PayPerPost: The Consumer Generated Advertising Revolution Has Begun

Well it's been over a month since PPP launched and the blogosphere hummed with PPP-related class warfare between the elite and mainstream bloggers. The score was something like 972-12 in favor of the mainstream bloggers and the video/photo publishers on YouTube/Flickr were unanimous in their support for PPP's cross-domain, cross-media consumer generated advertising platform. Sure some of those advocates were paid to share their opinions but isn't that the ironically purest form of support for a platform like this?

I've registered for the platform as a blogger and advertiser and adoption is growing fast on both sides of the marketplace. I've also searched for paid posts across the blogosphere and find a more intelligent, mature, open adoption than the soulless-shilling originally feared. In fact, I see quality organic posts growing alongside sponsored posts by PPP adopters. At the same time, I see domain-specific social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube trying to play an advertising game that doesn't fit their core competency (those guys need to innovate social networking before Friendster.com and Multiply.com sneak up and steal their users).

So what does all that tell me? The Consumer Generated Advertising revolution has begun and it's time to choose sides.

(unsponsored post)

08-25-06 UPDATE: I guess this post struck a nerve because PPP blogged about it and even created a PPP opportunity around digg'n it. Now other bloggers are chiming in at their blogs and digg. The revolution may not be televised, but that won't stop the world from participating via CGM...

Viral Porn Trojan Horses

OK, so the provocative title was a sellout, but it's a real topic -- stay with me. One of my favorite entrepreneurs (and good friend), Scot Wingo, has a great post at eBay Strategies describing a recent shooting-fish-in-an-eBay-barrel phishing scheme.

The exact way their doing it and ways to avoid are covered. Put simply, it looks like Phishers latch onto a trusted Seller ID, draw traffic with porn and search games, and harvest unsuspecting buyer IDs (and PayPal accounts) with some spoofing javascript. The scam then multiplies virally from there. I won't even try to cover the details here, but if you buy as much stuff from eBay as I do it's worth reviewing. It's a thorough post.

As a longer-term plug, if you're playing around auctions as a buyer/seller/investor I highly recommend sucking Scot's brain, er, feed. I backed him at AuctionRover (sold to Overture before he spun out ChannelAdvisor) and he's been thinking about the auction channel as long as anyone. At the cycles he clocks, that's a lot of thinking...

Free Energy or Almost Free Publicity?

Given the investment potential growing in Florida and elsewhere for alternative energy, and a personal curiosity about Nikola Tesla, I've been digging into the energy space for awhile now. With the ethanol bandwagon getting crowded (even I jumped at $33 ADM [Archer Daniels Midland]), I keep looking for that surprise entrant.

That search has led me to a variety of technologies that sound part gold, part snake oil. A local version of that is Clearwater, FL-based Hydrogen Technology Applications and their Aquygen gas derived from water. Heck, the guy has created a hybrid Ford Escort and Ranger running with this stuff. However, it's not clear whether this is a remarketing of Brown's Gas or something materially different. In either case, with the world searching for fossil-fuel alternatives, the company has gotten plenty of press.

That leads me to a recent, farther away, version of the wild-energy-claims-equals-press meme. Dublin, Ireland-based Steorn threw down the gauntlet last week in the Economist -- challenging the scientific community to test their Free Energy system. That's right, Steorn is claiming one of those inventions the patent office won't even allow -- a machine that produces more energy than it consumes. They've asked for a volunteer jury of twelve qualified experimental physicists to define the tests required to validate Steorn's claims, select the test centers to be used, monitor the analysis and then publish the results. I wish my companies could get free QA that way. I've registered to get the results, but my expectations are not high. Engadget, iCamp and others share a dim view.

I hope our skepticism is misplaced, but if they don't get rich on energy Steorn could have a future in PR...

AOL Search Data Web Interfaces

Well it didn't take long for the published AOL search data to get a web interface. In fact, there have been many appearing in the past 24 hrs. The following is a short list that is sure to be obsolete upon posting:

1. http://www.aolsearchdatabase.com/
2. http://aol.6brand.com/
3. http://aoldb.unwieldy.net/
4. http://dontdelete.com/
5. http://aol.yogurtrat.com/
6. http://data.aolsearchlogs.com/search/index.cgi
7. http://websearchdata.com/

After playing with the various interfaces, it seems like everyone is taking a first-order approach to the data: searching for a specific term, a specific userid or a combo of userid and term. With this people are playing the "find the scary AOL user" game by manual review, but I expect the next iteration to match terms across searches by the same ID (not an already known, named ID -- just the same ID). That's where noteworthy patterns will become apparent.

As shared by many in TechCrunch comments, there is definitely some bad karma coming from outing specific AOL users -- particularly by name. This unexpected data dump really tests one's restraint and the balance between geeky snooping and respecting privacy.

That WikiSucks

SiliconBeat had an interesting article about how China is drawing talented people away from Silicon Valley. In particular, Chinese venture capital fund Northern Lights has recruited the founders of Silicon Valley successes NetScreen, OmniVision, Spreadstrum and LinkSys to be a part of their $100M fund in China. That's just one datapoint and it worries me, but the second part of the story really hit home.

In parallel to Silicon Valley losing talent to the West, they continue to suck talent from the East. Take Wikia for example, a St. Petersburg, FL startup whose founder, Jimmy Wales, is well known for launching Wikipedia -- one of those sites that will be educating the world long after we're all gone. It was exciting for the region when Wikia landed their first venture round from Bessemer, Omidyar and various CA angels (Andreesen, Gillmore, Hoffman, Kopelman, Ito, Kapor, Bullington, Conway, Penchina, Tanne and Whorton). Jimmy was on the cover of FloridaTrend magazine. But the inevitable happened shortly after funding. The company moved to Menlo Park and Penchina stepped in as CEO. I don't know the details behind why but I can guess, and only time will tell if it was the right move.

Wikia's funding proves what we've known about the region for some time -- some of the country's most creative and passionate entrepreneurs call the Sunshine State home. Wikia's move to CA proves that, this time, we weren't able to help one company build their dreams where they prefer to raise their families. However, as more FL-based funds like Inflexion succeed, we'll hold onto our fair share, and the region will share the rewards. And that, will be WikiKewl...

Even Calacanis loves PayPerPost?

This parody was too fun to pass up; especially as a test of PPP's charity donation engine. Don't thank me Red Cross, thank PayPerPost.

Viva la Revolucion!