Tag Archive for 'youtube'

Sergey Brin

Published
by
jk
on October 4, 2007
in Content and Media
. Comments

Never seen him speak before in anything. I’ve seen pictures with him and Larry Page, but never have I seen him interact with a crowd or hear him speak. He seems very unassuming and amiable guy. Why can’t UIUC get him or Larry Page to come speak here…?

Of course, the next best thing is a YouTube video of him speaking.

I was able to access this through Berkeley’s new YouTube page. Berkeley is definitely doing something truly wonderful by letting all this content be available. Of course, there were podcasts of courses available, but this is the first time all these video lectures are available for mass consumption.

That, and more students can sleep in if necessary.

One huge takeaway: Take something simple, and take it to a certain scale. Then you have the momentum to build something great.

Need to create something to have some weight to throw around. Hopefully, I’ll be able to bring you some updated stories with HanMeta this weekend.

Robert Greenberg on Donny Deutsch

Published
by
jk
on February 17, 2007
in Project Ideas
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Robert Greenberg, CEO and founder of Skechers on one of my most favorite shows, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.

I asked myself, since all I do on YouTube is waste time, why don’t I look up some really good TV shows that I missed… you know, the ones that will actually help me with the goals I want to achieve in life. (Becoming a Korean Pop star is not one of those goals. I’ll just write off all those Korean Music Videos and Variety Shows off as a means to my goal to become a Korean media mogul…)

The first time I saw Mr. Deutsch’s show was when he was talking with Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbuck’s. Then I saw him on with Bill Gates, Paul Mitchell…. I was hooked.

One of those really motivating videos.

Summary: It’s not what their selling… it’s about the persistence. Don’t ever stop trying. Can’t see the turns at the starting line. Just start running. You’ll get somewhere. Preparation meets opportunity.

For me, I know for a fact what I’ll be doing is going to have to do with the web. I’m not sure why I’m going to start this race with that kind of mindset, but it makes the most sense for me.

However, I need to continue to understand that the web is only the platform. I can choose to sell whatever I want, whether it be a physical product or a service; be it B2B or a consumer-based market; be it advertising-supported or tiered fee-based monetization strategy. This is why this stage of beginning to understand the nature of the web will help me as I start this race.

And with that, I’m all motivated out. Back to reality.

Side note: Why is YouTube out of sync while Google Video isn’t? It’s those l33t hack monkeys at Google… I get so frustrated when I see audio out of sync with the video… someone should program something to fix that timing… but who…?

6 Startup Lessons For The Year 2007

Published
by
jk
on February 6, 2007
in Project Ideas
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Read/Write Web - 6 Startup Lessons For The Year 2007

A great list of things I need to follow for the startup. Pretty much puts into paragraph form I’ve been thinking about what I need to do for a startup.

One thing that I disagree on is the idea of the small niche market. The example used in this article was a community of Persian cat owners. Even though there might be a thousand people out there interested in such a site, how incredibly difficult would it be to reach them? Where’s the advertising budget on this one? Don’t even bring up “word-of-mouth” advertising… it’s not like you have a small town of Persian cat owners.

My belief is that there are small markets that actually are too small. Prices on hosting and other costs in creating an application is dropping, but who’s going to know about these tiny TINY applications. (Mind you, I’m talking about social networking sites… B2B is another story… which is where I might consider going into…)

I would add this to the list:

  1. Monetization Where the heck is the money?

YouTube was able to sell for a ridiculous price tag, but they’re still (written in Oct 2006) not that profitable. If they do start advertising pre and post clips, chances are the community that came with that $1.65 billion price tag will start to leave to the likes of dailymotion or metacafe.

I believe that passion to develop the product is the most important thing a startup can have. It’s not always about the money; in fact, it shouldn’t be. It should be to create what the users want, and make the world a better place.

But seriously, someone’s gotta pay for the bandwidth, the coding monkeys… This is why I’m holding off on a lot of my projects until I figure out how to actually monetize on it. And until I learn Ruby on Rails fully. Here’s a lovely reading on the subject.