Cash
TR: The slow death of cash. Wolman argues that cash costs society far more than we think it does; http://j.mp/HejgPp #Cash
Tagged: Finance Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Virtual Currency
TC: Virtual currency is the next big platform; http://j.mp/zHfeIM #VirtualCurrency http://eicker.at/VirtualCurrency
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Gerrit Eicker
Software
Andreessen: Software is eating the world – virtually and in the physical world; http://eicker.at/Software
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Gerrit Eicker
The Facebook Decade
Facebook was the top-visited site in 2010; http://eicker.at/1y Goldman invests $500M, values them at $50B; http://eicker.at/1z
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Gerrit Eicker
Hitwise: “Facebook was the top-visited Website for the first time and accounted for 8.93 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010. Google.com ranked second with 7.19 percent of visits, followed by Yahoo! Mail (3.52 percent), Yahoo! (3.30 percent) and YouTube (2.65 percent). … The combination of Google properties accounted for 9.85 percent of all U.S. visits. Facebook properties accounted for 8.93 percent, and Yahoo! properties accounted for 8.12 percent. The top 10 Websites accounted for 33 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010, an increase of 12 percent versus 2009.”
TC: “Comscore also shows Facebook.com passing Google.com in visits in November but all Google sites as still having more.”
VB: “Beyond being good news from Facebook, the data seems like another sign that people are using search as their default way to navigate the Web, even when it might seem easier to just type in a URL. I would imagine that many of the people who do a search for ‘facebook.com’ probably know what Facebook’s URL is, but they typed it into a search engine (or into the search box at the top of their browser) instead.”
NYT: “Facebook, the popular social networking site, has raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor in a deal that values the company at $50 billion, according to people involved in the transaction. … Goldman Sachs has reached out to its wealthy private clients, offering them a chance to invest in Facebook, the hot social networking giant that is considering a possible public offering in 2012, according to people familiar with the matter.”
RWW: “What’s most important isn’t the amount of literal control over the company that the banks bought, rather it’s the valuation this gives the company and the relationship the investment fosters between Goldman and Facebook. … Goldman’s investment in Facebook is going to be great for all the industries the company’s young leaders are likely to spend their money in, including tech startups. … Thank goodness for Google and Twitter. Without them, Facebook’s control over peoples’ identities online would be virtually unchallenged. The challenge those two companies pose isn’t very strong, either. Facebook is pushing fast to make itself the default login and identity system on sites all around the web. … More Facebook may mean better feature development for users in the short term, and it may mean more ubiquity for Facebook in the medium term, but in the long term it could mean trouble for the web in general.”
GigaOM: “It’s been over a decade since Time Warner and America Online merged in a $180-billion deal, marking the peak of the Internet bubble and the beginning of a long drought for technology stocks – a drought that has arguably been broken only by Apple and Google. Now Facebook seems to be taking the lead in the next wave of tech-stock enthusiasm… While the action for Facebook and others is focused in private and secondary markets right now, however, Goldman’s involvement virtually guarantees that this will soon spill out into the public markets – if not this year, then in 2012, when Facebook is expected to do an IPO.“
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Gerrit Eicker
Data and Predictive Analytics
O’Reilly: Calculus of data, predictive analytics, and why mobile sensors are central to the future and 2011; http://eicker.at/1x
Gerrit Eicker
IT Transparency and Business Value
Gartner: IT organisations face disruptive change in 2011 due to transparency, need to drive business value; http://eicker.at/1v
Gerrit Eicker
Generations 2010
Pew (PDF): Key internet uses are becoming more uniformly popular across all age groups; http://eicker.at/Generations2010
Gerrit Eicker
Software Business Metrics
Mask: 5 metrics every software CEO should obsess over. CPA, NIPE, NPS, CLV, Adoption; http://eicker.at/SoftwareBusinessMetrics
Gerrit Eicker
Google Acquisitions
Blodget: Hell, yes, Google should buy Groupon. And Twitter. And Foursquare; http://eicker.at/GoogleAcquisitions
Gerrit Eicker
PayPal Goes Micropayment
PayPal starts offering Web and mobile micropayment for virtual goods: news at FT.com, games on Facebook; http://eicker.at/13
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Gerrit Eicker
PayPal: “PayPal today announced the upcoming availability of PayPal for digital goods, a new in-context, frictionless payment solution that lets consumers pay for digital goods and content in as little as two clicks, without ever having to leave a publisher’s game, news, music, video or media site. The online equivalent of dropping a quarter in the slot to buy a newspaper or play a video game, PayPal’s new solution solves a key problem for the digital goods industry by offering a faster, safer and more cost-effective way to send and receive micropayments globally. … Because PayPal for digital goods is built on PayPal’s sophisticated fraud prevention engine, developers don’t have to worry about building the systems required to protect customers’ sensitive financial information.”
PayPal Digital Goods: “An easy, low-cost way to collect payments for all types of digital goods including games, virtual goods and gifts, software and online media such as ebooks, enews, music, and videos. And, digital goods providers who offer PayPal also have access to PayPal’s active global account holders and network of established relationships with international financial and banking institutions.”
pC: “[PayPal’s] new Mobile Express Checkout allows users to opt-in and remain logged in across mobile apps to make purchases in two clicks. Starbucks will use it to reload of Starbucks Cards directly from its Starbucks Card Mobile app for iPhone and iPod touch. A beta program taps into location-based services on the phone. The new iPhone PayPal app will allow users to find businesses nearby that accept PayPal for mobile payments. Finally, VeriFone is partnering with PayPal to offer merchants the ability to take credit card and PayPal payments in their store – or anywhere – using an application.”
VB: “The announcement comes as eBay continues to focus more on PayPal rather than on its online auctions as the primary revenue stream for the company. Just last quarter, eBay’s auction revenues stopped growing more than 10 percent year-over-year for the first time since late 2009, while PayPal continued to grow at a steady rate. – But this isn’t the first time PayPal has made some kind of promise to jump on board with micropayments. In fact, the company has said it would explore this opportunity for the past six years.”
AF: “PayPal is already one of the payment methods for Facebook Credits but the new system means that Facebook users won’t even have to leave the site to authenticate their purchase. … The lack of a good micro-payment system has been holding back the monetization of digital content for some time. PayPal’s new service, with faster payment and lower fees, could be an important part of the solution, though I hope the company doesn’t end up with a monopoly.”
IF: “PayPal is broadly focusing on social, mobile and local, company product development vice president Osama Beider said on stage at the event today. The focus comes as these markets have exploded, helping to drive PayPal’s own revenue – and spur a variety of alternative payment competitors.”
Andreessen: “This week, Hewlett-Packard (where I am on the board) announced that it is exploring jettisoning its struggling PC business in favor of investing more heavily in software, where it sees better potential for growth. Meanwhile, Google plans to buy up the cellphone handset maker Motorola Mobility. Both moves surprised the tech world. But both moves are also in line with a trend I’ve observed, one that makes me optimistic about the future growth of the American and world economies, despite the recent turmoil in the stock market. – In short, software is eating the world. … Why is this happening now? … Over two billion people now use the broadband Internet, up from perhaps 50 million a decade ago, when I was at Netscape, the company I co-founded. In the next 10 years, I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones, giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day. … Software is also eating much of the value chain of industries that are widely viewed as primarily existing in the physical world. … Companies in every industry need to assume that a software revolution is coming. This includes even industries that are software-based today. … Instead of constantly questioning their valuations, let’s seek to understand how the new generation of technology companies are doing what they do, what the broader consequences are for businesses and the economy and what we can collectively do to expand the number of innovative new software companies created in the U.S. and around the world.”