metarand

Google Seeks Your Attention, Or Does It?

According to an unverified, leaked Google video, the search engine giant’s Reader product is intent on recommending feeds to users based on their other activities and previous subs.

Attention economy advocate, Chris Saad, has weighed in on this development here.

While this remains a “purported” move on Google’s part, it would not surprise me at all. Leveraging attention data has been on the cards for a while now. The key moral question remains: will the world’s corporates and, eventually, governments use it for good or as a way of shaping perceptions.

Anyone who has lived through an oppressive regime will readily understand the slippery slope.

Pladuct: the new web mantra

Fred Wilson makes some excellent points regarding the interchangeability of the terms product and platform.

Let me give my take on his three key points:

1. Products must focus on platform requirements – how will they integrate with platforms that are already out there (eg Facebook, Myspace, Youtube), will they be locked to a single platform or able to adapt to other platforms (untethered), will the data they generate exist within a platform black hole (eg posting a video on Facebook – not easy to move it off of Facebook), how well do they cater to the stage of development of target platforms (eg Facebook is currently about engagement but shifting towards deeper content, Myspace is about self expression).

2. Products are platforms – does your product have an API, can others build upon it in an adaptive, innovative manner, is the sum greater than the parts (Twitter + Twitteriffic + Twittervision).

3. Give more with your pladuct than you get – do your users get more than they give, do your users get more from you than they can get from a competitor.

The term “pladuct” in point 3 is not a  typo — think of it as the mash up of “platform” and “product” –  type PLADUCT in big, bold letters on your office/garage whiteboard/wall — as a constant reminder of the new web mantra.

China: King of the Virtual Worlds

China is set to become a key player in the virtual worlds arena. As Kaiser Kuo over at Ogilvy China notes: China’s virtual worlds have the advantage of being able to learn from the mistakes that Linden Labs’ Second Life has made without any real direct threat from SL in their huge home market.

Kaiser gives a good run down on Novoking, a Chinese virtual world due for release soon. They have a sound approach — prebuilt for ease of use with external graphics software for ugc and a restricted economy.

Changing the lexicon: private equity

The New York Times reports that billions of dollars are pouring into new private equity funds worldwide. In Europe Kohlberg Kravis is raising a 7.7 bn euro fund, and in Asia CVC Capital Partners is raising a $5 bn fund and TPG a $4.2 bn one.

Take Asia – there is currently $35 bn sloshing around looking for the right deal. In the first half of 2007 $15.4 bn was committed to the region, a rise of 57% over the same period in 2006.

Hoo boy! Perhaps this is why many of my former venture capital colleagues are now private equity players. There is a saying in the industry that it takes as much effort to pull off a successful seed deal as a mega deal.

But is it all rosy? Contrarian investors take note: there seems to be somewhat of a herd mentality at play.

The NY Times article quotes research undertaken by the Center for Asia Private Equity Research – 22 deals worth $38.9 bn failed in the first half of 2007.

Regulation, competition and takeover targets are stiffening to the private equity barrage.

Tan the Google Man

The New York Times has a piece about the Google photogenie, Tan Chade-Meng, who likes to have his photo taken with luminary visitors to the Googleplex.

I love this line of his, “In my free time, I do engineering”, and his job title – “Jolly Good Fellow (which nobody can deny)”  — it’s good to see fun and frivolity alive and well in the workplace. Captains of industry, take note!

You can see more of Tan’s “mengling” with the stars here. The picture above is of him with John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins.