Open Media Network

Marc Andreesen is at it again. Check out http://www.omn.org. It's free. I haven't had time to test it yet, but seems cool. Have to see the quality of content.

I feel completely stressed out by the amount of information I have to cover now - Blogs, WSJ, Businessweek, Fortune, Businessweek, Forbes, ESPN etc. And now, Open Media Network. Internet is cool and I love the access to information. But its a little too much. Hopefully some new company will come along and solve this problem of "information overload".

Boeing gets a $6 Billion order from Air India

Air India selected Boeing over Airbus to supply 35 long range aircrafts at $6 Billion. Huge coup for the US company. US Government probably lobbied hard to get the order. Transportation Secreaty Norman Mineta was in India last week and Presdent Bush talked to the Indian PM.

This event triggered me to look for more info about this "great" competition (a classic B-School case study.) Both have come out with a new aircrafts - Boeing 787 and Airbus 380. Boeing has orders from Japanse (80), Chinese (50), and now Indian (20) airlines. This amounts to 75% of the orders. Airbus on the other hand has 154 total orders. UAE (43), Germany (15), Singapore (10) and France (10) are the largest buyers. Its interesting to see the link between the orders and the geopolitical environment.

India - Global Media Players want a piece of the action

Reuters announced that it is investing $20 million and taking a 26% stake in the broadcasting arm of Times of India Group. Dow Jones has a joint venture with the Times of India Group to publish Wall Street Journal India. India continues to generate a lot of interest. Global players like Reuters and Dow Jones have started to realize that India is a growing market and not just a low cost provider of services.

Free Shredding Day - Only in America

I found this pretty amusing. City of Cupertino is organizing this event. Residents can bring their unwanted paperwork for schredding. The intent is to promote recycling (I think its cool) but can you imagine such an event anywhere else.

WiFi Cloud

The best thing Bangalore can do to enhance its image as the next silicon valley is to build a "Wifi Cloud". The city is ready and I think the adoption will be phenomenal. Check out this report about what Minneapolis is doing about Wifi. $15 million for citywide access is not that bad. $20/month is affordable and travelers can be charged as well. Wireless revolution is just beginning.

Purple Cow

Seth Godin has a new book out - Purple Cow. It is interesting how he arrived at this title. He was driving through France and was enchanted by hundreds of cows grazing in lovely pastures. But very soon he got bored. The new cows, all "brown", were just like the old cows, and what was once amazing was now common. Worse than common, it was boring. And so came the thought of having a "purple cow" - which is not boring and stands out. Can you think of products that were once interesting and have now become brown cows? Most of them would fall in this category. The more I think about it, our world is full of boring stuff/products - brown cows, which is why so few people pay attention. These are not bad products but are not remarkable. And only remarkable products have a long term sustainability (of course, relatively speaking.)

gOffice.com

Here's an interesting site - gOffice. The basic premise of this site is a free web based office productivity suite of applications. Word processing and desktop publishing are up and running. They appear to have spreadsheets and presentations cooking in the lab. I really like the ability to create PDF documents. Try it out!

General Motors and Zachow's Tavern

GM spent a mind boggling $5.6 billion last year on health care for its active and retired employees (total 1.1 million). This works out to be around $1,500 for every vehicle produced by GM. The folks at GM are trying to reduce this expense by promoting health awareness. Noble idea, but I think it is ridiculous to think that a tavern, called Zachow's Tavern, close to the premises is somehow a big problem. I fount it amusing that GM actually tried to buy this tavern to close it. Jim Zachow, owner of the bar, says he's in no hurry to sell, citing "good old family values". However, he said he'd be willing to sell to GM for the right price. A GM executive said the company has made offers but the Zachow wanted too much money.

Zachow's Tavern has an interesting sign in the corner that reads: "Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India." I thought it was amusing that "India talk" is now mainstream in America. Any way, getting back to the story about Zachow's Tavern, Mr. Zachow says that the workers don't get drunk when they hit his bar during breaks. He says they only have less than a half-hour for their breaks and it’s great that they can get two or three beers down. Well, now you know why GM's cars are not of the highest quality.

Soft Dollars

Soft dollars are credits that result from arrangements between brokers and fund managers, where the broker provides the fund manager with both the execution of brokerage transactions and research-related products and services. Fund managers use the fund's assets to pay for the brokerage commissions when buying and selling portfolio securities. Does the fund manager breach fiduciary responsibility by using client assets for his or her own benefit? Absolutely. Fund managers using soft dollars face a conflict of interest between their need to obtain research and their clients' interest in paying the lowest commission rate available and obtaining the best possible execution. One SEC report indicated that soft dollars have sometimes been used for products and services that clearly seem abusive and inappropriate. Will the Soft Dollars go away? There is a lot of talk about limiting and regulating the use of soft dollars. The people who want to get rid of soft dollars argue that such an action will better align the interests of fund managers and fund investors. In addition, they say that investors will find it easier to understand the costs of various investment products and services used by fund managers. It is difficult to predict the outcome, but there will be far reaching consequences for funds, brokers, research and research-related service providers.

User input and product development

A few months back I had written about the problems in being too user centric. To continue that discussion, I feel that no survey or focus group will ever tell you what the next great thing is going to be. An industry transforming idea comes from people who understand a new technology well enough to dream up an unintended use and who are stubborn and skillful enough to implement what nobody even knew to want. I feel finEye kind of fits into this mould.

The question "what can we do to help you do you job better" is too loaded and the answer can rerely result in a revolutionary product. User input is absolutely essential in improving a revolutionary product, not creating one. VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program, is an example. It is difficult to believe that a "staple" application like the spreadsheet was not invented with any user input.

Bottom line, it is better to go ahead and actually build your revolutionary product (at least create a good working prototype) and then seek user input. Once you are ready to talk to customers, keep an open mind and don't get defensive when you get conflicting ideas on how to improve your product.