Thoughts on tech, venture capital and current trends
- Wi-fi and more Google Gears
Despite all the April fools jokes that I could be posting and commenting on ( see Google’s Gday and the Techcrunch lawsuit) there was some great stuff posted today in the technology realm.
First, allow me to step outside of my regular platform technologies ramblings and discuss some interesting developments in wifi sharing. Personally, arriving at local restaurant or coffee shop and realizing that wifi is either subscription based, locked, or abnormally slow because 150 other people are leeching is extremely frustrating. Thus far, companies appear to be against offering free wifi in several locations and residents in the area naturally keep their networks locked to avoid leeching. Queue, Whisher (possibly a heavy-H for those Family Guy lovers), a service that offers a metered wifi service. This service allows you to charge for use of your wifi connection on a metered basis — by the minute for instance.
Naturally they have also built in a variety of other features including what may turn into location based social networking depending on your wifi location (Twitter updates have already been included).This peaked my interest as we continue to see lackluster municipal wifi offerings and an overall lack of wifi enabled areas that do not demand subscription fees etc. Whisher has already seen some pretty good user acceptance and the model appears to be working for now. Hopefully more locations either 1. offer free wifi (ideal) or 2. take advantage of Whisher-type services and allow users to pay for the time that they actually use.
Second on my interesting releases of note today was the announcement that Google Docs has now been taken offline with the usage of Google Gears (Techcrunch coverage here). Docs continues to improve and although it is not quite there versus Word, this added off line feature is a major plus.
I’ve written about Google Gears before (FOWA 08 talk with Brad Neuberg & Gmail discussion) and really like the idea as it directly relates to the web as a platform. It seems repetitive to keep discussing Gears, but if you have not checked it out, please do so.
- Upgrade complete.
Managed to install 2.5 without destroying all of my previous data and so far I am thoroughly impressed. The administrative back-end has been completely overhauled and is, well, nice. Thus far it seems to be a great deal faster and the system for controlling content, themes, plugins etc. has been reduced, in a good way.
I’ll still be open for thoughts about overhauling the theme and design of the actual blog itself as I feel it could use some work but otherwise I’ll be posting with some real content as soon as I have it…
- 2.5!
About to upgrade to 2.5 so apologies for an interruption in service! Also, thinking about a redesign/new theme, any thoughts on the current one or if a change is needed?
New post tonight or tomorrow as well. Thanks.
- Battle lines being drawn for future platform applications
As we all know, Google Docs has slowly but surely been advancing on Microsoft’s territory and is improving their service over time. Although currently they do not offer the specificity nor quality that the Office Suite does, they are making gains each day and the features that continue to be added are directly linkable to the Office Suite (see article here about new features).
Further, the market has also been producing a wider variety of small startups that are attacking separate portions of the Office Suite and are making gains in their own right. For instance, SlideRocket (article here) has raised a decent amount of funding and has built a viable PowerPoint platform application that really seems to be solid. As more and more of these smaller startups get funding and attack different portions of the desktop application market, we’ll being to see a huge shift in a positive direction.
Granted, most of these smaller startups still have to build a user-base and really prove that their product can offer the same functionality and service as the desktop application they are attempting to replace. However, (queue 800lb gorilla) Adobe released their online version of Photoshop (WSJ article here) , firmly drawing lines in the sand for the battle that will soon ensue. Photoshop, which typically runs about $650 has a huge user-base and with Adobe’s offering of a light version, they are firmly entrenched in the race.
As more major companies begin to expand and offer their services free, or close to it, on web platforms, we’re going to see a major market move and likely some consolidation once the technologies are established. Either way, it should be a great thing for consumers and will continue to provide great investment opportunities for VCs.
- Building an investment thesis
Recently as part of my work with a venture capital firm here in Indy (PSVF), I was tasked with developing my own personal investment thesis. This task was largely focused on finding out what areas of investment I would consider to be my expertise and as such, which ones I would be able to make better investments in than other VCs in various areas. I spent a decent amount of time thinking about this and, not surprisingly, focused in on the IT services/web as a platform type investment areas as possible candidates. From here I spent some time reading various other VC blogs and notes on the topic and really came to like some of the posts I was reading from The Foundry Group and Fred Wilson’s Union Square Ventures. In light of that, I wrote up two separate versions of my investment thesis and the one I liked most is as follows:
Summing up an investment thesis can be quite difficult, especially given the incredible array of innovation occurring in all industries today. Nevertheless, Union Square Ventures seemed to put in best when noting that “We believe that when it comes to start up investing, success is dependent on understanding the forces shaping a developing market more than knowing the trade of investing.” In that light, my focus has developed into one of information technology. Specifically, I have come to develop an intricate understanding of web trends, especially those that cater to web as a platform for applications in the future. Although I do not strictly look at platform-type technologies, I feel that investing upon the framework and looking at technologies that might eventually play in that space is important. Web technologies are continually changing the face of business, media, entertainment, and life and as such, investments that can further develop those ideas will continually be able to reap substantial returns for years to come.
From here, I had the overlordPaul take a look at it for feedback purposes. After some chatting he managed to add some extra zest to the idea and really began to focus on future technologies that will actually change IT infrastructure. Long story short, I am constantly working on this thesis an moving slightly away from strictly web as a platform etc. and will be building in various other industry trends. Stay tuned for an updated version sometime in the future…(edit: Obligatory nerd/overused theme pic since text can get boring!)
- To API or not to API
As I finish these last few weeks of school I am also undertaking two separate projects with some colleagues from Indy. One project (writerespond.com) has turned into more of a time-filler/learn how to do cool things type project and the other is looking very promising but as of yet, confidential. In light of that we have been faced with some interesting decisions along the way. Of those, one that consistently pops into my mind is the API development question. I know when we attended FOWA 2008, Leah Culver noted that her biggest mistake was NOT releasing an API with the initial Pownce release. However, although it may have alienated some of the developer community, it probably allowed them some time to actually develop a worthwhile tool before release.
On the other hand, when you look at say, Twitter, and the ridiculous amount of third-party applications that have been developed thus far, the value-added of an API is immense from the start. Just today there was a great Techcrunch article about Quotably (link here) and I have to admit that it was really nice to use and made following my @replys a lot easier. I am also an avid user of Twhirl and other Air clients and a few other Twitter search/organization clients.
Thus, the question of whether or not to release an API with the initial (non-beta) version of an app is an important one. I am hoping we make the right choice and I’m guessing we’ll release one, at least for our fun project. Feel free to @me on twitter (cstobbs) about the topic or leave some comments here.
- Could it be? More web-platform reading.
Well, since I seem to be obsessed with talking about web as a platform I thought I’d just throw up a link for the reading I’m currently doing. Check out Mozilla Prism (their version of a desktop-to-web application). Seems pretty cool so far and is a nice alternative to Air or others.
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Prism
- Web services continue to trend in a useful direction
This week seemed slightly slow on tech related news items that really peaked my interest and I was really struggling for good material to cover. Yes, there were some cool things happening but really, I didn’t grasp on to any particular story and really say “wow, that’s cool” until well, today. Today Amazon opened up its fufillment API and will begin offering its amazing fufilment services alongside its other web services S2 and E3 (article here).
For me, this a major move towards creating an entire suite of online services that truly add value to businesses. I typically dwell on web as a platform (turning into an investment thesis) and this move, amongst many others, serves as reinforcement for that trend. As services continue to migrate to the web, we see less and less need for programs that run natively on the desktop. For instance, with this new service, developers will be able to create systems that rival those fufillment systems currently being used and will be able to substantially save their companies money on often outrageous licensing fees. As web applications continue to trend in the direction of useful and essential business process replacements, web as a platform should slowly take hold. Although neat little Air apps like Twhirl or online development tools like Heroku are awesome and progressive, business tools will aid a great deal in driving the revolution.
- Concurrent projects
Quick ( and shameful) post for those of you that follow my ramblings. I am working on a few projects right now with one public and one currently in black-ops mode. Check out writerespond.com or our developers blog @ blog.writerespond.com to keep up with the changes. I’ll have a real post of substance early this week as well.
- Follow-up: Ghosts
Just a quick follow-up to my previous post about Reznor’s release last week. In addition to the $750,000 he made off the $300 versions in day one, Trent managed to bring in $1.6 million for the week. Yet again, this release model (especially for well-known bands) works and should be propagated throughout the music community. This is not to say that money = amount of success but rather that allowing listeners to have options that are not so restricting and completely benefit the artist (not the record company) is paradigm shifting. Also, given that this is the first year NIN has been off their record label, I think we’ll see a lot of great things start popping up that are fully community driven.
