The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 24/07/2008
Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference was held last week in Houston. If you didn't attend you can see videos of sessions here. I get questions every day from startups wanting to know how to partner with Microsoft and how to get access to people and programs. This post is an attempt...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 19/07/2008
Failure is part of the maturing process in the startup world. If you haven't failed...you aren't trying hard enough, or you aren't "pushing the envelope" far enough. I have always said "Success is a terrible teacher. Success masks over flaws that may hurt you later." Roger Ehrenberg - the co-founder...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 18/07/2008
Microsoft (MSFT) announced revenues topped $60 Billion for the year ended June 30, 2008, an increase of 18% over last year. This was the largest annual revenue growth since 1999. Profits were $17.6 billion, up more than 25 percent from a year ago. Growing a Yahoo every year - Microsoft...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 17/07/2008
Blogs are going professional and replacing newspapers for insightful, fast breaking, news and analysis. The same thing happened to network TV news years ago. Chris Mathews, Tim Russert, Bill O'Reilly, and others replaced the "just report the facts" news casts with more personal, insightful, opinionated commentary. TechMeme has several blog...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 16/07/2008
WebInno, founded by David Beisel of Venrock, is a Boston based Web Innovators Group where startups can demo their stuff to the tech community. Last night there were three startups that presented on stage (Main Dish) and eight other startups that showed their stuff at tables (Side Dish) around the...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 15/07/2008
PubMatic published its monthly AdPrice Index for July 2008 and it showed ad rates declining in most markets, especially Social Network sites. PubMatic draws its data from 4,000 Web sites that take ad network advertising, 85% of which are based in the U.S. Surprisingly, small web sites can demand significantly...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 15/07/2008
Bambi Francisco left CBS MarketWatch about a year ago to launch her own company, Vator.TV. Last week VatorTV announced a new design and new contributors to its Newsroom. I am one of the new contributors along with Mark Cuban, Fred Wilson, and several others. The new design will make it...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 02/07/2008
Microsoft announced yesterday the acquisition of Powerset, a natural language search engine. Techmeme has lots of stories about the acquisition. Today the stories are all a bout Microsoft/Yahoo potential deals . But lets take a step back and look at how Powerset works and why it is an important development in search. There are two key things to consider; Powerset technology is more about indexing...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 01/07/2008
Microsoft has agreed to acquire Powerset, a Natural Language search engine, founded by Barney Pell. Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President, Search, Portal, and Advertising said on his blog; Powerset will join our core Search Relevance team, remaining intact in San Francisco. Powerset brings with it natural language technology that nicely...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 01/07/2008
Over 600,000 laptops are reported lost or stolen every year at US airports according to a ComputerWorld story. The story, based on a survey by the Ponemon Institute says that 65% of them are never recovered. Laptops are most often lost at security checkpoints. Hotels and taxi cabs are also...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 30/06/2008
Microsoft is making a big investment in innovation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has a front page story about Microsoft's new Concept Development Center led by Reed Sturtevant. Reed was recruited by Ray Ozzie and his brother Jack to build the new lab. The Boston Globe story says; Boston...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 28/06/2008
Not one single VC backed company went public in the 2nd quarter of 2008 according to the New York Times. The last time that happened was 30 years ago. However, 2007 was one of the best years for IPOs since the dot com bubble of 1999. Such are the cycles...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 27/06/2008
Dan'l Lewin is Microsoft's Corporate VP for Strategic and Emerging Business, based in Silicon Valley. I work in Dan'l's organization so it was a treat to read a story in the Chronicle about Dan'l's work with VCs and startups around the world. Dan'l is a legend in Silicon Valley where...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 27/06/2008
Mike Arrington and Jason Calacanis asked me again this year to participate on the TechCrunch 50 panel of experts. TechCrunch announced yesterday that Mark Cuban, Marc Benioff, and I will be on the panel. I am humbled…and honored to be mentioned with those guys. The complete list of “experts” is...
The Next Big Thing (Free subscription) | 26/06/2008
Innovation drives our industry, attracts the best talent, attracts VC money, and wins fame for its leaders. Innovation leaders burst onto the scene, win early market leadership, but sometimes can't sustain the pace. Why do "fast followers" often jump in later and make fortunes? Is management responsible for the success...
