I started this analysis for an MBA strategy project on Google's mobile strategy. We were trying to figure out what the industry growth looked like, how competitors were playing in this market, the various strategic moves companies were pursuing to win this market and how Google should approach this.

Its turned out to be quite a fascinating research topic. I have poured over a few hundred websites and research reports. The one challenge about Google is that there is just too much information available on Google. You can easily get swamped with data. If I would have printed out all the research I did, I could have easily used up a few thousand pages.

Whats most interesting to me about the topic is the phenomenal variation in the growth predicted by the analysts in this industry. It varies from $1B in 2012 to about $20B in 2012. A very big factor playing in this area is the penetration of data services. Even today data services penetration in US is pretty minimal, and nowhere close to what was predicted at the beginning of the decade! This underlying dependency has caused the predictions on mobile ads to vary quite a bit.
Another huge factor is the highly evolving market in addition. Also the relationship between content popularity and how that ties with ad revenues is very unclear. Can Google replicate what they did with monetization of search application with ads in mobile space? Can they evolve out of search and create or help create the killer app on mobile where ads will be as conducive as they are in search? Android is promising a lot in this regards. But Google has to put in a lot of investment to really grow the market. These are the questions we are trying to answer in our research.

Google is trying to push the slow train now and get more traction and revenues from mobile ads. One of hte many links I saw was Google's mobile ads PM blog.

Of course there are so many unanswered questions today. Some of them I have asked on the google mobile ads blogs.

1. There are so many predictions of what the mobile ads market will be in 2012 ranging from $1B (Forrester) to $19B (ABI Research). What are Google team's expectations?
2. Given the smaller screen size, and mobile phones being a very personal device, mobile consumers might see ads as more of an intrusion rather than value add. Comments?
3. Google Adwords are primarily served based on the context of the pubisher's page they appear on. On mobile, targeting individual users based on their profile/preferences/location will be crucial. How will Google get access to this data? If this means working with carriers, how willing are carriers willing to partner with somebody for these technologies rather than build themselves? e.g. China Mobile, Virgin Mobile are building the ad platforms themselves.
4. How many phone browsers support javascript and cookies? Without this penetration, how does Google move adwords/adsense into mobile?
5. Last and also perhaps the most important, what are the expectations of mobile ads team from Android? Will Android be purely used to push ads on browsers? Or is the idea to push ads on other areas of the screen? Status bar/screensaver/other applications?

Android and iPhone revolution of course are the biggest wildcards and drivers of this market. Let's see where our paper and Google goes with this.

Given their ability to well manage their farms of commodity servers, I think they will have very less problems managing a farm of commodity $50 balloons with commodity $1500 wireless sets in stratosphere launched by farmers. Google is becoming expert in farming. :-)

On a serious note, this seems to be a very interesting idea for a niche market. About 36% of rural America doesn't have internet. This can potentially penetrate the rural market with wireless internet.

Today they are launching 10 balloons a day with help of the farmers. I doubt if this can scale much though as you can't physically have thousands of balloons flating upwards in rural area. Also the logistics of retrieving the $1500 devices, which is currently outsourced to hobbyists cannot scale as fast either.

Also scaling in countries that really need like China/India/Africa will be challenging because of logistical issues.

Filed in interesting ideas to watch.

Saw this article today about Chinese PC virus that collects passwords for online games.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/351670_picframevirus18.html

Another virus ... right? Wrong!
This one has bigger implications in my mind. Look at the source of the virus. Its in digital photo frames! How did it get there??
Was it introduced in the manufacturing process?? Now thats a scary though isn't it?

How all this malware got onto the photo frames and what it's doing there is unclear. Trojans can download other Trojans, which is part of how botnets are controlled.
While SANS is investigating the infections, the retailers are saying little.

Sam's Club said it has found no infected frames, and its distributor, Advanced Design Systems, did not return calls.

A few Target customers complained about frames distributed by Uniek, a store spokesman said. Target is no longer selling those frames, but that's because they didn't sell well over the holidays, he said. Target has found no infections, he said, but is watching for them.

Best Buy said one line of its Insignia frames -- also now discontinued -- was infected during manufacturing but would not provide details.

Costco did not return calls seeking comment.

That scares me at two levels.
1. There is a proliferation of the consumer devices with software in them - bluetooth headsets, digital cameras, music players, digital frames, etc. Apparently more than 2.26 million digital frames were sold in 2007 and is expected o grow at 50%! How many other consumer devices could potentially be infected with such viruses?

2. Today we believe manufacturers to be honest, as long as we buy the devices from brand name retailers. And then we buy so many of them online from nobodys. If manufacturers can do this and get away with it, that makes me feel that we have to be more selective in choosing the products and brands. That scares me because I wouldn't want to spend so much time reviewing manufacturers for such commodity items.

Interesting times!!

I disagree with Michael Arrington about Network Solutions employing questionable sales tactics. I think its fair on Network Solutions to do this. Strategically of course I think this is a blunder on Network Solutions part.

Network Solutions is now apparantly registering the domains you search on their site which prevents users from registering the name on other sites.
Network Solutions was the only domain registrant till they lost their monopoly rights a while back. Apparantly now they are 3rd.

Arrington argues

The fact that Network Solution is using the grace period to stop users from going to competitors is well outside of the original reasons for the rule. Users are already screaming (we?re getting emails). Expect competitors to scream next, and of course to copy the behavior.

I disagree on the questionable nature of the tactics. This is not unfair. 2 reasons :

1. They are not using any anticompetitive tactics. They are using consumer activities on their site and increasing the switching cost of the consumers. Fair.
2. They don't get any unfair advantage over consumers in price other than their profit margins while registering the domain for a year. For 5 days they do get unfair advantage. But thats a nuisance rather than anything else.
   

As a consumer of course this move just moves me further away from Network Solutions. I typically register domain names on 1and1.com. Cheaper than godaddy as well. I think consumers are extremely price sensitive in this segment. I don't see Network Solutions providing any value add on top of the $6 I have to pay at 1and1. I host my own websites and I just need a registration .. simple. So why bother?

This move just convinces me more to not even go to their site.

So I don't think this is a questionable move in terms of fairness. I do think this is a questionable strategy and they will alienate their consumers more.

Was going through all the furore and news articles about the Bajji and Bucknor. (Cricket is the only thing unifies the country more than anything else. Not politics, not business, not day to day issues. I think we should use Cricket to somehow drive poverty and illeteracy from India! :) )

Found this photo on timesofindia website.



This is of course not a celebration of India winning or even drawing (didnt happen in the 1st 2 tests and doesn't happen very often against Australia!) .. No, this is a celebration of ICC removing Bucknor from remaining Ind-Aus series and Bajji being allowed to play in 3rd and 4th test matches.

Found this too funny! How does this go with Australia winning both tests of the series?! How shortlived are our memories? We celebrate the current small victories and forget the war being played!

If India loses the remaining 2 tests, I think these same folks will come to the streets with burning effigies of our cricket players.

Fickle game and fickle mindset indeed. :)

Haven't posted for a while. This post on techcrunch about a remote monitoring product for elders caught my eye and just couldn't resist posting!

The zest to make everything accessible online and reduce the inefficiencies in the current systems is definitely going overboard now! As Erik points out in the post, why would we not just call the elders to check their status instead of watching a webcam??

Probably its a culture thing, but I just don't see the real need behind the issue solved here or how this could add any value. How much of an invasion of privacy would you want to do to get this data? Would you be comfortable having every move of your elders recorded?

I see the value of this for really old people who are unable to move, but then wouldn't you have somebody to help them anyways? Also to be fair, trending and monitoring data might help, but for this level of privacy invasion I probably wouldn't want it.

But a company based on this..

Just experienced first decent size earthquake that hit 15 minutes back in Bay Area. The magnitude was 5.6 and hit near Alum Rock San Jose. 

Very unpleasant experience. Had experienced a 4.4 earthquake about 6 years back I think. That time we were on a 3rd floor and completely clueless as to what to do. This time we had enough time to run out of the house. This one lasted about 5-10 seconds. Lot of shaking and rattling noise inside the house. Luckily no damage.Now I have to explore what is the deductible on earthquake insurance! :-)

From the New York Times article below

Nick Bostrom, a philospher in Oxford University, says there is a probability that if we are able to build a intelligent computer some day, we could already be in the matrix of that computer today! We could be all simulations running on someone's desktop. Nice thought .. aint it! :-)

This is from the New York Times Article in Science section. Didn't know NYT also had a sci-fi section. :) Our Lives, Controlled from some guy's couch

Even though it sounds so preposterous and unreal, it is a nice read.

Just saw this video about India Poised. Just 9 months late .. better late than never I guess :)
Loved it!



India is really shining now and is a huge market and everyone sees it.
Entrepreneruship is still very tough in India though. Lots of bureaucratic challenges to overcome while starting any venture in India. Also big brand name is still valued more in India. Startup generation is still new and the awareness of the innovation it brings in is yet to penetrate the masses. For example recently launched social networking site BigAdda by Reliance is becoming more popular quickly compared to all the startup social networking sites. As a startup you have to realize its a different market and figure out a way to penetrate it.

Which is why I am impressed with events like Proto. These events showcase the new generation of entrepreneurs like the Demo events in US. The blogosphere is of course always on the cutting edge and covers these events in much more details compared to the standard media. Check out the various blog coverages of the event.

Impressed yet? Theres opportunity and then theres the unknown turn on the road. Which one are you looking at?

I know the housing and real estate boom in Pune been a reality for the past 3-4 years now. I know first hand that land prices had doubled or tripled in some areas like Baner/Balewadi, etc. within the last couple of years.

But this time around, I really felt the impact of this boom when I visited Baner area in Pune. Of course there are almost no empty plots available now in Pune. And you see so many online/offline news reports or newspaper ads. But I felt the real impact when I saw the big banner ads showing off the 'lifestyle' homes while roaming around everywhere in Pune, especially outskirts. Pune was never a big banner city. And now look at the banners I see there below. Thats when I really realized the extent of the real estate boom.

I tried to capture samples of the banners I saw there. Within an hour or so, I had captured more than 50/60 banners! Here are a few samples









Impressive .. ain't it? Its a lifestyle they are advertising .. not just homes.

Here's the photoset:

Here's a link to the entire photoset I captured .

How long do you think this boom will last? Is it here to stay?

(I will soon be uploading photos of the actual constructions that are happening and have happened in Pune that I captured. Watch this space.)

Typically I don't blog about my work place eBay. But this article from our VP of Systems and Architecture- James Barrese - gives a good insight into what I typically do at work, so I wanted to share it.

eBay hasn't been historically known to be a technology company in the industry. But in the last couple of years that has changed significantly. A lot of the things we do, as James alludes to, are very innovative and technologically complex. The challenge we typically face is that given eBay's scale, the issues we face are quite unique and haven't been solved in public domain. Of course internet giants like Google, Yahoo, Amazon etc. might have dealt with these same issues internally, but never in public domain, and so that technology is a key enabler to the company's success. So all the companies are reinventing similar technologies to support the massive scale and keep ahead of the curve.

So yes, eBay is a technology company now.

You are in good company! :-)
Bessemer Venture has created a webpage listing the ventures it didn't invest in when they were approached by these companies. They call this the 'Anti-portfolio'.

And the list is stellar - Apple, eBay, Intel, Google, Paypal, Stratacom, Intuit  .... !!!

And of course Bessemer's David Cowan is a top 10 VC in the Forbes Midas List. His portfolio includes Verisign, Hotjobs, Keynote, Postini, Ciena, etc.

So don't be disappointed that these VCs rejected your idea. It still has merit! ;-)

"We live in an exponential world"! So true.... Here's a thought provoking video I found, of the rate of progress we are doing today. (Not sure of all the facts in the video .. but an intriguing one for sure)


Enjoy!
  

There have been so many online TV and Video sites coming up these days, that its hard to keep track of. Few of the more well known names are and ,  and    and of course and and the multitude of the P2P networks.


The one big challenge facing these companies is the adoption of the technology by the consumers. And a huge challenge they are facing there is the carriers. The carriers are either lowering the Quality of Service (QOS) for the video traffic or in some cases blocking the traffic completely. Networking companies like Cisco are getting huge contracts to build such technology and routers/filters for the carriers. And carriers are very reluctant in giving this bandwidth away for free. Thus the net neutrality debate.

The following article is an interesting read on the topic. http://www.last100.com/2007/05/28/will-isps-spoil-the-online-video-party

One interesting twist in the tale is that these video companies are backed and lead by bigwigs.

Joost is sponsored by Kazaa/Skype founders  Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. Interestingly Cisco's SVP Mike Volpi who recently left Cisco is now heading Joost as their CEO. He knows the challenges Cisco offers to this mix.
Youtube is Google's
Skype is eBay's
AOL video backed by AOL
Veoh got a lot of funding and is backed by Time Warner.

So there is a real battle ensuing, and hotshots are in the game.

Will be interesting to see how this unfolds. I feel that carriers will eventually relent and let these companies use the bandwidth but in return will surely get a piece of the action, which is what they want.

The debate will go on whether this is more invasion of privacy from Google after the satellite images, etc. or whether this will give a better GPS style mapping and directions view. I am not going in that debate here (although as an opinion, I think this will be better and I am ok with giving up the privacy bit for this feature). This is more on the technology that enabled Google to do this.

Google recently launched Street View. A very interesting feature which gives street level photographs of the area. They are interlaced with google maps. When you click on the street view, you grab the man in yellow and drop it to a street with a blue line indicating street view is enabled.

Interesting to read how Google has enabled this. They have licensed the technology from Immersive Media which has patented an 11 lens camera which takes videos and snapshots continuously. After this it is a brute force method. This camera is mounted on a top of a fleet of Volkswagen Beetles which drive around neighborhoods taking videos and photos. A software stiches these views together and gives a great street level view. You can also see a 360 degree view of the area as all the photos are stitched together.

The article detailing this came out on Business Week. Given the manual labor involved in getting these street level views, I doubt this will be done more than once for any street. Its just not scalable to do it more than once. So whatever images you see in this view will be pretty much be there for the near future. Unless Google makes it a social application, and users contribute the photos. Of course the camera will have to be made available to the consumers which is quite expensive today.  Social Immersive Media. :)

Following is a view of the street I live on
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Milpitas,+CA+95035&layer=c&ie=UTF8&ll=37.44161,-121.908932&spn=0.050088,0.080338&z=14&om=1&cbll=37.43029,-121.90894&cbp=1,355.103369548834,0.53263345270177,2