Tag Archives: Trends

January 20, 2011 · 8:00 pm

The Like-ification of 2011

Earlier this week, I wrote a guest post on VentureBeat on the Like-ification of 2011 and start-up opportunities for entrepreneurs that can figure out how to leverage what we “like”.

The piece was picked up and re-posted in the New York Times. Ironically, you couldn’t “like” it in either place. Feel free to do so below. :)

(text below)

The Like-Ification of 2011

By SAAD KHAN of VentureBeat

A few weeks ago, I was listening to my car radio and had a surreal moment. Driving down Highway 101, I heard my jam, and reached for my iPhone to press a “like” button. I quickly realized the absurdity of my action — this was, in fact, my very analog car radio.

Nonetheless, I proceeded to spend the rest of the day “like-ing” stuff I came across in the real world: someone brought cupcakes into a meeting — “like”; I heard an awesome company pitch — “like”; I colluded with marauding investors on seed valuations for Y Combinator companies, “like” (and tweet cc @arrington). Every time, it was as if I had given myself a virtual high-five and couldn’t wait to share it.

Clearly Facebook has trained me well.

Do I sound crazy? Maybe, but I’m not alone. According to All Facebook, last July more than 65 million people were “like-ing” stuff on a daily basis. That’s more than 17.5 billion “likes” over nine months (assuming a constant rate and no growth of Facebook traffic). In September, Mashable reported that the “like” button is now present on over 2 million sites around the Web. That’s a lot of new data about user intent, and it’s growing. Not bad for a feature that rolled out only nine months ago.

If 2010 was about gamification, then 2011 will belong to people who can figure out what to do with what we like.

Like-ification of the Web

“Likes” and the social graph that creates them represent a new contextual layer on top of the existing web. It’s a layer that brings new opportunities for discovery and personalization in a world where noise is expanding much faster than signal (see last week’s fire in the blogosphere about Google’s losing battle against spam). This has significant implications in areas like search. Bing and Blekko have already announced integration of “like” data into search results to help improve discovery and relevance. Expect better utilization of this data and new discovery services to follow suit.

Like-ification of advertising

The holy grail in advertising is when the content is the advertising and vice versa. “Like” data gives advertisers the ability to personalize their message to an audience of one and target messages only to those that have expressed intent and interest. While Facebook itself is in pole position to leverage this data, in the rapidly expanding display advertising business, like-ification also has big implications for other stakeholders in the space. Retargeting vendors like AdRoll, Retargeter, and TellApart are already using your click history as a proxy for consumer intent, and data vendors like BlueKai and eXelate are building intent data about consumers all around the web.

While I expect to see continued vigorous privacy debates as consumers lobby for the proper controls over their data, imagine the value of explicit social expressions of consumer interest as the display ad market continues to heat up in 2011.

Like-ification of the real world

Finally, “likes” are coming out of their digital cage and into the analog world. Digital metadata is being layered onto the physical world. And ubiquitous access to sensor-laden mobile devices means that user data and intent is now being captured about physical locations like “check-ins” on Foursquare and Facebook Places, personal activity with Nike Fit and FitBit, the things we buy on apps like StickyBits, and even the stuff we see (it’s not just TV — remember this awesome Word Lens translation demo?).

Smart devices are growing in number and even more stacked with real robotics capabilities (Near Field Communications chips, image recognition) embedded at consumer price points. Our personal devices can increasingly perceive the physical world, and it’s not hard to imagine the physical world increasingly recognizing us. My Xbox Kinect already authenticates my face and pairs it with my player profile. Imagine what that could mean for your status updates.

Big changes are afoot in 2011. I think entrepreneurs are going to heart them.

Saad Khan likes his day job as a seed investor at CMEA Capital and giving love to his portfolio companies Blekko, Pixazza, Evolution Robotics, and Jobvite. You can  follow him on Twitter @saadventures

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October 8, 2010 · 3:12 pm

Entrepreneurs are Still the New Asset Class (I didn’t forget)

I’ve been overwhelmed by the responses I received to my Forbes piece a few weeks back, Entrepreneurs are the Next Asset Class, where I discussed the prospects of investing in entrepreneurs directly, not companies.  Many thanks to all the people who took the time to read, tweet, and comment.

While the post is based on some general sentiments that I’ve internalized for some time, I’ll be the first to admit that on the mechanics of investing directly in people, I’m several pivots away from a nugget. Having said that, I do think it’s possible and am going to be writing a number of posts on the topic in the coming weeks.

In the meanwhile, I had to share this email I received over the weekend:

“Imagine investing in the future of Lebron James when he was 10, or K rod , or any highly paid sport star. I have a 12 yr old boy in Florida that plays baseball all year. He weighs 150 pds, hits a ball 210 ft, throws left and very accurate. Do the research on left handed pitchers in MLB and what the earning potentials are. If you would like to know more, or just know someone that invest in the future of sports players, please e mail me. Thank you.”

150 lbs at 12? Man, I barely cracked 150 after I got married. :) If anyone has any ideas for him, let me know and I’ll be happy to connect you.

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March 10, 2010 · 1:22 am

Weak Signals

The following is a post I recently wrote for CMEA’s blog. You can also see it here.

At the World Economic Forum this past January, there was a two-hour session of the program devoted to the topic of “Weak Signals.”  This didn’t turn out to be a warning about bad communications infrastructure (as the crackberry addict in me feared), but instead addressed the concept of:

incipient and invisible changes of activity in a given area that are bound to have broader consequences in years to come.

In other words, a weak signal is something that is beginning to happen and could lead to a larger trend. The session explored weak signals across economics, science, and society; from the potential effects of restrictive immigration policy on America’s status as a research powerhouse, to the implications of global connectedness enabled by new communications infrastructure. The purpose of the program was to amplify the weak signals around the group, and by doing so to identify future opportunities while also recognizing possible pitfalls.

As someone who has the privilege of regularly interacting with many of the entrepreneurs, technologists, and designers creating the future, it got me thinking about activity and changes happening now that may point to interesting trends to watch in the months and years to come. Some of these may be things that we witness everyday but deserve more reflection; others may be relatively new additions to our lexicon.

I thought I’d start the conversation and introduce seven of the “weak signals” that have my antennae at attention. I’ll be expanding on them in future posts.

1. Free at last … Entrepreneurs are free at last

Much has been written about the “lean startup” and the ability of companies that leverage Internet technologies to be highly capital efficient. Fundamental enablers of this phenomenon include open source infrastructure, cloud resources, global talent, and new platforms that are available for viral growth and distribution. Extrapolating current trends, it’s clear that launching a software product will eventually approach “free”. What are the economics of this freedom and its implications for the venture capital industry?

2. The rise of “Micro-work”


The Internet is becoming an API onto the world’s most valuable resource, global talent. The ability to access not just the wisdom of the crowd, but increasingly the labor of the crowd has the potential to disrupt business models in every vertical where on-demand talent pools can fulfill the work that used to be delivered by traditional employer arrangements. This phenomenon will also enable an entirely new class of products and services that take advantage of this mode of work. How will the rise of micro-work impact business and the culture of labor?

3. Game Mechanics rule the world

When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. My hammer for many months now looks a lot like a video game. The social games phenomenon is a testament to the power of well-designed systems to create massively engaging experiences, and provide a window into where the future of media may be headed (the video game industry has been bigger than Hollywood for some time now). Great game designers are experts at exploiting innate social drivers such as status and competition to motivate human behavior and create addicting experiences. These same principles are now being applied to a host of new and unexpected areas far outside the realm of traditional entertainment.

4. Social Data Mining

In addition to being one of the most efficient engines of communication and viral propagation, the social web has a power that’s only just beginning to be understood. The social metrics and behavioral exhaust of the social web, including the country-sized Facebook and countless others stitched across Twitter, MySpace and the Internet is the mother lode of the social gold rush. Embedded in all that data is Nostradamus-like potential to understand the collective activity, preferences, and even predict the behavior of nearly 1/6th of our planet and counting. This data is being mined to inform all kinds of real world applications, with some heady implications.

5. Intelligent Design

As many of our startups in the Valley and around the country will attest, one of the hardest hires today is a strong designer (think UI people, front-end engineers, product designers). In an era of infinite consumer choice, increasingly what separates the winners from the losers isn’t measured in megabits and terabytes, but in the usability that creates unprecedented experiences. But the question remains, what is good design?

6. Digital goes Analog:

Today digital technology for most people still means something that happens behind a backlit screen, whether 50 or 3 inches in diagonal. Increasingly, digital is moving out into our analog world, and becoming the mediating lens through which we experience reality. What opportunities will be created when technology shifts from a tethered and passive tool to a catalyst in the real world?

7. Platforms for the future (and the future of platforms)

It used to be a new platform would come around every 10 years, but these days announcements about a new API spring up every few weeks. These new platforms represent incredible opportunities for businesses to increase distribution and create new customer value. Yet many of these will never achieve critical mass. Is this frenetic activity sustainable and what will be the platforms of the future?

These are some of the things that have me thinking. Would love to hear about the weak signals that have your attention.

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