GoDaddy recently started offering video blogging for only a couple of bucks. They’ve always been about getting a great deal and this one is no different. A domain for 8 bucks and video hosting for 5 more (monthly).

Bob has been doing podcasts (and radio shows) before but once video is in, he immediately started vlogging. In this one, he welcomes Danica Patrick, an Indy car racer, as the new GoDaddy girl.

Tags: blog, CEO, domains, godaddy, internet, vcast, vlog

blog, CEO, domains, godaddy, internet, vcast, vlog

He speaks out on a subject that’s close to my heart – the notion that every successful company MUST do an IPO. Now, he’s not saying GoDaddy will never go for an IPO (they got their filing approved by the SEC). He does say if the market conditions aren’t right, he’s in no hurry to take the company public.

With 14 million in cash this quarter alone, he could bide his time. I hope GoDaddy gets the recognition it deserves. I’ve been their customer for the last 5 years and I’m hosting over 50 domains with them. Their bringing down of the price of domains allowed me to buy 10 times more domains that I could buy in 1997.

Another thing I was wondering about GoDaddy is whether all their programmers and service personnel are in US. It’s probably a moot point but I’ll be surprised if they are not outsourcing at least part of their operations. Bob’s previously company allegedly employed over a thousand people, it’s interesting to see if things have changed since then.

Tags: CEO, domains, godaddy, internet, IPO

CEO, domains, godaddy, internet, IPO

Looking at it now, I can’t help but think about Ed Wood’s passion for filmmaking and juxtopose it with his claim to fame – The Worst Director of All Time.

How do you explain Ed Wood’s failure? Was it the studio system which put indies at a serious disadvantage? Did he love fimmaking so much, he would make any compromise in order to shoot one? Or maybe, he simply lacked talent.

As a society, we have tremendous respect for enthusiasm and the positive attitude. As individuals, we’re encouraged to be like that.

Enter Ed Wood. That’s food for thought. Especially, when everyone is so positive about new stuff … like web 2.0. Some of us will, without a doubt, enter the Worst … Whatever of All Time Hall of Fame.

So what’s your BIG idea? What’s your Plan 9 from Outer Space? Can you wait 50 years for your product to become a cult classic?

Tags: bootstrapping, bubble, cult, Ed Wood, Entrepreneurship, failure, filmmaking, indie, internet, media, plan 9, positivism, web2.0

bootstrapping, bubble, cult, Ed Wood, Entrepreneurship, failure, filmmaking, indie, internet, media, plan 9, positivism, web2.0

A few more points from Accustream’s executive summary on streaming media growth:

• Increased broadband connections (both cable modem and DSL) at the residential level
• Ongoing innovation at the application level, particularly media players that queue up files for auto-play
• Video streams are forecast to grow by 32% in 2006 to over 23 billion served
  Video streams are currently forecast to grow by another 26% to over 29 billion served in 2007
• Broadband streams (100 Kbps and above) made up 84.9% of total streams served in 2005
• Narrowband video streams made up 15.1% of total streams served, compared to 20.7% in 2004
• Music videos once again commanded the largest share of streaming video usage online in 2005, capturing 45.6% of total views
• Aggregate tuning hours (ATH) for the top ten Internet music radio sites and networks rose by 43.8% in 2005 per month, to 257.3 million hours

I’ve steered clear of the 2010 projections because they are dependent on too many factors – like broadband penetration and network neutrality, to mention a few.

Tags: broadband, internet, network, streaming, trends, video

broadband, internet, network, streaming, trends, video

AdSense is already part of my lifestyle

I visited the AdSense blog to find out more and I saw a message from Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO about network neutrality (that I wrote about in my two-tier Internet post).

Here’s a few key points that Eric mentioned:

On the Internet, a business doesn’t need the network’s permission to communicate with a customer or deploy an innovative new service. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all broadband Internet access, want the power to choose who gets onto the high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build tollbooths to block the on-ramps for those whom they don’t want to compete with and who can’t pay this new Internet tax. Money and monopoly, not ideas and independence, will be the currency of their Internet.

You can support the net neutrality initiative by visiting www.itsournet.org.

Tags: adsense, bandwidth, google, internet, network neutrality, video ads

adsense, bandwidth, google, internet, network neutrality, video ads

A flurry of articles and posts

Back in the day when ISPs simply offered a connection to the Internet, this was a non-issue. It would’ve been a commercial suicide for an ISP to say: “Look, we’re going to block Yahoo! until they pay us a premium.”

When an ISP becomes a part of a telecommunications conglomerate, however, it starts to look for a way to integrate services vertically. And integration is nothing without prioritization – be it VOIP traffic or videos.

The arguments for network neutrality goes both ways. In my mind though, there’s no doubt that consumers will be hurt if networks are allowed to prioritize and even block content. It transforms the free market principle of offering a superior service or product to a golfing buddy principle where companies get a priority treatment if they rub the telcos the right way.

Analogies abound – the one I like best is reserving 2 of the 3 lanes on a motorway for GM vehicles. Come the next city though, the motorway continues with 2 lanes reserved for BMWs.

If telcos want more money for a premium service, let them offer it to consumers. I’d gladly pay for a broadband access to multimedia. In fact, I’m already paying.