SayNow just raised $7.5M for celebrity voicemail.
SayNow just raised $7.5M for celebrity voicemail.
Sorry, I had to say that again.  Are you kidding me?

As I understand it, they offer music fans the ability to call a pre-determined phone number for their particular band of interest and hear a personalized message and hear a greeting from the band.  Sounds like the 900 numbers of the old days, no?

They will be monetizing this audience through advertising and ancillary revenue opportunities like ringtones.  Apparently, there are 870,000 people using this service which is less than 1% of the USA (based on 250M) and at 100% monetized @ $10/CPM, $8,700.  Something smells fishy.

Dictionary.com defines innovation as:

1. something new or different introduced

We’ve all spent countless hours mulling over something or other to be innovated: a new beer cooler, a urinal toy (thanks Drillings), a new cell processor, in-game advertising, etc. A few of us actually do innovate and sometimes come up with a product or service that is a hit: Sergei & Larry, Andy Grove, Trip Hawkins, and countless other innovators.

As more and more people create a new product or service, or better yet, make one better, the pace of innovation increases. Ray Kurzweil predicted that information technology doubles it’s power every year (price, performance, capacity, bandwidth).

Is the pace of innovation too fast? That’s the question that I’ve been asking myself recently. Lets use the following example: For a few summers, I worked on developing a large scale social community around college and high school students. We spent quite a bit of time and hours around this community and were rated fairly highly thru marketshare statistics. Afterall, we owned one of the best domain names, Student.com. A few years later, TheFacebook.com showed up and stole the scene. Many me-too players emerged and KickApps enabled the world to create social community websites, similar to Facebook and others. Hundreds of social networks emerged including networks around pickles, hockey, dark chocolate, stiletto heals, traveling to Idaho, and broken iPhones. Whether or not these are good concepts or not, many of these received some venture or private funding and began building out their own little dynasty. That is… until the next wave of innovation spurs and these are either acquired or slowly die a quiet death.

Innovation is occuring so frequently that many times, business models aren’t flushed out yet and the company goes under. We’re trying to innovate and create as much as possible and the financial markets are supporting it (so far).

A few notes to take away from this:

• Investors are in a tough spot because of this. Since innovation occurs so regularly, investing into a company without a defendable plan is going to be a rough ride. Very few will make it.
• We may be more Darwinian than ever. I’m not philisophical but this holds fairly true IMHO. Only the strongest survive is going to play out over time because the world is flat and people have many choices.
• Your idea is not new is holding true. I’ve stressed this before, but your idea is currently being executed somewhere else in this world. Get ready for competition. Case in point: I’m advising on a project that we thought was earth shattering and as we started talking to people, we realized that we were 9 months behind another company. Pace of innovation is speeding up.

How do you win the war? That’s the trillion dollar question. Build your organization to be as nimble and dynamic as possible, but don’t lose sight of your original vision. You can’t win the war alone either. There are people and companies out there that you can partner with to get your product to market faster, efficiently, and stronger. Go and find them.

Lets innovate.

Having lived and worked in Manhattan for years, it’s hard to step away and get out of the urban jungle.  There’s so many things to do in the city but sometimes it’s nice to venture outside.  Today, Sherri and I headed up to New Paltz, NY to the Mohonk Mountain House for a day of hiking.  The weather couldn’t have been better, around 82 degrees and sunny so it was a fantastic day to be outside.

We ventured 1hr and 15mins north of our home in Westchester (took i87) and listened to some XM Satellite Radio on the ride up (more on that in another post probably tomorrow).  Since we arrived around 11:45am, we went straight to the Granary Cookout where we had previously made reservations for a lunch feast:  ribs, burgers, chicken, steak, salads, fruits, vegetables, cakes, pies, etc.  After eating a hearty lunch, we took a short break and then began our traverse up to the Skytop Lookout House atop Lake Mohonk.  The hike wasn’t too strenuous but a perfect warmup for our upcoming trip to the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion and Yosemite (leaving Sunday).

There are plenty of pictures here that we took along the way and some of them are semi-artistic shots that I was fooling around with.  I’m one who easily gets caught up in the noise and meetings of Manhattan, but getting out to reset is an amazing feeling.  On the way back, we listened to the new Dave Matthews Band album that is sold in Starbucks and we really enjoyed it.  The song, “You May Die Trying” is really resonating with us and I’m loving the drum beats Carter lays down.

The rumors are back.  The Google Phone/gPhone is abound.  Will it materialize?  I have no insider information but my gut tells me yes.  If Google wants to be where the consumer is, then on the mobile phone is probably very important.

My question though is how will Google get the distribution for the phone?  Aren’t they anti-establishment?  Apple owns their own stores and had a deal with Cingular/AT&T, so getting to the public wasn’t difficult.  However, what about Google?  Can you see Google teaming up with Wal-Mart?  No.

In this recent news-tidbit, it mentions that Google is looking to partner with HTC to build the headsets, but they don’t have any retail distribution points.  I’m fascinated with whom Google may pick for the distribution side of the business and if exclusivity is involved.

I’m not the first person to broach this topic and I probably won’t be the last.  I’m fascinated with the whole blog vs. website debate.  What is really the difference?  At the end of the day, isn’t a blog a WYSIWYG HTML editor like FortuneCity, Tripod, Geocities, back in the day?

I used to think that they were inherently the same.  As my thinking has matured a bit over time, I’ve reached the conclusion that they are fairly different.

A website is a blank canvas.  What you put on that website can be a full featured web-app, an informational website, an e-commerce extravaganza, or other digital binary code.

A blog is a blank canvas with a purpose.  Over the past few days, I’ve been hanging out with some technical luddites (my relatives) and they are fascinated that I have a blog.  Honestly, it’s nothing special because anyone who can navigate the Internet can head over to one of the many blogging companies and set one up in minutes.  The mindset of a blog is that of a diary or something similar:  to record and share information.  Sometimes, you don’t keep it public and you just write for yourself.  Other times, you share information with whomever wants to read it.

Yes, blogs have a blank canvas and you can embed YouTube clips, widgets, wonkettes, and other files, but they are setup so you can share information (type easily) and comment on them as well.   Two way communication is important here as Dave Taylor discusses in the above article.  Blogs are all about simplicity.

Using blogs vs. websites as a foreshadow of how the future of the Internet will turn-out, it’s really not surprising.  Blogs made adding and updating a website simple for the masses.  Yes, you lose some flexibility but overall, many people don’t care about that.  The easier services and technologies are to use, the more they will grow and become adopted by the mainstream.  Simple.

Sherri and I tied the knot this weekend in front of about 250 of our closest friends and family. We’re extremely excited that we could share this special event with people who flew in from all over the globe including Africa, Europe, Vancouver, California, Austin, Florida, and many other places.

I was totally disconnected from the Internet for about 24 hours on Saturday as the groomsmen took my iPhone away during a photoshoot and didn’t let me have it back until early this morning…. and I didn’t feel any sense of digital withdrawl. Can’t say that too often!

What I absolutely loved was that people would come up to me and tell me how much they enjoy reading HermanWeb.us (mostly Sherri) and this blog. Blogs are an efficient way to communicate and allows us to stay in touh with family and friends from all over. The feedback that we received was excellent! Thank you to all of our readers.

Sherri has posted a nice recap of the weekend here and I’ve uploaded some crowdsourced photos to my flickr account. Professional photos will be deliverd in a few weeks but these should suffice for now.

We’ll be leaving September 2 for two weeks to explore the whitewater of the Grand Canyon, the lizards and animals of Yosemite, the river in Zion, and the beautiful scenery of Bryce. Of course we’ll be making stops in Vegas and at the Boulders in Arizona for a bit of pampering, but we’re looking forward to a significant portion of our honeymoon outdoors. Due to the trip, posting will be extremely light for those 2 weeks.

Thank you again to everyone who came out to make last night the most memorable evening of our lives!

Matt Marshall wrote a story today over at VentureBeat talking about how Facebook is developing its own ad targeting technology.

Advertisers placing ads on your profile page will have access not only to your age, gender and location, as they do now, but also on details such as favorite activities and preferred music, according to the piece. They wouldn’t have access to your name however — and thereby have no way to target you as as an individual. Rather, Facebook would let advertisers target groups with similar characteristics.

Personally, I like this a lot. We’ve heard leading new media gurus talk about targeting through all different methodologies (behavioral, contextual, etc) and the ideal ad-server targets on multiple data points… Also note that the data points that Facebook has are all consumer generated so there is no assumptions. This is a goldmine of data that Facebook could monetize and effectively create on of the most efficient media buys available and the wastage factor will be less than most.

The VentureBeat article penned this as negative. The term “bombshell” was used. Are we scared of our own abilities to target?

But the biggest bombshell of the piece is this line: “In addition, the ads would show up on Facebook pages that feature services provided by other companies, one person says.” If true, this suggests Facebook wants to advertise on pages controlled by third-party developers on Facebook’s “platform.”

In the quote above, Marshall talks about how Facebook will show ads on pages that feature service providers (Facebook apps). You didn’t think that Facebook would remain to give total access to developers for no gatekeeping fee, did you? Is this 1999? Facebook has a ginormous footprint on the web with tons of new people subscribing each day - there is no reason why Facebook shouldn’t monetize their platform.

Personally, I see Facebook as my startpage. My desktop. Ideally, that’s what it really is. It’s a social platform and now more than ever, I understand it. Like I said in previous entries on this blog, Facebook’s name is totally “wrong” from a brand identity perspective, but when push comes to shove, that shouldn’t make or break the company.

Facebook has many ways to monetize their platform but the two ways that they are leaning are probably going to be the most lucrative for them.

If we go back to the ad-serving technology that they are building, I’d love to know if they plan on licensing out the information so that other networks canutilize it for targeting capabilities? Also, I’d love to know if they are basing their ad-serving technology on an existing platform like Dart, Accipiter, Atlas, Zedo, etc, or building from scratch? Will it be automated like Google Adwords?

Any media planner knows that the more granular you get with targeting, the less reach you’ll have to that specific audience. Facebook is a site that has a tremendous reach to begin with and could probably substantiate a fairly granular buy with advertisers.

I like where they are going.

Sherri got me all excited with her most recent posting on HermanWeb:  our honeymoon.  The wedding has been overshadowing our grand trip, but I can’t wait to get to Arizona and start our trip through the national parks (Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Yosemite) and a few luxurious hotels/resorts.

Back when I was a camper at Camp Echo Lake in Warrensburg, NY, I went on a 4 week trip outwest, sort of like a teen tour.  Of those 4 weeks we spent out west, we camped/hiked for 2 weeks and the remaining 2, we spent in amusement parks, touring cities, and staying in hotels.  The trip was one of the best in my life and still reminise about it to my good friend, Adam, who I grew up with and also went to camp.  Totally unrelated, did you know CEL has a Facebook group?

We’re going to be trading in our iPhones and Blackberries for Merrels and Leathermans, but it’s a change we welcome and should be an unbelievable trip.  We’ll be live-blogging the trip from the road on HermanWeb but I’m sure I’ll post a few tidbits here.  We’re not leaving yet (Sept. 2), so there shouldn’t be a posting slow-down on the blog.

A conversation I can’t wait to have:

• Darren:  We saw Sequoia whilst outwest
• Friend:  How did it go?
• Darren:  Wen’t great!
• Friend:  Did they give you a term sheet?
• Darren:  NOT Sequoia Capital!  Sequoia National Park!

Relationships are never easy.  Whether your dating, married, working alongside someone, or even friendly, you have a ‘relationship’ with that particular person.  Romance doesn’t have to be involved to officially be in a relationship.  I’d argue that relationships in startups amongst founders are just as difficult to maintain as a romantic relationship, and in some cases, they are much harder.

Every now and then, I get an email from OnStartups, a community for entrepreneurs with more often than not, an insightful article about startups.  Today, Dharmesh Shah penned an article entitled, The Dark Side of Startups:  5 Corrosive Co-Founder Conflicts.  The article resonated well with me as being an entrepreneur, I tend to see quite a bit of these things.

To me, one of the stickiest conversations I’ve been in was about how another co-founder was working harder than another, and wanted her compensation to reflect this.  Yikes.  Personally, I hate those types of conversations.  Dharmesh talks about 5 different scenarios that we’ve encountered before (well, at least one you should have).

1. The “Who Gets What” conflict
2. The “I Work Harder Than You” conflict
3. The “Who Gets to Decide” conflict
4. The “I Can’t Stand Jill, One of us Has to Leave” conflict
5. The “We’re Going Down in Burning Flames” conflict

For me, one thing that I use to try to mitigate any of these issues from happening is to be as open and transparent upfront as possible.  Don’t be afraid to state expectations, sign shareholders agreements, and negotiate a bit upfront.   Not all startups are for everyone and there are plenty of ‘founding teams’ that you could join.  Discuss as much as possible upfront.

I have posted before on this topic here and here.

It’s been a while since I talked about luxury marketing, but today, whilst shopping for tuxedo shoes for my upcoming wedding (on this Saturday), we were walking through Neiman Marcus at the Westchester Mall and came across a display that said, “Status Bags” as illustrated in the picture below.

Whilst walking up to the display, I couldn’t believe that they were so ‘blunt’ with the messaging.  Gucci, Prada, Tods, and other bags were on display for men, right next to the shoes.

One reason why I could see them naming this display “Status Bags” is to draw attention to it, as a sort of humility.  Never hurts to add a bunch of humor, and folks who purchase these luxury items like the attention.

Another reason why I could see Neiman’s creating this display is because men may not know what these bags signify.  Lets say a doctor is walking through Neiman’s looking for a gym tote or travel bag and is fashion deprived.  If he sees a sign that says “status bags” and is looking for an ‘impressive’ bag, he could purchase one of these without having to worry if the bag was going to be ‘hot or not.’

If we change gears and leave Neiman Marcus, we can look at ‘bag’ marketing and reminice about Manhattan Portage, the bag that everyone in Manhattan seemed to have.  The bags became so popular, whilst I was at Skidmore College, a few of my classmates had these bags who haden’t even traveld to Manhattan before!  The company I was working for at the time (Conducive Corp.) released their branded “Conducive” bags on Manhattan Portage items.

For me, bags are fascinating as their not just utility, but are a statement.  Sherri, Angela, and others can attest that I love bags and I’m always commenting on them.

Studying luxury marketing is fascinating as the rules of luxury are always changing.  The one thing I’ve found whilst studying luxury is that one can never achieve pen-ultimate luxury.  There is always something else in the world that you could want and it’s impossible to acquire everything.  This makes the luxury market evergrowing and lucrative, as margins tend to be higher due to price points.