Amazon is coming to eat you up

Interesting article here, what struck me was variance of Internet Sales % penetration by country

https://foragerfunds.com/bristlemouth/amazon-destroy-australian-retailing/

Google Fiber is dead

:( pussies

https://googlefiberblog.blogspot.pe/2016/10/advancing-our-amazing-bet.html?m=1

More here - http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/google-fiber-laying-off-9-of-staff-will-pause-plans-for-10-cities/ but basically Google decides real world stuff is hard and goes back to serving ads.


So much for big audacious goals......

Is salvation for the NY Times in "Amazon referral commisions"?

Really interesting acquisition this week


- http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/business/media/new-york-times-company-buys-the-wirecutter.html?
New York Times Company Buys The Wirecutter
Founded in 2011 by Brian Lam, a technology journalist and former editor of Gawker’s technology site, Gizmodo, The Wirecutter provides recommendations for gadgets and electronics like televisions and headphones. (The Sweethome focuses mostly on products for the home.)


So the question has to be asked even if revs for The Wirecutter are less than a few million a year.....is it possible the future for NY Times and its falling revenue is to be made up "clipping sales coupon tickets"?  (btw.....how retro.... :) lets party like its 1999).


The real question I have is "how many users did The Wirecutter" actually have (MAU's?) and what value per user did the $30m actually work out to be?


Second question in case anyone knows......do you think there is value in "personal user data" that NY Times knows that XYZ subscriber just purchased UVW product and therefor is likely to also purchase RST product and should NY Times setup a retargeting beacon service for additional revenue?


Cheers,
Dean

Aereo 2.0 but from the "consumer end" for a supreme court end run?

Ever since Aereo 1.0 was sent to administration I've been waiting for a "in house consumer end" to launch..... presumably creating an end run around the courts decision.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/resources/0006/slings-airtv-expected-to-blend-ota--ott/279616


So the question remains.....would you pay $150 for an OTA tv antenna to watch content out of home? (and question for Sling/EchoStar.....what happens when I hook this antenna up to my cable box :) with a  converter).

Pay for adblock use

Great to see more content providers preventing adblockers from proceeding BUT giving users a “paid option” to continue with an ad free version

- http://adage.com/article/media/atlantic-s-website-pay-ads/306297

As someone who relies on ads to pay for server fees……if you don’t want to pay then someone else has to pay, your choice which.......

Happy Monday Everyone

Happy Monday everyone and have fun biting  :)

EM sales model

A worthwhile read
- https://hbr.org/2016/09/how-one-startup-developed-a-sales-model-that-works-in-emerging-markets

The microfinancing portion is an interesting piece.....makes the move by AliPay into fractional financing for vendors an obvious move to increase profit margin.

Tax Wars

http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/the-next-phase-of-australia-diminishing-tax-base-losing-billions-in-revenue-to-china-and-india-20160823-gqytyv.html


"Instead of digging up resources and shipping them off overseas, we can value-add. We can start to develop our own industries, our own IP, our own skilled workforces. 
Malcolm Turnbull has started the process with his $1.1 billion national innovation plan. Now he just needs to sell it, so all of us can all believe in it."

You know a high speed high quality NBN would have helped build these IP companies.

.....but hey ....what do I know.

Uber acquires OTTO

Uber acquired OTTO, (wow that was quick)

- http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-volvo-otto-idUSKCN10T1TR?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FbusinessNews+%28Business+News%29&utm_content=Netvibes

Australia regulated bitcoin under the guise of terrorism

Pure governmental PR Bullshit yet again showing Australia is unwilling or unable to move forward into the future.

Cant monitor it....then lets call it terrorism.......and hope that the sheep believe us.

What governments are failing to understand is that citizens have woken up to the fact that "they" can chose what country they locate themselves in by choosing a country that offers them the best benefits and its governments that are partially irrelevant today - not the people.

- http://www.smh.com.au/world/australia-to-regulate-bitcoin-under-counterterrorism-finance-laws-20160808-gqnne2.html

If the government really believes Bitcoin is being used for terrorism.....prove it, show me one single case of "funding terrorism"....voters arent as stupid as they think anymore.

Malicious android apps

With the money/profits involved with Android you'd think that Google should be throwing resources at this problem.....

-  http://www.securityweek.com/android-app-stole-user-photos-over-year

Don't get me wrong, Apples walled garden approach is "wrong" in so many other ways but you'd think some kind of "verified by google" blue tick or similar with a fee make sense.

Class 3 of muru-d

Any thoughts on the latest muru-d crop of startups?

If you had to back 1 of the 9 which one would it be?

- https://muru-d.com/events/details/syd3-demo-night-invite-only/

Wire.com

Great move for a great piece of technology - http://fortune.com/2016/07/22/wire-open-source

 

Have no idea why more people aren’t using this software.

Facebook bots from a desktop?

Anyone know why you cant “invoke” facebook bots from a desktop browser?

Its weird after reading this article http://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/digital/yahoo-unveils-four-bots-for-facebook-messenger/53126105  i fired up my desktop browser (on left) but you cant initiate a chat with the @YahooWeather at all….fire up mobile messenger app….yep works straight away.

Any thoughts? has anyone built a POC to see whats involved? What sort of takeup are you seeing?

Are users coming back?

Can you generate enough website traffic to justify the costs/effort involved?

Pokemon Go

Pokémon Go Is Already Taking Over People’s Lives And It’s Very, Very Scary
“Instead of taking my lunch break I just walked around catching Pokémon for 30 minutes.”- https://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/pokemon-go-app


seems to be working btw - https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4rszbc/the_lure_was_supposed_to_bring_more_pokemon/

I've often wondered why we dont see more games like Mogi Mogi developed over the years - http://blog.collins.net.pr/2006/07/do-you-mogi-mogi.html  

I know about Ingress but you just think with mobile apps this would be a natural format.

Will be interesting to see if this is a category breakout.

Twilio IPO soars.....party like its 1999

Twilio just opened at $23.99.....from its IPO price of $15.00


Twilio soars as stock opens at $23.99 for trading
- http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/23/twilio-ipo.html
Twilio began trading Thursday on the NYSE under the ticker symbol TWLO, entering the market on a day filled with uncertainty as the world awaits the outcome of the UK's referendum on its EU membership.The stock opened 60 percent higher, at $23.99, before extending gains to $24.71, up about 65 percent.
The cloud software developer's initial public offering marks the first U.S. venture-backed tech IPO of 2016. Twilio priced its IPO at $15 per share, above the range of $12 to $14 that the cloud software developer proposed in an updated IPO prospectus last week.




Time to party like its 1999......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf-kbpm4aa0

Guvera IPO blocked....opportunity in disguise?

http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/asx-blocks-ipo-of-music-streaming-company-guvera-20160617-gpm27v.html?rand=4963696#comments

Whilst I have publicly rubbished the Guvera listing previously, very disappointed that the ASX has chosen to block this listing when there are other far dodgier listings passed.

This said.....I agree with calls that the ASX should setup a "nasdaq" for Australian tech startups (possibly with some maximum dollar amount raise limits and shareholder number limits"), there is demand for yield exposure with investors happily looking for higher risk (the biggest crooks out there at the moment are the governments with their artificially low interest rates on investments.......want to start banning investments....start with USA T-Bills).

Will the ASX use this as an opportunity to evolve....probably not.

Will someone in Australia set up a competing exchange with the associated fees and government approvals required.....I can only hope and fully expect they would drink the ASX's milkshake before they even realize the missed opportunity.

Linkedin ....what a waste

To give you an idea of how big a waste this Linkedin deal is.....everyone at Microsoft could have taken the entire year off...sat on the beach and sold nothing for 365 days.....and come back to work today if they didnt waste $26B on LinkedIn.

Should have been returned to shareholders as dividends, as a shareholder very disappointed in Microsoft.

- http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/msft/financials/cash-flow

State of the current Voice UI providers

Worth a read "Voice report around echo/siri/ok google"

- http://www.recode.net/2016/6/7/11868200/the-voice-first-user-interface-has-gone-mainstream

Keep in mind we are in V0.4 of this UI and people will find a use, eg i paid for the Asterisk+Weather script to be developed in 2005 because i got sick of my wife asking me to look up the weather because i "was online" eg working from home when she was getting ready in the morning - http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/2005-February/083313.html

Though its scary how many people use Echo "to set a timer in the kitchen".....$100 of technology = 15c egg timer with sand in an hourglass.

Excellent use of eye tracking for the trailer of Outcast

http://www.engadget.com/2016/06/06/outcast-interactive-trailer/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000589


The trailer requires use of headphones and a webcam. With your permission, it uses your webcam to detect whether your eyes are closed or open. With your eyes closed, you hear narration, creepy noises and the like; with your eyes open, you'll see flashes of visions mostly pulled from the regular trailer and first episode. It essentially forces you to keep your eyes closed in order to progress....




excellent :)

Flow Hive

Curious to see how FlowHive go longer term but great to see an aussie invention out their bringing home big bucks to Australia from home grown ingenuity.

https://www.facebook.com/flowhive/posts/952694448162120

Hardware startups that suck

Yet another example of bastardry that makes it even harder for hardware startups coming along later

“Coin says its existing products can be used until their internal batteries die”. - http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/18/11700658/fitbit-coin-acquisition-announced  

Wow gee….thanks….nice product support there Coin.

Between this and the Amazon IOT button that dies after 1,000 presses - http://amzn.to/1qw6VBZ you have to wonder at the “designed to fail” mentality of some hardware vendors at the moment.

DMCA Abuse?

Someone is posting spoilers to every #GameOfThrones episode.

Should DMCA be allowed to be used in this instance - https://www.facebook.com/LiveTVchat/posts/10154103255395138 

Frank Lowy

What a champion !!

Wish we had more of him leading the way for Australia and the world.

- http://www.smh.com.au/business/property/scentre-group-chairman-frank-lowy-bids-adieu-20160505-gomyvd.html

Streaming and TV....same or different?

This is an interesting court case and probably the first of something we'll probably be seeing more of.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/is-live-streaming-the-same-as-broadcast-tv-judge-to-give-landmark-ruling-20160427-gog99h.html


Will be watching this one to see how it works itself out in the end.

Aereo 2.0 ....the "in your house" distributed version

Great article in this months TVTechnology magazine about the current crop of "Over The Air"+online content providers such as TabloTV etc

Just because Aereo went away the idea of capturing OTA signals onto devices hasn't (some backstory articles on Aereo as a refresher here - http://blog.collins.net.pr/search?q=aereo )

TabloTV is the one I'd keep an eye on (4 tuners $299) but there are any number of products and derivative solutions looking to sneak into your living room (seems the safe legal path of in house rather than centralized like Aereo seems to be the flavor of the day).

More details at - http://www.tvtechnology.com/resources/0006/taking-broadcast-overthetop/278367


Will be interesting to see how this area evolves. Especially with Obama's recent push for "evolved set top boxes owned by consumers".

Cheers,
Dean

Sell or exit?

Good article and food for thought for my Australian entrepreneur friends.....eg build then sell instead of build and exit.

We just dont have the numbers locally to exit so take the "sure thing" anyday and structure with this being the preferred course from day one.

- http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/10/can-israel-build-big-sustainable-companies

Father.io

About time !!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/father-io-first-real-life-massive-multiplayer-fps--2#/

 

Ever since I first read about Mogi Mogi back in 2006 I’ve been wondering why there isn’t more “real world” spatial game play - http://blog.collins.net.pr/2006/07/do-you-mogi-mogi.html

Stripe Atlas - start of something big?

Start of something big for Stripe?

- https://stripe.com/atlas

 

(btw if anyone knows someone over at stripe….the request form fails to load properly in IE11 <insert snide remarks here> but please lets not divert the conversation about browsers here and concentrate on what this means for companies looking to incorporate).

This being said....if you are an "online only" company then why incorporate in Delaware?

Why isn't Stripe allowing you to incorporate in Lithuania, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore?

With digital transactions why locate in the USA at all?

Delaware makes sense if you are going to be raising funding......but otherwise.....what advantages do I get?

Great to see them branching out of the "transaction" space though. Could easily deliver Stripe higher profits (not revenue) than their original business.

AirBNB or Uber not invented here

Last time i checked neither AirBNB or Uber were invented, funded, or has their headquarters IN Australia so why wouldnt they be sending profits and a percentage of sales back home (or 'offshore' in this case).

I think its time for Australian politicians to realise if you want to develop a tax base then develop and grow startups from scratch and the first place to start is to install a real and working NBN and have faster mobile communications.

- http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/uber-pays-just-over-400000-tax-in-australia-over-three-years-20160223-gn1j9x.html

Oh and for people complaining that "corporates dont pay fair tax" you know that the solution to that is implementing a 15% gst but NoooOOOooooo that might actually cost you some money from your pocket so you wont vote for that will you.

Network level ad blocking

Simple solution......website should block mobile traffic from the Three mobile network and redirect users to an explanation on why they should change mobile operators.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/telecoms/12163439/Mobile-giant-Three-to-block-online-advertising.html

Three is poised to become the first major European mobile operator to block online advertising on its network, signalling a clash with digital publishers and advertising companies.

It is understood that Three, which runs operators in half a dozen European countries including the UK, will next week announce a deal with Shine, a controversial Israeli technology company that specialises in blocking mobile advertising.


Shine’s investors include Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong billionaire behind CK Hutchison, the owner of Three.



FourSquare Brilliance

ha ha ha classic :)

#FourSquareWinsTheInternet for the day

 

 

 

-   https://www.facebook.com/deancollins/posts/10153332099281723