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Category: Comic
The Peacock Problem
Barrier to Entry
The Real Benefit of Subscription-based Revenue Models
Success Equals Being Acquired and Losing Control?
Check out this one line in ZDNet’s coverage of TechCrunch’s Arrington web winners/losers list:
Winners (got acquired)
Now, I don’t know if that’s Arrington’s perspective (I suspect so) or ZDNet’s (also likely), either way the sentiment is disturbing.
If this is the mentality of the Valley, then I celebrate every project on the “Very Good Bets” list that has dismissed multi-million dollar buy out offers.
On a personal note, while I have stagnant accounts on many of projects on Arrington’s combined list, I actively only use 3; Skype, WordPress, RocketBoom.
Leading to me further question the items in his ‘Avoid’ list. I read the list to mean Arrington doesn’t see any room for game-changing innovation in those areas. Since I don’t actively use many of the existing offerings…I respectfully disagree.
Oh, yeah, and FeedSeeder will be an online feed reader.
I think I’ll follow Dave Slusher‘s lead and un-sub from the west coast Web 2.0 VC mentality.
Stay Hungry
When I drew this up earlier this today, all I had was a sentiment. Nothing in the way of an explanation – though, I suspect you know which side of the cartoon I fall on.
Since then, this tasty bit rolled through the attention stream:
Where to Draw the Line on the Freemium Business Model
I’ve been thinking about “freemium” – Fred Wilson’s Favorite Business Model the last couple days, and sketched up where the boundaries feel right for me.
How do these feel to you?
The Center of Podcasting
Advice to Web Developers: Forget the Password
This weekend while wandering down the aisles of our local Super Target, we found a dinner table and a side board we though would go great in our living/dining room. After checking out, a couple of teenage boys wheeled the still flat-packed pieces to our awaiting PT Cruiser.
Now, after flattening the inside of the car, both pieces fit. Though either Jen or myself wouldn’t. We kindly asked the boys if they could hold the pieces until I returned.
Sure.
After dropping Jen and the little man home, I returned to pick up the furniture – now in the Customer Service area.
“I’m here for those pieces.”
“Do you have the receipt?”
“No.”
We chatted for a bit, trying confirm that the pieces were in-fact mine and paid for sans receipt.
I told her we couldn’t take them before, because we couldn’t get them both in the car.
She called over the same teenage boy and off we went.
One of my bigger irritations these days is with the number of passwords I need to remember to try out the latest browser-based Web2dotOhGodNo beta.
Frequently, there’s no real need for a specific web service to require registration of a unique identity, let alone I’ve already generated a pile of them elsewhere (can’t I use one of those?).
Sometimes, my browser will pre-populate the login/pass – that’s great while at the same time completely defeating the purpose of security. Security and identity are separate concepts, though security may confirm identity, there are other ways.
Point is the two concepts are mixed up so much there’s an inherent security problem.
The more passwords I create, use, manage, and remember on a regular basis, the greater the chance I’ll use something like “1234” and the whole ecosystem becomes insecure.
I’m using Apple’s Keychain Access to store passwords both me and my browser have since forgotten. Passwords for trials that have expired and services that no longer exist. Thing is, I’m far less likely to click ‘forgot password’ than I am to never return (Who knew Friendster was still around?).
Forget the password, it’s a security risk for customers and a barriers-to-entry for providers.
ELSEWHERE:
Ad-proaching a Singularity
This weekend, stuck in the land of dial-up, I paged through a print motorcycle magazine and compared the articles against the advertisments. All the ads were for gear, motorcycle shops, or vehicles to haul your motorcycles. Essentially, indistinguishable from the articles themselves. You can do the same with any reasonably niche dead tree publication.
The closer a publication moves to the right of the sketch above (going more niche) the more ads = information. The further to the left (going more general) the more ads are a distraction.
You’re already familiar with the Long Tail, so you already know this.
Elsewhere: