Category Archives: Web

Advertising 2.0

I enjoy reading Jason Calacanis. Sometimes he’s insightful. Sometimes he’s just giving everyone else the finger. The tricky part is figuring out which posts are which.

Is there enough money in advertising to sustain Web 2.0? Is Calacanis right, or is he just poking the Web 2.0 naysayers in the eye?

Many companies failed in the 2000-2002 period because advertising revenue didn’t materialize. My last internet startup, Abuzz, didn’t succeed because the advertising dollars in the business plan didn’t appear in reality. 2006 is different from 2000. I can’t decide if it’s different enough.

Presidential Speeches, Visually

A friend pointed me to this site.  It has a series of US Presidents’ speechs and papers presented in the “cloud” display.

I think it’s interesting how “treaty” comes and goes, while “tribe” disappears.   Unemployment shows up where you’d think it would, in the 30’s and late 70’s.  And Clinton sure talked about welfare a lot.  It’s an interesting study.

YouTube

Is it 1999 all over again, with money chasing ideas without a viable business model? Or a brilliant move towards dominating the next generation of media?  Quote via the New York Times: “If you believe it’s the future of television, it’s clearly worth $1.6 billion,” Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said of YouTube. “If you believe something else, you could write down maybe it’s not worth much at all.”  Not much more to say than that.  We’ll have to wait and see.

Variations, Tabblo, TechCrunch, and the first 113,000 users

Marshall Kirkpatrick of TechCrunch did a writeup of Tabblo today. It was quite positive.

He was particularly focused on our new “variations” feature. With that feature, one author can permit other authors to make a copy and “riff” on the original. For instance, check out my tabblo of Spy Pond Sunsets. There are a ton of photos there, and it is really busy. Say you think a couple of the photos are great, but you think I’ve made something that is too busy and cluttered. You can click the “variations” link (be sure to be logged in, or you can’t see the link). You can then start with my tabblo, but make it your own. I encourage you to do this – it’s a great way to get a feel for what our website can do.

This really points out one of the challenges we’re facing with Tabblo. We’re getting excellent reviews and return visits from people who actually try to make a tabblo. The trick, we find, is getting them to give it that first try. When they just look at it (or hear about it), they don’t necessarily get it. But once we get them clicking at it a bit, they see the usefulness. You can see that in the comments on TechCrunch: off-the-cuff negativity followed by positive reviews from people who tried it.

So, what does this new press mean for Tabblo? It’s positive, to be sure, but it’s not going to change our world. Brad Feld’s analysis of the effects of a press hit is a great read. (I am amused to note that the “10,000 user” question had already become the 53,651 user question in May, and today TechCrunch boasts 113,000 subscribers).

TechCrunch is a good review, and I’m glad to have it. But we have to build our business a user at a time. We have to win over the moms, the dads, the friends, the co-workers, the event organizers, and the gift givers with one good experience after another. We’re not going to build our business because 113,000 geeks checked us out on a September afternoon.