Web X.0

Israel's exports, part 6

Israel's high tech export machine[1] has been firing on all cylinders in the past two months:

• Onigma exported to McAfee for ~$20M
• Storeage exported to LSI Logic for $55M
• Power D-Sine exported to MicroSemi for $245M
• Topio exported to Network Appliance for $160M
• Relegence exported to AOL for ~$60M
• ItemField exported to Informatica for $50M
• Followap exported to Neustar for $140M

Nice batch - cool!

[1] My theory - there are countries that export products, countries that export oil and those that export agricultural goods. Israel builds and then exports high-tech companies.

Yahoo, Newspapers and Quigo

Finally some good news for Yahoo... Today it announced a partnership with 176 newspapers. Coverage on TechCrunch, NY Times, PaidContent, and others.

From the NY Times:

A consortium of seven newspaper chains representing 176 daily papers across the country is announcing a broad partnership with Yahoo to share content, advertising and technology...

This sounds to me a little like the beginning of the "Switzerland Inc." that Tom Mohr (ex-President of Knight Ridder) described in his manifesto a few months ago (this very important doc is behind a password on Editor&Publisher... urrggghhh! No link love here!... see Greg Sterling's blog for some snippets).

From it:

To win, industry leaders must adopt a Marshall Plan embodying two key objectives: the migration to common platforms, and the acquisition of the ability to sell top-quality online product to our advertisers. To fulfill these objectives, the independent companies of a proud industry must aggregate into an industry-wide network. In this network, each company must cede some control over its digital future into a “Switzerland” organization that manages the network.

Seems like Yahoo is now tackling some of the pieces of the first part - offering common technology platforms for classifieds, maps, etc.

On the second part, Quigo (full disclosure: which I founded, and am employed at) is the undisputed leader. As the NAA recently pointed out in a research called "Online Newspapers' Response to Google":

"...Quigo easily took the category, having affiliations with half the respondents."

With Yahoo handling the classifieds/syndication/maps areas, and Quigo handling the performance-based advertising, it seems like the newspapers are starting to put together those building blocks for creating a Switzerland Inc. that will survive (and hopefully thrive!) through the Google storm.

YPN exodus?

According to PaidContent, two top execs at Yahoo's YPN are leaving the company:

Yahoo has confirmed that Bill Demas, SVP-Yahoo Publishing Network Group, is leaving at the end of November....
...Also confirmed by Yahoo—Will Johnson, VP and GM, YPN, is leaving as well.

I wonder if the recent Quigo-ESPN deal has anything to do with these departures?... Hmmm...

Anyhow - All you YPN'ers - if you're interested in joining the fastest growing text advertising network in the country, drop me an email with your resume at:
galai at quigo dot com

What business are you in?

I recently watched Michael Eisner's show on CNBC (called 'Conversations', I think) in which he hosted Mark Cuban.

Mark had one of the best entrepreneurial sentences I've ever heard:

When I bought the Mavericks, everyone in the organization thought we were in the business of basketball. But we aren't. We're in the business of "Honey, what do you want to do tonight?"

Bingo!!

It's so easy to describe what business *you* think you're in. The trick is to define the business *your customers* see you in. It's not about what your product does, or which cool features it has. It's all about understanding which piece of attention of your customers you're fighting for, and who are the others trying to get that same slice of attention.

This has got to be the #1 mistake entrepreneurs make (and I'm speaking from personal experience...) - falling in love with their product/features and believing that the product is the business they're in. This must be the silent killer of startups because it's such a huge mistake that's so easy to go unnoticeable...

Cuban, as usual, nails it.

Sea Breeze and Biz

My old friend and fellow outbrainer, Ori Lahav, has joined the blogosphere with his new blog - Sea Breeze and Biz. He's writing about his two favorite topics - outbrain and yachting.

If the first few posts are any indication, this blog is well worth subscribing to.