Tim Oren's Due Diligence

Xmas Media Gifts

These would be from the Dept. of Xmas Yet To Come:

Peter Jackson will be making The Hobbit, in fact two films worth. Yay! The Hobbit is a miniature - an "essay in the craft before it was full-grown", with a story line slight by comparison with LOTR. On the other hand, Jackson will have the time and budget to lavish on going deeper into backstory on the dwarves and wood elves. Can't wait for Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies. Yes, I'm a Tolkien geek from way back. There's a first printing of the Ballantine ROTK paperback around here somewhere...

The writers' strike is beginning to yield the hoped-for fruit: Startups, using the Internet to challenge the incumbent studios and distributors. Do you smell a HBS case in the making? I do. HT: Marc Andreessen.

(I've been heads down working on a project due Xmas Day, hence the quiet around here. Enough blowing off - back to work.)

Facebook Apps: Playing the Viral Lottery

Tuesday evening I went over to PARC to attend a BayCHI program featuring student projects from a Stanford class co-taught by DD Old Friend and Stanford prof BJ Fogg and Valley entrepreneur and gadfly Dave McClure. This was, of course, the pay-off to the much blogged student projects building persuasive Facebook apps.

The results were impressive. Of 25 apps put up by teams from the 100 person class, five achieved over a million downloads in a few short weeks (most apps didn't hit the Facebook system until early November), and six are getting an average of over 100,000 daily users. Apparently a few of the teams have been given purchase offers (reputedly in the eight cent per user range), or have incorporated themselves. There was also a great deal of cross-pollination among teams, and quick exploitation of lessons learned from early successes and failures. How many classes have their own dedicated metrics analyst?

So before getting into my own take on the meanings of the results, here's a big tip of the hat to BJ and his teaching team and class: That was an awesome job, and a stellar example of what the Valley does so well - mixing up young energy, experienced entrepreneurs, some minimal and fast process, and getting out there and testing with real users. The presenters were impressive in keeping their talks short and focused, sharing the credit around, and often working in humor with a point. Even those whose accents said they didn't grow up here have been acculturated into Valley pitching. Well done, Stanford!

That said, the results don't make me keen on investing in Facebook apps.

MSN / Live 'Anonymization' Scheme Has Post-Logout Privacy Vulnerabilities

Further to my post mentioning Facebook's harvesting of user data after logout, a friend (who will remain anonymous) pointed me at some holes in Microsoft's announced deidentification procedures that could create similar vulnerabilities. Beyond the technical problems in design, this is concerning because both Microsoft and its partner sites have commercial incentives to allow such vulnerabilities.

The architecture of Microsoft's ad network deidentification system was recently described in a white paper (PDF) that was apparently created as an input to a recent Federal Trade Commission 'Town Hall' meeting on online advertising. Given the potential audience, it's possible the architectural description has been simplified, so I'll discuss some potential variants as well. Any flaws in analysis are my own.

Beacon Flap Raises Questions About FaceBook's Platform

Facebook's 'beacon' feature that spreads word of purchases or even actions on commerical websites to one's friends is in retreat, with major advertisers bailing out. Meanwhile, a security analyst finds Facebook sending usage data back to the mother ship regardless of opt-out actions, and even when the Facebook windows have been closed. (A snarky, funny non-technical take here.)

Now Facebook may be clean as the driven snow, and throwing all those bits on the floor when they arrive. This problematic implementation may be exacerbating their issues by given the appearance of deception, but it's not the core of the problem.

Bumpy Road At Tesla?

Looks like it may take longer for the object of my tech lust to get on the road. Last week the board at Tesla Motors brought in a new CEO, with experience running a semiconductor company and an after-market automotive electronics vendor, in preference to a Detroit or other OEM background. Today it seems the founder, Martin Eberhard, has left on bad terms with the board, posting a statement on a discussion forum that would likely be a bit more pithy were it not for a non- disparagement agreement.

This is after delays in delivery of the Tesla roadster due to reliability problems with its transmission. The first story above cites a WSJ report that Tesla was working with a 'new supplier' on durability of the transmission. It's pretty hard to reconcile that statement with shipments in Q1 2008. Those willing to lay down $100,000 for the latest, greenest toy on wheels may have to wait longer to do so.

Update 12/5/07: An anonymous source connected with the company says both of these situations have been 'evolving for months' and are only just now surfacing publicly. Specifically, the personnel situation is a typical 'founder s*** as manager' problem, and the tranny issue was far along towards solution before it it made it into the MSM and blogosphere. I'm unable to corroborate these claims, so salt to taste. I don't know the personalities involved, and the only proof of the schedule will be actual shipments.