Moses Kagan's Aurora Borealis

The NY Times has Verizon opening up its network to non-Verizon devices by the end of 2008. Customers will have the opportunity to purchase any (approved) device and hook it up to the web using the Verizon network, presumably for a monthly fee.

Expect a wave of newly smart devices hooked up to the web. For example: Your car sat nav is going to communicate with your email address book, Yelp and Google, so that you won't need to enter an address or run into a known traffic jam ever again.

Welcome to the wireless world.

Labels: mobile, Verizon

Techcrunch has more on the MoveOn versus Facebook controversy. For those living under a rock, MoveOn objects to Facebook's new advertising platform, which takes disrespect for user privacy to new heights by publishing details of user purchases in the Facebook newsfeed.

Why is MoveOn, a liberal non-profit which has, until now, focused on politics, getting involved in a public spat with an internet company?

Consider the demographic of this issue: MoveOn, which survives on donations, wants / needs to connect with voters likely to be amenable to the MoveOn message. Young people tend to be more liberal than older people. Educated people are more likely to be liberal than uneducated people. Facebook's users are disproportionately young and educated.

By positioning itself as the champion of Facebook's users (through this personal information gathering petition), MoveOn is reaping millions of dollars worth of free publicity and introducing itself to millions of people in its target demographic.

Pretty amazing marketing strategy, if you ask me.

Labels: facebook, moveon.org

Michael Arrington is bitter regarding Yahoo's recent announcement of "Inbox 2.0", their attempt to wrap social features around the Yahoo email platform.

Arrington writes: "It makes me sad because it is absurd for Yahoo to keep launching new social networking products, almost monthly, without what appears to be any sort of high level strategic vision.

A few months ago it was Mash, followed by a quiet closure of Yahoo 360. Earlier this month they let loose a new college/alumni network experiment called Kickstart.

And now Inbox 2.0, but without any statement about integration with Mash or any other Yahoo properties. And, how does their recent acquisition of Zimbra fit into Inbox 2.0?"

To me it's pretty obvious: The social-networking phenomenon is, to some extent, about luck. Sure, functionality plays a role. And the tone matters. But ultimately, some social-networks get big quickly because they hit the right early users, the ones with large enough personal networks to push the service out quickly. Then the magic of viral marketing takes over and growth accelerates.

The cost of building new social networks is low. Ning and other basically let you do it for free. If you want to own your platform, you can build one for less than $100k.

If you're Yahoo, and you keep seeing social platforms launch and grow large quickly (at your expense), you have to start to wonder if you ought to just get a bunch of small teams working on launching home-grown networks. Sure, many will fail, but if even one succeeds, you're guaranteed to make all of the money you invest back.

Labels: social-networking, Techcrunch, Yahoo

Am listening to Ralph de la Vega, Group President of AT&T wireless, talk about the new AT&T's content strategy.

Ralph argues that the next $1bn business is figuring out how to get content licensed for multiple screens (TV, PC, mobile) so that the content can follow the customer all the way through the customer's life.

Having spent a lot of time with a traditional music business in the UK, I know how thorny the issue of rights management is. For that reason, I believe that there are going to be massive opportunities for "greenfield" content producers who are going to create new content for which they will own all of the rights - and therefore be in a position to make multi-platform deals with companies like AT&T.

Labels: ATT, content, Video