Google's Unified Communications play

With Google TV getting more and more traction the recent development of Google +1 is aimed at integrating your living room communications and filling the gap of video conferencing in its offerings. Google +1 will offer massive-scale video conferencing. While Cisco and Avaya are well known in Unified communications for the enterprises, Google is emerging to be an important player in the consumer market for Unified Communications.

How Consumer Unified communications for google is panning out?
Combining the following and you get the answer:
1) Gmail
2) Google Chat
3) Google voice
4) Google +1 - massive scale video conferencing + social networking.
5) Google wave - Even though it is almost dead it will rise again with a different name as a collaboration tool integrating google docs and other google apps.

All of this lives in the cloud, with no extra hardware needed. With Google Tv as a platform, this will emerge in your living room as a solid Consumer Unified Communication solution.

Of course the revenue model is same - ADs!!

By the way let me be the one who coined the word Consumer Unified Communications - CUC!

Electric Cars

The electric cars became commercially available in mid 1990s. EV1, the first electric car available to consumers was produced by GM. But negative publicity from the oil companies and a not so conducive political environment resulted in the death of the electric cars which is properly addressed in the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car".



But apart from those reasons, there are other reasons that made electric cars not that attractive. These reasons still exists which needs to be addressed to make it mainstream.

1) The battery technology has improved and the most recent, to be launched electric car Model S by Tesla Motors gives about 300 miles per charge and takes 45 min for charging the battery. This time taken to charge the battery is a bigger inconvenience than what the auto companies give credit to. The customers don't want to be stranded somewhere waiting for their batteries to be recharged.This is the reason why Toyota went for hybrid technology rather than a pure electric car.

2) The cost savings offered by the electric cars are still not more than the higher upfront cost of the electric car. Even if it makes environmental sense it still does not make economical sense for the consumers. This is one of the reasons why Tesla is aiming at the target customers of semi luxury segment. Tesla Roadster costs about 101k and Model S sedan costs about 50k.

3) The above two points are from the customer point of view. From the manufacturer point of view, the production is not cost efficient. Tesla has already lost about $250-$300 million and going for an IPO to be in business.

The Cloud - excerpt from Marc Andresseen's speech at Stanford

This is an excerpt from the speech of Marc Andreessen, technologist and serial entrepreneur. It is part of the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lecture Series at Stanford.

No more traditional Marketing by CTO of Pandora

This is an excerpt from Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar by Tom Conrad, CTO of Pandora.



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$1 Trillion to rescue!

The $1 Trillion(roughly) aid to rescue Greece and save the world from the edge of another dive is like giving an ailing steroids. I hope before the steroids wear off, Greece gets better and so does the PIIGS. It is going to prep up the world markets into another frenzy. From now on, bulls rule with zeal for quite a while. I thought Europe would stumble but IMF did good.

If short term woes are off the table for Greece and Europe by May 19th then we should see another rally of stocks.

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The debt snare that is difficult to escape - Greece

The Big Contagion - Greece - We almost hate you!

How will Greece contagion work out?

- Greece brings down PIGS with it.
- Euro has to be devaluated.
- Entire Europe market goes down.
- Russia depends on Europe for their Oil/Natural gas revenues on which it entirely depends - So Russian Market goes down.
- China's policy towards its currency and property inflation - supposedly needed but now it seems there is no need for the governement policy, the property value would have adjusted on its own. - So mistimed - Chinese market goes down.
- American market goes down -  financial market coupling with European financial market.
- Japanese Market - well it never goes up - so it is a given!
- Indian Market - I expect Indian market to perform better than other markets during the race of world markets towards the next dip.

There is high possiblilty that DOW would go below 10000 points or stabilize around that level. Hopefully, ECB takes some concrete actions instead of verbal support!

For people like me who have been long, buy some short ETFs to hedge! Some short etfs to consider

EUO - Short Euro
DXD - Short DOW
RWM - Short Russian index.
These are double x shorts. So adjust your hedging ratio accordingly.
Also consider FXP - Short Chinese market. - Is already up 7% for the day when I am writing this.

For people on the sidelines, good for you, pounce on the value stocks on the coming next big dip!

For people with hope that we will have a V shaped recovery, please jettison your hope. Greece just decimated it!

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What can you get from VCs other than capital?!

I found this article by Brad Feld address a very important point "What expect other than funds from a VC?".
Here is an excerpt.

" At the end of the first board meeting, spend some time talking about your expectations for your board members (including your VCs), ask if they are reasonable, and then go around the table and ask each board member what they’d like to specifically help with between now and the next board meeting.  Explain that you want to develop a cycle of accountability for each board member to the company and use this to (a) develop deep engagement from each board member between meetings, (b) benefit from the experience and wisdom of each board member on a continual basis, and (c) set a strong tone for the leadership team (and the company) that everyone has functional responsibilities that they are held accountable to.  Acknowledge that it will take a few board meetings to get into a good rhythm with this, but be clear that you’ll spend a little time at the next board meeting going through individual assignments, what was done, and what the new assignments are until the next board meeting.
The assignments should be specific – if they are general (such as “help with strategy” or “help with the financing”) they will be useless.  Make sure the assignments play to the individual board members strengths and interests.  They should provide leverage for the leadership team; not create make work.  They should be impactful, but not mission critical."

The actual article can be found at Business Insider.

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HPalm - A good move by HP

The buying of Palm by HP gives HP an opportunity to move into the mobile business. Everybody knows Palm's WebOs is great but the problem was the handset, with a not so great design. With HP's financial wherewithal, Palm can become a fancy item like iphone. If HP can port this WebOs to it's netbooks and iPad like devices, and create a good market place for apps based on its WebOs, then we have a solid winner.

So things to do for HP to make it a success:
1) Make the palm handset elegant and not look like gravel.
2) Leverage the webOs and use it in netbooks, iPad and even its printers!
3) Create a vibrant marketplace for Palm.

Now that HP has made its move, it seems it is going to hurt Microsoft the most. HP being one of the biggest Windows user, webOs will cut into windows market in mobile and netbooks.

Spain's presentation to secure its credit line!!

Kingdom of Spain Economic Policy and 2010

John Paulson funds' returns from NYT

With John Paulson in news almost everyday, if you are wondering what were his real returns during 2008. Here it is.

Paulson

El Asira : How to reach an impenetrable market?

You know that there is a customer need but you can't cater to it as it is too tricky and there is an important hurdle. This is the biggest hurdle you can ever think, "The religion". But that is exactly what a Dutch company called El Asira has achieved. The company provides sex devices(currently restricted to perfumes, gels and lotions) mainly for Muslim population. Now one has to understand the gravity of the situation. Sharia law has lot of restrictions when it comes to sex and the consequences of going against it will be catastrophic. In spite of the difficulties, El Asira has successfully launched an online shop to sell sex devices without violating any sharia laws. The website has been developed with a lot of thought into it not to make any obvious mistakes to hurt its customers' beliefs. 

Their website says "We have opted for a respectful approach with respect to Muslims and non-Muslims and establish us within the Muslim community" (translation from dutch). Currently they mainly sell enhancement pills and gels. Their problems are multiple fold - They not only have to be careful about their product offerings but also about the marketing material. But the same problems also provide an unique opportunity as Winston Churchil said "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty"

El Asira was launched in January 2010 and it lasting success is yet to be seen. But if it becomes a success, they have a great competitive advantage in a niche market.

This is an exemplary situation of how to reach an impenetrable market with clever positioning and product offering.

Facebook : Adaptability in a Startup

Facebook that started as a normal social network to connect with friends has grown into a whole different animal now!

Facebook shows the importance of "Adaptability" for a start-up to be successful in the internet field, where continuous innovation and improvement is of utmost importance.

Facebook has now evolved more than just a place to connect with friend. It has become an online gaming platform, a news aggregator, micro-blogging tool, online marketing tool and social network all in one. This has created multiple revenue drivers for facebook unlike myspace which was unable to leverage its online traffic for a longtime until facebook showed how.

The key to facebook's success was that it judged customer's needs and provided an elegant way to share each other's activities and thoughts, which became the core value on which everything else was built.

After creating a solid social network, it was not complacent with just ad revenues but rather took lessons from iphone soon and created a platform for third party applications. These third party applications has now opened up a million opportunities and create wealth not only for the app developers but also to facebook.

Facebook is a great example how to succeed as startup, that shows the importance of adaptability and innovation in the web2.0 age.

The New Face of Venture Capital by Kevin Lawton

The New Face Of Venture Capital

View more presentations from trendcaller.

A nice lecture on off-balace accounting

This is an good lecture by Professor Frank Partnoy on off-balance accounting and un-ethical practices of today's financial companies which more or less lead to the financial crisis from which we are struggling to get back on our feet. Professor Frank Partnoy is the George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance and is the director of the Center on Corporate and Securities Law at the University of San Diego.  He is one of the world’s leading experts on the complexities of modern finance and financial market regulation.

Reddit beats Digg

I wanted to find out which social network is successful driving traffic to a blog or website. So I did an experiment by writing an article in Triond yesterday and shared it through each social network.  

As Linkedin and twitter will drive traffic depending on the number of friends and followers, the comparison with these two networks might not be appropriate. But Reddit and Digg being almost the same kind of social networks, Reddit seems to beat Digg hands down. The below graph shows the traffic driven by each social network when an article was shared through each social network.

Even Stumbleupon is better than Digg. No wonder Digg has been losing money!

Marketing in Cricket

Cricket, known as the "Gentleman's game" has its origin from England. A game that was once played by the "Elites", is now a game of the "Mass". In India almost 95% of the men in age group of 5-40 would have played the game in their childhood and still following it. In Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it is the most watched and played game.
The first county club was started in Sussex in 1839 The first official League for Cricket was the "County Championship" formed in 1890 in England. During the initial years the most common played format of the Cricket was of five days and called as the "Test Cricket" and became the standard format by late 19th century. Playing for a county was prestigious, than economical. The player received a decent compensation but the main value out of the county Cricket was the prestige associated with the county Cricket. This also catered well to the elite class of England.

New Market Strategy:
As the English empire expanded since 16th century until 19th century, the game spread to other countries and now being played and followed by lot more people in other countries like India, Australia and Pakistan than in England.

Product Awareness:
The first marketing move was made in early 20th century, to use the nationalism of the countries to increase the popularity of game by playing against different countries. During this phase the awareness of the game as a product was increased.

New Segment - Product Width Extension Strategy:
As the British Empire spread to the Indian subcontinent, the profile of the audience for Cricket changed drastically. After the fall of the British Empire, the previous colonies adopted the game and was played by common men. With the five day format, Cricket was still not popular among the mass who had little time of pleasures. With the absence of the elitism in these countries, there was a need for a new format so that both the elites of England and the mass of the developing nations could be satisfied. In 1963, a second marketing move was made, by creating a new format called "Limited Overs Cricket" to decrease the total time of the game. It soon gained popularity and became "One-day Cricket" that we have now. In One-day Cricket, each team would play only 50 overs unlike test matches where the teams would play for five days and two innings without a limit on the number of overs.
Even though it was not a orchestrated marketing move by an institution. It came out of a need, to satisfy a new market segment. With the advent of the One day cricket, the game became more popular with the mass.In India, cricket overtook Hockey, the national game of India as the most popular game by 1970s. With the increase in popularity, the players became stars and everybody associated with cricket, the cricket board, the television channels and the game sponsors started making more money.

Business Problem in the beginning of 21st century:
The One-day Cricket format became the most successful format in Cricket and many countries started playing the game. As many countries started playing the game between themselves, the viewership and the audience were limited due to the time difference between the countries. Only ardent followers watched the game when the matches were at night due to the time difference. Apart from that there was also a huge segment of the audience who watched the game only when their country played. They just wanted to watch their national heroes. Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) realised this problem and given the population of more than a Billion and high following of Cricket, recognised the missing viewership and the potential revenue. BCCI also realised that its revenue comes mainly from the viewership of people in India and not from the viewership of people in other countries and most of the Indian population is interested in matches when India played.

Break-Through Solution: Branding and Franchising
In 2008, BCCI under Lalit Modi, the marketing director, formed a new league called the "Indian Premier League"(IPL) to play the Twenty20 format which was already gaining traction in the Indian Cricket League(ICL), which was formed by former Cricket players. Before IPL, ICL had the entire market for Twenty20 Cricket. In Twenty20 Cricket, each team would play only twenty overs. The IPL was based on the business model of Soccer League in Europe. In IPL, different team franchises were formed and auctioned to the highest bidder. The players were also signed on the basis of the auction. To increase competitiveness, players from other countries were allowed to be part of the team. In order to satisfy the local crowd, a minimum of 4 Indian players in each team was made mandatory.
With the formation of a brand "IPL" and franchising made it a huge hit. The private investors in the franchise to increase profit made the game more glamorous by bring cheerleaders from America to perform before the matches. The decreased time limit of the game also made it easier for the working population to view the matches. As the game lasted only a few hours, instead of just sported that was watched mostly by men, it was now being watched as an event by the whole family. With the decrease in time limit and increased number of matches, the league was able to offer cheaper tickets. All these factors increased the demand for the IPL matches.

E-commerce:
To attract the tech-savvy and non-resident Indian, in 2010, IPL decided to air its matches through "Youtube", the video hosting site of Google, apart from the traditional television broadcasting. The revenue would be based on ad revenues.

After the launch of IPL, BCCI's income has increased manifold in 2008 and crossed Rs. 1000.4 Crores as compared to Rs 651.8 Crores in 2007. According to Lalit Modi, the marketing director of BCCI, IPL would be the single largest revenue source for BCCI in few years.

After the success of IPL, other leagues that are based on Twenty20 format has been launched in other countries. The International Council of Cricket also started Twenty20 matches between countries and formed a World Cup Championship in Twenty20 format.