Posts from February 2008

The Twitter blog has been much more active lately and that’s a good thing. I found out about this cool twitter stats service via this post on the twitter blog. Here’s my twitter usage by month. Clearly I keep using it more and more.

Here’s another interesting chart of what time of day I generally send twitter updates.

I can’t really explain the late night twittering because I promise you that I do sleep between midnight and 5am. I expect those are from our australia trip and possibly some from trips to the west coast.

Many of you know that Umair Haque is one of my favorite bloggers. His Bubblegeneration blog is a must read for me and has been for a long time. He announced this past week that he has two new gigs.

First, he’s now blogging at the Harvard Business School blog. Here’s his first post on corporate DNA.

And more importantly, he’s building the Havas Media Lab, which he describes as:

a new kind of strategic advisor that helps investors, entrepreneurs,
and firms experiment with, craft, and drive radical management,
business model, and strategic innovation

Exciting news. I hope he will still keep us all informed and educated at Bubblegeneration. I am not sure what I’d do without my regular dose of Umair.

While Yahoo!’s board did not lay out a plan to increase it’s stock price (I laid out one on this blog last week), they are apparently going to tell Microsoft that it’s current offer is too low. The Wall Street Journal has the story here.

Some people seem to think this is just about getting another $5-$10/share out of Microsoft. And it may well be. The WSJ story mentions that the board may entertain an offer above $40/share.

I am hoping Yahoo! takes another tack. As I said in the post I linked to above, I think they should negotiate a deal to outsource their search to Google, dividend out the Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba shares to that their value isn’t lost in the share price, and restructure Yahoo! to focus on the businesses where they have a competitive advantage.

Another thing they could do is offer their search business to Microsoft for a short term deal, like three years. Maybe Microsoft would be willing to pay up for that to keep it out of Google’s hands.

This Fortune article seems to indicate that the anti-trust issues surrounding a business deal between Google and Yahoo! are not as large as the anti-trust issues Microsoft would face in it’s effort to acquire Yahoo!

I am happy to see Yahoo!’s board taking a strong position with Microsoft, but I think they could take an even stronger one. Dividend out the Yahoo Japan and Alibaba shares to get that value out of the equation. Then put forward a restructuring plan that takes a lot of cost out and focuses on the core businesses that they make real money on. And then put their search business out to bid between Microsoft and Google. That’s my suggestion.

I used to do this all the time, but I’ve moved most of my mp3 posting to my tumblog at fredwilson.vc

The player on the upper right of this blog has the mp3s I’ve posted to tumblr in it. So if you want to hear what’s going on at fredwilson.vc, just check autoplay and hit the play button.

Anyway, one of my favorite bands, Nada Surf, has a new record out called Lucky.

Here’s an acoustic version of one of my favorite tracks, called I Like What You Say:

I Like What You Say – Nada Surf – Lucky

PS – There’s a new version of the Yahoo music player and you’ll notice that they’ve simplified and clean things up. Very well done.

Four years ago, Howard Dean and Joe Trippi showed everyone how powerful the Internet could be as a campaign and fundraising tool. This year, it seemed like it was not as important.

But the news yesterday that Obama’s campaign was loaded with cash and Hillary’s was strapped showed that in the end, the Internet is the most powerful fundraising vehicle of them all.

The following charts come from a NY Times story this morning.

While this graphic doesn’t show how much of this money came directly from the Internet, we all know that no fundraising technique "scales" like Internet fundraising.

Hillary’s campaign has used the Internet well but not brilliantly. Obama’s campaign has done a better job and his personality and candidacy is much better suited to the medium. And the net result of that is that he sits in a stronger position right now because of it.

I opened an email this morning that started like this:

I read your blog and believe that you have a firm grasp
on web trends – especially for someone on the east coast.

That’s as far as I got. I replied with incredulity and moved on.

I am the first to admit that Silicon Valley has the largest concentration of web entrepreneurs, web developers, and web financiers of anywhere in the world. It is mecca when it comes to all things web.

But please do not assume that the rest of the world, including the east coast, has a shortage of people who understand exactly where the web is going and what to do with it.

UPDATE: Just got back to a computer. As I posted in the comments earlier, I found out several hours after I wrote this post that the person who sent me the email is in fact from NYC. Ugh. I’ll be eating crow for years. I feel badly. But I still stand by my central point that expertise in web and technology knows no bounds.

UPDATE #2: I am enjoying the comments of my friends on the west coast. There are some good ones in there!

I read this morning in the NY Times that Barack Obama declined Hillary Clinton’s invitation to a debate a week for the next month.  The Times quotes Obama as saying:

“I don’t think anybody is clamoring for more debates,” Mr. Obama said. “We’ve had 18 debates so far.”

Mr. Obama added that he would agree to at least one debate, but noted, “It’s very important for me to spend time with voters.”

Well Barack, I am clamoring for more debates. That makes one person. Please weigh in via the comments if you too would like more debates.

I honestly don’t know a better way to "spend time with voters" than by answering questions side by side with his competitor in front of a national television audience.

I made my decision to vote for Hillary on the morning I voted. Apparently many others did the same and the last minute vote broke for Hillary.

For me, a big part of my decision was the substance she showed in contrast to the lack of substance that Obama showed in the Los Angeles debate. If Obama is going to be the nominee, and I’ve said many times that I’d be fine with that, then he needs to show more substance, define what exactly he’d do to fix the big issues that face our country. And now that the country is watching, there is no better way to do that than a debate a week for the next month.

Josh Kopelman is a very clever guy. After the Microsoft bid for Yahoo! was announced, he restarted a Facebook ad campaign targeting Yahoo! and Microsoft employees. And guess what, the click rate increased dramatically for both companies.

Here’s the data.

It’s easier to twitter the big insights I am getting from this conference than to blog it.

So go here or subscribe to this feed if you want to follow my thoughts from money/tech today and tomorrow.