Monthly Archives: January 2007

Social Networking Trends: Social Travel

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Social travel is a new movement in the travel sector that is taking advantage of the Web 2.0 concept.

Just in case you’re not familiar with Web 2.0, the first round of web technologies, Web 1.0, was mostly read-only, while Web 2.0 is enabled for massive read-write capabilities. Two things make this possible: rich web technologies and social computing tools. Rich web technologies consist of things like Ajax, RSS, and Ruby on Rails, while social computing tools are primarily social networks, search, wikis, blogs, and tagging. The “Web 2.0 goal”: creating new paradigms in how software is used by consumers and companies. For the travel industry, Social Travel is that very thing.

Over the past decade, travel software has evolved as an extension of existing travel channels, by web-enabling the travel buying experience. At first this was hailed as a revolution because you didn’t have to rely on an airline customer service operator or travel agent to find you the best deal. You, the customer became in control, and didn’t have to submit to the mercy of the airline-owned Global Distribution System (GDS) products that were based on old mainframe technology.

With the advent of the web, travel sites popped up and pricing started to become more transparent, enabling the building of three types of business models. First, there were traditional sites (like Travelocity, Expedia, and Orbitz), which were extensions of their big brother GDS platforms. Then came reverse auctions (such as Priceline), which let you communicate how much you would be willing to pay. And finally, to squeeze out that last dollar, remnant sites (like HotWire and CheapTickets) that took all the extra inventory to market and delivered dollars that would otherwise never have been spent. The main thing wasn’t how good or bad these travel sites might have been in terms of inventory or design. The crucial thing they did was to empower the consumer with choice.

However, choice wasn’t enough. Incremental innovations including predictive pricing (like Farecast), multi-site search (Mobissimo, for example), and mobile communications (such as Kayak Mobile) helped sites evolve—but something was still truly missing. It was the community and communication between travelers.

Today, the online travel sector is undergoing a revolution. Or more accurately, a convergence between travel sites and social computing that is creating this new category of social travel. The overall goals of social travel sites are to enable community and communication between people who might travel together, share travel destination interests, and look for better information on destinations and service providers.

In the end, this is still about selling travel services—airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and cruises—but social travel opens up all kinds of new selling opportunities, such as:

1: Group Travel. This lets you include all your friends and family in groups, to coordinate travel for events and vacations. For consumers, it means group buying power, and for travel service providers, it means more revenue as there is less hassle in the buying process.

2: Accurate Destination Marketing. This is not just knowing where people have gone in the past; it is about knowing where they like and want to go—making the marketing process more effective.

Right now, several sites in this space are taking various approaches in the social travel space. The primary ones out there are Groople, TravelPost, TripHub, TripConnect, and 43places.

Coming up next: VentureFiles will review some of the companies we mentioned in more depth, taking a look at what makes them compelling and what could break them out of their current “early-adopter only” phase.

10 Things You Should Know About WordPress 2.1

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Back in December of 2005, I was filling in for Darren Rowse at ProBlogger and I wrote an entry that was very highly read and commented on. The topic was 10 Things You Should Know About WordPress 2.0. The occasion was the release of the much-waited for release of the current major release of WordPress (We’re up to 2.0.7 but the “dot releases” have all been security/bugfix releases).

Tomorrow (January 22, 2007), WordPress 2.1 will be released and it signifies the first major release since the 2.0 branch was launched. As is typical of major releases, they do not only address security/bugfixes but they release new functionality.

So in the spirit of the original article, I give you ten things you should know about WordPress 2.1.

Continue reading →

I Love the Bay Area

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It may not come as a whole heap of a surprise but I love California. I’ve never been to Southern Cal but it strikes me as a little too non-fun for me. It’s full of upper crust people that are so full of themselves that anything less than People Magazine simply won’t do it.

I like regular people. People who you can have a beer with and laugh about stupid stuff. People who understand the nuances of business but yet aren’t so caught up in money to be flaky. People who understand a good work-life balance and put it into practice. I enjoy cool summers and warm winters and picturesque mountains within eyesight.

I love San Francisco.

For the second time in my life, and really, the second time in 6 months, I’m in the Bay Area. Sure, the 3 hour time change kicks my ass. I wake up at 7am here feeling like it’s 10am and I never wake up before 9am at home. The flip side of that is that I want to crash at 8pm, instead of going to a jazz club or having dinner with a colleeague.

I still love San Francisco.

See, I have expensive taste on a pauper budget. If I could choose one of two places in the world to live, it would be New York or San Francisco. It’s expensive to live in either of those places. Too expensive for my budget. That can change, of course, but right now I live in Baltimore – because it’s affordable.

I’ll never be a Giants fan or a 49ers fan. Hell, I couldn’t tell you what sport the San Jose Sharks play. But I love the atmosphere. I love the weather. On the east coast, we get super humidity thanks to trade winds from the southeast and the Gulf of Mexico. During the winter, we get Canada’s Alberta Clippers that serves to freeze my tooshie. On the west coast, the Pacific Ocean keeps me warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We drove the 101 with the top down in the convertible today. Fantastic weather.

When I was here in August, it took me three days to find someone who was not nice. In Baltimore – give me 15 minutes.

In the Bay Area, violent crime is in two-digits for a city of 6 million. In Baltimore? 300+ in a city of 300,000. In Baltimore, we have 100 degrees with 98% humidity in July. In San Francisco? 70 degrees with 10% humidity. In Baltimore, it’s 35 degrees right now. In San Francisco, it’s 55. In Baltimore, people wear ties to work because of customers. In San Francisco, it’s torn jeans because product speaks for itself.

I love this town.

The Technology Cold War is OVER – Apple and Microsoft are truly competing again…FINALLY!!

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The nucleus of this article came from the recent Macworld theme “The First 30 Years where just the Beginning”.

It got me thinking how the next 30 years will be after looking the last 30 years roller coaster ride.

After decompressing from all the CES and Macworld activity, two very basic things occurred to me:

1.) The “War for the Living Room” is in full swing.
2.) Microsoft and Apple are truly competing again.

This means that the technology cold war is over. A new battle is about to begin.

To support my “revelation”, I did a quick analysis of the battles between Microsoft vs. Apple and I break down like this:

Tech War I -”The War for the Desktop” – 1980-1995

Most historians see this era as the “personal computer era”, but by 1990 it was squarely Apple vs MS as they battled it out to be that computer on your desk or optionally on your lap. This saw the acceptance of computers as a broad business tool and networking technologies take hold to connect us at the corporate level. Unfortunately, Apple lost this round and Microsoft gained market share dominance that they hold to this day.

Cold War – 1995-2006 – Mild escalation

As Apple went through its issues and almost disappeared forever, Microsoft was truly entrenched in the office and almost every home that had a computer. For most of us, the focus turned toward the Internet and we had a new battle to fight. Microsoft was late to the game and has played catch up for the most part. As the 90′s were coming to a close, Steve Jobs returned to Apple and many hoped for a turnaround. In the early part of this century, Apple introduced the iPod and just last year moved their platform to the Intel chip gaining market share and making the platform a solid alternative for many (including your humble author). At this point, Microsoft is losing the Internet battle to Google and Apple has regained market share because of solid innovation.

Tech War II – “War for the Living Room” – 2007-”?

Computing has become not just about using it as a tool in the home office or while at work, it is integrated into every aspect of our lives. Laptops, PDAs, Smartphones, Cell Phones, Web Tablets, Video Game consoles and MP3 players connect and distribute media into exciting new ways.

However, there is on thing missing – bridging the gap between the content that resides on computing devices and allowing easy access and viewing/listening through living room via the TV. Sure, MS has media center, but at $2000 for a machine and needing to have a background in systems engineering, it really was for the early adopter. There have been many devices for the iPod to connect music into the stereo and low end devices to view videos on the iPod.

But with technologies like Tivo and IPTV, the living room is where people really want to view their content. Everything is trapped on the computer and this year is the tipping point where people will really move to access it in the living room.

HERE IS HOW I GOT THERE:

WHAT I DON’T KNOW
If Windows Mobile will be able compete with the MacPhone
If Microsoft make the Zune a worthy competitor?
If Vista make any impact other than collecting default revenue because people need to upgrade their computer and don’t have a good choice.
If Apple’s OS X Leopard will innovate to stay ahead
If Apple’s shift in name and brand put them on the path to become the Sony of the 21st century?
Will Microsoft make the Media Server easy to use and affordable?
Will DRM kill everything by charging and re-charging for content we already own?
WHAT I KNOW
If Microsoft doesn’t put on its innovation pants, it is going to lose this battle by the end of the decade
If Apple keeps going with widescreen iPods, multiple iPhones, HD content for sale on iTunes and greater AppleTV systems, they are going to create the “Living Room ecosystem” people are crying for
If Apple keeps its control freak nature for much longer, Microsoft can trump them with a system that allows for freedom
It is going to be a fun time to be alive as these two companies really go at it again.
This year is going to be known as the “War for the Living Room”.

So, What do you think?

OTHER GOOD ARTICLES TO REFERENCE:
The Microsoft showdown with MacWorld & the Apple Phone from VentureBeat
Jobs versus Gates

Bubble, Bubble, Bubble. – In Private Equity not Web 2.0

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Being a serial entrepreneur I have been through many business cycles, but the Internet boom of the late 1990′s was an extremely heady time. People were so enamored with what the Internet could do, every one really believed that the old rules didn’t apply.

The reality was that those rules applied more than ever and with the crash in the early part of the century we have tried to learn our lesson.

With these new companies deemed Web 2.0, everyone is expecting another bubble. So many of the same types of companies have been funded so there are bound to be consolidation and just plain failure.

According to Michael Arrington, his entry “Bubble, Bubble, Bubble“, the despite the fact that some companies are failing, the sky is not falling.

In fact I would call this time around the ol’startup track “saner, saner, saner”.

Despite many of these companies basing their success on being an aftermarket for Google, the smart ones I think many people know that you have to be in this to create a real enterprise and one that makes money. It is not so much about the VC’s but about the ability to use the low cost and barrier of entry to innovate.

But the DEAD POOL is not cool .

I think that the blog A VC gets it right his counter points on “Building It Up and Then Knocking It Down” are right. He says “over hyping young companies where people are working their butts off and then throwing them overboard quickly into a “dead pool” when they fail is not healthy.

I believe it is dead wrong to put this up there. It just feeds the fire for the chicken little’s of the world. Mike Arrington has known successes when he co-founded helped flip Achex and sold it to First data. I don’t know if he has experienced building a company from scratch and having it fail, many times from circumstances out of your control.

BUT THERE IS A BUBBLE DEVELOPING and not where you think…..

The bubble is not with companies it is in the private equity market itself. The model of funding and the way people are evaluating companies is changing. The way investors look at companies is not based on a fast IPO but aligning it to be a sweet acquisition target.

This is helped in no small part since most VC’s invest like they are teenage girls. “Oooo, you invested in a video sharing site, I want one too! You put $5 million into social networking for eco-friendly baby boomers? Find me one so I can get one too!!

HERE IS HOW I GOT THERE:

  1. The amount of money chasing deals have lightening strike twice to find that repeat of unrepeatable past returns is growing rapidly
  2. The number of opportunities are declining and there are too many copycats plus the cheap money is pouring out to fund them.
  3. Not enough VC’s to serve on boards effectively and make the existing investments get to a proper exit
  4. IPO market is still not there and there is and there are only so many acquisition partners
    Higher prices of entry and lower returns

WHAT I DON’T KNOW:

  1. When the IPO market might be friendly to tech stocks
  2. If investors will broaden their portfolio choices to get their money working in unique ways
  3. If funds might start giving their money back

Only time will tell if this comes to pass. If you have a good idea, the money is out there but might not be for very much longer.

Crystal Ball? 2-3 years or mid-2008 this is gonna come to a head. Only time will prove me right or wrong.