Looks like I managed to put the entire post into the title, so maybe I should have just tweeted it. But here is a little bit of background. I was talking to a friend of mine last week who has a newly released app in the app store. She told me that while a lot of people loved it, some hated it. She wasn’t so much offended by that but rather annoyed at her inability to respond to the negative reviews “in situ,” especially given that she felt that many of them completely missed the point of the ...

Looks like I managed to put the entire post into the title, so maybe I should have just tweeted it. But here is a little bit of background. I was talking to a friend of mine last week who has a newly released app in the app store. She told me that while a lot of people loved it, some hated it. She wasn’t so much offended by that but rather annoyed at her inability to respond to the negative reviews “in situ,” especially given that she felt that many of them completely missed the point of the ...

Blogged about “The Business of Code, The Code of Business” yesterday on the Google Code blog. “The Business of Code” part talks about how the economics of being an independent software company are being transformed by the web and by cloud computing, potentially limiting the number of opportunities available. “The Code of Business” part addresses how the structure of industries and corporations is being transformed, which provided a countervailing force that is likely to create some very excit...

Blogged about “The Business of Code, The Code of Business” yesterday on the Google Code blog. “The Business of Code” part talks about how the economics of being an independent software company are being transformed by the web and by cloud computing, potentially limiting the number of opportunities available. “The Code of Business” part addresses how the structure of industries and corporations is being transformed, which provided a countervailing force that is likely to create some very excit...

Yesterday’s Oscars were notable for two different fights: ABC vs. Cablevision and Hurt Locker vs. Avatar. The first of these is a perfect illustration of what I call “fighting over the digital pie.” The reason things got so vicious between ABC and Cablevision and resolved only slightly past the last minute (as far as Oscar coverage goes) is simple: dollars from TV distribution (carriage fees) are shrinking and everyone wants a bigger piece while there is still something to be had. It is compl...

Yesterday’s Oscars were notable for two different fights: ABC vs. Cablevision and Hurt Locker vs. Avatar. The first of these is a perfect illustration of what I call “fighting over the digital pie.” The reason things got so vicious between ABC and Cablevision and resolved only slightly past the last minute (as far as Oscar coverage goes) is simple: dollars from TV distribution (carriage fees) are shrinking and everyone wants a bigger piece while there is still something to be had. It is compl...

Today at noon I am giving a talk to the Japan Business Network in New York – an informal get together organized by my brother-in-law, Charles Danziger. The topic is the fundamental transformation of industries that the Internet will bring about. I am planning to use the following outline. Some background on Union Square Ventures - about $300 million under management across two funds - invest exclusively in the Internet - based in New York but national mandate (and some international investmen...

Today at noon I am giving a talk to the Japan Business Network in New York – an informal get together organized by my brother-in-law, Charles Danziger. The topic is the fundamental transformation of industries that the Internet will bring about. I am planning to use the following outline. Some background on Union Square Ventures - about $300 million under management across two funds - invest exclusively in the Internet - based in New York but national mandate (and some international investmen...

The New York Times had a piece yesterday on ebook pricing, which I have written about before. Interestingly, the piece simply states and doesn’t question that an ebook retailer such as Apple should be entitled to a 30% fee. What will Apple provide? There would seem to be four separate functions: discovery, payment, delivery and DRM. Let’s start with payment. The fraud rate for ebooks is likely to be very low and the cost to process a payment at scale should be no more than 25 cents (and hopef...

The New York Times had a piece yesterday on ebook pricing, which I have written about before. Interestingly, the piece simply states and doesn’t question that an ebook retailer such as Apple should be entitled to a 30% fee. What will Apple provide? There would seem to be four separate functions: discovery, payment, delivery and DRM. Let’s start with payment. The fraud rate for ebooks is likely to be very low and the cost to process a payment at scale should be no more than 25 cents (and hopef...

We took a quick look yesterday at the Closing Ceremony for the Winter Olympics, which was painful (Shatner, really?) but as we flipped to another channel, we ran across Undercover Boss on CBS. The premise of the series is simple: a boss from a large company works “undercover” at the frontlines of the business. The (first?) episode was one of the family owners of White Castle working shifts at several of their restaurants and at two of their supply facilities. On the downside, like all reality...

We took a quick look yesterday at the Closing Ceremony for the Winter Olympics, which was painful (Shatner, really?) but as we flipped to another channel, we ran across Undercover Boss on CBS. The premise of the series is simple: a boss from a large company works “undercover” at the frontlines of the business. The (first?) episode was one of the family owners of White Castle working shifts at several of their restaurants and at two of their supply facilities. On the downside, like all reality...

The Web brought us the democratization of content. Cloud Computing will do the same for applications. That will be one of my key themes for the Cloud Computing panel this afternoon at the Wharton Business Technology conference (that’s assuming that my Acela which is already 30 minutes late will make it to Philly in time). Prior to the Web, to get a piece of content out to the world required going through some gatekeeper like a publisher for books or a label for music. Now anyone can post cont...

The Web brought us the democratization of content. Cloud Computing will do the same for applications. That will be one of my key themes for the Cloud Computing panel this afternoon at the Wharton Business Technology conference (that’s assuming that my Acela which is already 30 minutes late will make it to Philly in time). Prior to the Web, to get a piece of content out to the world required going through some gatekeeper like a publisher for books or a label for music. Now anyone can post cont...

One of the all time great opening lines is from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina:Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.I am beginning to think that the opposite is true for (web) startups. There seem to be surprisingly many roads to success. But the canonical road to trouble appears to be taking your burn rate up *before* you have something that is really working. Over the past couple of weeks I have seen two startups that are in very different positions, despite...

One of the all time great opening lines is from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina:Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.I am beginning to think that the opposite is true for (web) startups. There seem to be surprisingly many roads to success. But the canonical road to trouble appears to be taking your burn rate up *before* you have something that is really working. Over the past couple of weeks I have seen two startups that are in very different positions, despite...

I love Italy - for vacations, that is. But the decision by a judge in Milan to convict several Google employees for the posting of a bullying video on Youtube is a serious threat to the potential of the Internet to be a force for freedom. I have been critical of Google many times on this blog, but agree wholeheartedly with their assessment of how troubling this is:European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal ...

I love Italy - for vacations, that is. But the decision by a judge in Milan to convict several Google employees for the posting of a bullying video on Youtube is a serious threat to the potential of the Internet to be a force for freedom. I have been critical of Google many times on this blog, but agree wholeheartedly with their assessment of how troubling this is:European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal ...

Over the last few days, Apple has removed a number of apps from the app store that have, as the New York Times’s Jenna Wortham put it “sexually suggestive” material. There is plenty of speculation on the motives, such as VentureBeat’s idea that this is about winning over educators to the iPad. I think the actual explanation is likely to be simpler. Browsing and discovery are broken in the app store. If these were working well, then there would be no need to remove apps like this (for any reas...

Over the last few days, Apple has removed a number of apps from the app store that have, as the New York Times’s Jenna Wortham put it “sexually suggestive” material. There is plenty of speculation on the motives, such as VentureBeat’s idea that this is about winning over educators to the iPad. I think the actual explanation is likely to be simpler. Browsing and discovery are broken in the app store. If these were working well, then there would be no need to remove apps like this (for any reas...