Del blogging al twitting

Con la entrada en el 2011 mi forma de seguir la actualidad tmt ha variado. Sigo leyendo blogs y estando atento a lo que pasa pero hay una cosa que ha cambiado por encima de las demas, y esa es mi uso de Twitter.

Escribir un blog es duro, sobre todo cuando se tiene una trabajo full time al que se le dedica mucho tiempo todos los dias y que ademas nada tiene que ver con el contenido del blog. Yo soy de los que en mi blog me gusta escribir con calma y detalle, si bien encontrar tiempo para hacerlo con frecuencia es dificil. Y el numero de posts escritos claramente indica que, lo que se dice tiempo, no tengo.

En cambio, Twitter me permite opinar no solo sobre un tema, sino de varios cada dia. Mientras leo la prensa diaria, comiendo, en el aeropuerto... Inmediatez y facilidad para discriminar contenidos de interes.

Conozco Twitter desde hace bastante tiempo y aunque he tenido la cuenta abierta desde hace bastante tiempo, apenas la usaba. Eso ahora ha cambiado. Sigo a gente que me interesa y que tratan habitualmente temas que me interesan, y eso me permite centrarme y encontrar rapidamente lo que quiero. Ademas, como aquello de "los amigos de mis amigos son mis amigos", voy ampliando el universo de gente a la que sigo viendo a quienes siguen aquellos a quienes yo sigo (vaya trabalenguas!).

Si bien de vez en cuando plasmare algunas ideas aqui, tengo la sensacion de que Twitter ha venido para quedarse.

Spanish TV model

At the end of this week CNN+, the tv station partnered by CNN and Spanish media giant Sogecable will be shutting down after 12 years on the Spanish tv grid. The rumor is that it will be replaced by a 24-hour Big Brother show. Bad news, but a reality of the kind of crap that the average Spaniard watches on tv. The big bucks are on gossip.... really sad.

This decision comes in the context of the Telecinco-Cuatro (owned by troubled Sogecable) merger, a large corporate transaction that will be bringing some changes to tv in Spain. Telecinco has now significant decision power at Sogecable and the CNN+ shutdown is one of the first decisions so far.

A little over a year ago the Spanish tv migrated from analogue to digital. Following the analogue blackout, the new TDT model promised lots of new channels and more options for viewers. The reality, after a year, is that we have lots of shitty channels with virtually no content. Plus the big audiences - the ones driving the $$ - keep focusing for the most part on the Spanish networks, which are exactly the same thing they used to be (simply broadcasting in digital now) . The result is that there is no room for niche quality channels such as CNN+, which will say goodby with less that a 1% share.

Spaniards are not used to paying for tv content. Not even for high-quality one. In fact, some years ago the government passed a law declaring some events (mostly sporty ones) "of general interest", making it mandatory for them to be on free-to-air. Likewise, less than 10% of Spanish population is subscribed to some kind of pay-tv package. This prevents relevant international players (ESPN is the most obvious one) to enter the Spanish market.

The current model with just a handful of domestic players is here to stay. I virtually watch no tv. I can find 90% of the content I find relevant online. I could get rid of my tv tomorrow and nothing would change. Maybe some kind of disruption - to come from the online world - is needed to shake things up a little.

The power of regulation

A simple model will tell us that the media space is largely driven by three forces: regulation (what can and cannot be done at some point), consumer (what user want) and technology (how can users' wishes be better served).

Yesterday a couple of big legal events took place:

(1) in Spain, the so-called "Sinde Act" or "Ley Sinde" (named after the current Minister of Culture) was not passed by the Spanish parliament.

This legislation has been referred to as the "anti-piracy" one, since it would have allowed to shut down streaming/downloading sites - let's not forget that Spain tops the world rankings in piracy practices.

The parliament's decision has been widely celebrated among internet users, who regard the act as an instrument to limit users' freedom. On the other hand, content creators complain that their IP rights will continue to be breached and have stated that they will go to European instances to protect their rights.

It is obvious to me that piracy - not freedom - is what is at stake here. Piracy is a damaging problem to the Spanish media industry and measures must be taken to limit it. That being said, it would also be useful to re-regulate the way content creators' (writers, musicians, etc.) are compensated as it is a big "mafia" at present. And if the Spanish media industry acknowledged that it is a new era for content distribution and made a decisive move to become more up-to-date with the current state of play (i.e. changing or modifying traditional business models), that would also be beneficial and quite eye-opening.

(2) in the US, the FCC has voted in favor of net neutrality (subject to future actions by Congress and courts), which is a step towards an open and freer internet for all users, preventing big players from discriminating specific services and controlling "pipes" as they wish.

Regulation matters in any industry but in a fast-changing space such as TMT, its importance becomes exponential.

BBVA a explotar su patrocinio de la NBA

Alla por el mes de septiembre de 2010 BBVA anuncio a bombo y platillo su alianza como banco oficial de la NBA, por la nada desdenable suma de $75 millones por un periodo de 4 anhos.

Cifras las anteriores poco sorprendentes para las maquinas de hacer dinero que son las ligas profesionales americanas y para un experto como David Stern, comisionado de la NBA, acostumbrado a estirar al maximo los dolares para la liga. Tampoco se puede decir que la mareante cifra sea algo insolito en caso de BBVA, que ya es el patrocinador oficial de La Liga.

Parece que ahora es el momento de sacarle jugo al patrocinio y para ello BBVA ha preparado una campanha publicitaria importante - denominada "Team Works" - en colaboracion con la NBA, que ojala resulte tan espectacular como algunas de la liga tipo "where amazing happens".

EE.UU es un mercado clave para BBVA, sobre todo en la zona oeste y suroeste del pais, caracterizado por gran presencia hispana. La minoria hispana se ha convertido en la mayoritaria en EE.UU y se caracteriza por su mayor poder adquisitivo que otras minorias. Es un "demographic" con mucho potencial y de ahi que el intento de BBVA de ganar notoriedad parezca tener sentido.

Dicho esto, el hecho de ir adelante con una campanha tan potente, a nivel nacional, y en un deporte que la poblacion hispana que vive en EE.UU no sigue tan masivamente como el futbol, por ejemplo, me sugiere que pueda haber algun movimiento corporativo por parte de BBVA para ganar presencia en el pais, no solo entre la comunidad latina en todo EE.UU sino a todos los niveles. El tiempo dira...

Telefonica y "su" Tuenti

Esta manana me he desayunado la noticia de alguno de los planes de Telefonica para Tuenti, apenas unos pocos meses de formalizar la adquisicion de la red social.

Parece que esos planes pasan por crear un operador movil virtual (OMV) homonimo que permita a Telefonica atacar a un segmento de poblacion con (generalmente) un menor poder adquisitivo y lanzar un dardo envenenado a otros OMVs nacionales que se han hecho, gracias a sus tarifas mas bajas, un hueco en el mercado nacional.

No uso Tuenti, me ha pillado mayor. Ademas, con tener Facebook, que me cumple la misma funcion, me vale. Pero al final, se trata de que mis amigos estan en FB y no en Tuenti. Si no, seguro que cambiaria...

Tuenti tiene una amplia implantacion en Espana y su usuario tipico es, me atrevo a decir, bastante mas joven que el de Facebook. Al menos, yo lo encuadro dentro de la categoria de teenager. Con una cqpacidad de gasto y usos diferentes (musica, video, internet, sms, etc) al resto de la poblacion. Y es ese target al q Telefonica quiere seducir.

El otro dia pensaba en como sera capaz de sobrevivor Tuenti al imperio FB. Algo parecido a lo que le ocurre a Google con Orkut en Brasil. Por un lado, creo que siempre existira el riesgo de que los usuarios de Tuenti en algun momento en que se hagan mayores se pasen a FB (o dejen de usar las redes sociales) - no veo riesgo en la otra direccion - y, por otro, la posibilidad de que algunos de esos teenagers dejen de considerar Tuenti cool por pertenecer a Telefonica.

Telefonica tiene que ordenhar a la vaca mientras sea suya y la idea del OMV me parece a priori bastanta buena. Crear un servicio movil que se ajuste a las necesidades de un colectivo muy especifico y contribuir a su fidelizacion en el uso continuado xe Tuenti parecen a priori pasos adecuados

Mobile blogging

After more than two months I am back to my blog. For quite some time I had been able to honor my mid-year resolution about recurring blogging... But once again I got trapped in work and lazyness... As I say, more than two months.

I was flying back from Lisbon today after a day of work and I was reading the last issue of Fast Company. Damn, a lot of cool stuff, and once again, I told myself "c'mon, try harder!"

Thus, i am going to try something new: mobile blogging. I have just downloaded the Blogbooster app to my iPhone and it should help me boost my number of blog posts. On a train, at the gym, anywhere... Should work better than just sending emails with an embedded post to my blog email address.

I am using it for the first time to write this post and it seems to work fine. It sync'ed quickly with my Blogger account and let's see if it works fine when I click on "post". And, more importantly, let's see if it helps me be more productive!

RIM officially entering the tablet battle

RIM has made a move and has confirmed today that it will be releasing a new table device to be called Playbook. It is expected to hit the US market in early 2011 and Europe in Q2 2011.

At first sight the design is pretty sleek and well designed. Some of the Playbook's strengths include multitasking (runs on an OS called QNX, which RIM has presented as capable of doing "things that you have never seen before"), front and rear cameras, it will support wifi, 3G, 4G and bluetooth, among others.

The feature that has surprised me the most is its size. It has a 7-inch screen, which makes it significantly smaller than the iPad (9.7" screen), making it lighter and easier to carry around. I just wonder whether this means if the Playbook and the iPad will be competing for the same users. The device is name is pretty good one and does not resonate to the typical "business" theme usually associated with Blackberries; pretty much the opposite.

Another big battle is coming. I have no need yet for a table device - my laptop and iPhone work good enough for me - but I look forward to looking into this further as months go by and new players come to the market.

The Social Network

"The Social Network", David Fincher's movie based on Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook will be coming out in a couple of weeks. There is quite a lot o buzz about it, so I am just posting a pretty thorough article about Zuckerberg published on The New Yorker. It is quite long but worth reading

"The Face of Facebook"

I am also posting a link to the movie trailer (nice song!) and official site. I look forward to watching it.

Baby is home

After two long years struggling with the blackberry storm, the iPhone
4 is finally in my hands. let's see how it works!

Gmail's Priority Inbox

I have just installed Priority Inbox, Gmail's new feature that allows you to have an inbox separate from the actual "Inbox" where you store those emails that you find most important. I have just used it for a couple of hours but it definitely works for me.

I used to conduct this prioritization on Gmail by adding stars to emails but they were not so intuitive and and easy to find as they are with Priority Inbox. When I am working on my desktop-based email program I try to keep in my inbox only those emails that require additional attention or follow up. Now Priority Inbox does this for me.

The new feature is supposed to be able to classify your emails as priority or non-priority and to improve such classification as the user confirms or modifies the status that Gmail gives to each received email.


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Just got my first issue of Fast Company!

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Sent from my blackberry

Wrapping up the summer

After a (too) long blogging vacation, I am back to business. The truth is that there have been quite a lot of things going on in the TMT space over the last few weeks.

At a time when Western economies are not picking up and the fears of a double dip are coming back, I have read a decent number of articles pointing to the TMT universe as the typical anti-cyclical industry where many are looking into.

I am going to make a quick reference to some of the events that I have found most interesting lately:

(1) THE M&A FRENZY

-  Telefonica closed the purchase of Portugal Telecom's stake in Brazilian cell operator Vivo (a great battle with many of the ingredients that are present in M&A cases that you see in b-school and characterize big corporate battles: references to maximizing shareholder value, increasing offers, political influence, strategic considerations, corporate threats...) for the astonishing amount of 7.5bn euros.

- Intel has entered the computing security business by paying $7.6bn euros for McAfee and has most recently purchased the mobile communications business of German manufacturer Infineon for around 1.1bn euros.

- Computing giants  HP and Dell are still fighting for acquiring 3PAR, the cloud storage solutions operator, in a race that has so far seen HP offering around $2bn (Dell's first offer was set at around $1.13bn)

- Telefonica bought Tuenti, the leading social network in Spain, for around 70m euros

- Nokia Siemens joint venture is "courting" private equity investors.

2. THE IP VOICE BATTLE

After changing hands several times over the past couple of years, Skype seems to be looking into an IPO to raise some money and to probably provide some liquidity to its investors. In the meantime, according to Techcrunch, Cisco Systems may be preparing a pre-IPO move on Skype, the leading VOIP provider with 500m+ users,  to take control of it.

This comes at a time when Google has launched Google Voice, its own applications to make phone calls over IP, which hopes to leverage Gmail's large user base.

3. YOUTUBE & HOLLYWOOD

The Financial Times has reported that Google's Youtube is negotiations with the main Hollywood studios to launch a mainstream pay-per-view movie rental service (beyond its current limited lineup of indie movies). Considering the huge Youtube user base, this could be a game changing move in this space. In fact it is a direct attack to a number of diverse models such as Apple's iTunes or Netflix.

4. GEO-LOCATION

Facebook has launched its new "Places", the latest intitiative when it comes geo-location services and apps. Considering Facebook's clout, will this be the beginning of the end for services such as Foursquare or Gowalla?

5. METERED BROADBAND BILLING COMING TO SPAIN

Julio Linares, Spanish leading telephony operator Telefonica's CEO, has "threatened" with a progressive switch to metered broadband use. In other words, it seems like the time of flat-rate pricing will be over soon and we will be switching to "the more you use, the  more you pay". Yoigo's (Telia Sonera's mobile subsidiary in Spain) CEO has pointed out in pretty much the same direction.

Arguments such as the growing use of smartphones, the increasing availability of video content or the need for infrastructure investments are at the core of the justification of such switch. I think that it kind of makes sense but, considering that the average internet rate is around a 140% higher than the European average, I find operators' claims a little harder to digest.

Well, not bad for a quick summary!

World champs!

Spain has made it! After a vibrant game we beat a very, very disappointing Netherlands (Soccer owes Cruyff's Netherlands a trophy, but this year's team was far away from what Dutch soccer stands for).

We have been the best team in the World Cup and we have deserved it. The whole country has gone crazy and everyone was out in the street yesterday after the game and was out there again today, as the players have returned back home.

But if there is a way to summarize the passion of this moment, I'd go for the radio. Just go to this page of Spanish daily El Mundo and enjoy the narration of Iniesta's goal...speechless!

July 11, 2010: a day to remember

Google vs Facebook on social...again

Last February I wrote a couple of posts about how Google and Facebook were somehow challenging each other: Google was making a move into social with Buzz and Facebook was planning on creating @facebook email accounts. I did not expect much success of either and, five months later none of the initiatives has crystalized.

Now seems like Google is striking back with a social initiative, named Google Me. Apparently, according to Techrunch, it was Kevin Rose, Digg's CEO, who first mention this on his Twitter. A lot of comments have been made about this and Google is reportedly giving top priority to this venture. This is not Google's first move on "pure" social networks, since it already owns Orkut, which is very popular in very important markets such as Brazil.

I understand it if Google is worried about the Facebook effect. More and more people spend more and more time on Facebook (and on other social networks) and that means less time searching on Google and, in turn, fewer ad impressions and clicks on Google.  Btw, some sources are claiming that FB's 2009 turnover was around $800m, more than doubling that of FY 2008...impressive.

I have to admit that I am curious to see the new thing that Google will be offering. That said, I am doubtful about whether I will be signing up. If it is to offer the same thing Facebook does, what is the point? And at the end of the day I will only sign up if my friends do so. Or maybe someone will be coming up with an app that will sync FB and Google Me... but then again, what's the point if the offering is the same?

Wait and see...

Bankers and the World Cup

The World Cup semifinals are already here: Uruguay-Holland and Germany-Spain. If a month ago, at the time the tournament was kicking off, the three European squads were in the shortlists of favorites of many soccer fans and very few people, if any, had Uruguay in their heads. After the group-stage of the World Cup many voices claimed that the Latin American soccer was on top of the European one but after a couple of rounds it seems quite obvious that Europe has excelled.

But leaving fans aside, it was quite interesting to see that bankers themselves also made their predictions about who would be winning the Cup.

For instance, JP Morgan pulled together a model based on four metrics: (1) "valuation" ("market valuations of the teams and FIFA rankings), (2) "market & analyst sentiment" (result expectations and recent team shape), (3) "company fundamentals (consistency in market sentiment and JPM's success ratio), and (4) "price trend" (trend in probability to win and trend in FIFA ranking.

Based on the model, Brazil was the strongest team in the World followed by Spain, England and Holland. Germany and Uruguay trailed on the 12th and 18th spots of the rankings. In other words, we could say that JP Morgan's model accurately predicted two (Spain and Holland) of the four semi-finalists.

Goldman Sachs has issued a
World Cup report since France
1998 and it has been arguably
taken into consideration from
time to time in some countries
(such as the irritation in Brazil
 in 2002 following Goldman's
failure to include Brazil - the actual
winner - among the favorites). 
The model used by GS combines
FIFA rankings and odds from
a number of bookmakers, and
the teams are also penalized
according to how tough their
schedule is on average.

According to their probability
model, Brazil, Spain, Germany
and England - in this order - would
come out as favorites. Thus,
Goldman Sachs has two teams
right (Spain and Germany).




Finally, UBS has also produced a thorough report about the World Cup and about South Africa in general. According to UBS, Brazil, Germany, Italy and Holland were the countries more likely to win the Cup. That translates into UBS guessing right two (Germany and Holland) of the four semi-finalists.

All in all, this means a technical tie among the three investment banks, with each of them guessing two of the four semi-finalists, though the three of them provide different estimates. What it is obvious is that none of them got the right answer for their most likely winner, Brazil. Spain comes second in JPM's and GS' reports. Hope they are right!!