Over the past several weeks I have formulated some predictions for 2010. Overall, I am excited for the new year. If you would like to argue for or against any of these predictions, definitely leave a comment. I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and happy holidays.
Search & Advertising
- Wolfram|Alpha will be acquired by Google or Microsoft. If Microsoft acquires Wolfram, it will be in an effort to differentiate Bing, which it must to do in 2010 to gain any additional market share. On the other hand, Google would love to take Wolfram Alpha’s API out of Bing’s reach.
- Real-time search will become more ubiquitous. The value of real-time will become largely evident, and will be more heavily incorporated in search engines.
- Mobile advertising will remain a challenge in 2010, but progress will be made. 2011 will be the year for mobile advertising.
- Local advertising will heat up.
- More major brands will participate in social media. Social media will become a standard and will be part of nearly all marketing efforts by the end of 2010.
Read more to see all predictions.
If you haven’t yet heard of Blippy.com, it’s a startup that lets you share your credit card purchases with your friends. It launched yesterday in private beta, and has caused many people to question the fate of privacy.
Judging by the comments on a TechCrunch article (and this one) about the launch, there are a lot of people who don’t like Blippy. Afterall, the concept of sharing credit card purchases can be intimidating. As someone pointed out in a comment at TechCrunch, you wouldn’t want a message like “Mary just spent $500 at XYZ Abortion Clinic” showing up on your Blippy feed.
Then again, the negative response might be a good sign. Take a look at the early reaction to Twitter. People didn’t understand why anyone would want to publish private “SMS messages to a public webpage.” No one saw utility in messages limited to 140 characters. The most remarkable companies were sometimes doubted at inception.
In the most general sense, the degree of “work” an individual puts forth is equivalent to the “reward” they receive; as I work harder, the reward I receive increases. A simple example would be studying for a test. The more I study, the higher my grade.
But what causes me to study in the first place? It may be for the satisfaction associated with receiving a good grade, or possibly to avoid the dissatisfaction of receiving a bad grade. Nevertheless, there is a positive correlation between the work I apply and the reward I receive.
In short, two factors motivate people to do work:
- Possibility for future satisfaction
- The avoidance of future dissatisfaction
The happiest workers, of course, are the ones who work for the satisfaction of the reward. Nevertheless, working to avoid dissatisfaction can be equally motivating. After all, we spend time and money having our cars inspected in order to avoid having an inspection violation in the future.
Amazing ideas can fail with weak execution. A significant factor that determines a company’s potential for execution, and therefore success, are the values a company lives by.
Facebook’s co-founder, Dustin Moskovitz, is working on a new startup called Asana, which has raised $10.2 million to date. At the bottom of Asana’s landing page is a list of 15 core values that the company holds. Moskovitz’s values, or some variation thereof, are ideals that every startup should live by, and not merely aspire to.
Asana is currently hiring designers, developers, and business people in the Bay Area. However, you need not apply if you do not concur with Asana’s values.
Asana’s Core Values
- Reason
- Action in the face of fear
- Honesty & transparency (internally and externally)
- Leverage
- Pragmatism
- Craftsmanship
- Chill-ness
- Being a mensch
- Company as collective of peers (vs. command-and-control hierarchy)
- Investing in people
- Perseverance
- Admitting when you’re wrong
- Diving in and fixing problems, even if they’re not yours
- Intellectualism
- Trust in wisdom over rules and incentives (explanation)
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