We just interviewed Dan Cohen, CEO of the start page company Pageflakes. I'll be honest: While I like the product a great deal, I don't love the business. The personal home page market is dominated by Yahoo and Google, and to some extent Microsoft. As good as their products are, the upstarts Pageflakes and Netvibes (which is what I use) have less than a 4 percent share of the market, according to TechCrunch.
Cohen makes the point that Pageflakes is easy to set up, making it a great product for the general consumer. I'll give him that. The product is a snap to use. But unless his backers are going to be comfortable with Pageflakes running a distant fourth or fifth in this market, Cohen's going to have to do some clever maneuvering to pop this company ahead of the leaders.
Unless, of course, the goal isn't to actually build an ongoing business, but to get it acquired before the funding runs out. Few CEOs will admit to that strategy, but from the funder's perspective it's usually the desired outcome. On that front, Pageflakes has good--but not unique--technology, and a focus on usability that the big companies would do well to emulate or acquire. The value of the Pageflakes audience, if the goal is to be acquired by a much larger company that already has large consumer user base already, is limited.
Cohen worked on both Yahoo's and Google's start-page projects, which means he knows this market and knows what he's up against. He feels his start-up can innovate more quickly than the big companies. But will that be enough? I don't care how good this product is, this venture is a big, big gamble.
See also...
Working Webware Episode 1: Can Zoho steal Microsoft's customers?
Working Webware Episode 2: All about Ning;
Working Webware Episode 3: Flock's Future.
Does the world need yet another browser? That's the question Dan Farber and I put to Flock CEO Shawn Hardin in our latest Working Webware video interview.
I'll disclose right now that Flock is my default browser, and I love it. I find it more stable than Firefox, probably because it doesn't need two dozen add-ins to function the way I like--it's all built in.
But does that make a business? Hardin explains the model, which is pretty straightforward: search advertising. The little built-in search box in the upper-right of the browser generates Yahoo affiliate fees for Flock, which add up quickly. Hardin says Firefox, which has the same business model, made more than $65 million in revenues in 2006. Flock doesn't have as many users as Firefox, but its user base is growing 50 percent a month, Hardin says. Of course that expansion rate can't be maintained forever, but it's impressive nonetheless the competition.
Flock is based on the Mozilla open source engine, as is Firefox, and Hardin says the Flock team shares its own improvements back into the codebase, to the benefit of Firefox and other Mozilla browsers.
See also...
Working Webware Episode 1: Can Zoho steal Microsoft's customers?
Working Webware Episode 2: All about Ning.
On Episode 2 of Working Webware, ZDNet Editor in Chief Dan Farber and I talk with Ning's CEO, Gina Bianchini. We delve into the company's platform strategy and how Bianchini plans to compete against other enablers of social networking. Then we kick the CEO out of the room and talk about the company's prospects.
Ning is a very strong social network platform, and the platform business, in this market, is the place to be. We have enough companies trying to rope people into engineered communities. Ning doesn't do that; it lets its users build their own neighborhoods in the ways they want.
Bianchini is a savvy CEO and a tough interview. She engages at a level of remove more typical of one running a much larger company. That will serve her well when, and if, Ning gets to that scale that she's aiming for.
See also: Working Webware Episode 1: Can Zoho steal Microsoft's customers?
Dan Farber (Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Between the Lines blogger) and I have a new video show: Working Webware. Each episode, we're going to pick on one hapless Web CEO, interview him or her, and then analyze their prospects.
For our first show, we sat down with AdventNet's CEO Sridhar Vembu to find out about Zoho's office productivity suite and how the company plans to compete against Microsoft and Google. We analyzed the company's business model and argued about Zoho's chance for success in the emerging Web 2.0 office software market. Running time is 9 minutes.
Recently, Zoho improved the offline functionality in Zoho Word, bringing it a small step closer to competing directly with Microsoft's Office Suite.
After watching the video, Vembu replied in an e-mail:
I agree we face a massive challenge. Here is why I feel optimistic: at AdventNet, we get about 1.5 million downloads of our IT Management & Security products (they range from network/systems/app management to help desk and a lot in between). These products target SMBs directly. We count in excess of 25,000 organizations as customers. We have relationships with nearly a thousand resellers world-wide, and we are establishing tiered distribution partnerships around the world. That business is growing at a really fast clip.
I believe there is a huge untapped opportunity in the SMB segment for Zoho. That is why we are investing heavily (Zoho division alone has now 200+ people in engineering). Fortunately, our AdventNet business is doing extremely well to be able to afford the investment.
Of course no one can predict the future, but based on the response we are seeing for Zoho, I am really optimistic. I believe just as the desktop software industry had room for players like Adobe and Intuit to thrive in the face of Microsoft, we will carve out a space for ourselves in the online application business, assuming a Google-dominated world. Execution is the key, as always.
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