Mark Evans

Flickr Without Yahoo?

There was some major news from Flickr today on the inclusion of its three billionth photograph.

That’s incredibly impressive but it got me thinking about how Flickr might have been different if Yahoo hadn’t snapped up the company for a reported $40-million in 2005. Would Flickr be any different than it is today?

It’s obviously impossible to determine either way but I think Flickr would have been a much more interesting, innovative and progressive company. For one, I think Flickr would have embraced video much earlier as opposed to its dip-a-toe-in-the-water entry earlier this year. It’s not to suggest Flickr would have been YouTube but Flickr could have been much more than a photo-sharing service.

I think we would have seen a lot more cool projects such as shape data, which Flickr unveiled last week. If you haven’t check out what Flickr did reverse-geocoding, you should check it out, especially if you’re interested in geotagging and location-based services.

I think Flickr would also have been more ambitious in terms of offering photo-editing services. Until it struck a deal with Picnik.com earlier this year, the photo-editing tool-set was pretty rudimentary.

And, finally, I think Flickr would have been more aggressive and innovation about making money while still being true to itself and its large community. Things like premium and value-add services, third-party partnerships and - yes, I’ll say it - more advertising might have been explored more enthusiastically.

That said, Flickr has done incredibly well within the Yahoo empire. Perhaps the best part is Yahoo hasn’t ruined Flickr by trying to make Flickr something it isn’t.

Technorati Tags: flickr, yahoo

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A Recession will be Good for Craigslist

With the “r” word (recession) slowly going from a whisper to a quiet roar, the spending habits of consumers are going to quickly change.

If people are going to make purchases, many of them will be bargain-hunting - waiting for increasingly anxious retailers to have sales, or live without something new until they can afford it or their existing computer, jeans, car, etc. no longer works.

Amid this consumer landscape sits Craigslist, which has supplanted eBay as the leading place online to find bargains. If consumers are going to be penny-pinching, Craigslist will be the place to do it. On Craigslist, the bargain is still very much alive and well if you’re willing to do a little work such as picking up your purchase as opposed to have it mailed to you.

For example, hockey equipment - a particular interest of mine - can be purchase for 75% below retail prices. For the most part, it’s relatively new equipment purchased by people who thought they were going to be playing but can’t anymore, or people who just want to sell extra equipment.

If the recession takes hold and the consumer orgy that has thrived for the past decade comes to an abrupt end, Craiglist is poised to thrive. You’ll have motivated buyers looking to save cash, and motivated sellers looking to “monetize” stuff they no longer want/need.

More: Other online companies that could benefit from the recession are:

- Kijiji, whose growth seems to have plateaued in the U.S.; Priceline, Hotwire.com, Skype and Paypal.com. It is interesting that Kijiji, Skype and Paypal are owned by eBay so perhaps this post should have been eBay will thrive during a recession.

Technorati Tags: craigslist, recession

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Yahoo Fiddles While Rome Burns

The Wall St. Journal is reporting that Yahoo is poised for eliminate more than 1,000 jobs as it battles to remain viable amid fierce competition and a tumultuous economic landscape.

That’s it: 1,000 positions?

Not to be disrespectful or dismissive about the idea of 1,000 people losing their jobs but Yahoo is being timid when it needs to be bold. It’s nibbling at the edges right than take a big strategic bite, which seems strange given Jerry Yang’s infamous 100 Days Promise.

While reducing $100-million of operating senses will gain some approval, what Yahoo really needs to do is determine what it wants to be. This is a particularly urgent mandate given it will more difficult to hide assets that are performing well or strategically valuable when economic times are tough.

One area that Yahoo has yet to address is its huge portfolio of online services, including the many startups it has acquired in recent years (Zimbra, Blue Lithium, Maven Networks, Right Media, Flickr, del.ico.us, MyBlogLog, etc.)

In many respects, Yahoo is trying to be all things to all people but it means a scattered focus. Although this is far from the best time to be pruning assets, Yahoo needs to look at whether some businesses need to be closed or sold. Yahoo operates a vast empire so there must be some room for a more focused approach.

Update: Yahoo is embracing the “open” movement as we move to - shudder - “Web 3.0″ but it strikes me as more of a distraction than being focused.

Technorati Tags: yahoo

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The .com Domain is Becoming Irrelevant

It used to be that if you didn’t have a .com domain, you pretty much doomed. It was the global standard when establishing a presence on the Web.

It is becoming increasingly apparent, however, that having a .com domain is becoming less important. Part of it has to do with the fact it’s so difficult to come up with a half-decent .com domain, which forces companies to invent silly monikers. The other reality is it’s now possible to not have a .com domain without missing a beat.

This move away from .com has been evident with a wave a new startups that have emerged in recent months. For example, there’s:

- identi.ca (.ca is Canada’s top-level domain)

- Cli.gs (the domain for the Sandwich Islands off the southern tip of South America)

- Bit.ly and - Present.ly (.ly is Libya’s domain name)

- Chi.mp (the domain for Northern Mariana Islands)

- Nouri.sh (the domain for the Island of Saint Helena)

With little space left in the .com market, creativity has literally become the mother of invention. It may take some time before everyone becomes accustomed to not using a .com domain but eventually people will stop thinking about it when using .mp or .ly.

Update: There’s a new service called Domai.nr that is trying to leverage the idea you can use different domains.

Technorati Tags: domain names

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Life on the Other Side of the Digital Coin

So, my hunt for Wi-Fi in Bayfield, Ont. was finally successful as the public library offers free access.

What’s interesting is the library seems to be the place in town where most people go to get online. With a large retirement community that only needs occasional access to the Web, the library’s computer and its Linksys router meets the needs for many people who may not have a computer at home.

When I told the librarian how it was difficult to find Wi-Fi in town, she said so many people depend on the library’s Internet connection that there is much unhappiness when technical issues knock out its service.

So, what are people doing online? Mostly, e-mail and paying bills. No mention about Twitter, Techmeme, Facebook or Friendster.

What I found funny and interesting is the librarian told me that when people want to get online when the library is closed, they park their cars outside, and then jump on the wireless network.

You figure with this kind of demand, an enterprising cafe owner would offer free Wi-Fi to paying customers, or even a little CyberCafe.

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Tags: bayfield, wi-fi

Think, Breath…Then Hit Reply

We live in a world of instant-gratification and instant communication.

We want things and we want them now. We want to communicate with people and we want to communicate instantaneously and continually.

One of the major challenges within the always-on, always accessible world is the belief that if someone is able to contact you, you’re obligated to get back to them as soon as possible. Rather than think, breathe and reflect, the default is respond ASAP.

Why is that? Why do we feel compelled to reply before really thinking through exactly what you want to say? Often, digital conversations can become complicated and convoluted because not enough thought goes into what should/needs to be said.

Think, for example, how long you take before responding to an e-mail on your Blackberry. Chances are most people probably spend, at most, a minute or two before pounding out a reply even though you could have waited another 30 minutes or even three hours to put together a better answer.

And, often, these responses are done even though you may be in the middle of a conversation or dinner or a round of golf.

What does this happen? What can’t people wait to respond?

Perhaps the best approach is walking away from the keyboard and/or resisting the urge to hit the reply button as soon as you can. It’s difficult but in many cases, a good exercise to pursue.

For the first part of my “Think, Breathe” series, click here.

More thoughts: I probably should have added Twitter as a symptom of our quick reply digital culture given it’s all the rage these days.

As well, I’ve registered www.thinkbreathe.com. Not sure exactly what I’ll do with it but playing around with the idea of making it a places for tips and tools on how to deal with digital overload. Any thoughts?

Technorati Tags: Reply

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eBay Auctions Are a Hassle

BusinessWeek has a story that a lot of people have been focused on for a long time: the waning appeal of eBay auctions.

In the early days of eBay, the auctions were new, fun and exciting. It was e-commerce entertainment even if you didn’t “win” the item. And when you did win, the price you paid tended to be pretty attractive. This made it a win-win-win scenario: the buyer was happy for getting what he/she wanted at a good price; the seller was happy because they got money for something they didn’t want or need; and eBay was happy to serve as the middleman and collect a fee.

Over time, however, the deals became less attractive as sellers were able to get a better idea about the “real” value of the products they were offering. Meanwhile, buyers became more sophisticated and the tools involved in the buying process gave savvy buyers an edge over the rest of us. As a result, the fun and the deals disappeared.

This led to the growing proliferation of “Buy Now” on eBay that eliminate the aggravation, hassle and time required to get involved in an eBay auction. This is not to suggest auctions on eBay are going to disappear but eBay’s status as the place for online auctions is quickly fading.

Nicholas Carr wonders if eBay was a fad? Fad is probably the wrong word because it suggests something short-lived and trendy. I think eBay’s business is just evolving.

If this isn’t enough of a strategic challenge for eBay, senior management also has to deal with what to do with Skype and StumbleUpon; two businesses that have little or no strategic synergies with eBay’s core e-commerce business.

Technorati Tags: eBay

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Can the Green Movement Save E-Billing?

In theory, e-billing has a lot to offer the consumer: less mail and paper arriving in the your mailbox, the convenience of having all of your bills arrive reliably, and the ability to quickly and easily pay your bills online.

For companies adopting e-billing, the biggest benefit are clearly lower costs. Rather than spend $1 or so generating a paper bill and then putting it in the mail, they can create and send e-bills for pennies.

The reality, however, is e-billing has yet to catch fire with 95% of households still getting a paper bill each month. Why? Because the benefits for companies sending bills outweigh the benefits for people receiving bills. If you’re a consumer, what’s the real incentive for embracing e-billing? Do you get a small break on your bills - say 1% - if you receive it electronically? No. So, where’s the carrot for giving up paper for bits and bytes each billing cycle?

Nevertheless, bill senders continue to pound away on consumers about the wonders of e-billing. Roger, for example, is running a radio campaign in which some guy talks about how e-billing has “changed his life” because he longer has a stack of paper bills on his kitchen table every month. Frankly, it’s a pitch that may resonate with some people but it’s still struggling to hit home with the mainstream consumer.

There is hope, however, for e-billing: the environment/green movement. If bills can be sent electronically rather than using paper then fewer trees need to be chopped down. Given how enthusiastically consumers are biting on everything green these days, saving the environmentally could be the salvation for e-billing.

Of course, sending bills online does involve energy to power all those computers and servers so it’s not like e-billing has no carbon footprint. But if I were an e-biller, I’d be painting myself green all over in a major way while counting the savings as consumers sign on because they want to do something good for Mother Earth.

Technorati Tags: puppy

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Are You the Master of Your Domain (Name)?

Do you own your domain name - e.g. www.yourname.com?

I’m not sure what to make of it but owning your domain name seems to becoming a mini-trend, particularly if you have an online brand you want to nurture and/or protect.

A case in point is well known social media consultant Shel Israel, who had shelisrael.com registered by arch-nemesis Loren Feldman, who has been making a series of funny/nasty videos featuring Shel Israel (a naked puppet) interviewing people and other puppets.

Needless to say, Shel Israel (the social networking consultant) is livid at Feldman for taking his domain name. For his part, Feldman - the blogosphere’s agent provocateur - has no interest in selling or giving shelisrael.com to Israel.

Meanwhile, Paul Kedrosky, prolific blogger and venture capitalist, recently mentioned his interest in acquiring paulkedrosky.com from another Paul Kedrosky.

Sadly, I don’t own markevans.com. A certain Mark Evans in Texas owns it, although he doesn’t seem to be doing anything with it. I do, however, own markevans.ca, which is just fine, although I’d happily take markevans.com off Mark’s hands.

Update: Just out of curiosity, I checked to see if mark.com was available. It’s not but it’s a splog - sad.

More: Any discussion about being the master of your domain would be incomplete without a hat tip to Seinfeld.

Technorati Tags: Domain Names, Seinfeld

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How Important is Web Design?

Yet another way to ruin your productivity: Web Hot or Not - a place where you can judge the appearance of Web sites. If the concept sounds familiar, it’s similar to Hot or Not where you can vote on whether someone’s physical appearance appeals to your aesthetic criteria (or something like that).

WHON may be just for fun but an interesting aspect is how WHON will put the spotlight on Web design and what kind of feedback it will be able to offer.

Look at it this way: companies spend huge amounts of time and money working with designers to come up with a very subjective product - someone can love a design while others can hate it. If Web Hot or Not is more than just entertainment, it may be able to come up with rules on what the masses actually like when it comes to Web design. Maybe there’s an ancillary business here…or maybe not but it’s an interesting concept for a start-up that seems so simplistic.

The other question is whether Web design matters at all. At the end of the day, a Web site is going to be successful if it offers a product/service that people want. Aidan Henry had a good post recently looking at Craigslist, which features one of the worst designs in the world - yet people love the service. Even with a minor makeover - provided by a panel at SXSW 2006 - Craigslist would be a lot more user-friendly but would it really make a difference in its popularity?

Another example is Wikipedia, which has a sparse, no-frills design but has no lack of people who love it. What difference would it make it Wikipedia decided to embrace a new design? And why even do it given you don’t hear many people say “I love Wikipedia but the design sucks”. (Then again, there are rumors of a Wikipedia redesign based on what Allen Stern (aka CenterNetworks) saw last week.)

I’m clearly not a Web design expert but I do know that compelling looking Web sites are difficult to create….but not nearly as much of a challenge to build as compelling online services.

(Note: I would add that Web design is becoming increasingly irrelevant to many bloggers given the popularity of RSS means more people never visit a blog)

For more on Web Hot or Not, check out ParisLemon, who’s excited about the comment feature, and Mashable, which asks if Web Hot or Not’s ratings could someone be incorporated into Technorati. TechCrunch points out there are similar sites to Web Hot or Not already in existence, including CommandShift3.

Note: This post was updated after Martin Varsavsky made it clear that Web Hot or Not is a spoof site created by FON Labs following a conversation he and Sifry had.

Technorati Tags: David Sifry, Technorati

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