I’ve been in India for just a few days and yet Facebook seems to come up a lot in conversations: Friending, putting pix up, joining groups, etc. Not sure what the numbers are but, anecdotally, it seems FB is taking India by storm, whereas Orkut had been the social network of choice.
Bangalore + Slow Posting
I landed in Bangalore yesterday morning and am now off to Sri Lanka for a 7-day “off-the-grid” retreat. Apparently (and thankfully) there isn’t mobile reception so I won’t be posting for the next week.
It has been 7 odd years since I was last in Bangalore and the changes are apparent:
-The new aiport is clean, spacious and seems efficient, although it’s much farther from town than the old one.
-Malls and retail outlets seem to have sprung up like mushrooms after a storm. Some are so upscale that the prices are indistinguishable from the West.
-Security is tight. To be expected after the Mumbai attacks. We went to Blore’s best hotel, the Leela Palace, and our car was checked and we had to go through a metal detector. I just now had to check my bag in as apparently one can only carry on 1 100 ml bottle of liquid.
-Bangalore had a legendary pub scene and culture. However new morality laws stipulating bar/restaurant closure by 11:30 and no dancing(!!) have seriously cramped Blore’s nightlife.
All in all it’s great to be back in India and I’ve already taken advantage of the culinary delights: goan sausages, malabar fish curry, frankies, keema cutlets, cocunut water, fresh lime juice…and I only got here yesterday!
LYV, TKTM: A Tale Of Two Stocks
There was a long piece in the WSJ magazine about Michael Rapino, his ascent to the top of Live Nation (LYV) and his vision for the future. As Live Nation has been entering the content and artist management business, not to mention the ticketing business since it decided to part ways with Ticketmaster, so has Ticketmaster (TKTM) been entering the artist management business with their majority interest purchase of Front Line Management. Clearly both companies have been making big strategic moves away from what has traditionally been their core competency. I took a peek at the stock charts of each and it's interesting:
LYV is trading at a trailing twelve P/E multiple of 3.38 and a market cap of $305 M despite having $206 M in cash.
TKTM is trading at a slightly lower P/E, 3.07, with a market cap of $363 M despite having a whopping $551 M in cash.
Generally, both companies look about even, perhaps a reflection of their convergent strategies, but the Street thinks that Ticketmaster's management will actually burn through some of their cash while it seems to be a bit more bullish on Live Nationa's prospects.
Nettwerk’s Terry McBride On Future Of Music
Mark Glaser has a good interview with Terry McBride on crowdsourcing, the future of music consumption, building the brands of bands amongst other topics. They decided in the spring/summer '02 to get out of the physical CD business and he estimates 80% of revenues from intellectual property sales are digital. Related to this is how they are organized: no A&R function with multi-disciplinary teams formed around artists:
Rather than have a marketing team with marketing meetings, and
promotion team with promotion meetings and sales team with sales
meetings, we got rid of all that and created silos. We created three
teams that had everything from Internet to traditional marketing to
sales to IT to promotion — all in one group, and got rid of the
meetings. So everything you needed for an artist was in that group.
There was no heads of marketing. We shifted from 12 traditional
marketing people to 3 traditional marketing people and 8 or 9 Internet
marketing people.
Worth reading in full.
Latent Discontent With Hotels
I participated in a focus group last week around the design of a new hotel brand. The discussion surfaced some of my dissatisfaction with hotels:
- Exorbitant charges for internet access. Sure, they do so because they can and because most business travelers get it reimbursed by their companies. But it is galling to pay as much as 20 – 25 dollars or euros for 24 hours of internet access.
- Exorbitant charges for mini-bar. Similar principle. Yes, a premium can be charged for the convenience but the markups are huge. Also, the selection of products usually stinks. Why not have some healthy snacks instead of the same, tired products.
- Jaded or solicitous staff that grovel for tips. You get more of the former in Europe where there isn't as much of a tipping culture.
- Crappy retail stores located in the hotel. I rarely buy from hotel stores unless I absolutely have to but it needn't be that way.
- Boring magazines or books in the rooms. Why can't they have a local Zagat guide instead?
Anyway, I think there is latent discontent in many aspects of the hotel experience, especially at the business and higher end where the rates are so high, and that it is ripe for innovation.
Video Curation & Aggregation Services
Jon Healey writes of a new breed of video aggregation sites that link to legal sources of video such as Sling.com, First on Mars and TVLoop, with social media features layered on top so that fans of a certain show can interact with one another. The latter two choose to link to and curate the video that's already out there instead of trying to license the content themselves. While search and consumer sophistication around it has arguably decreased the value of portals and other points of aggregation, I actually think there is still a lot of value created by aggregators. I'll reserve judgment on these sites until I've used them (First on Mars wouldn't load on my Mac), but I regularly use a site like Footytube. It aggregates football clips from the top leagues and tournaments such that it's very easy to find and watch, say, the highlights of the hat-trick Thierry Henry scored for Barcelona over the weekend vs. trying to find the same clip through Youtube or other sites. Of course Footytube probably links to a lot of unlicensed content, and the clips are often unavailable, but sites like these provide a valuable service nonetheless. Generally, I think this sort of service is lacking in the online video value chain.
Sicamp
I attended Sicamp this weekend. In their words, "Social Innovation Camp is an experiment in creating social innovations for the digital age.
We think the web and related technologies hold huge potential to
change some pretty fundamental stuff: how people hold those in
positions of power accountable; who they rely on to provide the
services they need to live healthy, happy lives; or how they make a
difference to something that affects them."
The goal was to take 7 back of the envelope ideas and try to turn them into something by focusing the energies of a group of people – coders, designers, marketers, and others – over a weekend. At the end of it, the teams would present to a panel of judges with the winners getting a little cash and, more importantly, recognition. Jemima Kiss from the Guardian covered it here and here.
I chose to work on Useful Visitors: a site that would enable travelers to donate their skills & knowledge for social impact in short increments of time while traveling. It resonated with me because I travel so much and because it had a similar them to some other ideas that I've been brainstorming. We had a large team with lots of disparate talents, lots of ideas, healthy disagreement and, most importantly, lots of energy, and I'm proud to report that we came in second — now the hard part begins!
Thanks to the organizers – Christian Ahlert, Katherine Hui, Anna Maybank, Dan McQuillan and Paul Miller as well as the Young Foundation — for planning the weekend and keeping us fed and watered, and congrats to everyone that participated. It was fun.
Citi’s Troubles Give EMI Breathing Room
Good article in the FT about Terra Firma bought EMI with Citibank providing most of the debt, how they bought at the peak of the debt market,how the deal almost didn't happen and EMI/Terra Firma's travails since then. Ironically, given Citi's woes and that the US government is now backing them up, it actually gives EMI room to manouver – there are a lot bigger fish to fry for Citi!
Kathi Roll: Indian Street Food Whose Time Has Come
One of my favorite foods in the world is the kati (or kathi) roll. It is a form of street food in india perfected by Nizam's of Kolkata, a hole-in-the-wall place that, nevertheless, served the best kati rolls. A kati roll is a roll-up – the indian version of a burrito or souvlaki. The bread is a hot, fried paratha wrapping a chicken tikka, lamb or beef kebab filling with fried onion and seasoned with coriander, lime juice, salt and pepper. They are served rolled up in wax paper and best washed down with a cold beer. Variations include frying the paratha with egg ("unda" style) and using vegetarian fillings such as potato (aloo) or cottage cheese (paneer). Done right, it is a delicious mix of spicy, savory and tangy flavors with the doughy texture of the paratha contrasting with the crunch of the onions and the tenderness of the meat. There are variations in India, notably the frankie, but they do not compare to Kolkata's kathi roll.
My family and I always talked about what a great concept this would be to roll out. Well others had the idea and actually did something about it, notably the Kati Roll Company, which started in NYC. It has since become one of my go-to spots whenever I visit NYC. There are other kati roll outfits such as the Indian Bread Company and Roomali but I prefer Kati Roll. The owners are from Kolkata and sought to replicate the food they loved and they've done a good job as the long lines out of their Village location can attest. It is especially handy for a late night snack and they are open until 5 am on the weekends for just such cravings!
Imagine my joy when I recently discovered that they'd opened up a location in London (hard to believe the concept wasn't already here). I checked it out tonight, ordering an Unda Chicken and Unda Aloo roll. I'd give the nod to the NYC location – my aloo had a bit too much tang to it — but I'm nit-picking. It was the perfect quick dinner on a cold night and, for less than 8 quid, you can't beat the value. I'm looking forward to going back; if only they'd open another location closer to my home. Sigh.