I have been writing about the need for sports social networking, and here’s an innovative step via Baris. I think it’s a bright idea, with room to grow.
Zell on Returns
Marc posted about this new year’s card from Sam Zell. So well done…
CBS’s Bold Play Seems to Be Successful
I was not alone in my excitement around CBS’s decision to air the NCAA tournament on demand for FREE. The blogsphere was aglow with anticipation. Now, it’s breaking records.
Good job for CBS. Their wins will be larger than their costs in this initiative. I wish NBC had done the same with the Olympics. And I hope we’ll see more of this in the summer from Germany.
Istanbul NEG Meeting Moved
The March meeting of the Istanbul NEG is moved to Wednesday, March 29th.
Sports Social Network: NBX
The Homeless World Cup
My friend Craig Thompson told me about a project that he’s
now involved in: The Homeless World
Cup. It sounds like an excellent way to
leverage the power of soccer, the social draw of which I find consistently
under-utilized, to help alleviate the problems and pains associated with
homelessness.
Here are some stats from the 2004 World Cup:
- Today 78 of the 204 World Cup players work in regular jobs
- 16 signed with football clubs or work as coaches
- 95 improved their housing situation
I think it’s additionally brilliant because soccer is
inherently a street game. The common
story these days is the soccer star rising from the streets (usually poor, if
not literally homeless) very quickly (most exceptionally talented players are
discovered and make it through the very efficient filters of the game by their
late teens), but, in the process, losing ties to their community. True, they remain role-models to the kids on
the street, but the interaction is little.
The Homeless World Cup is an opportunity for the global
soccer industry to pay its debt to the cradle of the game – the streets.
Is There a MySpace Exodus?
Fred touches on the idea that MySpace has begun losing users to Facebook, spurred by NimBLOG. The traffic stats suggest the opposite, as in the below graph.
However, I can’t help but agree with the point that the teen crowd is exceptionally fickle and I don’t know what unique characteristic MySpace has to keep them interested, and keep getting new users as new kids enter their teen years. Facebook has the university angle which will keep feeding the funnel.
UPDATE: Ben Casnocha had made the same call two months ago, reporting from the field.
Sports Citizen Journalism Will Explode at the World Cup
Rafat Ali posted that FIFA has lifted its restrictions on the digital publishing of photos. My contention has long been that sports is the only other super-strong unifier of people (along with music). This move by FIFA should unleash a web of activity of fans, led by those in the stands in Germany, publishing photos and commentary on the World Cup this year. Get your camera phones ready.
Istanbul NEG – March Meeting
It’s time for the March meeting. It’s scheduled for March 22nd March 29th at Bizim Tepe. I apologize for not having devised a more convenient announcement/RSVP setup than the current triumvirate of:
- this blog
- evite
- Ist NEG Yahoo Group
That’s going to change soon, I promise.
In the meanwhile, please go and RSVP to the March meeting, thorough the evite you’ve received. If you have not received one, let me know. If you’d like to invite others, please feel free.
And, very importantly, please let me know if you’d like to (or know others who would like to) present.
See you on the 22nd.
The Zero Billion Dollar Fund
I’d discussed changes in the VC business before in a few posts. Today, Fred Wilson calls it the signals of The Zero Billion Dollar Fund, inspired by this post by Bill Burnham. Burnham points out:
The bad news for large VC funds is that if my recent conversations are
any guide it seems like more and more entrepreneurs are picking up on
the implications of these dynamics and adjusting their behavior
accordingly. These changes could lead to a serious case of adverse
selection, wherein the best entrepreneurs with the most capital
efficient ideas either self-fund or raise money from angles while only
relatively risky ideas with large capital requirements seek capital
from large funds.
Fred foresees a disruption in the VC business. The squeeze is playing out like this: On one side, you have large funds like Redpoint’s latest at $400m and Kleiner’s 12that $600. On the other, you have USV with $125m, Patricof with $50m. I like Fred’s description of the "Zero Billion Dollar Fund":
We have this saying around our firm, the "zero billion dollar
business". It describes a business, like Craigslist or Digg, that
enters a market, like classifieds or news, and by virtue of the amazing
efficiency of its operation can rely on a fraction of the revenue that
the market leaders need to operate profitably. These zero billion
dollar businesses are highly disruptive and change the economics of
their industries over time.
…
Union Square Ventures was designed as a "zero billion fund" in a sense.
This thinking is similar to how I see the budding VC market in Turkey. Even in the private equity market, the funds are not having an easy time deploying their capital. In the earlier stage side of the market, that problem will be even more critical. Calibration will be a key factor for the funds here.
Cem Sertoglu 