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October 12, 2007
Those Key Early Employees
Much is often said about the founders of a company, including on this blog. And they seem to receive a preponderance of the recognition for the ultimate success of an endeavor. Of course, it's obvious that these individuals are vital to a startup. However, I think that the people often overlooked are those key first hires. Yes, the management team has a great affect on an organization, regardless of its size or stage. But the first individual- and team- contributors brought into an organization help set the tone for the culture in a profound way. One single strong and vibrant personality can energize the office. Someone's quirkyness can add real character to the group. Those first five to ten non-management hires in a startup help set the tone for how things get done and how people behave while they’re doing it. Being an early hire at a startup gives an individual the ability to make tremendous impact on an organization as it grows – and both the founders and those hires should know it.
Posted by at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)The Annual Marker of the Web2.0 Summit
The first Web2.0 conference which I attended was in 2005, and that one had a very authentic feel to it. It's interesting to look back at notes from those sessions and the conclusions like "tagging is a short word, but requires a long explanation." By last year, the conference had grown up to become an extravaganza, for lack of a better descriptive term. And this year's elevation of the moniker to a "Summit" should continue with that trend. Regardless, conferences are for conversations. The important business is about connecting with people, as opposed to the content in the sessions themselves. Along those lines, if you've been meaning to reach out or just want to ensure that we reconnect while we’re both at the show, drop me an e-mail at [david at genuinevc dot com].
Posted by at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)October 3, 2007
The Shift Towards Universal Search
There has been a lot of coverage this past week about the recent upgrading of search engines' user experiences to include other content-type results. Yahoo unveiled new enhancements on Tuesday, Microsoft launched refined Live Search last week, and Ask upgraded to its "3D" user interface back in June. Of course, Google announced its "Universal Search" all the way back in May, touted by Marissa Mayer on their blog "to blend content from Images, Maps, Books, Video, and News into our web results."
Almost all of the analysis which I've read has been in the context of the search engine wars, and how these recent efforts are a last-ditch effort for the non-Google search engines to play catch up. That's a fine story, but I think that there’s another fundamental trend at play here. It's a natural evolution of search to include other content types other than links, and I think that the real story is centered around the ramifications of what content (especially video) will now get featured as results given the introduction of universal search. It's one thing to find video when you’re looking for it; it's another thing to find video when you don’t know you’re looking for it in the first place. Increasingly we're seeing video as included results for terms which a consumer wouldn't necessarily think to search for on at a dedicated site or search engine, but she will find incredibly useful nonetheless.
I've seen a number of conversations about universal search in the SEO trade circles (e.g. universal & blended vertical search was a hot topic at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose last month), but I have heard a lot less buzz about it in startup circles. To me, there is potential underserved opportunity here. When people begin to find video and other content "serendipitously," it begs the question how the content got there in the first place. Many great internet businesses were built upon leveraging natural search as a distribution mechanism, and I see the shift towards universal search as opening a door for new players to enter what was a marketplace that previously gave unfair advantage to incumbents on a specific keyword term. Much like the situation for natural text search in the late 90's, there is a new land grab for top search placement for these new media formats (like images, podcast, and video). This return of the wild west scenario puts startups and established players alike on equal footing, because these algorithms are being established anew and don’t favor an incumbent authoritative source.
In fairness, the transition, at least for Google, has been a measured and calculated process. When Google launched universal search this spring, some commentators accurately reflected this move as a lengthy process as opposed to an overnight switch. "I don't expect we're going to see wholesale changes in the near future… I'd assume that whatever Google does, they'll do deliberately and cautiously," said Matt Greitzer, a national practice lead for search marketing at Avenue A/Razorfish, back in May. (As a demonstration of the lack of anywhere close to a full transition, ironically, currently a video of an interview about the future of search and universal search with guru Mike Grehan doesn’t show up as a video result in Google when searching for "seo universal search," but rather as a text link.)
Perhaps the buzz this week with the other search engines will facilitate a quicker transition towards integrated results on all engines, and the opportunity about placement in those results will become more salient. Whether it's in categories of travel, shopping, and other transaction-oriented content, video and other media types will be useful and important search results in the coming years. Startups and other fast-movers have a unique opportunity to participate in that shift beyond just text links.
(Special thanks to Daphne Kwon who helped me think through some of the issues in this post.)