What should you do if your company’s product fails?

Dreamhost, a web hosting provider, had a miserable July due to multiple service failures. For a hosting company, this is about as serious an issue as there is. That said, the company’s explanation, posted on their corporate blog, is superb: they clearly describe both what happened and their future plans to avoid new problems, taking responsibility where appropriate. They even included a few nice photos (like the one above).

At some point, incompetence trumps strong communication. For now, though, A Venture Forth is sticking with Dreamhost.

Blogging, Policy | 6 Comments »

Given that Technorati now claims to index more than 50 million blogs, it can be hard to find new, high-quality sites. Here are six that I haven’t linked to or mentioned before–I think they are all worth a look.

• Startup Review. Nisan Gabbay of Sierra Ventures recently launched a new blog that features weekly case studies of successful internet startups. For each, he will interview members of the management team and/or investor group. His first case is on Craigslist–check it out here.
• OnStartups.com. Dharmesh Shah, CEO of HubSpot, writes about software startups. He has a great, readable writing style and tends to offer very practical advice (ie the top six questions you should ask before joining a startup).
• Ben Casnocha: the blog. Ben founded Comcate, a provider of CRM software for local governments, when he was 14–he recently graduated from high school. On his 18th birthday, he asked his blog readers to describe something they did that they regret or something they didn’t do that they wished they had. The responses helped Ben to decided to take time off before college to travel the world, which he’s now doing–and blogging. He has interesting insights and his blog is a fun read.
• TED Blog. TED is an annual conference in California focused on technology, entertainment, and design. Recently, they posted video clips of many of last year’s speakers (link here)–these are worth a look. Similarly, the TED blog highlights related ideas.
• Creating Passionate Users. This is a group blog (meaning it has multiple authors) focused on the brain and metacognition–in particular, “how the brain works and how to exploit it for better learning and memory. Oh yeah, and how to recognize when someone else (including one of us) is applying brain-based techniques to get you to do something.”
• Chartreuse (Beta). Prince Campbell covers internet media properties, including social software, blogging, podcasting, videocasting and related technologies. He’s a tremendously creative thinker; his latest project is to sponsor (with $1000 of his own money plus sponsorships) a team of two to travel to New Orleans to investigate the current situation there.

What are you reading?

Startup Ideas, Blogging | 8 Comments »

Looking for a traffic increase on your blog? Try breaking a story on Mel Gibson like celebrity gossip site TMZ.com did.

Unclear how many visitors will convert into regular readers, but for an advertising-focused business, traffic=$.

Business Models | 1 Comment »

Google’s recent annual report and analyst conference call (transcript here) are good reading, though ultimately (but unsurprisingly) not as illuminating as I’d like.

Below is a long snippet from Google’s 10-K describing the company’s current product portfolio. My reaction: impressive diversity, but I wonder if there is a coherent product strategy–or if they are simply throwing new applications against the virtual wall to see what sticks?

Google.com

Google WebSearch. In addition to providing easy access to billions of web pages, we have integrated special features into Google WebSearch to help people find exactly what they are looking for on the web. The Google.com search experience also includes:

• Advanced Search Functionality—enables users to construct more complex queries, for example by using Boolean logic or restricting results to languages, countries or web sites.
• Spell Checker—suggests alternate search terms when a search appears to contain misspellings or typing errors.
• Web Page Translation—automatically translates web pages published in French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish into English, or vice versa.
• Stock Quotes—provides links to stock and mutual fund information.
• Street Maps—provides links to street maps and directions.
• Calculator—solves math problems involving basic arithmetic, complicated math or physical constants and converts between units of measure.
• Currency Conversion—provides conversions among international currencies.
• Definitions—provides definitions for words or phrases based on content we have indexed.
• PhoneBook—provides U.S. street addresses and phone numbers for U.S. businesses and residences.
• Search by Number—enables people to conduct quick searches by entering FedEx, UPS and USPS package tracking numbers, vehicle ID numbers, product codes, telephone area codes, patent numbers, FAA airplane registration numbers and FCC equipment ID numbers.
• Travel Information—enables people to search for airline flights and see delays and weather conditions at U.S. airports.
• Cached Links—provides snapshots of web pages taken when the pages were indexed, enabling web users to view web pages that are no longer available.
• Movie Information—enables people to quickly and easily find movie reviews and showtimes for U.S. theatres.
• Music Information—enables people to find information about artists, songs, albums and places to legally purchase music.
• Weather—provides weather conditions and a four-day forecast for U.S. locations
• News, Product, Local, Image, Book and Groups Information—when relevant, we also display results from Google News, Froogle, Google Local, Google Image Search, Google Book Search and Google Groups.
• Q&A—provides quick answers to fact-based questions, with links to information sources.

Google Image Search. Google Image Search is our searchable index of images found across the web. To extend the usefulness of Google Image Search, we offer advanced features, such as searching by image size, format and coloration and restricting searches to specific web sites or domains.

Google Groups. The original Google Groups enabled easy participation in Internet discussion groups by providing users with tools to search, read and browse these groups and to post messages of their own. Google Groups now contains more than 1 billion messages from Usenet Internet discussion groups dating back to 1981. The discussions in these groups cover a broad range of discourse and provide a comprehensive look at evolving viewpoints, debate and advice on many subjects.

Google News. Google News gathers information from thousands of news sources worldwide and presents news stories in a searchable format within minutes of their publication on the web. The leading stories are presented as headlines on the user-customizable Google News home page. These headlines are selected for display entirely by a computer algorithm, without regard to political viewpoint or ideology. Google News uses an automated process to pull together related headlines, which enables people to see many different viewpoints on the same story. Because topics are updated continuously throughout the day, people generally see new stories each time they check Google News. We currently provide our Google News service in 11 languages, tailored to 34 international audiences. Google News is also available on mobile devices through Google News for Mobile.

Froogle. Froogle is Google’s shopping search engine. Using Google search technology, Froogle can help shoppers find the items they want, both online and in nearby stores. Users can sort results by price or store location, see product and merchant reviews, specify a desired price range, and view photos. Froogle accepts data feeds directly from merchants to ensure that product information is up-to-date and accurate. Because we do not charge merchants for inclusion in Froogle, users can browse categories or conduct searches with confidence that the results we provide are relevant and unbiased. As with many Google products, Froogle displays relevant advertising separately from search results.

Google Local. Google Local, which merged with Google Maps in 2005, enables users to find driving directions and relevant local businesses near a city, postal code, or specific address. This service combines telephone directory listings with information found on web pages, and plots their locations on interactive user-friendly maps. We display relevant targeted ads for searches done through Google Local.

Google Desktop. Google Desktop enables users to perform a full text search on the contents of their own computer —including email, files, instant messenger chats, and web browser history — without manual organization. Users can use this service to view web pages they have visited even when they are not online. Google Desktop now includes an enhanced, customizable Sidebar for modules such as weather, stock tickers, and news.

Web and content search

Google Scholar. Google Scholar provides a simple way to do a broad search for relevant scholarly literature including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts, and articles. Content in Google Scholar is taken from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities, and other scholarly organizations.

Google Book Search. Google Book Search brings print information online that had previously not been available to web searchers. Under this program, we enable a number of publishers to host their content and show their publications at the top of our search results. We also work closely with several libraries to digitize all or part of their collections to create a full-text searchable online card catalog. Google Book Search links bring users to pages containing bibliographic information and several sentences of the search term in context, sample book pages, or full text, depending on author and publisher permissions and book copyright status. On Google Book Search pages, we also provide links to book sellers that may offer the full versions of these publications for sale, and we show content-targeted ads that are served through the Google AdSense program.

Google Base. Google Base allows users to upload, store and describe online or offline content for free. Google stores and indexes this information and makes it easily searchable and accessible. We believe Google Base will help preserve information that might previously have only been transient, and will extend the power of the web and search to content that was previously not part of the online world.

Google Video. Google Video allows the exchange of video content between consumers and producers. Any user can upload a video to our service, and consumers can buy, rent or download for free a wide range of video content, including popular television shows, independent films and historic and educational videos.

Google Personalized Search. Personalized Search provides search results for web, images, and music that are relevant to users’ interests based on what they have searched for in the past. Users can also view and manage their history of past searches and the results they have clicked on and create bookmarks with labels and notes.

Google Personalized Homepage. Google Personalized Homepage brings together several Google properties such as Google News and Gmail on a user-customizable page, and is part of our efforts to make personalized information more easily accessible and useful.

Google Alerts. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on the user’s choice of query or topic. Typical uses include monitoring a developing news story, keeping current on a competitor or industry, getting the latest on a celebrity or event, or keeping tabs on a favorite sports team. Google Alerts is now available in eight languages.

Google Web Directory. Google Web Directory enables people to browse and search through web sites that have been organized into categories. Our directory combines Google’s search technology with the categorization developed by the Open Directory Project, a third-party human edited directory of the Internet, and has content in over 70 languages.

Google Music Search. Google Music Search offers users a quick way to search for a wide range of U.S. music information, including artists, albums, song titles, links to music reviews, and places to legally purchase music.

Communication and collaboration

Gmail. Gmail is a free email service that offers over 2GB of free storage and incorporates Google search technology to help users find their email messages. Gmail contains no pop-up ads or untargeted banners, but rather contains only relevant text ads and links.

orkut. orkut enables users to search and connect to other users through networks of trusted friends. Users can create, join, or manage online communities, personal mailboxes, photos, and a profile.

Blogger. Blogger is a web-based publishing tool that gives people the ability to publish to the web instantly using weblogs, or “blogs.” Blogs are web pages usually made up of short, informal, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically. Blogs can facilitate communications among small groups or to a worldwide audience in a way that is simpler and easier to follow than traditional email or discussion forums. Blogger now features improved spam protection and is available in nine languages.

Downloadable applications

Google Toolbar. The Google Toolbar makes our search technology constantly and easily available as people browse the web. The Google Toolbar is available as a free, fast download and improves people’s web experience through several innovative features, including:

• Pop-up Blocker—blocks pop-up advertising while people use the web.
• PageRank Indicator—displays Google’s ranking of any page on the web.
• AutoFill—completes web forms with information saved securely on a user’s own computer.
• Highlight—highlights search terms where they appear on a web page, with each term marked in a different color.
• Word Find—finds search terms wherever they appear on a web page.
• AutoLink— turns street addresses into links to online maps.
• WordTranslator—translates English words into other languages.
• SpellCheck—checks spelling when typing in web forms.
• Custom buttons—allow users to search their favorite websites, stay updated on their favorite feeds, and more. A Custom Button API is also available for developers.
• Link sharing— allows users to share web pages easily through Gmail, SMS, or blogs.

Google Earth. Google Earth enables PC and Macintosh users to see and explore the world from their desktop. Users can fly virtually to a specific location and learn about that area through detailed satellite and aerial images, 3D topography, street maps and millions of data points describing the location of businesses, schools, parks, and other points of interest around the globe. Google Earth also provides access to Local search from the Google web index in a highly-interactive 3D environment.

Picasa. Picasa is a downloadable client application that helps users find, edit and share all the pictures on their computers. It streamlines the digital photography experience, allowing pictures to be easily transferred from digital cameras, organized, manipulated, and shared over email. Picasa’s “hello” service also lets users share pictures with others and chat about them in real-time, or post them to blogs. Picasa integrates with other Google services—including Gmail, Blogger, and Froogle—and is available in 38 languages on 133 domains.

Google Pack. Google Pack is a free collection of software from Google and other companies. It includes the Google Updater, a tool that intelligently downloads, installs, and maintains all the software in the Google Pack.

Mobile

Google Mobile. Google Mobile offers people the ability to search and view both the “mobile web,” consisting of pages created specifically for wireless devices, and the entire Google index, including popular products like Image Search and Froogle. Google Mobile works on a wide range of devices that support WML, XHTML, WAP, WAP 2.0, i-mode or j-sky mobile Internet protocols. In addition, users can access a variety of information using Google SMS by typing a query to the Google shortcode, and check their email using Gmail Mobile. Google Mobile is available through many wireless and mobile phone services worldwide, including the BlackBerry.

Google Local for Mobile. Google Local for Mobile is a downloadable Java client application that enables users to view maps and satellite imagery, find local businesses and obtain driving directions on mobile devices. Local for Mobile offers many of the same functions as Google Local—such as draggable maps combined with satellite imagery—for free, and is supported on over 40 mobile devices, including the BlackBerry.

Labs

Google Labs is our test bed for our engineers and for adventurous Google users. On Google Labs, we post product prototypes and solicit feedback on how the technology could be used or improved. Current Google Labs examples include:

• Froogle Wireless—gives people the ability to search for product information from their mobile phones and other wireless devices.
• Google Suggest—guesses what you’re typing and offers suggestions in real time. This is similar to Google’s “Did you mean?” feature that offers alternative spellings for your query after you search, except that it works in real time.
• Google Transit—enables users to plan trips using public transportation (currently in Portland, Oregon only).
• Google Ridefinder—enables users to find a taxi, limousine or shuttle using real time position of vehicles.
• Google Extensions for Firefox—includes Safe Browsing, Blogger Web Comments, and Google Send to Phone.
• Froogle Mobile US and UK—enables users to search for product information from their mobile phones and other wireless devices.
• Google Compute—allows users to donate computer idle time to scientific research.
• Google Reader—a web-based feed reader with enhanced support for photo feeds and podcasts that aims to make information more relevant and useful to users by combining Google functionality with personalized content.
• Google Web Accelerator—a downloadable client application that uses Google’s global computer network to enhance user web experience by enabling faster loading of web pages.

Business Models | 24 Comments »

Great film on exponential growth–interesting diversion for a few minutes…

Diversions | 5 Comments »