Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Will the real Internet please stand up?

Things are sure moving fast these days, lot's on the go. I came across this article today and thought it was post worthly.

The Internet Has Just Begun to Make an Impact
Consider the top five global Internet market cap leaders: Google, Yahoo, eBay, Yahoo Japan and Amazon, which combined for a $2 billion market value in pre-2000 IPO. That soared to $178 billion in market value at the Nasdaq's peak in March 2000, only to fall to $32 billion at the trough on Oct. 9, 2002.

As of April 22, 2005, these five companies had a total market value of $197 billion. That new peak resulted from the Internet's ubiquity and widespread consumer acceptance."

Pretty amazing when you consider how early on we are in the growth and impact of the Internet. I've said it before and I'll say it again, what an exciting time to be alive.

Friday, April 08, 2005

Google better keep an eye on MSN

I just saw this post on Alex Barnett's Blog. Some interesting developments:

Internetnews.com:
"MSN Messenger 7.0 will also introduce the concept of shared search on the IM client. Using integrated MSN Search capability, users will be able to search and share results of search queries while having an IM conversation. According to Holden, MSN did a lot of research into how people use PC-to-PC calls and they specifically looked at upstart VoIP vendor Skype.
...Microsoft claims that over 2.5 billion instant messages currently traverse the MSN Messenger network every day. The service also boasts over 155 million users each month. "


Also, MSN Spaces is out of beta. From PC Magazine:
"Spaces hasn't changed all that much from its initial beta release, but there have been two noticeable improvements. You now get 30MB of photo storage space — up from a mere 10MB. Plus, there are now over 50 new "themes" you can use to define your blog's basic look and feel."

Infoworld:
"Over 4.5 million people have already signed up for the free service, Microsoft said. "


I've written about how impressive Google is in the past, and they certainly continue to be impressive. Although if you take a look back at the innovators (like Netscape) it's very hard for them to continue to lead. I'm sure the folks at MSN are not thinking that Google's dominance is out of reach. All I can say is watch out Google. MSN has some deep pockets and lots of smart people.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

The Long Tail

As with everything I find on the Net, by the time I come across it I feel like I've missed so much. As is the case with "The Long Tail".
Last year a guy named Chris Anderson wrote an article in Wired Magazine about a concept known as "The Long Tail", this concept hit home with content owners everywhere. Chris now maintains a blog on The Long Tail which is a great source for up to date info.
I'll paraphase for the sake of this post, but the best thing to do if you're interested is to read the wired article first and then keep an eye out for it - It's everywhere nowadays. The Long Tail looks like this:




The basic premise of the Long Tail is that the market of niches is larger than the mass market content. Take music downloads for instance, the top 10,000 songs make up less market share than all songs outside the top 10,000. This is very compelling concept that is only possible online. With no distribution or warehousing costs (to speak of) virtually all content can be made available and if there is an audience for that content it can be sold to at a profit. Applying this thinking to types of content really opens the door to the future and where a new opportunity lies.
I've got lots of thoughts around this and plan to post them in the coming weeks. I know my blogging has slowed to a crawl lately - work is a busy place these days - but I'm committed to the 5 people that read this blog. So stay tuned!