This is a quick post based on my experience using CloudContacts. I first heard about CloudContacts a few weeks ago and was intrigued. In a nutshell, I think of CloudContacts as a business card scanner as a service (as opposed to business card scanning as a product offered by CardScan). The process for getting your […]
Tag: Business
Can Large Companies Help Small Companies Find Business Models (An Open M&A Question)
This is more of an open thread than a blurb. I’ve been looking at the dismal data on venture capital exits and the growing swirl of rumors about Twitter getting acquired. One thing I’ve always wondered is whether a situation where a big company buys a small company for a large sum (say north of […]
Why Didn’t the New York Times or the WSJ Sell Me My Kindle 2?
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, in really excited about the arrival of my Kindle 2. I love books, magazines, and newspapers, so I’m sure I’ll get a lot of value out of it. But I’m not sure why re NYT or WSJ didn’t give me the opportunity to buy it directly from them. Why […]
Would You Spend the Next 20-30 Years of Your Career in Silicon Valley?
I have to admit that the genesis for this post was a conversation I had with some of my business-minded friends during the first half of the Super Bowl. One of my friends, who runs his own venture-backed company, asked the group whether we thought the classic Silicon Valley, venture-funded tech startup scene was the […]
What’s the Right Business Model for a User-Generated Review Site?
This is my first blog post in quite some time. I’ve been noodling on an issue for the past few weeks and I thought I’d put it out there for folks to chew on. I want to start by saying this is not a problem that is new or unique to the web. The Classic […]
Three Blog Posts In Progress – Advice for Generalists, Why Marketplaces Rule, and Why Video is Tough
I’ve been really busy and sadly derelict in my blogging. I’m working on 3 posts that I’ll preview – if you have thoughts or info to contribute, let me know. Hope to get all three of them out in the next week or so: 1. Are you a “true” or a “new” tech generalist? It’s […]
Solving the Twitter Business Model Problem – Your Guess is Probably Better than Mine
I’ve been fascinated by the blogosphere’s musings on Twitter’s downtime. I, for one, am relatively sympathetic toward their plight – there’s nothing tougher than trying to scale a system that’s growing quickly and has a very unpredictable, bursty traffic profile. And as much as I like and enjoy Twitter, it’s not a life-or-death kind of […]
Reactions to Fred Wilson’s Post on Liquidity – We Have a Price Gap
I enjoyed reading Fred Wilson’s post on how the VC market needs more liquidity options for consumer Internet companies. As much as I enjoyed the post, I really enjoyed the comments even more. I applaud Fred for taking a different view and being honest about what a lot of venture investors must be thinking privately. […]
Eight Predictions for 2008
If you want to read my predictions for 2005, 2006, and 2007, click on the hyperlinks in this intro sentence. I’ll spare you the pain of recapping what I predicted in 2007 – feel free to make comments on that post if you have something to say. I have a handful of predictions (8 actually) […]
Vertical Search Business Models – It’s All about Economic Transactions
For the past week I have been talking with a bunch of people about vertical search business models. I have a pretty bipolar perspective on vertical search; some days I think there is a business there and some days I don’t. After many enlightening conversations, my general thoughts can be summed up in the following […]