As this blog is written, Bing Gordon of the Venture Capital Firm Kleiner-Perkins says he likes "games, and soy latte." Mr. Gordon's almost toying with TechCrunch Editor Michael Arrington because he's not actually giving up any valuable information.
But he does make statements that do provide some news. For example, he says that since Reid Hoffman, "everyone's going to go public in four weeks."
The gaming investor says that he doesn't want to compete with Zynga, which he invested in (not enough he says), because it's got too many "smart people." And says that it's monetization's going to get to ten percent, even though it's reached that in Asia.
In other words, about 10 percent of Facebook social game users like the ones Zynga produces become paid users in Asia. That's about $60 per person, but he says it's going to be higher than that in America.
The Gamifcation of Everything
Arrington asked if that idea that everything is becoming "game oriented" or the process of "gamification," is real. Gordon says that people who've grown up since the 70s have to make choices not to game. But that person sees the World differently, you can "level up," for example. "The most powerful game system is Google Search SEO" because people are always trying to game it, or figure out how to do so.
Great point.
The Ecosystem of Zynga and Facebook
Arrington asked who needs the other more, Zynga or Facebook? Bing essentially agrees that they need each other, and because people who use Facebook and game are larger in number than those who don't.
On the matter of the sour relationship between Zynga and Facebook, he says that Zynga was thinking about starting its own portal as a "counter-strategy" to Facebook's new restrictions, and that Facebook Credits would be the only method of payment, where Facebook takes 30 percent of each spend from the money apps develop.
That this will happen, with Zynga taking its 246 million active users per month away from Facebook, is still apparently very real, because Arrington said "It looks like you're giving me a signal that you don't want to talk about this any more."
The Real Bing
"I'm pretty aware of my shortcomings and try to defend or deflect them every day."
Stay tuned.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Bing Gordon Of Kleiner-Perkins Talks Zynga At TechCrunch Disrupt
Ashton Kutcher Talks With Sarah Lacy Backstage At TCDisrupt
Ashton Kutcher continued his tech talk with Sarah Lacy Backstage At TCDisrupt.
On appearing at TechCrunch Disrupt, Kutcher says that it's not that he's less nervous about talking before tech people, just that he's found "the right words."
But it's clear, with his investments, initiatives, and programs, that Ashton Kutcher has become a full-fledged, informed, angle investor. He's got the lingo down, but more important, has a set World view which governs what he invests in.
On Tech Vs Acting
Sarah Lacy asked if he was going to lose time from acting for Tech and said "I'm not going to end up on a set in Louisiana working 16-hour days." So, he's got a plan such that he will not have to act for money as he ages.
My bet is he continues to act, though.
Stay tuned.
Ashton Kutcher Talks With Charlie Rose At TechCrunch Disrupt
Appearing in a beard and hat, and not wanting to talk about his new gig on Two And A Half Men, Actor Ashton Kutcher came on to talk with Charlie Rose at Tech Crunch Disrupt New York about his company Katalyst Media, that he started with Jason Goldberg, and a new investment company and initiative.
Ashton revealed that he was an early investor in Skype, and involved in promoting the brand as much as putting money into it.
Kutcher, who has over 6 million Twitter Followers, sees on Twitter the opportunity for mass syndication and "something that is very addictive," and, he says, satisfying in seeing your tweets retweeted.
The New Fund
Kutcher's got an investment fund called A-Grade that "puts money into tech investments," and is looking for apps that "solve a problem for a large subset of people."
On this, he says that it's best to invest in companies that are "just trying to keep their servers going," which means, if that's the case, he's going to have a lot of people knocking at his door.
Right now, A-Grade is looking at a variety of different companies, but he's not into hearing about someone's market cap, because there are so many people pitching companies who says that first. "What I look for is what is the trust level of people, and are you solving a signal-to-noise issue. The more people trust the application, the more time and money they will put into it."
A-Plus, is the name of "a really good grade, he says, and a new platform that builds an app to essentially catch real time information and sort it so that it can be seen at the time that works for the user. "I want to follow Charlie Rose's Stream, but I want to just read about tech."
He tweets every day or once or twice a day, sometimes six or seven times a day. He says he tweets everything himself, and tries to answer back to the community.
Hollywood Is Like Tech
For him, acting and movie - making is a lot like tech investing in that "you have to raise money for a movie" and then work to make sure it's made and does well, in this case, at the box office.
On The Future
Prediction" media will just become media, but on multiple consumption devices, but have one distribution device. What a lot of people are trying to capture is what consumption system we use to get media.
On Movie Canibalization
Ashton says that Hollywood's arguing about what to do about Digital Media is stopping it from coming up with an overall solution. (Hollywood) is already being caniballized," he says.
He points to his movie No Strings Attached with Natalie Portman as one example of how piracy is harming Hollywood. "The movie did fairly well at the box office, but on other platforms... So I looked it up online and found about 20 different copies (that the studio did not upload), and asked, "Are we doing anything about this," and never got an answer.
Maybe after today, Ashton will get one.
Stay tuned.
Monday, May 23, 2011
TechCrunch Disrupt: Arianna Huffington Loves MapQuest
Catching up with some news from TechCrunch Disrupt, we find that AOL (do not use the term America Online around AOLers, by the way), Chief Editor and Huffington Post Founder Arianna Huffington was interviewed by TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington this morning, and out of that, came some provocative, if not news-worthy, quips.
Foremost among, them is Arianna's claim that MapQuest is better than Google Maps.
Thankfully, Arriington called her on it, saying "You never used Map Quest." Because if she had, Arianna would know about MapQuest's famous problem of making a route map that takes the user to a different place than they expected to be.
This has happened to me, my Mom, and friends over the years. That's why none of us, especially myself, use MapQuest. And while my Mom's on AOL, and I can't get her off it, she will use Google Maps over MapQuest.
What Arianna should have said is, MapQuest is really improved, you should try it.
If she tried it.
AOL - Yahoo Merger? AOL Struggling? Tim Armstrong's Icy TechCrunch Talk
This one with Armstrong at TechCrunch Disrupt New York 2011 was a bit icy by comparison with 2010, and only because Michael kind of pushes Tim the boss rather than Tim the guest. What follows are some highlights from their just completed conversation.
On TechCrunch Disrupt's New Home
Tim says that the Pier 94 is much better than the former Merrill Lynch Office that was the scene for TechCruch 2010, and AOL has a staff for Michael at TechCrunch now, versus last year. So, the impact of AOL on what TechCrunch does is obvious, from talks with his boss, and, it would seem the selection of a better space, that one has to assume is more expensive to use than the year before. Why? Because AOL's helping to foot the bill for it's use.
On AOL and Content
AOL revenue has been declining, Michael said. But Tim says he's still happy with the company's direction and feels that the overall strategy is the right one saying "everybody in that space is using content to differtiate themselves. Content sites are expanding faster than the Internet's growth itself," And adding "I love that people think that content is not a good business, because that keeps people out of this business."
On AOL, Deals, and Yahoo
A fair ammout of the talk was a hint that AOL and Yahoo may do some kind of deal. But overall, AOL is taking a breather from deals like the purchase of TechCrunch, but may do more deals with "About 5 or 10 companies."
On AOL and TechCrunch, and Parties
TechCrunch, from a brand perspective, to him, was a Californa brand, which Michael disagrees with "We had parties in London, and we were a Worldwide brand" he said. And I have to agree with Michael here. There's a little bit of the "You were OK before we bought you, but now you're awesome" talk coming from Armstrong, and it's understandable that Arrington would take issue with Tim's take. TechCrunch was global as much as Tech is global, from an audience perspective, and long before AOL happened along, with its parties and stuff.
Michael says that AOL has a lot of parties, where they do "vodka shots off ice sculptutes," but they're parties that TechCrunch staff doesn't attend because they haven't been invited. Tim said it's because no one ever thought to invite them. Too funny.
But Michael really wanted to know "Why is Arianna editor and chief? Tim said, "I didn't think you wanted the job."
On AOL and Yahoo
Arrington said "My guess is, withing a year, AOL and Yahoo will become the same company," and said openly that AOL is struggling "Without the dialup revenue, it is, ...I get the feeling that this is getting a little dicey."
"AOL, it has made a turn-around, it's on a comeback," Armstrong said.
On a question about paywalls and local content. Armstrong said that local monetizes better than people written, and that paywalls can work. "What are you putting behind the wall, and what is it offering," he says. Tim's a "long-term believer" in paid content. "I think we're at the start of the next evolution of content," Armstrong said.
On Arrington and Conflict Of Interest
Did Michael violate policy on investing in startups after TechCrunch was purchased by AOL? Well, what was he supposed to do with his share of the $30 million they got. As long as he's open about the investments, from a blogger perspective, there's nothing wrong with what he's done.
Overall, a really different vibe this time because when Tim was on at TechCrunch in 2010, the interview then was more friendly and easy; not this time.
It was pretty icy.
Jack Dorsey Introduces Square Register Today
Dorsey has announced that Square has shipped out over 500,000 readers, and Square has enabled over $1 billion in transactions to be done, by people who would not have been able to do so in the past because they didn't have cash on them.
Doresey says that people have been able to make more sales with Square. But now, he wants to focus on businesses in addition to individual people. In the presentation he explains the Square Register for the iPad, that replaces the clunky standard register. But the register gives you more, he says. It gives you data on, for example, how many cafe latte's you sold, if you're running a cafe.
Square is also releasing the Square Card Case which stores your purchase information, and allows you to make purchases using the card, and works with the Square Register.
Square is rolling out the Square Register to 50 merchants in various cities in America.
In all, a very exciting and revolutionary development.
Chevron Ecuador Muddled By Petroecuador, Canadian, Foreign Oil Companies
The oil company operated in five oil fields - Shushufindi, Sacha, Auca, Lago Agrio, and Libertador - where the damage happened. There is no report that Petroecuador has completed environmental clean-up in those areas.
Locally, Petroecuador is seen as the real problem, even as the government, which effectively runs the media, has formed a public view against Chevron as well.
But lost in all of this, from fraudulently prepared reports, to intimidation of Ecuadorian judges, is the fact that the story of oil exploration in Ecuador is one of the actions of many companies, as Chevron has not been in operation since 1992, and Occidental Petroleum was the last American company to work in the nation until they were kicked out in 2007.
For example, little discussed is the role of Canadian oil companies in Ecuador. Firms like Ivanhoe Energy and Encana, which started operations in 1999.
Encana, like Chevron, has been the focus of a movie, this one called Between Midnight and the Rooster’s Crow. But what makes this interesting is that with Encana, Ivanhoe, Repsol-YPF from Spain, Occidental Petroleum, Teikoku from Japan, the Brazilian national oil company Petrobras, the French oil company Perenco, and now Andes Petroleum, a consortium of Chinese oil producers, it's impossible to argue that the Ecuador oil story is one between just Chevron and Petroecuador.
It also makes it all but impossible to claim that oil wells in Lago Agrio were only used by Chevron - the facts just don't support that claim.
Why?
Because Lago Agrio is where Andes Petroleum Co currently operates, and where Encana worked before the Chinese entered Ecuador, buying the rights and production facilities for $1.4 billion, where Chevron, again, left in 1992 and engaged in cleanup work through 1995. Moreover, several firms, including Petroecuador, have produced oil in Lago Agrio over that time through to today.
This is 2011.
What's lost on American activists is that oil funds an estimated 50 percent of Ecuador's national budget. That, coupled with the fact that Ecuador produces more oil than it needs for its economy, and you have a situation where many foreign companies, not just a few, want to and have produced oil in Ecuador, and a government that's still all too interested in courting them.
And that, as Ecuador becomes a socialist dictatorship, and the perfect environment for an uprising, very much like the one that happened in September, involving Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and the Ecuador police, who kidnapped him.
Their concerns: maintaining their benefits admit budget cuts. Ecuador's fiscal situation's not going to make life nice there for a while.
Stay tuned.