Feed: Nothing To Say - AggScore: 21.0

Aereo

We’re excited to be investors in Aereo, the service announced yesterday that allows users to stream and record over-the-air broadcast television on connected devices like PCs and iPads.   It launches initially in New York City on March 14th and is priced at $12/month after a 30 day free trial.  We’re in good company with CEO Chet Kanojia and fellow investors IAC, FirstMark, Highline Ventures and Highland Capital, and Barry Diller is joining the board.  This is a big idea getting a lot of attention from different points of view as these New York Times and LA Times articles demonstrate.

If an ad falls in the forest

My friend Mark Hughes, CEO of C3Metrics and former VP Marketing at Half.com, wrote an important piece on AdExchanger recently.  It’s a shining example of irony in the “world’s most measurable medium.”    How many people saw your ad?   The bad news is it’s way less than you thought.  The good news is your click-through rate is higher than you thought.  This is a much longer and broader conversation, but for now be sure to read this:

AdTech Hat Tips

Tip of the hat 1 – First Round Portfolio company Adaptly was written up by Razorfish Media Director as one of the Next Media/Tech Companies to make a lot of money

Tip of the hat 2 – FRC company Solve Media was written up by Mediapost and  is helping retailers capture brand awareness.

Social #SuperBowl Ads

Yesterday was a great SuperBowl – and as always the ads were a big part of it.  In 2012 we know viewers were on Facebook and Twitter like never before, and we even know which 10 commercials drew the most comments.

But it’s surprising in this Era of Engagement, how few ads were directly promoting a conversation on Twitter or Facebook or even their own website.  Here are my slightly scientific findings of Online/Social in the Ads of SuperBowl 2012:

53% had a website or URL in them.

31% had nothing at all – no website, nothing

13% had a Twitter #hashtag or logo

9% had a Facebook page or logo

That’s it.  Otherwise you could Shazam a few ads, the classy folks at GoDaddy offered a QR code, and the subtle marketers at Teleflora gave you a Coupon Code to save 20%.   But overall way less social than I expected in the ads themselves.

My favorite commercial this year?  Cars.com “Confident You”

Facebook in 2006

My friend Mike Harkey wrote this back in 2006 when Facebook was a 2 year old toddler of a company. Facebook only had 100 employees and 7.4 million users – while massive competitors Bebo had 23M and mySpace had 67M.

Facebook 2006

ROBLOX in FORBES

It’s great to see our portfolio company ROBLOX getting noticed by publications like Forbes.   20 million user accounts, almost 10 billion pageviews in 2011 – kids are playing and it’s worth reading.

Apple’s little problem

The issue of worker conditions in the supply chain is not new, and it’s the same for pretty much every computer and electronics manufacturer in the world.   But it’s interesting to see the finger pointing at Apple just as they approach $100B in cash and re-establish their place as the world’s most valuable company.   Apple is publicly responding for pretty much the first time ever, and you can see a lot of it here .  CEO Tim Cook said this to employees when this article ran in the New York Times.  The clip below is worth watching, and I noticed that the main guy interviewed is Mike Daisy who wrote 21 Dog Years: Doing Time at Amazon.com.  The real question is whether “Made In America” or “how was it was made in China” end up mattering to consumers who buy these gadgets.

@chrisfralic vs. @chrisFRC

Someday I’ll do a post on social identity and why I have two accounts and how Twitter could massively improve private accounts.  But in the meantime, here’s a fun infographic comparing my two accounts from Visual.ly.

Boomerang by Michael Lewis

If you like Michael Lewis and want to laugh and cry about the world economy and human nature, pick up Boomerang.    Follow Michel to Iceland to Greece to Italy to Ireland and back to California, and if you want to try a chapter for free, California and Bust appeared in Vanity Fair.

Gadget Alert: Nike+Fuel

Can’t wait