Monthly Archives: April 2004

The Net rewrote the rules for books, music and travel. Business week says six more industries are ripe for the picking: jewelry, bill payments, telecom, hotels, real estate, and software. Continue reading →

Contradicting my speculation, Phillip Swann says Tivo will not die.

Meanwhile, Gordon over at Venturepenuer links to one of my posts on Google, and I still say from a business standpoint, Google would probably be better off remaining a private company. Continue reading →

If I were a Google rival, I would be praying everyday that the company would issue an IPO.

Being a publicly traded company doesn’t outright kill innovation, but it creates powerful currents against it, along with a host of pressures to take short cuts to profits.

I actually think going public is a huge mistake for Google. They don’t need the cash infusion. I don’t see what Google has to gain by an IPO. Continue reading →

For Google watchers, Business Week has three worthwhile pieces. Start here, then here, then here.

I think I like the company-line answer on whether it would be fair for Microsoft to bundle search with the desktop? “We don’t have an opinion on that. Search is a very big space.”

I think these guys are very smart about the nature of competition. It isn’t about monopolies or leveraged advantages. It’s about understanding your customers, the jobs they want to get done, and coming up with better solutions. Google will compete with Microsoft just fine, I predict, regardless of what Microsoft does. I don’t expect to see Google dragging Bill Gates into court.

One other thought: I don’t understand all of this hand wringing about Gmail. It’s ain’t a privacy issue. If you sign up for a service to that scans your mail, you’ve knowingly surrendered that corner of your private world. It’s you’re choice, and it’s none of the damn business of privacy advocates if you make that choice. This is about the biggest non-controversy on the Web since Netscape introduced the FONT tag.

If that’s still not enough Google for you, here’s more Google news from Google News. Continue reading →

You know, I’ve never been able to decide when to date the beginning of this blog. Was it April 14, 2002 when I made my first post — but was available only on my desktop while I still developed the site? Or was it a week later when I finally went public.

Either way, I’ve been at this infernal addiction for two years now. Continue reading →

Where Apple built a better computer, but lost out to more modular and less expensive IBM-compatible machines, Tivo’s superior user experience may not be able to hold off the lower-price and convinience consumers get when they sign up for DVR service from their existing cable companies. A great user interface, as Apple learned, isn’t enough to stave off competition at a lower price point.

There are some signs that Tivo execs understand this, but is it too late for Tivo to move away from a properietary software model? Some investors think so.

To put this in the terms of Clayton Christensen, where Tivo has been a disruptive technology relative to traditional television, the cable companies are disruptive to Tivo with a “good enough” service at an attractive price. For the cable companies, it’s also a sustaining business model — improving service for its best customers. And as Christensen would note — established companies win sustaining battles with start ups every time.

Apple survived serving a niche market and with a cult aura. But there could also be some very different dynamics at play. For example, there is no evil empire gunning for Tivo the way Microsoft went after Apple, so the Tivo cult may not be as energized, and therefore more readily switch to another product when other services eventually become as good as Tivo. On the other end, nobody ever “Mac’d” a spreadsheet they way consumers “Tivo’d” “The West Wing.” The word “Tivo” may have permenantly entered our lexicon for DVRing in a way that will survive the company. Unfortunately, there’s no money in a great brand name if there’s no product to leverage it. Continue reading →

For fans of Innovator’s Solution, a blog.

I’m just starting to uncover the “innovator’s web” … seems like there’s a lot of good resources out there, and some interesting perspectives.

For those of you who don’t know what all this is about … think “Moneyball” for business geeks. There’s a lot of paralles between the two books … it’s all about efficiency, using information that matters (OBP — jobs people need done) and ignoring information that doesn’t (BA — technology for technology’s sake, i.e. CueCat), and relying very little on the professional, grey-beard scouts.

UDPATE: I’ve changed my mind a bit about the blog I link to above … though I initially found it based on a post about the book, and read some other stuff related to the book, digging further into it today, there’s a lot of stuff that is more “old scout” thinking than “moneyball” thinking on the blog, including a link to a really fuzzy-headed post from another blogger on how all future innovation is going to be driven by female-cultured, flat, collectivist teams. Continue reading →

I’m excited. My homestead is now wireless.

As I write, I’m in the living room with my new HP laptop connected to my Netgear wireless router. This isn’t my first wireles post, though. That honor belongs to post before last, about Kevin. That was made on a train between San Diego and Ventura using my SprintPCS Handspring Treo 300.

BTW: Now we know why the anti-war crowd was so upset when US troops allegedly protected the Oil Ministry. It stopped the records of bribe payments from being destroyed. Continue reading →