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Here’s an interesting piece from Michael Arrington at Techcrunch about how Google is lining up to tackel the “Facebook problem”…

Google To “Out Open” Facebook On November 5
Michael Arrington

Yesterday [DI> Sept 20th] a select group of fifteen or so industry luminaries attended a highly confidential meeting at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View to discuss the company’s upcoming plans to address the “Facebook issue.”

The meeting was so secret that all attendees had to sign confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements strictly forbidding them from discussing what was shown to them at the meeting. Notwithstanding that NDA, I’ve now spoken with three of the attendees off record to get an understanding of what Google is planning. Google’s goal - to fight Facebook by being even more open than the Facebook Platform. If Facebook is 98% open, Google wants to be 100%.

more here on Techcrunch…

Imeem Partners with Sony BMG to Legally Stream Music
from Mashable! by Adam Ostrow

Imeem, the service that offers a widget for sharing your music playlist, has reached a deal with Sony BMG to legally offer their music to users. In exchange for allowing Imeem users stream Sony BMG music in their widgets, the record label will get a cut of the advertising revenue. Imeem previously signed a similar deal with Warner Music, after the record company first tried to sue them.

Additionally, the company is reportedly in talks with Universal Music Group and EMI Group about similar content deals.

from Mashable! by Adam Ostrow

Appfuel’s Dynamic Facebook Ads Network
from Mashable! by Kristen Nicole

Appfuel is the latest to launch an ad network for Facebook apps. This one looks to be the system that most resembles your typical ad network for a website, and looks to provide more targeted ads. And fast. The goal is to offer relevant ads in less than a half second, creating highly targeted ads depending on the keywords.

On top of its marketplace for advertisers and web publishers, Appfuel also has a new self-serve campaign dashboard where anyone can advertise via Facebook apps for targeting their desired demographic. The company has also hinted that the ability to serve their own dynamic ads through the appfuel network is on its way. For publishers, it appealing to every level of their existence with the ability to promote applications through its appXchange and as an advertiser on its own network.

Via Josh Bernoff (Forrester)

Prof. Lynda M. Applegate at the Harvard Business School writes:
Disruptive changes . . . can be viewed from 2 very different perspectives—as an opportunity or as a threat. In fact, entrepreneurs often view disruptive change as a source of opportunity. When they see a disrupted business environment—whether that disruption is from new technologies, new business models, or new regulations—they ask, “How can I leverage these changes to create value?”

But established companies often approach innovation and disruption much differently. Having worked hard to align strategy and organization to support the current business, they develop tunnel vision, encouraging employees, customers, suppliers, and partners to work together to deliver today’s business results. Even when disruptive opportunities are identified, tightly aligned organizations, business models, and industry relationships make it tough to respond quickly and effectively. As a result, executives in established firms often frame disruption as a threat. When they see changes happening, they work to defend their existing business model and ask, “How can I insulate against these disruptive threats and preserve my current business model?”

Prof. Applegate’s point is interesting in the context of the groundswell. The groundswell is full of threats since you are no longer in control of your brand — your customers are. Seeing this as an opportunity takes guts.

Via Josh Bernoff (Forrester)

A great article here from Charlene Li at Forrester… I have reproduced it in its entirety…via her blog on Forrester

News from WSJ is that Microsoft is looking to take a 5% stake in Facebook for an investment rumored to be between $300-500 million. That would place Facebook’s between $6-10 billion.

It’s that last number that has people swooning — how could a business that didn’t exist just a few years ago be worth THAT much?!?!! Especially when a year ago, Yahoo! was rumored to be willing to pay $1 billion for Facebook.

Let’s break it down. First, Facebook has significantly changed its business from a year ago. It now is open to anyone, not just college students. Moreover, the advent of its open platform means that it any developer worth his or her salt is writing a Facebook app.

This is a crucial point — I wrote a year ago that “as Facebook opens up and grows beyond its core membership of college students, it will have to replace the context of the college campus with content and experiences that people share”. Today, I can find out where my friends have traveled, challenge them to a game of chess, or support them in their favorite causes. Facebook has created a platform and ecosystem that sustains and can grow the community that’s there.

And grown it has. This past August, Facebook had 19 million monthly visitors in the US according to Nielsen Netratings, compared to 9 million a year ago. Facebook says that it has 42 million active users worldwide. At a valuation of $6 billion, those 30 million visitors are worth $142 a piece, and at a $10 billion valuation they are worth $238 a piece. That’s lifetime value — over the course of that person’s relationship with Facebook, it’s the belief that a member will generate that much in advertising and commercial value for Facebook.

Ad spending is roughly $2500 per adult in the US (about $250 billion in US ad spending divided by 100 million US adults). $200-$333 represents between 6-10% of ad spend. If people spend as much time as they potentially could within Facebook, those numbers are feasible.

Why an investment at this time? Facebook’s ultimate goal appears to be an IPO, likely in 2009, because they want to solidify their business and advertising base. That means they’ll need to buy time and a large amount of cash from a strategic partner — or a large institutional round — will give them the leverage to also make strategic acquisitions ahead of an IPO.

Two thoughts about why Facebook would want an investment with Microsoft. First, they already are working together. Microsoft sells the display ads that are targeted against profile information, and will make up about half of the $150 million in revenues Facebook will generate this year. This is part of a multi-year agreement that will extend until 2011. And Facebook’s unique marketing value is that not only can the display ads be highly targeted at actual profile elements, but marketers can also develop a deeper relationship with Facebook members — marketer relationships that Microsoft has in spades.

Second, Facebook needs to scale up a business that’s both consumer-oriented and also developer friendly. Microsoft has excellent developer relationships and also knows a thing or two about how to build successful consumer (and business — watch this space carefully) applications.

Microsoft’s interest is obvious — it wants a stake in one of the hottest companies out there. If they couldn’t outright buy Facebook (they tried last year) they’ll settle for a piece and make sure that no one else — like Google or Yahoo! — can be a part of the party.

via Charlene Li’s blog on Forrester

SEATTLE (AP) — Microsoft Corp. is testing a way to present video advertising that’s less annoying to Web surfers.

Instead of forcing MSN Video visitors to watch an ad before every clip, Microsoft now shows one ad before their first video selection. The next ad appears after at least three minutes of viewing — and it won’t interrupt a video midstream.

The change is part of an MSN Video site redesign that went live in the U.S. Wednesday. In a statement, Microsoft said the new tactic lets people channel surf without being interrupted by a commercial every time.

Web media companies and advertising agencies are still looking for effective but unintrusive ways to present advertising with video. In August, Google Inc.’s popular video-sharing site, YouTube, added semitransparent “overlay” ads at the bottom of some video clips.

The Associated Press uses Microsoft’s MSN video player to distribute video to its newspaper and broadcast members’ Web sites, but MSN’s change does not affect the service.

… or, rationalising the change from technology-driven to commercially-driven software development…

In the commercial world the purpose of any software development is to meet a certain set of commercial needs – put simply, without commercial needs there is nothing to develop.

And in today’s fast changing landscape those needs change or vary very frequently. The route that a startup embarks upon often changes out of all recognition as its business develops and responds to the market. Therefore it is important to have a free and frequent flow of information both ways between technology teams, commercial teams, and their expected customers for any development to continue to generate real value.

That’s not to say the communication is one way, its not, but what this means is that development teams must continue to drive innovative ideas into the mix themselves, but that the commercial teams must also be vocal in inputting what they see as required to generate new commercial value. The highest value is created when technical and commercial teams align on the best mix of technical, functional, and commercial innovation – no one group has the monopoly – and that happens only through communication.

A business changes as it moves from startup status to a commercial operation. Not only does the organization grow in size, with responsibilities being distributed accordingly, but its direction is often shaped in new and sometimes unexpected ways. These and other changes create challenges for the growing business trying to map out its future product development:
• Difficulty in communication with larger numbers of people across different geographies
• Perceived loss of control for original managers
• Dilution or modification of focus

In order for a product to develop and for a busiess to create value in a market these challenges must be addressed.

Communication must be maintained (it’s easy when you’re all in the same room, and many times more difficult when you are not). Communication includes both the formal statements of strategy and development roadmap (so a common goal is held) which must come from leadership, as well as the informal exchange of information and ideas that go into shaping that strategy and roadmap. The first may be regarded as top-down (given by leadership), and the second may be regarded as bottom up (where good ideas bubble to the surface to contribute to strategy).

Perceived loss of control comes about when responsibility gets distributed as new people join in. Co-workers must be given direction, but also trusted and allowed to carry out their directed roles. This means firstly a clear goal is known by all, and secondly, like any sports team, players need to play their positions to make the team work successfully. Each player has a job to do towards the goal, but with a degree of flexibility to respond fluidly as the game unfolds. In a soccer game metaphor the difference is clearly seen: either everyone is running after the ball at the same time (remember those school-boy games), or the ball is passed between skillful players each performing a function to take the ball closer to the goal (the professional game).

Dilution or modification of focus occurs as the leadership team grows and as more ideas and different experiences are added to the mix. Leaders must remain open to new evidence and use it to shape their ideas and product roadmap - that’s not to say they should change their ideas to adopt new ones without question, but that all new information should be considered and judged to either reinforce the existing focus or cause it to be modified in light of new evidence. When modifications are made they must be communicated clearly back to the teams.

At the outset startups need ‘dictators’ with a clear goal to retain focus – often the opportunity that a startup seeks to seize is not commonly evident one, and the entrepreneur finds themselves out on a limb – it’s their unshaking belief in something that is not obvious to others that lets them seize the opportunity that others miss. Once the driving principle of the business is firmly established by these dictators there must be a shift towards a more democratic ‘government’ style of product management in order for the business to grow and compete. In this evolution a prime leader (with a prime principle or belief) leads a group of senior managers (with distinct business function responsibility assigned) to reach a consensus of opinion on direction. Each of these new people in the mix has specialist knowledge to bring to the decision making process, all of it evidence and inputs into decision making. The role of the ‘dictator’ morphs onto one of ‘leader’, where other information and decision-making resources are orchestrated to make the most appropriate leadership decisions, and once again to distribute the outcome to the rest of the people in the organization.

In terms of product management what this means is that the initial idea must have a single-minded focus and must simply not allow other influences to take it off course. And, as the business grows and the commercial organization forms around the core technology new commercial-lead and customer-lead information must be taken as inputs to the product roadmap.

Despite views to the contrary, good product management does not dictate what gets built, nor does it seek to take over from the original dictators. It listens to and gathers inputs from all relevant sources, it adds market knowledge and insights of its own to the mix, it orchestrates the decision-making process amongst the senior decision makers, it ensures decisions get made, it confirms what decisions are made, and it communicates this back out to the distributed business so that all teams understand the common goal. Furthermore it tracks the success of the evolution of its product and feeds this back into the cycle for future iterations and generations of the product.

When this doesn’t happen the result is chaos, in several ways, here are some of the symptoms:
- Not all people in the enlarged organization have a common understanding of the central goal and the supporting product roadmap, indeed they all have different views
- Technical development occurs without reference to commercial needs, resulting in some features that are either not needed or have marginal value
- What is found to be needed in the commercial organization is not known to the development organization, resulting in some commercial opportunities being lost
- Development teams build what the commercial teams are not selling, and commercial teams sell what the technical teams are not developing

Here is a comprehensive list of video search and video sharing sites.

For more details, including whether or not you can upload videos, video editing capability, single-file size limit, time limit, pricing structure, privacy settings, software downloads, target audience, monetize…. View the detailed video search engine and video sharing sites competitive matrix.

This list is also available in a more dynamic form with ratings and editor’s picks at contentinople.

I’ve been speaking for a while now about the soon to be expected surge in mobile content sharing, and here is a press release that caught my eye…

To me its an obvious progression. Today, we create more and more (and better quality) content on mobile devices (phones, and cameras), and we have some amazing web services for photo and video sharing, but we still have that obstacle of getting that great content from our mobile devices to our computers to be able to share it. This will change as more photo and video sharing services add better mobile sharing options, and new devices that have wi-fi connectivity built in will speed up the transfer process which today can be quite slow over cell networks.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 24, 2007 — Atheros Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHR), a leading developer of advanced wireless solutions, today announced that its single-chip AR6001GL ROCm™ (Radio-on-a-Chip) mobile WLAN solution was chosen to provide 802.11g connectivity in the world’s first wireless memory card for digital cameras designed by Eye-Fi, a company dedicated to helping people navigate, nurture and share their digital memories. The highly anticipated Eye-Fi Card is expected to debut this fall – in time for the holiday season. The wireless memory card for digital cameras will capitalize on Wi-Fi, making it effortless for users to upload, save, share and print photos, thereby removing virtually all obstacles to instant photo sharing. This game-changing device will revolutionize the way Wi-Fi is enabled in digital cameras.

Via Atheros Communications

An oft-cited study estimates that just two-thirds of all start-ups see their second birthdays, and less than half make it to their fourth.

Whatever the exact figures, no one would argue that scores of budding new ventures die on the vine. One of the most common killers: lack of focus.

With precious few resources to expend, hewing to a specific, well-defined vision is critical for start-up companies. When entrepreneurs attack too many problems or chase too many opportunities at one time, they often end up with nothing to show for it.

Via Forbes.com

Why do so many entrepreneurs lose focus? The same reason they became entrepreneurs in the first place: ferocious ambition. Entrepreneurs are dreamers; restraint is unnatural.

When it comes to staying focused, here are some lessons to keep in mind.

Perfect One Idea First
Start-up Internet company Kiko was off to a terrific launch in 2005. The online calendar service was attracting high-profile investors, impressing industry luminaries and garnering fantastic press with its new product. By all accounts, Kiko was ready to take off.

But instead, a year later, the company went from being at the top of its game to being auctioned off on eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) for $258,000. What happened?

Many speculated that Google’s (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) new calendar service spelled Kiko’s demise. But if you ask the founders and investors behind the company, it wasn’t just about losing to Google. It was also about losing focus on their product.

“One of the reasons Kiko died was that the founders spent several months working on another project,” says YCombinator’s Paul Graham, a Kiko investor. “If they’d spent those months working on Kiko instead, they might have been far enough along to withstand Google calendar when it came out.”

Graham admits that focus alone may not have been enough to survive Google’s onslaught, but it would have given Kiko a fighting chance.

Don’t Attack Too Many Problems At Once
Face it: You don’t have enough money, time, brains and limbs to fix everything that’s wrong with your company. That’s why you have to focus on the handful of issues that truly demand attention.

Jessica Livingston, author of Founders at Work, has profiled dozens of start-ups. Many have struggled to maintain their focus–even companies that eventually sold shares to the public.

Take TiVo. In its formative years, TiVo (nasdaq: TIVO - news - people ) wanted to build a network server that could provide an array of home-media services, from movies to music. Soon enough, writes Livingston, the company realized its snazzy box would not only be complicated to install, it would be hard for customers to understand. TiVo’s decision: Focus on one killer application and branch out later on.

That “killer app” was the digital video recorder, or DVR–now a market unto itself. TiVo’s current market cap: nearly $600 million.

Identify The Real Opportunities
Sometimes the challenge is not focusing on one value proposition, but being flexible enough to recognize when another is more compelling. It’s not uncommon that entrepreneurs find their greatest opportunities in products they didn’t even realize they were building.

Flickr, the popular photo-sharing site, started life as one feature of a totally different concept: a multiplayer online game called “Game Neverending.” Soon the developers started noticing that their photo-sharing feature was stealing the show.

The founders knew they didn’t have the time and resources to work on both opportunities, so they shifted their focus (with some regret at the time) to Flickr. Good move: In 2005 Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) shelled out a reported $20 to $30 million for Flickr, now the cornerstone of the Web portal’s popular photo-hosting service.

Stick To What You’re Good At
Yes, the world is full of opportunities. But the key to making money is recognizing the thing you can do better than the competition.

In his book, Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It, author Al Ries describes how behemoths like Dell Computer (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ), Home Depot (nyse: HD - news - people ) and Best Buy (nyse: BBY - news - people ) have all built powerful franchises based on one simple concept: being good at one thing.

Like your high school English teacher said: “Keep it simple, stupid.”

Forbes Top 5 Startup Killers