Bambi Francisco

OurStory - the online scrapbook

Earlier this month, a friend put together a scrapbook for his brother’s 40th birthday. He asked his brother’s friends to mail photos to him, or send jpegs. It’s a time-consuming project for him to take all those photos and put them into a scrapbook. I bet if he knew about OurStory, making that scrapbook would have been far easier.

OurStory is just that - an online version of a scrapbook, a place where people can keep track of events and occasions in a chronological order. The difference is that in this Web 2.0 world, that scrapbook can easily be pieced together with the help of everyone involved, or anyone asked to be involved. And, OurStory makes it easy for anyone to see those events in a timeline. On Tuesday, OurStory plans to launch its umpteenth iteration of the service company founder Andy Halliday launched mid-2006. Halliday will be giving his demo at the Demo conference as part of the launch. (Note: To hear about OurStory straight from Andy and his team, check out the video he created for vator.tv.)

I know what you're thinking. Another site that wants to be the keeper of everyone’s journals and memories? What's so unique about that? Well, nothing. Just like succss is 2% idea and 98% execution, it's not the personal-social-networking idea behind OurStory that's interesting, it's the purpose of the site that makes it interesting. And, OurStory's purpose is to help you create that virtual scrapbook. Moreover, once you're finished putting together a particular scrapbook about someone's life or an event, you can have that online scrapbook published into a real book (which would make really nice presents). As I had mentioned in my post about Geni.com, the social networking sites that will more likely be successful are the ones that offer a value-add to the many social networking sites focused on being the intimate and safe site for personal expression. With OurStory, the value-add is the timeline feature. It’s very cool and useful. One of the new features launched will be an ability to take icons that represent occasions/events - happy birthday cake, wedding anniversary – and drag it into the timeline. Additionally, any uploaded photos can be dragged onto the timeline. The other feature I like is something I’m using to put together a small book about my father’s life. With OurStory, I imported my email contact list and sent an email to my family asking them to email me photos or stories about my father. Now, the beauty about OurStory is that the photos and stories that are emailed back to me are automatically posted in my OurStory journal about my dad. No more cut and paste, the photos and text automatically post. Now, that’s convenient.

Now, there are going to be many sites that will likely try to help people create these scrapbooks. After all, it's a pretty big market today. Here are some stats from Scrapbook Industry Trends.

1) The 2004 SIA (Scrapbooking in America) survey estimates annual industry sales at $2.551 billion, representing a 27.8 percent increase from 2001.
2) There are 4.4 million new scrapbooking households since 2001, for a total of over 26 million households and 32.1 million scrapbookers.
3) Spending on scrapbooking supplies by households that scrapbook has increased 6.3 percent to $96.76 annually since 2001.
4) Almost one in four, or 24.5 percent of U.S. households, participate in the hobby of scrapbooking, with Western states showing the most households involved in the hobby (between 26–31 percent of households). Following is the breakdown of scrapbooking households by region.

Finally, just for background on OurStory, Halliday incorporated in 2005, and received $6 million in funding back then too. Not bad for an idea without a prototype until 6 months later. OurStory has come a long way from that first prototype, which I checked out when Andy first sent me his video.

(Anyone can upload a video on www.vator.tv, and if your idea or business is a really good one, it will likely be featured in the vator reports - a short program on innovation and the great ideas being pitched on vator.tv.

Vator Reports - the first episode

Check out the first episode of vator reports - a show on innovation, based on the many innovative ideas and businesses Peter Thiel and I are seeing on the vator.tv site. In this episode, some companies highlighted are uShip - the eBay for shipping (and one of my favorite videos on vator!), SnipWiki - a site where engineers can create new software code by collaborating through a wiki, Lotus Video - a maker of vitamin vodkas, Swingstar Golf - an online golf trainer, Crushpad - a Web 2.0 approach to winemaking, and Dogster - a social network site for dogs, among many others. Enjoy the show. And if you go to vator.tv, let me know which video pitches Peter and I should highlight.

What's your Weather-Bill?

Having worked on the COMEX in college, WeatherBill takes me back to those days of hedging risk by buying futures and options of commodities. In the case of WeatherBill, the trading is of weather contracts. It's a great idea. WeatherBill is a way for businesses to hedge their risk against weather. In many ways, it's really a form of insurance against adverse weather. If you're a golf course operator, and want to get paid $3,000 per rainy day (defined by level of precipitation), you could enter that $3k amount in, and WeatherBill will calculate how much that insurance contract costs. Alternatively, if you're a coffee shop owner, you might want to buy weather contracts or insurance against sunny days, because those are the days that draw fewer customers. In the most simple terms, these contracts are then sold to hedge funds who essentially buy the risk away from WeatherBill. WeatherBill plays a bit of an arbitrage game between its clients - those buying the insurance contracts - and the hedge funds.

In this video, WeatherBill CEO David Friedberg talks a bit about his new business, which just went live in mid-January.

(Trivia: Where did the company name come from? -- tune in to these pages, and you'll find out.)

And, if you'd like to provide a pitch of your idea or business, go to www.vator.tv.

Geni's approach to social networking

With the success of MySpace, there has been enormous activity in the startup world focusing on social networks around a particular niche, or purpose. In the case of Geni.com, which launched mid-January, the site attracts anyone interested in genealogy – the study of ancestry or family histories. It is a social network that first starts with one family tree, and then branches out from there. You can imagine that as family trees get filled out, you'll be able to see who your 10th-degree cousin is. You might also learn that your best friend is related by having the same great, great, great, great grandmother.

The viral nature of this site is pretty obvious and compelling. Once someone fills in their family tree, like I did recently, they know exactly what they have to do next. They have to prompt others – parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, in-laws – to fill in their family profiles. To this end, the value proposition seems far greater than other social netwok sites that are trying to get people to post their thoughts, photos and videos on their own personal pages and get their friends or family to connect with them. The problem for those sites are 1) some family members/friends aren't interested in social networks, or they're already part of one 2) there are too many other social networks trying to position themselves as neighborhood or family/close friend networks, such as TypePad's Vox and Friendster, and therefore, it's hard to choose which one to be part of.

Geni.com is interesting because it's a site that organizes your family tree. That's a value-add that other social networks don't provide.

To be sure, Geni.com - though its approach is different -- is actually trying to do the same thing as the other sites. It's trying to connect people. And, on the site, a person can upload their photos, and create profiles, such as favorite cuisines, school and professional history. There's even a place where someone can message me on my Geni.com profile. These are requisite features of social network sites. Now, what I haven't seen is a place to blog. But I imagine it's only a matter of time before this feature is incorporated into Geni.com. After all, once you get your family tree up and running, you'll likely want to communicate with them through stories. Additionally, if people can blog, that means they'll likely stay on the site longer, create content, and drive pageviews. And, since Geni.com is going to be mainly advertising supported, I'd imagine the company will want as many features that drive pageviews.

Now, while I really thinking the viral nature is compelling, it will take a lot of encouragement to get others to respond. For instance, since I pinged my family (nearing two weeks now) to upload their information – their spouse, children, in-laws, etc. – they had yet to fill in any information. But no matter, I’m sure in time they will. It’s a matter of changing their behavior and understanding how easy a family tree can be organized if they just added their 2 cents of knowledge.

Former PayPal COO David Sacks, who also produced “Thank you for Smoking,” based on the popular book (and one of my favorites), founded Geni.com in mid-2006. In this video, he gives his pitch about why he started it and what his vision is.

Nichefication and gay-men sites

BigJock - which launched in November 2006 - announced recently that it's attracted gay men in 60 countries in just 60 days. BigJock is yet another example of the "nichefication" of the Web. BigJock is a social network specifically focused on the gay men community. That's right - no lesbians allowed.

Importantly, its emergence underscores the trend toward free social networking sites around specific niches. The rise of free social networking sites around the gay community is one reason that paid dating sites, like Gay.com, have come under pressure. In late 2006, PlanetOut was downgraded by WR Hambrecht on concerns subscriptions from its subsidiary Gay.com were coming under pressure from free social networking sites. That said, it's unclear just how large a site focusing on gay men (not gay men and women) can get. PlanetOut - a publicly-traded media company focusing on the gay and lesbian community -- is valued at around $85 million in the public market. To get a better understanding of the gay market, I asked BigJock.com founder Richard Rudometkin how big the market is. His response: It is estimated that 10 million gay men reside in the United States , with the gay/lesbian community reaching roughly 16 million. This compares to roughly 12 million Asian-Americans. In addition, per capita gay buying power is approximately $41,000, compared to $33,000 for Asian-Americans, $20,000 for African Americans or $18,000 for Latinos – according to MarketResearch.com. As for the advertising targeting this demographic? The overall gay buying power is an estimated $640 billion for 2006 (Witeck-Combs); this figure reached 70 billion pounds in the UK . It is expected to reach $835 billion in 2011. Buying Power of Gays in Top 15 Metro Markets Totals $310 Billion US Corporate advertisers spent $156 million on the gay-specific media market in 1999 – out of $215 billion spent overall (Rivendell/Universal McCann). This figure grew to $230 million in 2006. The American gay and lesbian community represents a US $47.3 billion travel market, or about 10% of the U.S. travel industry. 175 of the Fortune 500 actively advertised to the gay community in 2006, versus 19 in 1994. (These ads were placed in gay-specific and non-gay-specific publications.)

BigJock.com is one of the contestants gunning to win vator.tv's "Pitch Tim Draper your billion-dollar idea" contest. Go to vator.tv if you want to participate. All you have to do is upload your video pitch.

VatorTV's Pitch Tim Draper contest

Vator.tv's Pitch Tim Draper your billion-dollar idea contest runs through the end of February. The way to participate is to upload your video to vator.tv. Watch Tim's video to learn what he's looking for in a pitch.

In the Internet era...

In the Internet era, it’s not about getting millions to read articles from a few paid experts. It’s about making millions of people volunteer experts. It’s not about getting millions to watch one program with a few stars. It’s about getting a few people to watch millions of programs with millions of stars.
Moreover, it’s not just about getting users to express themselves, but providing the means to let users connect with each other.

(This is an excerpt from a Net Sense column I wrote. Often times we forget what we had written in the past. A blogger had picked this up from my column, said it was interesting. So, I thought I'd take note of it again and share it.)

Mobile social network gets $2 million in funding

Milan-based Mobango, which operates an online and mobile social network, just received $2 million in funding from UK venture capital firm Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. Mobango founder Fabio Pezzotti says the service has over 1 million registered users to the free service. "The service is entertaining, completely free, and can be enjoyed regardless of the cellular provider, phone manufacturer, or the country you live in” says Pezzotti. It appears that Mobango is going after the $10 billion market for ringtones and wallpaper worldwide. Watch the vator.tv video where Pezzotti introduces himself and thes service.

Brightcove's quarter-billion valuation

Brightcove, a privately-held Internet TV company, announced Wednesday that it raised $59 million in a series C round.

For those funds, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company received a $220 million post-money valuation, according to a person close to the situation.

For more, go to my MarketWatch blog and read prior column on Brightcove - Net Sense on MarketWatch

Mark Cuban on "The sport of business"

Mark Cuban, who sold garbage bags door to door and had a knack for playing the arbitrage game in the stamp business, shares his view on what it takes to be an entrepreneur. He calls the startup game: "The Sport of Business." He advises that entrepreneurs should think of themselves as being against everyone. "It's you against them," he said.

The big lesson for him (having started many businesses and is currently the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and co-founder of HDNet) is that most everyone has ideas, but it's not enough.

What it comes down to are two things:

1) Find something you love to do. Don't find something that makes money and work backwards. Find something you love to do.

2) Do the work. The idea doesn't carry the business. The amount raised won't take care of all the problems. (I'll add: ideas are 2% and execution is 98%)

Check out Mark's video pitch on lessons learned. And, go to vator.tvfor more videos about entrepreneurs. If you're interested in participating in a business plan competition, you can check out the "Pitch Tim Draper your billion-dollar idea" contest vator.tv is running.