From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road

Android...Applications and Handsets are Coming

One of my 2008 predictions was that the Google backed Android open handset platform would be well received in the industry.  I gave a lot of reasons why.  A lot of industry experts have taken the other side of the bet.  But that is the less insightful and easier side of the bet, since many standards fail and the few who make it take years to get there, just look at how long Bluetooth took to get there.  But there are signs that Android is alive and kicking.  Here are two data points:

According to Google, 1788 apps from 70 countries have been submitted to the Google Android Challenge.  This is a healthy number given it's been less than a year since the challenge began.  It will certainly grow as phones really make it to the market.  Which brings us to the next point.

According to this VentureWire article, pieces quoted below, T-Mobile already has a prototype and plan to ship Android phones in 2008. 

"At the Wireless Innovations 2008 conference in Redwood City, Calif., sponsored by Dow Jones & Co., publisher of VentureWire, Joe Sims, vice president and general manager of T-Mobile's broadband and new business division, said he had already seen prototypes of the company's Android-based phone, which are scheduled to ship in this year's final quarter.

"I'm impressed," he said. "We will have more than one product...[The move to an open platform] will be innovation across the board, not just one device."

T-Mobile, like other carriers, was leery of Google at first, because the open platform that the search giant was pushing seemed radical and untested, Sims said. T-Mobile is now a part of Google's Open Handset Alliance, as is chipmaker Qualcomm Inc."

If indeed a consumer buys an Android phone in the next two years, let alone one, Android would be a success. 

All this is the side effect of the nuclear bomb that fell on the Wireless industry last year, called the iPhone.  It opened everybody's eyes as to what is possible.

A Social Network the Size of the U.S.

I qutoe Tim Leberecher from his blog post about QQ.com

"Let's take QQ.com as an example, the leading Chinese online social network. The site is reported to have more than 300 million active accounts. That is eight times the member base of Facebook--and it's the same size as the U.S. population.

What's also remarkable (and different from the Western social networks) is QQ's monetization. Facebook posted revenue of $150 million for 2007 (and according to Plus8star a loss of $50 million); MySpace.com (purchased by News Corp. for $560 million) is projected to generate $750 million in revenue this year; and Bebo (purchased by AOL for $850 million) had revenue of just $20 million in 2007. While QQ reported revenue of $523 million and an astonishing operating profit of $224 million in 2007. The revenue distribution is unusual, too: 60 percent of the revenue came from services like games, an additional 21 percent from mobile services like ringtones, and only 13 percent from online advertising."

Most of us who focus on the US can easily miss this scale and more importantly, miss that advertising is not necessarily the only way to monetize.  There are a number of other international social networking sites that do very well monetizing with value added services. 

Life In Cold Blood...Finally

Today, I received the DVD of David Attenborough's Life In Cold Blood, a phenomenal birthday gift no dobut.  Thank you!  It is one of those DVD's that you know will be a masterpiece before you even watch it.  I've been waiting for it for more than two years.

I did watch the first part of episode one, and it only takes 5-10 minutes into it you realize that, even if you never watched Sir David, you are listening to a master storyteller, and he hits you with one hell of a scene.  Now, some readers may remember that this blog has a fascination with evolutionarily more primitive animals eating more sophisticated ones.  I've featured an octopus eating a shark, a centipede eating a bat for example (one is a video).  Life in Cold Blood gives us another one and I have a feeling it's not going to be the only one.

David Attenborough shows in the first episode of Life in Cold Blood, a python eating a deer, a baby one but a deer nonetheless.  The python swallows it whole head first.  It is such a big digestive process that the snakes liver doubles in size in two days and its heart grows 40%.  It's entire body shows a vast increase in biochemical activity until the deer is fully digested.  Amazing.  After that, the snake doesn't have to eat for months, maybe a year.  That's the benefit of being cold blooded.  Warm blooded animals spend 80% of their energy on generating heat.

So there you go, have a deer for lunch, and don't eat anything for a year.  That's the diet I should be on.

Get this DVD here, and thank me for it later.

2nd Annual Labor vs. Capital Kickball

We just played the 2nd annual Labor vs. Capital games, where VC's go against entrepreneurs.

Last year the VC's lost to the entrepreneurs in dodgeball.

This year the tables had turned.

With convincing wins on the kickball field, (and one inning that had 11 runs) Capital has now evened the score against Labor.

Thanks everybody for coming and David, Hunter and Noah for organizing.

See you next year!

Philippines 2008 - Top Ten Photos

As promised, here are the ten of the best photos we took in the Philippines.  They were taken on various parts of the islands of Palawan, Mindanao and Luzon.  Look at the low resolution picture on the blog, but be sure to click on the image for the high-resolution picture.  All these photos took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to take, and all photo credits go to Cagan Sekercioglu, who proved over and over again that he is as good a photographer as he is a biologist.

1. Philippine Frogmouth:  We saw this bird off the trail path, in the middle of the jungle at night.  This is an endemic to the Philippines.  It's not an owl, it is in a family of its own.  Open the high-res version and zoom into the eyes.

2. Palawan Peacock Pheasant:  Saw this beautiful bird on the island of Palawan.  It's a pheasant with the tail of a peacock, another endemic to the Philippines.

3. Indigo Banded Kingfisher:  Seen on a creek during our last days in Luzon.

4. Yellow Breasted Fruit Dove:  Seen on the eastern part of Mindanao.

5. Philippine Serpent Eagle:  Seen circling over our heads in Mindanao, near a logging consession.

6. Scale Crested Malkoha:  Another endemic to the Philippines, seen on Mt. Makiling in Luzon.

7. Pink Bellied Imperial Pigeon:  Ever seen a pigeon like that?  Seen in Mindanao.

8. Apo Myna:  Another endemic, found on the hills of Mt. Kitanglad in Mindanao.

9. Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher:  Seen in our first day on Palawan.

10. Grass Owl:  Majestic bird, seen on Mindanao at the wetlands around an abandoned airport.

All picture credits Cagan Sekercioglu