Real VC Might Be The Safest Asset Class Today - ReadWriteWeb (5)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
1 day, 19 hours
ago
permalink
In downturns there is a "flight to safety". Typically you would put Venture Capital (VC) at the risky end, with something like a Money Market Fund at the safe end. Well today even the safest stuff is looking scary, thanks to the games that the financial engineers have been playing. So maybe investing in a real business that disrupts the old order with a fundamentally new value proposition is actually the safest thing to do. ...
Blurb - Doesn't Need VC Lectures (4)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
2 days, 10 hours
ago
permalink
In our search for that rare beast - the profitable VC backed venture - I interviewed Eileen Gittins, the CEO of Blurb. Blurb does Print On Demand publishing for both consumer and professional markets. They compete with Lulu, which announced today that it is "laying off 24 workers at its North Carolina plant because of the slowing economy". That is 25% of their workforce and includes their President. Eileen and I both had the same ...
Amuso: Viral + Monetizable Magic? (8)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
3 days, 2 hours
ago
permalink
I am usually the "enterprise guy", so game shows - the space that Amuso is in - is way off my beat. I explained that to the PR person who persistently tracked me down at Web 2.0 Expo in New York. But I am pleased she persisted. While I still know nothing about game shows (I don't even have a TV at home), there is something intriguing about Amuso at a business model level. Amuso ...
Why Some Traditional Enterprise IT Vendors Are Scared of SaaS (10)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
3 days, 11 hours
ago
permalink
Some traditional enterprise IT vendors are selling the line that SaaS is a passing phase, that it is "old wine in new bottles". They are telling their market that SaaS is really no different from the discredited Web 1.0 Application Service Provider (ASP) model or even that it is simply the ghost of the ancient mainframe Service Bureau come back to haunt us all. This post shows why their analysis is wrong. It also shows ...
JAC shared as favorite What is The Future of Human Powered Search? - ReadWriteWeb (4)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
4 days, 3 hours
ago
permalink
Mahalo popularized the term "human powered search" when they launched just over a year ago. Many of the pitches we get still use that term as part of their positioning. Many of them are bootstrapped, so the price of entry is clearly low. But the upside has not yet been established. In this post we look at the pros and cons of human powered search engines in general, look at some differentiating strategies and ask ...
Where Are The Profitable VC Funded Web 2.0 Startups? (25)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
1 week, 1 day
ago
permalink
Thanks to all who sent in their stories of gritty entrepreneurs. To those who just copied the standard PR spiel with an opening line about "gritty entrepreneurs", please stop! We will be doing some interviews. Right now we are parsing through the incoming stories to classify and spot some trends. The first big question that jumps out is: where are the profitable VC funded web ventures? Sponsor Lots Of Bootstrappers Out There We heard from ...
-
DOCBook Howto said:
Our (i.TV's) #1 motivation, even before VC funding, is to become profitable. We have a plan that we think will allow for that as soon as we launch.
The Great Credit Crisis Swindle - How Entrepreneurs Can Survive it - ReadWriteWeb (21)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
1 week, 4 days
ago
permalink
Seen the headlines recently? These are scary times. Entrepreneurs are far too busy to focus on the mayhem in the markets - and they know that they cannot do anything about it. So the standard response is just to deal with it as a background worry. But some re-assessing of the external market reality can be useful at times like this. I have had lots of calls along the lines of "what the heck is ...
Gritty Entrepreneurs: Jigsaw, a Profitable Web 2.0 Venture (11)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
1 week, 5 days
ago
permalink
To kick off our new Gritty Entrepreneurs interview series, at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York we sat down with Jim Fowler, the Founder and CEO of Jigsaw, a business information and networking service that we noted in our recent review was a complement to LinkedIn rather than a competitor. As we sat sipping espresso in the Starbucks in the lobby, the CNN screen above us told of market mayhem. Ho hum, just another ...
Web 2.0 Gritty Entrepreneurs - ReadWriteWeb (5)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
1 week, 5 days
ago
permalink
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Times are now tougher. Which makes most people head home. The half-hearted entrepreneurs, the wannabes who thought it was going to be easy, the folks with connections to VCs who could get a $5m Series A for a copycat app. Who will be left? The gritty entrepreneur of the old school who knows that it is really, really tough to build a great company. At ReadWriteWeb ...
Is Google Spreading Itself Too Thin? (16)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
2 weeks, 4 days
ago
permalink
Google's search advertising is the best cash cow ever invented for the Internet. None of the well funded alternative search engine contenders are able to put a dent into that dominance. But all of Google's other experimentation, all that frenzied innovation from their assembled brains trust, seems to be hitting headwinds. A tiny Indian company called Zoho is giving them a run for their money in Web Office and the latest report indicates that Knol ...
-
Pvw said:
Google is to watch and the only one Microsoft is cared about!
Zoho Part 2: The Cookbook - ReadWriteWeb (12)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
2 weeks, 5 days
ago
permalink
Last week, we covered how Zoho is defying conventional wisdom in the Web Office market. But is being unconventional all it takes for a bootstrapped start-up to take on both Microsoft and Google, in head to head evaluations by giant enterprises such as GE? Far from it. Whenever you see a surprising 'overnight sensation', you will usually find years of hard work and careful execution. In Part 2 of this story, we reveal some of ...
-
Devlin D said:
Very interesting hiring model. I wonder if paying for tuition would fly here in North America. Although I really don't see a difference between a company doing this for tech students and a company doing this for student athletes (which is definitely illegal by NCAA rules). I guess since these students really aren't bringing in cash for universities by selling out stadiums they don't count.
Three Takeaways From Web 2.0 Expo New York (5)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
2 weeks, 6 days
ago
permalink
This week I attended the Web 2.0 Expo New York, on behalf of ReadWriteWeb. Summing up 4 days of conference with all the amazing conversations is pretty hard. So before the conference, as I was walking to the Javits Center, I decided I wanted to come away with three things: - One big negative impact of the market mayhem on the start-up world. - One big positive impact of the market mayhem on the start-up ...
Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google) (32)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
3 weeks, 2 days
ago
permalink
We all love the David and Goliath story. What about David vs two Goliaths? That is the improbable story of Zoho, the Web Office startup competing head on with both Microsoft and Google. On top of that, Zoho is from India and who ever heard of a product company from India? Indeed Zoho has only 10 people in America, yet it is winning really big enterprise accounts in head to head evaluations with both Goliaths. ...
-
Chris Abraham said:
I also think Zoho is taking on Basecamp and Central Desktop as well.
How Decoupled is The Innovation Economy From Rest of The Economy? (5)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
3 weeks, 2 days
ago
permalink
What a week of market mayhem! How odd having that as the backdrop to the Web 2.0 Expo in New York. We have been sounding alerts about the economic backdrop to our world of innovation for nearly a year. Back in February we wrote that this is not our bubble. Since then, the news from the economy has gotten worse and nobody is suggesting it will get better any time soon. Reading the papers is ...
Twittering from Web 2.0 New York (3)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
3 weeks, 4 days
ago
permalink
Web 2.0 New York starts today and I'm here at the event. I will be Twittering my instant takes (@bernardlunn), summarizing here on ReadWriteWeb when I have time. I plan to be a total mobile Blackberry Twitter-head all week, leaving my laptop at home and making my notes on Twitter. I will blog my experience with this later, hoping that there will be insights into where microblogging can go. You can follow along with my ...
GoodGuide Should Have Won TC50 (6)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
3 weeks, 5 days
ago
permalink
So the 'Twitter for enterprise' product Yammer won the TC50 contest. Having slammed Yammer, here is who I think should have won: GoodGuide. It's a consumer play, but it is not Web 2.0 social media wisdom of the crowd. It uses hard core technology and research to deliver a service that is totally mainstream. It is also needed and in a hot area. What criteria should we use to decide winners? Well this is about ...
Yammer is TC50 Winner - This is a Joke? Right? (37)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
4 weeks, 1 day
ago
permalink
I am an "enterprise guy". I edit the RWW Enterprise channel and I think that Enterprise 2.0 is a large wave of opportunity. So was I pleased to see an enterprise start-up win the Techcrunch 50 bake-off? Yes, but not this one. Surely not Yammer! In this post I outline the reasons why I do not consider Yammer to be a serious start-up. Given the massive 'start-up buffet' presented by TC50, with the tables absolutely ...
-
StreetForce1 said:
This is actually a pretty good tool. I've been using it at work with my company and they seem to like it so far.
What do CIOs Think About Social Media? - ReadWriteWeb (41)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
1 month
ago
permalink
The internal IT department, headed by the CIO, no longer acts as the gatekeeper for all new technology coming into the enterprise. IT may stand at the gate to the castle, but SaaS and social media startups are swimming across the moat. Internal IT can still set fire to the moat and otherwise make life difficult. But how do you make this a win/win relationship, so that they welcome your entry? Start by understanding how ...
-
Richard Smith said:
Although not specific to government CIOs, this short article contains lots of useful material for the provincial government's CIO office as they consider more social media in their future.
-
Paul S said:
Interesting concerns that many "ordinary people" share, i.e. non mavens. With CNN etc. running programmes powered by social media, including twitter, this should change IHMO
Parsing DEMOFall 08 for Trends - Less Valley, More Biz (3)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
ReadWriteWeb (5332)
1 month
ago
permalink
We've done an analysis of the 72 start-ups launching at Demo Fall 08, to categorize them by both location and focus. The location story: 28% from Silicon Valley, but only 3% more than East Coast at 25%. It is still US centric at 40%, with Europe at 10% and Asia at 8%. The focus: over 50% is broadly in the Business category. Without looking at past Demo years, that looks like a shift: less Valley, ...
Enterprise 2.0: The Nature of the Firm [Voices] (2)
share
digg
by
Bernard Lunn (230)
on
All Things Digital (18)
1 month, 3 weeks
ago
permalink
By Bernard Lunn, Feature Writer, ReadWriteWeb The breakup of behemoth vertically integrated enterprises commenced in the 1970s, got a boost from junk bond financing in the 1980s, and accelerated in the 1990s with globalization. Now, late in the first decade of the 2000s, social media (aka Web 2.0) are adding another gear that will accelerate the fundamental restructuring of the enterprise. This is a big story. That is why ReadWriteWeb is dedicating a new “channel” ...
