Members of the Online Publishers Association have decided that bigger is better in their quest for brand-advertising dollars, and 26 members of the group are adopting a new set of three interactive ad units to get agency minds on better creative and off low-CPM ad networks. The publishers, including Martha Stewart Living, Conde Nast Digital, […]
More Capping
Another voice in my crusade (such as it is) to stop paying exorbitant salaries to everyone on the government dole. In the hubbub surrounding President Obama’s decision to cap salaries of commercial-bank CEOs at $500,000 (if they receive future federal funds), the salaries of college and university presidents have been flying under the radar. Some […]
Money to Grow
The quote from Shane’s book yesterday could be taken to imply that somehow it is the venture capitalists that create jobs. Correlation, not causation. As the title tried to convey, it is growth companies that create jobs, and since venture capitalists try to invest in growth companies, their investments are a good proxy for growth […]
To Encourage Growth We Need to Invest in Growth Businesses
My friend John K. and I disagree about how to create jobs by encouraging more startup formation. I think the disagreement comes from John wondering how to create more startups and me wondering how to create more jobs. There’s a difference, as explained pretty well in Scott Shane‘s article in The American, The Startups We […]
Return on Venture Money is Not the Bottleneck
I think the bottleneck to increased startup formation is people, not exits or tax rates. If exits were the problem, then LPs would stop putting money into venture funds as expected returns diminish. Fred Wilson (and many others) have said that lack of money is not the problem. I believe them. So exits can’t be […]
Advertising in a Downturn: Other Opinions
I get a lot of hits from people searching for “marketing in a downturn” or “advertising in a downturn.” I haven’t blogged on that for over a year because there’s no point in trying to predict the present. But for all you searchers, here’s a great resource: the FT’s Advertising in a Downturn page. Supports […]
Let’s Not Pretend There’s No Problem and There’s Nothing We Can Do About It Anyway
I don’t agree with government sponsored venture capital, as I’ve said before*. So I wasn’t enchanted by Tom Friedman’s NYT Op-Ed proposing that the government give bailout money to the top VC firms to invest. On the other hand, I thought it a constructive proposal, an addition to the debate. One of the primary concerns […]
Rent vs. Buy
Saul Hansell’s article in the NYT, Why Are iPhone Users Willing to Pay for Content?, tells the obvious part of the story: Apple has created an environment that makes buying digital goods easy and common. With an infrastructure that supports one-click purchases of songs and videos, it was easy to add applications in the same […]
How to Levitate
I was reading Bill Tancer’s book Click last night. I generally hate this sort of book. So practical. But Tancer’s smart and had access to a ton of data, so whatever. At one point, he lists the top ten “how to” queries in the US for the four weeks ending 12/21/2007: 1. How to tie […]
i2pi
My old friend Josh Reich finally launches out on his own with i2pi, a data consultancy. I’ve worked with Josh for some five years now and he has the most analytical firepower of anyone I’ve ever met. Plus he has some really out there geeky hobbies that never cease to amuse me. If you have […]