Archive | May, 2008

Raising capital and meeting expectations

May 28, 2008
in Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

What I like to tell portfolio companies is that on average it will take 6 months to raise capital with some cycles being shorter and some being longer. Given that, it is imperative for a company to start thinking about its next round well ahead of time and the milestones it needs to hit to [...]

Read full story • Comments { 5 }

The next generation web – scaling and data mining matters (continued)

May 21, 2008
in Web/Tech

I had some interesting meetings yesterday and as I reflected on them this morning, one common theme emerged which is that the next generation of the web will be built on data mining and extracting intelligence from the reams of data web services collect on a daily basis.  This reminds me of a post I [...]

Read full story • Comments { 2 }

Old school content has value…again

May 15, 2008
in Digital Media

Every day it seems we are reading about the power of social networking to transform the Internet and how we communicate online and also consume and discover new content.  While that is true and clearly changing the consumption habits of online users, today seems like a flashback to the old school Internet days where traditional [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Open vs. closed networks and Facebook chat

May 14, 2008
in VOIP

As you know, I have always been a believer in open standards (see my post from January 2006).  Being a market leader, it is quite easy for Facebook to create their own standard similar to how every other instant messaging network was started.  And to that end, Facebook started down that path.  But just today, [...]

Read full story • Comments { 1 }
Nokia-an Internet company???

Nokia-an Internet company???

May 9, 2008
in Wireless

As I have mentioned before, Nokia is one of the few handset manufacturers to get it (See my post from 2/07 on this).  Nokia understands that hardware margins are eroding and like in many technology businesses the value is in the software and monthly service revenue.  In addition, as time goes by, more and more [...]

Read full story • Comments { 2 }