Tag archives: google

Advertising in a new world

Posted by lramella on Wednesday, 25 February 2009

I’ve been doing some recent thinking about advertising – in particular, I’ve been thinking about how slow the advertising world has been to adapt to the new realities of media.  This thought is of course incredibly troubling as media at its core is an ad-supported business.  I fundamentally believe that advertisers have not figured out how to solve this new media “problem” and remain tied to the idea that traditional advertising can continue to deliver big results.  

Advertisers need to start thinking “out of the box” about the best way to reach consumers online – as Susan Wojcicki, VP, Product Management at Google put it in her great post, advertisers need to start “getting the right ad to the right person at the right time.”  This makes all the difference.  I’ll let Susan and her post take it from here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/ad-perfect.html.  - Leah

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More less is more or simply less: initial impressions of Google Chrome

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Wednesday, 3 September 2008

Who needs another browser? I didnt think anyone, really. I have been quite happy with Firefox as an alternative to IE. IE remains for the few sites such as Intuit or some government sites that refuse to play nice with all browsers. Safari showed up one day via an “iTunes Update” – huh? No-likey the software or the distribution approach.

And then Google throws its hat into the ring. My first impression – its not a browser, its more of a desktop. And its simple. So simple. It does seem that less is more. Or that simply less is less and thats just fine. Oh yes, it is fast – like a stripped down race-car. So far I like it and I think the recommendation/most used/recently bookmarked (needs to tie into Delicious to be useful)/search start page is going to be quite useful as a default view. 

If I stop using Excel and Word, I probably wont need my old desktop . Come to think of it, I may not need an OS. I’ll just use the (Google) cloud for everything.  So soon, I can probably give up my iPhone for an Android, too.

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Top 40 Products and Services

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Thursday, 19 June 2008

I remember growing up with the top 40 count down in South Africa. Each weekend, “the worlds best music” would be counted down from 40 to 1.

I was happy to re-encounter the idea in “The Word of Mouth Manual: Vol.II“. And so I thought is would be interesting to see what products and services are on my Top 40.

The order isnt important, because the process is a little lumpy. I seem to get stuck on themes and then recall related stuff. I am sure some cognitive, neural science folks know why this is. So the point is, I removed the numbers.

I left out media – news, books, music, games, etc. Just made the list cleaner. Of course, the book that inspired the post, is implicitly on the list. Clever. I filtered out clients and investments…we can discuss another time, why.

Right.

So here goes:

  • Apple TV – I dont have cable anymore (Berlin Schooler’s reading this will roll their eyes. ok). Everyone at home can use it, including Max. I discovered video podcasts on the big screen from people like TED and NYTimes and Monocle (ok, no more media).
  • Time Warner – happily not paying for cable anymore. But thanks for pretty reliable internet.
  • WordPress - I talked about why I moved TO WordPress.
  • Typepad - …and away from Typepad.
  • Lego - I have liked these little blocks since I recall liking stuff (and now other little plastic pieces and computers and electronics).
  • iPhone - for mixed reasons. I was excited and as things begin to fail (like parts of the screen are unresponsive to touch), I am giving Blackberry or Samsung a look again.
  • Dell - still one of the best PCs and just never been convinced that Macs are any better, particularly since now I seem to do most work in a browser with the exception of Excel.
  • Bruder - not sure who likes these toy trucks more – me or Max.
  • Twitter - I dont know why. I guess I like what I call the “Cosmo Kramer Effect” – i.e. someone just flinging open the door and saying something dumb, funny, timely etc.
  • Basecamp - its just useful and simple and better than anything else I have used, until Google comes up with an alternative or buys it or rips it off.
  • Nikon D40 – shutter speed
  • Wii - all sorts of things, but mainly inclusive, so I dont have to feel anti-social. Even non-gamers can have a go.
  • ZipCar - the joys of non-ownership and having a Mini or a Element or a convertible or you-get-the-idea.
  • Woodstock, NY – cant put my finger on it, but always enjoy going
  • Google - Apps, Reader, Search, Trends, Maps, its just open all day long being used in new and interesting ways.
  • Karyodong Bakery – the home of perfect bread
  • Coffee Shop – breakfast central on Union Square
  • Wikipedia - feels like part of Google, but I recognize it is its own thing
  • Lotus Exige – I cant say this as well as Top Gear and this is the only car missing from the ZipCar line-up I might be willing to buy.
  • Burton - have my board and an assortment of jackets and love the idea of a banker being let go and coming back to start an awesome company. I guess Bloomberg has a similar story.
  • Nike Plus - I dont use it, because I dont run. But I still want it.
  • Denuo - they are doing interesting work at the intersection of advertising, new media, etc. And as I meet more people there, I like them even more.
  • Sequoia Capital – they may not want to work with me, yet , but I still think that are the best of the best.
  • Microsoft - still hopeful, but slowly shedding their wares. Down to Excel as my only must have.
  • Berlin School of Creative Leadership – a brave new forray into executive education and I am really enjoying being back at school.
  • Alternative Energy – can I include Nuclear (I dont think its evil)? These just make more sense that current energy options, even if I rely on others to do the math.
  • Jeff Jarvis – Jeff deserves special mention because I keep mentioning him and his ideas.
  • Bazaarvoice - a little obsessed with reviews, as I have mentioned and so keep wanting to include these folks in my projects.
  • Springwise - constant list of good, new stuff. Special mention to PSFK, too, but sometimes overwhelmed by their twittering.
  • MIT - still the home of some of the smartest people I know, who also happen to give a damn about humanity.
  • Obama - hopeful in all ways.
  • Brazil - the country of the future and hopefully we are nearing the future soon. We’ll have to live there for a bit at some point.
  • Amazon - Prime and Proud.
  • Ikea - I almost forgot! Whether its hacking from pieces of furniture or just using it as it was designed.
  • New York City – still the center of the world.
  • Seamlessweb - do people actually call to order food, still?
  • Fresh Direct – cant live without. Almost literally.
  • Newegg - still my first stop to find out what is best in all of electronics land. Blogs, etc are second to the user reviews. Thanks everyone.
  • Havaianas – would wear them all the time if Andrea let me.

I am sort of amazed, ashamed, proud and confused but the brands that are top of mind for me at the moment. Its not scientific, but interesting nonetheless.

What’s on your list?

Update: I need to add Skype somewhere and BitTorrent. See – the themes again. Also, Method should be here, but for some reason, i always feel wierd about talking about clearning products. If this was Andrea’s list, it would have made the cut.

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Analyzing Your Relationships

Posted by Shaun Abrahamson on Wednesday, 4 June 2008

How we interact with others, is increasingly under the microscope. In 1996 when I set out to write a thesis, I spent some time looking at IBM research which was analyzing e-mail communications. Who was talking with whom, to try understand various dynamics of communications in the enterprise. It looked interesting then and a few companies seemed to appear and disappear around this theme.

At the core of Google’s success, was the understanding of how to interpret the excellent work which people do when creating links between content. If you havent seen it, best to check out “Anatomy of a … Search Engine”.

Today, in addition to the links, we are generating enormous amounts of data as a byproduct of our communications. And companies are emerging to attempt to make sense of it. Where existing analytics focuses and WHAT people are doing on a site, the new tools enable us to understand WHO people are interacting with. And this has some interesting implications. Following are a few examples:

Daylife – keeps making news analysis more interesting. And recently unveiled some demonstrations of just how useful their analysis can be in the form of “social graphs” and other interesting analysis tools. My favorite is quite simple – for a given phrase or topic, figure out which news organizations or journalists are providing coverage. PR 2.0? We like. Some examples for: social graph, obama, mccain, wii fit.

Pluribo – is being very secretive of late. However, they have already demonstrated some of their potential to understand and interpret user opinions. Part of the process involves identifying more influential and reliable contributors. And so we expect, that part of this will show up in the form of affinities between contributors and categories, between contributors and one another, etc. Sorry they are back in stealth mode, so no examples.

SocialAmp – is providing a new view into interactions on social networks. They have created a rating systems to indicate how “influential” users are, for example. While most of the talk seems to be around advertising, some recognize the inherent value of conversations. It looks like Social Amp may be arriving at a Page Rank equivalent for social networks. Much like in the real world, people need cues as they work the room – Social Amp may have one social networks.

Flickr - Interestingness seems like something which might come out of a Monty Python piece, but it more than just clever naming. Flickr doesnt go into much detail about how this works, but there are plenty of speculators who build on their hints. The end result is that without knowing anything about the photos, Flickr is able to identify the most interesting ones by studying interaction.

While some focus on the loss of privacy, I think it is fascinating to think about how much we are able to learn from simply observing the byproducts of communications. Hopefully its good for business, but more importantly, perhaps we’ll understand one another a little better.

Disclosure: we are investors in both Daylife and Pluribo.

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