App unbundling and mobile first approaches for B2B software are really interesting to me. Awhile back I wrote a post about unbundling LinkedIn. Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what it would take to compete with and ultimately dethrone Salesforce (or SugarCRM or Microsoft Dynamics for that matter) with a mobile-first approach.
Category: social networking
Competing with LinkedIn and the Case Against Unbundling
I’ve been thinking about LinkedIn quite a bit lately. I think LinkedIn is really interesting because in many ways I think it is one of the most durable and hard to disrupt companies that sit at the intersection of SaaS and social networking. I’ve also been meeting a ton of companies that I think are looking to compete with LinkedIn by attacking them on a feature-by-feature basis as opposed to a full frontal assault. There are some interesting and emerging things I’m seeing on this front and I wanted to write down some of my thoughts on the subject.
The Potentially Divergent Paths for Facebook and Twitter Mobile Ads
Mobile ads, particularly app install and direct response ads, have become a big business for Facebook and are likely to become a big business for Twitter very soon. Much of the focus has been on the app install business and how large that line of business can become. But I think Twitter and Facebook could head in different directions.
Mobile Messaging Won’t Be a Winner-Take-All Market (And That’s Okay)
The world of mobile messaging has really taken off in the last few years, with products like WhatsApp, MesssageMe, Kakao, LINE, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Kik, Viber, and others building large and growing user networks. I think many of these companies are really interesting and many of them are building really interesting businesses in their own […]
Why Refresh.io Nails and Pre and Post Meeting Intel for Busy Networkers
When I first heard about Refresh, I kind of rolled my eyes. I love CRM and contact management applications, and many of them sound better in practice than they deliver in practice. I figured that Refresh would fall short as many other well-intentioned products in the space had in the past. But Refresh is now […]
On Startups Competing with Core Mobile OS Apps
One thing that’s been on my mind lately is how (and whether) startups can compete with the stock applications that ship with Android and iOS devices. I’ve included a screenshot of my current homescreen – it changes fairly often, but this reflects the apps that I use fairly often today. As the image of m […]
3 Reasons It’s Hard to Get Mobile Group Photo Albums Right
I’ve been fascinated by many of the early attempts I’ve seen to create group photo albums. With the continued proliferation of smartphones, it seems like someone should have solved the problem of creating unified photo albums with photos taken from distributed devices. I had hopes that the original version of Color would fulfill that promise […]
Thoughts on the Latest Version of Highlight – Greater Emphasis on Sharing Out to Facebook
I’ve been enjoying the latest update to Highlight (version 1.2 which issue described on their blog here). For my previous thoughts on Highlight, I’d encourage you to read this post. As a fairly active Highlight user, a few things have really jumped out at me about the newest release. Overall, it feels like this update was […]
Pinterest – Media Company or Commerce Company?
I would not consider myself a power user of Pinterest, but I do find the product really fascinating. And I’m really intrigued by how broad Pinterest usage is within my network – a lot of my friends from high school in Michigan and others who are not super active on Facebook or Twitter are very […]
Keeping Track of People You Meet – The Unified Evergreen Address Book
I’ve had a few blog posts in the past about managing contact information and the various tools I’ve tried (you can read them here and here. I continue to look for a unified contact management system to keep track of the many people I meet. I’m looking for a unified system that can perform two […]