Miles To Go.

Holy crap everything is mobile now

Don Draper and the Mad Men gang from Sterling Cooper return Sunday on AMC’s four-time Emmy Award winner, after a seemingly interminable 17 months away.

But a lot has changed in the 17 month hiatus. Not with the sixties, in which the show is set, but the ‘teens in which it is viewed. The Mad Men of the show were trying to grapple with the new medium of TV, which was a big departure from how people were spending time, and how advertisers spent money. They had a raw take on manliness, and a pretty much anti-PC bent to everything that transpired. I’ve written about it before (relating to another Vaux investment). They also wear pocket squares.

But in the here and now, the M’ad Men are on the scene (that’s Mobile ad men, and I’m among them) and there is another mass transformation in process.

Let me try to explain it this way: there is a scene in an early episode where John Hamm’s character driving upstate, listening to the radio (speeding, with a drink and no seat belt but that’s considered period charming). He hears a traffic report (backup on the bridge), and dismisses the information (ending up in a caught in the same). It was just the beginning of how ad-supported media would become capable of delivering information that is both timely and relevant, if not always used.

Today, a larger and larger audience will hear of Don Draper and Mad Men, watch his show, and comment on his show through mobile devices. It is the harbinger of the greatest transfer of time spent since the TV entered Don’s creative agency: out of no-where, people are now spending 10% of their total screen time on a mobile device. People are starting revolutions, looking up recipes, avoiding disasters, and of course watching MadMen videos on mobile devices. It’s going to get a lot bigger, at the expense of most other media out there. There are a few billion mobile devices in the world today, and it’s still growing.

I believe it will set off the greatest traffic jam of all time, in a digital media sense, anyways. Heres how it happened, in grossly oversimplified terms only I could dare to paint!

The publishers may have figured this out first. Companies like Time Inc, ABC, NBC Universal saw their audiences begin to shift. As their inventory of available pages evolved (aka circulation, or eyeballs in digital media speak), their mobile strategies got serious. They monetized through ad networks (see below), then other point solutions (see below also), some even tried to get online ad-networks to work in this new medium. Finally, they concluded that they needed a platform to run and maximize the yield on their entire mobile inventory. Lucky for them, there was one that served their needs.

The Early Mobile ad Networks were the first prospectors in this brave new worked of mobile, and they did well, stringing together exchanges of advertisers and publishers and taking a cut for matching them up. Though a hard business to differentiate in, the early winners were great exits. Enpocket to Nokia for a couple hundred. Third Screen to AOL for a little under fifty. Quattro to Apple for almost three hundred. Admob to Google for over seven. There are several more.

But a funny thing happened in almost all of those acquisitions: I truly believe the buyers really thought they were getting a technology platform that they could scale across their larger organizations, so they paid up. We’re talking billions of dollars in the hopes there was some tech under there somewhere that could give them a commanding lead in mobile.  But when I look at what those buyers are doing with the assets, I have to conclude they all didn’t get that. Not even the recent S-1 filings are all that impressive when it comes to ad tech. Facebook even acknowledged it as a risk- 122 times in their filing.

The point solutions came next into the market, trying to get attention (from anyone!) with their latest idea that would revolutionize mobile. Mobile Thumbprint (the equivalent of an internet cookie), video, full screen takeovers, SDK’s, app networks, real-time bidding and every other feature and business process under the sun has launched, and maybe saw Series A funding. Some were just too early. Most of them tried to give away the farm to get clients, and the VC money won’t last long with that model. Many are starting to top out, and will soon realize they have to bolt onto an enterprise with scale and relationships. It’s not going to be a pretty story as they get caught in the rush.

The Social Networks and social gamers have grown large and influential, but they too are noticing a problem- their audience is spending more and more time on mobile. Facebook is a game changer of epic proportions (here’s my take on a portion of that story) and they have massive advertising revenue from their online sites, but most of the leaders in the field have not figured out how to monetize mobile. If the trends continue (doubtless they will), they will be lined up at the mobile bridge in no time.

The Online ad networks may be themselves facing a rude surprise soon enough as more of their audience bolts to mobile. Online ad servers didn’t translate to mobile for a few very simple reasons, none of which I am about to give up here. But it doesn’t work, or it hasn’t until now and the bigs have been losing customers left and right because they could not get some basic mobile parameters to work. They need a bridge to mobile, and they will need it soon. Tailoring the existing online platforms hasn’t worked. They will need a bridge.

And so, the traffic jam begins to form at the bridge to mobile ad serving. Hundreds of online ad networks have to deliver on a mobile solution, but theirs have not worked to date. The remaining large publishers, and indeed the mediums and the smalls will have to finalize a sophisticated mobile strategy in order to compete as well. The point solutions who have entered the market will have to seek out scale. And they look across that yawning chasm to those that have made the move to mobile and are beginning to ramp (some thirty mobile ad networks, and about thirty of the largest publishers by my count) and they are thinking oh shit, if this trend continues I’m gonna get killed on this side of the divide.

It looks to me like there is only one bridge, and people are going to want to cross it sooner than later. Even a one-hand driving, seatbelt-scoffing, scotch-in-hand Don Draper would see that signpost up ahead.

Note: I founded, with Krish and Dan, and financed Mojiva, owner of the Mocean Mobile Ad Serving Platform. That is the bridge, IMHO.

Fred w phone. No unlimited data plan just yet...

There is a yawning gap emerging in the world and I think this gap will define the advancement of societies, the creation of jobs,  and even the happiness of populations in the decades to come: it is access to mobile data and I call it Flintstones vs. Jetsons. (shout out to April Rudin for the headline).

• Generation segue: Some of us remember Fred Flintstone. Worked in a quarry, drove a foot pedal car. Loved to bowl and eat steaks. Life was simple, and there was not a lot of reason to innovate. Pebbles and BamBam didn’t seem to be a big generational culture gap. A loveable guy in the Jackie Gleason vein.
• And his cartoon counterpart, George Jetson. Worked are Spacely, drove an automated space scooter. Astro walked himself, Rosie the Robot did the chores. Skyped with the office, used the tele-puter on his wrist. Loveable knucklehead is in a fast-moving world, but he kept adapting and he kept pace.

So my point, my belief, is that we have arrived at a crucial inflection point in our history, where people, countries, leaders (and entire industries) are choosing to go Flintsone or Jetson. And the catalyst for this decision is, clearly, the smart phone and the data it generates. The Flintstone are content with how things are. They have found ways to live until now without technology, and they resolved they would coast from here on in, whether in their carreers or their lives. Financial planners are on the list. So is much of the financial services (non retail) industry. Traditional media has hated the transition. KONY is no fan. Nor is Assad, or Mubarak. People of a certain age (but not all!). There are lots more.

Meanwhile, the Jetsons accelerate. The gap has not even yet begun to present itself.

mOcean at Mobile World Congress

If you have any doubt of how quickly this industry has grown, check out the Mojiva/Mocean (I am an investor) booth at The Mobile World Congress. MWC was, five years ago, just a bunch of suits from Nordic and Asian countries wielding flip phones for voice and text. Today, MWC is heralded as the biggest and the best mobile technology event in the world. According to conference organizer the GSMA, this year’s event played host to a record number of attendees, topping out at 67,000 visitors from 205 countries; an 11% increase over the 2011 show. The four-day conference and exhibition attracted mobile operators, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies and media and entertainment organizations, as well as government delegations from across the globe. More than 50 percent of this year’s attendees hold C-level positions, including more than 3,500 CEOs.

Most telling perhaps, CEO’s were wearing jeans, T’s and blazers…

So here’s the shocker datapoint from cisco: 40% of the worlds smartphone data is consumed by… 1% of the world population. That means a small group of people are gaining an unfair (perhaps) advantage because of their access to information

• The subways are down: take the bus.
• This new place is overcrowded: here’s another local option.
• Gas prices are skyrocketing, but discounted in NJ this weekend.
• This client has spent xxx seconds on the site and is ready to take the next buying step
• Yo Twitter! The rally to unseat the government has been moved to the following sidestreet!

The examples go on and on. A few minutes saved. A better solution for the moment. A bit more background before the interview. A better way, on the way. Compound that millions of times over billions of people and guess what: you have a new gap between the haves and the have-nots. Food for thought before you make your choice between Flintstone or Jetson!

I just flew over America again.

I went to LA and was pitched in the Palisades Room at the Santa Monica Fairmont for two straight days and all I ever saw were VC’s, bankers and their cars rolling up to the front entryway. We didn’t see any Occupy groups, but they would have had a blast I’m sure. I took a break and saw my Choate roommate Michael Scott for dinner in West Hollywood and it was plenty more of the same with a few stars and starlets thrown in (not typical VC fare, that).

All good and all nice people. But I have this palpable sense that, slightly below the surface of the Brave Face of America (any in many towns between LAX and JFK), there is a shitstorm brewing among people who are tired and distraught. It’s probably about jobs, and the fact that we really don’t have enough of them to go around. That and the facts that, despite the 1,000 attendees at the Monty Conference, we are throttling the engine to create them. The coming world war will be an all-out global war for good jobs, says Gallup’s chairman Jim Clifton. I couldn’t agree more, and they won’t come from shovel ready Government civil works, nor from meaningless tax credits and incentives.

More proof of the disconnect irony comes from the Daily Beast’s Zach Karabel: The last time the markets were at their current levels—the tech-heavy NASDAQ index is also at its highest since the Internet bubble burst in 2001—sentiment was radically different. In May of 2008, Bear Stearns had nearly collapsed, only to be bought on the cheap by J.P. Morgan, and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was a nightmare scenario that had barely been contemplated. The housing bubble in the U.S. was clearly deflating, but unemployment had not yet spiked. And while many believed a recession was looming, few forecast a financial crisis. Still, the outlook was cloudy at best, and a descent from 13,000 seemed likely. The strength in financial markets, and stocks especially, is not a proxy for real-world economies.

It’s been said before and needs to be said again: Wall Street isn’t Main Street. The Dow can be 13,000 or 14,000 and it won’t matter a whit to the millions of unemployed and underemployed. Few jobs are created by rising equity prices, and companies will not hire unless there is stronger demand, no matter how high their shares climb. They will sooner pay a dividend to shareholders, buy back stock, or acquire competitors than hire extra bodies that are not necessary for managing current business or creating new ventures.

And that’s the root issue: though America has a GDP of about 3x the nearest competitors (being japan, UK, France, Germany, Italy) its growth has been anemic compared to China, who still lags the top five. We spend too much, we don’t take in enough, and it’s becoming a bad running joke in world lending corridors (where are those)? As any creditcard will remind you, in 20-30 years, 10% growth compounded beats just about anything. But last time we heard footsteps, we hit the dot.com boom and pulled away with innovation and productivity gains never seen before.

That’s what is needed now. And I think Mobile, social and sharing will be three places where innovation will lead.

Life in 140 character bursts

Here’s one way to wrap up 2011:

World 2011in<140: ArabSpring Tsunami Wedding(Royal,Kim) Osama DSK Jobs(Steve,austerity) Riots Floods OWS PepperSpray Mobile!

Me 2011in<140: Wedding (mine) New Jobs (Mojiva-106) Angel ($500k) Venture ($25M) Contractions (hers) Startup (WellAware) Move (Greenwich) Baby (First) Sleep (Last)

Twitter was one thing I learned in 2011. Like most things in my life, I had never done it before. I just observed for a bit and waded right in. I ended up tweeting or retweeting 1,300 times or 100+ a month which turned out to be not at all a waste of time. Looking back at my tweets over time I recognize some basic trends that may help others considering jumping on Twitter on 2012. A few rules I learned:

• Add something to the conversation: This was #1 for me. I always try for, and sometimes fail at, a witty or creative thought, a piece of news before it’s over-reported, or a new point of view. I never tweeted “wonder if that cloud will pass behind that building”, or “bacon egg and cheese sandwiches umm”. As in life, the less you say, the more likely people will think you have something interesting when you finally speak. At least that worked for me, so far.
•  Follow a few people you respect: Fellow EO member David Kerpen  does an excellent job of outlining social media and has been a good one to follow. Henry Blodget has it covered in digital media. Irshad Manji is great on Middle East issues, Nick Kristoff on global. Dave McClure is hilarious on angel investing. Bill Gross is great on start ups. Joe Navarro is great at just reading people. April Rudin is awesome on the HNW community.
• Follow a few topics of interest: The topics I followed were angel investing, venture capital (though they play it pretty close to the vest), Middle East conflict, cooking, a few football players, local news, and disaster recovery (twitter is a great way to track fast breaking news).
•  Keep it light, and consider the consequences: I also follow some hilarious parodies and humor, not all of which I have the guts to retweet. Miguel Bloombito  is a farcical twitter account of NYC’s Mayor trying to get by in Spanish. Ricky Gervais is just raw sewer level humor that keeps coming non-stop. FAKEGRIMLOCK is supposed to be a software coder on a mission, but it’s likely just Brad Feld’s alter ego. AdamU has perfected the 140 character definition of snark. I love Henry_Kissinger (paraody)

I should also add it is a good way to make notes to yourself, make a legit complaint to an airline (they monitor those things), keep track of people in a disaster, and wedge your way into an important discussion. I did all these things in 2011. So I’m glad I jumped on Twitter, finally. It hasn’t changed me much, just made me more of who I already am. Remains to be seen if that’s a good thing.

You should be arrested for using a flip phone in 2012

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) came out with a shocker this week; urging a Cellphone Ban for Drivers. I support the NTSB’s cellphone ban for the following reason: anyone still using that word probably still calls a “car” a “horseless carriage”.

Beside the story in the New York times, there was a stock photo of a freaking Razor flip phone. It made me laugh.

As per usual, a Government Agency trying to protect its public actually just misses the point, in this case by a couple of generations. Here’s why

1. The moniker “Cellphone” was actually based on analog cellular technology, where signals were splits into cells when a tower was overloaded or a signal was passed from one tower to another. With Voice requests. So last century. But the whole history is here.
2. The rest of the world began with digital installations and so calls their devices mobile phones, or mobiles (said Mo-Biles). Early last decade.
3. The “SmartPhone” ushered in the proliferation of data (texting, Social Media, Mobile Web, etc.). It was smart, and it drove the phone feature to the background. Mid Decade.
4. The new name is still being fumbled with, just as Horseless carriage was eventually replaced with the automobile. As noted five  years ago by digital sooth-sayer Phil Leigh in an Inside Digital Media video  podcast, the device is more accurately labeled a “teleputer”.  George Gilder originated  the concept about twenty years ago when he envisioned a hand-held unit  providing convenient wireless access to a global computer network. It was  kind-of the evolutionary destination implied by a popular computer industry  slogan at the time, to wit, “the network is the computer.”

More significantly, (following P from Phil Leigh) iPhone users are progressively learning that computer applications are becoming  the unit’s raison d’etre.  In short, the phone’s digital capabilities such as photography, geo-location, audio & video playback, and  especially Internet access, are the defining characteristics. Applications like  Skype and FaceTime portend an era when cellular telephony per se, becomes irrelevant  to iPhone owners. Long way of getting to the point that, it’s not a phone anymore. And people use voice as a diminishing percentage of their device time.

And Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the N.T.S.B., an independent federal agency responsible for promoting traffic safety and investigating accidents, said the concern was heightened by increasingly powerful phones that people can use to e-mail, watch movies and play games. “Every year, new devices are being released,” she said. “People are tempted to update their Facebook page, they are tempted to tweet, as if sitting at a desk. But they are driving a car.”

Nine states now ban the use of hand-held phones, and 35 states ban texting by drivers, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state traffic agencies. Many mobile phone companies dropped their opposition over the last decade to any restrictions on the use of phones in cars, and have in recent years joined calls to ban texting while driving. In a statement, CTIA, the cellular telephone industry trade group, said it deferred to states about whether to enforce such bans.  Which underscores the point that carriers care less and less about voice: it’s about the data stupid. Most of the money will be made off of the advertisements served to these devices- a subject that is near and dear to my heart.

A complete ban on phone use by drivers would have enormous impact on many car makers that are offering integrated hands-free, voice-activated systems that allow drivers to talk and do other tasks, like calling up their phone directory.  The Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group for the industry, said in a statement that it was reviewing the N.T.S.B. recommendations. But it also defended the integrated systems, saying they allow drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road while they remain connected.

No way we are going to get people to put away their devices, at dinner or on the road. Best we can hope for is to educate them on the dangers (socail or physical) to what feature is to be used when. “What we do know is that digital technology has created a connected culture in the United States and it’s forever changed our society:  consumers always expect to have access to technology; so managing technology is the solution,” the alliance said in a statement.

That, and updating the lingo so people know what the hell you are talking about…

Mobile Global: Click 2 see cool pic

I work hard to get lucky.

1. The Carriers used to think they were content curators. Seriously, there was no other way to get distribution than to program in bizarre carrier languages (BREW, etc) and pay them through the nose to be “on deck”. Hey, they got the idea from the old AOL days. But these people did not realize the comic effect of managing content on a 2″x2″ screen. Plenty of money was wasted getting on those decks, and getting the content optimized. At one point, I counted an easy $500MM of venture money was poured down that rabbit hole.
2. Eyeballs began to shift. First it was getting email and text on phones. Then a few games and stock quotes. But the iPhone and its 250,000 apps out the gate brought all manner of information and entertainment to the mobile screen. The PC reached a plateau.
3. People were no more willing to pay for apps than they were to pay for the “old fashioned” internet. It should be free, man continued as the digital credo. And except for very few exceptions (iTunes being one), the entire mobile revolution has been driven to date with ads.
4. Tablets followed shortly, and guess what: they’re mobile too. Meaning all the ad serving technology, all the geo-location and device data was much more like a mobile phone than a PC.

With a little knowledge as an angel/board member with digital yield optimizer operative (now Operative One) and some domain expertise from Cellufun, I went on to start mobile ad network/ad server Mojiva with co-founders Krish and Dan.  And I have since been founding angel in mobile powered projects like MyBailiwick (crowdsourcing too early!), TrustCloud (trust in the sharing economy getting hotter now) and WellAware (mobile health and wellness platform). I think my bets in mobile media have been pretty lucky, and i will continue to make them for all the basic reasons above (and many more that are regularly laid out by tech guru Mary Meeker).

I just never knew where the tipping point was.

I do now. High five.

From my UN field trip...

The streets of new York City are clogged with tyrants, powerbrokers, divas and muses these days… and I don’t just mean Fashion Week! The Isle of Manhattan yields to the UN General Assembly’s Fall Gathering, and while I passively observe both, Melissa reminds me I am more useful commenting on the latter.

I spend a fair amount of time and capital in my own quest to understand the Middle East, but it doesn’t take all that to know this week brings a seminal moment in our influence there… it’s a whole new ball game if you haven’t noticed.

Wednesday’s Sarkozy rebuke of Obama was legendary, but Friday brings us the big squirm: the Palestinian quest for membership at the U.N is driving the US to the brink of sanity as throwing a veto on behalf of Israeli interests will surely off the rest of the Arab States. In the morning, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to speak. He has said that after he gives that speech, he will deliver a letter for application to the U.N. secretary-general. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak a little later in the day.

What makes me interested in this business is that the Arab Spring has set in motion a Rube Goldberg progression with no known end result. What Cairo unleashed was the power of  mobile social media among restless people, aided by the most unlikely of news sources al-Jazaeera. Long running dynasties in are running scared. And the West and the US in particular has at least one eye on the oil spigot, at least one toe in the Israel camp, and one hand in their pocket looking for the any loose change to help their ailing economy. Meanwhile, with this “people’s democracy” thing being bandied about as the likely solution to the vacuum left by the tyrants I have to believe everyone at the UN Cafe is wondering where it all leads and who leads after all.

Many of us Americans were only recently introduced to Islam in a most unfortunate way 10 years ago, as Irshad Manji points out in her blog . The Middle East is beginning to get its footing in modernity after a long and deep slumber with a rich cultural and religious legacy. That footing will displace our world order. As Robert Fisk opines in the Independent  this vote at the UN – General Assembly or Security Council is going to divide the West – Americans from Europeans and scores of other nations – and it is going to divide the Arabs from the Americans. It is going to crack open the divisions in the European Union; between eastern and western Europeans, between Germany and France (the former supporting Israel for historical reasons, the latter sickened by the suffering of the Palestinians) and, of course, between Israel and the EU.  Ten years ago on 9/11 OBL succeeded in polarizing the West and the Muslim world  Zach Karabell, from Daily Beast reminds us, but a decade later, in the wake of the Arab Spring, that seems more transitory than permanent. We are living one of Thomas Friedman’s four ruling bargains, and it is going to probably hurt.

I was fortunate enough to join US Ambassador Frank Wisner for breakfast this week at the Next American Economy gathering put on by Bo Cutter. Reflecting on his overview, and I paraphrase here and am not quoting or mis-quoting,…the glide path from hegemony to responsible power is an important one for the US to manage. Letting domestic politics trump global influence will make the landing a hot mess. We must remember the importance of events, stay engaged, and remain cautious.

So while the Middle East and  the Arab spring may seem far away to us most of the time, this week the whole show is right here in Manhattan and the effects of how it all plays out will have profound influence on how we are viewed in the world. It will be a painful reminder of just how vulnerable we Americans really are.

No fashion runway ever had so much riding one show!

Tweet'Quake has different effects on different people

New York has been sandwiched this week between a) a quake that had people on the streets all afternoon Wednesday checking in on their phones, and b) the impending havoc promised by Hurricane Irene sometime this weekend.

All the while, I’ve been working on a previously planned disaster recovery plan with Mojiva HR to protect and inform our nearly 100 workers spread from London to LA. What struck me was the difference between last year’s plan and this year’s.

In a word: twitter. A year ago, we were still stuck on All-email, a DR sharepoint site, and some redundancies with text, etc. This year, we can do a lot of it with a tweet. The benefits to all that, far as I can tell:

1. Twitter naturally appeals to social groups that communicate heavily via mobile and SMS; the teens and twenties. It is fundamentally an SMS bulletin board that you can post to and read directly on anything from a Mac to a mobile phone. You can even post to it and read it from FaceBook.
2. For the same reason, it appeals to anyone who wants to establish an affinity group and listen in. As you can follow anyone (except those who deliberately opt for select privacy) it’s reasonably easy to set up any kind of group and follow it.
3. Twitter can quickly become an impromptu info-sharing point, as happened in the California fires and the Chinese earthquake. Worked pretty well in Cairo Damascus, Tripoli and London. Hell, twitter works.
4. You can use it as a real-time news feed because a number of News providers, including the BBC and CNN issue News bulletins as tweets.
5. Finally you can aggregate everything relevant to a group or topic and quickly see and entire stream of whats going on in one page- online or mobile. It also works well with SMS/text.

The few drawbacks, far as I can see:

1. Everything is out there. You own your mistakes later, but hey don’t we anyways.
2. There’s plenty of irrelevant tweets out there that add no value. You just have to learn how to filter them.
3. People (beyond early adopter geek types) are just starting to learn how to use the tool (see #2 above)

A few months ago, I wondered how any company could survive when most of its content was self-absorbed streams of consciousness. Two disasters in one week and I have realized twitter is a heck of a tool. for exchanging useful, fluid information. Bonus: it can also be pretty funny.

I tip my hat. Did not ever think I would.