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How To: Corporate blogging

Posted Aug 19th 2007 1:30PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Blogging

how to : corporate bloggingCorporate blogging is a very sensitive issue. Companies like to try and hide behind wordy marketing and corporate communication folks. This makes for the big mistake of not allowing the top players to get their much valued and respected words in. And marketing speak is just what people don't want to hear.

Steve Rubel, an SVP at Edelman PR has some ideas on how to get the most out of corporate blogging in his latest Wired piece. In it Steve goes over how to blog without dishing out company secrets, getting fired, or turning people off.

Hopefully his tips will reach the right readers and make for a much more interesting and jam-packed informational corporate blogging atmosphere.
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Who's going to get bought out next?

Posted Jul 24th 2007 1:30PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Finance

Who's going to get bought over next?

Wondering which Web 2.0 company is going to cash out next? So are we, and so was Aidan Henry.

Aidan wrote up a list of the biggest Web 2.0 companies that got bought out over the past year, and a list of the biggest movers that are highly targeted leaders. Among them are market leaders like Digg, Technorati, Netvibes, SimplyHired, 37 Signals, LinkedIn, Ning, and SixApart.

So what will the next major aquisition be? Facebook said it's not interested, and 37 Signals has been trucking along building successful applications for some time now so it's hard to tell. But these companies hold a lot of interest for larger traditional media ventures like News Corp, or top technology companies like Yahoo and Google.

Given acquisition track records, companies that have been bought out by larger companies usually enjoy an increase in exposure, customer base, and all of the technology developments they can handle.....most of the time. With buyouts often come the unknown. Yahoo scored big with del.icio.us and has taken some time to redevelop the popular bookmarking site, but Dodgeball seemed to have sunk when Google took it over and neglected it.

So what's your bet? Who would you write in as the number one spot for the next major acquisition?
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How many page views a month does a Web 2.0 company need to get an IPO?

Posted Apr 20th 2007 1:30PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Web services, Social Software

silicon valley guy handbookWe are in a crazy time right now as far as internet companies go. Just like 1999, they are popping up everywhere, and everyone is doing something 2.0 related. Only difference now, they are all online based applications.

Well, what would it take for a Web 2.0 company to hold an initial public offering? Michael Kanellos looked into this with Opus Capital partner Ken Elefant. Ken stated that his firm will not even think about investing in a 2.0 company unless they have one billion or more page views.

So what's the math here? A web 2.0 company needs to pull in at least $5 million/ month to be independent. Ultimately what Ken says is that in order for companies to be viable, their best bet is to get bought out by an established player. For more on Michael's findings check out Cnet.

[image via TechStartups]
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Google buys the in-game ad startup, Adscape

Posted Feb 16th 2007 12:00PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Google

google buys adscapeThere have been lots of rumors and buzz circulating the past few weeks on whether or not Google was pursuing Adscape, a startup -- only officially launched in February 2006 with $3.2 million in funding -- that specializes in in-game advertising. After a brief quiet period, details are starting to emerge about an agreement to acquire Adscape Media for $23 million. Could this be the next big thing for Google?

In-game advertising insiders say that it will most likely will not do much for the search giant but, I highly doubt that. With this being a potential new advertising category, and with Microsoft already in the mix, there is serious potential for Google to open new doors and show smaller businesses the opportunities they could bring. With all current generation gaming machines having some form of internet connectivity, locally focused in-game advertising could find a whole a new level.

Google specializes in online, and if the ads are kept online in Adscapes dynamic advertisements for video games, all should do just fine. Don't expect and major deals to be worked out yet, as I'm sure Google has a lot of development to do on the project.
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Seven rules for Web 2.0 startups

Posted Dec 1st 2006 9:00AM by David Chartier
Filed under: Internet, Productivity, Web services, Social Software

These days it seems like anyone with an idea and some time can crank out a Web 2.0 startup, be it a service, community, one-trick-pony or ambiguously named whichamadinger. It also seems like many of these startups could use some guidance to help them find their way. With goofy names, varying user experiences and questionable goals running amok, we figured it was time to lay down some ground rules. Check out our seven tips to help Web 2.0 startups be all they can be:
  1. Help me make the move: New blogs and communities need easy tools to let their users integrate some sort of blurb about their new hangout on their other sites and communities. For example: I've been playing with Vox for a few weeks now, and just recently they introduced a badge tool that puts together all the HTML users would need to insert in another blog sidebar. This makes it easy for users to tell existing readers they have have (or are moving to) a Vox blog. While it's a smart move and I'm using a badge on my personal WordPress blog, this generator should have existed the day Six Apart, and all who follow in their footsteps, flipped the switch on their service.

  2. Don't make me jump through hoops: ...or give you my e-mail address just to check out your service. Good: Tell me in plain language how your product works and how it can make my life better. Better: Show me with lots of screenshots or even a few screencasts. Best: Just let me start playing with it and worry about registration after I've decided whether it's any good or not.

  3. Tell me what it is, not what's inside: I don't care whether your service is powered by Ruby on Rails, .NET, AJAX, REST, or Vegemite, so don't waste another breath on it. Tell me what it does and why I want to use it, and keep the nerdy chest-thumping on your Developers page.

  4. Keep it simple: ...if you want me to do it a hundred times. If adding a bookmark or a hotspot on a map is a multi-stepped process, the likelihood of me doing it a lot goes way down. This is often the difference between making or breaking the site. Quicker processes mean I'll be back many more times to do it again, and more traffic equals more money for you.

  5. Play well with others: It's great that you have a (hopefully) unique vision for your community, but let's be real: you aren't the first startup on the block. This one comes again from my pleasurable experience at Vox: users can upload their pictures, audio and video to Vox, or they can find this media at other communities like Flickr, YouTube and even iStockphoto to easily plug into their posts. This "friendly neighbor" aspect of Vox earns the site huge points in the Web 2.0 community department, as they clearly recognize there is value in allowing their users to hang out at other sites.

  6. APIs!: Speaking of playing with others: the technical details shouldn't be on the front page, but they should be there. The gold standard of Web 2.0 is a well-documented interface that lets geeky users and other Web 2.0 developers get at all of your site's data and roll it into their own desktops, web sites, and services in a variety of ways. Bonus points for nailing the trifecta: XML, JSON, and YAML.

  7. Don't let your four-year-old name it: Flickr got away with ditching the vowel--you won't. We were through with double-Os long before Squidoo, Calgoo, or Zooomr (triple-O!) came along, and the same goes for your EEs. Domain name scarcity is not an excuse for stupid product names any more than improved traction is a justification for clown shoes.
Simple rules with (ideally) broad implications. We hope these can make their way into the hands of the next Flickrs and del.icio.uses so everyone can have a better time on the web. But is our list complete? Are we missing anything? If you have a rule or two that should have made this list, you know what to do.

Thanks to Jordan and Ryan for contributing to this post
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AOL to lay off 1,400 call center employees in mid-December

Posted Oct 19th 2006 8:30AM by David Chartier
Filed under: Business, Internet

AOL to lay off 1,400 call center employees in mid-DecemberAOL announced today that they will be laying off 1,400 call center employees, fulfilling a company restructure announced back in August. CNET is reporting the ISP-cum-content portal has told employees at their Albuquerque, NM and Tucson, AR call centers that they'll be closing up shop by mid-December, while they'll be selling a third in Ogden, UT. Here's hoping AOL had a little more tact than to use the recently-publicized Radio Shack layoff-via-email method.
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