Earlier this morning, it became public that in July Google purchased Andriod, a company which makes mobile software for mobile phones. While there is little known about the company or the transaction, I have a couple quick thoughts and reactions:
• Between this acquisition and that of Ubiquity Labs, it is now obvious that Google has its sights directly set on the mobile platform as a next frontier. To me, it is clear this event is just another recognition of the fact that mobile phones are rising to become an integral personal media device (PMD) with functionality and uses far beyond just two-way conversation.
• This acquisition is just another in a chain of Google and Yahoo cherry-picking small pre-significant-funding startups. I, along with others, have wondered if there is new model for startups in the post-bubble era (see my earlier post). The counter argument, of course, is that News Corp is looking for acquisitions with very deep pockets – and a willingness to use them. The difference, it seems, is that while Yahoo and Google are buying innovation and engineering talent, Murdoch is potentially buying an empire. These two dissimilar strategies of Internet company acquirers are providing ripe exit strategies for startups regardless of size and stage.

With search becoming increasingly verticalized, I am seeing both the need and demonstration not just of searching within a specific domain, but also ranking results along multiple dimensions in that domain. For example, Indeed lets me search for positions with certain job titles, as well as identify how recently those jobs have been posted. Blinkx.tv has a great slider-bar feature that lets me shift between the importance of date and relevance in ranking my results. It even lets me toggle the sources of video content. Kayak has similar slider-bars allowing me to sort through flights easily by time-window.
But I (and mabye others?) want even more. As we become more sophisticated in what we are searching for, we should be able to toggle and sort though the dimensions of what is most important to us. For blog searches, sometimes I want to ensure that I read something with strong authority, sometimes I want to read something with the utmost timeliness, and sometimes I want to read something with highly dense mentions of a certain topic.
Google’s PageRank philosophy worked well in identifying the most relevant static pages. But as we are continuing to move towards the Incremental Web, perhaps the criteria for determining the best given search result is multidimensional rather than one-dimensional – and easily changeable by the user.

Starting before it, but increasingly so after the MySpace acquisition last month, we at Masthead have seen an inordinate amount of companies pitching web services with a foundation on “user-generated content.” I personally believe that there is a lot of opportunity in user-generated content – we just invested in Intercasting, for example, which enables it on mobile phones. But a careful filter needs to be run through all of the companies out there screaming the buzz-word du jour.
All Content is Not Created Equal. First, different applications and different vertical subject areas have different users who are supposed to create the content. And there are many reasons why people generate content in the first place. For some, it is for intrinsic rewards, like a positive feeling of contribution for sharing and a sense of connecting with others. For others, the rewards are intangible and external, as many blog authors are seeking fame and recognition. And in some cases, like on Helium Knowledge, the rewards are explicit, tangible, and external ¬– there users get paid to contribute. For every vertical, the rewards must be sufficient in the area to match the user’s motivation to contribute. This “why” of user-generated content is extremely important, as it is paramount that the content itself contains value.
Size Matters. User-generated content can come in all shapes and sizes – from microcontent (text snippets, photos, and location information) to full-length (podcasts, vcasts, essays/articles, etc.). Does the type of content that users are going to generate match the type that they want to consume? How much of a critical mass of content is required before the system or offering as a whole delivers tangible value? In some cases, a tiny bit of info is immediately beneficial for the user, but in other cases it is not. (ex: Perhaps a wiki of all scientific formulas is much less valuable without a strong set of them in the compilation?)
Build it and they Will Come? Just because users can create a collection of content, it doesn’t mean that it is in turn valuable to consume it. Some areas of subject matter require certain authority to support the material. Trusting the source is imperative in nearly all types of information. So while end-users bear great authority on TripAdvisor, in some non-consumer applications they do not. There is a reason why people turn to experts in many cases for information – they’re the ones who know better.
User-generated content is indeed valuable, and I think that there is tremendous opportunity for significant innovation and investment in this arena. But professional content-generation – “traditional” media – is not going away anytime soon. All types of information out there should not be user-generated. The dimensions enumerated above (along with many other characteristics) must match both the producers’ and consumers’ needs when they are one in the same. So yes, there are certain applications where user-generated content makes a lot of sense; but there are many verticals and applications (especially outside the consumer arena) where content creation should be left to the professionals.

Yesterday, Masthead Venture Partners, along with syndicate partner Avalon Ventures, announced an initial Series A investment in InterCasting Corporation.
The company’s vision is to “enable the mobile media network revolution” by becoming the “first Location-Aware Media Networking Operator (LMNO) providing applications for personal mobile devices.” InterCasting has already launched its first application, Rabble, currently available on Verizon and soon on many other carriers’ handsets. Rabble is part blogging, part location-based personal networking application that connects individuals in a unique and intuitive way by turning “users” into “producers” with mobile user-generated content. And this product is just the beginning – as they are building a platform to create markets for many types of user-generated location-aware mobile content.
Working with both Rich Levandov and Brady Bohrmann here at Masthead, along with Steve Tomlin at Avalon, I’ve been closely involved with the deal. And like I outlined with our NewsGator investment in April, I wanted to highlight why I personally like this company and the investment in it. In short, I believe that InterCasting is at a unique intersection of “the right time & place” with “the right people to do it.”

The right time and place. There are numerous converging trends that position this company in a unique situation. First, the company is riding the wave of the mobile phone’s transformation towards a fully integrated personal media device (PMD, as the company calls it). In addition, the rise of user-generated content as a viable mode of self-expression and information gathering, while greatly proliferating on the web, is still in its infancy in the mobile space. The introduction and of location-aware meta-data through location based services (LBS) likely later this year will also have a profound affect on mobile applications and content. And finally, the potential opening of carrier platforms because of alternative data sources and the increased acceptance of social networks as viable personal introduction & connection source also provide support for our investment thesis. Each of the previous trends plays a vital role in determining “why” this opportunity is distinctive and exciting, along with establishing the reason “why now.”
The right people to do it. Both founders, Shawn Conahan and Derrick Oien, have a true drive and passion for the business. Shawn is a real visionary to lead the company, as evidenced by the thoughtful and articulate writings on the InterCasting blog. As President of Moviso, Shawn built the company into the largest ringtone provider in North America before it was sold to InfoSpace in 2003. Derrick is equally as impressive, with a successful track record of building and running growth media business. He was both President of VUnetUSA (a division Vivendi Universal) and COO of MP3.com, leading to its sale. One testament to their ability to execute is the fact that they were able to fully develop and launch a mobile application while still in bootstrapping mode.
The perennial venture capital discussion is whether to bet on the right market or the right team. Sometimes this tradeoff is really a false dichotomy, when both are outstanding, as I believe it is in this case. There are number of exciting opportunities emerging in the mobile space, and I believe that the InterCasting ship has the wind against its back with a great crew.

Slashdot reported today that Google is not talking to CNET until July 2006 in protest over an article published by the online publication which included personal information about Google CEO Eric Schmidt. I’ll leave the comments about the validity of each side’s argument to others, but I wanted to highlight something which John Battelle picked up in his reaction, “that a search engine never gives a full or necessarily accurate picture of the person.”
The original CNET article uses Schmidt’s publicly-available information as a sensational teaser, but then goes on to explain that the more potentially dangerous situation is the information that Google collects and doesn’t make public. While I understand why that is a concern, I believe that the dissemination of partial and incremental already public information is a greater threat in the near term. There are many public relations controls that will inhibit a highly visible company like Google from grossly misusing the information that they posses.
But personal publicly available information is not only becoming easier to retrieve, but also more widely available. Yes, search engines have exposed a set of information that was available previously, but would have been cumbersome to practically seek out. As we move further along in Web 2.0, new technologies will make this issue increasingly salient. Perhaps everything available about you online will soon be tagged with your name on del.icio.us (as George Bush is today). Or any photo taken of you could be found on Flickr. The rise of user-generated content opens the possibility a wealth of potential information about someone – perhaps out-of-context or misrepresented – available to anyone with a few keystrokes and clicks of the mouse.
In previous post entitled Knowing Your (Incremental) Online Reputation, I made that case that “your online reputation does matter, and I’d argue it will increasingly do so.” Today’s concern originated over personal information about a celebrity CEO; tomorrow’s could be over non-famous people with an incomplete or inaccurate online presence.

Yesterday Jupitermedia sold its SearchEngineWatch.com and SearchEngine Strategies show to UK-based for Incisive Media $43M in cash. CEO Alan Meckler outlines his reasoning in his blog stating that it was the most effective way to raise cash for future acquisitions given that he views his stock price as undervalued.
Rafat Ali of paidcontent.org wonders,

“They have a saying in our circles: When Alan Meckler sells, you know the market is at its peak. Meckler is the king of timing, and has always sold his companies at the right time. Does that mean people should get out of search? Just a thought…”

Hmm… I sincerely believe that there is still additional upside in search, but Rafat raises a very interesting counter-perspective to ponder.

Last week, Forrester released a number of reports on RSS for marketers. One of the notions that emerged from the study was that “only 2% of all online households were ‘using RSS.’” WebWatch at Silicon.com picked up on this fact and published a quick piece entitled RSS: 98 per cent of Surfers Shun It:

“If only they loved it as much as the marketers. While news sites and bloggers are getting hot under the collar about RSS, it seems hardly anyone else is.”

The spin on this story is completely misleading. Charlene Li identifies that the number doesn’t “include all the people who may be using RSS (for example, through My Yahoo!) and don’t realize it.” She’s absolutely right and this point should be re-emphasized. I wonder if you asked a set of U.S. households if they were currently using SMTP – would even come close to actual e-mail penetration?
That is not to say that there aren’t issues here – one problem is that subscribing to RSS feeds isn’t always easy. This difficulty has likely inhibited the growth of general adoption of RSS-enabled blog and news reading. But the misconception should be cleared up that RSS isn’t just for blogs, news, and marketing materials. It’s a technology that enables and facilitates the syndication of all types of content. Yes, the implementation of applications on top of it are a little raw right now, but the power underneath it is still emerging.
According to Dictionary.com, The American Heritage Dictionary defines “shun” as “To avoid deliberately; keep away from.”
Consumers aren’t deliberately avoiding RSS – they are both still learning about and using it without even realizing it.

Every entrepreneur is a first-time entrepreneur once.
How do VCs, then, evaluate first-time entrepreneurs? How can they garner the confidence to place both their money and time in someone who hasn’t started a company before?
Of course, investors look at other past experiences as both a signal and substitute for an entrepreneurial endeavor.
A friend of mine at another firm told me that they also explicitly look for one intangible quality. For every entrepreneur who comes in to pitch they ask the question, “Does he know what he doesn’t know?”
Yes, entrepreneurs know the information that they know. It is this experience and comprehension that guides them, and gives them inspiration. But what about the information that they don’t know? Are they aware of their lack of knowledge in a certain area? Or are they (blissfully) ignorant of it?
“Knowing what you don’t know” means understanding where your knowledge-set is limited. If often suggests asking for help, guidance, and additional information when it is needed. This quality doesn’t preclude someone from being confident; quite the opposite, it demonstrates self-assurance to understand your own shortcomings and seeking assistance when appropriate rather than act upon a loose foundation of information.
Venture capitalists want to be assured that their money is in knowledgeable hands. But they also want to know that those hands will look to others when they aren’t fully capable. It is much better to admit that one doesn’t know something than to act blindly without it. And it takes a special person to even realize and perceive when an area of understanding is lacking.
You know what you know, but do you know what you don’t know?

Every entrepreneur is a first-time entrepreneur once.
How do VCs, then, evaluate first-time entrepreneurs? How can they garner the confidence to place both their money and time in someone who hasn’t started a company before?
Of course, investors can look at other past experiences as both a signal and substitute for an entrepreneurial endeavor. And strong domain expertise is always a plus, often a must-have.
A friend of mine at other firm told me that they also explicitly look for one intangible quality. For every entrepreneur who comes in to pitch they ask the question, “Does he know what he doesn’t know?”
Yes, entrepreneurs know the information that they know. It is this experience and comprehension that guides them, and gives them inspiration. But what about the information that they don’t know? Are they aware of their lack of knowledge in a certain area? Or are they (blissfully) ignorant of it?
“Knowing what you don’t know” means understanding when to ask for help, guidance, and additional information when it is needed. It doesn’t preclude someone from being confident; quite the opposite, it demonstrates a self-assurance to ask for assistance when appropriate rather than act upon a loose foundation of information.
Venture capitalists want to be assured that their money is in knowledgeable hands. But they also want to know that those hands will look to others when they aren’t fully capable. It is much better to admit that one doesn’t know something than to act blindly without it. And it takes a special person to even realize and perceive when an area of understanding is lacking.
You know what you know, but do you know what you don’t know?

I usually prefer to read blog summaries as opposed to watching full webcasts of conference sessions, but I spent time today watching the “Smartphone 2010” panel from the AlwaysOn conference last week.
My favorite comments were made by Trip Hawkins, Founder of Digital Chocolate and EA. He made the point about historical monetization of media types – that “social network” media (e.g. traditional phones) has consistently garnered around 10x in monthly revenues per user than traditional non-connected media types. The figures are debatable, but the substance of his argument is in his conclusion.
He maintains that the highest value media types on mobile phones are going to be ones that “provide access to a social network.” As such, Trip views the mobile phone moving forward as a “social computer.” The applications that connect people in some way are the ones which will drive real value.
This notion takes my thoughts about the mobile camera phone as a portable input device one step further. It’s not just about creating user-generating content, but also sharing it to connect with others. The devices, platforms, and applications which help facilitate the creation of this media and the connections stemming from it are going to be extremely valuable.
Until now my mobile telephone has been a two-way radio capable of playing a few mildly-amusing games and taking a few crude pictures. It is now becoming a portable input & connecting device initiating meaningful connections with people I know and people I don’t yet know.
In my last post on the subject, I asked if the mobile phone is the new mouse. Yes, it certainly is a new input device, but the fact that it is a connecting device is potentially even more important.