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October 31, 2005
Podtech.net: 2 Million Download Month
Podtech.net announced today that they had their first 2 million download month.
Podcasting is a lot like the early Web -- actual quantifiable data is pretty hard to find. I haven't seen numbers for any Podshow properties so it is hard to say, but 2 million downloads is quite an accomplishment.
Congrats to John Furrier -- keep up the good work (in case you haven't already heard it, check out the podcast John did with Steve Forbes)
Posted by davehod at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2005
Russell Reports on the Video iPod
Russell has a great post about hooking up his new Video iPod to a TV and watching DiggNation, which he was really into:
..they were geeks and we’re geeks and it was *on TV*. It was probably one the best shows I’ve seen “on TV” in a long time
As to the future of time-shifted, open source media:
...there’s finally a mass-market, consumer friendly way of viewing these videos somewhere besides your PC, and that’s going to change *everything*.
Good stuff.
Tags: ipod, diggnation
Posted by davehod at 01:42 AM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2005
TechCrunch BBQ #3
Tonight I attended the third TechCrunch BBQ at Mike Arrington's place in Atherton. There were a number of demos scheduled, enough sponsors to have the event catered (:-)) and a whole lot of people.
I met Mike (and Keith Teare) at Gnomdex earlier in the year and this event had the same kind of "Gnomedex-like" feel (just no Chris Pirillo). The energy and overall vibe were quite strong - strong enough to put me in the "get out the Complete Studio Sessions by Led Zeppelin (all 10 CDs) and code till the sun comes up" kind of mood
Dave Weiner did a presentation in the back yard and challenged us to work on innovating blogging. He felt like it hasn't changed much since 2002 or so. He also said that he had not seen this kind of energy in the Valley and was very excited by it all.
There were ~15 demos -- I certainly didn't see all of them and had seen a few of them previously at Web 2.0 (Flock, Wink). Seeing Sphere for the first time was interesting.
I met a ton of people including Kevin Burton (FeedParser,TailRank), Josh from Zazzle (a 2.0 version of my old company iPrint) and some of the guys from Bessemer.
Thanks to the TechCrunch guys for having us over!
Tags: techcrunch, startup, entreprenuer
Posted by davehod at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2005
Don Dodge on Microsoft Acquisitions
Don Dodge (on the MS Emerging Business Team) has written an excellent post on entrepreneurship and Microsoft acquisitions.
Having been acquired by MS earlier this year, I found that the post closely mirrored our experience at MessageCast.
Some interesting quotes:
What is most important to Microsoft when making acquisition decisions? People are the most important factor in any acquisition. Microsoft looks for talented engineering teams with vision and passion and experienced management teams. Second is technology and IP that can add value to an existing Microsoft product.
We heard this from the MS acquisition team on many occasions - it's about the people/team, not just the technology.
Entrepreneurs should remember this. The "barriers to entry" are most often market position, not technical brilliance. I have heard start-ups say "we have a two year lead on our closest competitor". In fact, I have said it myself at previous start-ups. I was wrong. Most technologies can be replicated by a talented engineering group within a year or two.
Said another way - make vs buy is always a consideration.
Tags: startup, entreprenuer, acquisition, microsoft
Posted by davehod at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2005
The Relay - 2005
On tap this weekend, the 2005 edition of The Relay. If you aren't familiar with this race, it consists of 12 member teams, running 199 miles for a non-stop relay. It is similar to Hood to Coast and goes from Napa to Santa Cruz.
We are well organized as this year we have the same team ("Desperately Seeking Santa Cruz") with the same team captains. Unfortunately, I had to drop out last year due to my ITBS issue, but I am raring to go this year.
I'll be running the 5th leg in Van One, with two 5 miles legs (at ~3pm and ~2am) and one breath-stealing 1200 foot climb over a 3 mile distance (at ~12 noon). The forecast shows a chance of rain -- here's hoping for sunny, mild weather!
Tags: running, marathon, therelay
Posted by davehod at 08:25 AM | Comments (0)
File Under "Clueless"
File this under "clueless" - from yesterday's WSJ article on podcasting.
"All podcasting is about is making it easy for the [small percentage] of the population that owns an iPod to record to a specific device," says Bob Neil, president and chief executive of Atlantabased Cox Radio Inc., which is not yet podcasting any shows. "People have been recording their favorite radio shows since the age of the cassette."
If were a CXR shareholder, I would be worried. That "small percentage" has AAPL up 150% in the last 12 months while CXR has remained essentially flat.
Posted by davehod at 01:57 AM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2005
Yahoo Podcasting - Analysis
First, Apple launched support for Podcasts in iTunes. Next, Podshow received funding from KP and Benchmark (with Ray Lane and John Doerr as board members no less). Starting today, Yahoo now offers support for Podcasts. As an entreprenuer, this launch is huge validation for the Podcasting space overall.
Summary
The initial launch is short on features in a few areas, but my guess is that the shortcomings of the service will be improved over time. No doubt, Odeo has some new competition.
Directory
Directly competing with services like Odeo, Podcast Alley and iTunes itself, Yahoo! Podcasts offers a directory service:
...the free service focuses on making it easier for people to sift through the tens of thousands of podcasts currently available on the Web
The directory search looks like it is including meta data from the RSS Media spec (championed by Yahoo). I can't tell if Yahoo is also working with the iTunes namespace spec, although their RSS example includes it.
Yahoo has also included support for tags and a user rating system. Unlike iTunes, all downloads were pulled
from the publisher URL; even very popular shows were not using Akamai.
Subscription service
Yahoo's subscription service functionality is very limited. To actually subscribe to a podcast,
they suggest the following:
...you'll need to get some great music software like the Yahoo! Music Engine or Apple iTunes
Publishing platform
Overall, the publishing platform lacks many features
Recording tools
The initial rollout does not offer any tools for recording a podcast. Instead, they suggest using applications like Audacity
and GarageBand. Odeo should have an edge here, however, they have not released their publishing tool to
general availability.
Publishing/Hosting
The Yahoo site has no support itself for hosting podcasts.
When your podcast is finished, you need to put it online. If you already have access to a web hosting service, just FTP your podcast there. If you don't have space online to put your podcast, you can use one of many free or paid hosting services. Yahoo! provides some great web hosting options through Yahoo! Geocities. Here is a list of additional hosting options you can choose from
This is an area for Yahoo to enhance -- many publishers are hungry for analytics and reliable bandwidth.
Ping server
Yahoo has ping support from the start - something that iTunes still has not done and Odeo added after launch.
Posted by davehod at 12:51 AM | Comments (0)
Podcasting on Yahoo! - Podtech Exclusive!
Yahoo has announced Yahoo Podcasts.
John Furrier's Podtech.net has an exclusive interview with Geoff Ralston, Y! Chief Product Officer. A great podcast, get it now :-)
Posted by davehod at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2005
Web 2.0 Conference
I'll be attending the Web 2.0 Conference this week in SF (Wed-Fri).
A number of the sessions look interesting; the workshops even more so.
Update: SocialText has added a wiki
Tags: web2.0
Posted by davehod at 02:07 AM | Comments (0)