Pluggd makes podcasts chunkier & searchable!
Congratulations to Alex and his team at Pluggd (disclosure again: I am an investor in Pluggd).
They announced a new feature today to make individual podcasts chunkier and searchable, with some saavy and innovative enhancement of speech recognition technology combined with an excellent GUI. The Pluggd team is also doing some excellent work on user interfaces, among everything else they are accomplishing. No wonder why their userbase continues to grow.
TechCrunch made the announcement , and provides some interesting insight into the new capabilities to be offered.
This new innovation solves a major pain that I’ve had as a podcast consumer that led me to invest in Alex and his team. It is a much needed addition to the market, and with Alex’s experience & vision I had confidence that he was going to get it right.
Pluggd is presenting at DEMO this week, and will show off this new capability. Good luck Pluggd!
– brian
Virgin joins the Sony-Dell-Apple Battery Fray
I found out here on Wired’s blog that Virgin is now banning the use of all Dell and Apple laptops that are not plugged into a seat power outlet. Thus, Virgin now joins the fray of the Sony battery issue with Dell and Apple.
A rapid set of commentary erupted on the Wired blog, and elsewhere I’m sure, adding fuel to the fire that has been burning for some time now (no pun intended of course).
Regardless of the merits of Virgin’s decision, it is a controversial one by its very nature (i.e. selectively revoking a common right). In today’s world, that means the “Read/Write Web”, or Web 2.0, is going to jump on it, and how Virgin handles the customers and prospects that engage on the web will have a meaningful impact on its brand and sales. The same can be said for Dell, Apple, and Sony who opted into this issue in a less voluntary manner.
So is Virgin prepared to engage in the Web conversation efficiently and effectively, or will this blow up in their face? Having the R/WW as active and effective as it is as a customer engagement medium now forces companies to ensure that they are prepared to handle the Web response to their decisions before making them. Most companies are not prepared.
Readers of this blog (or of the CEO Blog tag on Kalivo) know my perspective that companies need more than just a blog or forums to handle these events properly and achieve positive outcomes for their business. In fact, if they are ill-prepared to handle the Web response, then normal business decisions, such as this Virgin example, can quite possibly do more harm than good regardless of the merits of the decision itself. Ignoring or not properly handling the Web response is basically equivalent to ignoring newspapers, radio, or television in their respective ascendancy.
We at Kalivo will certainly be monitoring the response to Virgin’s announcement and Virgin’s response to those responses. The same can be said for Dell, Apple, and Sony … and Ford, and ….
Are you prepared to handle the Web response to your next business decision? Better yet, do you feel proactively engaged in the Web conversation?
[UPDATE: Slashdot ran a story on this and of course produced more comments for Virgin from the Web.]
– brian
links for 2006-09-11
Pluggd in Seattle Times today
Pluggd landed an article in the business section of today’s Seattle Times. You can read the article here. Ignore the title, but the article is a good short summary of Pluggd and its opportunity.
As full disclosure, I am an investor in Pluggd. They are making great progress on several fronts, including traffic and user growth, podcast directory growth, and buzz. Look for Pluggd at DEMO this month in San Diego.
– brian
Technorati Tags: demo, pluggd, podcast, seattle
Dissecting Wells Fargo’s new blog
Debbie Weil at BlogWrite for CEOs just posted on Wells Fargo’s new Student Loan Down blog targeting students seeking college loans.
I think the Student Loan Down blog is a great idea by Wells Fargo and should see some success, regardless of what you think of the name. However, to me this is yet another example of a company using an inadequate tool - the blog - to achieve business goals - closer relationships with their student loan prospects and customers to drive increase leads and loyalty.
I wrote here at the ListeningPost (and replicated here at Kalivo’s Customer Hub), using the Dell and Southwest blogs as examples, about how the blog tool is inadequate for company needs in their executing on their customer engagement strategies. The Student Loan Down blog provides another example to showcase why blog tools are inadequate solutions and what features Wells Fargo (and other companies with similar ambitions) will need to achieve customer engagement online.
Don’t get me wrong, it may not appear to be a problem at first to the companies implementing the blog. After all, as Dell noticed, they will see a dramatic rise in conversations and feedback where none existed before. This is a great step forward. However, it will shortly crush under its own weight from both process shortcomings and lack of feature requirements to achieve the business goals.
Some examples of shortcomings on the Student Loan Down are already apparent:
- This post, My dirty little secret is a nice way of introducing students to the fact that not all financial aid is need-based. At the end, the author has posted a survey. This should be a separate discussion item with data collection and results display capabilities so the company and the community can see, and discuss, the results. Figuring out the results from the comment section is not interesting to anyone; the effort may be made once to do it, but not twice.
- About This Blog: “We’re here to start a conversation with you.” Also, they state in the About Page that you, the reader can start a conversation. Really? Well, what if I want to talk with you about something that is not a current post? The reader has no way of starting a conversation about something they are interested in. The blog format is more like a lecture with a Q&A session, and less like a conversation.
- The About Page also highlights the goal of “talking about the resources. Where are the resources? Do I need to leave the blog and go to the Wells Fargo site and search for them? Why not provide them within the blog? Wells Fargo has their customer/prospect captured in the discussion, why let them go rather than point them directly to the resources they need. Moreover, why not have those resources discussable, so that if the reader has a question or concern, they can just post a comment to the resource and have Wells Fargo or another customer/prospect respond with information or their own experience?
- The About Page also references that they are not only providing this blog resource for students, but for their parents to become more knowledgeable about the student loan process. Why not provide a “Parents Connection” area of the site where Parents can converse with each other about the student loan process? Wells Fargo could go a long way toward allowing parents to collaborate with each other and (a) ease their concerns about the process and (b) increase their comfort with Wells Fargo as a solution provider to them.
Forgive me for the small commercial, but a large part of our contribution to thought-leadership in this space involves the solutions we are building with our customers. Here goes …. We at Kalivo believe a Discussion Hub, rather than a blog tool, is the proper solution for companies to truly engage with their customers. A Discussion Hub allows companies to blog, but it does so much more as well to achieve business results and accommodate the business processes required to manage an effective customer engagement strategy.
Some examples of features a Discussion Hub allows that a blog does not include (I’ll restrict the commercial from a lengthy discussion of the business value of each of these - view our website if you are interested in that):
- Two-way conversations - both the Hub owner and the members can start conversations and reply to conversations
- Polling and Surveys, with data collection and display, and the ability for members to comment as if it were a blog post
- Announce Events in a calendar context and enable discussion on events
- Include external content from domain experts around the Web with a single click - why write something when someone else has already done a stellar job on the topic and allows you to share it
- Robust and flexible security to restrict members from starting conversations in certain areas, enable private discussion areas, and much more
- Import documents to enable sharing and discussion of critical resources while you have a member’s attention
- Full RSS support for all tags, personal spaces, and conversations
- Social networking features, including profiles, member-specific RSS feeds, and more to come
I applaud Wells Fargo for pursuing the Student Loan Down. And I cannot fault them for choosing a blog tool and blog metaphor as their implementation - there really are no other solutions on the market yet. Kalivo will be changing that this month with the launch of its Customer Hub and Professional Hub solutions.
In fact, I believe hosting a targeted Discussion Hub for each market segment is an effective way for companies to truly engage their customers in a meaningful and personal way, and drive leads and loyalty. Wells Fargo is showing the way here to other companies with an effective strategy. They just need the solutions to match and enable their strategy.
– brian
Cash (flow) is king!
VC Confidential has a recent post on the power dynamics between VCs and the entrepreneurs they back. It is a worthwhile read for all entrepreneurs, but certainly for those that are or are considering being venture-backed.
The overarching lesson is that until your business is cash-flow positive, you are at the mercy of outsiders that provide valuable resources, such as investment capital, to grow your business. Those providing such resources to companies rightfully expect results in return so that their investment is secure and can realize a gain. If your business gets to cash-flow positive, then you as the entrepreneur have control over your destiny. If you are not cash-flow positive and need to consume more resources for survival, you do not yet control your own destiny and the providers of such resources will rightfully gain the power to make changes to ensure the success of their investment. If the latter situation arises, the entrepreneur should neither be surprise or ticked off about the changes that ensue.
I’ve heard a couple of short statements that reflect the lesson above which entrepreneurs should always keep in mind:
- “Happiness is a positive cash flow”
- “Most startups fail due to a lack of revenue, not poor expense control”
Neither of these quotes can be attributed to me, but I keep these thoughts with me at all times now in my entrepreneurial endeavors and share them freely.
Another interesting insight came from the post, which I’ve highlighted below:
“Good VC’s will give an entrepreneur significant room to operate, will give advice based on past experience and will bring resources or connections to bear as required. He/she will layout core principles or constraints which are important to them as well as define, with the company, critical milestones. Control is not determined by legal clauses or purse strings but, hopefully, by mutual, earned respect between them and the CEO. If law or finance is the basis of the relationship, then much has already been lost. ”
It is true, all of the legal terms and conditions are very important to get right. However, be sure that when it comes to actually enforcing/implementing those, it usually is never a good situation, and in fact is never a desired situation, for anyone.
The best situation is always when the fiduciaries and operators (VCs and Entrepreneurs) are operating on a basis of trust, confidence and respect. When that is lost, things by definition are going badly.
– brian
Technorati Tags: bkmblog, entrepreneurship, investing, startup, vc
It’s time for thought-leadership on how companies should implement Web2.0
Forrester Research has been taking the lead recently in defining the potential for companies to leverage the Web and new Web 2.0 technologies and processes to enhance their marketing and significantly improve their ability to engage directly with their customers. The latest report addressing this topic comes from Laura Ramos and is titled B2B Marketing Needs A Makeover - Now. You can read a summary of the report by clicking here.
One point of interest from this report is that B2B marketers are still relying primarily on trade shows as a way to directly reach their customers. Even if the right people are at the trade shows, the venue is hardly conducive for engaging in constructive dialog about customer needs or for relationship building. Moreover, once the show is over, the direct connection ends.
This is where Web2.0, or Enterprise2.0 if you prefer, can shine.
What seems to be lacking in the Forrester summaries and in the online dialog about the Forrester reports is a clearer definition of how corporate marketers can leverage Web2.0 technologies to successfully drive their marketing programs and generate increased leads and loyalty. In fact, this seems to be a general problem not specifically related to Forrester. A lot of buzz exists about corporate blogging and Enterprise2.0, yet very little in the way of offering advice on what specifically to do, or even how to do it in a way that generates meaningful results.
Kalivo is finding in its sales efforts that many to most companies are highly interested in leveraging innovative online social technologies to drive their marketing processes. Yet, nearly all of those that have an interest are unsure of what their needs are in this area, and what types of solutions they need to implement. It turns out that these prospects are willing to experiment with solutions, such as Kalivo and others, in an effort to learn more about what will work to engage more directly with customers and drive increased leads to their business.
Part of Kalivo’s role is coaching our prospects through the process, and highlighting the benefits of our approach to the solving the problem. However, as a service provider with a solution to sell, our perspective by definition will not always be viewed as impartial. In fact, we have done our research and believe our approach is best; yet only time and results will ultimately tell the truth. In the meantime, Kalivo and all other service providers that aspire to provide solutions in this emerging market will benefit if an independent company such as Forrester would go beyond defining the opportunity for companies, and take the lead in recommending how to seize the opportunity and which technologies and service providers will best serve companies looking to be marketing innovators on the Web. With all of the experimenting going on among companies in this area, the opportunity for valuable synthesis should exist.
I intend for this blog, and the Kalivo Customer Hub to be a source of research, thought-leadership, and conversation for our customers, prospects, and independent firms such as Forrester in the area of corporate Web marketing and customer engagement. I would also be highly interested in contributing to a broad research effort, by Forrester or any other qualified firm, that begins to define and synthesize tangible “best practices” as to how companies can begin to successfully drive leads and loyalty through effective Web customer engagement strategies.
– brian
links for 2006-09-05
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(tags: rubyonrails mongrel)
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(tags: rubyonrails mongrel)
Residential real estate dynamics
I just read an article from Money Magazine on cnn.com about the current residential real estate downturn. In it, a brief description exists about the dynamics of a residential real estate downturn. We’ve heard this description so many times, you’d think the adjustment would be quicker each time around, yet it always seems to play out this way. I thought the description of the downturn dynamic was pretty succint and accurate and worth sharing ….
Miller thinks that many sellers are holding out for unrealistically
high asking prices, and the buyers actually purchasing homes are only
the ones willing to pay those higher prices. "That’s why there’s been
such a drop-off in volume," says Miller.
In a normal market those
sellers would more readily accept lower bids but, conditioned to
oversized price increases, they are reluctant to abandon their asking
prices.
To close deals with the on-the-fence or reluctant buyers,
sellers will have to drop their prices and only then will the index
reflect the actual market. The effect could snowball if sellers get a
bit panicky and try to unload their properties quickly, before prices
erode further.
– brian
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