» Really incredible article on TechCrunch from entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa. Why Silicon Valley Left Boston's Route 128 In The Dust. I'm a Bostonian myself, and albeit this is way before my time, the story is great. (thanks Will J) (0)
Archive / October, 2009
» Hire Hacks has an excellent overview and introduction for hiring in startups: Hiring Hacks for Founders. Hiring is one of the most important aspects in a startup, so this is a must read. (0)
» WSJ's Venture Dispatch Compares Facebook and Zappos Employee Retention Attitude based on last week's Startup School talk. Facebook hires entrepreneurs that may leave. Zappos hires people that will be kept. Very thorough. (0)
TripAdvisor Acquires Chinese Travel Site Kuxun.cn, Expands into China
30 Oct 09 / by Mark Bao / Business / / Comments
Gist: TripAdvisor acquires Kuxun.cn and expands into $6.9 billion Chinese online travel market. Chinese market in a lot of sectors is huge. Good play.
Boston-based TripAdvisor, a division of Expedia Inc. (EXPE) announced their acquisition of Beijing-based Kuxun.cn, a Chinese flight, hotel and rail search engine. CEO Steve Kaufer sees China as a huge opportunity for growth, nothing that this acquisition will “further position TripAdvisor for expansion in this fast-growing market segment.” TripAdvisor dabbled in the Chinese market in the past with DaoDao.com, a travel reviews site, which turned out quite well. Kuxun.cn will stay an independent subsidiary.
The TripAdvisor press release notes that the Chinese online travel market is worth $6.9 billion (USD), according to a research study performed by travel industry research house PhoCusWright. “Due to a variety of factors, the online channel is expected to continue on a strong growth trajectory, and by 2011 will account for about 20% of the total market.”
I’m surprised that a travel house hasn’t picked up on the Chinese market yet, especially with the metrics available in the past that extrapolated the Chinese online travel market pretty damn close to the actual values. Indeed, most Chinese markets at the moment are ripe for the picking. Chinese social networking site QZone, based on the QQ instant-messaging platform and owned by Shenzhen-based internet leader Tencent (SEHK: 0700), surpasses Facebook, MySpace, and all other traditional social networks in both users and activeness. It’s also the right time to start a Chinese startup.
Good play, TripAdvisor.
» Top venture capitalist and Union Square Ventures boss Fred Wilson explains slow capital and why he and USV practice it. #1 hits home. really: don't rush to a deal. Great guide if you're doing investing too. (0)
» Excellent startup advice journal Venture Hacks added a number of enriching resources relating to my Startup School 2009 Notes posted earlier. Thanks VH! (0)
» Ustream Pairs Live Video With Simultaneous Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace Chat — by Adam Ostrow of Mashable. Ustream is certainly taking live video to the next level. pulling in data from the web is very smart. (0)
» Speaker's Tip: Don't tell the audience you aren't prepared by Jason Fried of 37signals. excellent article! (0)
Motorola Droid Announced on Verizon, Engadget has a Hands-On
28 Oct 09 / by Mark Bao / Mobile, Technology / / Comments
Verizon (VZ) announced the Motorola Droid (MOT) operating on its network today, a very powerful and elegant Android-powered mobile cellphone. As rumored, it arrives on November 6. With a viral marketing campaign executed earlier this month at DroidDoes.com, directly targeted at the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and exposing its shortcomings, the mobile industry prepared for the launch of the already-leaked phone.
The leaked specs presented it as probably the best consumer Android device available, with the same processor as the iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre, a large and extremely pixel-dense screen (at about 840px wide), and the Android 2.0 Eclair operating system.
Engadget has shots of the really slick hardware and software on the Droid.
The Mark Bao Journal reported on the effects of the Motorola Droid and Android 2.0 on the state of the Android platform itself. I speculate that Android will beat out Palm (PALM) Pre, Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry, and Nokia (NOK) Symbian as the #2 smartphone platform under the iPhone.
Verizon Communications stock went up 2.57% to 29.95 today.
New Android 2.0 SDK and rumored Droid launch Nov. 6: What Android 2.0 and the new Motorola Droid mean for Android
27 Oct 09 / by Mark Bao / Analysis, Business, Mobile, Technology / / Comments
Gist: Android 2.0 SDK released, Motorola Droid and HTC Droid Eris to launch on Verizon on Nov 6, as rumored by Boy Genius Report. Hardware has always been the bottleneck on Android, among other problems. The marketing by Verizon making Droid a serious mobile device for the alternative iPhone market as well as the excellent hardware on the Motorola Droid, and the polished Android 2.0 Eclair OS, will allow Android to become more mainstream.
Google (GOOG) has made official the new Android 2.0 SDK, which allows the new 2.0 “Eclair” APIs to be used in Android applications, including improved bluetooth, multitouch, sync, account management, and, of course, support for new Android 2.0 devices such as the Motorola Droid. The new SDK update is downloadable immediately. Android 2.0 official video is at the bottom of this article.
Leading mobile industry news and insider source Boy Genius Report reports that the Motorola Droid (MOT) and HTC Droid Eris (2498.TW), two new Android 2.0 Eclair devices, will hit the stores on November 6 on the Verizon Wireless (VZ) network.
The Droid devices, highly hyped by Verizon as the iPhone killer, has been the subject of quite a bit viral marketing and noise in the mobile industry. Earlier this month, Verizon launched a mysterious marketing page for the Motorola Droid at DroidDoes.com, a direct attack against the Apple (AAPL) iPhone device’s shortcomings.
I’ve recently moved from bearish to bullish on the Android platform. The first T-Mobile Android G1 device wasn’t polished and didn’t at the time seem like a viable competitor to the iPhone.
However, the Motorola Droid could be a huge development in the Android environment. Droid represents a serious advance in promoting Android as a serious device, built and supported by two serious mobile companies. The specs of the device (the same processor as the iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre, large screen, full of memory, ready for backgrounding applications, and more delicious specs) will hold its claim to fame as the premier Android hardware.
The bottleneck to the proliferation of Android has partly been the hardware that it runs on. The G1’s hardware didn’t cut it, especially since Android and all Android applications operate on Java, which is a notoriously slow platform. (EDIT: No, it isn’t, I’m wrong; I had neglected to mention that the Android platform has a custom build of Java called Dalvik.) The other bottleneck is the App Store, which, although it will improve over time, the derivative of available applications needs to start getting better. And with the new SDK and excellent new Android 2.0 Eclair, we may be seeing real changes soon.
