everyone's still bullish about Web 2.0, don't be too surprised to see more wreckage wash up on the shore soon as the weaker ships fail to survive the competitive, business and financial elements. Web 2.0 may be a perfect environment for entrepreneurs to create start-ups but failure is just part of the eco-system.
Update: According to eBay, Kiko was sold for $258,100. GigaOm has some of the details, including the fact Kiko raised $50,000 from angel investors through convertible debt. It will be interesting to see who ended up winning the auction.
Update II: Jeff Jarvis steps into the fray with a summary of troubling thoughts about Web 2.0 throughout the blogosphere.
