Tag Archive: social media

Plenty of Fish in the Sea, But Please Don’t Fugu Me

Homer Simpson - Fugu Me!

California Attorney General Kamala Harris recently announced an agreement with three of the largest online dating sites:  eHarmony, Match.com and Spark Networks (parent company of JDate and ChristianMingle, among others).  In much the same way Facebook reached an agreement regarding child safety with AG’s nationwide in 2008, it appears the dating sites agreed to some voluntary…

Evaluating the Risks in Facebook’s IPO: Would You Invest?

Facebook is forthcoming about the challenges of mobile: No revenue currently generated from mobile advertising; unclear how much mobile use could be monetized; failure to solve this puzzle combined with a dramatic shift toward mobile usage could be a serious problem; and they don’t control the iOS and Android platforms. Frankly, if there were one thing that persuaded me not to invest in FB at current valuations, this would be it.

Keep It Under Your Hat: Valuation Caps and the $650 Million Sale of MySpace for $125 Million

Graph by Martin Kleppmann: Cap - Effective Discount on Conversion

Valuation caps can shape the fundamentals of an exit, redistribute value among stakeholders, or even kill a deal altogether. Never missing an opportunity for a good war story, I’d like to revisit one high-profile transaction, the $650 million acquisition of MySpace by Fox Interactive Media in 2005.

“AirB&E” and Crisis Management for Consumer Web Startups

Mashable screen shot - Airbnb on Ransackgate: "We Screwed Up And We're Sorry"

Much has been written about the cooperative nature of Valley culture, and Airbnb itself was an outgrowth of the idealistic “couch surfing” movement. As with any online community, well-meaning early adopters arrive first, and if all goes well, a culture of respect evolves that keeps behavior within relatively civilized boundaries. The trouble comes when a site becomes wildly successful, going from 1,000 closed beta members to 1,000,000 users. As it grows, any service will come to resemble a diverse cross-section of the general population, with the full range of human misconduct represented.

South by Social Media: Improving the Signal-to-Noise Ratio

Social Media Club

It’s impossible to capture all of the ideas, experiences, people, products, pitches, events of such a huge, intense event in one blog post. A few thoughts and resources to cut through the chatter:

Silicon Valley After the Dot-Com Crash: An Insider Perspective

Excite@Home Building For Sale

After the last ops and engineering staff were laid off, I remember wandering through the cavernous, deserted NOC, strewn with assorted equipment that was left to be carted off to auction, looking up at the huge projection screens that forlornly flickered “No Signal.” It felt downright post-apocalyptic, with huge diesel generators out back standing ready to provide backup power to a NOC and data center that no longer needed it.