Yoick - Hightechwire

Haven’t had much chance to post this week. I’ve been holed up in Canberra with NICTA’s International Advisory Groups for the past few days:

The Business Advisory Group comprises:

•  Duane Zitzner, HP, Executive VP, Retired
• Narayana Murthy, Infosys, Chairman and Chief Mentor Officer
• Craig Mudge, Director, Macquarie Institute for Innovation
• Bob Bishop, Silicon Graphics, Vice Chairman
• Heather Killen, Hemisphere Capital, Managing Partner

The Science Advisory Group consists of:

• Jean Vuillemin, INRIA, Action CEO
• Dieter Rombach, Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering, Executive Director
• Richard Newton, UC Berkeley, Dean of Engineering
• Rodney Brooks, MIT, Director, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab
• Stuart Feldman, IBM, VP, Computer Science Research, IBM TJ Watson Research Center

A really great bunch of people, who bring an exceptional global point of view to NICTA’s research and commercialization activities.

I’ve posted recently about the rise of a second generation of blogpire entrepreneurs. The cover story on Business 2.0 now picks up the theme and provides some good stats on who’s who in the blogpire zoo and what they are making in terms of revenues. All relatively small potatoes at present, but like I’ve said before, blogpires are all about building big brands, and that’s when the true monetization can begin.

In line with Jeremy Wright’s point that Web 2.0 should be about “profitable online businesses”, Business 2.0 gloms onto this thought as well and describes these fledgling blogpire’s as:

Real businesses, with real revenue streams from real advertisers — not overhyped next big things with pick-a-number valuations based on selling out someday to some overenthusiastic big-media sugar daddy.

Phew, sounds like Jeremy Wright over at b5media ingested too much Web 2.0 diatribe at the Techcrunch party - result = instant hangover and a penchant to try and illuminate the pitfalls of treading an already sodden Web 1.0 path.

Jeremy blogs:

During the TechCrunch party I realized why the whole Web 2.0 think bugged me. It’s all so Web 1.0. Yeah, sure, greater interaction, new technologies, VCs with more knowledge, etc.

But something really irked me. In Web 1.0 the single biggest mistake was … businesses with no business plan, no sales path, no income, etc. The perception that if you worked your butt off you’d IPO and everything’d be fine.

To me, 2.0 of a product should fix the issues with 1.0 as well as adding new features. In Web 2.0 we definitely added new features… but did we solve the issues with 1.0?

Well at least here’s a lucid thought:

Web 2.0 should be “profitable online businesses”.

Indeed, tell that to Chad and Sequoia over at YouTube — I mean a channel for Paris Hilton… come on guys has the summer toasted your ability to think straight. Oh well, at least we know Marshall Kirkpatrick will be watching this development closely, ie it’s in safe hands.

With the recent acquisition of Arroyo, a video on demand software company, Cisco has lined up the three essential elements for a total video offering.

Om Malik explains the significance:

Arroyo, is the latest and perhaps the most crucial piece of the puzzle. Since Arroyo’s products allow carriers - wireless, wireline and cable operators - to deliver video on demand to any platform: television, computer of mobile phone, Cisco now has acquired three must-have features of any future video offering.

Great that Techcrunch 7 was a success - also fun to see that the PodTech guys have gone high definition and acquired the same camera I’m playing with: a Sanyo Xacti - awesome form factor and great pics to boot. This pic is of John Furrier, Founder of PodTech, having fun with his Xacti.

I expect to hear more from the Scobleizer about his toy…

Yes indeed, there is now a tsunami demo within the MMOG, Second Life…and to top it all, the US Federal Agency that researches the oceans, climate, weather and anything else having to do with gigantic masses of air and water, aka the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has set up shop in SL.

Because why, you might ask? They see the educational opportunity that MMOG’s bring into being. On their island sim Second Lifers can find fully interactive educational demos about the ocean and weather. Hey, you can even take an airplane ride into a hurricane - now that’s a blast!

There’s been an interesting flurry around Metcalfe’s Law, its validity and its currency, particularly as it applies to social networks. Bob himself has weighed in on Mike Hirshlands blog. Read the whole shebang if you wish or get the takeout:

… to understand the value of a social network we need to consider not just the number of users but also the affinity between the members of the network.

The release by the Washington Post of a blog aggregating system call the Sponsored Blogroll, has sparked some debate over blog business models.

Firstly, though, what is the WaPo Blogroll? Steve Rubel  explains:

…the way this works is that the WaPo is building a network of bloggers who want to participate in the program. Like BlogAds, advertisers can browse the network and find blogs to advertise on within their verticals. The bloggers and the Post split the ad dollars. The Post has put out a call for blogs that focus on technology, business, health, automotive and travel topics. Nevertheless, they are interested in all submissions.

However, there’s more. Where it really gets interesting is that the bloggers who opt into the program don’t just earn dollars but also a rotating link to their site in a special Sponsored Blogroll box that sits right on the Washington Post home page.

Jeff Jarvis runs this approach through the BuzzMachine and comes out feeling positive:

It is a win all around: The advertisers want someone to help them get into this strange world of blogs. The media organization wants to expand its reach and targeting (the Post — like every single newspaper, magazine, and online media company I know — needs more traffic and is thus seeking growth in technology, business, health, automotive and travel), establish a new relationship with the bloggeres, and make money along the way. The bloggers want to get money and promotion. A virtuous circle if there ever was one. Bravo to the Post.

Michael Arrington is lukewarm. His hope is that the growth of more ad networks like the one behind the WaPo blogroll will catalyse the inevitable treding down of margins. At present Michael’s Crunchpire pays its agent, John Battelle’s FM Publishing a wopping 40% of total CPM revenue.

While Techcrunch seems to have a positive diversified business model, ie the outsourced sale of targeted CPM ads (pocketing 60%) and the direct sale of on site sponsorships (pocketing 100%) one has to ask the question:

Why not cut out the middleman on CPM ads — this is relatively easily done with open source ad server tools like phpAdsNew. If your revenues are sufficient (which means you have enough attention and traffic and don’t need a network to bolster your position) and you have your own growing network of blogs then surely the cost to benefit ratio means it will be worth it to set up your own ad management system sooner rather than later?

In fact, I could see a morphing model - one very successful blog…leads to a network of your own blogs…followed by your own ad management system…and then a second tier of external blogs utilising your ad mgt system for a revenue share — all linked into one central site which rotates external blogs as per the WaPro blogroll …cool as. Anyone game??!!!

Brad Howarth has blogged about Text 100, a pr agency, setting up a shingle within the MMOG, Second Life. He ponders how long it will be before they are engaged by someone’s Second Life character to build some virtual pr spin for them.

This begs the question: how much can real life be synched/melded into virtual, synthetic worlds?

There has been plenty of talk recently about MMOG’s having their own economies. Some folk have even bought real estate within Eve, for example, using real world cash, developed and then onsold properties to other players for a tidy profit.

So…let me pose another question for your ponderation: given I live in the real world of venture capital, start ups and spin outs - how long will it be before someone sets up a virtual venture firm to fund in-game entrepreneurial activities?

UPDATE: Kevin Maney has blogged about Starwood Hotels testing the design of their new hotel chain, Aloft, within Second Life. 

More on that noise you hear in the back of the blogosphere…crunch, crunch, crunch - as Michael Arrington expands his Techcrunch emPire. Some of his readers are vociferously opposed to this expansion of focus …so hence the play on words.

You won’t find me on the fence though — I’m all for the Crunchpire!