@gordonbowman's blog

Is a Yahoo-Owned Tumblr More Attractive to Brands?

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:39:32 -0700

Is a Yahoo-Owned Tumblr More Attractive to Brands?:

This is a great look at the deal from an ad agency perspective:

“It would give Tumblr an opportunity to expand their ad packages, and it certainly help them with the sheer organizational needs of ad sales,” said Paul Gunning, CEO of Tribal Worldwide.

This is a great point. Imagine that in 6-12 months, every Yahoo sales rep calling on a top Fortune 500 brand or agency can walk in and pitch Tumblr’s sponsored posts in addition to their regular media mix. The scale there will be immediately impactful. It will probably increase their sales team by a hundredfold. And importantly for users, it will lead to higher quality sponsored posts.

So I think this is a great move for all involved. Congrats to the whole Tumblr team. I really hope that we can believe Mayer when she promises ‘not to screw it up’.

Is This The Turning Point For Bitcoin?

Fri, 10 May 2013 08:55:22 -0700

Many people have called Bitcoin a bubble. They have compared it to the infamous tulip mania. In our four phases of a bubble chart, they would probably say that last April (when Bitcoin’s price hit over $200) was the “mania” phase and that we’re now in the “blow-off phase.”

But while many people are laughing at Bitcoin, others are leaning into it. Bitcoin startups are starting to attract serious investors.

Fred Wilson, who’s got a bit of a track record of investing in companies that seem too silly but later become mainstream, described his thoughts on Bitcoin in a post on the USV blog about their latest investment in Coinbase in this way:

“We believe that Bitcoin represents something fundamental and powerful, an open and distributed Internet peer to peer protocol for transferring purchasing power. It reminds us of SMTP, HTTP, RSS, and BitTorrent in its architecture and openness. Like what happened with those other low level protocols, entrepreneurs and developers are now building technology on top of Bitcoin to make it more useful, more accessible, and more secure.”

This makes a lot of sense to me. The benefits of a truly global, zero transaction fee, digital currency are too powerful to ignore. And the more people develop on top of the network, the more liquid, secure, and stable Bitcoin will become.

Fred is also quick to point out that it’s not just Bitcoin. If other or multiple digital currencies get massive adoption, then these startups will adapt and support them too.

And USV isn’t alone. Andreessen Horowitz, Jeremy Liew, and a lot of other smart people are thinking about Bitcoin, digital currencies, and the startups that will power them. Even Paypal is thinking about ways to work with Bitcoin.

The most exciting part of this ecosystem to me is the payment layer. And this is where Coinbase really excels. They are making it very easy for merchants to accept bitcoin payments.

I have no idea about the future price of Bitcoin and where it stands in the four phases of a bubble. But to me, this sure looks like the start of a long-term trend for Bitcoin startups.

I think Howard said it best:

“But, as a risk taker myself, I like to see this type of setup. Not too early for Fred, but way too early for Warren Buffett.

That’s meat.

Game on.”

(My newly acquired Fitbit Flex) As I expected, the early...

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:45:26 -0700

(My newly acquired Fitbit Flex)

As I expected, the early reviews for the Fitbit Flex are in and they are stellar.

My own review is forthcoming. That is, when it’s delivered in four weeks.

Bowery Capital's Investment Thesis

Thu, 02 May 2013 17:30:05 -0700

Bowery Capital's Investment Thesis:

Dan Primack on Bowery Capital’s investment thesis:

Bowery’s investment thesis is that “digital natives” are moving higher and higher up the corporate executive stack, particularly into decision-making positions like chief marketing officer and chief technology officer. And those executives are more likely to favor “new” technologies over incumbents, at a time when enterprise technology spend is expected to double over the next decade. … The opportunity for Bowery, therefore, would be to invest in early-stage startups that specifically target the marketing and technology layer within large enterprises.

I really like this thesis. I see this as a trend that is still very much in its infancy.

Another key point here is that it’s not only the CTOs and CMOs driving these decisions. Often it comes up from the rank and file level. A simple example here is an employee that starts using Box or Dropbox, falls in love with it, and then asks why their company isn’t using it.

Primack also lists some great recent examples:

Bowery data suggests that just 5% of enterprise technology spend — both internal and external — was allocated to “next-generation” solutions in 2011, but that the figure will rise to 16% by 2016 and 25% by 2020. Examples would include Jive Software (JIVE) taking market share from Salesforce.com (CRM), or Splunk (SPLK) vs. Comscore (SCOR) or Box vs. IBM (IBM).

Just more data on how the enterprise hasn’t just now gotten sexy, it’s been sexy for a while.

Jawbone Acquires BodyMedia for More Than $100 Million

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:49:22 -0700

Jawbone Acquires BodyMedia for More Than $100 Million:

Quotable from Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman:

“I think the first phase of this market has been about accelerometers and what those can do,” Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman said in an interview. “Now it’s about getting even more granular, and also, how we can get all that tech into an efficient form factor.”

Good to see Jawbone stepping their game up. Looks like the wearable tech space is about to get a lot more interesting.

"Amazon is not a retailer anymore, it is the largest behavioral marketing company in the world."

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:30:03 -0700

“Amazon is not a retailer anymore, it is the largest behavioral marketing company in the world.”

-
Yaakov Kimelfeld, chief research officer at Kantar Media Compete, talking to Reuters about the company’s advertising network prospects. (via parislemon)

Great point. Amazon has so much valuable data. And on actual purchase intent too.

I just contributed to Zach Braff’s new self-funded movie...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:00:00 -0700

I just contributed to Zach Braff’s new self-funded movie on Kickstarter Wish I Was Here.

Creatively, this is one of the better Kickstarter pages I’ve seen. I thought the video was very well done: short, compelling, and sincere.

The different pledge amounts were well organized too. Everything from a weekly production diary ($10) up to a speaking role in the film ($10,000).

As a music lover and big fan of Garden State’s soundtrack, I opted for the 2nd level. This gets you access to a new playlist curated by their team each week and a first look at the final soundtrack.

And as a movie lover, it’s just really exciting to see more filmakers going direct to their fans. It gives them so much more room for creative freedom. I hope you join me in contributing to more projects like these in the future.

staff: Now you can do more than just reblog when you find...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:21:07 -0700

staff:

Now you can do more than just reblog when you find something you love on Tumblr for iPhone and iPad.

Share posts via Twitter, Facebook, and more

Save stuff for later using Instapaper and Pocket

Email an entire post with our beautiful new template

Close photos by flinging up or down!

GIFs animate while you scroll*

Search your Following list (it’s now alphabetized and grouped by first letter!)

Download the update

*iPad 2, 3 and 4, iPad Mini, iPod Touch 5th Generation, iPhone 4S and 5 only

Love this update. Mostly for the Instapaper integration, which is where I do most of my reading.

Tumblr just keeps getting better and better for me.

"It seems to me that this is native advertising as it should be. … The content is genuinely fun, just..."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:00:15 -0700

“It seems to me that this is native advertising as it should be. … The content is genuinely fun, just as it is fleeting and unobtrusive. … These are the sorts of native ad projects that help change some of the traditional polarity of the advertising and publishing relationship. This is where we really see marketers challenged by publishers on behalf of users to make their advertising more fun and engaging on the consumer’s terms.”

- MediaPost: Tumblr Brings Its Native Ad Format To Mobile

I tend to agree with this. Tumblr more than anyone else I’ve seen has nailed native brand advertising. The key is if they can keep challenging marketers like this (instead of taking the easier money).

How Pandora Knows What Music to Play A little bit more inside...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:00:16 -0700

How Pandora Knows What Music to Play

A little bit more inside information on the Music Genome Project works…

"It’s not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place..."

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:28:01 -0700

“It’s not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it’s about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then you’ll be a great cook.”

- Thomas Keller On Why Passion Shouldn’t Drive You

Good thoughts from Thomas Keller on passion vs. desire. Applies to so much beyond cooking too.

I couldn’t help reading this through the lens of startup life. In a startup you sometimes have to slog through on those days when your passion wanes. What keeps you going is often, as Keller puts it, an “unwavering desire” to be the best [founder / coder / builder / designer / hustler / etc.] that you can be.

via 200 Million Strong! Some highlights: - Pandora streams 200...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:00:14 -0700

via 200 Million Strong!

Some highlights:

- Pandora streams 200 million songs before 10 a.m. every day
- In March Pandora streamed 1.49+ billion hours of music
- Listeners have personalized their stations with more than 25 billion thumbs
- More than 140 million listeners have tuned in to Pandora on a mobile device

“Can’t Stop. Won’t Stop.”

The Four Phases Of A Bubble

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:33:38 -0700

Interesting chart showing the four psychological phases of a bubble via Prof Jean-Paul Rodrigue.

To become a good investor, you have to be very prescient. If you can be in the “Stealth” or “Awareness” phases above then you are leagues ahead of everyone else. Of course the tricky part is that being too early is often the same as being too late.

But to become a great investor, you also have to master the psychology of bubbles and business cycles. So it’s important for investors to study these four phases and view each of their investments through this lens.

Here’s how Prof. Rodrique describes the four phases:

Bubbles (financial manias) unfold in several stages, an observation which backed up by 500 years of economic history. Each mania is obviously different, but there are always similarities; simplistically four phases can be identified:

Stealth. Those who understand the new fundamentals realize an emerging opportunity for substantial future appreciation, but at a risk since their assumptions are so far unproven. So the “smart money” gets invested in the asset class, often quietly and cautiously. This category of investor tends to have better access to information and a higher capacity to understand the wider economic context that would trigger asset inflation. Prices gradually increase, but often completely unnoticed by the general population. Larger and larger positions are established as the smart money start to better understand that the fundamentals are well grounded and that this asset class is likely to experience significant future valuations.

Awareness. Many investors start to notice the momentum, bringing additional money in and pushing prices higher. There can be a short-lived sell off phase taking place as a few investors cash in their first profits (there could also be several sell off phases, each beginning at an higher level than the previous one). The smart money takes this opportunity to reinforce its existing positions. In the later stages of this phase the media starts to notice with positive reports about how this new boom benefits the economy by “creating” wealth; those getting in becoming increasingly “unsophisticated”.

Mania. Everyone is noticing that prices are going up and the public jumps in for this “investment opportunity of a lifetime”. The expectations about future appreciation becomes a “no brainer” and a linear inference mentality sets in; future prices are an extrapolation of past price appreciation, which of course goes against any conventional wisdom. This phase is however not about logic, but a lot about psychology. Floods of money come in creating even greater expectations and pushing prices to stratospheric levels. The higher the price, the more investments pour in. Fairly unnoticed from the general public caught in this new frenzy, the smart money as well as many institutional investors are quietly pulling out and selling their assets. Unbiased opinion about the fundamentals becomes increasingly difficult to find as many players are heavily invested and have every interest to keep asset inflation going. The market gradually becomes more exuberant as “paper fortunes” are made from regular “investors” and greed sets in. Everyone tries to jump in and new intrants have absolutely no understanding of the market, its dynamic and fundamentals. Prices are simply bid up with all financial means possible, particularly leverage and debt. If the bubble is linked with lax sources of credit, then it will endure far longer than many observers would expect, therefore discrediting many rational assessments that the situation is unsustainable. At some point statements are made about entirely new fundamentals implying that a “permanent high plateau” has been reached to justify future price increases; the bubble is about to collapse.

Blow-off. A moment of epiphany (a trigger) arrives and everyone roughly at the same time realize that the situation has changed. Confidence and expectations encounter a paradigm shift, not without a phase of denial where many try to reassure the public that this is just a temporary setback. Some are fooled, but not for long. Many try to unload their assets, but takers are few; everyone is expecting further price declines. The house of cards collapses under its own weight and late comers (commonly the general public) are left holding depreciating assets while the smart money has pulled out a long time ago. Prices plummet at a rate much faster than the one that inflated the bubble. Many over-leveraged asset owners go bankrupt, triggering additional waves of sales. There is even the possibility that the valuation undershoots the long term mean, implying a significant buying opportunity. However, the general public at this point considers this sector as “the worst possible investment one can make”. This is the time when the smart money starts acquiring assets at low prices.

Bubbles can be very damaging, especially for those who arrived late with the hope of getting something for nothing. Even if they are inflationary events, the outcome of a bubble’s blow off is very deflationary as large quantities of capital vanish in the wave of bankruptcies and financial defaults they trigger. Historically, they tended to be far in-between, but between 1995 and 2008 three bubbles took place back-to-back; the stock market (deflated in 2000), real estate (deflated in 2006) and commodities (deflated in 2008).

Mobile App Deep Linking

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:15:13 -0700

Mobile App Deep Linking:

Fred Wilson on Twitter’s new Cards platform and “mobile app deep linking”:

Twitter announced some new functionality in its Twitter Cards platform yesterday. At the top of the list is “mobile app deep linking”. Here’s how Twitter explains it: With mobile app deep-linking, users will be able to tap a link to either view content directly in your app, or download your app, depending on whether or not they have your app installed.

Fred is right. This is a big deal.

There is no doubt that this is the next phase of mobile app advertising. Deep linking opens up so many possibilities for app developers. Deep linking to specials on in-app purchases for games, that one photo in your favorite photo sharing app, a box score in ESPN, a specific product page in e-commerce apps, etc. The list goes on.

And app developers will pay up for these deep link capabilities because it will allow them to drive more real transactions and monetize much better.

It’s still early but good to see more being done here. Props to Twitter for pushing this forward.

Introducing Gordo's Gifs

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:00:18 -0700

A few days ago I decided I haven’t been using Tumblr to it’s full capacity. I see lots of fun stuff around the Web that I decide not to share on my normal blog.

So I created Gordo’s Gifs. It’s really just going to be where I collect all the fun and interesting things I find. And not surprisingly by the name, it’s mostly going to be what Tumblr does best: GIFs.

Let me know what you think. You can always find the link in the updated header.

Nike+ Accelerator Companies Announced

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:00:07 -0700

Nike+ Accelerator Companies Announced:

Last week Nike announced the finalists for their Nike Accelerator program. I’ve written before how I love what Nike is doing here.

This entire wearable computing industry — or “fashology” as Howard Lindzon calls it and I really like — is very exciting. I think it will be a massive trend for the next 5-10 years. And many savvy entrepreneurs will make fortunes creating software companies around it. Be it for fitness trackers like the Nike Fuelband, Fitbit (and their upcoming Flex), and Jawbone Up or other wearable tech like Google Glass, Apple’s iWatch, etc.

Here is the list of companies Nike accepted:

FitDeck: Digital decks of exercise playing cards that deliver ever-changing workouts for fitness and sports. GoRecess: Helps users find, book and review fitness activities.
Chroma.io: An indie game studio that creates virtual worlds tied to real-world activity.
CoachBase: Provides a digital sports coaching platform.
GoFitCause: Leverages fitness data as a means of raising money for charities.
HighFive: Ad network for health and fitness apps that helps people achieve their goals by rewarding them along their journey.
Sprout At Work: Provider of corporate wellness solutions leveraging social and gamification tools to inspire employees and empower employers.
GeoPalz: An interactive gaming and rewards platform for kids and families.
Incomparable Things: Creates activity-driven fantasy sports leagues.
RecBob: Offers a platform that makes recreational sports easy by organizing play.

I think my favorite here is GoFitCause. I’ve had some similar ideas about how charitable donations can help and encourage more fitness. Looking forward to seeing their execution.

Incomparable Things sounds fun too.

What do you think? What’s your favorite? Any other ideas off the bat?

"Substance without swagger slows you down. But swagger without substance can be fatal."

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 10:00:23 -0700

“Substance without swagger slows you down. But swagger without substance can be fatal.”

- Seth Godin nailed it in this post. There is more swagger than ever in the startup world. It’s just rarely accompanied by an increase in substance…

Investors Are Asking The Wrong Question

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 09:00:14 -0700

Josh Brown had a post last week that really nails it. He cites a New York Times Business headline titled Investors’ Quandary: Get In Now? with the opening line:

“So is it too late for investors to join the party?”

Since last week, the markets have continued their march to new highs and the articles have gone from being on the Business and Finance sections to the front page. Every time I see one of these articles, I think back to Josh’s post so I thought I’d share it.

Here he is. Take heed:

What are they thinking? Have they seen the data?

If not, here’s a slice:

Between 1926 and 2010, there was not a single rolling 20-year period - pick the starting point in any month of any year during that eight-decade stretch you’d like - with negative returns for stocks. Hasn’t happened.

Keep in mind what went on during this 1926 to 2010 period - prohibition, a legendary stock market crash, a Great Depression, World War II on multiple fronts, Korean War, Red Scare, nuclear scare, Presidential assassination, Vietnam War, Disco, stagflation, oil embargo, Cold War, two wars with Iraq, Presidential impeachment, 9/11 and Afghanistan, The Credit Crash, housing crash, Lehman bankruptcy, $50 billion ponzi scheme revealed, bailouts and TARP, unemployment crisis, Muslim Marxist President elected, Euro crisis, etc.

Through all of that, not a single 20-year period of down stocks.

Between 1950 and 2010 - 60 years - the worst 10-year rolling period saw a decline of only 5.1% with an average annualized return of 7.3%. The worst 5-year period was a decline of 8.5% but with an average annualized return of 7.5%.

And people are in 100% cash because….?

So “Is now the time to get in?” is the wrong question entirely. The right question is “Why are you out in the first place?”

Netflix Series Spending Revealed

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:35:36 -0700

Netflix Series Spending Revealed:

Andrew Wallenstein of Variety reports on a panel featuring CAA TV literary agent Peter Micelli, who spoke about how much Netflix is spending on their original series:

“The cheapest show is $3.8 million an episode,” Micelli told a crowd of more than 500 lawyers in the entertainment business. “‘House of Cards’ started at $4.5 million and (executive producer David) Fincher took it way above that.”

This isn’t cheap stuff. But with Microsoft (through Xbox), Amazon, Google, Verizon and Redbox all going after this sector, it’s important for Netflix to jump out to an early lead.

I’m reminded of Fred Wilson’s post about a key quote from Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer:

“The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.”

And I think they are well on their way to that with House of Cards. I just finished the series and I’m hooked. The production quality is incredible, the writing is great, and the acting is top notch. It actually feels more like a very long movie than a TV show.

Remains to be seen if their other series like Arrested Development, Hemlock Grove and Orange is the New Black will be hits too. But I have no doubt that this is the future of TV so I am personally rooting for them.

Can’t wait to see all the options developers come up with...

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 09:00:24 -0800

Can’t wait to see all the options developers come up with for Google Glass.

It’s interesting to read Joshua Topolsky’s review. I agree that Glass is clearly not for everyone now and the Glass team has their work cut out for them. But together with developers in the Explorer program, I think they can make inroads really fast and be ready for their goal of shipping in late 2013.

And if the rumors of Google teaming up with Warby Parker are true, then hopefully they’ll be able to make them a little more stylish too.