Wolfram Gets Serious Pre-Launch Buzz

By Mark Evans in Blogs, Media 1 Comment

Only time will tell whether Wolfram emerges as a viable and popular search engine but it has already enjoyed major success in terms of media and blog coverage – including this bubbly story on BBC.com.

From a media relations/public relations standpoint, Wolfram is making for a great case study on why some start-ups can generate so much buzz and excitement, while others fail miserably to attract any kind of attention.

There are a few key elements that seem to be ingredients for success:

1. A service that many people can understand and use on a regular basis. These include search (particularly if the start-up appears to be taking aim at Google), blogging and social media.

2. The start-up has attracted a ton of venture capital

3. There are some well-known people involved with the project, who have enjoyed previous entrepreneurial success or have a high level of domain expertise

4. The service appears to major potential and, as important, it passes the sniff test (aka works well when taken through its paces)

5. It has strong relationships with key bloggers (Mike Arrington, Om Malik, et al) and/or Walter Mossberg. Nothing like some great coverage to get other bloggers and reporters on the coverage bandwagon.

6. The company involves people who made millions at Google before leaving to do their own start-ups

7. Luck. Nothing like being at the right place at the right time when there’s a dearth of tech news.

Admittedly, it’s a straightforward list but covers many of the major issues. Let me know if you have anything to add.

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Businesses with Businesses Models?

By Mark Evans in Web 2.0 6 Comments

Earlier this week, I did a post looking at how it’s fundamental for online businesses to have a product/service that people want to purchase – as opposed to building something popular that people aren’t willing to buy. I cited companies such as Freshbooks, Rypple and Sysomos.

What I’m curious about is other online companies that are operating businesses (e.g. generating revenue) as opposed to offering free services to attract users and, eventually, a takeover offer.

Thoughts?

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Without a Strong Foundation, You’re Doomed

By Mark Evans in Social Media, Web 2.0 5 Comments

One of the things I’ve noticed over the past four months as a consulting has been how social media is regarded by some companies an economic salvation.

There’s this belief that social media and the way the tools can leverage online marketing, communications and sales efforts has the power to magically attract more customers and drive sales. After all, the online market continues to evolve, and companies who aggressively use the Web can still attain a competitive advantage.

In some cases, this may, in fact, be true but the caveat is even the best-executed social media efforts won’t succeed unless the underlying product or service is appealing to users. Granted, it’s a simple proposition but a proposition that doesn’t get as much attention as it should.

Over the past four or five years during the heady days of “Web 2.0″, there were a lot of services launched – and funded – that attempted into insert square pegs in round holes.

In theory, they sounded interesting but there wasn’t a compelling need or demand for them. Or, least, there wasn’t enough demand or interest to make them viable businesses.

For Web 2.0 aficionados, this wasn’t a problem because trying these round-peg-square-hole products didn’t cost anything other than some time. For investors, it was/is more of a problem because they poured money into ideas that didn’t stand much of a chance of being successful.

I’ve been thinking about this idea for the past few weeks as there’s been an increasing focus and interest in companies with products/services that people want to buy because the underlying product/service has enough value to escape the Land of Free.

Some examples include Sysomos, a powerful social media analytics service (disclaimer: Sysomos is a client), Freshbooks, which now has more than 800,000 users of its invoicing service, including me; Rypple, an up and coming feedback service; and Mozy, an online back-up service (acquired by EMC in 2007) that just added its one millionth customer.

What these companies have in common is a service with appeal to customers – as opposed to simply users – as a core part of their corporate DNA.

Rather than trying develop a core service and then hope that adding bells and whistles, some social media pixie dust and a mention on TechCrunch will magically transform into a business, these companies created services from the start that filled a need and/or solved a problem that makes it easy to justify paying for.

The more we focus on these kind of companies, the farther we’ll get away from the myth that if we build it, customers (and then advertisers) will come.

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Newspapers: The Horse & Buggy of Media

By Mark Evans in Media 3 Comments

I was listening to an interview on the FAN (Toronto’s sports radio station) on the way down to Waterloo today that featured Boston Globe sports reporter Kevin Paul Dupont.

Before he was asked about the Boston Bruins’ playoff series demolition of the Montreal Canadiens, Dupont talked about how the New York Times has decided that if the Boston Globe’s unions don’t accept huge cost reductions, it may have to consider closing the newspaper.

Dupont was surprisingly frank about the economic realities facing the Globe and newspapers, in general. One of the analogies he used was newspaper are going through the same process that hi the horse and buggy industry at the turn of the 20th century.

It was an interesting comment because it’s simplistic yet pretty a pretty accurate depiction of what’s happening. The difference is people bought horse and buggies, and they purchased their successors, automobiles. Today, people are buying newspapers but not spending anything for digital content.

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A Head Fake by Apple

By Mark Evans in Apple/iPod 6 Comments

From what I saw at the mesh conference earlier this month, the netbook – a small, lightweight, no-frills laptop – has huge potential among people who want something that sits between a regular laptop and a smartphone.

To date, the netbook has yet to capture the imagination of consumers even though Acer, for example, has made some inroads with some interesting and low-cost products.

The 600-pound gorilla sitting in the corner is Apple. If Apple moves into the netbook market, the netbook suddenly gains huge validation and traction.

Yesterday, Apple COO Tim Cook did a great job dismissing speculation Apple is working on a netbook. (Hat tip to VentureBeat for the quote)

“For us, it’s about doing great products,” Cook said yesterday. “When I look at netbooks, I see cracked keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens. It’s just not a good consumer experience and not something we would put the Mac brand on. It’s a segment we would not choose to play in.”

Translation: If Apple is going to enter the netbook market, it’s going to be a product that is well-designed, user-friendly and reasonably price (as opposed to cheap). The last thing Apple wants to do is burst onto the scene with something that fails to resonate with consumers.

In some respects, the netbook market is sort of like the portable device market that Apple tried to carve out with the Newton. Despite the Newton’s innovation, Apple got into the market far too early, which went a long way explaining why it bombed.

My sense is Apple is happy to wait on the sidelines while others battle to create the netbook market. When the time is right, do not be surprised to see Apple burst onto the scene with a cool netbook that sells about $500 to $750. When that happens, there will be so much pent up demand, Apple will steal market.

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The Demise of Newspapers; the Rise of Journalism?

By Mark Evans in Media 3 Comments

The New York Times’ terrible first-quarter results (plunging ad revenue) reminded me to finally read Clay Shirky’s “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable” essay.

As a former journalist and someone who still loves reading newspapers, Shirky’s thesis is alarming but, painfully, on the mark. One thing that resonated is Skirky’s belief that while the newspaper business is dying, no one really knows what the future holds as far as journalism.

Is journalism going to be blogs? It is Twitter or Facebook updates? Is journalism going to be run by non-profits? Is journalism going to be something subsidized by patrons? The reality is no one knows.

Another angle is the mantra that many journalists recite about how they’re covering the news, so if they disappear, all this coverage will disappear. Maybe they’re right given much of what happens on the blogosphere is fueled by what bloggers read in newspapers and magazines.

But I think Shirky nails it when he declares:

Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.


To me, the need to support journalism that benefits society is the front page story. The sad reality is the newspaper business doesn’t seem to be working any more. The question is what replaces it.

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