Economic Models (Tongue in Cheek)

We don't usually re-publish jokes but this classic has been re-circulating and improving and there are some real lessons herein.

Sort of a Darwin-ian model for internet joke emails/posts.

I hope all the jokes on the internet go through a similar evolve or die, survival forward of the funniest type of gradual refinement.

Thanks for this version to Ryan E Cross on the Silicon Beach Australia forums.

Economic Models Explained

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk
away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND VENTURE CAPITALISM You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of
credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute debt/equity
swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back,
with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a
Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells
the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one
more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving
you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want
three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and
produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called ?Cowkimon? and market it
world-wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk
themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and
learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows. You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows. Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your
country.
You still have no cows, but at least you are now a Democracy.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

Go on, forward this, you know you want to.

Cloud Computing Predictions 2010

Cloud Computing Predictions for 2010

Appirio did a quality post on this so it is reblogged here. For a change there is concensus with some major research groups so it MUST be right :-)

Google and Microsoft Double Down on Cloud in the Enterprise; Traditional Vendors Play Catch-Up through M&A Activity
- SAN MATEO, Calif. - December 16, 2009

Appirio (www.appirio.com), a cloud solution provider, today highlighted 10 predictions for how cloud computing will impact enterprises in 2010.

Appirio predicts that innovation from cloud ecosystem next year will remove many of the remaining barriers to enterprise adoption of cloud. Industry analysts Gartner and IDC concur, placing cloud computing at or near the top of their own 2010 predictions.

"Customer success is the true measure of the cloud’s effectiveness," said Ryan Nichols, head of cloudsourcing and cloud strategy for Appirio. "In 2009 we saw innovative enterprises such as Japan Post, Avon, and Starbucks demonstrate the business case for cloud computing. In 2010, that success will go mainstream."
Appirio’s 2010 predictions include:

Cloud developer community grows faster than open-source. Today's vendor-specific developer communities will be complemented by a community dedicated to the general discipline of building applications on the cloud, disrupting existing on-premise developer communities. The combination will launch a new generation of 'cloud developers.'

Cloud standards won't (and shouldn't) happen. The pace of innovation is so rapid in the cloud that the emergence of truly open cloud standards won't yet be possible, except at the lowest levels of infrastructure. Traditional vendors will attempt to muddy the waters across layers and claim the 'standards high ground' with efforts like the Open Cloud Manifesto.

Cloud providers tackle lock-in. Platform lock-in remains one of the major concerns keeping CIOs from building applications on PaaS. In 2010 we expect to see major initiatives from cloud providers to overcome this objection, either revolutionary (e.g., Force.com supporting other languages) or evolutionary (e.g., application migration frameworks or platform 'porting' toolkits.)

Cloud integration will get an enterprise poster-child. Boomi and Cast Iron have had a fantastic 2009 and we expect one will land a major enterprise customer in 2010 that replaces on-premise integration technology with a cloud-based alternative.

Enterprise apps get Googled. Google's investments in its cloud platform will transform Google Apps from a simple Exchange/Sharepoint replacement into a legitimate front end for enterprise applications (e.g., Google Web Toolkit, Secure Data Connector, and the Google Gadget Framework.)

Enterprise collaboration is a feature, not a business. Salesforce Chatter and Google Wave have shown the value of real-time collaboration that is seamlessly integrated with business applications. Standalone enterprise collaboration offerings will have difficulty competing.

Microsoft lets Azure cannibalize a global account. Microsoft has shown that it's serious about Azure at this year's Professional Developers Conference. We predict that Azure will cannibalize Microsoft's on-premise footprint at a global account.

Cloud computing consolidation. With 2000+ providers, the cloud ecosystem is ripe for consolidation. Salesforce.com and Google are likely to continue with point acquisitions, but they won't be alone. Having missed the first wave of innovation in cloud computing (and lacking any other on-premise technology to acquire) we expect Oracle to buy into the industry that Larry Ellison has dismissed as 'water vapor.' Maybe they'll finally snap up NetSuite.

Global Systems Integrators will do nothing more than cloud marketing. The most innovative thing we expect from Accenture next year is a replacement for its Tiger Woods ad campaign.

The real innovation will be in the business of cloud computing, not the technology. Cloud providers will become dramatically easier to do business with (e.g., Amazon Spot Markets) and new business models will emerge to make the cloud more consumable (e.g., cloud insurance providers, cloud security auditors, cloud brokerages.)

These predictions are based on what Appirio is seeing first hand from cloud practitioners around the globe, with a team of nearly 200 and over 2,500 customers moving more of their business to the cloud every day.
Useful Links

For more details on these predictions and their impact on IT and business, please check out Appirio’s CIO blog at www.appirio.com/blog. To weigh in on Appirio's 2010 picks, provide comment, or see those predictions that didn't make the cut, please visit www.appirio.com/predict10. To see how Appirio's 2009 predictions panned out, read our 2009 recap.

Apple iPad Executive Summary

Apple Corporate Update

This executive summary should save you 90 minutes of watching the apple keynote video.

Apple Inc now has -

3 online stores now - apps, itunes and new ibooks store

12 billion downloads to date - across all products, tunes, books, apps

3 billion app downloads in 18 months since appstore launched

140,000 apps available on appstore

250 million ipod sales since 2001

75 million iphones and ipod touch sales (same OS on these)

9 billion itunes downloads

Largest music retailer in the world now

284 apple retail stores

125million people with credit card enabled apple web accounts (mainly for online stores)

Apple iPad LaunchKey Points

6 models - 3 wifi + 3 wifi and 3g

$999 was anticipated industry forecast pricing

$499 for 16Gb iPad is actual retail price

60 days until Wifi version is available, 90 for 3g version

No camera.

No mention of voice capabilities

All existing iPhone apps work (except calling/photo taking obviously?)

Xcode software update for iphone/ipad developers available today

New User Interface Elements for larger screen, all new software possible (lots of key apple apps done already - buy via appstore)

Sync/backup music, apps etc to Mac/PC via cable just like iphone

AT&T US inbuilt wifi subscription from $14.99 (250Mb/month data) or $29.99 (unlimited data)

Gartner has already announced it has CIO appeal.

Apple says it is their most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price. They also claim they are the only ones that could develop it because they have used their own chip this time (Apple A4 silicon also known as ASIC - application specific integrated circuit).

'Feel the power and fun in your hands they say' :-)

I think it will find a good niche, it will all depend on the support of developers and the accuracy of the touch screen.

3 accessories too (docking station to recharge and show photos, dock with keyboard that appears connected not via blue tooth unfortunately?, nice apple cover too)

Hopefully I just saved you 90 minutes of watching videos but it is still good to see Steve at his best.

Also worth reading the new book about him 'Inside Steve's Brain' which is average writing but distills his genius nicely for others to apply. Thanks to Kevin Chang for that tip.

Cheers, Pete.

peterjcooper.com
coopersydney.com
alturnal.com

Why Google Apps?

Cooper Sydney recently became an authorised reseller for the corporate google applications service which spans enterprise email, real-time spam protection, archiving, retrieval, intranet, extranet, spreadsheets, word processing, presentations, chat, voice, video and more.

The product range is remarkable for the price (around $90per user per annum for the lot, cheaper with volume) and scales from little startups to enterprise.

We have put a lot of firms up so far and use it ourselves and so do most of our investee companies and partners.

The best part of me was speed and ease of setup (100% in the cloud, a few hours work) followed by peace of mind having a major infrastructure provider (millions of servers) behind your business.

It was also good to be using the tools the real big guys use and be able to scale with variable costs from day one.

We highly recommend it for all our clients. If you like to hear more download the presentation or drop us a line.

Skype 520m users, value $2.75b, free to accelerate.

Skype recently reached 530 million users globally. As I write this there are 12.5million users actually online. So the real number is somewhere in between. It is a large range but the key message is it is also a large number either way.

No one else comes close in the independent space.

Now they are also free to accelerate by resolving their outstanding IP licensing lawsuits and cutting loose from eBay.

Fresh chat from the Skype limited/capped access Investor Relations chat forum (held on Skype of course) -

Just in case you missed it, the finally agreed on a deal to include the founders. http://sky​pejournal.​com/2009/1​1/sold-bul​lets.html
[10:18:17 AM] Phil Wolff:
1. The deal values Skype at $2.75 billion.
2. Index is out, freeing up 2.4% of the equity.
3. Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis are in.
4. They are contributing Joltid software for 10% of the company.
5. They are paying $83 million for 4% of the company (a discount, since that would value the $2.08 billion).
6. They are dropping the ugly lawsuits.
7. eBay will keep 30%, instead of 35%.
8. eBay still gets $1.9 billion cash.
9. Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, and other investors will own 56%, down from 65%.
10. This values the Joltid IP at $275 million.

This now looks like the world's first truly global retail and SME independent communications company. And all the people that care about it are on board with significant stakes. Aligned stakeholders with the right skills, cash and connections make a powerful combination.

Interesting times ahead.

Web and Social Media Analytics Gets Some BuzzNumbers

CooperSydney has recently been doing some work with clients and vendors of the new age social media analytics. Our focus has been on those based in Asia, Australasia, Oceania, Asia Pacific depending on how your multinational carves up the word.

Why is this important? What Can I Do About It?

This post covers who are the new new players and traditional ones too. Also what as prompted the need for these new entrants and how the market is responding. We also cover specifically why we think all business and personal brand owners from corporates to sole traders to any public or private organisation (so that includes you) should be listening and actively acting on social media because it matters and has substantial momentum.

We also include some practical tips to help get started today.

Media Analytics is not a new field however it has a number of new capabilities to address the growth of social media or web 2.0 that the traditional players are yet to deliver it seems based on our research.


New Web2.0/3.0 Players delivering on promise of social media analytics include -

- BuzzNumbers - 12 to 15 month old new kid on the block that is really shaking up the competitor value chain by offering substantial features that are exceptionally easy to use at lower cost than the traditional players prices for wider coverage and delivered directly via web and email to brand owners (listed and unlisted national and multi-national companies primarily) and including a bunch of proprietary metrics on influence, rankings, value and more. This is probably our favourite offering because behind the scenes they are hungry and have substantial momentum
- Radian6 - very very well funded startup with reasonably complex (perhaps too much) and reasonably powerful user interface, very command and control and some nice(ish) differentiation particularly around workflow (once you find a conversation that needs to be actively managed) and also share of conversation charts. Slick pre-sales and promise of good support. A little expensive but should be useful and cost appropriate for larger brands that don't mind spashing out a little cash.

No doubt the old players will catch up fast by building or more likely acquiring either BuzzNumbers or Radian6 not least because they are eating their cake and driving up their sales cost and time to closure.


Traditional media analytics players arguably most are yet to get serious about social media analytics include -

- Google - US based global giant that everyone knows for search also provides detailed web analytics, search alert emails and more that feed client needs/wants/desires back into their core revenue engine adwords, focus is on click trail within your site and also key word search which is limited. Google alerts now do include selected twitter posts but no analytics around social generally. Mentioned first because they are free for most features and best placed to eventually acquire or build something that enters this space and cross-subsidise from their adwords business.
- Nielsen - their BuzzMetrics product is the traditional leader selling primarily via agencies who serve the big end of town with a focus on listed and multinational brands. These clients with deep pockets expect (and get) lots of people around the product to deliver it which takes a little longer but provides a rich solution that arguably covers all traditional web work with something like 70% market share in the segment as they define it, but not much coverage of the new new social media sites which is where the growth and controversy is today. This is (the) incumbent media giant with product for everyone, and based on feedback a price to match. Just getting to your correct country, product and segment account manager can be a challenge but worth the price eventually.
- Hitwise - the rolls royce at the front of the pure web site based vendor fleet, now part of Experian who purchased them for something like $250m this originated in Australia and has a web focus with relatively unique ISP raw data feeds that enable visitor click trails across sites not just within your site. Another global giant incumbent now.
- Overture (now part of Yahoo) - another web analytics provider that just spans your site but arguably with more tools and features than some of the above it was originally also a startup acquisition called KeyLime... like the pie... which they went all the way from Pasadena in California to Carlsbad in Caifornia to buy, as an aside it makes you wonder if these global giants really look around for world's best innovation when that area represents such a tiny percentage of the world's population.
- Some other players that help track backlinks from blogs e.g. wordpress and/or bookmarks e.g. delicious, digg etc but they are not really in the same space because most don't either aggregate or provide analytics or both. We don't consider them in the same space of social media analytics and researchers generally would agree although they can be useful tools for brand owners.

So how has the world changed to justify the need for new players or new approaches from old players?

Web 1.0

If you were not aware, the old web was a one way street, companies published (website, press releases, advertising) and the consumer consumed the information.

But the world has changed and will continue to do so.

Web 2.0

The conversation has started, talk flows two ways. Now the consumer can talk back and the company no longer controls the conversation, the consumer can complain or compliment on twitter, blogs, forums, facebook, technorati, comments on endless websites and the scary thing is many of these sites have active user numbers larger than most continents.

The world is now different, so the tools to manage it are different, now you need to seek out what people are saying about you and try to manage it with fundamental change inside the organisation (e.g. improved service, product desigg, eco sensitivity or values/ethics) and or with direct or indirect action to, with or for the consumer addressing their particular concerns.

Web 3.0

The next stage which is already happening takes this much further, and empowers the consumer with tools that leverage the semantic web. This means raw data is increasingly becoming available so I can see what restaurants in my area have received fines for unhealthy conditions or exactly how much each level of my government has spent on everything from buses to defense to chaild care and exactly how that aligns in detail with the last census.

Examples - Where Social Media Analytics Can Help You Today

- Details of fair and reasonable (and not so reasonable) customer complains and compliments.
- Who is talking and who has people listening (and who to ignore) based on Influence measures.
- Job ads run by different departments that don't follow protocol, branding standards or processes set by HR.
- Duplication of advertising.
- Incorrect use of brand image materials.
- Legal action.
- Media coverage that is behind locked doors (e.g. specialist subscription services of professional media and hence highly influential but hard to find) but linked to from social media.
- M&A Transaction Insight
- Competition Insight
- Share of Industry Voice
- Industry Gossip
- Community, Regulator, Shareholder, Employee, Partner and other stakeholder opinions expressed in venues outside your reach, awareness and control
- Much much more.

Try Social Media Analytics On Your Company or Personal Brand/s

Any companies that would like to try these new social media analytics services should email service at CooperSydney.com and we will provide you with a tailored time limited sample report on what people are saying about your brand online summarized and with individual conversation drill down so you can see, understand and act to maximize the positive impact and minimize the negative impact of social media on your corporate and product/service/personal brands. Costs range from hundreds of dollars per annum to tens of thousands of dollars per month. Conversations are often in the thousands of events.

Find the diamond (or the potentially ticking brand bomb) in this new enormous haystack today (and automatically delivered to your desk everyday), start now.

Apple Ahead And Accelerating

Apple Inc is a big 'buy' right now, if you have any doubts why, here is a checklist of recent things they have done.

1. Apple is number 1 music seller globally and has sold 8.5billion songs through itunes

2. iPhone appstore now has 75,000 apps with 1.8 billion downloads (excluding updates which would make it much more)

3. 30m iphones sold, 75m OSX (mac operating system) active users, 50m+ iphone/touch OS users (including over 20m ipod touch), 220m ipods sold, 73.8% US ipod market share, over 50% of new ipod owners are first timers.

4. 5,200 developers from 54 countries at recent conference

5. iTunes9 is out, it is free and includes hundreds of improvements

6. iPhoneOS3.1 is out, it is free and includes hundreds of improvements

7. OSX snow leopard (next version) is out, it is nearly free and includes hundreds of improvements

8. 300% growth in 2 years of max OSX active users means it took 4-5 years to get from 0 to 25m users and only 2 years to hit 75m

9. 100m accounts with credit cards now on itunes can buy music, movies, apps, ringtones (now up to 30,000) and more

10. New products are almost all better, faster, lighter, bigger screens, bigger capacity, and cheaper... e.g. in mac range, ipod nano (now with video recording), ipod touch, macbooks, appletv, iphone, imac.

And some more for the strategic differentiators category (as if the first 10 were not enough)

11. Deeper relationships with content creators (e.g. music, video) s a result of market share and the better margins they deliver means they now have unique content from tier one names e.g. Norah Jones teaching you music instruments; exclusive The Doors videos; new digital 'LP' artwork exclusive album features from Dave Mathews; and itunes extras for movies e.g. Wall-E's movie rogue robots

12. They are repositioning ipod touch as a full computer in your pocket the 'Great Pocket Computer' with wifi, syncing, cloud services, integrated stores, unprecedented proprietary appstore offerings and continuous capacity improvements.

13. Apple are on the cusp of being word leader in handheld gaming according to business week and are highlighting negative differentiators of other entertainment alternatives from nintendo, sony and microsoft through aspects such as cost, appstore, buying experience, timeliness and more. They are also getting exclusive content here e.g. for the 10m users of tap tap revenge launching new categories of games such as 'Rythm Rythm' also from Tapulous that combine music skills with a new type of driving. Combine this with sensational multi-player, multi-media extensions and the game software developers are going into a feeding frenzy on the apple iphone/ipod touch platforms

Apple is winning. Apple is winning in more categories and daylight is second. They are doing it by delivering a better customer experience, better value (in terms of price and their customer's time efficiency) and because even work is ... fun.

As the Black Eyed Peas say with the new DJ mixes in Rythm Rythm ... I like that boom boom sound. Keep up the great work apple.

Government Sites Get Big Hits

Comscore released US stats today saying 81m unique visitors to US sites in July. This is pretty big time. It will be a long time before AU traffic hits that level (81/300m=27%) I suspect, despite the recent push on #gov2au.

Comscore played it down though saying they were behind their commercial equivalents which is true.

Satisfaction with Government Web sites Lags Commercial Leaders

RESTON, VA, September 8, 2009 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of the government site category, which revealed that more than 81 million Americans visited government sites in July, representing 42 percent of the U.S. Internet audience.

The Department of Commerce (which includes substantial traffic at Weather.gov and the site for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.gov) ranked as the most visited federal government Web entity in July with 7.1 million visitors, followed by Web sites for the Department of Education (ED.gov) with 7 million visitors, the National Institute of Health (NIH.gov) with 6.9 million visitors, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS.gov) with 4.2 million visitors and the Social Security Administration (SSA.gov) with 3.3 million visitors. CARS.gov, which did not even exist one year ago, garnered nearly 2.1 million visitors due to the summertime “Cash for Clunkers” incentive. WhiteHouse.gov was up 88 percent versus year ago to 1.1 million visitors, as Americans exhibited an interest in the policies and initiatives of newly elected President Barack Obama. Both branches of the legislature also showed impressive gains, with the Senate.gov up 93 percent and House.gov up 73 percent, most likely due to the current debate over healthcare reform.