Darren Herman

PointCast & Widgets

Remember PointCast?  The PointCast Network used push technology to send information to a users computer and received enormous press coverage in the mid 90s.  However, it's making a resurgence, though not as "PointCast."

The Apple OS X Dashboard widgets remind me of PointCast.  There are significant differences between widgets and PointCast, but the underlying meaning is the same... separate applications that push data to the end user after the initial request.

Are we going to see a resurgence of the PointCast Network?

Globalized Business Opportunities

I've been a subscriber of Business 2.0 Magazine for quite some time now and every now and then, there are some good articles about entrepreneurial endeavors, global business opportunities, or relevant case studies. In the August 2006 issue, they outline two opportunities that are intriguing: a new twist to tutoring and medical tourism.

Ever think of outsourcing your private tutoring? How much do you spend on tutors for your children or to learn that new language that will help you get ahead in business? Taking the GMATs? LSAT? Rates for private tutors in the Westchester County [NY] area range from $50-150 per hour (give or take). This is a significant expense if you are paying for 1 hour of tutoring per week: $200-600 per month. If you have a tutor more than once a week, then you're paying quite a bit of money which can easily be put to the mortgage, car payment, or your pension.

Startups such as Educom, TutorVista, and CareerLauncher are adding a hint of globalization to the tutoring industry. Educom are tutoring U.S. High school students in mathematics and science through a web cam and email as the tutors are based in Delhi. Apparently, Indian companies are charging as little as $100 per month for unlimited, real-time, interactive video tutoring. Even at $300 per month, unlimited real-time interactive video tutoring is a pretty good deal! There are some major issues to get over such as the obvious language and culture barriers. I would expect quite a bit of startups in this marketplace in the next few years as there are very few reasons why this may not make sense once we work out the obvious issues.

Another business that is sprouting up is medical tourism. Do you need plastic surgery or a hip replacement? In the USA, if you do not have health insurance or are not eligible through your current plan, going outside the country could be a tremendous cost savings. According to the article in Business 2.0, countries such as Hungary, Malaysia, Brazil, Costa Rica and India are good places for medical attention in certain areas. Did you know that India specializes in “hips”? In June 06, GlobalChoice Healthcare, a medical tourism company sent a patient to Ppunjab for a hip replacement that cost about $13,000, including airfare and a 20-day hotel stay. In the US, the estimated cost of the surgery would have been $40,000 which is not including airfare and a 20-day hotel stay. Talk about cost savings!

The theme of both of these business opportunities is globalization. Why not utilize resources in other parts of the world if it can make our life more efficient and we can save money? The money we save can be then spent on other opportunities that are forgone back home... Thoughts on these opportunities?

Domain Name Frustration

Cybersquatters are famous for registering bulk domains and holding onto them until someone offers them money or other currency for them. In a way, this is like real-estate speculation and if you're not infringing on any trademarks or registered names, go ahead and register as many names as you would like.

However, the point of this blog is not my frustration with Cybersquatters, but rather frustration with myself when I registered two domain names yesterevening through my registrar of choice, GoDaddy.com. I was sitting around the computer with a friend and we thought of some really clever names for a pet project that she was working on. Needless to say, I registered the domains for the project, but didn't realize that I had misspelled one of the domains and when I did a WHOIS lookup this morning to make sure I had successfully registered the domain, it was not registered! I quickly tried to register the correctly spelled domain but the dot com was already taken by someone in Kentucky.

I am/was extremely frustrated with myself not because I lost $8.99 per year in domain registration fees she will not be using, but rather frustrated because it was a silly mistake! The product manager in me wants to write to GoDaddy.com and let them know that they should offer a spell-checking utility on their registration process so this doesn't happen to more people as I'm positive I'm not the first.

Oh well, life goes on.

Google Checkout

Google Checkout is finally here.  We've been hearing about Gbuy/Gpay across the entire blogosphere for the past 3 months with all sorts of forecasts and assumptions as to what it actually was going to be.

It's essentially an Internet Wallet that we've all seen back in 2001.  Google Checkout is that you can buy from stores with a single Google login – no more entering the same info each time you buy, and no more having to remember different usernames and passwords for each store.

Current partners in the program include: Jockey, Starbucks Store, Levi's, Dockers, Buy.com, Timberland, and Zales (amongst others)

Check out the Official Google blog for more information...

Google and Acquisitions

I was sitting at Starbucks here in New York this past week and was discussing the state of the Internet with a few friends who are involved in investement banking, media companies and hedge funds.  We were discussing how Google isn't just making acquisitions for the actual "product", but they are making acquisitions of companies for top talent.

Talent is what is going to make or break Google.  At a company of their size and with their continued appreciation of innovation (80/20 rule), finding potential employees who are entrepreneurial, forward thinking, and execution oriented are hard to come by.  By making the Writely acquisition, they are "hiring" folks who have demonstred a high level of the attributes they are searching for.

I wonder what' is next for Google...

Tags: Google, Writely, HR

Aim Opens Up

America Online's instant messaging product, AIM, has taken down the gated walls and opened itself up to independent developers.  This is a fantastic opportunity for advertisers to take advantage of the increased time spent with users over the instant messaging platform.  I predict this as a move to go head to head with Gtalk, Google's platform.  Studies are showing that children utilize IM more than email to communicate.  The Pew Internet & American Life Project has done extensive research on IM and has some fantastic reports.

AIM, AOL, Instant Messaging, Gtalk, Open Source, Developers

Top 10 Oldest Dot Com Names

I was at a dinner with a startup company in the CRM/marketing space last night at Chat'n'Chew in New York City (off of Union Square) and the conversation turned to: "Which dot com have you worked for?"  It then got into a friendly battle of who worked for the "oldest" dot com.  I'm not so sure that this is something to brag about, but it leads me to write this post about which were the top 10 oldest dot coms.  Any ideas?  Here we go.... (this list is taken from the top 100)

1.	15-Mar-1985	SYMBOLICS.COM
2.	24-Apr-1985	BBN.COM
3.	24-May-1985	THINK.COM
4.	11-Jul-1985	MCC.COM
5.	30-Sep-1985	DEC.COM
6.	07-Nov-1985	NORTHROP.COM
7.	09-Jan-1986	XEROX.COM
8.	17-Jan-1986	SRI.COM
9.	03-Mar-1986	HP.COM
10.	05-Mar-1986	BELLCORE.COM

Google's New Web Page Creation Tool

Having worked at FortuneCity in the past, I know the value of online communities and free web page creation.  Heck, even at Student.com, we allowed users to create their own free web pages.  The reason why FCTY or SC allowed users to create their own pages is because we can monetize them through advertising.  Google generates billions of dollars through Adsense, the program that allows publishers to generate revenue through CPC campaigns on their websites.  The only thing stopping Google from generating additional revenue is the shortage of content; so allowing users to create their own web pages and monetizing it thru Adsense is a simple way to generate more revenue.

On-Demand World

We’ve got on-demand video, on-demand video games, and now, on-demand delivery.  This is certainly an on-demand world.  Back in the days of the mid-late 90s, we had Urban Fetch and Kozmo, which have all bailed us out of some sort of predicament or other. After the dot com collapse, these companies vanished into thin area, leaving only their messenger bag style in fad.  Max Delivery is the “new” company on the street, delivering to lower Manhattan currently. As of posting, they do not deliver to my zip code (10016), but when they do, I’ll be ordering M&Ms at 2am.

Digital Singles

Buying music “singles” in the stores throughout the late 90s into the early 2000s was out of fashion and a model that didn’t work for the music business. In the 1950s and 1960s – the sales of singles powered the music industry into the glamorous arena that produced many one hit wonders. In the mid to late 90s, MP3’s circulated the Internet which allowed people to digitize an album and send single files to friends and peers. What we didn’t predict was how big the single business could be in just a few years time… it’s back.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, Atlanta rap group, D4L’s single “Laffy Taffy” shattered the one-week sales record for a digital single, with over 175,000 copies sold. One week.  Previously, if we were to purchase a single in the store such as Virgin, that CD would have virtually the same packaging of a full album. Thus, the CD is selling at a reduced rate (as it only has 1 song on it) but the manufacturing cost is expensive…. Which means that the margins were slim.  Today, Laffy Tappy, though digitally distributed has fantastic margins since there was no physical manufacturing costs. The only costs associated with a digital single are: production, marketing & promotion, bandwidth and maybe a few others, but it’s typically much less than a store bought single.

Lifehouse, a Southern California rock band, has sold 887,000 digital copies of its hit single "You and Me" -- and just 770,000 copies of the album that includes the single.  D4L, whose album "Down for Life" has sold 304,000 copies -- a paltry number compared with the strong sales of "Laffy Taffy."  Downloads of singles even outsold CDs in the U.S.-- 19.9 million digital tracks but just 16.8 million albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan in 2005.