Can Data Revitalize Journalism ?

June 28, 2009 – 9:00 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

Get a demo of a Bloomberg terminal. You’ll be is blown away by the depth of available data. Thousands of statistics, historical tables, sources… Everything is available through the proprietary terminal. Bloomberg started by offering a real-time news flow dedicated to the needs of the financial community, traders, analysts, etc. Over the years, the system expanded in two directions. First, remarkable journalistic work grew Bloomberg from a unidimensional newswire into a multi-product company providing breaking news, features stories, in-depth reporting, TV feed, radio, podcasts, even a magazine. The service is encapsulated in a terminal rented for a fixed price (€1800 a month), no discount, no complex pricing structure, just one product, that’s it. (This choice of integrating content into a piece of hardware reminds me of a famous Cupertino-based fruit company). Bundled with the product, you get raw data, lots of it. That’s the other Bloomberg’s gem. The ability to tap into big databases is an essential journalistic tool. It undoubtedly helped Bloomberg to reach its status in the financial information sector. Read More »

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Web video: Microsoft, Adobe or HTML 5?

June 28, 2009 – 8:59 pm | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

We have yet another standards battle on our hands — you might say screens, as it concerns Web video. Or we might watch our wallets, as the fight is about who gets the biggest share of the money spent delivering multimedia on our computers, smartphones and, soon, TVs.

My money is on HTML 5, co-opted and promoted by Google and Apple.

First, do we really care about standards? Does it matter that YouTube uses Flash or H.264, that Microsoft is trying to promote Silverlight or that Apple, more prominently, and Google, less vocally, are pushing an open standard called HTML 5?

The answer comes in two parts: we need standards like trains need a single track width across the network, first, and, second, standards are often abused, made into a way to pick pockets.
There is no charge for a train track width standard, but a license fee is required for building cell phones using the CDMA standard. (I won’t go again over well-covered ground, over the history of Windows, Office and Wintel.) The secret, there, is to create critical mass for a way to do something, for said manner to become a standard. Then, you charge for the right to use the method itself or, less directly, for something needed to benefit from it.
For example, if Microsoft manages to make Silverlight a or the Web video/multimedia standard, good things will happen and bad ones will be avoided – from Microsoft’s perspective, that is. Read More »

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Monetizing a social network, the Skyrock case

June 21, 2009 – 4:38 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

In the social network business, the European success story is called Skyrock. Built on top of the #1 FM radio station for 18-25 year-olds, it first expanded into a blog platform, then into a full-blown social network making full use of links users waved between themselves. In Europe, according to ComScore, Skyrock.com ranks #3 among social networks, right behind Facebook and MySpace, and #6 among conversational media including platforms such as Wordpress or Blogger.

The key figures:

  • 39 million accounts, including :
  • 25,4 million active blogs with 33,000 new blogs added every day
  • 16 million individual profiles with 35,000 added every day (there is a small overlap between the two categories)
  • This online population has created more than 650 billion articles, loaded 580 million pictures and 37 million videos.
  • French monthly traffic is 8 million unique visitors (Nielsen), versus 13 million for Facebook
  • But Skyrock gets about half of its traffic from abroad: worldwide, its audience amounts to 23 million UV (ComScore). As a comparison, Facebook logs 275 million UV worldwide, approximately 100 million in Europe and 70 million in the US (ComScore).

Now let’s look at the money side. Unlike Facebook, Skyrock is a profitable company. Last year, Skyrock as a group made €38m in revenue; half coming from its radio operations, and half from the internet; with an ebitda of about €7m for the group and €5-6m for the internet alone (last year was not great for radio advertising). Even better, Skyrock doesn’t seem to be affected by the worst year in internet history: its internet operations revenue is up 42% for the first half of 2009 versus the same period last year (the radio side is up 22%). These numbers make its owners happy. The group is a privately held company owned by the private equity arm of French insurer Axa (for 70%) and by the founder and CEO Pierre Bellanger (30%); being blissfully private, it doesn’t release financials. Most of the data mentioned here come from interviews conducted with Pierre Bellanger and his staff in recent weeks. Read More »

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The Real iPhone 1.0

June 21, 2009 – 4:37 pm | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

Saint Peter offers a choice of hells to a recently dematerialized high-tech tycoon (pick your favorite sinner) with a long list of transgressions. The basic one, fire, floggings, and the premium one, plenty of music, drink, food and other pleasures of the flesh. Said tycoon picks the fun venue, Saint Peter pulls a lever, the industrialist falls to the one and only fiery hell. Agitated, feeling cheated, the sinner demands to know about the other hell, the eternal party.
Saint Peter: It’s a demo!

The joke comes to mind as I watch Steve Jobs introduce the iPhone on stage at San Francisco’s MacWorld Expo, on January 9th, 2007.
It is too good to be true, especially the part about running OS X. The demo looks magical, as with most of Steve’s acts. The iPhone looks like one shocking product. But is it real? Nothing specifically aimed at the demonstrator, I’ve seen – and given – too many demos, it’s a sinner speaking.

Six months later, I’m relieved. The first iPhones ship, enterprising programmers manage to inspect the firmware’s insides and, yes, it is OS X. A trimmed-down version, of course, but the core of the iPhone’s software engine is the genuine article. Read More »

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The real cost of genuine journalism

June 14, 2009 – 5:51 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

Updtated with a video on PolitiFact Guode to Fact-checking

The idea for this column came to me last March; I was flying back from Stockholm. Schibsted, the Norwegian media group I work for, had asked me to be part of the jury for its yearly Schibsted Journalism Award. I was both honored and curious to be part of such a delicate process. The group’s publications, in Scandinavia and abroad, submitted entries in several categories: best storytelling, best innovative entry, best scoop. Altogether, 27 entries were compiled in a hefty kit sent by Fedex to each member of the jury; the kit included a couple of binders — facsimile of original pages, translation in English, CDs, memory stick, etc. Serious work. Then, we gathered in Stockholm to select the nominees and the winners.

Of course I’m bound to secrecy, I’m not going to be specific about the discussions.  But I feel an urge to write about the event because I was surprised by the level of journalistic ambition demonstrated by many of the entries. Among them were several investigative pieces: a bribery scandal in Russia, a huge Bank fraud in Norway, or revelations of a hidden part of Norwegian war history, just to name a few. We were faced with difficult choices — happily.  On my way back to Paris, I thought this was the perfect illustration of how, true, genuine journalism differentiates itself from blogs — even good ones, simply because news organization will invest time and money in the genuine article, so to speak.

To make my point, I’ll just focus on the cost, yes, in euros or dollars, of such journalism. It could sound like a trivial way to assess editorial performance but I believe money remains a much-needed fuel for good journalism. Read More »

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Fun AT&T numbers

June 14, 2009 – 5:50 pm | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

by Jean-Louis Gassée

AT&T can’t seem to catch a break. A couple of weeks ago, at All Things Digital, an industry conference, Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s Chairman, got the audience to snicker and roll eyes. The conference is held by the Wall Street Journal, led by its digital guru, Walt Mossberg and, “by invitation only”, $5K a pop, gathers movers, shakers and wannabes of what is now broadly called the digital media industry.
Mr. Stephenson was on stage, answering Walt Mossberg apparently softball questions. But, when you look more closely, Walt applies a trial attorney’s precept: Only ask questions for which you already know the answers, let the jury see how the witness responds. We were the jury as Walt asked the AT&T top dog about its wireless network performance problems. The witness got off to a decent start: “Yes, when the iPhone 3G came out we weren’t ready.” Then, he proceeded to claim things had significantly improved. That’s when the snickering started. In Silicon Valley, we all know the blank spots, the bad 3G coverage, right in the heart of high-tech’s garment district. See the full interview here.

Later, Stephenson committed a faux pas of Detroit proportions: he claimed everything (phone, Internet connection, TV) worked well when he moved to his new home in Texas. Really? AT&T’s Chairman, CEO and President gets a good connection? In a further misguided attempt to connect with his audience, he even mentioned his Apple TV. Clearly, he’s one of us, a discerning Apple customer… Read More »

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The success story of a technology-enhanced media brand

June 7, 2009 – 10:07 am | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

‘A fan of ours wrote an iPhone application, just for the sake of it.’ How many media companies can make such a bragging statement? One does: NPR, the American National Public Radio. Bradley Flubacher, is a professional programmer who moonlights as a volunteer firefighter in a small Pennsylvania town. A few months ago, Brad decided he wanted to learn a new programming language and to develop for the iPhone. Et voilà: NPR Addict, a free app that gives access to thousands of podcasts in a simple and efficient way. The author didn’t make a dime in the process: his app is free. If you want to give a few bucks, he will encourage you to do so directly to a local NPR affiliate. This is what I call a true fan - and a testament to NPR’s place in American culture.

Two thoughts to be drawn from this anecdote. First, the relationship a great media brand such as a Public Radio enjoys with its audience. Second, how such bond can be boosted by a clever use of digital technology.

In France, we praise ourselves as being the champions of public broadcasting. We have many brands around Radio France, great shows, excellent journalistic crews and so on. Brands such as France Inter or the all-news channel France Info appeal to a large audience; others, France Culture being one example, target only small circles and feel themselves totally liberated from vulgar strictures such as attracting large audiences. Fine. Read More »

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Brilliant insights at the NYT

June 7, 2009 – 10:02 am | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

“If they start making products people don’t want, and start losing users, then Apple’s strategy will run into problems.” You can see the full NYT Business section story here. My wife and I love to read the papers in the morning. French-born, we still marvel at this American icon: the newspaper route, the nice deliveryman in his beat-up truck throwing the paper on our doorsteps in the wee hours.

But enough Norman Rockwell.

‘Who is this guy?’ My spouse is pointing at the NYT story. I had avoided it because we’re a couple of days away from Apple’s WWDC. Every year, in San Francisco, Apple holds the Worldwide Developers Conference for individuals and companies writing programs (applications) for its computers and, now, its smartphones. The rumor mill makes too much noise. Writers, bloggers, anal-ysts, pundits and kremlinologists attempt to top one another with predictably bad results.
Still, who is this guy? Is Brigitte referring to the article’s author, Brad Stone, a respected writer, or to Benjamin Reitzes, the Barclays Capital analyst quoted above? The doubt points to an all-too-common problem with business writing in our Valley: Cut-and-Paste stories, formulaic and, if not content-free, bland and devoid of insight or explanatory value. Read More »

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The Internet Creative Deflation

May 31, 2009 – 1:16 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

When LG, the cell phone manufacturer, started work on far-reaching future concepts for handset, it had two choices. The most obvious one was setting up a competition between world-class design firms, getting a stampede and a bidding war as a result, and picking one firm to work on its concept-phones. The Korean electronics giant took another path: crowdsourcing.  LG Mobile Phone teamed-up with CrowdSpring, a marketplace for creative works, to organize a contest, with the following pitch:
“Predict what’s next. What do you think mobile phones should look like in 2, 5, or 10 years? We are asking for your help. We’re NOT looking for a long list of specs or phone ideas that already exist. We’re looking for a cool new concept or “big idea” supported by usage scenario illustrations”. Read More »

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The VC Money Pump: NAV

May 31, 2009 – 1:15 pm | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

The acronym stands for Net Asset Values. Be forewarned: this is the more boring installment in the VC Money Pump series of columns (see part 1 and part 2 ). Worse than spreadsheets and compound interest calculations, today’s topic forces us to deal with FASB (Federal Accounting Standard Board) regulations. Expensive futility as far as we are concerned.

For perspective, let’s go back to the previous crisis: the Internet Bubble. Fortunes were lost when Cisco’s stock went down by 90% — with the entire high-tech sector. But new fortunes were about to be made.
First, there were the political fortunes of posturing solons. Seeing the damage done by accounting fraud at Enron and WorldCom, canny politicians seized the opportunity to harness the public’s ire to their career’s progress. Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley begat what we now call Sarbox (the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002), a new set of much stricter accounting rules. To the angry investing public, to the recently fired as a result of the downturn the senators’ message was clear: We’re here for you, we’ll throw the Armani-suited thieves in jail and we’re putting in place the safeguards needed to avoid a repeat of such catastrophe. Read More »

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Measuring time spent on a web page

May 24, 2009 – 9:45 am | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

How much time is actually spent on websites? New technologies are emerging, starting with time spent on individual pages and drilling down to page segments. Such technologies will lead to improved monetization; they could even spell good news for paid sites.  Here is why. Read More »

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Inside a Venture Capital fund: Reserves

May 24, 2009 – 9:43 am | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

Last week, with Excel’s help, we looked at the “simple” computation of a VC fund’s rate of return. This week: Reserves, a most important sets of numbers.

As a rule, for every dollar initially invested in a company, we immediately set aside an additional $2 or even $3 as a reserve for future rounds, future injections of capital. Entrepreneurs often tell us they’ll only need one round, this round of financing before reaching the cash-flow positive nirvana. I know, when an entrepreneur, I did it (to) myself, several times… We don’t argue, we smile, nod and enter the appropriate reserve amount in a spreadsheet.
Next, we try to forecast the additional rounds: one round in 15 months, perhaps, and another one 18 months later.
As we do this for every company in our portfolio, the spreadsheet tells us how much capital we’ve invested so far and, as companies develop and need more capital, how much will be required and when.

Then, the hard work starts. Read More »

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The Niche Temptation

May 17, 2009 – 6:12 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

Update : Newsweek just launched its brand new site today. Story on the Editors Weblog.

Very few industries are tempted to drastically and willingly reduce their base in order to increase each customer’s value. The magazine sector is one such industry. This month, Newsweek gets its strategic turnaround under way: a redesigned magazine, less news and more added value content – coupled with a deliberate plan to shrink its reader base.

This deserves watching: Newsweek’s moves epitomize the fragmentation the news business, a trend that will force magazine and newspaper publishers to take decisive steps.

The magazine sector is suffering even more than the newspaper industry: its bigger dependence on the advertising market makes it even more vulnerable to the economy’s downturn and to the shift towards the internet. Here is the picture for the American market, based on Q1 2009 vs. Q1 2008 (source: Magazine Publishers of America, numbers have been rounded).

In gross advertising dollars, the overall market lost 26.1 % over a year after a loss of 11.7% for the full year 2008. Here is a sample a European audience can relate to:

Read More »

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The Venture Capital Money Pump

May 17, 2009 – 6:11 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

This week, I intend to take you through the pipes of a VC fund’s “money pump”. It starts with dollars coming in from our investors, our Limited Partners, LP, to be invested in entrepreneurs’ big ideas. Later, sometimes much later, money comes back to be shared between the LP and us, the General Partners, the GP.  And, of course, there are those cases where we loose every penny. We’ll look at how the hits and misses balance and how we (try to) keep track of the streams.

One simple and, I’ll state it outright, simplistic, misleading assumption is the set of win/lose numbers. The theory varies, you’ll see why later. For today, I’ll just say we assume a $200M fund making 20 investments averaging $10M each. Out of these 20 investments, 6 are losers; 8 fall in the “money back” category, roughly returning what we put in, maybe a little more if we had an early exit; 6 are “winners”, returning between 4.5 and 6.5 times our money.

How much money does such a fund makes? What is the rate of return, the equivalent interest rate on the money put at risk by our LP? Read More »

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New Journalistic Storytelling

May 10, 2009 – 12:37 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

From multimedia productions, to Computer Assisted Reporting

Last Thursday, I presented a series of great news related multimedia productions before a group of students of the Sciences Politiques School of Journalism where I happen to have a small gig.  I was curious to see their reactions. Too often, journalism students are mostly interested in the pursuit of a “voie royale”. This is especially true of those following a high-end academic path such as “Sciences Po”; they yearn to write for big newspapers, especially on noble beats such as foreign policy and politics. Fine. Grand ambitions are healthy.
Last year, as I was coaching another group on the handling of daily editorial meetings for a fictitious newspaper, I started to worry. In the real world, their editorial output would have been boring, un-commercial. Many in that group of students found me of the utmost vulgarity as I discouraged front-page stories covering elections in Zimbabwe, for example. Instead, I tried to ingrain into their well-wired brain the charms of explanatory journalism (I was fresh coming out of six years at 20 minutes, which was, after all, a solid success — 2.7m readers — and based on a good journalism mix).

This year’s group is different. They are two years younger, hence more realistic about their professional future. I helped them build a decent blog titled “Matière Crise” featuring untold (as much as they could) aspects of the economic crisis. They did fairly well, I think. For the last sessions, we decided to look into the best alternative ways to present news. Read More »

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The New Papyrus

May 10, 2009 – 12:36 pm | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

Once upon a time, in 1986, Bill Gates commissioned a book, The New Papyrus, subtitled: The Current and Future State of the Art. I recall an animated conversation with Bill as we were having dinner on top of Seattle’s Space Needle. He was hard at work promoting the CDI, the interactive CD and pushing Japanese manufacturers to give momentum to the CDI-PC, a personal computer centered around the huge storage capabilities (seven hundred megabytes!) afforded by the new medium. Imagine: an entire encyclopedia would fit on just one CD-ROM. The New Papyrus was the future of paper. And, for a while, I thought Bill was right. I treasured the OED II (The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition) on CD-ROM. I had lovingly paid about $10K for the paper edition on night at the old Kepler’s bookstore in Menlo Park, happily loading the 20 volumes in my car’s trunk (boot for British readers). A few years later, the CD-ROM edition cost only $700 or so… This was the future. Read More »

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Providing oxygen to publishers

May 3, 2009 – 5:48 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

22% of Internet users in the United States said they stopped their subscription to a printed newspaper or a magazine. Why? Because they could access the same content online, according to a study released last week by the Center for the Digital Future. And it was only one in a string of bad news for the industry. Most of these items came from the US but, to a large extent, apply to European media as well.

Newspapers need to regroup and take a breath. Both in Europe and in the United States. They need protection. Not the temporary protection of a bankruptcy, but a durable one based on alternate business models and a drastic change in their capital structure. Read More »

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More on sensors [digital photography]

May 3, 2009 – 5:47 pm | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

In the (now waning) days of analog photography, much was made of which film was best: Kodak’s Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Fuji’s, Konica, Agfa, Ferrania… to name but a few of the old standards. Today, a similar debate goes on regarding the altogether simpler digital sensors. In the April 5th Monday Note #80, I took a first pass at the sensor size question, one that is, I believe, deliberately obscured by manufacturers. Showing their always flattering view of our intelligence, they peddle the number of pixels in the sensor, regardless of the size of those pixels. Never mind that (everything else being equal) pixel size makes the most important contribution to image quality.

Fortunately, the Web comes to the rescue with tutorials, charts and even calculators. Cambridge In Color features nice tutorials such as this one. A French company, DxO Labs, offers a sophisticated sensor rating site: You’ll see what I mean by sophisticated as the site provides numbers for color depth, dynamic range and low-light ISO. Read More »

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Speech by Maurice Levy (Publicis Groupe) on the media crisis

May 1, 2009 – 9:25 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

This is the speech (in French) by Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis Groupe at a conference organized by the French Association of Magazine Publishers April 6, 2009. A quite insightful talk.

discours-maurice-levy-appm-6-avril-2009 (texte en Français)

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Time to think seriously about the iPhone

April 26, 2009 – 12:55 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

4:00am. I find myself reading an interesting story covering Portfolio’s web site – on my iPhone. As sleep comes back, I reflexively reach for the “save” (for later reading) button that is on every iPhone news application. But I am reading from the magazine’s site, as opposed to running an app on my smartphone; web sites don’t have a save button. I just became aware of a new set of habits, barely conscious and now ingrained thoughts/actions created by reading news stories on an iPhone (or an iPod Touch). A good sign.

In the Monday Note, for quite a while, Jean-Louis and I have been discussing the development of news-related iPhone apps (our first story “Why Publishers should grab the iPhone” goes back to a year ago,
or follow the iPhone tag on the Note). Since then, several news organizations have developed specific applications (not just tailored websites) for the iPhone. Read More »

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The Apple Tax

April 26, 2009 – 12:55 pm | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

Today, let’s have a little fun with Microsoft’s latest attempt at countering Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign. Their premise is simple: for the same amount of computing power you pay more for a Mac, you pay an Apple Tax. As Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, puts it: You pay $500 to slap an Apple logo on a laptop.
Microsoft is right: Macs cost more.
Pundits and advocates on both sides use contorted arguments to make a point either way, but the point remains: Macs cost more – at the time of purchase.

But, before we go on, a few words on the color of my skin. Especially the operating system layer.I’ve been in the high-tech industry for 41 years this coming June and I’ve used (or even caused at Apple and Be) system software of many flavors. Regarding Microsoft, I’ve been a DOS and, later Windows user; a happy customer, an occasionally proud one as I acquired the skills to fix or quickly re-install systems in my family or at the office. Naturally, after leaving Apple, I continued to use Macs, even after my company, Be, lost the Apple opportunity to Steve Jobs’ NeXT. Read More »

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Advertising (2): fixing an antique model

April 11, 2009 – 12:10 am | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

Last week, we addressed the demise of the ad-only model. Solutions won’t emerge overnight, all the more of a reason to start searching. Here are a few leads. (This is the second of two parts, the first one is here)

The AdTech conference took place last week, in Paris; the mood there wasn’t exactly a statement of the internet advertising sector’s vibrant health. Light attendance, few commercial booths and presentations that were, at best, uneven. Speakers sported either the long face of gloomy realism or the pitchman’s forced grin.

Robin Sloan, VP of Strategy for Current.tv and co-author of the cult net-fiction Epic 2014 outlined the future, picturing himself at the AdTech Paris 2019 Conference. He envisioned high-tech enhanced ads, the development of social sponsorship boosted by new Google features as well as strong regulatory backlash initiated in Europe. I don’t want to say more about Robin’s prez, he will put it online soon. As for myself, twice in the same day, AdTech plus a roundtable held by the French Magazine Publishers Association, I delivered a talk based on our industry’s facts and figures (see this Monday Note entry and this one).  I also added material I’m gathering for an upcoming story: crowdsourcing, the destructor of creative value in design and photography. In summary, my pitch is these difficult times are a unique occasion, the best, most propitious moment for the invention of sustainable businesses. Read More »

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Revenue Model Breakthrough?

April 11, 2009 – 12:09 am | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

Micro-payments are an old idea, some say a bad fantasy. Chief, we’re rich: I found a way to get a millicent per page view…

So far, not much has happened. Unless you look at a tidy, not tiny, little billion-dollar business called iTunes. Three years ago, in February 2006, 1 billion songs served, sold, cashed in, since 2003. July 2007, 3 billion. June 19th, 2008, 5 billion songs. January 2009, 6 billion. Tidy it is at 99 cents for every song. A little so now, with three stages, 69, 99 and 129 cents, without DRM, without copy protection.

But, you’ll justifiably object, this is a unique phenomenon, it doesn’t replicate elsewhere. How can we draw lessons from Apple’s idiosyncratic, proprietary, ferociously monolithic, militantly anal practices? True when it comes to Apple’s style, but less so when it comes to substance, to the replicability, to the potential for use elsewhere. Apple’s competitors are rushing to build their own App Store; for their smartphones, they yearn for their own applications distribution platform. This certainly makes the case for the idea’s replication.

But what idea?

What Apple did was lowering the mental cost of the transaction. Read More »

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Advertising: real change must happen

April 5, 2009 – 9:52 am | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

The brutal recession reveals how flawed the current Internet business model is. As advertising-only business models are falling apart, even the Google ecosphere is under stress. The search giant’s preservation of its margins at the expense of its media partners’ revenue stream could be shortsighted.  –First of two parts.

Sorry to be blunt, but Internet advertising sucks. Most campaigns are an incentive to install AdBlock software, the most popular Firefox plug-in (45m downloads in 3 years).  “Splash”, “pull-down”, “sliding block”, all sorts of ads suddenly invade your screen. They are nothing but a nuisance. If you’re fast enough, you close the ad before it finishes loading.  And we have the most irritating form of banners, the ones with the sound always loudly on when you inadvertently mouse-over over them. Read More »

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Pixels: Size vs. Number

April 5, 2009 – 9:52 am | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

OMG, says the blogger, the next iPhone’s camera will have 3.2 million pixels instead of today’s measly 2 million! The blog entry gave me the final push for an occasional, meaning at irregular intervals, series of columns on digital photography. The idea is to find insights into what’s really going on in this very dynamic industry, to extract a few useful ideas from the flow of markitecture BS coming from hardware and software vendors on a daily basis. As you’ll see, these columns are intended for the ‘interested’ digital camera user and, on occasion, for the technophobe, but not for the pro – they use cameras to make money, not to have fun like we do. Read More »

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Creative cost cutting: focus on value

March 29, 2009 – 5:08 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

It sounds like the perfect oxymoron: Isn’t cost-cutting the enemy of creativity? True if your main cutting instrument is Excel, one that works pretty well for near-sighted managers.  First, rip questionable positions (some are always to be found) and, presto, your P&L looks healthier. Next, human resources problems: summon the victims, hand the letter, follow the procedure, bargain a bit, and you’re done. Such procedures result in post-traumatic stress, survivor’s guilt for the ones who have been spared and a confused organization that will waste precious time struggling to regain its previous performance level. Read More »

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The Future of Netbooks

March 29, 2009 – 5:08 pm | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

You the attentive reader might ask why VCs like yours truly are interested in netbooks. Hardware made in Taiwan, running Linux or Windows, low prices, even lower margins…Where are the opportunities for entrepreneurs, and for those of us who invest in their creations?

This is a different question from: Why are netbooks successful? We know the answer to the latter: price and, to a smaller degree (no pun intended), size. This picture and this list show how this new incarnation of the personal computer has proliferated. Because of the recession, yesterday’s manly “must-have” features are now suspect frills. Small has become virile. Users who wouldn’t be seen with less than a “plus-size” keyboard have now received cultural permission to travel with a 10” netbook, perfect for flying (the rediscovered) Coach class. Read More »

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Opening the News

March 22, 2009 – 6:55 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

Warning: religious debate here. Should a news web site be open or closed, free or paid-for? There is no simple answer, of course, as hybrid models are a likely part of our future. But, first, let’s review the paid-for model I addressed in previous issues of the Monday Note as well as in the French version of Slate.
In a nutshell, paid is likely to become fashionable again under the following conditions:
-    Big brands are more likely to erect tollbooths and balance what needs to remain free, in order to retain large audiences, against what they must monetize: the value-added part on their content.
-    Transactional systems morph into aggregated micro-payments for quick and seamless few cents purchases or subscriptions renewals. The “mental cost” of the transaction must match its low monetary value.
-    Tech platforms improve their performance: in two or three product generations, gizmos such as the Kindle, PlasticLogic tablets, or future iPhones finally do the job thanks to wireless connections, long battery life and resistance to everyday abuse. Just to get an idea of what’s looming, watch last week’s presentation of the new iPhone OS 3.0 features (go here and begin the show at time code 10:00 minutes) all is here: eBookstore, eNewstand system dedicated to publishers, iTunes powered subscriptions, etc.
News organizations will find a sustainable model here — and with Apple’s competitors.

Let’s turn to point #2: closed versus open. Read More »

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Somber Sober Energy Thoughts

March 22, 2009 – 6:54 pm | Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée

This is what happens with looooong conference calls: you’re sitting in front of your speakerphone, on mute so other participants can’t hear your typing or other asocial activities; your PC displays the PowerPoint under discussion.  You get bored, distracted, or, in the best cases, antsy.

So, as I was listening to one more paean to the electric car, I decided to do a little bit of math and googling. Specifically, I wanted to get an idea of the electric power required to recharge electric cars instead of pumping gas into today’s tanks.  This because, for years, I have harbored a vague, undocumented feeling that electric cars would create interesting problems for today’s antiquated, frail electric grid. (Europeans might not realize how often we experience brownouts or outright outages, even here, in the Vatican of high-tech – I used to write Mecca but, you know…) Read More »

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Innovation is recession-resistant

March 15, 2009 – 12:20 pm | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

Guess: which tool all of us use everyday was invented in the United States in 1947? The mobile telephone. A year later, a wireless telephone service became available in almost 100 cities and highway corridors. Most early adopters were truck drivers. Now, there are about 3.5 billion cellphones in service across the world, thanks to another invention, that very same year: the transistor — both coming from AT&T’s Bell Labs. Read More »

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