Greek Complexity

The Simpsons' secret formula: it's written by maths geeks

Excerpt: "Without doubt, the most mathematically sophisticated television show in the history of primetime broadcasting is The Simpsons."

More here: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/sep/22/the-simpsons-secret-formula-maths-simon-singh#comments

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Snippets from Techventure 2013

I was invited to participate in a panel at Techventure 2013 this week. Several interesting panels and speeches. I didn't manage to attend all of them but here are some of the more interesting comments I noted:

Arun Poojari of Amobee (now a unit of Singtel)

Very interesting to hear Arun say this given that he speaks as an insider of both the advertising and the telecom industry:

There is an oversupply of mobile inventory today versus demand. Compare this to television where there may be only ten minutes of ad inventory per hour of broadcasting, so you can more readily defend your pricing.

Mobile advertising market is a $4b market today and will be $50b in 5 years.

Tom Clayton, CEO of Bubbly

Minimum charge of 99c on Android is a big hurdle for penetration into prepaid subs in emerging markets. Emerging market subscribers often have a balance smaller than that on their prepaid phones and only top it up with minute quantities whenever they need it. Entrepreneurs in these regions need to be smart about how they monetize in this environment.

The entire digital advertising budget in India last year was $150m across web and mobile. Indonesia is 1/10th of that. You can't build a web or mobile business for markets like this if you're only going to focus on advertising revenue.

Kevin Hale, Partner at Y Combinator

Producing great entrepreneurs and companies needs tension and pressure. YC provides $14-20k to each company. Nothing more. We do not provide personal accommodation or office space. Entrepreneurs have to figure out how to survive 3 months on that and create a big company.

Important for Singapore to figure out how to ensure young people stop thinking "I need more money or need a better team or advisors..." Resourcefulness is more important than all the money, technology and other resources provided to young companies.

Chua Kee Lock, CEO of Vertex Ventures

Why would anyone become an angel investor or an entrepreneur in Singapore? If you have money to invest over a few years, it's much easier to work normal hours and invest money in real estate and make a nearly assured 30% return per year.

Jenny Lee of GGVC

Jenny was named the world's top female VC and 36th overall by Forbes this year. She is an alum of my current firm. She's originally from Singapore but has lived in China for several years now. She's one of the few people I've ever heard say that:

The Singapore government needs to get more involved with the entrepreneurship ecosystem and support it with more money.

The consensus view is that they're doing quite a bit already, mostly for the good, but need to leave the rest to other players.

Pieter Kemps of Amazon Web Services

I asked Pieter how many companies he sees from SE Asia that could potentially be billion-dollar businesses in coming years.

Can't speculate about valuations because that's not my domain. But our internal usage data shows companies all across Asia, not just SE Asia, that could achieve very large scale very quickly based on current growth rates. We see a few such companies in most major Asian countries.

---

I haven't quoted each speaker word for word. Each speaker has been paraphrased based on notes I took at the time and to add some context. Errors, omissions and lack of sufficient context are all my own fault, not the original speakers'.

Bribery in China is pervasive, under attack, and surprisingly cheap

Excerpt: "Former China railway minister Liu Zhijun received a suspended death sentence on Monday for accepting $10.5 million in bribes over 25 years, making him the highest ranking official to fall prey to President Xi Jinping’s crackdown."

More here: http://qz.com/101320

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Cycling is the new golf

Excerpt: "Traditionally, business associates would get to know each other over a round of golf. But road cycling is fast catching up as the preferred way of networking for the modern professional. A growing number of corporate-sponsored charity bike rides and city cycle clubs are providing an ideal opportunity to talk shop with like-minded colleagues and clients while discussing different bike frames and tricky headwinds. Many believe cycling is better than golf for building lasting working relationships, or landing a new job, because it is less competitive."

More here: http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/04/business-networking

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Taking enterprise social media to the next level

I am very pleased to announce that my firm has invested in Unmetric, a New York-headquartered company that is the leader in providing competitive intelligence on over 10,000 global brands that use social media. These three pieces contain further details.

We invested in Unmetric because of our answer to this question: how are large enterprises using social media within their broader marketing and customer service strategy?

In our view, the first stage of enterprises truly engaging with social media was when brands formally started listening to what customers were saying online, using such tools as, for example, Radian6 (bought by Salesforce for $326 million in 2011).

The second stage of brands rapidly coming to grips with social media was when enterprises began reaching out to customers to build relationships with them, Buddy Media being one of the tools used for this (also acquired by Salesforce for $689 million in 2012).

What Unmetric does is then the logical next step: benchmarking your brand against the competition and figuring out on a daily basis what, when and how to post online for your brand to achieve the best engagement. As far as a time-poor digital marketing manager or agency researcher is concerned, it's like having a super-human team of data scientists, market researchers and software engineers all working together to deliver key insights -- not just metrics -- in real time.

But let's not deal in abstractions. Here's a typical report prepared by Unmetric, this one analysing the US telecom industry. See slides 9 to 13 for examples of the kinds of insights Unmetric provides its customers.

The Telecom Industry on Social Media from Unmetric

 

Customers generally see insights like this not on static reports but on a personalised dynamically changing dashboard, on which they can click through for further details.

---

Update: I forgot to mention that they're always on the lookout for smart and fun people to join the team. Please spread the word.

Facebook and Twitter Are Converging

Excerpt: "Facebook and Twitter used to be distinctly different places to socialize online. One was public to the world, the other (mostly) just between friends. One was a place for news from your social circle, the other more about public events and discussion."

More here: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/519296/facebook-and-twitter-are-converging/

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Nikola Tesla pitches VCs

Dear fellow VCs,

Don't be like this. Srsly. Actually, scratch that. Be however you want and leave the Teslas of the world to the rest of us.

Is Twitter Really Worth $10 Billion?

Excerpt: "I spent the last week trying to write a column that proved Twitter wasn't worth $10 billion. Then the facts intervened."

More here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323384604578328303487784818.html

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Thorny Side Effects in Silicon Valley Tactic to Keep Control

Excerpt: "The gods of Silicon Valley have repeatedly sought to take the companies they founded public while retaining control as if they were still private. Recent events at Google and other technology companies show that perhaps this control may be bad not only for the companies but also for the founders, who are increasingly living in a world bereft of checks and balances."

More here: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/thorny-side-effects-in-silicon-valley-tactic-to-keep-control/?src=dlbksb

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Whither Twitter, whither media agencies? (Bonus feature: a conspiracy theory!)

How scared are media and advertising agencies of this development (PDF; 384 KB)? I'd be petrified if I was them.

If you don't have time to look at that document, here's the two-sentence snapshot: Mondelez (the renamed Kraft snack food group) has done a deal with Twitter where Twitter staff will be seated in four Mondelez offices around the world, helping Mondelez with their real-time marketing by providing real-time insights, custom research and so on, in return for a minimum ad spending commitment. In effect, Twitter has turned itself into an agency.

Mondelez announced a similar deal, though more limited in scope, with Google back in May.

Now, before anyone starts jumping up and down with objections, I know that this isn't really a replacement for agencies. But it is a significant development that agencies and advertisers will be watching, and for Twitter itself as it positions itself for an IPO. If large digital platforms like Twitter and Google are able to directly provide custom services to large brands, where does that leave agencies?

On the other hand, the agency business model has historically changed so much in response to market developments that I have no doubt the smartest ones out there will continue to reinvent themselves and thrive. For example, when online advertising first started to get going, a lot of agency unbelievers thought that the Internet would disaggregate agencies entirely. Exactly the opposite happened as agencies started online trading desks to buy ad impressions on clients' behalf, started doing creative and copy for digital ads, designed online campaigns and so on.

---

For whatever reason, I couldn't find mentions of this news online when I checked a few hours ago, not on FT.com or on any other website. Gentlemen, start your conspiracy theories now.

---

Update: Right, here's the FT article now. Mondelez strikes deal to chew into Twitter’s social media knowhow