I still think this is a goofy debate re: Twitter & retaining users

Image by Joe Penniston via Flickr

I wrote about this recently here, but just saw this as I was eating lunch: Twitter is retaining more users than Nielsen thinks » VentureBeat.

I agree with the conclusion—Twitter shouldn’t worry—but I find the logic goofy.

Sure retention is important, but it really doesn’t matter as much for Twitter as it does for FBK or MYSpace if a Twitter joiner is an active “Tweeter.”  This is because, as with YouTube or Flickr, a Twitter account holder gets access to the search of the ‘real time web’ or whatever it is we’re calling the sum of all the tweets the user can search. 

In other words, the consuming non-tweeter gets value from the size of the twitter network.  If he or she never tweets, he’s still getting value.  So long as the total audience of twitter continues to grow its account size, and so long as a non-zero percentage of that audience is tweeting and adding to the unique content asset Twitter has, then Twitter is in stellar shape.

The right metrics are not about retention or number of tweets, IMHO.  I think its about # of total tweets, # of accounts, and in time, # of searches in short-term.  Over time, the retention number will go up as more people figure out how to tweet. 

 

 

Filed under: internet, social media , social media, Twitter

What I’ll watch for with MySpace: progress on bite-size chunks

Tech Crunch’s article, MySpace Is In Real Trouble If These Page View Declines Don’t Reverse, provides a sobering view of the challenge in front of MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta and his newly installed exec team.

I’m going to assume that TC’s numbers are accurate, and I’m in general agreement with the conclusion—momentum is not on MySpace’s side.   This is a big task, as TC asserts, never been done successfully. 

Still, as with any big task, its important to split it up into smaller, bite sized chunks.  There are ton of things that could be focused on to read the tea leaves as to whether MySpace is making progress or not.  To make things simple, here are the 3 key bite size chunks I’ll be watching for to assess whether MySpace is making progress:

1. Execs speaking about and delivering on useful, concrete customer scenarios.  I remarked in a prior post how vague and nebulous an ex-MySpace Chairman’s Richard Rosenblatt advice was, compared with a much more concrete, user-focused entrepreneur like Joel Spolsky.  This was a bit unfair as Rosenblatt shouldn’t give concrete advice.  At the same time, when the exec team now speaks, I’ll compare their words with his.  If its as vague and general, and it doesn’t have specific concrete customer scenarios that appear appealing, then it’ll be more of the same.  Creating value for users is vital here, as with anywhere else.  Watch for this—I’d say within 45 days, there should be relatively clear statements on what customer scenarios excite the execs and what concretely they’re doing.  If its general “own the spaces MySpace can own,” blather, then I’d say that’s a big red flag.   
2. Execution.  Mr. Van Natta has assembled a strong core group of execs around him.  This is a great start.  It’ll now be interesting to watch what they deliver in terms of features, in specific timelines, relative to update cycles from Facebook, Twitter and others.  Given the inherent pressure of lost momentum, with the pressure that must be coming from News, the MySpace execs will get pulled in many different directions.  I’ll watch for what they are able to ship in specific timeframes.  If there isn’t anything substantial product-wise done by time school starts up in the fall, I’d say that this is a sign of real trouble. 
3. (Any) cultural phenomenon created, fueled and fanned on MySpace.  The page view and traffic numbers won’t turn overnight.  What does and can shift quickly is passion around some trend or phenomenon or whatever.  A band must break there, a movie must be discovered there—the thing we all are talking about must be found once on MySpace.  This has happened on MySpace in the past I think, but now, this discovery happens other places more often—FBK(the election or the 25 things phenomenon) or Twitter (Sully’s plane).  When MySpace gets mentioned at lal these days, its generally only as one of several social media services where stuff like this happens.  MySpace needs to be central to some of these experiences.  If in 6 months there hasn’t been one of these, then I’d say its a sign of continuing difficulties for MySpace. 

Filed under: social media, technology , MySpace, technology

HPs bet on touchscreens–forgot to tell us why a customer will care

I saw this article in the WSJ, talking about HP’s bet on touchscreen technology to review PC sales.  They are apparently getting these things solds in to things like airports and luxury boxes, etc., and that’s great.   We will need this technology to be mainstream and everywhere, so I’m thrilled that HP’s doing this work.  We will all want this stuff someday– I want my bathroom mirror or my desk surface to someday be a touchscreen PC that can let me scroll through email, tracking key news or whatever.  Seems a reasonable and easy thing to foresee.

The thing that this article didn’t have and what I think is limiting this technology today is  this: a scenario that a user would care about.  This was a miss in the article, from a PR point, or whatever, it’s notable that there’s not a single mention of what a customer might actually care about using the technology for.  Lesson for any marketer here–make sure taht you are pitching very hard this statement whenever you’re gettin gan article written: “here’s why a customer will care…”

It’s an interesting contrast to look at the side project that TechCrunch has been putting together on their little touchscreen web appliance thingy.  They ooze passion about the user scenario they care about–I’m sitting on a sofa and I want to surf the web with a screen.  Easy to grok, clear why customers would want it.  I’d argue strongly that this is a more approporiate use of the opportunity for press than the HP WSJ article.

Filed under: entrepreneurship, technology , HP, marketing, PR, technology

Those iPhone App Store Revenue Numbers

TechCrunch and Lightspeed Venture Partners this week worked on estimating Apple’s revenue gained from the iPhone App Store. 

The discussion struck an odd note with me for several reasons.   A far more useful analysis would be what percent of mobile (and other) application developers are building for Iphones, to the exclusion of others.  Understanding this will say a lot about APple’s continuing momentum in this space.  I am willing to bet that Apple likely has a huge number of mobile developers building for the Iphone, and where they need to make a choice, I expect they’ll likely fall in with Apple.  This is a way more important discussion than Apples’s revenue of the App Store for a few key reasons. 

First off, I’d view the strategic importance of the iPhone App platform as far higher priority to Apple than the revenue.  Don’t get me wrong, the revenue is great, but its way way way more important that Apple gets the share of the smart phone market (or whatever we’re calling it these days).  Having app developers building for your platform, because (1) lots of users use your device and (2) the developers themselves can make money will help ensure the Iphone stays competitive.  So far, Apple is basically crushing this, leaving all other mobile “app stores” in the dust. 

Second, the Lightspeed Venture post and TC’s reporting on it took an admittedly shallow view of revenue.  Lookingat pay versus free apps only on the Iphone App Store is a good proxy for now of where revenue is.  I expect it misses however the virtual currency buys that are able to be sold downstream (e.g., Zynga NLHE).   Point here is that the revenue and profit pool in the ecosystem as a whole is likely quite a bit higher than jsut the free/paid app numbers that Liew estimates. 

Third, if you buy into the first two arguments I’m making, then I think the interesting discussion here is how many developers are targeting Iphones versus other platforms?  My suspicion is that as the Iphone apps are presenting a clear route to revenue and profits for small teams of great developers, that this is ramping up quickly.  If this fact brought *zero* revenue through an app store to Apple, it would be worth it to Apple—to quote SteveB “developers, developers, developers.”  That Apple is making high margin revenue off of these Apps is of course awesome for Apple, kudos too them. 

The iPhone App numbers whatever they are, are awesome.  I’m hopeful though that we’ll soon receive good data indicating the mindshare and actions that great developers are taking in terms of which device/platforms they’re spending time writing for, as that’s the discussion that to me is most interesing

 

 

Filed under: technology, venture capital , Apple, Developer Platforms, Iphone Apps, technology

Quick take on Microsoft’s Bond Offering

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Yesterday saw Microsoft making a historic first time bond offering.  While a first for the company, the $3.75B issue is relatively small.  Indeed, it’s not like they’ll buy Yahoo or SAP with that money. 

My own take is that there’s not much to see here—rational, low-risk, imminently sensible.  (Which no matter what else anyone might say about Microsoft, it has *always* managed its finances extremely well.)  From Microsoft’s point of view, it’s cheap money, about as cheap as they can get (aside of course from continuing to pull in free cashflow at $1B/month).  With the equity markets still poor, MSFT is under $20 currently, its blue chip stock doesn’t have the same power it did.  Might as well take their long-term debt: equity ratio to roughly 0.1, roughly a quarter of ORCLs. 

I’d not be at all surprised to see MSFT announce a non-trivial buyback of stock, particularly post Office 2010 beta, and as W7 launch nears.  The message will likely be to the market and to enterprise customers that a new wave of the desktop / netbook is upon us with high quality, on time releases from Microsoft.

Filed under: business, investing, technology , Microsoft, technology

Week of 5/8/09 Tech Roundup in 15 minutes

I’m going to try something new this Friday–a mini-blog post where I time bound to 15 minutes observations, etc. on the week in tech.  Feedback welcome on whether useful. 

What a week, just to cover a few of the high points that I thought were interesting in 15 minutes:

• Amazon launched a new Kindle.  Here’s what I find so amazing, having been in software platforms for 10 years—basically everyone had declared hardware to be dead.  Now if you look at two of the 800# gorillas of technology, Apple and Amazon, the wind is at their back precisely because they built dedicated, innovative hardware.  Lesson for entrepreneurs—ignore people who pronounce stuff dead, unless their an MD.  Awesome.
• Twitter rumors hit pretty strong peak, now looks like no sale.  I admire Twitter’s approach and have come to really enjoy their product.  I love that they’re in no hurry to sell, and I’d say rightly so.  The wind is at their back and will continue to be so.
• Speaking of which, I heard someone today talk about Twitter’s 40% account drop off cliff after a month.  My answer: who cares! ?!  The glass is more than half-full—60% of their accounts stay on for more than a month.  That’s goodness!  In all seriousness, the increasingly powerful thing that Twitter does is it creates a real-time web.  Just like YouTube with user videos or with blog platforms, whatever, you have some number of creators and some number of consumers.  In Twitters case, they’ll quickly have the biggest number of creators worldwide, for a scenarios that’s useful—real-time information.  I predict that in short order we will use Twitter as a search front-end for real-time events—this applies whether I”m a Twitter account holder or not.  In this future, you don’t need everyone sticking around with their accounts.  And of course,once ore and more people use the network the draw will get increasingly strong to draw people back.
• Microsoft Windows 7 RC release, and it looks like its going to be a hit.  I predict MSFT gets a strong step forward in its momentum with the release of Windows 7.  There is enough hardware innovation in the ecosystem and the power of the software is looking great.  The public download experience was clean and simple—note there was no real outcry about this.  The buzz from even MS haters is that W7 is looking pretty good—here me now and believe me later, W7 is going to be a hit.  This will provide good wind at the back of MSFT as they take next steps on Silverlight, Azure, etc. 
• Wolfram Alpha ran the gauntlet in the press.  Geesh, you’d think that Google wasn’t just destroying the news, but that they actually at this point owned it all too.  WA did a public talk-through of their product, which got lambasted for not first showing screenshots.  Then folks reviewed it in comparison with Google a product that’s been in market for 10 years.  I’m glad RWW at least was willing to admit that WA looked like it had some benefit to real academics and so on.  This is a completely legitimate starting place, which I recall was how Google got started.  Of course, that was before they owned the news….
• The Founder’s Institute closes applications for summer session and gets a bumper crop of Mentors (present company excluded) .   Caveat: I’m involved with this, and I’m super excited about the opportunity to work with the great bunch of new founders and existing mentors to create great companies and great entrepreneurs. 
• Seesmic releases new update.  I’m running out of time.  I’d still review Tweetdeck ahead, given that I like its white text on black background more.  but I do think Seesmic does a nice job with search.  I have no idea how either plans to make any money but hey, I”m glad I got them. 
• Final thought/ Post of the week: be sure to read Seth Godin’s thoughtful post Too Much Free.  It takes 30 seconds, and its useful to any entrepreneur.  My quick input—don’t be too lazy on thinking about business model and say ‘free and we’ll figure it out later.’ I can count on 2 hands the number of companies that have succeeded in building a great company built around charging no money to anyone.  If you’re clear on two things when building a business, be clear on what problem you’re solving and be clear on how you’ll pay the bills. 

I’m out.  15 minutes. 

Filed under: entrepreneurship, technology , Founder's Institute, internet, Kindle, technology, Twitter, Windows 7

Terminator 2 and thoughts on “Are you really an Entrepreneur?”

In the second of Bernard Lunn’s very useful posts Are You Really an Entrepreneur? – ReadWriteStart, Lunn goes through 10 things to think through to assess whether you’re *really* an entrepreneur. Its useful and good, recommended reading.

In considering these questions, I’d suggest an image—that of Arnold as the the Terminator in Terminator 2.  In a way, he’s the ultimate in what you’d want to have as an entrepreneur.  Here’s what I mean:

1. The Terminator has been sent from the future to present day for the purpose of changing the course of history.  That sense of purpose is exactly as focused and driven as you want to be as an entrepreneur. 
2. The Terminator stops at nothing to pursue his goals.  Ditto that for any budding entrepreneur.
3. The Terminator takes in as much data as he can, adapts, and learns.  Throughout the movie, the Terminator in T2 shapeshifts and does generally whatever he needs to in order to stay in pursuit of his goal.
4. And finally, and most importantly, the Terminator really can’t be killed.  Of course, he’s in a movie, but this is emblematic.  This refusal to quit, the mental toughness, this is probably at core one of the biggest and most important single elements to long-term opportunities at success.   Setbacks will appear and they will hit you in the gut when you least expect it.  How you regroup and continue forward is key.  Arnold’s Terminator is an image worth remembering. 

Making a decision to head into the world of startups is a big one—Mr. Lunn’s ideas and writing is useful and efficient.  I’m hopeful that this adds a useful, vivid metaphor for some of the elements and important questions anyone needs ot ask. 

Filed under: entrepreneurship, technology , entrepreneurship

Who I’d bet against if Twitter were sold

Image via Wikipedia

This post is inspired by Warren Buffett.  Buffett often talks about how with new technology it’s impossible to pick the winners, but it’s obvious who to short.  He uses the example of the thousands of automobile companies formed in the US over a century ago, fewer than 4 remained a few decades later.  At the start of the auto industry you’d have no idea which 4 car companies to bet on, but you probably should have known to short horses.  Same thing here. 

Speculation continues to mount that Twitter is in acquisition talks with tech analysts and journalists writing about what firms as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and News Corp should or must do.

I wouldn’t put money on who might win or even if Twitter wants to do a deal—there are too many moving parts to read this, as I mentioned yesterday.  If I had to bet, I’d probably say that the most likely 2 scenarios are that that Twitter doesn’t sell or that MSFT acquires them.  The second most likely would be for News to buy them.

If Twitter does indeed sell to MSFT (or rather, anyone but News), then I think there are some obvious bet against that I’d make.  Namely, Twitter clients—e.g., Tweetdeck and Seesmic.  Perhaps others, but those two in particular would I think have a very hard to reach mainstream distribution against someone like MSFT or Google.  One of the challenges with building desktop apps I suppose. 

 

 

Filed under: business, internet, social media, technology , business, social media, Twitter

Let the Twitter Sniff-fest Begin!

Last night I went to bed shortly after reading that Apple was trying to buy Twitter.  This morning, that bid got raised with reports that MSFT, GOOG, NEWS as well as Apple are all in the hunt. 

See: Apple, Microsoft, Google And News Corp Are All Sniffing Around Twitter (AAPL, MSFT, GOOG, NWS)

Twitter may well decide not to sell.  And while I don’t have time now to get into, if Twitter decides it wants to sell, Sweet Maria, what a bidding fest we will see. 

Each suitor is an 800# Gorilla, each with solid strategic interests and potential synergies to bring.  My quick take:

• For Apple, it takes the iPhone to a new level of potential communication / app platform
• For MSFT, I see the desktop having a sidebar twitter stream integrated right in—also helps it with mobile and with internet.
• Goog—Twitter represents that biggest best grab on the real-time info flow.
• News—well, Twitter’s all about the future of news. 

No idea what will happen, but Twitter’s sitting about as prettily as can be.  Very interesting to watch

Also, what happens here will be a signal as to where we are in the context of M&A / IPO in technology. 

Image by jacqueline-w via Flickr

Filed under: business, internet, technology , M&A, Twitter

Stackoverflow & MySpace : A study in (stark) contrasts

Two posts over the last 24 hours caught my eye due to the stark contrasts between them.  Imagine you knew nothing about the two companies, just had the video below on StackOverflow or the TechCrunch article on MySpace—which one would you be betting is ramping up on momentum, and which one is basically without clear direction? 

The moral of this story is very simple: companies that articulate concrete, useful end-user scenarios do well; those that don’t struggle. 

Case 1: user-scenario centric.  Joel Spolsky gave a talk at Google’s campus on StackOverflow.com “a free question and answer site built by developers for developers that has fostered a strong and committed online community in under one year.”   

It’s an informative talk, embedded below.  I could happily recommend it to any entrepreneur, as it is does such an effective job walking through the problem Joel saw, the competitive landscape, and how his team worked on StackOverflow as a solution.  It made me interested enough to go to the site and play around – even though I have nearly zero business being on a site for developers. 

 

Contrast this with TechCrunch’s article Former MySpace Chairman Richard Rosenblatt’s Advice To The New Executive Team.  While Rosenblatt goes to lengths to describe why he is hesitant to give advice, he then dispenses with “general thoughts on where MySpace can push forward.”  (BTW, don’t you love how people say they don’t want to give advice, and then they do so?!?)

Anyway, Rosenblatt’s advice is admittedly high level, and that’s probably the right tone.  Still, Mr. Rosenblatt’s core thrusts are pretty lame, even for general advice.  His list:

• Own the spaces that only MySpace can
• Transform your unique UGC into marketable media
• Listen to the community and let them guide YOU

Nowhere in his article is there one mention of a single user scenario that is at all interesting to me as a user and consumer of social media.  Yikes.  I get that its not his place to offer “operational” advice.  But still, when someone who’s been affiliated closely with a company, as Mr. Rosneblatt has, and they cannot articulate a single user scenario, then that to me is a sign of real trouble. 

I’m a Rupert Murdoch fan, mainly because he’s built such an amazing track record, and he’s singularly unbowed by the troubles his industry faces.  I’m hopeful that his team at MySpace will hit the ground running and create fantastically interesting end user scenarios that would get me and others interested and involved in the franchise that they’ve created. 

 

 

Filed under: business, entrepreneurship, social media, technology , MySpace, stackoverflow.com, technology