Cambrian House: the wisdom of crowds or the myopia of geeks? July 31, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Business, Product Development , add a comment
This is one of the most interesting and audacious ideas I have seen in a while. Cambrian House, who recently entered open beta, are bringing a pretty revolutionary new approach to product development. They describe their mission as follows:
To discover and commercialize software ideas through the wisdom and participation of crowds. Contributors earn royalties, sharing in the success of the products.
The company is focused on a particular type of product: ones that can be sold/realized entirely over the Internet. So, how does the process work?
Sneakerplay: is this a joke? July 29, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Social Networking, Business , 16 commentsBack in the halcyon days of the last Web boom, a VC friend of mine told me about a genuine business plan he received for a company called OnlinePetrolStation.com. That was the worst online business idea I had ever heard - until now.
Underground Bounty Hunter: The Interactive Movie Returns July 26, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Product Development, Games , 10 comments
Next Generation has an interview with one of the people behind a forthcoming web-based interactive movie called Underground Bounty Hunter. For anyone who’s unfamiliar with the term, Next Gen sums it up pretty nicely:
Interactive movies, or live-action games featuring branching stories, first appeared on the back of the CD-ROM in the early 1990s. After a noisy introduction, they were generally reviled for high costs, poor production values and limited interactivity. Game industry lore has it that such things are the mad offspring of Hollywood types who want to bring their skills to our audience.
Living as I do here in Los Angeles, I meet lots of people from the mainstream entertainment business with ideas along these lines. I will be making them read this article as a handy shortcut for explaining why you may want to think twice.
I had a quick poke around the site myself. Hey guys, if you’re reading this, I have three suggestions that will increase your chances of success by an order of magnitude. I’m not kidding.
Mobile phones and Internet are more important to 18-24 year olds than TV July 24, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Mobile, Business , 7 commentsThe recently published 2006 Mobile Life survey reveals that, when asked to identify which of the five “modern technological products” listed below was most important in their lives, the Internet leads among men and women 18-24. Mobile phones take second place, followed by TV in third place. This stands in contrast with the population as a whole, where TV takes second place and mobile phones place third.
Another nail in the coffin of old media? More validation for the projected explosive growth in mobile and online content? Alas, I don’t think so.
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Chinese government publishes mobile media blacklist July 18, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Mobile, China , add a comment
A lot of people are (rightly) excited about the potential of the Chinese mobile content market, but stories like this serve as an important reminder of how quickly the ground can shift.
In a bid to clean up the business practices of mobile content companies, the Chinese government has published a blacklist [Warning: Excel link] containing 102 providers who they have identified as mistreating users through practices such as overcharging or making it hard to unsubscribe from services.
This move comes hot on the heels of China Mobile’s moves earlier this month that will force customers to manually renew their subscriptions a month after signing up.
It is being predicted that as much as 30% of China’s mobile value added services companies will go out of business as a result of this change.
[via ChinaTechNews]
MSN.com: The idiot’s homepage July 15, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Uncategorized , 9 commentsThis is kind of off-topic for the blog, but today’s MSN.com top story really deserves public ridicule:
Hands on with the HeatSeek porn browser July 12, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Product Development, Adult , 16 comments
When I heard about this on TechCrunch today, I was immediately intrigued. The adult industry is notorious for a take no prisoners approach to product development - it will have your eyeballs and your wallet, even if it means opening 300 pop-up windows and installing a dialer that calls premium rate numbers in Karachi when you’re not looking.
Great products make business needs dovetail with what the user wants, and HeatSeek nails it expertly.
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Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace profile July 8, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : MySpace , 15 comments
Radar: NHN launches Ijji games portal July 7, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Avatars, Business, Games , 14 comments
NHN USA, the US arm of Korean online games company NHN, launched their US portal Ijji today.
Funny name.
The site features a mixture of flash and downloadable games, and the whole thing is pretty slick and shiny looking. The games’ production values are decent as well.
Community features include the obligatory customizable avatar (pictured), character levels, and a currency (gems) that are earned through gameplay. Right now the only thing you can buy with the gems is clothing for your avatar, but I’m sure will likely change.
All the games on the site are currently free, but it seems likely they’ll go with the ‘pay for stuff’ model that’s already commonplace in Korea and has been gaining traction here since, well, 1997 when Matt and my company Iron Realms started doing it.
Big thumbs down for the fake ‘user’ reviews on the front page. If you’re going to post fake reviews guys, try not to make them read so transparently like a PR rep wrote them (”How does your site provide games for free when you have to pay to play games on other sites?”), or at least don’t date them as having been posted ten days before the site went live.
Microsoft to launch mobile network in 2007? July 6, 2006
Posted by David Kaye in : Mobile, Business , 28 comments
Microsoft is planning to launch an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) next year, according to Engadget.
I’m pretty bearish on MVNOs in general - a lot of them seem to launch without any clear differentiators. A Microsoft mobile network makes a lot of sense, though, particularly for the enterprise market.
While many MVNOs tend to start with second rate handsets that have been half-heartedly customized and had a logo slapped on, Microsoft is on the third major version of its mobile operating system and their phones rock.
If they combine their hardware and software advantage with a sensible data plan, I’d be pretty optimistic about their chances.
