Category: Uncategorized

There Are No More “Dot Coms”

At least, there shouldn't be. We've passed that era. Any business of scale and worthy of going public, as LinkedIn did today in spectacular style, isn't a dotcom. It's a real business, with significant impact in several important markets. In LinkedIn's case, those markets include publishing, recruitment, and professional…

Screen shot 2011-05-19 at 7.48.53 PM.png

At least, there shouldn’t be. We’ve passed that era. Any business of scale and worthy of going public, as LinkedIn did today in spectacular style, isn’t a dotcom. It’s a real business, with significant impact in several important markets. In LinkedIn’s case, those markets include publishing, recruitment, and professional services. So what if they are leveraged over a digital platform that has a “.com” address? At this point, that’s pretty much the entire US economy, not to mention a significant percentage of the “rest of the world.”

I’m tired of the easy comparisons to the dotcom bubble. They simply aren’t accurate.

15 Comments on There Are No More “Dot Coms”

SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER

Stay up to date on the latest from BattelleMedia.com

What Makes Your Business Special?

As I've told folks on Twitter, I'm a judge in American Express OPEN's "Big Break" program, a Facebook promotion that is offering five worthy small businesses a chance to fly to Facebook HQ and get a complete "business makeover," as well as $20,000 in cash. As someone who has started…

BigBreak.pngAs I’ve told folks on Twitter, I’m a judge in American Express OPEN’s “Big Break” program, a Facebook promotion that is offering five worthy small businesses a chance to fly to Facebook HQ and get a complete “business makeover,” as well as $20,000 in cash.

As someone who has started five or so small businesses, I know the power of a helping hand at the right time, heck, I know the power of just organizing oneself to enter a contest like this. Just doing the work of communicating why your business is worthy of support from someone else is an exercise that can yield benefits all on its own.

And every one of us knows a small business that we love and want to support, I know about ten, in fact. I’ve been telling them about this program, and encouraging them to sign up. I hope you will do the same.

Read More
7 Comments on What Makes Your Business Special?

The Last Week in Signal

Here's the last week in Signal for all you 315,000 or so Searchblog RSS readers (THANK YOU, btw!) Monday Signal: WTF!!! Tuesday Signal: The Best Marketing Conference, Ever Weds. Signal: Google Beats The Android Drum, Microsoft Buys Skype Thursday Signal: It's All Google, But It's Not All Good Friday…

FMsignal-sidebar.gif Here’s the last week in Signal for all you 315,000 or so Searchblog RSS readers (THANK YOU, btw!)

Monday Signal: WTF!!!

Tuesday Signal: The Best Marketing Conference, Ever

Read More
1 Comment on The Last Week in Signal

Initial Web 2 Summit Lineup Announced

Today we announced the first tranche of speakers for this year's Web 2 Summit conference, Oct. 17-19 at the Palace Hotel. It's a great group, but we're really only getting started. I'm mixing up the programming approach quite a bit this year, with no panels and a lot more short,…

Today we announced the first tranche of speakers for this year’s Web 2 Summit conference, Oct. 17-19 at the Palace Hotel. It’s a great group, but we’re really only getting started. I’m mixing up the programming approach quite a bit this year, with no panels and a lot more short, impactful High Order Bits and data visualizations. Right now we have 26 or so speakers confirmed, but I expect we’ll be at nearly three times that by the time we’re done. The program is going to be BANG BANG BANG, not that it dragged in the past….

One new thing I’ll be doing as well is forming an advisory board. More on that soon, but my goal is to gather input on the program from a diverse set of voices. This is something I did way back when we started in 2004, it felt right to do it again.

You’ll notice the lineup has a fair share of the industry heavyweights you might expect me to interview (Steve Ballmer, Dick Costolo, Steven Elop, Michael Dell, etc), as well as some names that perhaps you have not heard of (Intel anthropologist Genevieve Bell, “The Information” author James Gleick, etc.). In the coming months, I’ll be announcing new additions pretty frequently, mainly through Twitter, so if you want to stay on top of them, follow me or the Web 2 Summit handle.

Read More
10 Comments on Initial Web 2 Summit Lineup Announced

Facebook to Take Lead in Display on Web? Hold On…

Today a big story broke across my news feeds: "Facebook set for display ad lead" says one typical headline in the Financial Times. It continues: Facebook’s large user base will make it the world’s largest online display advertising company by revenue this year, overtaking the comparable businesses of Google and…

Today a big story broke across my news feeds: “Facebook set for display ad lead” says one typical headline in the Financial Times. It continues:

Facebook’s large user base will make it the world’s largest online display advertising company by revenue this year, overtaking the comparable businesses of Google and Yahoo, according to analysis published on Tuesday. Enders Analysis, based in London, in a report on Tuesday, forecasts that Facebook will lift its advertising revenues from $1.8bn to $3.5bn in 2011, a rise of 95 per cent. At the same time, Google’s display business – which includes YouTube, the video site, and DoubleClick, its banner network – is expected to rise from $2bn last year to $2.6bn this year …

The comparison makes for great headlines, but I don’t really think it’s apples to apples. First of all, it excludes all of Google’s search advertising, which has been evolving quite rapidly towards a more “display” like look and feel. And secondly, it’s rather hard to tell the difference between Google search ads and Facebook “display” ads. After all, this is what Facebook display ads look like:

Read More
12 Comments on Facebook to Take Lead in Display on Web? Hold On…

Why Data Matters, Another Interesting Signal: Direction Requests

Greg Linden, a friend to the site back when I was writing the first book, is writing more lately, and he's got a great post about Google Maps data that highlights why we've decided to focus on "The Data Frame" for the Web 2 Summit this year. Greg notes…

GMaps Directions.png

Greg Linden, a friend to the site back when I was writing the first book, is writing more lately, and he’s got a great post about Google Maps data that highlights why we’ve decided to focus on “The Data Frame” for the Web 2 Summit this year.

Greg notes that Google has a new signal to which it can pay attention, thanks to Google Maps. And while I’m sure Greg could have figured this out on his own, he didn’t have to, because some Googlers have already published their findings in a paper titled “Hyper-Local, Direction-Based Ranking of Places.”

Read More
5 Comments on Why Data Matters, Another Interesting Signal: Direction Requests

Building A New Map And I Need Your Help: What Are The Key Categories of Data In Today’s Network Economy?

Many of you probably remember the "Points of Control" Web 2 Summit Map from last year, it was very well received. Hundreds of thousands of folks came to check it out, and the average engagement time was north of six minutes per visitor. It was a really fun way…

Map 2010.png

Many of you probably remember the “Points of Control” Web 2 Summit Map from last year, it was very well received. Hundreds of thousands of folks came to check it out, and the average engagement time was north of six minutes per visitor. It was a really fun way to make the conference theme come to life, and given the work that went into its creation, we thought it’d be a shame to retire it simply because Web 2 has moved on to a new theme.

As I posted last week, this year’s theme is “The Data Frame.” From my updated verbiage describing the theme:

Read More
27 Comments on Building A New Map And I Need Your Help: What Are The Key Categories of Data In Today’s Network Economy?

Last Weeks Worth of Signal

Quite a week, Signal wise. Here are the highlights: Monday Signal: Baraka Flocka On Fire » « Friday Signal: A Regal Yawner « Thursday Signal: Stop Waiting for Superman, He's Left The Country « Weds. Signal: Hold Yer Horses! « Tuesday Signal: Who's God Now, Data? « Monday Signal: Summer's…

Quite a week, Signal wise. Here are the highlights:FMsignal-sidebar.gif

Monday Signal: Baraka Flocka On Fire »

« Friday Signal: A Regal Yawner

Read More
2 Comments on Last Weeks Worth of Signal

Set The Data Free, And Value Will Follow

(NB: Much has been written and said on this topic, and this post is in no way complete. We'll be exploring this issue and many others related to data at the Web 2 Summit this Fall). Perhaps the largest problem blocking our industry today is the retardation of consumer-driven…

foreign_coins.jpg

(NB: Much has been written and said on this topic, and this post is in no way complete. We’ll be exploring this issue and many others related to data at the Web 2 Summit this Fall).

Perhaps the largest problem blocking our industry today is the retardation of consumer-driven data sharing. We’re all familiar with the three-year standoff between Google and Facebook over crawling and social graph data. Given the rise of valuable mobile data streams (and subsequent and rather blinkered hand wringing about samesaid) this issue is getting far worse.

Read More
4 Comments on Set The Data Free, And Value Will Follow