
Facebook WhatsApp Red Ocean, Google Nest Blue Ocean
I come here to bury the WhatsApp conversation not to praise it. The Noble Om hath told you Zuck was ambitious. And grievously he is paying for it. Yes, $19 billion dollars. Yes, half a billion people use WhatsApp and its on its way to being the ne…

The AOL 401K Lesson: Is HR Failing at Your Company?
The cost-cutting policy change at AOL intended to save a few million dollars a year (hey, free money to bottom-line) is yet another example of a failing human resources function in many companies. While there are many reasons to justify cutting corners in benefits to employees especially in an earnings-starved company like AOL, it was […]

Can Yahoo ever be a leader?
Although the company is assured a place in Web history, Yahoo over the years has always seemed to have the role of reflecting conventional wisdom about the Web rather than changing people’s perceptions of what’s possible. No wonder Om Malik believes its glory days are over. Yahoo’s first iteration, back in 1994, was as a […]

Enterprise Headlines and Highlights, 2012-06-24
Highlights of enterprise software and solutions news from the past two weeks. Oracle America sales head leaves after trashtalking Mark Hurd and HP online. Larry buys Lanai. Oracle wins nothing in lawsuit vs Google. Oracle’s results fail to impress. BTW, @larryellison still has just one tweet … Enterprise 2.0 Gets Down to Business (SAP) “I […]

Crappy Content is a Crappy Business
Came across this Tweet a few moments ago from my friend Leigh. content is a crappy business $AOL “@hblodget: There Is Something Fundamentally Wrong With AOL’s Media Business read.bi/vPzhT4” — Leigh Drogen (@LDrogen) December 17, 2011 I was about to RT or write a snarky reply, but then I got thinking about Christopher Hitchens, especially after reading Christopher […]

Congratulations to TechCrunch
TechCrunch is being acquired by AOL . I’m sure you picked up something about this in your reading today… I met Mike many years ago when he started TechCrunch and it was evident that his particular genius was identifying a segment of the media ecosystem that was ripe for disruption. His single minded focus and […]

As Twitter Takes Over IM, We Need Clients with Friendly Nicknames
It used to be Yahoo, MSN or AOL chat. Then Skype took over – it is my default IM system now, despite it’s obvious flaws. But nowadays the fastest way to reach most of my contacts is DM on Twitter. That is if I can remember their Twitter account names. While @firstnamelastname has become a […]

Beyond Buzz
Is Google Buzz just a Twitter wanna-be, or is it a key component of a much larger strategy to take on Facebook and own the infrastructure of the social web?

Get Ready for the Much Smaller AOL
AOL’s strategy, the latest new one, is to shift away from being an ISP to being a “next generation publishing” entity. Without parsing what it means to be “next generation” when you are doing what Yahoo has been doing for years, this sounds like a reasonable strategy but the anchor that weighs it down is […]