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The registration for the fabulous Le Web 3 '07 fourth edition and preliminary program taking place in Paris on Dec 11-12 has opened.
If you are only going to attend one web related event in Europe this year - this is the one!
Last year when I was visiting Hong Kong and met with the Simon Lee & the guys at Bullpoo, they complained that there where not enough web entrepreneurs in Hong Kong. And if there were, they were not aware of each other. I then suggested that the meet up with a few people I had been in contact with and start meeting informally for drinks once a month. Guess what? Today Simon tells me over Skype that the initiative I started have just resulted in the fourth Hong Kong Web Start up Meet up, and they were almost 200! Amazing!
EditGrid hosted the last meetup, Yahoo HK have started to show-up and Catharina Maracke from Creative Commons was there as well. I am really excited about the fact that it was started on my initiative and in one year has grown to such an extent. There is nothing more gratifying than being able to help and connect people with each other.
And of course, what event/group can be taken seriously if they don't have their own Facebook group? Join HK Web 2.0 on Facebook here.
I for sure will come by next time I have an opportunity to join the meetup. Good luck - and thanks Simon for sharing the story.
I'm off to San Francisco (again) for a bunch of meetings and SuperNova 2007. I have a lot of interesting meetings lined up, amongst others: meetings with my two favorite platform providers: Facebook and the Twitter. I know most of my readers have lots of request for new features and improvements - dump them here and I'll make sure they reach the right people.
I will spend all Wednesday to Friday in San Francisco and will be in Palo Alto the rest of time (until 27th). I you wanna meet up please leave me a comment or just get in touch directly.
I will also try to post a daily video on Facebook so feel free to tune in from time to time. Also, don't forget to join The Maxthon Lovers group on Facebook. It's growing and would love to see you there as well. Oh, and don't forget to join the Le Web 3 group as well.
Maxthon also have a skin competition coming up soon for the 2.0 version with cool prices. If you want to create a cool skin and spread it to millions of users around the world and even have the chance to win the default position - please let me know. Start- ups and companies are also welcome!
Technorati Tags: Jaiku, Maxthon, leweb3, leweb3.1, Supernova2007, Twitter
Here is Loic's answer to my suggestions on Le Web 3. This is getting more and more interesting. I like this format. Don't forget to swing by the new group leweb3 group on Facebook to leave your comments and suggestions.
Technorati Tags: leweb3, leweb3.1, loiclemeur.facebook
At Web2.0 Expo last month Alex Faaborg, Chris Messina and other Mozilla folks talked alot about Microformats. Alex mentioned how important Browsers are to drive the uptake of it. So here you are guys, Maxthon 2.0 now has a Microformat plugin!
Supported Microformats:
Give me your feedback!
Technorati Tags: Microformat, Maxthon,
After two full weeks on the road it's finally time to head home to Israel again. It has been two great weeks starting out in San Francisco and the Web 2.0 Expo, followed by five days in Palo Alto and finally the CRV Leadership summit at Royal Palms Resort & Spa in Phoenix.
I think I summed up my views on Web 2.0 Expo before so I won't comment on that here. It is always so great to be in California, I get so much stuff done and have time to meet and hang-out with interesting entrepreneurs, venture capitalist and other great people. Although I try to spend a week a month in California, I must say that this time has been the best so far.
One of the highlights was hanging out with the Plymedia gang on Shabbath (for whom I am an Advisor) and especially hiking at Tiburun with Ben Enosh. It was a great day and I felt that I really made a new great friend. I also had time to meet new interesting entrepreneurs like Nik from Omnidrive, Yahya from Freewebs and others.
The best event was however the Charles River Ventures Leadership Summit at the Royal Palms Spa & Resorts in Phoenix, Arizona. What a great place! I wish I had brought my wife..This was the first time in five years that CRV had invited all their CEO's and founders from their portfolio companies and top speakers from various industries.
Against the backdrop of the Camelback mountains the event was very well planned and with a great lineup. I am really glad I decided to stay another week just to participate here. Besides all the portfolio companies people like Chris Sacca (Google), Evan Williams (Twitter), Andrew Baron (Rocketboom), Scoble, Michael Arrington, Om Malik, Ted Leonsis, Nathan Myhrvold (Intellectual Ventures & frmr Microsoft CTO), Prof. Yared Diamond (Pulitzer winner and author of "Collapse"), Larry Summers (frmr US Treasury Secretary), Matt Jacobson (Facebook), David Eckoff (VP Turner) and many more.
I particularly enjoyed chatting with Evan Williams (Twitter rocks!), Chris Sacca, Om Malik, Matt Jacobson, David Eckoff, Andrew Baron and David Sachs (Geni). Man! Geni is so good. Its going to become so big. David is a fantastic entrepreneur.
The event was really top quality in terms of speakers and participants but best of all - intimate enough for having quality time with each other. There was also time for desert hiking (see photo above with me & Bill Tai making the "m" Maxthon sign) lots of cactuses and a feeling of being beamed to Indian and cowboy land. Will post a separate CactusCast that I shot on the hike later.
I definitely learned a lot, met new friends and was inspired. Lot's of stuff on my mind now, new potential partnerships and new business ideas. Time to head home to wife and kids - I really miss them!
Technorati Tags: CRV, Freewebs, Geni, Larry Summers, Maxthon, Nathan Myhrvold, Plymedia, Rockeboom, Royal Palms Spa & Resort, Ted Leonsis, Twitter, Web2expo, Yared Diamond
I am surprised to see how many new web start-ups that are sponsoring big conferences like Web2.0 Exp, Web 2.0 Summit, Digital Hollywood etc you name it.
I have only one advice to these companies:
If your target audience is not conference attendants (and they very seldom are) Do not waste your marketing budget on these events! It's a total waste of money. Your potential users/customers are most likely not early adopters, partially half-converted Internet savvy media people and developers. If I would be an investor I would be very upset to see resources wasted like this.
Believe me, if you as a start-up would instead pay anybody on the street $50 to become a user - I bet that it would be a better return of investment that paying outrageous sponsorship fees for web conferences.
Go where your users are. And they are everywhere. The big challenge is to aquire real users - Go and get them!
Technorati Tags: Web2expo, Web2.0expo, Marketing, Advertising, Start-ups, Web2expo
I am going to be at the Web 2.0 Expo in SF all next week and I am going to bring with me two developers from Maxthon as well to the show. My schedule is jammed packed but if you would like to meet up April 15-22 at the show or on Thursday/Friday in Palo Alto - please let me know.
Technorati Tags: Web2.0expo, Maxthon
Faster than a Twitt, Maxthon super plugin developer Neo101, created this cool Twitter toolbar for Maxthon 2.0 The toolbar enables you to post to Twitter straight from Maxthon. Add me as your friend.
Technorati Tags: Twitter, Maxthon, Maxthon 2.0
This is quite cool. By using the swarm plugin for Google Earth you can look up the BitTorrent client that is used by each peer, what percentage of the file they downloaded so far, and their exact location. The only thing is that now it only shows seeds for torrents that contain the word "Borat"... I guess that more useful words are on the way.
If this could track all p2p traffic in China - you wouldn't see any thing on the map except pins.. Via TorrentFreak.
Technorati Tags: BitTorrent, Borat, Google Earth, p2p, peer-to-peer, mp3, mashups, Swarm, Torrents, tracking
An interesting observation by EarlyStageVC is suggesting that Web 2.0 is over and out by pointing out the dramatically falling traffic among three pure web 2.0 plays : Techcrunch, Gigaom, and Technorati. Although a lot can be questioned regarding Alexa ratings' accuracy, the all show a similar falloff in reach compared to their Q4 peaks.
I don't know if this really is interesting or not, expect perhaps for Techcrunch, Gigaom and Technorati. However, judging from my own reading habits, I actually stopped following the three named properties quite some time ago now. I just don't find them interesting anymore. I would definitely put Gigaom before Techcrunch in terms of quality and depth, but still I feel they are lost the edge.
Likewise, I have noticed that Technorati is not picking up blog pings like Google Blog search and is seriously falling after in picking up blog posts in general. It's a pity, because I really like David, Tantek and Peter. Perhaps it really is an indication of a general falloff.
Anyway, wether or not web 2.0 is over and out or not does not really matter. What matters is that innovation continues - and it will and have always done. What is really good will in the end survive, the rest will contribute to the innovation wave but eventually enter the dreaded "Dead pool".
Technorati Tags: Alexa, Technorati, Techcrunch, Gigaom, Technorati, Web 2.0
Hyundai is running quite a cool Mash+Seek contest to promote a new Elantra. 16 people have been picket and split into four groups. The contestants then have to locate three other people in their teams - with only a quarter face as a lead. The first team of four to find each other wins a new Elantra each. Cool. Adverlab thinks that this is a very good way to do consumer-generated content since people have to make themselves visible through blogs, Craighslists, Goolgle Adsense - you name. I agree.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, Hyundai, Mash+Seek, Mash+seek, Locate Three Strangers
I am very delighted to announce that I just joined Plymedia's Advisory Board. Plymedia is a great Israeli start-up and behind the super cool site BubblePly , that let's you add bubbles, callouts', sub-titles, links, - you name it, to any video you like and share it with the world.
The viral power of BubblyPly is staggering. People are uploading their videos, or adding bubble's, comments and links to other people videos on YouTube and other video sharing sites. Naturally most people like to turn videos more into more funny and entertaining by adding all kinds of comments. But it has also become very popular for people to translate videos and create sub-titles to foreign language movies as well.
Another interesting usage of the Ply's (that is what the bubbles or video layers are called) is for educational purposes. Personally I love the concept and can easily see how this will become very popular. As with all user-generated stuff, the users will show us best the way for how BubblePly should be used.
Plymedia was founded by Ben Enosh (serial entrepreneur, and amongst other things, co-founded Cyota Inc - an Internet security company that was sold last year to RSA for $145 million) Yuval Klein, David Markowitz, Yoni Silberberg and Miki Dotan. I was first introduced to them by Gil Dibner from Genesis Partners and was really impressed by their product, great team and vision.
Although the Online video space is getting really crowded, I believe that PlyMedia has a very good chance turn this into something very exciting.
Business model? Advertising my friends - advertising! I can definitely see how advertisers could flock to this..
And by the way, Plymedia is raising financing, so if you are a interested - feel free to get in touch with me to learn more.
Tags: Plymedia, BubblePly, YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, Video, Genesis Partners, VC, Venture Capital , Israel , Start-ups
Today I spend the day with knowledge hungry investment bankers, then participated in "Emerging Internet Companies" on behalf on Maxthon before running off to Maxthon's Headquarters for a sneak peak of a very new cool service and some upcoming product features. Looks great!
I also ran into a cool newly launched streetwear fashion clothes company just kicking-off here in China. Nice to meet with non-Internet related business people for a change ;). The name of the company is Eno , and the conversation with them certainly triggered some interesting ideas I want to explore...
Tomorrow, I have a breakfast meeting with a leading advertising agency am then off for a board meeting. Time is certainly running fast here and it's great to see so much activity in the Internet space. Before I head home I am going to pay a visit to HipiHi - the Chinese answer to Second Life. I got an invitation from them after I wrote a short post on them. Will certainly be a lot of fun. Bill Tail & Kaiser Kuo has promised to come along as well. Hopefully I will have time to shoot a short video from the visit - we'll see.
Finally, if you are looking for some new interesting investment oppertunity in China that are not related to the Internet. Digg deeper into alternative energy...it's getting very hot..
Technorati Tags: Altertnative engergy, Beijing, China, Eno, Fashion, Hipihi, China Investments, Second Life
The Focus group panel, a permanent panel at any Piper Jaffray conference was especially interesting since this time the discussion was with young Chinese users as opposed to US teens.
Key Points:
What I found most interesting was they all freely and openly spoke about that as soon as they wanted content forbidden by the government - they went Online to get it. Nobody seemed to be the least concerned with saying that openly. This is what I have been saying over and over: young people in China are not concerned or worried about saying what they want - no one is being arrested for a statement like the above... Censorship is something being practised by all governments, organizations, corporations and even Editors of the "free press" all over the world. It just comes in different colors and shapes..
Technorati Tags: Avatars, Baidu, China, Consumers, Download, Google, Movies, Mp3, Chinese Users, Users
The first day of Piper Jaffrays's Annual Growth Conference is just over here in cold but sunny Beijing. The panel called "The portal Challengers" dealing with mainly video sites as a new and alternative destination sites as opposed to the big portals, was really interesting. CEOs of Tudou, Yoqoo.com and Mop (Oak Pacific Interactive) shared their view of the challenges and experiences of Chinas 150+ YouTube's.
Here are the main points:
In short still a long way to go before any of them are making any serious revenues from video content.
Technorati Tags: Piper Jaffray, YouTube, puppy, Tudou, Video, Yoqoo, YouTube
I'm off to China on Sunday for the Fourth Annual Piper Jaffray China Growth Conference, March 6-8 in Beijng. I will be a panelist on "Emerging Internet Companies" talking about Maxthon. Piper Jaffray is known for organizing top events (invitation only) and judging from past events - this one looks very promising indeed with a great line up.
It will be a great opportunity for networking and potential Maxthon deals. Top executives from Chinas major Internet , Wireless, Game and Technology companies will be there. I am in particular interested in the Chinese focus group conversation, since I many times wonder what makes Chinese Internet users tick'.
Following the conference I am meeting with Maxthon Fan & supporter No 1: Kaiser Kuo, rockstar & Group Director at Ogilvy Interactive in China, followed by a Maxthon boardmeeting. It will be great to meet Bill Tai (CRV), David Zhang, Yuzhu (WI Harper), Jeff and Carol (Maxthon) again - just hope it will not be as cold as the last time..
If you want to meet up in Beijing please let me know, schedule is quite tight - but long is the night..;)
Who knows, maybe I even will have time to shoot some cool Beijing street scenes?
Piper Jaffray just published a fat report called "The User Revolution: The New Advertising Ecosystem and The Rise of the Internet as a Mass Medium". Here are some of its key findings:
Like my good friend Kaiser Kuo, Group Director for Digital Strategy, for Ogilvy China, mentions in this new (and great) blog " Ich bin ein Beijinger" : none of this should come as a surprise, but the report is full of eye-opening finding regarding the decline of TV viewing, changing viewing and decline of broadcast TV ad as percentage of total ad spend.
Kaiser who has a unique insight to China (and was very much responsible for Maxthon getting discovered and funded..) is confident that advertisers will flock to video ads and all the opportunities that are opening up for digital media advertising in China .However, he wonders how ready people really are for pre-roll commercials stuffed in to things they want to watch.
I tend to agree with Kaiser, although there is a fantastic opportunity for advertisers, the Internet savvy users might very well prefer to block ads if possible. This is something we have learned at Maxthon and seems to be especially true for Chinese Internet users. Al the sophisticated ad-blockers and filters that come pre-installed in Maxthon has definitely been one of the key driving factors for Maxthon success in China.
Anyway, next week I am flying down to Beijing again to talk on Piper Jaffrays Annual China Growth Conference on behalf of Maxthon. I will then have a chance not only to meet up with Safa and rest of the Piper Jaffray gang, but also to meet with Kaiser again and plot how we can deliver some interesting advertising opportunities together in China.
Thanks to Mark Pols for sending me this fat report!
Bonus: Video Interview with Kaiser I made just before he left the Red Herring.
I promised never to cover Google here anymore unless it has anything to do with Maxthon or Mashup Media. However, since it has, I cannot help to mention it. The Bloggers are buzzing around the Web now for the release of Google Apps. See stories here, here , here and here for more in-depht info.
Why do I mention it here then? Well, one for that I already tried to sign-up putting all of Mashup Media on Google Apps, but failed since Israel did not appear in the countries listed when you register. Please fix it Google! I am eager to spend $50 + ..
Second, some voices has been raised that it is still lacking enough compelling features and products like Jotspot, CRM tool etc. However since I know the people behind these products I know that the fun has just begun.. I wonder what one could do with this in a browser?
Something on M comes to my mind..Oh enough said already - time for a falafel..
Technorati Tags: Google, Google Apps, Maxthon, Office, Mashup Media
Tony Perkins has put this confession about what he learned from the fist Internet Bubble Online. I can certainly agree with many of his points. Especially
the only way to create a real company is to have lots of real (that is, paying) customers. More often than not, Internet entrepreneurs design products they like, but forget that the rest of the world isn’t made up of geeks like them. Just because your web-based service is popular on Slashdot doesn’t mean it’s going to hit it big with regular folks.
Although the blogosphere is a great place to evangelize your product and your company - it is not where most of your potential costumers hang out. The fact that your company has received a positive or event great review in Techcrunch does not necessary equal new customers and success. Unless your target audience typically consists of Techcrunch readers.. Moreover, many well know or even less known companies occasionally receive (or constantly) bad reviews throughout the Blogosphere, but they still have millions of customers and are doing very well anyway.
I would add another advice to some start-ups. Don't waste your marketing budget on sponsoring on sponsoring web 2.0 events and conferences, unless (again) that is where the majority of your potential users/consumers hang out. To sponsor these type of event often comes with a very heavy price tag ,a budget that could be better used for actually acquiring and attracting new users - where they actually hang out...
Technorati Tags: AlwaysOn Media, AO, Consumers, Start-ups
Zecco has done it again! Last year they shook up the traditional brokerages with the introduction of $0 commission trading last year. Now on Monday the 12th, the little David will take on Goliath again with the world's first $0 commission IRA. According to Jeroen Veth co-founder and CEO (and former Merill Lynch Vice President who I met last week at Zecco's new corporate headquarters in Burlingame), investing in ETFs vs mutual funds with a Zecco $0 commission IRA will make an investor $1,000,000 richer over their investing lifetime, age 25-69. Not bad. IRA just met 2.0..
Today I'm at Tech2007 organized by Tomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco to check out some companies presenting there together with Bill Tai and then off to Yahoo and finnishing the day off at the Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup Group in Palo Alto tonight which will certainly be a lot of fun.
Tonight's Lineup will be:
* stickis.com - Create commentary, conversation and community everywhere you browse (Marc Meyer)
* SchoolParentNet - Building secure communities around our childer (Amit Nanda)
* thinkfree.com - The best online office on earth - it has google docs beat in functionality (Jonathan Crow)
* neighboroo.com - Learn a few new things about your 'hood (Travis Chow)
Yesterday I swinged by Zecco's new offices in Burlingame and had a chat with Michiel de Boer, Jeroen Veth, CEO and Gabriel Dalporto, CMO. If you haven't heard about them yet it's probably because you're not into trading. This cool company is disrupting a previously unchallenged industry, namely the trading industry. By offering free stock trading they made Charles Schwab & Co choke on their morning muffin and more or less forced Bank of America to offer free trade too (well not really you need to keep $25.000 with them in order to trade for free..)
I actually 'outed' Zecco last year, by posting this scoop on my blog. The story spread faster than fire and was soon picked up everywhere. Soon I had some heavy financial institutions checking out my blog with intensity...
Anway, Zecco move their folked up from LA to the Bay area and are soon rolling out more interesting services to upset the conservative finacial institutions. It's really like Jeroen Veht says, Zecco is like David against Goliath and it's a tuff challenge, but they are definately unto something and I'd definately put my bet on that these guys can make it, they just need to place the stone in sling right and aim for the weakest point ;)
So far the financial world is still very conservative and have been spared from disruption like the media industry. Zecco is well positioned to make a mark here and pave the way for other new web companies into the financial world.Hong Kong based Bullpoo and Israeli based IncrediTrade funded by my buddie Ouriel (well LgiLab) are two other companies to watch out for in this space..
I am sitting on the plane between JFK and San Francisco after having attended On Media NYC and am trying to summerize my thoughts about the conference. My overall impression is that its was a great event in terms of networking, speaker line ups and of course the reception. I had a chance to re-connect with old friends, business partners and make new contacts.
Having said that, I felt like in many other conferences: "heard it before, been there, said that and know that". Most of the panelist were all too predictive and didn't really contribute with anything new and refreshing. However, Tony Perkins and Bill Cleary and did a great job setting it all up and with the fantastic backdrop of Central Park and Colombia Circle ! Tony & Bill also showcased their home made videos that triggered many laughs.
A few speakers and panelist sticked out though:
Oh, and there were some great CEO Showcase presentations as well. Anyway, it was a great event in terms of networking I will definatly come next time too.
I am off to AlwaysOn Media New York, 28-31 to meet with the disrupters of marketing, advertising, branding and PR. Will definitely be fun. Not that I expect to hear anything new, but it looks like a great event and and a good place to catch up with friends, acquaintances and potential Maxthon partners. After that I continue to Palo Alto for partner meetings and some potential hires @ CRV. Finally finishing off with Tomas Wiesel Venture partners Tech2007 conference in San Francisco Feb 6-7. If you want to meet up please feel free to drop me a line or call me on my US cell 650 862 46 56.
Technorati Tags: AlwaysOn, AlwaysOn Media, CRV, Maxthon, Maxthon, Events, puppy, puppy, TWVP
Next week I am off to New York (Jan 28-31) for the AlwaysOn Media NYC conference in New York and then off to Palo Alto for meetings Feb 1- 6. If you want to meet up please leave a comment alternatively contact me directly.
BTW, Maxthon is hiring! We are looking for young & smart guys and girls for business development, product marketing and community marketing freaks in the US. If this sounds interesting, please let get in touch.
Technorati Tags: Alwayson, Maxthon, AlwaysOn Media, puppy
ChinaVenture reports that 17 Chinese Online Video sites got $95.5 million in funding since 2004 with an investment peak of $52.7 million in 2006.
Below is a chart illustrating the investments. As you can see WI Harper invested in Radio.cn but missing from the list is Charles River Ventures investment in Wangyou Media in March 2006.
Technorati Tags: Blogcn, Charles River Ventures, China, CRV, Wangyou media
Online Video starts invading your TV - at least in China. Pacific Epoc reports that Fujian based South East Television (SETV) will begin including videos from Chinese user-generated online video site Tudou.com in its daily entertainment program Yu Le Le Fan Tian. The new segment of the program, called Bo Ke Feng Bao, will begin broadcasting on January 22. I guess the question is just when we will start seeing YouTube on TV.
Technorati Tags: China, Online Video, China TV, SETV, Tudou, TV, Video, Video, Video
Finally the perfect browser have landed. MicrosoftFirefox 2007professional edition is now available for download! Thanks to the merger of Mozilla and Microsoft the next generation browser is already here. Or what do you say about:
Thanks to Martin for making me loose my concentration
Technorati Tags: Akobe Phlash, Browser, Fun, MicrosoftFirefox
This is quite amusing. It seems that the interview I gave to ReadWriteWeb a few days ago have stirred up quite some emotions. Believe it or not, Linux Journal calls Maxthon The Real Firefox-Killer...
For the real challenger comes not from Microsoft directly; instead, it's from a new browser that uses IE's rendering engine, Trident, but which is produced completely independently of the company. This means that it can offer all the "benefits" of 100% compatibility with what is still the dominant Internet browser, together with a host of real improvements - some of which go beyond even Firefox. This new competitor is called Maxthon..
BTW, read the comments - quite interesting..
Maxthon for Linux anybody?
Technorati Tags: Maxthon, Linux, IE7, Browsers, Linux Journal, Firefox, Technology
A few days ago I was interviewed about Maxthon by Gang Lu, a very nice guy I met at Le Web 3 a couple of weeks ago. The interview was published in Read Write Web today.
>Technorati Tags: Maxthon, ReadWriteWeb, Leweb3, Gang Lu, Netanel Jacobsson, China, Web 2.0
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