2006 September | Mark Evans

Inside the Voodoo-HP Deal

September 30th, 2006 | No Comments | Posted in M&A, Main Page

If you're a serious gamer, Voodoo Computers is the PC industry's Rolls-Royce with cool-looking and powerful systems (albeit at a premium price). Earlier this week, the Calgary-based company said it had agreed to be acquired by Hewlett-Packard for undisclosed amount. So why rush into the arms of HP rather than raising venture capital or doing an IPO? Well, this story goes back to January 2005 when Voodoo came to a strategic fork in the road. As it strived to stay on the bleeding-edge, it ran into size and scale issues because innovation is challenging when you have limited sales volume. Ravi Sood, who owns Voodoo with his brother, Rahul, said discussions with HP started to take place but things were moving at a snail's pace until Mark Hurd took over as CEO. Hurd recognized the value of Voodoo's brand and how it could fit into HP's gaming strategy and leverage its $3.5-billion of R&D. The deal, however, took on some complexity when Dell, which approached Voodoo about a potential acquisition. Ravi Sood said Dell's advances were rejected because Voodoo didn't see any synergy between the two companies. Meanwhile, HP started to look more attractive because it respected the Voodoo brand and it wanted to keep Voodoo in the high-end of the market. ”This deal isn't about one plus one,” Sood explains. ”We weren't motivated to take a check and run the business at status quo. The difference here is HP has applied a veil of autonomy on the Voodoo brand and will integrate their technology.” For more check out, CNet and Real Tech News.

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Blogging 101: Building Brand vs. Traffic

September 30th, 2006 | 3 Comments | Posted in Blog Services, Main Page

I received an e-mail yesterday from someone asking if it was alright if they included my blog posts on a “content collector” that offers people access to a wide variety of Canadian blogs, Web sites, podcasts and video. While it's flattering (and I appreciated someone actually asking for permission), I'm of two minds about the idea. On one hand, getting more exposure can help build a bigger (and better?) brand because, in theory, more people will read your posts. The question, however, is whether many of these readers are curious enough to also visit my blog or whether they're happy to get the content somewhere else. I'm not sure about the answer, although I recently had to tell someone to stop using my material because they were taking (scraping?) every post, including the graphics without permission. In an ideal world, these aggregators would offer a summary of your blog posts and then have a “read more” button that would take re-direct them to your blog. That way, the aggregator get to provide a “sampling service”, while the blog author gets more traffic. It's your perfect win-win scenario) You could extend this brand vs. traffic argument to RSS readers and e-mail services such as FeedBlitz or R/Mail given many people never visit a specific blog again after subscribing to the RSS feed. The big question is whether it really matters. If people are reading your posts - whether it's via e-mail, an RSS reader, an aggregator or your blog - isn't that enough? For most of us, it's probably not a big issue. That said, if you're trying to make money through advertising, you want as much traffic to your blog as possible.

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Mark Cuban Rocks

September 29th, 2006 | 4 Comments | Posted in Main Page, Video

You have to love Mark Cuban, who says it like it is. At a conference yesterday, he said only a “moron” would buy YouTube. “They are just breaking the law,” CNet reported. “The only reason it hasn't been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue.” Cuban's no-lawsuit theory may be right but isn't a little curious YouTube has escaped the wrath of copyright owners so far while Napster, et al incited a wave of lawsuits and attacks on consumers? Here's my theory at when it comes to television programs being downloaded. While people are accessing them for free, there is still advertising on them. Maybe this gives copyright owners the luxury of figuring out whether they can work with video-sharing services such as YouTube rather than suing them.
Update: Something I didn't know until today is YouTube a 100MB upload limit, which means only 10 minute video clips can be shown - perfect for segments from the Daily Show and Bill Clinton interviews on Fox; not good for The Sopranos or House episodes. Maybe this is why the TV and movie industries haven't given YouTube a difficult time legally because 10-minute clips are more marketing vehicles than threats. For more thoughts, check out Don Dodge, a former v.p. with Napster, who takes issue with many of Cuban's ideas about YouTube. The New York Times also weighs in with a story on YouTube.

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Courting New Pearl Users

September 29th, 2006 | No Comments | Posted in Main Page, Wireless/Research in Motion

While Research in Motion's strong fiscal third-quarter performance and stock option review are in the spotlight, an interesting theme from yesterday's conference call with analysts was the idea carrers will unveil pay-as-you-go or lower price, consumer-friendly packages. It is based on the idea you can increase the number of high-margin Blackberry users by making price less of an issue. T-Mobile, for example, is offering a $19.99 all-you-can-eat plan as part of its Pearl marketing efforts. Truth be told, one of the Blackberry's dirty, little secrets - and perhaps a key part of its success - is few people really pay to use them. Instead, their companies pay the Blackberry bills so most people don't pay much attention to how much it costs. Jim Balsillie, RIM's co-CEO, said Blackberry users are five to six times more profitable than regular cell phone users, which is why carriers probably love the Blackberry so much. Given the Pearl is more of a pro-sumer device, price will play a role in its success after the initial euphoria is over. Let's see if Canadian carriers, who have adopted pricing discipline as a corporate mantra, will buy into a Blackberry pricing approach.

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Fun With Numbers 1, 2, 3

September 28th, 2006 | 1 Comment | Posted in Main Page, Web 2.0

During the dot-com boom, everyone (investors, media, the guy on the street) was mesmerized by the large traffic numbers posted by new players - many of whom based IPOs on dubious metrics such as eyeballs and page views per visitor. Today, the numbers game is still alive and well, although the tools to analyze traffic, etc. have become more sophisticated. forevergeek takes a stab at challenging the belief MySpace has 100-million members. After doing some rough research, forevergeek concludes MySpace has closer to 43 million members after taking into account millions of people (like me) register for MySpace but never or rarely go back. Now, 43 million registered users is still impressive and it gives MySpace a lot of economic potential as advertisers pursue the ever-elusive youth demographic. I would add to forevergeek's skepticism that young people are fickle and exhibit little brand loyalty. MySpace and Facebook may be hot today but they could be Friendster tomorrow. When it comes to getting a handle on the social network phenomena, check out this hilarious Trendspotting video from The Daily Show.
Update: Speaking of big numbers, RBC analyst Jordan Rohan believes MySpace could be $15-billion. Yes, that's billion. While Rohan's speculation has been widely criticized, Henry Blodget rushes to his defense, suggesting it's a bold statement at a time when “analysts are terrified of saying anything bold for fear of getting sued”. Blodget adds that “for those who have watched the Internet for a while, however, the idea is far from outrageious. MySpace could easily be worth $15-billion in a few years, or more….or $1b, or somewhere in between.”. Sorry, Henry: you can't eat your cake and have it too. You need to be a bold blogger and tell us what you think MySpace could be worth - otherwise you're just fueling the speculative fires.
To be frank, it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a Wall St. analyst to come up with outrageous predictions. In the spirit of things, I would suggest Google is going to be worth $1-trillion in five to 10 years based as more advertising migrates to the Web. Who's to say this prediction is any less valid or offside than Rohan's take on MySpace? By the way, Paul Kedrosky adds that Rohan's prediction is nothing more than a marketing ploy similar to what Blodget did during the dot-com boom (Remember Blodget's $400 target price for Amazon?)

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Attacking Trash with Tech

September 28th, 2006 | 2 Comments | Posted in Main Page

In Toronto, the city recently spent a whack o' cash (estimated to be as much as $500-million over 20 years) to buy a landfill site a couple hours away. Amid the growing controvery over the financial terms, it struck me there has been little or no talk how technology - both high-tech and low-tech - can play more of a role in dealing with the trash “problem”, which is becoming an issue for large cities across North America. You can read my column on trash and tech in today's National Post.

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The Perfect Geek Gift

September 27th, 2006 | 3 Comments | Posted in Main Page, Wireless/Wi-Fi

This is just a hunch but the must-have gift this holiday season maybe the Nabaztag. What's a Nabaztag? It's a “smart” rabbit featuring moving ears and lights that uses wi-fi to connect to the Internet. This lets it do everything from reading the news and Web sites to providing weather reports and the time. It can let you know when you have new e-mail and even even tell your children to go to bed. Invented by two Frenchmen, the Nabaztag has been a hit in Europe. The company has started to make a major marketing and sales push in North America where the Nabaztag will sell for about $150. Nabaztag made a big splash this week at Demo where it thrilled seasoned tech watchers such as CNet's Rafe Needleman and GearLog. Would I want a Nabaztag? Well, if it helps put my kids earlier, it would be worth the money.

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Zip.ca Going Big

September 27th, 2006 | No Comments | Posted in Main Page, Video

In Canada, entrepreneurs never seem to dream big enough. They want to be successful but few of them talk about conquering their markets. Zip.ca, which aspires to be Canada's NetFlix, appears to be an exception to the rule. The Ottawa-based company wants to raise $25-million to enhance its marketing and advertising programs, as well as expand its 52,000-title DVD library. In Canada, $25-million is a big chunk of change but Zip CEO Rick Anderson sees no reason why the privately-owned company can't have revenue of $100-million (about 10X current sales) and a 300,000 DVD library in a few years. With video downloads becoming all the rage, Zip has already positioned itself with technology to deliver downloads and streaming video, although Anderson believes the download market is moving forward slowly.
Update: A story on Zip's plans in the National Post can be found here.

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Breaking Up is Hard to Do

September 26th, 2006 | 1 Comment | Posted in Main Page, VOIP Services, Competition

Tom Keating has a post recounting his efforts to cancel his Vonage service. It's pretty funny but insightful into Vonage's customer service and competitive challenges.

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Pearl Now or Pearl Later?

September 26th, 2006 | 3 Comments | Posted in Main Page, Uncategorized, Wireless/Research in Motion

The BlackBerry Pearl is getting rave reviews (Walter Mossberg, the NYT's David Pogue, Mark Evans :), etc.) and sales have been extremely brisk (some stores apparently sold out in the first week). That said, I'm wondering if news about a Pearl-like BlackBerry with a QWERTY keyboard (called the Blackberry 8800) will take some momentum out of the Pearl's sales. To be clear, there are a lot of people excited about the Pearl's cool look and feel and the fact it comes with a 1.3 megapixel camera as well as a video and music player. There are, however, some people less than enthused about the SureType keypad, even though it seems as easy to use as a QWERTY keypad. As information about the BlackBerry 8800 starts to escape from the geekdom (a.k.a. Engadget, BBHub, etc.) to the mainstream press will consumers decide to hold off on buying a Pearl until the 8800 is launched? As much as the Pearl is compelling, RIM may need to ramp up its marketing to show people how easy it is to use the SureType keypad.
Update: According to Think Secret, Apple plans to launch its iPhone exclusively with Cingular early next year. The iPhone will feature a 3-megapixel camera, iTunes and iSync.Apple apparently believe iPhone shipments will be 25 million in 2007. Engadget also has a post.