How Transparancy Killed the Travel Agent

Who uses a travel agent these days? It is pretty amazing to realize that in the course of a 10-year span, the Internet and the cornucopia of travel sites (Travelocity, Expedia, SideStep, etc.) has made this service provider an endangered species. With the byzantine pricing levels, and hugely complex travel packages, the idea that the travel industry could be automated seemed unlikely.

As a travel agent, you made your commission by culling a database of information that was generally unavailable to the public. Saber was one reservation system that was widely used by travel agents. When Travelocity launched using Saber's information, the die was cast. If a consumer can view the same prices from Travelocity with the numerous iterations and options, just like a travel agent, then why do you need the travel agent? It appears that you don't.

The concept of opacity of data creating business advantages between those with the superior data, versus those without, is well explained in many excellent books such as the Tipping Point and Freakonomics. The Internet is a perfect case study of what happens when you remove this opacity and present this data to consumers. Travel is particularly relevant as unlike retail and industries trading physical goods, the impulse buy and logistics issues do not provide bricks and mortar locations a protective barrier against the Internet equivolents. Industries trading in physical goods have had their pricing and profit margins impacted by the Internet e-tailers, but are not as prone to extinction as service providers whose knowledge advantage is compromised by the Internet.

Industries that have been conquered or have been dramatically changed by the Internet:

Travel - (by Travelocity, Expedia, SideStep, TravelZoo, etc.)

Computer Resellers - (by Dell.com)

Books - (by Amazon.com)

Collectables - (by eBay)

Advertising - (by Google)

Newspaper Classified Ads - (by Craig's List)

Retail Stock Trading - (by eTrade, Charles Schwab)

There are huge service businesses that trive on opacity and the knowledge gap. Real estate, finance, and employment are all industries that are huge money-makers and require a huge base of knowledge experts. The challenge with these industries is that the inventory is highly fluid and unpredictable, and information needed to make an informed decision is highly perishable. The mayor of New York built a nice little business on the ability to provide financial data a few minutes faster than other media sources. The staffing industry requires a huge number of account manager and recruiters in order to deal with perhaps one of the most volatile products you can work with - humans. Then there is real estate.

When you talk with real estate agents, they claim that there is NO way that the process of buying and selling a house can be automated. Zillow has over $50 million ways to try and address this issue. Other Internet companies are also looking at the real estate market. "We will always need real estate agents," they claim. I am not so sure. Sounds a lot like what travel agents were saying back in 1995.

Real Experts Still Matter

In the June 11, 2007 edition of Fortune magazine, there are a couple of feature stories that enforce the notion that professional experts serve an important purpose. With the "wisdom of crowds" moment on the Internet (digg, Yelp!), I had previously challenged the need for experts, when we can harness the collective intelligence of the masses to produce similar end results of experts.

The Fortune article "No Test Dummies" takes a detailed look at the process Consumer Reports takes in order to produce its automotive reviews. Consumer Reports has a 327-acre site which puts each model/make automobile through a battery of safety, performance, and reliability tests. Consumer Reports actually buys their vehicles new and some 5000 miles and 10-months of testing later, they resell the cars for the maximum value they can get. They are spending nearly $3 million on 84 cars this year alone. The fact that Consumer Reports has a circulation of 4.3 million and another 2.7 million on-line subscribers allows them to produce these massively labor and cost-intensive reports. You can get some great insight in regards to a car and manufacturer's reliability and service from current and previous owners through various on-line sites. The side-by-side testing of new vehicles and models is not something that can be reproduced without a Consumer Reports-type agency footing the bill. When making a significant purchase like an automobile, consumers are looking to make an educated buy. That means they are willing to read, research and pay for relevant, timely information that will give them the necessary data in order to make an educated purchase.

Fortune's "Life at the Top" section provides a glimpse of luxury auctions (cars, watches, wine). Looking to buy or sell a 7-figure vintage 1957 Ferrari 410? This article can show you how, where, and which auction house to get the deal done. Hint, the auction house does not rhyme with MeRay. Also, it will cost buyers and sellers significantly more to use a luxury auction house than this Internet-auction giant. The cost for Christie's is typically 10% for the seller and 10% for the buyer. Not exactly chump change on what could be a $1,000,000+ transaction. Besides the obvious importance of attractive the proper audience, Christie's provides important value-adds to these extragant auctions. Prior to the auction, Christie's will do a comprehensive assessment of the items up for bid. An expert analyst will establish a value estimate, as well as a comprehensive authentication procedure. The analyst will provide the history, condition, and specification listing for the bid items.

There is "wisdom in crowds". However, the depth in which an expert can devote towards a topic provides a tradeable and valuable knowledge set. If you are one of the top authorities on valuing highly subjective values on rare, antique automobiles, your services will continue to be in demand for the forseeable future. Also, if your research organization can devote millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours towards a specific study, this research will not be replaceable by Web 2.0 technology and a large, vocal community. The voice of the majority will commoditize generalists and require a stronger level of detail and depth from those making or looking to make a living by providing expert advise. Experts will also need to hold up to the scrutiny of the now non-silent majority. The business of being an expert is not obsolete, but it changing and will continue to evolve as more information comes on-line.

Law and Technology

Innovative technology has created interesting legal scenarios and precedents. We in the US are fortunate that some of the best lawyers reside in Silicon Valley where most of the early Internet pioneers started. During this formative stage, the courts and the US government took a very forward-thinking approach towards the Internet. The combinations of the US government taking a hands off approach and even providing tax-breaks for Internet commerce, coupled with tech giants guided by savvy legal advisors led to the US dominance of the Internet.

The high profile case of the RIAA instituting a huge royalty premium for Internet broadcast music is being watched very closely. If the RIAA wins the right to institute this new royalty structure, Internet radio properties may suffer massive losses, and may not have the ability to continue. The D-Day is fast approaching for this new royalty structuce. The Internet radio advocates are hoping to win a stay while they continue to pursue the rollback of this royalty premium. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this battle. An RIAA victory provides a legal and business model to those looking to institute stronger regulations and restrictions on technology companies and innovations. This additional legal friction could slow down technology innovation in the US and leave our leadership in this space in jeopardy. The walled-garden approach of wireless carriers in the US has already put the US 2 years behind many parts of Asia in the mobile space. Can the US maintain our leadership position in the Internet in a technology-hostile legal environment? Let's hope this question is only hypothetical and not one that we will have to answer in the near future.

Widget Fragmentation

So LinkedIn is making the move. They are going to be opening up their API, thus allowing widgets to be added to your LinkedIn page. A little bit of a head scratcher, as the LinkedIn social network does not have the type of usage patterns and user customizations of Facebook or MySpace. I don't think that the LastFM widget will see much adoption on LinkedIn.

The good news is that the trend of major web destination sites opening up their API's allows for strong user customizations. The concern is that rather than using a standards-based approach towards widgets, that the major players may create site specific APIs, like F8, which would make create major upgrade headaches and extra development work for widget providers.

The beauty of RSS is in the simplicity of publishing and manipulating these feeds. Hopefully a widget standard will emerge which all the majors can agree to. Those using the standard should be rewarded with the most useful and popular widgets, while those going down the proprietary API path should be frozen out. VHS not beta please!

The Amazing Tartine Bakery

Tartine Bakery is an example of a business where the steak is the sizzle. Pastry chef Elisabeth Prueitt and her husband started this bakery in 2003. The location and store are nothing special, although classy and comfortable enough. There is a window on Guerrero Street of the store where you can see the bread, desserts, and pastries being made.

Prueitt is an accomplished pastry chef who has received raves from such famous chefs including Alice Waters and Alaine Ducasse. In a weekend morning, expect a long wait in line before you can get your hands on a delicious pastry. The prices are reasonable and attractive enough to keep a steady stream of business flowing throughout the day.

With all the competition for pastries, desserts and sandwiches, what makes Tartine special? The food quality and the genius of Prueitt is what makes Tartine exceptional. It is rare that you find 5-star quality pastries and desserts at bakery prices. The fact that the bakery is in the blue-collar Mission district is interesting as well. It proves that appreciation of high-quality food, as Starbucks proved with coffee, is universal. The success of Tartine may encourage other elite pastry chefs to get out of the kitchen's of their 5-star restaurants and starting their own storefronts.

Private Equity Going Public

The impact of private equity firm Blackstone Group going public could be huge. Private equity deals and funds are booming. Of the top ten private equity deals of all time, 9 out of the 10 deals were done in 2005 or later. The one exception being the RJR Nabisco deal made famous in the book "Barbarian at the Gates."

Many in the private equity billionaire's club prefer to fly under the radar. The amount of wealth in the industry is something they would prefer to keep out of the public eye. That is why many in the private equity industry are cursing Stephen Schwartzman of the Blackstone Group. One of the fears of disclosing the lucrative pay structure of private equity funds is that the feds might intervene once they understand how much these firms and partners earn. As a part of the process of going public, the world got its first glimpse of how lucrative a successful private equity firm like Blackstone is. Once Blackstone opened its books, the world took notice.

The Blackstone numbers have raised the eyebrows of two powerful US Senators. Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) are looking to change the way in which private equity firms and partners are taxed. Instead of being taxed using the 15% capital gains tax status, Baucus and Grassley believe that these firms should be taxed at standard corporate tax levels.

VC firms are also getting dragged into the conversation. VC's fund gains are taxed under capital gains (15%) tax classification as well. There is concern in Silicon Valley and at other VC firms that they too may be lumped into a new tax classification.

If private equity and VC can no longer benefit from using the capital gains tax formula, these previously hugely popular investment vehicles may come under pressure. It will be difficult for these firms to make their historically strong returns over more traditional investment funds.

Wall Street and Silicon Valley will be watching Baucus and Grassley's proposals carefully. If legislation does pass to close the "tax loophole", VC and private equity firms may have a difficult time in attracting institutional investments. For startups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, it could reshape the fund-raising and exit strategies for these companies. Wealthy individuals may increase their activity in angel investments due to the tax advantages. It is difficult to predict the impact of a tax reclassification, but if one does pass, there are a couple of safe bets: Schwartzman will cement his status as the least popular private equity partner on Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and VC and private equity investing will forever be changed.

The Little Things

How did YouTube come to dominate? They were not the first video site. Were they lucky? Did they just have perfect timing?

There is no coincidence for Steve and Chad's success. If you study the YouTube site carefully, you realize that they pretty much did all the little things right.

1) Simply to register.

2) Simply to add videos.

3) Easy to tag and describe videos.

4) Easy to find videos.

5) Easy to display YouTube videos on blogs.

6) Awesome recommendations engine.

7) Simply rating and feedback system.

8) Easy to invite friends.

YouTube may not have been the prettiest looking site, but they understood all the truly important details extremely well. Perhaps the only thing that they could have done better was to hold off on the Google acquistion. With all the talk about a $12 billion MySpace valuation, can you imagine what YouTube might be worth today? Not that $1.6 billion is chump change, and Google is definitely a strong fit for them. It would have been interesting to see how YouTube would have evolved organically. The one company that may enter the rare status of the Internet super-elite by going it alone is Facebook. It is not such a stretch to image that YouTube may have also been able to have join this super-elite group that includes Google, Yahoo!, eBay, and Amazon. Back when it looked like Facebook was for sure going to be acquired by Yahoo!, it seemed crazy that Zuckerberg would turn down the $1 billion plus offer. Now that numbers like $8 billion valuation is being thrown around, looks like Zuckerberg is way smarter than all of us.

So Why Don't You Just Do It?

So you have analyzed your business situation. You have your plan ready to put into action. Now what?

The answer is simple correct? You implement your plan, right?

Except...

(Enter reason to delay taking action here.)

The best advise someone can give you at this point in the conversation is the title of this blog entry. Let me frame the situation more clearly. Being rash and going in blind to a situation will probably not help much. However, in the above scenario, the advisee has done his due diligence and prepared a plan.

Unless you are the current CEO of Apple, formulating a plan that is both timely and perfect is not going to happen. Also, waiting for the stars to align before taking action is also not practical.

A friend of mine gave me the "Just Do It" speech today, and he was right.

Newton even has a law regarding this phenomenon. It is his 1st law:

"An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion..."

Newton's 1st law should be the first lesson that every startup workshop should begin with.

Is Affiliate Marketing Still Relevant?

Amazon has over 1 million affiliate partners! I would venture to guess that Amazon's program is the best known and most successful ever. In the early days of the Internet where the emphasis was on e-commerce companies, a whole industry was created around affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing couples e-commerce merchants together with traffic aggregators, content providers and e-commerce arbitrage experts. Now that we are in a Web2.0 world, do affiliate programs matter? Has Adsense and Adwords replaced affiliate marketing?

A short, but good reference guide for Affiliate Marketing is "A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing" by Evgenii Prussakov. This book can be read in one to two sittings. I learned quite a bit about affiliate marketing after completing this book. One important point Prussakov's book shows is that running a successful affiliate program is time and resource intensive. Despite Google's success in matching those seeking traffic to those sending traffic, there is still a robust ecosystem for affiliate marketing. Unlike Google Adsense, most affiliate programs work on a cost-per-action (CPA) versus a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. Google is dabbling with cost-per-action. If Google automates the CPA market as they have with CPC, traditional affiliate marketing may become irrelevant. In the meantime, affiliate marketing provides a meaningful way to drive traffic and transactions to e-commerce sites. Prussakov explains the keys to running a successful affiliates program:

- compelling incentives,
- honest and timely communication,
- tools (deep-links, variety of banner-ads - different sizes, data-feeds - dynamic content/pricing),
- and promotions (coupons, seasonal offers).

Affiliate programs can be run in-house or using an outsourced provider. Although, Prussakov's book is focused on affiliate marketing, many of the ideas can also be applied to more general consumer Internet marketing. In summary, affiliate marketing can be useful, but it requires know-how, resources, patience, and dedication before the program can produce any significant positive results. For e-commerce providers who have strong consumer Internet marketing processes, affiliate marketing can be added smoothly and successfully. For those that are still fleshing out their consumer marketing practices, these companies may be better off talking with an affiliate marketing agency to see if offloading their affiliates program will work.

10 Meetings a Week

Technology has simplified connecting with business contacts. Email, IM, text-messaging, and tools like LinkedIn are great ways to stay in touch. However, there is still NO substitute for the face-to-face meeting. In my previous job (sales), one of the metrics the sales team had to maintain was meeting with 10 prospects face-to-face each week. The meetings were critical to understanding a prospective clients business needs. Equally imporant was to get to know a prospective customer. After a face-to-face meeting, the email and phone calls to prospects are exponentionally more effective than a straight cold-call or email.

For GetQuik, the goal of business meetings tend to be more business development and partnership oriented. However, the 10 meetings a week goal is still applicable. The challenge is in maintaining this high level of contact and still being able to get everything else done. Fortunately, there are a ton of networking events in Silicon Valley and San Francisco that provide opportunities to meet new people. From these networking events, you can setup a few weeks of meetings with interesting potential partners and advisors. For enterpreuners, I recommend looking into the following networking groups:

- SVASE: Early Stage Startups

- Startup Epicenter: Early Stage Startups - Workshops

- Stirr: Networking Event for Technology Startup Founders

- SDForum: Technology Focused Networking Group

- Churchill Club: General Business Networking Group

- FountainBlue: Seminars Geared towards Early Stage Startups

There is a saying that business is a contact sport. This saying may be old, but still holds true.

Work Fun Times - June Happy Hour Event

Work Fun Times - June Happy Hour Event, originally uploaded by GetQuik Pics.

GetQuik sponsored a networking event for Administrative Professionals.

The Resiliant American Consumer

In good times and bad, one constant is the American consumer keeps spending.

With the combination of sky-high gas prices and the sagging housing market, consumer's will curb their spending, right? Not exactly. Martin Crutsinger (Associated Press) reported that retail sales are up by the largest amount in more than a year.

So what is to account for this increase in consumer spending? One likely guess is that the recent run up in the stock markets and strong corporate earnings are providing the necessary optimism.

After the dot-com meltdown, investors pulled out huge amounts of capital from the stock market. In order to get more attractive returns, many wealthy individuals poured their money into real estate. With recently-introduced tax breaks and historically low interest-rates for home owners, real estate offered an attractive investment opportunity for those looking to put their money back to work. In retrospect, it makes sense that the housing market boom coincided with the stock market crash. Conversely, now that the housing market has lost its momentum, it makes sense that the stock market is taking off. The US has a huge number of high net worth individuals, and so it is to be expected that different investment sectors will gain and lose popularity at the expense of other sectors.

The net effect of this shift in investments - towards the stock market, private equity, VC and angel investing and away from housing - is the sun is once again shinning on Silicon Valley and Wall Street. The challenge will be to keep the US consumer consuming in spite of the stress of high gas prices and the deflating housing market. If the US consumer does rein in their spending, the current stock market boom could come to a screeching halt. Two of the roughest periods in US history for the economy were the Depression and the inflation-ridden 70's. These two periods of economic gloom were marked by a major pull-back in consumer spending. As many economists remind us, the engine of the US economy is consumer spending. If our historically reliable engine falters, we cannot look to positive economic factors such as cheap gas, falling interest rates, or a rising housing market to bail us out this time. We have an aging population of boomers who are reaching retirement age. Let's hope these boomers choose to enjoy their golden years by going to fancy restaurants, traveling to domestic destinations such as Las Vegas, and upgrading their Camry's for the Mercedes C-class so that we can manage through $4/gas, slowing rising interest rates, and a stagnant real estate market.

Andreessen Blogs

A friend of mine sent me a link from Marc Andreessen's new blog.

Andreessen is just getting started with his blog, and he is already getting some nice statistics coming in. His blog is about technology and start-ups as you might expect. His view-point is interesting as he occupies a central role in the evolution of the Internet.

The thing that struck me about Andreessen's blog is that he is dedicating a lot of time and attention to his blog. It will be interesting to see if he continues to provide the in depth blog postings as the novelty wears off.

Will blogs continue to expand to the point where pretty much all white-collar worker will be expected to write and maintain a blog? What will this mean for user privacy issues? Will people be better communicators, at least using the written word, due to the popularity of blogging? Why does Andreessen have three e's and two s's in his name? So many questions, so little time.

Read Before You Write

I wish I had read Francine Prose's book "Reading Like a Writer" years ago. The academic-sounding title belies an interesting read. This book is targeted to literature fans who wish to write more effectively. Francine Prose is an accomplished writer and has taught literature at major universities including Harvard and Columbia.

Prose begins with the simple idea that in order to be a better writer, study the giants of literature. She continues by emphasizes the importance of reading carefully when reading work by our greatest writers: Hemmingway, Dostoyevsky, Kafka and her favorite Chekhov to name a few. The first three chapters are entitled "Words", "Sentences", and "Paragraphs". She provides examples of how the use of each word, sentence, and paragraph differentiates a classic from the merely well-written. The impact that this granular approach to reading makes is profound. Composing a sentence for any written communication takes on new meaning. I find myself scrutinizing my writing more carefully after reading this book. I am inspired to read from her suggested books list in order to study these masterpieces using her unique reading process. "Reading Like a Writer" is an excellent guide to reading critically, and in turn writing more effectively.

Telling a Story Twice

Malcom Gladswell's "The Tipping Point" does an excellent profile on the kid's show "Blue's Clues". When "Blue's Clues" was launched, the producers of the show made an interesting programming decision. They ran the same episode 5 days in a row! The strategy was to see if see if repetition would enhance the interactive nature of the show, and to study the retention and learning behavior of children. The study showed that as the show continued throughout the week, kids were answering the questions that the main character would ask the TV audience, and were remembering the details of the show in much more vivid detail when quized after the show was over.

If anyone has seen LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman speak, you are probably familiar with his "build an airplane after jumping off a cliff" or "scuba diving" metaphors to describe the challenges that a startup faces. I have seen Reid speak 3 times over the course of the last year. The last two times were near carbon copies. Reed remains relevant and interesting despite repetition. I find myself referencing Reed's scuba diving analogy on a regular basis, as I am in this blog. The basic premise is that as a startup, you are in the deep with a limited amount of oxygen. Your goal is to get to the surface. The more cash you have, the more oxygen you have. Having more oxygen, doesn't mean that you will go in the right direction, but it gives you more time to make your way to the surface. A couple of "take aways" you get after hearing Reid speak is manage your cash effectively and have a sense of urgency to produce results quickly to survive.

The most useful advice is usually not the most novel. The method in which the advice is delivered and framed is often what provided the necessary impact. I did not understand the hype behind the Spencer Johnson's "Who Move My Cheese?" business book, but that 94-page book made a major impact on corporations around the world. Short, simple, and common sense. "Who Moved My Cheese?" provided the necessary analogy and messaging to get workers and corporations to embrace "change-management" in their jobs and organizations. If there is a writer, artist, speaker, activity or friend who motivates you into action, return to that source as long as you it give you that spark.

Thank You for Complaining

"Your service doesn't work" read the Subject line. This is an email I received today from a GetQuik customer. With our new "no fee" policy implemented June 1, we sent our registered users an email notification of the changes. As well, we requested feedback on ways to further improve the GetQuik service. This customer explained his GetQuik mis-experience in gory detail. The problem began when our customer placed an order in the GetQuik system, and somewhere in the process, it did not post successfully in our system. This in turn created a situation where the customer showed up at the restaurant to pick up his order, and our restaurant partner was totally clueless about the order. You can imagine that this customer was not happy.

To make matters worse, this customer is not only the coveted "early-adopter", but also an "influencer". He was preparing to get all his colleagues to use the system, but obviously could not endorse the GetQuik system after his disasterous customer experience.

Now if we had the transaction record posted, and we knew about the problem at the time or order (approximately 2 months ago), we may have been able to work on a damage-control situation. We had a day or two of posting irregularities during the time of this order error. However, although our restaurant partner mentioned a ticked off customer, we were not clear on who it was... till we received this email.

One of the things that GetQuik should have implemented earlier is our "Customer Satisfaction" survey, which we are now using to get a regular pulse of our user community. We are using Survey Monkey. In fact many of the recent changes we have made are a direct result of our survey responses. We currently have a 75% positive response for our survey question: "Would you go out of your way to refer GetQuik to a friend?" We have not been running the survey that long, so we probably would have had a more critical response if we had begun our survey from day 1.

So why air our dirty laundry in a blog format? Because the more criticism we collect, the quicker we can address our shortcomings. It is not realistic to expect our customers to tell us every thing they dislike about our service, but the more we ask, the more we receive. For each unhappy customer that speaks out, there are many more that simply vote with their feet. Every company asks for feedback, suggestions and complaints, but the ones that I admire most are the ones that do more than give lip-service to their customer's feedback. If GetQuik can emulate the customer service experience of industry-leaders like Nordstroms, Whole Foods, Amazon, eBay; hopefully we can also produce their results. We still have our work cut out for us, but we are making strides in this area. Who wants to build a company that is despised or simply tolerated by their customers?

We are working to try and patch our customer relation with the customer who sent the email. We have provided him some store credit to give our service a second try. Hopefully, he will take us up on our offer.

If you have a suggestion or comment, we welcome your feedback.

Widgets, Widgets

Not so long ago, when a person would use the term "widget", they would be using it to describe "a placeholder name for an object or, more specifically, a mechanical or other manufactured device" as defined by Wikipedia.

Now the web and mobile has gone wild for widgets. Although there are seemingly a googol different web sites available on the Internet, there are few sites where users spend large amounts of time. The usual suspects are Google, Yahoo!, mySpace, FaceBook, AOL and MSN. So in order to get people to redirect or find out about different "value-add" services - think Photobucket, Slidr, Flickr, LastFM - widgets have served as an ideal vehicle. Sites like mySpace and FaceBook benefit as users have more tools and add-ons to play with. Widgets make user-generated content more interesting, in turn producing more page-views and increased average time per user (both those working on their own-sites, and those viewing others' content). To use a housing anology, FaceBook and mySpace are like homebuilders; and the "value-add" widget fill the shelfs at Home Depot, Lowes, and Ikea. You need furniture, curtains, carpeting, etc. to make your home your own.

Why are widgets so hot right now?

1) JavaScript and Flash - software developers can auto-generate JavaScript code which a user can cut and paste into their blog, iGoogle page, or mySpace page.
2) RSS feeds - Content distributors from the New York times to any blogger can easily syndicate their content to the world with RSS.
3) Personalized Page Viewers - iGoogle, myYahoo, PageFlakes provide a simple view of content, media, and applications for consumers.
4) Social Networks and User Generated Content - The users have spoken. A large majority of young Internet users are looking to express their writing, art, music, style and relationships in a publicly available format. Widgets provide extra tools for users to express their style and interests.
5) Blogs - Blog tools are really easy to use and are built to be widgetized. Drop in short JavaScript code, and you have a cool widget added to your blog.

Widget preditions.

- Almost all web-sites will widgetize some of their content and applications.
- Widgets will be created for personal-readers (iGoogle), social networks (FaceBook), and mobile devices.

The widgets for personal-readers and mobile devices will be highly personalized and customized to a user's preferences. So if your favorite sports teams are the Florida Marlins and the Golden State Warriors, those are the scores and stories you will see.

The widgets for social networks will be more interactive in nature. Your music widget plays some of your favorite songs, but allow your friends to add and suggest their own.

Launch Silicon Valley

SVASE's 2nd annual Launch event was today. 30 startups presenting in a 10 minute PowerPoint/Demo format. Keynote speaker, Guy Kawasaki, presented how to startup a web-site with $12K (Truemors). As usual Guy was entertaining. The only minor issue is that in order to get pageviews, blogs, and 3 TechCrunch articles without PR, marketing, etc., you have to be Guy Kawasaki. So basically this $12K business model works for 1 guy (pun semi-intended).

My favorite 3 presentations were from Jaxtr, EyeJot, and Kongregate. Jaxtr had an ingenious way of providing free, anonymous VOiP calls. Unlike Skype, your calls can be made and sent to landline or mobile phones free. No need to go Skype to Skype. Jaxtr's user base and growth is already exploding. This is not a me-too Skype, but a major evolutionary improvement on what Skype has begun. Expect really, really, really, really big things from this company.

EyeJot has a cool video messaging solution. The great thing about EyeJot is that it is very simple to use and distribute. EyeJot can be used to simply video-message to any email address you wish. They also have a cool widget where people can see your videos and respond to them with a click of a button. The message lands in your email and you can view the video response. Right now this solution is very popular with military families. This will be popular with mySpace and FaceBook users as well. I am sure that the porn industry will find some interesting applications as well (could be pretty high on the icky factor here).

Kongregate also had an excellent presentation. Kongregate is a social network for gamers. Additionally they are using user-generated games that are simple to publish and offer on-line. The publishers get a revenue share, which should make them a great destination for game developers who don't have the ability to distribute their games by themself. The Kongregate team really understands the mind of gamers (they are hard-core gamers themself). It appears clear that Kongregate will be a big success. How big they can get will be the more interesting question. They appear to be an excellent solution for the long-tail of gaming. Going after huge gaming companies like EA does not appear to be in their sites... for now.

Launch. Well-run. Good networking. Inspiring technology and enterpreuners.

SAS versus Google

Mark Benioff from Salesforce.com has been warning the software industry that software is dead. 10 years from now, he will be correct. The way in which software is sold, distributed and serviced is going through a dramatic transformation, largely thanks to the efforts of Mark and Salesforce.com. The day of paying 5 to 7 digit licensing fees for a software package are going to disappear. Software as a service is the real deal. The flexibility of software tools in Java, .NET and OpenSource are allowing robust applications to be hosted, distributed and managed via the Internet. The giants in the software industry such as Microsoft, SAP and Oracle will continue to be the leaders in enterprise applications, although many of their customers will prefer a software as a service agreement over a license/maintenance package.

The real opportunity for SAS will be in small and mid-size companies. If a small company is looking for different software tools such as CRM, analytics, HR-management; they are more likely to forgo the hassle of getting the software and setting it up, unless it is brain-dead easy. Now with the SAS model, these customers can easily try before they buy and pay month by month with little investment and risk. AppXchange has become the central repository for SAS solutions.

At the same time, widget-companies using a free-software w/ Google Adwords revenue model have entered the game. Banking on the thought that customers will prefer free-ware, these Widget companies are utilizing a different distribution and revenue model than the pay-per-use SAS model. Typically these widgets are more light-weight and less mission critical than the SAS counterparts. The future of software will be interesting to watch. AppXchange, free Widgets and enterprise software companies will be the players. We will see continued productivity improvement in SMB businesses as they get to use tools that were previously unavailable, in turn allowing them to better compete with their larger competitors. The entire software industry will benefit as the pie expands with the inclussion of SMB and mid-size business customers.

TechCrunch believes that Google and Salesforce are about to announce a partnership. Could a Google acquisition of Salesforce be around the corner? It would be a good addition to Google's business, as Google would be able to exert control over the direction of AppXchange. With Google's reach and strength, Google can accerate AppXcahnge's software distribution leadership and be the defacto launching ground for new software tools and applications. There are pros and cons to a more powerful Google for both software publishers and SMB customers. Looking at Google's recent acquisition appetite, a Salesforce.com acquisition is definitely possible.

You Asked, We Listened - No More Fees

Thank you for all the GetQuik customers who responded to our user survey.

We have updated our site and made the following improvements:

- NO MORE CONVENIENCE FEES!: GetQuik is now fee free for all users.
- Simplified User Accounts: Get a GetQuik user account in less than 1 minute (email and password requirement). That's all that you need to get started.
- Improved Group Order Tool: Invite your friends colleagues to participate in your to-go or delivery orders.
- Beta Mobile Client: We have 71 handsets supported for Cingular Wireless customers. We also have a universal WAP-client available for mobile ordering.

Check out our site, and let us know what you think. Please send us your thoughts.