More Investment. Too Much? October 17, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : Trends, What's New? , add a commentI noticed an interesting number of items in the media today, new and old, that, taken individually, likely wouldn’t be all that significant. But together, they resonated.
Today’s New York Times says tech investors may be showing signs of irrational exuberance and overvaluing startups.
Consider Facebook, the popular but financially unproven social network, which is reportedly being valued by investors at up to $15 billion. That is nearly half the value of Yahoo, a company with 38 times the number of employees and, based on estimates of Facebook’s income, 32 times the revenue.
Google, which recently surged past $600 a share, is now worth more than I.B.M., a company with eight times the revenue.
More broadly, Internet start-ups are drawing investment based on their ability to build an audience, not bring in revenue — the very alchemy that many say led to the inflation and bursting of the dot-com bubble.
It’s tough language, though there’s no evidence we need to “sell high” just yet. But in light what the early part of this decade saw in tech and telecom, it’s almost worth note.
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That’s TERAbytes October 15, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : General, Trends, What's New? , add a commentIan drools.
A nuts-and-bolts explanation by c|net:
With the new, elegantly named current perpendicular-to-the-plane giant magneto-resistive heads (CPP-GMR heads to you laypeople), drive makers will be able to come out with 4 terabyte drives in 2011 and/or 1 terabyte notebook drives.
The CPP-GMR drive essentially changes the structure of drive heads. Current drives come with a tunnel magnetoresistance head. In these, an insulating layer sits between two magnetic layers. Electrons can tunnel through the layer. Precisely controlling the tunneling ultimately results in the 1s and 0s of data.
Ones and zeros indeed. This isn’t stopping anytime soon.
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Housing Boom October 12, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : Trends, What's New?, Policy , add a commentWhen I noticed the Internet Innovation Alliance’s new broadband blog, I predicted IIA’s Internet heavyweights would “inform the debates in a major way.”
I think it’s happening.
Bruce Mehlman’s post yesterday on High Speed Housing is the kind of substantive analysis the alleged “experts” — that have no policy experience — simply don’t generate. Also, it’s the kind of consensus, commonsense approach to policy that the best tech wonks and regulators have long taken.
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Monday Blog Roundup October 8, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : Trends, What's New? , add a commentIt’s like Digg, only softwarier! TechCrunch has an interesting take on CoolSW, a Digg clone for, well, cool software. Duncan Riley asks whether the site isn’t somewhat self-defeating as a business model — but he can’t deny its utility.
From the accidental meltdown files: Engadget documents what happens when we leave our electronics devices on the stove too long.
Laugh of the day comes courtesy of Netscape legend Marc Andreesen’s “second bubble” sendup at pmarca.com. Honestly I’m a little disappointed he had to flag the satire — but that’s the way it is when your words are parsed as closely by the investment community as I imagine Andreesen’s must be.
Ruh roh. Some Sprint gossip, courtesy of MobileCrunch.
Meta-roundup alert! Great compilation of reflections on Skype over at Realtime Community’s Unified Communications. A mixed bag, which basically sums up the company’s public perception to this point. Ed Sim of Beyond VC adds his take, as well.
I’m still a sucker for Jeff Pulver’s baseball analogies, even if it’s more on the Mets going down in flames.
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Yahoo, Telefónica Ink Search Deal October 2, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : Trends, What's New? , add a commentFrom today’s Times, Yahoo has apparently reached an agreement to feature its search engine on mobile portals run by Spanish carrier Telfónica — a clear competitive strike against rival Google.
Times reporter Eric Pfanner does a good job outlining the slow-but-steady move toward maturity in the mobile advertising market.
The deal comes on the heels of a Yahoo search revamp, reported in the Times but detailed quite well over at TechCrunch. New features include Yahoo Local restaurant and hotel finders courtesy of Yahoo Local, with links to maps, ratings, and reviews, shortcut results from Yahoo Shopping, and bundles more features… all of which happen to be well suited to mobile search.
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Monday Blog Roundup October 1, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : Trends, What's New? , add a commentTechCrunch’s Michael Arrington highlights a possible blow to Technorati’s blog-ranking hegemony. Arrington makes the case that not only is the new Techmeme service very interesting, but that Technorati’s methods may simply outdated. He reasons:
…links from other blogs may no longer be the best indicator of the popularity of a blog, particularly today when blog links can be obtained by simply opening up the checkbook and paying. Also, Technorati clearly counts spam and other blogs, which can have a significant impact on rankings.
There are plenty of brilliant smartphones out there, but the iPhone will continue to be a lightening rod for controversy in the public eye… and Machinist’s Farhad Manjoo points to the device once again, calling Apple out for its recent software update that seemingly incapacitates unlocked iPhones.
John Kullman compares the iPhone controversy to fighting pirates, perhaps overusing the metaphor. It’s uncanny how many different perspectives a seemingly simple software update can produce.
I’m predicting an update from Jeff Pulver on our shared passion, the New York Mets. First he wrote them off, then he resuscitated them, and now, well, I guess he’ll have to write them off again. As for me, I lack the stomach. What a bum season.
Engadget has the scoop, via the Boy Genius Report, on T-Mobile’s Shadow branding. Will the new product line be a big stroke for the carrier? I’ve heard good things about it from a marketing perspective.
Finally, I’m reminded over and over how important it is to have resources like O’Reilly Emerging Telephony for updates on the state of play at the industry’s small and middle-sized business tier. Asterisk-developer Digium bought Switchvox in a move intended to allow the company to bring its technology back into the open-source community: O’Reilly’s Bruce Stewart agrees with fellow blogger Dan York that this deal shows that Digium “gets” integrated emerging comms technologies.
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