My friend Jeff's portfolio!
]]>My friend Jeff's portfolio!
]]>Overall – we have met a lot of smart people within AOL- and I have personally discovered and and love the legacy of AOL – the company that brought the internet, email and IM to the masses.
The cuts although deep are by all means necessary – we are losing some fantastic minds and spirits around AOL – but it is a necessary step for us to transition from a access based business with content as an ancillary offering – to a content / ad driven free business. “Lean team, clear direction”.
Userplane internally gains inspiration from the mission we set upon 5 years ago and are still on – supporting millions of publishers with applications that enhance online community! I believe that mission fits in with the long term success of AOL and continues the AOL legacy as the largest online community platform in the world.
]]>Userplane grew organically with guiding principals, a financial forecast and a product plan - not really a traditional business plan. As I look at more and more internet businesses - it seems the traditional business plan format often does not support the dynamic and often unknown aspects of a .com business. Planning of course is critical to any venture, but a traditionally formatted business plan I think fails to capture the potential value, success and failure in a .com business.
I would propose the following structure for .com startups:
1. Business Overview (simple)
2. Wireframes + product walk through
3. Revenue model (and lets keep the CPM's realistic ok)
4. Technical development plan including timeline / scaling for the first rebuild
5. Key Staff and equity distribution
6. Competitors
7. "How you get your first X users"
8. Exit or Maintenance Strategy
And if you add in Web 2.0 theory:
9. Widget distribution strategy including:
API strategy
MySpace integration
10. 3rd Party mashups
11. Coopatition
Userplane Case Study: Vertical market entry strategy pays off
]]>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!
]]>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!
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>AOL, a division of Time Warner, will make its AIM instant messaging network web-friendly, making web-based application programming interfaces (API) and widgets available to anyone who wants to incorporate AIM functionality right into their Web sites and online communities, company executives say. OpenAIM was announced earlier this year, but was restricted to desktop applications.
“There are various folks who have ideas and needs to adopt it for their own specific use,” said Stephen Benedict, Principal Product Manager for the AIM Service at AOL, said in an interview today. AOL wants to encourage people to build businesses around OpenAIM, and is now extending the functionality to the web. “We will provide tools around this and extend the concept of presence and identity,” Benedict added.
This web API move can be viewed as a rearguard action for AOL – increasingly developers are beginning to center their IM/real time communication strategies on Jabber/XMPP platforms. The SIPphone-LiveJournal collaboration, which was reported on GigaOM earlier this summer is a perfect example of the new found affection for these open platforms. (XMPP approach entails primarily building out your own server locally and federating whereas AIM is about easily integrating with hugely popular IM service out there.) By offering OpenAIM and its web APIs, AOL is trying to stay relevant in the IM ecosystems. The recent Userplane acquisition is also part of company’s platform extension strategy.
OpenAIM, so far has been restricted to desktop applications – PlayLinc and Doppelganger being two examples of such applications that use AIM’s authentication, IM and presence information. The web version of OpenAIM is an effort by the company to rally web developers to its platform. The company is betting that its web APIs will result in many mash-ups and extend the utility of the AIM network, estimated to have 63 million users.
For developers the lure of the AIM user base can be pretty alluring. Kust like Google Maps API allows you to easily plug in a map without worrying about the cartography details, OpenAIM gives you messaging capabilities integrated with a developer ID. The installed base can easily log into new applications, try them out and become converts if the service meets their approval – no complicated sign-on process. Theoretically, the OpenAIM web APIs could be used to develop a social network build around the AIM authentication system that uses the IM network for communication. AOL is hoping that many other use case scenarios will emerge. “We cannot be all things to all people,” says Benedict.
AOL, till recently an access provider decided to morph into a web-services companies earlier this year, betting that it could race against time, and retain its dwindling dial-up user base by offering them free web-based offerings. The company’s biggest advantage is that it understands the average users. But it also needs to adapt and compete with the more nimble competitors such as Google.
The service is essentially free if the number of daily logons to the AIM doesn’t exceed 250,000 a day and tops out at 2 million logons a month. After that company says it will enter into a commercial agreement with the developers, but the terms are going to be pretty reasonable. We aren’t clear on how this will apply to existing businesses built around AIM, such as the web-based multiple-service instant messaging interface from Meebo.
Amongst the widgets to be offered, there will be an IM widget, the Buddy List widget, and a Get Info Widget, which provides buddy info by way of a separate window. These will be offered as APIs along with a Presence API, which would allow AIM users to get and set their availability, away messages and profiles.
The web-version of OpenAIM is likely to be announced later today tomorrow at the WebGuild conference in Santa Clara, California. As part of announcements, the company is going to offer an AIM widget that can be put on your blog, or on your personal space.
http://www.alexaradar.com/fast/country/ca
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