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The Venture Company :: blog

The industry-analyst cookbook

Friday - August 11, 2006
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I am perplexed about Plaxo. With so many hot-shots of the Silicon Valley VC elite on the board, including Michael Moritz from Sequoia, Tim Koogle of Yahoo! and Ram Shriram of Sherpalo, this company still seems to be looking for its identity and even worse, its strategy.

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Since the Mac beta version was released just recently, I took a moment to try it out. But without going into detail about that disappointing experience, let me tell you how I achieved Plaxo nirvana without it. For over two years I 'abuse' LinkedIn in a way that tops the Plaxo service: every now and then I re-upload all my 2600-and-growing contacts to LinkedIn and then export the whole list back out as a group v-card. The Mac address book will then import those and politely ask me to update the existing contacts. Voila, all contacts are up to date from a single source.

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LinkedIn is much more than contacts however, it draws in users that want to connect with others based on past experiences and then exchange their contact information. So, Linkedin is essentially the application on top of a contact database. With 10 Million users Plaxo better figure out real fast what the application on top of it looks like, LinkedIn is moving upstream to a higher value proposition but has an opportunity to move downstream and squash Plaxo whenever it feels like.

So who is not paying attention here?

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Security 3.0: from after-market to security platform

Friday - April 21, 2006
Aperture
Apple's latest Aperture software personifies how the technology industry fuels its own growth by creating new software that drives new incremental hardware requirements. Managing an increasing library of 16,000 photographs is what I do when I am not working or playing with my family. And when Apple's Aperture came out late last year, I jumped on the promise to manage those assets (or liabilities in some cases) more effectively. While I had the bottom-of-the-barrel of Aperture's hardware requirements, a not so shabby 1.5Ghz Powerbook, the expansion with 2Gbytes of memory and a 160Gbytes replacement hard-disk seemed a foregone conclusion. But not so fast, Aperture's performance that is. Even this configuration leaves you yearning for a large flat-panel, so the windows and photographs can be displayed in sizable fashion and with the clarity they deserve. An Intel Dual-Core wouldn't hurt either.

The bottom-line is, a two year old, top-of-the-line Powerbook is suddenly on its last leg. I can only wonder what upcoming updates of Microsoft Office, Adobe CS3, Dreamweaver and others will do to my geriatric Powerbook. Desktop software is still an important catalyst, fueling new hardware replacements in a slowing PC market. Software and services will live alongside each other for quite some time, in the interest of PC manufacturers and admittedly, end-users.

Tips for Aperture enthusiasts:
Two tips that will smooth a transition and took me two months to figure out: 1/ Remove all videos from the iPhoto library, Aperture will abort, in my case after 14 hours, if you don't. 2/ De-fragment your hard-drive after a successful import, or simply copy the main Aperture library to a backup disk, remove the original and copy it back. The Aperture import process fragments the library dramatically; I ended up with a Library of over 6,000 file fragments, absolutely killing performance.

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LaserCard; Silicon Valley's best kept secret

Sunday - June 26, 2005
Investors are getting flooded with Long Tail startups. The Long Tail is the well documented phenomenon in which Amazon.com makes more money in selling books that are not(!) in the top 10,000 and creates controversy about traditional sales principles. Hundreds of examples exist before the introduction of the internet. But the Long Tail really only exists when there is a body attached to it. You go to Amazon because you find the most well known books, then you'll explore its creative variety. The body represents the highly targeted top quality that draws in the audience in the first place. So stop pitching Long Tails, where you rely on some undefined creative variety. Focus on making your numbers in the identifiable market, then benefit from the Long Tail to expand your selection beyond the traditional and constricted marketplace. More on the Long Tail here.

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