mjones.la: November 2006 Archives

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November 17, 2006

Rumors..

So the rumor mill continues. The most often question asked is why AOL as a now "technology" company striving to be more product centered is bringing in a NBC exec to the CEO chair?

The best answer I have heard so is AOL is gaining speed as a advertising based business - and thus Time Warner is bringing in a seasoned advertising executive to cut the right deals and steer the ship. Right or wrong from a strategic approach - my guess is the logic holds true.

Unfortunately I think AOL needs to be more of a technology platform company than a media company to be successful in the long run - it will be interesting to see if the new CEO feels the same.

Regardless, losing Jon, Tina and Jason will be a culture shift - and one I was personally not hoping for!

Posted by Michael Jones at 01:56 AM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2006

Oh no, there goes Miller!

So the first few months at AOL have been an exciting one - I always though that the drama at startups left as companies became more mature - I guess at the end the drama only really magnifies with size..

Jon Miller has been a great proponent of ours - identifying Userplane as an acquisition candidate, helping Marcien drive our deal - and supporting us as a remote entity working on progressive tactics to build AOL. I only hope his successor will be as forward thinking!

All this plus losing Tina - the world changes quickly!

Posted by Michael Jones at 05:20 AM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2006

Finally reading The Search

I finally got around to reading The Search - a tale by John Battelle which reviews the history, growth of primarily search and Google. The debate on Google as a media or content company is compelling and seems to be echoed throughout the tech community. I am only about half through the book at the time of this post.

Ironically I originally though of Google as an ad network - they simply have strong technology that provides the most relevant and fraud-preventative ads to external site partners - which accounts for roughly 40% of their revenue.

The point the book reinforces for me is just how relevant search ads are. Thinking back to the days of Webcrawler (an AOL acquisition) - user driven search has always been the launch pad for the user.

Personally I am finding Googles search results less and less accurate - seeing how aggressive promoters have become in Google spamming the index is constantly being bombarded by malicious marketers. What is more impressive is even though I might be dissatisfied with Googles specific results - their distribution channels are so well established I find the as a lazy person i default to using them regardless..

Looking into the future, social search seems to be the answer - a index made for me from my peers, and the system would most likely anticipate my needs based on search history, time of day, schedule, etc - so that instead of me inputting my needs into a small box, it would simply predict and deliver me the specific results that were most probable for me at that time. That concept ties AI to search - and my guess is the next "big" thing in search is not search - but computer driven results delivery. Putting search beind the scenes and simply surfacing the results - which is all we are really searching for in the first place.

Posted by Michael Jones at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2006

Web 2.0 - quick summary

As well pointed out by many of the attendees at Web 2.0 2006, it was a bit less inspiring than Web 2.0 2005. Interviews not quite as hard pressing, less shocking announcements, all this despite the fact that the speakers were at the top of many of the largest media companies pushing the internet forward. With a $3500 entry fee - it filtered out some of the very early and most interesting innovators.

On the flip side, Monday I attended Widgets Live - which showcased some very innovative companies and technologies - YourMinis.com being one of my favorites. Om and Niall did a fantastic job - I look forward to the next one.

Posted by Michael Jones at 03:45 AM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2006

WidgetsLive

Om + Niall's Widgets conference was good today - potentially even more forward thinking than tomorrows Web 2.0 conference. A long time ago my partner Javier talked about Userplane as a company without a consumer website, that talked to millions of users daily through distributed "apps". We built that company over the past 3 years - and ironically now that company's distribution strategy has a name - widgets.

Overall the widget market has two faces:

1. Places to Put Widgets (personal homepages, start pages, profiles, etc)
2. Actual Widgets

This all ties back to the further customization of the personal web, my personal information aggregator - and the incredible trend of the personal profile. Originally I felt this trend was completely the responsibility of MySpace trends - but now I feel the genesis is greater. Personal homepages have been around for quite some time - now maybe since the web world is open that was the shift that allowed these secondary markets to be created.

It could be argued that there really are two types of widgets:

1. Widgets for me
2. Widgets that represent me to others

Although I am sure there is overlap - my guess is each widget will really live in one of those two primary categories.

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