Archive for July 2009

We’re a company of night owls here at Kosmix. It’s not unusual to see engineers online in the wee hours of the morning, totally absorbed in some complex categorization project or working out a creative way to use APIs. Coffee gets many of us through the “early” hours of 10 a.m. to noon. And, like a lot of other people in Silicon Valley, there are those among us who can’t imagine starting the day without an energy drink. (Shock! Horror!)

Kosmix’s Red Bull devotees got a wake up call recently when RightHealth’s Dr. Steven Chang appeared on View from the Bay to discuss the health risks of energy drinks. It turns out that while energy drinks may temporarily improve cognitive performance and alertness, studies show how that they contain significantly more sugar and caffeine than sodas. These drinks can cause dehydration, headache, increase in blood pressure and heart rate, sleep deprivation, and anxiety. A 24 oz can of ROCKSTAR, for example, has as much caffeine as three espressos, and as much sugar as six large doughnuts (which, coincidentally, is also the breakfast of champions for a few Kosmixers).

Oddly, the FDA regulates the caffeine content in sodas but not in energy drinks. This may change as energy drinks increase in popularity; the market for these beverages is upwards of $4 billion in sales and growing fast.

While proper sleep and nutrition may not always be at the top of our priority lists, having a doctor on staff has certainly made the Kosmix and RightHealth teams more aware of these kinds of health issues. At the very least, Dr. Chang’s comments have caused us to take a second look at the ingredients in the drinks we consume every day, and understand the risks related to excessive caffeine and sugar intake.

So how many of you run on Red Bull?

Yesterday, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced that they had finally reached an agreement on a long-sought search partnership. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft’s Bing will power Yahoo! Search, while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Yahoo! will continue to own the user experience of its search site, but the technology will be powered by Bing. Yahoo’s stock has been on a free-fall since the deal was announced, shedding 12% of its market cap yesterday, and another 4% today. Microsoft’s stock is up 1-2% while Google is up 2-3%. Clearly, investors feel this is not a good deal for Yahoo, but it’s great news for Google. It is the exact opposite of what you would expect when #3 and #2 team up to take on #1!

The Good

1) Consumers will benefit from having a strong alternative to Google in Bing. Many analysts and industry experts who recently reviewed Bing feel it is on par, if not better, than Google on relevance and user interface.

2) Search advertisers will now have a viable alternative to Google. They will no longer have to rely solely on a single traffic source (Google AdWords) that currently accounts for over 75% of all paid search clicks.

3) Publishers who earn revenue from search ads will have someone else besides Google to turn to. They will no longer have to negotiate with the dominant player, which should result in better bargaining power for them, thereby strengthening their financials.

4) Yahoo will go back to its roots of being a media company, ending its seven year foray into search algorithms and technology. Prior to acquiring Inktomi in 2003 and Overture in 2004, Yahoo had outsourced search to various players (including, at one point, to Google), and was focused on building great properties like its frontpage, Mail, News, Sports, Finance, and so on.

5) Search engine startups will have one less competitor to worry about. This should, hopefully, foster more innovation and venture capital investment in this lucrative sector.

Disclosure: I owned shares of YHOO at the time of writing this article. I was also previously employed at this company.

In addition to my work as a Web designer at Kosmix, I manage a San Francisco band called Seconds on End.  We play at places like the Boom Boom Room in San Francisco, the Little Fox in Redwood City, and the Pioneer Saloon in Woodside (in fact, we’ll be in Woodside this Friday, if you want to check us out), we’re known for experimentation, and we have a eclectic but loyal following of passionate fans.  In lots of ways, the band is exactly like a startup.

At first glance, the worlds of music and technology are polar opposites. The rock star and the geek seem to come from two very different sides of the social spectrum.  One is about sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. The other: Long nights, hard work, and sitting alone in front of computer cranking out code.

But startups and bands have one key thing in common: both have to attract and grow fans.  And to get a hit, you need just the right mix of quality, promotion and image.  Here are a few things I’ve learned from my experiences with bands and startups:

Connect to Your Audience
Quality is always the first essential element—if your music sucks, or your startup doesn’t fill a need, you won’t get very far.  Let’s assume that you’ve scaled this first big hurdle.  The next step is to get people to connect with you.

Great bands and startups realize that success isn’t just about creating awesome music or a killer product; it’s also about forging relationships with people. I can tell you that getting a band off the ground requires hundreds, if not thousands, of these personal connections. Band managers used to do this face-to-face, through mailing lists and flyers. These days, social networks are the best way for bands and startups to foster communication with their fans, and, perhaps more importantly, to enable fans to connect with each other. You’re creating a community around your music or company.

Have a Clear Brand Identity
The most successful bands and startups give fans a sense of themselves.  It’s a mark of identity to be part of a band’s or startup’s extended community. People who follow the Grateful Dead are saying something about themselves—who they are, their values and goals in life. To be a fan who tours with Kenny G is saying something entirely else.

The same holds true in the tech world. MySpace attracts very different kinds of people then Facebook.  And this brand identity changes as the community changes.  Facebook’s growth markets now include people in their 60’s and international markets.  How will this shifting consumer base change the way old school Facebook users think of themselves?

Understand the Adoption Curves
There are two types of music fans:  Those who are always on the hunt for new music, who love live shows and plan their vacations around the music festivals; and those who prefer to listen to mainstream hits on the radio. The first type is much more likely to embrace new, unknown bands.

It’s the same with the startup world. You have a better chance in gaining early adoption with  people who use the Internet on a daily basis, and who like trying new sites, services.  It’s much easier to convince a hacker to use your new service then someone who logs on once a week to use email.

These users and listeners are more demanding about your product and music.  They are not always going to give you glowing feedback, and they may tell you things that you don’t want to hear. But you need to listen. This input from early adopters is invaluable- you’ll never find a group who cares more about what you’re doing—even if they don’t always agree with you.    And that, my friends, is what being a true fan is all about.

Ever since the early days of the internet, Web search has lived an austere life presenting itself as a simple textbox. See how web pioneers AltaVista and Yahoo looked in their early days. Later Google stormed onto the scene packing so much power behind that simple looking textbox that many were and still are surprised by what it can bring up. And as they say rest is history.

In a recent survey 62.6% of web users see no issues with their current search experience and a whopping 98% see no reason to switch from their primary search engine. So have we reached the end of search evolution? Do alternatives matter? Many small companies want you to rethink Web search and are forging ahead with new ideas. Lets sample a few.

• Zvents is an events search engine that returns local events happening near you with the catchy tagline ‘Discover Things To Do’. They have extended the one textbox input to three text boxes one each for what, when and near inputs. This simple change in input interface has saved me countless minutes trying to figure where I can practice my salsa dance moves.

Notice how the different inputs are suited to their intent. I can type in phrases like ‘today‘ or ‘tonight‘ or ‘tomorrow‘ into the ‘when‘ box and Zvents knows what I mean. And the relevance of results Zvents returns is stellar. Give it a try yourself.

• Uptake is a new kind of travel search engine that goes beyond flights and hotels. It presents an easy and intuitive set of options besides the vanilla text box to zone in on your travel plans and brings up relevant listings, reviews and ratings.

Again notice how the set of options are tightly coupled with common travel wants. It allows you to specify what kind of activities you like to do, whether you are taking pets with you or not, what kind of amenities you prefer, etc .. And to top it all, the options change based on what you input into the first textbox. Give it a spin, you won’t regret.

• Hunch turns search upside down by asking you questions to help you identify what you really want. Consider this tongue in cheek example.

Hunch wants to change the process of search from type few keywords and press enter (often repeatedly) to a fun and interactive process of question and answers. On the way you learn many other things that you might have otherwise not considered or known about.

As each example above illustrates, by changing the input in simple and subtle ways you can enhance the search experience dramatically often with very pleasing results (especially when you alter it to suit the context). While general purpose search engines will continue to offer a simple textbox there are a plethora of alternatives search engines offering something new and exciting.  To wean people off their current search habits new companies have to change the perception of what search means, starting with the interface.  It won’t be easy but one textbox had its heyday – may be it’s time for a new paradigm? What do you think?

Here at Kosmix, most of my colleagues are obsessed with their iPhones.  Folks carry the devices everywhere they go, hallway conversations buzz about the latest killer app, our MeeHive team is constantly finding cool ways to bring personalized news to the iPhone, and there’s even a Kosmix email distribution list for iPhone devotees. The iPhone LOVE is palpable around here.  And then there’s me.

I do not own an iPhone.  Some may call me a technical philistine, but let me explain why I don’t succumb to the hype.  To put it bluntly, the iPhone is just not a good phone.

The iPhone is a great “smart” media device, but for just making voice calls, it sucks. Big time.  Even the most ardent iPhone users acknowledge the dropped calls and poor voice quality.  So while I appreciate all the other capabilities, not to mention the 50,000 odd applications, I’m picky about the device performing its core essential function.

This brings up an interesting discussion on whether we should be building products or platforms or both.  Should devices, or in the case of Kosmix, websites, be designed in a strictly utilitarian manner with a focus on a small set of simple and clear functions that are exceedingly well implemented, or should they be like the iPhone – a platform that enables numerous functions, but is not necessarily good at performing each?

While the value of the simple approach is obvious, the benefits of the platform are not so clear.  Beyond the “cool” factor, do most people want all the bells and whistles the iPhone has?  What if these features are so revolutionary that they change the very way we function?  Is some loss in user experience an appropriate price to pay for introducing users to a new way of doing things?   The limitation of the product is that it doesn’t allow users to go beyond the current usage pattern and try new uses, whereas a platform encourages the user base to find more innovative uses and forms a community around the platform.

These are some of the questions we ponder at Kosmix as we work on presenting the information on the web in a new way that will make a difference in people’s lives.  And, I have to admit it: while I still want a phone that works, I can’t help but think about whether my life will be changed if I owned an iPhone.  Tell me, iPhone fans, what am I missing?

Despite occasional pretension to the contrary, we’re a bookwormish bunch at Kosmix. More than once I’ve watched folks lugging a stack of books from the library across the street, and several Kindles float around the office amongst those on the tech bleeding edge. I thought it might be useful to share a fascinating tome I’m buried in: “West of Eden: The End of Innocence at Apple Computer”.

Oh, did I mention that a few of us are also certified Apple fanboys? They haven’t issued my membership card yet, but I’ve certainly not given up hope. In the meanwhile, I’m killing two birds with one stone/book.

West of Eden discusses the tumultous 80s at Apple, in Silicon Valley and in the computer industry in general. It chronicles the launch of the Apple II, the launch of the Macintosh, the failure of Lisa, the defrocking of Steve Jobs in 1985 and lots of other details that follow therefrom.

If you work in tech or in Silicon Valley, some of the nuggets – the pirate flag outside the Mac building, say – are part of industry lore. But Frank Rose, the writer, conducted interviews with 100 Apple employees from the period, including Steve Jobs, John Sculley, Bill Campbell, Woz and other early timers. The result is a book that is far richer in detail and texture than any story you’ve heard while waiting in line at the Apple store the night of the iPhone launch (yes, I have pictures to prove I was there. Don’t judge).

But the best parts of the book are great by a happy accident of time and progress. The book was published in 1989 and whole paragraphs of the book read like they were written in the Dark Ages. Did you know, for example, that the first Macintosh of 1984 had no hard disk? The designers explicitly chose not to put one in because, um, who would want one at the additional cost?

I also love that the book expends a whole chapter – tens of pages! – on the subject of Lisa’s floppy disk drives, a topic that would definitely lull anyone under ten right to snoring slumber. It starts with an “explanation” of what floppy disk drives are and goes downhill from there. Go ahead, laugh, I’ll wait for you.

You also see the initial signs of Steve Jobs’ idiosyncratic but eventually correct notions of perfection in product design. As early as 1983, Steve had declared that Apple computers would have no fans for cooling and any computer that had one was “ipso facto a piece of shit”. If you’ve ever had a conversation over the drone of a computer fan gone wild, you appreciate the man’s foresight and stubborn vision.

The Macintosh launch was a seminal industry event; 15 million dollars were spent to do 20 page advertising inserts in Newsweek, Time and other magazines. What?! A 20 page ad to discuss a computer? Computers in 1984 must have made toast and levitated to have required such erudition (I kid, of course). And I won’t even go into the book’s discussion of the “1984″ ad. You read it yourself.

The final fascinating thread that continues through the book is Apple’s fear of Big Blue IBM. Hell, they even organized a sales conference of thousands of reps around the theme “BlueBusters” as a parody of the Ghostbusters movie. When was the last time you heard people talk about IBM like they were Voldemort?

I leave you, then, with a link to the Amazon page for the book. Read it.