A nice piece that I came across from Techcrunch:

Loic Le Meur’s Ten Rules For Startup Success

Michael Arrington

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The Financial Times has a profile of French (now Silicon Valley) entrepreneur Loic Le Meur today.

Loic is an accomplished entrepreneur - he founded uBlog (merged with Six Apart), organizes the annual Le Web conference and has now created Seesmic (note that I’m an investor in Seesmic). So even though he’s French, his advice, when given, is worth listening to.

Included in the article are his ten rules for startup success. Reprinted below.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/05/loic-le-meurs-ten-rules-for-startup-success/

Read this blog saying that Apple started to sell the first Apple II computer 30 years ago (June 1977).  I’m sure everyone has heard about the Apple II computer which monopolized the PC market back then.  Or to be more exact defined the PC market until IBM decided to introduce personal computers in 1981.

What I did not know is that Apple has a different logo when selling its Apple I computer.  See logo on the right.  As the blog suggested, it may be more appropriate for a rock album.

Steve Jobs realized that the company needs something different and hence employed its PR firm Regis McKenna to design a new oneand that design is now one of the world’s most recognized trademarks.

 I still remember my first Apple II which of course was a clone from the famous Shamshuipo Golden Arcade in Hong Kong.  It came with an orange monitor instead of the common green and I remember that I used to load games with cassette tapes (For those who born in the 80s and wondering what I am talking about, I meant cassette tapes that were common to record songs prior to MD and MP3 players).  Then I got myself a 5.25″ disk drive tha could hold up to some 512 KB of data.  Back then it cost almost $100 for a box of 10!

I could not remember what I used the computer for other than playing Load Runner, Olympics decathon and Castle Wolfenstien (my favourite!).

How times have changed …

After the long wait, it has been officially announced that iPhone will be available on 29 June 2007 in the US (with AT&T only).  New TV Ads are also out but I find them a bit disappointing … really basic and straight forward … not like the humorous Apple Ads we used to see.  May be there is no ‘wow’ factor as Steve Jobs has already demonstrated all the cool features of the phone back in MacWorld. For those who are interested, here are the links:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/ads/ad1/

http://www.apple.com/iphone/ads/ad2/

http://www.apple.com/iphone/ads/ad3/

APPL has been on a very strong upward trend in anticipation of the release of the iPhone:

It broke the $100 mark on 2 May and never looked back, closing at 120.50 on 5 June.

Microsoft today announced a new hardware called Surface which is essentially a coffee table-shaped computer with touch screen.  Forget about mouse and keyboard, the concept is to interact with human with voice, pen and touch.

This is a really futuristic design and idea.  Based on initial reports, “It allows people to touch and move objects on screen for everything from digital finger painting and jigsaw puzzles to ordering off a virtual menu in a restaurant.”

“It also recognizes and interacts with devices placed on its surface, so cell phone users can easily buy ringtones or change payment plans by placing their handsets on in-store displays, or a group of people gathered round the table can check out the photos on a digital camera placed on top” … according to a report by Reuters.

I wonder what will happen if someone places an ipod on top … may be it will be destroyed automatically like the recorder in “Mission Impossible” and a window poping up saying “time to replace your ipod with Zune”?

Anyway, the item will be selling for $5,000 and $10,000 each initially.  Can’t wait to see one of the real thing.  It will be installed in some casinos and hotels in the US first. 

Seeing the risk of a bubble on the stock market bursting, the central bank of China announced a three-pronged measure on 18 May 2007 after markets closed:

1. the central bank raised interest rates (for the fourth time in a year)

2. it also ordered banks to set aside more reserves, thus reducing the money supply for lending. The rate on a commercial one-year loan rose 0.18 percent to 6.57 percent.

3. broaden the daily trading range of the yuan against the U.S. dollar which could lead to a faster appreciation of the yuan.

So the impact on the market?

When the market opened Monday, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was 3.2 percent down from Friday’s close but steadily regained ground, rising 1.0 percent to close at 4,072.23. So far this year, the Shanghai index has soared 52.2 percent.  That was on top of a 130% jump last year.

The Shenzhen Composite Index climbed 2.1 percent to 1,181.42.  The Hong Kong Heng Sang Index also up 22 points to close at 20927.

Looks like we will expect more policies to come to curb the stocks fever in China.

The biggest story last week was was Microsoft’s (NasdaqGS: MSFT) $6 Billion buy out offer of aQuantive (NasdaqGS: AQNT).  I was in Bangkok and watching this news over CNBC.  I was not sure if I heard it right as the premium offered was a whooping 80% on the stock price.  I am sure that aQuantive shareholders were laughing to the bank but some seems to see it as a desperate move by Microsoft.

After Steve Jobs earlier asking labels to offer DRM (Digital Rights Management) free music, EMI finally announced that they will be offering such to music fans.

However, instead of taking out the DRM protection from the existing catalog, they are actually charging a higher price ($1.29 compared to the standard $0.99) claiming that the quality is better at a higher bit-rate and because it is DRM-free.  I thought that is a bit disappointing.  AlLso, they are offering it through iTunes in AAC format so that means not all MP3 player is able to support playback.

I have shared my views on this on LinkedIn through their Answers and thought I could also post it up here:

How will that affect sales?

a) sales probably will have a slight positive increase, especially for those converted (like me) who owns ipods but also like to use my mobile phones (Windows mobile 5.0 or Symbian) to listen to music.  I think there will be minimal impact on piracy, those who won’t pay will continue refuse to pay.

Who are the winners?

b) winners will be those who have been or seriously thinking about legal music downloads.  EMI will also win as it seems to be more willing to listen to music fans.  Those major labels who are not following quick enough may be losers.  An of course Apple will be a winner too, since the files will be in AAC format and that could probably lead to more hardware sales … where the profit is.

Will other labels follow?

c) I’d say other majors should follow soon as it will be likely that the move will be positive to sales.  Plus DRM does not really help in combating priracy.
Will the public be convinced and start paying for music?

d) I have doubts if the move can win over those who have not considered paying for music, especially in this part of the world ( China and Asia ).  However, in the longer term and together with more education/legal threat, the removal of DRM should be a positive incentive for the public.

NBC and Fox announced that they will work with a number of major websites including Yahoo!, MySpace and MSN to distribute legally free TV shows and movies.  This appears to be a direct response to Google/Youtube where a lot of illegitimate copies of the shows are available.

And we are talking about hits like ‘24′, ‘House’, Heroes’ and ‘The Devil Wears Prada’.  Being FREE to users.

The model is to join hands and start a new video site that will run content from the two organizers and be supported by advertising. They’ll also supply content and a video player to their partner sites.  So it’s like back to the ‘old’ days where internet services and content will be free to the users but supported by advertisers.

I will be very keen to see how successful it will be.  I think initially the potential lost in sales of DVDs may not be compensated by the ad dollars.  Yet with P2P sharing DVD sales may be hurting anyway so this is quite a bold move by the media companies to try out this new ad-supported model.  I think it makes sense to go to this direction as advertisers will see that more people will start watching video on their computers (or TV via their computers, think Apple TV).  Hence it also makes sense for advertisers to follow their audience and advertise on this new channel.

While it may take some time to see if the media companies will benefit, looks like the clear winners will be users who can enjoy free quality content and those companies who provide the streaming and ad insertion technologies.

Just like Napster which turns into a legit music download service, BT announced that they will also start offer movie rental and TV downloads for a fee.  Movie can be viewed within a 24-hour period while TV programs can be purchased and owned.

There are more than 5,000 titles including movies, TV shows, music and games content from partners like MGM, 20th Century Fox, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Group.

This is definitely good news for 24 fans like me.  No longer do I need to wait for local TV station to carry the series or wait till DVD becomes available.  I could actually pay for the latest episodes once they become available in the US.

However, when I go check out the site, the service is only available in the US.  Just like iTunes, those executives in the entertainment industry still has a very traditional mindset depsite they start to make use of the internet to sell their content.  Why don’t they open up the market and make the content available to the worldwide audience?  Afterall, the advantage of the internet is its boarderless characteristics.  They could reach out to a massive number of customers in a very cost effective way.  Payment can be easily made by credit card or Paypal so why do they have to limit the service to the US?

Of course one of the considerations is to protect the local TV station as they have paid large sums to get the rights to broadcast the programs.  But with the internet, the studios or labels could reach the end customers directly.

The site claims that they have 135 million users and believe that may be one third of them will pay for the downloads or rental.  But by blocking international users to pay for the service, they just give them an excuse to continue the practice of illegal downloads.

One of six Samsung handsets unveiled at the 3GSM World Congress, the F700 features a QWERTY keypad, touch screen interface, 5-megapixel camera and large screen.

This may be the phone that I have been looking for (at least before iPhone is available). I’ve been thinking about the O2 Zinc and Dopod 838 Pro but they still seem a bit bulky. This one is really stylish and with a 5 Megapixel camera and a keypad, I could easily blog as I go. Wonder how much will be the price tag?

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