April 2008 Archives

Really interesting analysis by Morgan Stanley:

The military has been making increased use of robots to do battlefield tasks.
By far the most important have been UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle), the Predator drones in particular.
Some have argued that it makes sense to get rid of fighter pilots and fighter planes, particularly expensive F-22s (http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080423/us_time/whytheairforcebugsgates) - basically, a drone is a lot cheaper (and a helluva lot more easily replaced) than either a fighter plane or a fighter pilot.

Then there are also the Foster-Miller Talons, which look m16s on tank treads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster-Miller_TALON.

Two cool new developments are the LANdroid: http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20393/ - a robot which will be very important as military "Transformation" continues - and the robot thief : http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/04/back-in-july-th.html

Will one day all wars be fought by robots? It sounds like a ridiculous question, but it is an interesting one to ask. It is certainly imaginable that more and more of the work will be done by robots controlled by humans outside of the theater.

It's been a year since FunnyorDie.com (FD) has been online (http://www.funnyordie.com/).  I was initially surprised to learn that Sequoia Capital - VCs who invested in Apple, Flextronic, Yahoo!, etc - would invest in a dumbed down YouTube (side note, one of their original General Managers was a Dartmouth Guy, Gordon Russell '55, who played varsity hockey, served in the Strategic Air Command, and was by all accounts the Man http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2005/04/28g.html). 

After some reflection, I realized FD was a no risk prospect.  The website has one of the most simple business plans I have ever encountered:

<1> Copy YouTube.  If YouTube is the WalMart of online videos (comparisons to Marshalls or Daffy's may be more appropriate since the videos therein are clearance items - the stuff that the studios will let them get away with posting), FD is a FootLocker.  The brands are better (Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow) and focus (comedy) is much narrower.

<2> Have most of your content generated elsewhere.  Although there are a few FD "Exclusives" a lot of the videos are old SNL videos (SNL prevents YouTube from showing their own videos), deleted scenes from Judd Apatow movies, Human Giant skits, etc. 

<3> Have inexpensive content.  With the exception of some of the elaborate Human Giant skits, most clips are very low tech and short.  The Will Ferrell baby videos, for example.

<4> Synergistic advertising.  The Ferrell-Apatow complex brings to mind Martha Stewart OmniMedia.  She would advertise her magazine on her TV show, her TV show in her cook books, her cookbooks in her magazine, etc.  Most of the advertisements on the FD page are for Judd Apatow movies - Judd Apatow is a special partner in the company - and Comedy Central.  So finding advertisers is easy, and the advertising is actually effective.  I'm a male 18-35 and when I'm checking out FD and see a trailer for a new movie, I got out and see it.

<5> Characters.  I've never met Will Ferrell or the rest of the guys.  They might be jerks.  Assuming they're not though, it is probably more fun working with (already successful) comedians than a bunch of up-tight, stressed out entrepreneurs - after all those years in the Silicon Valley trenches, it looks like the Sequoia guys got some dessert.

 

Searchme.com is an awesome new search engine. Think of an iphone and Google having a baby. You can flip through web pages like flipping through albums in iphone. No more clicking on a link with a cool description and finding a page scarred with banner ads and other detritus.

Somebody is going to buy this thing soon. It could definitely be an asset to Microsoft and/or Yahoo! and/or Ask.com - alternatively, they could just wait for Google to come up with something better.

Seqouia is backing this

Check out the Intruders.TV interview with Kevin Rose.

One of the cool things about being an entrepreneur or in VC is that you do not need to dress up to go to work -God knows I wish I didn't have to wear a tie and dress shoes everyday.  Kevin Rose has made a lot of money for his investors (and for himself) so nobody is going to fault him for wearing a hoodie.

The guy interviewing him, on the other hand, looks like he fell out of a Fall Out Boy video.

A finance guy would never come to the office - would never leave the house looking like that.  "Casual" for a finance guy is pressed shirt, no tie; or khakis and a polo shirt if you are getting on the yacht.  Part of it is a function of age (important finance guys are often a decade or two older than important VC/entrepreneur guys), but part of it is also a measure of culture:

compare this guy: