I've Moved (Actually, My Blog Has Moved)

At PayCycle, we just launched our company blog site. Going forward, I will continue blogging, but at the new PayCycle blog site. My new blog can be found at: http://blogs.paycycle.com/vinay/

Just bookmark your browser (or update your RSS feed) to the new location, and keep reading...

Shai Agassi Speaks at Web 2.0 Summit

Shai Agassi left SAP earlier this year to start Better Place.

"How do you take a country off oil?" is the business problem he's trying to solve. In his model, you are charged for the miles driven and not the battery. The price of a battery and electricity is $0.06/mile for an automobile. In his startup's model, the battery is not part of the purchase price of the car. He will build the network and will purchase electricity to charge batteries. Israel and Denmark are introducing significant taxes (60% - 180%) of the purchase price of gasoline-powered cars as an incentive to drive the adoption of electric cars.

Renault-Nissan will manufacture the initial eletric cars that will be used on Shai's electric network. The cars will arrive between 2010 and 2014.

Digg's Kevin Rose - "How to Be Scrappy"

Digg's founder Kevin Rose talks about "how to be scrappy" based on his experiences at Digg:

• When Digg launched, Kevin kept his day job and worked on Digg in the nights and weekends.
• He hired his initial developers on elance-- one in India and one in Nova Scotia. This worked initially, but he hired local developers as the site grew to deal with scalability issues.
• As the founder and CEO, he was the face of the company. He recommended Gary van der Chuck - "Personal Brand."
• Start a podcast. It's a very cheap way to get publicity.
• Use the blog to get PR.
• Even now, Digg is launching new products with rented servers and Amazon S3 for storage.

He sees funding going away for consumer internet companies in the short term, but thinks this is a still a good time to start new companies.

Thoughts on Platform Strategy from Google, MySpace, Facebook, and Microsoft

Max Levchin (Slide) hosted a panel on the platform with Vic Gundotra (Google), Amit Kapur (COO MySpace), David Treadwell (Microsoft), and Elliot Schrage (Facebook).

It's funny seeing these guys on stage. On Wednesday, I asked the Microsoft guy to "keep it down" during one of the sessions.

Google

• They developed their platform on open web technologies.
• There are different levels of platform, some that are application-specific and others that are more general.
• They are interested in advancing the capabilities in the underlying platform, such as the web browser.
• In the battle of Windows vs the Web, the Web has won.
  

MySpace

• The platform: (1) drives activity in the ecosystem by enabling users to contribute, drives the creation of new ecosystems, such as virtual goods, and (3) is a great marketing vehicle.
  

Facebook

• The platform allows developers to create new engaging experiences and monetize those experiences.
• The Travel Channel developed a Facebook application that generates more traffic than their dedicated web property.
• Feedback from developers is critical.
  
• 400,000 developers signed up for the Facebook platform, which far exceeded the goals from the original business plan.
• Facebook announced a collaboration with Salesforce at the Dreamforce conference.
  

Microsoft

• Building a platform with 3 goals: (1) comprehensive platform, (2) choice, so you can take what you like, and (3) take advantage of computing power available on the client.
• As you introduce new versions of the platform, compatibility with previous versions is important.

A Chat with Elon Musk from Tesla Motors

Elon Musk from Tesla Motors spoke on stage with John Battelle. The $109k Tesla roaster is faster than all Ferrari's except the Enzo, and Tesla is currently manufacturing 800-1500 / year. The current waiting list is 1200 people.

Elon is also starting two other start-ups:

• Solar City: solar systems available on a lease basis for residential and small business. Recently completed a large financing round, 3x the previous round.
• SpaceX: a 6-year-old start-up dedicated to space exploration technologies. His fourth launch successfully entered orbit.
  

When Elon went to college, he set three goals for himself:

1. The Internet
2. Renewable energy
3. Space exploration and taking life to other planets

His three start-ups are the fulfillment of his second and third goals. As the co-founder of PayPal, he did okay with checking off the first goal. Check out his bio on Wikipedia.

The Web and Politics

John Heilemann hosted a panel on politics and the web with Arianna Huffington, Gavin Newsome, and Joe Trippi.

Highlights and take-aways:

• "The Internet has killed Karl Rove politics." - Ariana
  
• "The truth keeps intruding into people's rooms." - Ariana (in reference to the power of the Internet in politics)
• The Internet medium demands authenticity from politicians.
• Joe talked about a "mywhitehouse.gov" as a portal used by the President to reach out to citizens to develop policy and legislation.
  
• There is no such thing as "off the record" anymore.
  

Demand Media

Richard Rosenblatt of Demand Media. They generate content for the web. They are the largest producer of video for YouTube.

They've raised $355M

Demand Studios

• Has a catalog of content that must be generated, along with the price (e.g. $15).
• Writers who are part of their network can checkout a title, write the content, and are paid for that piece.
• They have a similar model for generating video content for online advertisers.

Pluck on Demand: is a tool that allows website owners to have content generated for their website. They have a series of widgets (e.g., Related Content) that can be embedded in your website. The content for these is generated by Demand Media, and the widgets contain advertising.