squared99

Obvious by the days between this post and the one below I have been a bit slack in my blogging duties.

I can only say that I have been very busy with voeveo, optimizing some of the architecture, working with the development team on new features, and putting a lot (a whole lot) of effort into seeking investment with the business team.

A typical VC type query that seems to come up a lot is, “What’s to stop so and so multinational mega-corp from building the same thing.” The real answer in almost all cases is nothing. There is absolutely nothing to stop anyone from trying to build the same thing. Just like there’s nothing to stop McDonalds’s from building a Search Engine and competing with Google and Yahoo.

That might sound a bit silly and exaggerated. McDonald’s is not likely to divert their resources from the highly competitive fast food industry and focus on the SE business, but this isn’t obvious when talking about Internet companies.

All services on the web tend to get lumped into the same broad industry term, “Internet Company,” regardless of what the underlying business model is. Therefore if “they” are on the web and “you” are on the web, then they are in the same business as you.

I’m not saying it isn’t a fair question to ask. Anyone seeking funding has to be prepared to answer it and give damn good reasons why they are the better choice. But I do disagree with giving large multinational mega-corps some sort of advantage because of their size.

The Dreaded Google
I’m gonna use Google as an example, because they are the typical company used in the “What’s to stop…” scenario.

According to this logic I guess every person on the planet who has a good idea for the Internet better just forget about trying it because of Google. Let’s all just sit back and wait for Google to build everything on the Internet.

Google does not have a strong track record of duplicating an idea and automatically dominating the space. Actually I’m wrong, there was one instance when Google duplicated a business idea and dominated. It was something called a ‘Search Engine’, and back then they were the little guys competing against bigger players.

YouTube is probably the most high profile example. Google put out their own video service, and then decided it would be easier (and probably cheaper in the long run) to buy and work with YouTube.

There are plenty other less high profile examples. Did you know Google has a social network site and a photo sharing site?
Possibly not, because they don’t dominate either space.

There has been some recent dissatisfaction expressed with Google’s blogging tool, Blogger. WordPress continues to improve and grow through hard-work. They’re always building new features, reacting to and working with their loyal community.

So why is it that Google doesn’t own every business space on the web?

One big reason is probably because Google is known as a Search Engine first, their core business model and brand, just like burgers & fries are McDonald’s. That means people may not prefer them as an off-deck provider of independent mobile content (like voeveo), just like they aren’t the preferred video or a photo sharing service.

Secondly, within every business space on the web, just like the real world, there is plenty of room for competition. Social Networking sites are hot, with Facebook and MySpace on top at the moment, yet Bebo who is running 3rd (by a bit of a margin) was just acquired by AOL for 850 million dollars. LinkedIn has found a niche within the business social network. Come to think of it where did Facebook come from? Didn’t MySpace have the social networking thing sewn up? Why did they even bother? I guess they thought they had a better idea….

Lastly, what does it really take for an Internet service to succeed?
- The team
- Usability
- Personal Preference
- Relationships
- Loyalty
- A willingness to react to your customers needs
- Scalability
- Dependability
- Money
- and about a billion other factors that are just as difficult for Google as for anyone else.

Money and technical resources are no guarantee of success.

No doubt funding is needed, but having more money does not always equal a better chance of succeeding. There are a billion other factors equally (or more) important. Unfortunately, they often depend on money as well.

The Internet is the biggest level playing field out there. More often than not small, creative, smart companies can out-compete larger, slow-moving behemoths. The little guys are closer to the product and the reason for creating it goes beyond a decision to expand their portfolio of services. They are passionate about it and they believe in it. They can react and adapt quickly. They are hungry.

The more important question is what’s to stop another small, creative company from competing? The answer again is nothing. It comes down to everything I’ve said above. Will it be easy for them? No way in hell!

SuperGodzilla put this together and put it online for our site.

With all the stress, ups and downs, and hard work; this is the stuff that really makes it worthwhile.

Big Thanks for reminding me why I’m doing this.

PS. Take Me Over Nasty has been my ringtone for the last month or so.

Zeroin, One of our extremely talented and funny sellers on voeveo helped us to create this for our easter promotion. I really hope we can keep working with all the talented pool of artists voeveo is privileged to have on board so far.

Thanks guys! I know voeveo doesn’t say it enough, but voeveo loves you! It really does. sniff

Ars Technica has published some benchmark findings of the latest Firefox 3 beta 4.

I’ve been running every released version of the beta as my main browser, hey might as well go whole hog. I hope my feedback and bug reports have helped!

And I have to say from personal experience/observation that, yes, the memory footprint seems to be very good, and page rendering speeds are very good (haven’t done any benchmarks my self). This latest release has been a delight to use.

An interesting thing in that article is the comments at the end regarding the mobile web. Probably a salvo at Apple, as there is still uncertainty about Firefox on the iPhone.

These types of comments are coming up more and more and it is just more proof about where the web industry is turning its eye, the momentum is definitely picking up speed.

Imagine the day when proprietary browsers on the handset are old news, and we get to choose between browsers competing against each other on speed, memory usage, usability, etc.

the more the stay the same.

Last week Apple made two announcements that annoyed the hell out of me.

The first one I’ll note was the announcement of the iPhone SDK.

You may be asking why this annoys me. Isn’t is awesome that developers can create native apps now? Especially given feedback at the GDC and Apple previously about them sticking to web apps. Well, yes it is.

The thing that sucks, that in my opinion that really, really sucks, is that Apple will only allow “approved” games to be sold via their iTunes App Store. This places a lot of power in the hands of Apple, and it lets them decide what will be sold and what will be allowed to work on the iPhone.

This sounds very similar to the current carrier portal climate, so apologies for not sounding excited. It screws 3rd party channels such as voeveo, but I also don’t see how it is a huge boon for independent studios and solo developers. They do get another platform to play on, but will the constraints and requirements placed upon them essentially lock them out again, leaving just the big boys.

Here is a good article in the Washington Post looking at the positive and negative sides. In fact even those who were smitten at first are starting to become very deflated. A good summary at Wired looks beyond the Apple Hype machine and into the very real restrictions and practicalities from a developer point of view.

Ok, and now the second announcement which I tend to believe is connected to the first. Steve Jobs has killed any rumors of the Flash player being launched on the iPhone. Jobs says that Flash is “too slow to be useful” on the iPhone.

I get arguments about clunkyness of Flash in some cases, and of the annoying ads, and a site totally built in Flash can be a nightmare. My opinion is always that Flash is a tool, not a final product. It is up to developers to use it appropriately and elegantly. Anything on the web can be done badly.

But this is not the point in this case.

There are a couple major things that Flash allows. One is video. How much of the web experience is currently video? How many blogs etc embed YouTube videos. If Jobs claims that the iPhone is supposed to deliver a real web experience then it is missing out on some of it.

The second things that Flash enables is games (and applications). Flash games are huge on the web, and could be just as big as the iPhone. Especially if they can be downloaded and saved.

Ah ha! I say.

So Apple has conveniently closed another point of access for developers at the same time they launch their SDK and App store.

This again sounds very similar to the old carrier tricks that everyone has been railing against.

“Cripple, close, block, prevent, stifle”. These are the words that are coming into my mind after those two announcements. Not “Enhance, open, enable, access, innovative”. And it makes me sad.

A different person holding the key to the cell doesn’t make it freedom.

Oh well, looks like Sun are not going to take this lying down.

And if they want an exciting open delivery platform to push apps to phones? Check out voeveo. WARNING! shameless plug ahead.

Come to think of it, any handset manufacturer out there looking for a portal to promote as open and as a way to push apps, games, music, videos etc to their phones (and others) check us out.

Im so poetical eh.

Many folks may have noticed the recent hullaballoo about Rogers’ (Canada) new ‘unlimited’ browsing plan. They are taking heat on some very negative feedback. I’m personally surprised they have decided to take a step back rather than forward with their data plans, it had seemed they were on track for proper mobile data plans for consumers. Perhaps someone there has decided it would be best to squeeze as much as possible while they can.

Funny related story here. My Dad pings me on messenger to tell me that Rogers has just charged him $17 on his last bill for downloading a wallpaper from us at voeveo.com.

My Dad is not exactly a techno-wiz but he has figured his way through his phone and regularly downloads stuff from us. Which I think is great, plus I have to swallow my pride and admit that he often notices things user experience wise that I cannot just chalk up to the ‘generation gap’, and so his feedback is always useful.

Anyway, we both knew we had set him up on a previous data plan rogers offered which was something like $5/month for 3mbs of data.

They tell him over the phone they never had a plan like that (huh?) and that he needs to go on this $7 ‘unlimited’ browsing plan. I check the website and I can tell you that even I was confused about what it meant in regards to when he might be charged. Would downloading an image count as a 3rd party data charge or not? I googled and immediately find all these stories about Rogers new plan and the backlash. So I let my Dad know and he calls them back, surprise surprise they suddenly found his old data plan and put him back on it.

This behavior of just pulling people off plans and hoping they don’t complain is total BS. Then to top it off they try to confuse folks when they call about what plans they offer and so on. Who works for these companies and makes these decisions? Do they pet some sort of white fluffy cat in a big swivel chair and think of the next way to screw their customers? Get real guys.

Saw this blog post today. Another chat about ridiculous data/messaging charges by carriers. This one goes a bit farther and starts looking at the real cost. I LOVE these types of things. Cellular subscribers really need to understand how badly they are being gouged, and for no other reason than simply because the carriers are getting away with it.

No, you are not crazy. They are totally, blatantly ripping you off.

In the last few years we’ve seen lawsuits emerging about unfair charges and we’ve seen lawsuits about unfair disabling of device features, or “crippling”.

The only way this is going to change is if we keep up the pressure. Complain, switch carriers, file lawsuits because quite frankly we have seen what happens when the carriers are left to their own devices……they cripple them.

The sideloading issue is starting to make a re-appearance as mobile games developers still feel frustrated by the costs involved, for both consumer and creators, in delivering games over-the-air.

I agree with the giving choice argument, but I also feel that sideloading is the wrong direction. The fact that it is still being considered as an option just shows how behind data charges, plans and infrastructure is for the mobile web. This is not just an issue for games but the whole mobile web business. Data charges are data charges, whether its a large game download or a smaller data footprint, but frequently visited, mobile web service.

Perhaps if big players push sideloading this will continue to pressure the operators to get their act together, it’s happening slowly. In the end though, I really believe the mobile web needs to stay completely on the mobile.

Moconews sums up FCC Kevin Martin’s comments from CES.

Basically, still following on with open access approach, addressing blocking issues, etc. Looking good.

This has got to be, hands down, the best analysis of the past, present and future of the recording industry written by someone who has lived it.

David Byrne breaks it down with much detail. Great explanation of what he describes as the 6 models available to current artists for selling and promoting their music, ranging from completely hands-off to completely hands-on. Pros/Cons of each, amazingly simple charts to look at describing where the money goes from a CD sale; and why even though iTunes is great for consumers, it still isn’t so great for artists. In fact they can make less on an iTunes purchase than a CD sale.

I highly recommend reading this article!