Future

RAZR - My "Nights and Weekend" Phone (posted by Brad Bowers)

It's clear from Motorola's latest earnings report that their RAZR phone is a big hit.  Even before reading that story, I had a strong sense that this was the case, and it wasn't just because I see these sleek phones for sale everywhere I look.

My epiphany came Saturday night when during dinner I noticed that two of my close friends have RAZRs (as do my wife and I). The reason this struck me is because at no time in the history of cell phones, or of knowing my friends, have any of us ever owned the same phone, much less at the same time.

The fact that we all currently own the same mobile phone, at the same point in time, demonstrates to me that Motorola has come up with something important.

Everyone agrees that the styling (especially the thin profile) is incredible.  On the other hand, I also own a Treo 650, and recognize that the RAZR phone is very much a consumer device and not one for any serious business professional (no real email support is the biggest issue, but there are several).

However, given my addiction to email (the first step in recovery is admitting your addiction), I've found having phone without email access is quite liberating (ever stop to notice how everyone with Blackberrys and Treos are always messing with them?).  Plus, given the RAZR's svelte design, it fits nicely in my pocket, certainly a lot better than the bulky Treo.  So, I've dubbed the RAZR my "nights and weekend" phone despite the fact that I'm sometimes using it during the day as well.

Back from first China trip of 2006 (posted by Matt Comyns)

Just back from my first trip to China in 2006 (my fourth in past 12 mos).  30+ meetings in 8 days.  It was a whirlwind. 

More details coming, but here are some general takeaways:

*    The Internet market in China is globally significant and will only get more important going forward.
*    Over 110 million users (gov't announced 111 million last week, and others have estimated 130 million right now).
*    Because of the immaturity of the ecommerce market, not-so-attractive demographics of Internet users (most are young and poor), lack of standards for things like ad tech and pricing/packaging of online ads, the online ad market is way behind where you would think it should be.  That is changing quickly but may be an impediment to the market taking off in 2006 and/or 2007.

The bottomline is that many developments in China are impressive.  The traffic volume of popular sites is already huge.  The overhead of building these businesses is very low.  And new entrepreneurial developments are cranking up everywhere.  Just wait until the paid search market kicks in.  The big question is...when does the China Internet become #1 in the world?  In my opinion it will (can't miss).  This may take 7-10 yrs.  But it could come sooner.  I think 3-5 yrs out, it may surprise a lot of people.

Non-China companies cannot ignore this market.  Now is the time to start setting up shop there.  It will be a meaningful revenue and profit stream for just about any successful Internet company within 3 to 5 years.  And China will likely be every Internet company's (those that enter now) largest market within 10 yrs (if not sooner).

AOL Buys Video Search Technology (posted by Brad Bowers)

It was announced today that AOL bought video-search start up Truveo.  Lots of commentary out there by Michael at Tech Crunch, and Om, among others.

This seems to make sense for AOL as they are making more and more of their video content available on the web and it will be increasingly challenging for users to find the content they desire.  The proliferation of professionally-produced video content finding its way to the web is clearly ramping up

Perhaps as important is the fast growing segment of user generated video content.  Given the low cost of the tools and technologies required to record and edit video, the proliferation of broadband access, and the fact that user submissions are powering several sites such as GoFish, YouTube, Grouper, and others, it seems clear that having good technology to search these offerings is becoming more and more important. 

AOL clearly decided that buying a good search technology was a better/faster way to market than building their own.

Predictions for 2006 (posted by Matt Comyns)

Before the year gets going too far, I have to put down some of my predictions/stock calls.  My thoughts haven't changed a whole lot from last year.

GOOG, YHOO, CRM (Salesforce.com), EBAY, BIDU, CTRP, 0700.HK (Tencent), SINA, TOMO, CNET.