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Written on May 14, 2008 – 11:07 am
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
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I have thought long and hard about luck and following all this hype around the concept Sarah Lacy is promoting ‘Once Your Lucky, Twice You’re Good’. Well, I disagree with her assertion!
Back in my ‘naive days’ I would have argued vigorously that one doesn’t need luck at all, instead innovation, logic, elegance, brutal hard work and a twist of magic were the ingredients essential for success. This would have been while I was building my first empire. During that experience I didn’t get very rich (financially) but I did learn more about life / business / creation / ideas / people / magic and luck than I could have ever imagined. My little baby organically grew from a 20K overdraft to a turnover of 2 million GBP annually (6 years after launch) and garnered a cult following.
Its been a long time now since riding those early waves and I have had long enough to analyze the experience and realize the arrogance of belittling lady luck. She sure as hell taught me a few hard lessons as a result. Needless to say I have rather more respect for her charm now and in an effort to make peace I am dedicating this article to her.
One of my favorite online destinations is Hacker News, a forum where hackers / startups discuss the issues of the day. A theme that has been popping up there recently is controversy over the value of ideas, with many arguing that ideas are worthless and execution is everything. Again I totally disagree. Ideas and luck are two of the most rare but essential and non quantitative elements necessary for success, followed sometime later by the usual host of other elements that ultimately determine the fate of such a journey.
To illustrate my points, first I need narrow down the criteria of what is considered to be ‘a win’. With Internet startups I’m going to classify ‘a win’ as ultimately financial success, followed secondly by user participation and adoption. Yet I want to strongly stress these are not my personal criteria as to what constitutes as ‘a win’, but only what appears to be the de-facto standard by which many are currently judging.
Given that financial success is the ultimate milestone I will use the Google as the standard by which I make my case. Google is without doubt the current online financial super star, they are making more money than anyone else and they have available to them every single advantage that money can buy. And while they have leveraged their resources in every way imaginable, they essentially still only have Adwords / Adsense as their core cash cow, while every other arm is either loosing money or financially insignificant. Why is this? Luck!
You cannot make a compelling argument that they are not good, why that is their company manifestation after all. No it is not because Google are bad, but good luck is like lightening, it rarely strikes in the same place twice and if it does you will be bloody lucky, evidently so.
Coupled with the power of ideas, really good ideas share the same traits as luck, in as much as they are just as rare but ultimately make all the difference in the direction you choose, where you will then need lady luck to give you the kiss of life in order to achieve ’success’.
Written on May 3, 2008 – 11:24 am
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
It’s difficult for us developers, with tags such as ‘OCD’, ‘aspergers’ and ‘nerds’ to detach the word Macromedia away from Flash. But Flash has been playing Frogger for many years. Formally known as Splash, it has been jumping logs for a long time and with each new release and throughout its management changes, this single star has jumped itself into becoming one of the most dominant and integral players on the Internet today.
With each jump there has been thousands of dedicated and obsessive devotees simultaneously having ejaculations (metaphorically speaking) as the gravity settles to the new possibilities that the latest incarnation makes possible. These would not be apparent to a ‘normal’ person, for only those with the above mentioned tags have the capacity to really grasp the essence of the bifurcation immediately.
Flash has explored every area of the landscape, looking for acceptance, adoption and for an audience that truly appreciates their quests. I say quests because the team behind this baby are ruthlessly exploring new worlds, as and when they find a new feeding ground, they evolve with the terrain leaving little resemblance of their previous incarnation intact. This is one team that is highly interested in natural selection and breeding with aliens!
It is of little surprise that when Adobe Flash announces that they will now explore the mobile market further (code name: Open Screen Project) that when the fruits of this initiative are ripe, we will no doubt have strange new gadgets not even predicted by Philip K Dick, that we will use to navigate the new world around us, with unprecedented access to information and communication, but in an international timezone that has no on/off switch.
So what is it that Adobe’s crystal ball is saying this time about the future. Here are some predictions of scenarios that come to mind when I dare let my imagination go wild with the inevitable consequences of the Open Screen Project.
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Written on February 20, 2008 – 4:29 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
Until now it has not been possible for Flash developers to embed Adsense or any other ad-networks ads into a Flash widget. Adobe have made it clear from the beginning that this is something beyond the scope of the technology which has increasingly become a thorn in the side and ‘the most serious limitation’ for Flash developers to realize profit from their applications.
There are now literally hundreds of millions of Flash widgets embedded all over the web, mostly on third party sites, where the widget developers would JUST LOVE to monitise that content with Adsense and other ad networks. So a solution for this Major Dilemma is long over due and the prize for best hackers of the year goes to Scribd who have just launched a new product (IPAPER) that incorporates the said invention. In their own words and from their site come these lovely words:
Monetize Your Documents
If you have documents on your website, you could be missing out on a monetization opportunity. You advertise on your web pages, why not your documents? iPaper integrates a sophisticated ad system by Google that automatically targets ads to the content of your documents. By switching to iPaper, you can immediately begin to monetize your documents. All you have to do is collect the checks.
Click image to see a working example Flash widget with Adsense.
Hacked Solution
Now as they have cracked / hacked a way round one of the greatest limitations of Flash widgets this is going to revolutionize the web! Specifically increasing incentives for the hundreds of thousands of developers who are using Flash to make embeddable features for third party networks such as Facebook et al.
No one has yet come up with any serious solutions for monitising Flash content to date. (more…)
Written on January 30, 2008 – 4:05 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
In the latest drama Warner Bros. Records (WBR) along with other plaintiffs are now claiming that the music search engine SeeqPod is infringing their (and others) copyrights by making music available via the service which allows users to actually listen to music on the site, albeit that music is primarily published and hosted by third parties!
But if SeeqPod is guilty of copyright infringement then so is Microsoft with Internet Explorer in which viewers can gain access to registered material (illegally), Adobe would be liable because they developed Flash that allows users to watch films in full screen on their computers (thank you Adobe!), everyone who embeds music or videos on their blogs, MySpace because they allow people to embed playlists, any company that makes embeddable widgets for video, music and books, Amazon for their new Kindle, even computer manufactures etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!
See, SeeqPod does not host, cache, nor publish any of the content themselves. WBR makes a long winded argument that basically boils down to one essential claim:
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Written on January 16, 2008 – 3:24 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
Every once in a while something good springs up, and anything that can help save people from the ravages of ill health would get my vote. So I’m imagining the CEO of Mamaherb Elad Daniel standing in front of the vultures that make up the panel on Dragons Den, making his pitch for their investment (luckly Mamaherb is not looking for finance so Elad Daniel is safe for now). But what would they make of this venture?
Mamaherb is a very well built web2.0 style application that intends to gather feedback from users regarding alternative natural treatments for ailments. So if you have used cats claw (a herb) to cure your chronic infection, they want to know about it so they can spread the word.
See the problem they are trying to address is that the conventional health system only promotes allopathic remedies, and as such the hundreds of thousands of natural health advisers work outside this system which also goes to great lengths to diminish the value of their natural un-patentable products.
There are hardly any clinical trials involving such treatments because the costs cannot be recouped by pharmaceutical companies who have a close relationship with the FDA, and the FDA is the bogie man according to your natural heath adviser. I think it’s safe to say there is no love lost between these two competing groups. (more…)
Written on January 10, 2008 – 3:26 pm
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
To know how to steal advertisers from magazines you have to understand how magazines work.
A little history is in order, I used to be the designer and director of a highly successful design, manufacturing and distribution company (Intimidation) out of London during the nineties. One of the most interesting aspects of the business was marketing. It was the one part where you really had to deal with the entire industry, know what was going on, and be at the center of the controversy in order to get the most bang for your bucks (the latter seemed to come naturally).
So I’m this tiny rogue bean in an industrial sized tin of Heinz being baked, the most important thing I had going for me was a unique product, lots of new killer features and plenty to distinguish me from the ‘competition’ which in my case amounted to a ‘one size fits all’ bunch of losers, so that part was easy.
As an advertiser with a very limited budget, I had to maximize the return, I had to know precisely where the advertising would work and how to get it at rates that my competitors would die for. So I made some bold decisions from day one, here was my manifesto in a nutshell.
1) Always do double page spreads,
- you get the best rates;
- they have an impact like none other;
- they intimidate the competition;
- they cannot be ignored.
2) Forget the rate card,
- Call up on p-day (publishing deadline) and offer them silly prices for a DPS, if the rate card said 1k per page, offer them 800UKP Max for a DPS.
3) Focus,
- Have a real top class advert,
- advertise only one product,
- the message had to be crystal clear.
- The product had to almost leap out of the page so that potential buyers could just about grab it (if not pin it to their wall).
- The advert had to be full on war, with a simple but extremely effective caption. To give an example one of our captions was ‘Aural Sex’ (The product was a DJ Mixer BTW). When you get girls phoning up asking you for more information about aural sex you know your on to a good thing.
So what can blogs learn from magazines about advertising and how to poach it away from the mainstream publications. This diatribe rant is to both sides, advertisers and bloggers, as both need to understand what it takes to be effective from each others perspective.
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