Peter's Thoughts

Hypo Bank Rescue Fails, Threatening Lehman Scale Bankruptcy, Future of Euro

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:17:00 +0000

A must read – and if you want to be really scared read the first two comments.

It will be interesting to see who is still standing when the music stops. What is happening now in the financial markets is truly unprecedented and will be taught in business schools for years to come.

This is what happens when people get really, really greedy. Basically the difference between financial engineering and value creation.

It’s time people went to prison over this.

naked capitalism: Hypo Bank Rescue Fails, Threatening Lehman Scale Bankruptcy, Future of Euro

9% – What’s in a number?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:16:00 +0000

Well that’s the current approval rating of Washington. That is a staggering number. Think about it for a moment - “Main Street” no longer believes in the leadership running the county.

Right now I believe we are on the edge of the abyss – the current Paulson-Dodd-Frank-Pork plan reflects a lack of leadership and real understanding of the problem. Or does it?

Paulson is not a stupid man. He knows what the numbers are, just like Bernanke and the others. What they are trying to do is cushion the landing, which is simply not going to happen without a lot more bloodshed.

There is no question that something has to be done – however right now they are acting like managers (making things right (and failing)) vs. acting like leaders and doing the right thing.

America has no leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:10:00 +0000

As I watch the events unfolding in Washington I’m reminded of a recent quote about leadership vs. management…

"There is a profound difference between management and leadership, and both are important. To manage means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, to conduct. Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, opinion. The distinction is crucial"

There is simply no leadership in Washington. A recent quote by Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said:

"The seizures and convulsions we have experienced in the debt and equity markets have been the consequences of a sustained orgy of excess and reckless behavior, not a too-tight monetary policy,"

It is simply disgusting that over the last few years $60 billion dollars (almost 1/10th of the suggested bailout plan) has been paid out as Executive bonuses. All based on nothing more than thin air.

Now we see Paulson and Bernanke try to slip in a quick fix all based on a 3 page memo. What a total crock. This is what caused the problem in the first place. 3 pages don’t even begin to describe the depth of the problem.

Neither Paulson, Bernanke, Pelosi, Bush or any of the other individuals in Washington are exhibiting any signs of real leadership. They have presided over essentially another Depression. And in return for this they want the American taxpayer to cough up $2,300 bucks each to make the problem go away. Only one minor nit – there is no plan.

WTF is going on here. Can you imagine Buffet signing up for a deal like this. Where’s the upside for the taxpayer? This is just like a startup which has burned through millions and millions of dollars going back to investors for a “quick fix” injection of capital. I guarantee you wouldn’t get the deal done with a 3 page memo and no upside for the investors. Why should this bailout be different from that.

No – America simply has no leadership. There is no one at the top worth following anymore. It’s a very sad day, and one that will be pivotal as we go forward.

How Congress Intends To Waste $1.8 Trillion

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:40:00 +0000

If your interested in your financial future you need to be reading this guys blog and later on using his list of senators to send them an email ask what the hell is going on in Washington. By the look of the Dow today lot’s of uncertainty still out there.

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: How Congress Intends To Waste $1.8 Trillion

Trillions

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:26:00 +0000

A great graphic.

In October 2007 these companies had a vale of $19.1 trillion

On September 12th 2008 they had a value of $15.1 trillion

Total loss = $4 trillion dollars

Brilliant minds, all totally convinced that they had a "durable competitive advantage" when in reality they had financially engineered themselves into a hole.

It's not over yet - we still have some house cleaning to do - however the core is still whole, the nonsense will sort itself out and we can turn to building real value and solving customer problem that they're willing to pay for.

A great lesson for all - if you miss it, don't worry it will be back dressed up as something new in about 5 years time.

A Year of Heavy Losses - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

Wall Street

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:23:00 +0000

As the financial markets continue to come under incredible pressure it should remind us (entrepreneurs) that the key to a successful future is the ability to create value that solves a customer problem as opposed to financial engineering that resembles a silicone implant. Great to look at until it goes bad.

Wall Street took financial engineering and made it a science, unfortunately the formulae finally ran out of steam. Let that be a lesson to all - ultimately it's about value - create it and you're golden, destroy it and your cast to the winds. Now we're seeing just that.

The good news is that this to shall pass. Right now the fed is laying down fire breaks which continually get broken - wait until they start to hold and then know that we are turning the corner.

Until then fire season is still in full swing.

The advertising equivalence principle?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:45:00 +0000

Every Web 2.0 - "our business model is supported via advertising" needs to read this post by a VC.

Bottom line - 8 billion page views a month, 300m unique visitors might get you to $100m a year in revenue.

Can your startup get there when the competition is exactly one click away?

The advertising equivalence principle? « Laserlike

Why iPhone is an unreliable platform

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:34:00 +0000

Normally I don't agree with Dave, however this time he's right.

Here's the gist of his argument... the italics are my emphasis.

It's pretty simple, Apple could decide not to approve the app, and if they don't approve it you can't sell it. You can't even give it away. You don't find out if you've been approved until the last step, after you've fully invested, which you could lose, totally, if Apple says no.
At first this might have seemed ridiculous if you didn't know Apple, you might assume they'd only keep out app's that somehow damaged the iPhone, but it hasn't turned out that way.
Yesterday it came out that they rejected an app called Podcaster because it competed with iTunes, an Apple product. Maybe it was better than iTunes in some way, or simpler, more focused, had features iTunes didn't have? It doesn't matter, it illustrates exactly why Apple shouldn't assume this power, or if they insist on it, you'd have to be crazy to develop iPhone app's.
Consider this possibility. Next year Apple announces an app that does what your previously authorized iPhone app does. You have competition, so another competitor, even if it is the platform vendor, isn't that big a deal, right? Well what if they de-authorize your app because it duplicates functionality of theirs? Think you could live with that?

Why iPhone is an unreliable platform (Scripting News)

From Roadkill to Resurrection: Lessons Learned From A Failed Entrepreneur

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:29:00 +0000

A must read.

From Roadkill to Resurrection: Lessons Learned From A Failed Entrepreneur

Yahoo Blueprint - I think not

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:36:00 +0000

The claim...

Marco Boerries, executive VP of Yahoo Connected Life said…
"Now with one click, you can write once and have mobile services run across a critical mass of devices and operating systems, potentially reaching millions of users,"

Nonsense! We're still waiting for Java to solve that problem.

So what's the real problem here?

Only when browsers, widget and cross platform tools allow access to commonly used phone features will they become useful for the majority rather than minority of applications.

And that problem has been solved (link) And why is it so important to solve that problem? So you can extend current Web services down to the mobile device with very little effort. Once an Enterprise can manage it's data across ALL devices then the opportunities for monetization really open up.

An idea of mine

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:21:00 +0000

A quote from a Nobel prize winner:

“It reminds me of what the beaver told the rabbit as they stood at the base of Hoover Dam: ‘No, I didn’t build it myself, but it’s based on an idea of mine.’”
Charles Townes, who won the Nobel Prize in 1964

It's important to remember that others are sometimes equally as responsible for seeing an idea succeed as you are for inventing it.

Google Mobile App for BlackBerry: faster, stronger, better

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:38:00 +0000

I don't get it. Google release a mobile app that does search and a few other things.

I thought that's what the browser was for?

Official Google Mobile Blog: Google Mobile App for BlackBerry: faster, stronger, better

Quote of the day - a lesson for all Entrepreneurs

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:56:00 +0000

“One of my biggest mistakes was falling in love with being right instead of being effective.”

Remember it's all about execution and outcomes - activities don't count!

Condition A

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:20:00 +0000

Last Friday I found out that my father had died. Normally this is quite a shock to the system. In my case I found out that he had actually died on September 24th 2007 and had asked his wife to not notify the kids (I have a sister). She had stuck by his wishes and I eventually found out via a rumor which I confirmed by calling the local airport where he used to fly (we're both pilots) and learned of the truth.

I won't go into all the personal details - death is final and he's moved on, hopefully to a better place and one where he is at peace.

The following article comes from the New York Times and is about a former English professor turned nurse who now deals with death on a daily basis. Condition A talks about one of her patients and is particularly poignant after my recent experience. There's a quote in the article from John Donne:

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.

Which is followed by the authors take:

What can one do? Go home, love your children, try not to bicker, eat well, walk in the rain, feel the sun on your face and laugh loud and often, as much as possible, and especially at yourself. Because the only antidote to death is not poetry, or drama, or miracle drugs, or a roomful of technical expertise and good intentions. The antidote to death is life.

She's right - the antidote to death is life - remember that each day as you get caught in all the nonsense going on in the world. Try and find a few moments each day to hug your kids, walk in the rain and feel the sun on your face. The planet really is a beautiful place and life is worth living.

Perhaps Death Is Proud; All the More Reason to Savor Life

Click Investment

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:35:00 +0000

Interesting term that I came across today. It relates to mobile and asks the mobile web designer to think in terms of "click investment" as they design the mobile page.

My rule of thumb is that you have exactly three clicks to get to relevant content and no more than 2 seconds to download the correct data (this implies that you keep the page around 10,000 bytes and use real time content acceleration like mod_gzip

A Web OS? Are You Dense?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:03:00 +0000

This guy gets it - doesn't mince words and dials it with his post. People are divided into two camps on this topic... either Web (Cloud) centric or Desktop centric.

The answer lies somewhere between the two. The catalyst for this is mobile which is perfectly designed for "nuggets of data" which are easily mined from either a single or multiple web service(s).

A Web OS? Are You Dense? - Ted Dziuba

Businesses Can't Hide From 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:33:00 +0000

Great article - only missing one thing - exactly how does this integrate with Mobile?

Where's the "Mobile" component to the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack that allows you to extend your services to your mobile customers and employees?

Businesses Can't Hide From 2.0

Chrome?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 18:45:00 +0000

That's the code name for the browser that Google are developing. Here's what I'm missing. Why is this a must have vs. a nice to have?

I have four browsers I use in the following order:

Firefox 3.0 - everyday
MSIE 8 beta 2 - testing and Microsoft centric sites
Opera - surfing the web in heavy search mode. Delete all cookies when done
Safari - Occasionally

The one that works all the time is Firefox. The next in line is MSIE. After that I don't really care.

Now why would I add a fifth?

What is going to be so special about Chrome that makes it a must have?

Real time location for Mobile devices from a standard server side plug-in (Mobile (Social) Networking anyone?)

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:50:00 +0000

We've been working hard and listening to customers and here are the results for the latest improvements to Mod_Mobile (Part of the Context Manager suite from 5o9). As far as know Mod_Mobile is the ONLY "pluggable" server side module that can retrieve Yahoo Maps from within the app itself - WITHOUT the need for additional CGI, JavaScript, AJAX or SOAP.

Here are the improvements:

The ability to brand your own Mobile client. Before we only had the 5o9® option – now following customer feedback, you have the option to extend your brand onto the Mobile device.
Updated Web server module that allows you to identify multiple users – i.e. Mobile social networking. Click on this link – to see where Peter, Liz and Kevin are in real time (the maps are live from Yahoo and formatted for virtually any Mobile screen). Location can be either zip code, area code, address, city, state or GPS coordinates. In addition the server module does all the GPS coordinate conversion on the fly (NEMA/DECIMAL – this saves lots of programmer time. You can see from the link how we are searching and locating on City, Zip, GPS, and Group
One additional feature which we have working (demo will be available soon) is the ability to plot three or more points all on a single map and then have that load directly in either the Mobile browser or the desktop browser. This is so you can use a simple query like: http://www.5o9mm.com/fireturkey?whereare=Colo,5o9 and see all the 5o9 group that are inside Colorado

Pandora's Business Model

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:46:00 +0000

It's really simple - charge for your service. Why? Because it's really good. I've just started using it again and I have to say it's awesome. Recently they made headlines because of their current business model and the need to make royalty payments to the musicians, which is killing their current business model.

So my vote would be to charge for the service. Say $50 a year. No adverts, music streamed anywhere you can get a connection. Why own when you can rent and they keep track of everything for you.

Location API's - What's the business model?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:29:00 +0000

With Google's announcement and Yahoo's Fire Eagle the blogsphere is lighting up with all kinds of comments. However one thing is missing - what's the business model?

So what if you know where I am. You don't know who I am, and you don't know what I'm doing or what I might be interested in.

In other words - you're missing my context and that's the real issue behind the business model. Think about search for a moment. Every time I do a search I'm sharing something with you - I want to find something. And statistically there's a good chance (at least 40%) that you can place a contextual ad there and I will click on it.

So how do you (the web service) become aware of my context? And how do I share it with you without having to type in a tone of extra information?

Location is only leg of the stool. The other two are Who am I and What are my device capabilities. Without all three legs - location doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.

Google Gears Geolocation API

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:28:00 +0000

It would be great to see the location API opened up further (via http) so that any kind of application (c, c++, Java ME), not just web applications, on any platform could get location information based on cellid. Now that would be truly useful.

Certainly would. We’ve had the capability for over a year now. Any app can access any native device information and send that to a Web server. We also have the capability to allow JavaScript to access local API's from the browser.

More information and demonstrations can be found on our web site at www.5o9inc.com and www.5o9mm.com

The Trouble with Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:48:00 +0000

An excellent read. Check out the valuation number - $12.26 per user (times 2.5m users) ='s $30.6m

Also pay special attention to the Zipf and Dunbar explanation.

The Trouble with Twitter

3G iPhone Ad vs Real World: A performance comparison

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:37:00 +0000

A touch of reality. Remember the 0-1-2-3 rule... 2 is second response time.

7 Reasons Startups Should Not Take VC Funding

noreply@blogger.com (Peter J. Cranstone) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:10:00 +0000

Great read... here's my vote for best piece of advice:

-With no money you can't make a fatal mistake. This is a blessing. Without VC money, you are forced to figure out how to extract funds from your customers for value you deliver. Ultimately that is the only thing that really matters.

Remember VC's are NOT your customers. They don't buy anything from you (well maybe your stock).

The ONLY thing that counts in a startup is solving a customers problem AND making sure there are lots of customers with that problem.

Do that and the VC's will find you fast enough. In the meantime focus on reason 5 - financial discipline.

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