"The latest rewrite of the Web’s mother tongue won’t recommend the use of specific audio and video encoding formats that could make it cheaper and easier for people to distribute multimedia content. The major browser makers have been unable to agree on an encoding format they will support in their products, wrote Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML 5 specification for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)."

Browser vendor squabbles cause W3C to scrap codec requirement | Developer World - InfoWorld

Rafer sez:
As usual, de jure failed and it’s de facto time.


"Ironically, if Ricdic had merely stolen the online money he could have stayed in the game. But exchanging the virtual cash for real dollars broke the rules and CCP banned Richard’s EBank accounts. “It unbalances the game,” Coker said."

Gamer steals from virtual world to pay real debts by Reuters: Yahoo! Tech

Rafer sez:
Without efficient foreign exchange and floating currencies, game economies and the startups that operate them will run into large trouble. If you are investing in virtual currencies, have a plan for near-term openness using FirstMeta or whomever.


reblogged from: Ghostery

MyBlogLog, the #4 Widget on the Web, Sigh.

Rafer sez:
Read the whole Ghostery post, but the punchline is that Yahoo!’s only significant participation in the world of widgets is a service they ignore called MyBlogLog. It was the direct predecessor to Google FriendConnect and could still easily be the way to compete with Facebook Connect. It’s installed on an order of magnitude more sites than FBC and Auth could be added before they get close to catching up. I feel okay that I’m frustrated by this inaction 2+ years later.

ghostery:


Top 10 Widgets found by Ghostery - June 2009

"Coke was first to say a “gracious (but competitive) hello” to Pepsi and follow its rival. Later Pepsi responded with its own greeting, tweeting “Can rivals and tweeps coexist? We’re willing to find out. :)” Both are now following each other. You know what they say about keeping your friends close and enemies closer."

"Now that their open source data stores manage hundreds of terabytes or even petabytes of data for thriving Web 2.0 and cloud computing vendors, switching back is neither technically, economically or even ideologically feasible. “Web 2.0 companies can take chances and they need scalability,” said Johan Oskarsson, the London-based organizer of the NoSQL meeting and, like most of the other attendees, a Web developer (of music streaming site Last.fm). “When you have these two things in combination, it makes [NoSQL] very compelling."

No to SQL? Anti-database movement gains steam

Rafer sez:
@eliast spoke at this conference, and it’s exatly how we do what we do — though “ideologically” isn’t our issue. These data management systems just work and cheaply.


reblogged from: hey, it's noah

heyitsnoah:
Interesting, an alternate Netflix instant interface.
Rafer sez:@heyitsnoah written using the Netflix API, which is Mashery Made. Thanks for promo’ing.  :)

heyitsnoah:

Interesting, an alternate Netflix instant interface.

Rafer sez:
@heyitsnoah written using the Netflix API, which is Mashery Made. Thanks for promo’ing.  :)


Posted 2 July 2009 at 8h07 1 note and  Comments
Deprogramming VC & Reprogramming SWOT

SWOT analysis diagram in English language.Image via Wikipedia

Much is written about both whether or not the VC model is broken and how to evolve startup business plans in the face of market changes. Today, it hit me just how inextricably linked the two issues are and how my own tactical process needs to catch up to market realities.

I spent from 1992 to 2006 presuming VC-backed startups were the business I was in, and I worked towards understanding that system. After all that time, two things happened to radically change my outlook.

  1. I finally figured out that one should only raise VC if one is already rich,
  2. I also figured out that being boring and late has better risk|reward characteristics than being sexy and early, and
  3. Cloud computing arrived, making VC deal terms economic only as growth capital for Internet startups, leaving the early-stage field clear to angels (and bootstrapping).

Taking any number of lessons from Mashery’s good work, Lookery is a cloud-hosted SaaS vendor that uses an API to provide deep benefits to its customers and suppliers. Like Mashery in early 2007, we’re actively sorting our which customers and which decision makers love us and which look at us crosseyed (or don’t look our way at all). We have numerous data points in each category and the right kinds of patterns are emerging.

The problem is 15 years of old work vs. 3 years of new work. I haven’t finished retraining myself not to presume VC. I find myself mentally parcelling out multimillion dollar budgets that don’t exist. More importantly, calculating low-capital SWOT is not truly intuitive, particularly when analyzing VC-backed companies in Lookery’s market sector.

The VC-backed companies in our sector (principally Blue Kai and  Exelate) are doing a great job getting and giving data distribution via cookie exchange without the benefit or overhead of a centralized profile hosting system.  Cookie exchange works well for many user-targeting applications, but there are a few key tasks that aren’t covered including:

  • Efficient combination of data from multiple sources;
  • Forcing and enforcing the anonymization of targeting data without depending on good behavior by publishers and/or ad networks; and

Lookery exactly runs that exact scaled profile hosting system, and it changes the equation — but how in a SWOT context? We’re angel-funded and intend to remain that way until we’ve completely nailed the revenue model (see #3 above). Relative to the other sector participants, our near-term enterprise value calculations and related tactics are different. My erroneous, knee-jerk reaction is to compete directly with them but that makes no financial sense. They have an order of magnitude more resources (from their VCs) and a lot more pressure to scale revenues quickly without much regard for expense (also from their VCs). We certainly grow revenues every month but breakeven in Q4 is a much higher priority than absolute scale right now.

The punchline on SWOT for Lookery in 2009 is to build on the unique strengths of our system putting priority on relationship depth and interconnectedness. We want to be our customers’ profile hosting and delivery system — and the one they want their partners to use. That means of our customers require a little more care and feeding, plus we have to be careful to disclaim all rights to their profile data. It’s business that the heavily funded startups can’t quite slow down enough to satisfy, gives them a good reason to do business with us, but is healthy enough to drive us to scale next year.

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"Data processing takes place on our mainframe. Over 65,000 client devices in 350 offices connect to DDS via a high-speed, dedicated WAN."

About Donovan Data Systems

Rafer sez:
Whenever I wonder about the real rate of tech change in marketing services, I run across statements like this. I took a look after reading the MOMS announcement:

Interpublic said the new media management platform has been in development for six-months, which is interesting timing, given that Interpublic had only renewed a long-term contract with Donovan Data Systems in November 2008, following a protracted review that included a variety of contenders including Media Bank. Interpublic did not say how MOMS would integrate with its Donovan’s media processing system, but the announcement suggests that Interpublic believes it will revolutionize the way media shops inside the $30 billion holding company - shops like Initiative and Universal McCann - will process media for clients.


reblogged from: Ghostery

Top 10 User Tracking Networks on the Web

ghostery:

This is the first in a series of posts coming this week on the Top Web Bug Trackers we saw at Ghostery last month.

What surprised me:

  1. Google’s utter domination of the Top 10 list (Google Analytics, Google Adsense, Doubleclick and Google Custom Search).
  2. Google Analytics coverage is massive and growing quickly. I instinctively knew this but its breadth and velocity even surprised me.
  3. Two sleepers: Statcounter and AddThis. Their penetration rates eclipsing many well-known services, including some very large ad networks.
  4. Free: 8 of the trackers are “free” or have “free” versions. With only Doubleclick and Omniture being paid “enterprise” services.
  5. Open-source inside: OpenAds and Wordpress Stats are based on, or are, open source projects.

Top 10 Trackers found by Ghostery - June 2009 Embed:
Rank Tracker 1 Google Analytics 2 Google Adsense 3 Doubleclick 4 Statcounter 5 AddThis 6 Google Custom Search 7 Quantcast 8 OpenAds 9 Omniture 10 Wordpress Stats Analysis by Ghostery - June 2009
Let me know what you think of these reports and how I can make them better.

Thanks!
David


Methodology: This data was compiled via the GhostRank submissions of our users. Thanks to all of you who have opted into sharing the bugs you find with the community none of this could be possible without your contributions.

GhostRank is an opt-in feature included in Ghostery that allows users to submit the bugs they find across the web.

Today we measure the existence of web bugs on a per-domain basis (E.g. google.com, wordpress.com, etc). What this means is that sites like “tumblr.com” and “blogspot.com” would only count as one site when in reality there are 1000s of sites hosted on those platforms under subdomains, i.e. “ghostery.tumblr.com”.

Future versions of our tracker reports will be based on subdomains in order to more accurately measure “website” distribution.

Rafer sez:
What’s the most useful way for Ghostery to present the next level of detail?


"Here’s a question for all these new-found defenders of Honduran democracy: Where were you last week? Perhaps if some of these warnings about sticking to the constitution had been addressed to President Zelaya, the Honduran army would still be in the barracks where it belongs."

Pet peeve. It’s currently PDT not PST, people. It’s confusing, but the acronym with the “S” in it is not in the Summer.

"If the world’s biggest pop star only made $12 million a year from his recordings, why would anyone make serious music? Where did the rest of the money go? Why, straight into record labels’ pockets. Did they make better music with it? Nope — they made Britney and Lady GaGa. And that’s how they killed themselves: by underinvesting in quality, to rake in the take."

President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy R...Image via Wikipedia

Michael Jackson and the Zombieconomy - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org

Rafer sez:
Thank you Zemanta. I wasn’t going to comment until you suggested this photo. And now…

Where did the rest of the [Peace Dividend] go? Why, straight into [the Top 1%’s] pockets. Did they make better [government] with it? Nope — they made [W and Palin]. And that’s how they killed themselves: by underinvesting in quality, to rake in the take.
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