September 7, 2008

Blog birtday note and Sunday links

The blog turned six on September 4th and at the same time marked the first year of English-language blogging. Probably blogged a bit less than I planned in the last year, but that was not due to the language switch.

Bret: The Secret Behind the Popularity of Yahoo's Homepage. "Good games kill time. If you're really smart, you'll figure out that giving people something to enjoy can have just as much impact as giving them a better way to solve a problem. Here's a problem for you: everyone wants to be happy. Yet, most of the time, they aren't.
Games help with that. Does your startup?" Of course most entertainment (online or offline) is not advertising-supported.

A VC: The "Feedization" Of The Web (continued). "But think about the Facebook generation. My kids are growing up with the news feed as their start page. Not Yahoo's portal approach and NOT google's search box approach. In time, its entirely possible that feeds will be more powerful than search"

Umair: How to Chrome Your Industry . "Where is the Chrome in your strategy? What shared resource have you invested in - or should you invest in - to expand the pie sustainably for everyone over the long-run?

If the answer's "none," it's likely that you're living on borrowed time. Because Chrome is a textbook example of asymmetrical competition. You don't need to invest billions to disrupt industries with shared resources - a few million devoted to a handful of bright people will do. What Google did with Chrome, tomorrow's revolutionaries will inevitably begin doing across industries - that's why asymmetrical competition is so dangerous and so difficult to fight." How can you support open source projects that strengthens your firm's strategic position like Oracle, Google, SAP and others have done for quite some time in their industry?

Futuristic Play: Gaming versus gambling ARPUs. "Given that games and gambling go (somewhat) hand-in-hand, at least in terms of product and design, I’m curious what you might be able to learn in one that you could apply to the other. This is similar to the common belief that the techniques in the online direct response world all trace their roots in the adult industry." About $73 in monthly ARPU for Italian gamblers compared to about a $1 for sites like Habbo, Club Penguin and others.

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