These are my logged notes on the HBS Cyberposium'96 -- indeed, largely for =
cyberposeurs :-)
Something of interest for everyone, I think. Redistribute with care; there =
are some abrasive statements below.
A dramatis personae is attached at the end.=20
Rohit Khare
----------------------------------------------------
Cyberposium at HBS.
Gilder-- pretty fantastic bullshitter. Picks numbers, applies SciAm and =
Moore-law scaling and makes lightning-rod statements.
(I think what will be the scariest part of today is the gasps-of-ignorance =
from the B-types. They probably can't spell Praseodymium-doped-laser :-)
all limits to bandwidth are going to dissolve thanks to fat optical pipe --> =
BS. we don't know how to route and switch that traffic -> never have =
arbitrary p2p bw. He insists "dumb networks will prevail".
Broadband digital radio is a breakthrough in spectrum use -- instead of n =
receivers for n channels, can be done w one antenna and software. Neat =
analogy to having "eyesight" rather than color-sensors.
Makes a semi-preposterous argument that no auction is appropriate for =
over-the-air: highways are built for common use, and if the skyway police =
don't nab you, broadcast away... poor analogy.
Bandwidth is perfectly substitutable for computing -- but rather than =
compress, simulate, lock, etc, use infinite bandwidth to cope with computing =
scarcity -- BS like "the network is more important than the cpu"=20
Vertical standards within a platform are giving way to horizontal wire =
standards.
(seems like the meeting has an anti-MS bias)
He thinks the key to cable modems is @Home, because of TCI and Doerr(i.e. =
Kliener/Perkins).
RBOCs don't have their act together -- see ISDN -- so ADSL will miss. =
"They're in a 63 million pound copper-wire cage!"
DBS satellites have eclipsed and obsoleted point-to-multipoint cable =
entertainment. Terrestrial cable is going to be bband networking.
"Politicians from the Dark Ages like Pat Buchanan and Reed Hundt... =
[laughter]" got applause for calling TV "stultifying and depraved bunkum". =
Book culture, a first-choice (rather than lowest-common-denominator), is a =
145,000 channel medium (Barnes & Noble).
=20
I think over-the-air is an essential part of the future: radio, local =
services. Cable for all TVsets is not compelling yet.
Internet Panel
1) What's the value proposition of the Internet 2) How to attract and keep =
suckers, er, consumers.
Forrester Research lady says there's little value now; it's a social trend.
@Home guy praises email: net-as-info, but net-as-entertainment isn't there: =
surfing itself isn't it.
AOL guy: "Well, I brought 4 billion diskettes today to pass out..". AOL is =
30% of Inet use. The net cures separateness, loneliness or boredom. We are a =
self-referntial audience -- the journey is NOT the (end-user) reward. "The =
lonely and the bored are the 2 most powerful sales forces on earth"
UUNet guy: I disagree: biz use is MORE compelling than ent. use right now. =
Ha-ha: "FTP is used for collaboration"
Parekh: "What those guys said." The Web is not (yet!!) the medium for =
some-to-some communication, which is where its at.
The AOL guy continues to offend by insisting that the Internet is bored and =
lonely folks. He's an HBS alum, so they laugh instead of hiss... at least I =
hope, or else this audience is clueless.
There is NO industry without a middleman marked for death : insurance, =
brokers, etc. AOL guy example: They have a private mortgage board that can =
do auctions. Log consumers on to it...
What are people off-base on?
Forrester: anything involving "vegetative state" video. ITV is dead, dead, =
dead. She bets on VRML.
@Home guy disagrees. He thinks Net is a publisher's/print medium, but their =
high-bw net will allow CNN, MTV to do better sites than print.=20
UUNet guy notes that cable people are born-again =
ITV-was-wrong-we'll-do-cable-modems -- and they don't have a clue beyond =
that: DNS, routing, caching.=20
AOL: you create loyalty through innovation: that's why they're investing in =
content & branding. I mean do people have loyalty to 9PM Thursdays at NBC?? =
No, it's Seinfeld! [which opens a whole series ofunexplored, incorrect =
assumptions about monopsidy and oligopoly in broadcast]
UUnet: loyalty is customer service. Mission-critical
Forrester: It's all first-mover, and people underestimate the vast power of =
Netscape's f-m barriers to entry. The platform get loyalty -- same as =
content sites customized -- lockin by prefs files! It's like an address =
book. To break it, you have to be Excel to 1-2-3: suck up all the data, the =
commands, and a massive budget.
Some survey questions about the audience: "have you been spammed", etc Seems =
a middle-ok audience: 15% said there was too much advertising.
AOL: Come on! The entire retail food chain is based on stupid consumers! =
Fully informer, intelligent agent shopping is a false promise.
@Home guy brings up CASIE; compared with an unspecified sig in SF [ANYwhere =
Online?], he thinks Madison Avenue is way behind.=20
AOL: You heard it here first: the anonymous consumer is dead. All this =
infrastructure is being paid for out of your pocket, viz your identity.
UUNet guy pooh-poohs the current state & prospects for political discourse =
on the net.
Forrester: we think the Internet appliance is possible for $500, but it will =
be a failure. She says $200 is a firm consumer price point -- without =
thinking that today's $500 NC is 1998's $250, and 2001's wristwatch :+)
e-Commerce Panel
Dan Eldridge, DigiCash flack, was there in force.
Bob Weinberger subbed for Ghosh from OpenMarket. "I can tell you that there =
are very significant b-2-b applications out there" The top management of =
large comapnies are very interested and very threatened by disintermediation
Corinne Moore is labeled CommerceNet, but she's really Verifone, I thought? =
Says security is a solved problem, but the infra is missing. Her attitude =
was incomplete.
Checkfree: [we exist because the consumers , consumers field can't cope with =
tcp/ip errors, etc]. This is very much a $0 billion industry.
Connect, Inc. Never heard of them. The average corporate purchase order =
costs $150 to process, file, and pay -- even for a $50 item. Forrester =
predits a transactional site will cost $3.1m, IDC says $1.4m -- 4x over =
budget, but still thought worthwhile. The largest cost component is custom =
coding. It's the difference between a cash drawer and a point-of-sale =
system.
ISN: Since April 1994. 100k customer, 40-60k shoppers per day, buying =
computer stuff. Sales go up the faster it is: text home page, sale up 20%, =
Cache, faster server, up 30%, etc. Randy Adams and Bill Rollinson were =
cofounders. 29% of purchasers are overseas, and they are turning away 2, 3 =
times as much sales to overseas inquiries denied by mfrs not allowing =
export. 24-hour global real-time sales reults, repricing, etc -- sounds like =
a tight ship...
Connect: an electronic parts co pays $4m/yr for its paper catalog, that =
doesn't make the sale. By comparison, a web site is a good investment.=20
Checkfree: Web sites are influencers, too, which is not measured by site =
tracking. For example, 10,000 people downloaded their sw, then 20% signed up =
for the monthly ($) service.
OMarket: Hey, let's not narrowly measure the benfits. [Well, I laughed, =
anyway].
Digicash: no, the measure is $$ on the wire... The web is a new medium, it's =
like formica trying to look like wood -- we need a web that's formica that =
looks like formica. [Seems like a knock on HBS's furniture...]
How to cope with infinite bandwidth? HBS on monday is installing a O(100) =
channel digital video backbone, and the prof seems mildy impressed. All =
respond with the usual "no such thing as too much bw". [One of the shifts =
will be to 24-hr access -- not 20-30 minutes an evening, but background =
services, etc -- push rather than pull. [I found out later that a local =
telco loop assumes peak usage of 10% -- major stress ahead]]
One other meme: more bw will encourage patience. [current frustratingly slow =
access feeds joystick-finger, trigger mentality. With more reliable service, =
and no race to free up a phone line, people will pay more attention to =
content, and be more relaxed.]
OpenMarket. Phases: 1) make your biz more efficient 2) make it larger -- =
reach out 3) new products -- peronalize and digitize 4) reinvent the entire =
company -- middlemen of the world will die and some will be reborn.
OM: Aggregation: consumer have more relationships with companies than they =
want -- Aggregators can consolidate relationshipd on your behalf -- like =
Checkfree does with bill-paying.
Digicash mentions, in support of micropayment, the ol' meme that the phone =
company pays 40-60% for billing and collection.
On c/net, an article about a computer may have an ISN ad linking to that =
product for sale -- ISN doesn't pay ad fees, it pays c/net commissions -- =
today, already! [That ol' Referer field of Phill's pays off! Actually, I bet =
for such ads, they probably always point back to c/net site, which issues a =
redirect -- so that both parties, owning their logs, can prove their trails =
even when clients drop Referer:]]
Infopreneurs Panel
Fred Wilson, Euclid Partners, $100m in NYC. Chair "more HBS students want in =
on an Inet startup than Wall Street this year"
4 entrepreneurs, 1 VC from Greylock, an old and venerable Boston tech VC -- =
manages all of MIT accts.=20
Mark Pincus, FreeLoader. [This is a company Fred has invested in.] =
Co-founded with Sunil Paul, late of AOL. They are doing a front-end to the =
"Internet experience" by downloading personalized pages in advance [sounds =
like Compuserve offline readers!] In the end, it's just a hot-list walker =
that clips indicated pages if modified. Also uses that lame PointCast =
news-screen-saver with an HTML saver -- and just think, you can -- god help =
me -- interact with your screensaver by clicking on links.
Freeloader also intends to sell demo data -- Aggregator [see above].
They want to launch your day -- replace the "default home."
Free beta soon at www.freeloader.net. Milktruck is a direct competitor, =
intro'd atDemo'96: high quality product, or early annc?
Gary Kremen, EClassifieds. They will do vertical industry classifieds. First =
one up is to solve his personal problem: match.com -- "how can index all the =
women in the world and select #1". Next: jobs.com, housing.com, etc. It's =
pretty successful, and they are now charging for access.
They morph the site on referer, e.g. single mom forum on AOL yields =
different siite. They claim patents on this.
Nick Grouf, Agents Inc, MIT class of '95 (!!!). 1) personalization =
2)interactivity 3)community. Firefly is music; movies in 2.5 weeks, books =
and websites to come. 320,000 albums indexed. They claim to have proprietary =
"whispers" in their chat system -- like Zephyr, no doubt. The AllMusic guide =
is their content partner. Lots of custom-calculated introductions to other =
users of similar interests -- user ids, homepages, mailboxes, etc. Average =
visit is 19 minutes [ on music alone, more than AOL avg connect!]
Revenue streams 1) advertising (targeted, pull mode) 2) marketing data info =
(statement of integrity on every page allows them to sell aggregate pattern =
data) (strategic partnership with Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide) 3) relicensing =
agents (i.e. a huge music magazine doing a custom mag by profiles) 4) =
consumers (purrchasing through Newbury Comics (another OpenMarket client))
Randy Forgaard, Vermeer. FrontPage -- we all know this product. Started =
April 1994, introd to Charles Ferguson by his thesis advisor. Initially, =
intended to design online services like at AOL. May, they discovered the =
Web. Whole venture on a shoestring, no salaries. Visual Basic mockup =
completed, then shopped it to all the VCs -- may have wasted too much time =
with VCs. Got funding in 1/95 after 4 mos of shopping, the got into real =
codewriting for 10/95. Second round VC preempted by MS. MS called and said, =
hey, can we co-market, sell code, or the "full meal" deal [for whom, I =
ask?]. Eventually, the price was high enough they abandoned the risk of an =
IPO. MS will pair this w/ Office and Gibraltar and FrontPage will be *the* =
Intranet solution [what happened to BackOffice? :+) ]
Chip Hazard, Greylock, HBS'94. Isn't it amazing how you an go from 0 to =
$130m in 18mos? I love this job..
Pincus: we spent more time on funding than I hoped. Better to do simple and =
fast, with interim goals that can push financing back in time. Don't let new =
VC's arrive and drag out the dating game.
Gary: VC money is the most expensive money in the world: control, etc. If =
you can get money from sales revenue, that's best.
2 dissents from Gary:
Grouf: we have lots of investors prospecting: angels, corps, VCs. Money is =
not the issue, control and people are. It's a 3-5 year marriage. Trust is =
essential -- we walked away from a higher valuation
Forgaard: we simply didn't have the business talent to make the company =
work, at this time frame. Deposed Charlie from President, got real mgmt. The =
VC was essential to our success. Note: VCs never say no, they drag and drag.
Hazard: yep, only deal with 4-5 firms, and stay focussed on the product, =
don't play the field. The Internet funding boom is actually correlated with =
record amts of $$ available, from Wall Street, etc. Also, synergy among the =
VCs companies -- Netscape/Kleiner,Perkins took advantage of this.
=
_____________________________________________________________________________
CYBERPOSIUM 1996 - A conference of industry leaders exploring the world of
interactive media, the internet, and the communications revolution. Great
opportunity or recruiting/learning about jobs in the hottest sector of the
world economy.
Friday, Feb. 23 Burden Auditorium 2-8pm
Advance Tickets sold in Kresge this week.
Speakers Include:
Keynote Speaker: Paul Allen or George Gilder
Internet Panel: (3:00-4:00pm)
John Sidgmore, CEO UUNET
Michael Parekh, Goldman Sachs
Mark Walsh, America Online
Charles Moldow, VP @Home
Mary Modahl, Forrester Research
John Sage, VP of Marketing at Starwave
Kevin Mayer, VP of Strategic Planning Disney
Electronic Commerce: (4:00-5:00pm)
Shikhar Ghosh, Chairman Open Market
Tom Kehler, CEO Connect
Cathy Medich, VP CommerceNet
Bill Robinson, SVP Internet Shopping Network
Matt Kursh, Chairman & CEO Eshop
Daniel Eldridge, VP Digicash
Edutainment: (4:00-5:00pm)
Dan Kaufmann, COO Dreamworks Interactive
Jon Grande, MSN Entertainment
Ralph Derrikson, VP Starwave
Steve Fields, SVP Disney Interactive
Mark Gorenburg, Partner Hummer Winblad
Eric Sass, SVP at PBS Learning Media
Infopreneurs: (5:00-6:00pm)
Nick Grouf, CEO Agents Inc.
Yosi Amram, CEO Individual Inc.
Chip Hazard, Greylock Capital
Randy Forgaard, CTO Vermeer Technologies
Gary Kremen, Founder ECI & Match.com
Mark Pincus, CEO and Founder FreeLoader
Convergence : (5:00-6:00pm)
Mark Handler, President Disney Televentures
Bob Beran, President Bell Atlantic Media Ventures
Barclay Knapp, CEO International Cabletel
David Samuel, Roger Communications
Bill Shiller, Continental Cable
Post 6pm - Cocktail Party in Burden Hall
________________________
--NeXT-Mail-1308272669-1
Content-Type: text/enriched; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
These are my logged notes on the HBS Cyberposium'96 -- indeed, largely for =
cyberposeurs :-)
Something of interest for everyone, I think. Redistribute with care; there =
are some abrasive statements below.
A dramatis personae is attached at the end.=20
Rohit Khare
----------------------------------------------------
Cyberposium at HBS.
Gilder-- pretty fantastic bullshitter. Picks numbers, applies SciAm and =
Moore-law scaling and makes lightning-rod statements.
(I think what will be the scariest part of today is the gasps-of-ignorance =
from the B-types. They probably can't spell Praseodymium-doped-laser :-)
all limits to bandwidth are going to dissolve thanks to fat optical pipe --> =
BS. we don't know how to route and switch that traffic -> never have =
arbitrary p2p bw. He insists "dumb networks will prevail".
Broadband digital radio is a breakthrough in spectrum use -- instead of n =
receivers for n channels, can be done w one antenna and software. Neat =
analogy to having "eyesight" rather than color-sensors.
Makes a semi-preposterous argument that no auction is appropriate for =
over-the-air: highways are built for common use, and if the skyway police =
don't nab you, broadcast away... poor analogy.
<bold>Bandwidth is perfectly substitutable for computing=20
</bold>-- but rather than compress, simulate, lock, etc, use infinite =
bandwidth to cope with computing scarcity -- BS like "the network is more =
important than the cpu"=20
Vertical standards within a platform are giving way to horizontal wire =
standards.
(seems like the meeting has an anti-MS bias)
He thinks the key to cable modems is @Home, because of TCI and Doerr(i.e. =
Kliener/Perkins).
RBOCs don't have their act together -- see ISDN -- so ADSL will miss. =
"They're in a 63 million pound copper-wire cage!"
DBS satellites have eclipsed and obsoleted point-to-multipoint cable =
entertainment. Terrestrial cable is going to be bband networking.
"Politicians from the Dark Ages like Pat Buchanan and Reed Hundt... =
[laughter]" got applause for calling TV "stultifying and depraved bunkum". =
Book culture, a first-choice (rather than lowest-common-denominator), is a =
145,000 channel medium (Barnes & Noble).
=20
I think over-the-air is an essential part of the future: radio, local =
services. Cable for all TVsets is not compelling yet.
<bold>Internet Panel
</bold>1) What's the value proposition of the Internet 2) How to attract and =
keep suckers, er, consumers.
Forrester Research lady says there's little value now; it's a social trend.
@Home guy praises email: net-as-info, but net-as-entertainment isn't there: =
surfing itself isn't it.
AOL guy: "Well, I brought 4 billion diskettes today to pass out..". AOL is =
30% of Inet use. The net cures separateness, loneliness or boredom. We are a =
self-referntial audience -- the journey is NOT the (end-user) reward. "The =
lonely and the bored are the 2 most powerful sales forces on earth"
UUNet guy: I disagree: biz use is MORE compelling than ent. use right now. =
Ha-ha: "FTP is used for collaboration"
Parekh: "What those guys said." The Web is not (yet!!) the medium for =
some-to-some communication, which is where its at.
The AOL guy continues to offend by insisting that the Internet is bored and =
lonely folks. He's an HBS alum, so they laugh instead of hiss... at least I =
hope, or else this audience is clueless.
There is NO industry without a middleman marked for death : insurance, =
brokers, etc. AOL guy example: They have a private mortgage board that can =
do auctions. Log consumers on to it...
What are people off-base on?
Forrester: anything involving "vegetative state" video. ITV is dead, dead, =
dead. She bets on VRML.
@Home guy disagrees. He thinks Net is a publisher's/print medium, but their =
high-bw net will allow CNN, MTV to do better sites than print.=20
UUNet guy notes that cable people are born-again =
ITV-was-wrong-we'll-do-cable-modems -- and they don't have a clue beyond =
that: DNS, routing, caching.=20
AOL: you create loyalty through innovation: that's why they're investing in =
content & branding. I mean do people have loyalty to 9PM Thursdays at NBC?? =
No, it's Seinfeld! [which opens a whole series ofunexplored, incorrect =
assumptions about monopsidy and oligopoly in broadcast]
UUnet: loyalty is customer service. Mission-critical
Forrester: It's all first-mover, and people underestimate the vast power of =
Netscape's f-m barriers to entry. The platform get loyalty -- same as =
content sites customized -- lockin by prefs files! It's like an address =
book. To break it, you have to be Excel to 1-2-3: suck up all the data, the =
commands, and a massive budget.
Some survey questions about the audience: "have you been spammed", etc Seems =
a middle-ok audience: 15% said there was too much advertising.
AOL: Come on! The entire retail food chain is based on stupid consumers! =
Fully informer, intelligent agent shopping is a false promise.
@Home guy brings up CASIE; compared with an unspecified sig in SF [ANYwhere =
Online?], he thinks Madison Avenue is way behind.=20
AOL: You heard it here first: the anonymous consumer is dead. All this =
infrastructure is being paid for out of your pocket, viz your identity.
UUNet guy pooh-poohs the current state & prospects for political discourse =
on the net.
Forrester: we think the Internet appliance is possible for $500, but it will =
be a failure. She says $200 is a firm consumer price point -- without =
thinking that today's $500 NC is 1998's $250, and 2001's wristwatch :+)
<bold>e-Commerce Panel
</bold>Dan Eldridge, DigiCash flack, was there in force.
Bob Weinberger subbed for Ghosh from OpenMarket. "I can tell you that there =
are very significant b-2-b applications out there" The top management of =
large comapnies are very interested and very threatened by disintermediation
Corinne Moore is labeled CommerceNet, but she's really Verifone, I thought? =
Says security is a solved problem, but the infra is missing. Her attitude =
was incomplete.
Checkfree: [we exist because the consumers , consumers field can't cope with =
tcp/ip errors, etc]. This is very much a $0 billion industry.
Connect, Inc. Never heard of them. The average corporate purchase order =
costs $150 to process, file, and pay -- even for a $50 item. Forrester =
predits a transactional site will cost $3.1m, IDC says $1.4m -- 4x over =
budget, but still thought worthwhile. The largest cost component is custom =
coding. It's the difference between a cash drawer and a point-of-sale =
system.
ISN: Since April 1994. 100k customer, 40-60k shoppers per day, buying =
computer stuff. Sales go up the faster it is: text home page, sale up 20%, =
Cache, faster server, up 30%, etc. Randy Adams and Bill Rollinson were =
cofounders. 29% of purchasers are overseas, and they are turning away 2, 3 =
times as much sales to overseas inquiries denied by mfrs not allowing =
export. 24-hour global real-time sales reults, repricing, etc -- sounds like =
a tight ship...
Connect: an electronic parts co pays $4m/yr for its paper catalog, that =
doesn't make the sale. By comparison, a web site is a good investment.=20
Checkfree: Web sites are influencers, too, which is not measured by site =
tracking. For example, 10,000 people downloaded their sw, then 20% signed up =
for the monthly ($) service.
OMarket: Hey, let's not narrowly measure the benfits. [Well, I laughed, =
anyway].
Digicash: no, the measure is $$ on the wire... The web is a new medium, it's =
like formica trying to look like wood -- we need a web that's formica that =
looks like formica. [Seems like a knock on HBS's furniture...]
How to cope with infinite bandwidth? HBS on monday is installing a O(100) =
channel digital video backbone, and the prof seems mildy impressed. All =
respond with the usual "no such thing as too much bw". [One of the shifts =
will be to 24-hr access -- not 20-30 minutes an evening, but background =
services, etc -- push rather than pull. [I found out later that a local =
telco loop assumes peak usage of 10% -- major stress ahead]]
One other meme: more bw will encourage patience. [current frustratingly slow =
access feeds joystick-finger, trigger mentality. With more reliable service, =
and no race to free up a phone line, people will pay more attention to =
content, and be more relaxed.]
OpenMarket. Phases: 1) make your biz more efficient 2) make it larger -- =
reach out 3) new products -- peronalize and digitize 4) reinvent the entire =
company -- middlemen of the world will die and some will be reborn.
OM: Aggregation: consumer have more relationships with companies than they =
want -- Aggregators can consolidate relationshipd on your behalf -- like =
Checkfree does with bill-paying.
Digicash mentions, in support of micropayment, the ol' meme that the phone =
company pays 40-60% for billing and collection.
On c/net, an article about a computer may have an ISN ad linking to that =
product for sale -- ISN doesn't pay ad fees, it pays c/net commissions -- =
today, already! [That ol' Referer field of Phill's pays off! Actually, I bet =
for such ads, they probably always point back to c/net site, which issues a =
redirect -- so that both parties, owning their logs, can prove their trails =
even when clients drop Referer:]]
<bold>Infopreneurs Panel
</bold>Fred Wilson, Euclid Partners, $100m in NYC. Chair "more HBS students =
want in on an Inet startup than Wall Street this year"
4 entrepreneurs, 1 VC from Greylock, an old and venerable Boston tech VC -- =
manages all of MIT accts.=20
Mark Pincus, FreeLoader. [This is a company Fred has invested in.] =
Co-founded with Sunil Paul, late of AOL. They are doing a front-end to the =
"Internet experience" by downloading personalized pages in advance [sounds =
like Compuserve offline readers!] In the end, it's just a hot-list walker =
that clips indicated pages if modified. Also uses that lame PointCast =
news-screen-saver with an HTML saver -- and just think, you can -- god help =
me -- interact with your screensaver by clicking on links.
Freeloader also intends to sell demo data -- Aggregator [see above].
They want to launch your day -- replace the "default home."
Free beta soon at www.freeloader.net. Milktruck is a direct competitor, =
intro'd atDemo'96: high quality product, or early annc?
Gary Kremen, EClassifieds. They will do vertical industry classifieds. First =
one up is to solve his personal problem: match.com -- "how can index all the =
women in the world and select #1". Next: jobs.com, housing.com, etc. It's =
pretty successful, and they are now charging for access.
They morph the site on referer, e.g. single mom forum on AOL yields =
different siite. They claim patents on this.
Nick Grouf, Agents Inc, MIT class of '95 (!!!). 1) personalization =
2)interactivity 3)community. Firefly is music; movies in 2.5 weeks, books =
and websites to come. 320,000 albums indexed. They claim to have proprietary =
"whispers" in their chat system -- like Zephyr, no doubt. The AllMusic guide =
is their content partner. Lots of custom-calculated introductions to other =
users of similar interests -- user ids, homepages, mailboxes, etc. Average =
visit is 19 minutes [ on music alone, more than AOL avg connect!]
Revenue streams 1) advertising (targeted, pull mode) 2) marketing data info =
(statement of integrity on every page allows them to sell aggregate pattern =
data) (strategic partnership with Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide) 3) relicensing =
agents (i.e. a huge music magazine doing a custom mag by profiles) 4) =
consumers (purrchasing through Newbury Comics (another OpenMarket client))
Randy Forgaard, Vermeer. FrontPage -- we all know this product. Started =
April 1994, introd to Charles Ferguson by his thesis advisor. Initially, =
intended to design online services like at AOL. May, they discovered the =
Web. Whole venture on a shoestring, no salaries. Visual Basic mockup =
completed, then shopped it to all the VCs -- may have wasted too much time =
with VCs. Got funding in 1/95 after 4 mos of shopping, the got into real =
codewriting for 10/95. Second round VC preempted by MS. MS called and said, =
hey, can we co-market, sell code, or the "full meal" deal [for whom, I =
ask?]. Eventually, the price was high enough they abandoned the risk of an =
IPO. MS will pair this w/ Office and Gibraltar and FrontPage will be *the* =
Intranet solution [what happened to BackOffice? :+) ]
Chip Hazard, Greylock, HBS'94. Isn't it amazing how you an go from 0 to =
$130m in 18mos? I love this job..
Pincus: we spent more time on funding than I hoped. Better to do simple and =
fast, with interim goals that can push financing back in time. Don't let new =
VC's arrive and drag out the dating game.
Gary: VC money is the most expensive money in the world: control, etc. If =
you can get money from sales revenue, that's best.
2 dissents from Gary:
Grouf: we have lots of investors prospecting: angels, corps, VCs. Money is =
not the issue, control and people are. It's a 3-5 year marriage. Trust is =
essential -- we walked away from a higher valuation
Forgaard: we simply didn't have the business talent to make the company =
work, at this time frame. Deposed Charlie from President, got real mgmt. The =
VC was essential to our success. Note: VCs never say no, they drag and drag.
Hazard: yep, only deal with 4-5 firms, and stay focussed on the product, =
don't play the field. The Internet funding boom is actually correlated with =
record amts of $$ available, from Wall Street, etc. Also, synergy among the =
VCs companies -- Netscape/Kleiner,Perkins took advantage of this.
=
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CYBERPOSIUM 1996 - A conference of industry leaders exploring the world of
interactive media, the internet, and the communications revolution. Great
opportunity or recruiting/learning about jobs in the hottest sector of the
world economy.
Friday, Feb. 23 Burden Auditorium 2-8pm
Advance Tickets sold in Kresge this week.
Speakers Include:
Keynote Speaker: Paul Allen or George Gilder
Internet Panel: (3:00-4:00pm)
John Sidgmore, CEO UUNET
Michael Parekh, Goldman Sachs
Mark Walsh, America Online
Charles Moldow, VP @Home
Mary Modahl, Forrester Research
John Sage, VP of Marketing at Starwave
Kevin Mayer, VP of Strategic Planning Disney
Electronic Commerce: (4:00-5:00pm)
Shikhar Ghosh, Chairman Open Market
Tom Kehler, CEO Connect
Cathy Medich, VP CommerceNet
Bill Robinson, SVP Internet Shopping Network
Matt Kursh, Chairman & CEO Eshop
Daniel Eldridge, VP Digicash
Edutainment: (4:00-5:00pm)
Dan Kaufmann, COO Dreamworks Interactive
Jon Grande, MSN Entertainment
Ralph Derrikson, VP Starwave
Steve Fields, SVP Disney Interactive
Mark Gorenburg, Partner Hummer Winblad
Eric Sass, SVP at PBS Learning Media
Infopreneurs: (5:00-6:00pm)
Nick Grouf, CEO Agents Inc.
Yosi Amram, CEO Individual Inc.
Chip Hazard, Greylock Capital
Randy Forgaard, CTO Vermeer Technologies
Gary Kremen, Founder ECI & Match.com
Mark Pincus, CEO and Founder FreeLoader
Convergence : (5:00-6:00pm)
Mark Handler, President Disney Televentures
Bob Beran, President Bell Atlantic Media Ventures
Barclay Knapp, CEO International Cabletel
David Samuel, Roger Communications
Bill Shiller, Continental Cable
Post 6pm - Cocktail Party in Burden Hall
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