All Aboard the Apple Express

By Mark Evans in Apple/iPod No Comments

Apple – $300 – so says Blogging Stocks.

Hard to believe that only three years ago, it was trading at $10.

Whether it’s Apple heading to $300 or Google going to $1000, there’s a lusty love affair happening with successful, high-profile tech stocks. But if this reminds you of the dot-com boom, you’re wrong because investors seem to be selective, although they’ve shown unbridled enthusiasm for the names they love.

What we’re seeing now when it comes to Apple is a lot of people realizing later rather than never that the iPod, iMac, iPhone and iSteve are red-hot with no end in sight.

Sure, there will probably be gains to be had but where was everywhere when Apple shares were struggling even though it was sitting on a mountain of cash?

If I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket, I’d sink a pile of it in Apple shares now. Why? It’s a bet on the madness of crowds and a near-guarantee that investors are going to crazy when Apple posts its next quarterly results in the wake of strong holiday sales.

$300 may be a lot closer than you think.

Technorati Tags:

The Joys of Unsubscribing

By Mark Evans in Advertising/Marketing 2 Comments

As 2008 rolls around, I’ve been spending some of my holidays time tying up some loose ends.

One of them is cleaning out an inbox fueled/bogged down by multiple e-mail addresses and subscriptions to far too many newsletters. Although there are still a few still running wild, I’ve been on an aggressive newsletter unsubscribe campaign in an attempt to manage my in-box better. Anything that isn’t a must-read is abruptly turfed, and the more turfing I do, the better it feels.

It’s interesting to see the different unsubscribe options. The best and most efficient are ones where you click on a link at the bottom of an e-mail, which causes a Web page to open with a “You’re now unsubscribed” message. Now, that’s user-friendly!

Then, there are unsubscribes where a Web page pops up that requires you to enter your e-mail address, which isn’t alright. But the ones that I don’t like are those where you have to send them a message with “Unsubscribe” in the subject line. Why make it more difficult than it has to be given the person plans to leave anyway?

Anyway, back to the campaign!

Technorati Tags:

Opportunity ’08: Vertical Blog Search

By Mark Evans in Blogs, Search Engines 8 Comments

Picture 1-28
It looks like IceRocket is taking another shot at establishing a foothold in the blog search market amid a new look and feel, according to Data Mining. IceRocket is best known for once having Mark Cuban as an investor but its turn in the spotlight was as short as Cuban’s dalliance in the business. (He sold his stake in 2006 to Think Partnership).

IceRocket’s attempt to revive itself will be a huge challenge given its shot at success has likely come and gone, but the blog search market is still ripe with opportunity because it still doesn’t have a dominant player. Unlike general search, Google is battling for share along with Technorati, Sphere, Bloglines, etc.

Blog search is ripe for a hot, new start-up to capture the imagination of people looking for a search engine that works well. For all the investment in me-too companies in the photo-sharing and social networking markets, it’s been puzzling not see more activity in the blog search business.

Maybe entrepreneurs and investors believe it’s not worth pursuing because Google has moved into the neighborhood but if you’ve used Google Blog Search, it doesn’t take long to discover that, for whatever, reason, it’s far from terrific.

Still, if you don’t want to go head-to-head with Google, another golden opportunity waiting for someone to step up is vertical blog search. With more than 110 million blogs (and thousands more created a day), a blog search engine focused on a specific vertical (travel, technology, sports, business, music, etc.) could have enormous potential by offering an effective way to meet the needs of people looking information in a market clogged with lots of flotsam and jetsam.

For anyone who may scoff at the idea of a vertical blog search engine, look at how the vertical search market has thrived in recent years as players focus on markets where Google can’t or won’t target. Kayak.com, for example, is steadily building its travel search business through organic growth and the recent acquisition of Sidestep.

So, is this the year that vertical blog search jumps into the spotlight?

Update: Rich Skrenta, who co-founded Topix and the Open Directory Project, has launched a new search start-up called Blekko (doesn’t exactly roll off your tougue, does it!). Why a search start-up. His explanation: “Simple – the idea that the current state-of-the-art in search is what we’ll all be using, essentially unchanged, in 5 or 10 years, is absurd to me”

Technorati Tags: , ,

Who’s Going to be the Apple of 2008?

By Mark Evans in Main Page 6 Comments

No doubt, 2007 was the Year of the Apple (or the iPod/iPhone), although it was, in fact, the Year of the Pig.

And Henry Blodget decided to cap things off with an ultra-bullish post on why Apple will rock while Windows will wither on the vine, which I’m sure will generate lots of egg nog and turkey-fueled debate today.

So what will be the hot company in 2008? Who will capture the spotlight?

Maybe it will be Amazon as it becomes much more than just an online book seller? Look at how many start-ups are using S3 as a key part of their business plans.

Maybe Mozilla will surprise everyone by transforming itself from a non-profit, open-source browser developer into something much more significant with the launch of Weave.

And what about Microsoft? Will 2008 finally be the year its Web strategies start to overshadow Windows and Office?

I’m really not one for predications but here’s a few:

1. eBay is acquired, probably by Yahoo.

2. Mark Zuckerberg is replaced as Facebook’s CEO but Facebook is not acquired.

3. The Dallas Mavericks win the NBA championships but sadly for Mark Cuban, HDTV will fail to take off.

4. While Web 2.0 will remain alive and well, the venture capital community will finally a new love – green and alternative energy.

5. The online advertising market sees strong growth (+20% YOY) but advertisers will continue to be cautious about the blogosphere.

6. Google shares crack $1,000.

7. TechCrunch’s Dead Pool welcomes dozens, if not hundreds, of new members.

8. Apple launches an iCamera.

9. To drive deeper into the Web, the New York Times will make several major acquisitions, possibly The Huffington Post.

10. The wireless Web will fail to materialize again even though 3G and WiMax technology will become more prevalent. E-mail and voice will continue to be the wireless world’s one-two punch, which is good news for Research in Motion.

The Downside of Buying a Mac

By Mark Evans in Apple/iPod No Comments

Apple-2
2007 has been a Mac-ilicious year, perhaps the most significant year in the Mac World since 1984.

Aside from a few complaints about Leopard (which are quickly being addressed with a few updates), the Mac has been on a huge roll to the point where Macs are now a mainstream product as opposed to a niche product supported by an avid – and rabid – minority.

But the Mac is far from being perfect, and I’m not talking about Leopard’s issues. One of the things that will surely disappoint many new Mac users is the cost of buying replacement parts or peripherals. Unlike Windows, there isn’t an army of third-party suppliers making inexpensive products that are compatible with a Mac.

David Winer, who should really know better, discovered this first-hand when his MacBook hard drive blew up. Not only did he have to pay a premium to get a new one but he’s not even sure if the new one is really an old hard drive refurbished by Apple.

Another example is Apple’s MagSafe power connector, which are terrific because they’re held in place magnetically so if someone trips on the chord, it comes out easily rather than crashing your laptop to the floor.

Unfortunately, Apple is the only supplier offering MagSafe connectors so if your power supply stops working, you’ve got no options other than buying from Apple – believe me, I spent a lot of time looking in the hope there’s a giant plant in China pumping out cheap MagSafe knockoffs.

Maybe the Mac users will see lower parts prices as Macs become even more popular, and/or Apple loosens its grip on the product ecosystem. In the meantime, get really to pay a premium for the privilege of using the world’s hottest computer.

More: Robert Scoble said Apple has its fault but does lot of other things (e.g. makes wonderful products, operates stores with real customer service, etc.). Scoble also mentions a growing number of anti-Apple rants (such as Winer’s) but I think this has much to do with higher expectations on Apple – something I wrote about last month.

Technorati Tags:

Yeah, ProductWiki!

By Mark Evans in Web 2.0 No Comments

Picture 1-27
The much-anticipated Crunchies nominees have been announced – kind of like an early, unexpected Christmas present – and as a proud Canuck, it’s good to see that a Canadian company made the list.

Waterloo, Ont.-based ProductWiki is one of five companies nominated as “best boot-strapped start-up”, which I guess means it’s deemed to be a company with promising prospects that can’t get or doesn’t want venture capital. ProductWiki’s competition includes FriendFeed, PoliticalBase, Techmeme (which has to be seen as the heavy favorite to take home the big prize) and UpNext.

So why is ProductWiki worthy of such attention? The company is carving out a niche by providing a service where consumers can collaborate on product reviews. People who review products have to provide pros and cons, with the community voting on each one until a consensus materializes. At a time when there’s probably too much information to be useful on many sites/services, ProductWiki may well be onto something by consolidating and synthesizing product information.

The company was created by three students at the University of Waterloo, Omar Ismail, Erik Kalviainen and Amanie Ismail. To date, ProductWiki has been self-funded but you can expected that it’s only a matter of time before the venture capitalists start circling – if they haven’t done so already.

You can read a Q&A I did with Ismail earlier this year.

For more on the Crunchies, check out TechCrunch and Robert Scoble, who has made his selections but, sadly but not surprisingly, picked Techmeme over ProductWiki.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8