VC in DC

Twitter: Grotech General Partner Steve Fredrick on Bloomberg

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Steve Fredrick was interviewed today on Bloomberg about Twitter and its impact.  

My life on Craigslist

Having kicked around the Internet for the better part of 12 years, I cannot help but be struck by the advent of the local Web. It has been long threatened and over promised but the local functionality of Internet connectedness may finally be upon us.   Local content, meaning micro content -- your neighborhood and town, cannot be far off.  And the last frontier of Internet advertising and commerce may be opening up, the local advertiser market will be the final domino to fall.  And it is a big one.

My case in point is the preceding weekend. On Friday, I agreed to purchase a G5 iMac from a seller on Craigslist. We agreed that the seller would deliver to my house after our respective kids went to bed. He arrived at 9:30p, I paid cash and we set it up together.

On Saturday am, I pondered the evening while I taught at the Univ. of Maryland MBA program. Unfortunately, my desired option of going to a Nats game was out as they were going to play that afternoon during my class.   I checked Craigslist for tickets to other events and found that the comedy troupe, "Kids in the Hall" were appearing in town at the Warner Theater.   I arranged with a seller to meet during a class break at 11:30am outside the UMD building on Penn. Ave, NW.   I bought 2 tickets at face during a 15 minute break and went back in to finish the class. 

On Sunday am, I had a computer technician that I found on Craiglist come by to fix my remaining network issues with my new iMac.  He arrived at 10am and charged $40 an hour.  It took 45 minutes.  I suppose he was happy.  I sure was pleased.

This doesn't speak to local advertising directly.  But that is more a function of the anamoly that Craigslist represents as content and commerce largely devoid of advertising.   Where the consumers go, the advertisers will follow as soon as an avenue is provided to them.  Local content, advertising and commerce are the proverbial "last mile" of the Internet economy.   

Boy, I am glad that I'm not a channel manager

Distribution channels are still a valuable necessity in a lot of industries.  But in many industries, they are truly under attack.

We're seeing opportunity after opportunity where value will flow from the content creators and thought leaders without the participation of a distribution channel in the classic sense.  Whether it is writer, artist, musician, reviewer, subject matter expert or other, the Internet is enabling the flow from its source to a multitude of destinations without restriction.  More importantly, value is flowing too.   

An example of this is BrightHub.  BrightHub aims to enable product reviewers to participate in the economic impact of their articles.   Consider for example, that a product reviewer may have established a large following and be a trusted source.  What is the fair economic value for a truthful, positive review that drives product sales?  Who receives that value?   

Heretofore, a magazine might pay the reviewer a small portion of the true economics to the reviewer and leverage the resulting impact to drive ad sales.  Good for you if you're the magazine.  Bad for you if you're the reviewer.   So in the BrightHub model, the reviewer benefits from the value of their own brand and participates in the industry created by their work.  I only point to them as a suitable example.

They're are, in fact, many great examples of the content creators disaggregating the distribution channels that have long retained economic value by restricting the conduit and leveraging the resultant scarcity. 

We live in a great time but it isn't going to be great for everybody.