Simplicity, integration and value

15 03 2008

This week’s top Digg item is a story called Google Drive Killer Coming From MIT features a start up out of MIT called Dropbox. Basically, it provides a way to store and share files online. I have say that their offering is pretty compelling, or at least the video of the demo is compelling. Why do I like it?

  • Clear value proposition — read the comments from the digg post and you’ll see the instant appeal
  • Killer integration — the integration between the web, windows and mac files systems is done really well based on the video. That clearly differentiates it from all the other online storage companies.
  • Simplicity — very cool basic sharing capabilities are very powerful without some stupid grand vision of being the next Facebook

The interesting question is how they plan to monetize their creation. I’m not sure I would pay for it. And, will advertising revenue be enough for a business that can be infrastructure intensive? I would love to see what their business model looks like …





University of Richmond? Where is that?

3 03 2008

On cold days, I wear my University of Richmond sweatshirt that says “Richmond” on the front of it. I would say that most folks in the bay area think that it has something to do with Richmond, CA. No one knows anything about the University of Richmond out here on the west coast except for a few runs the basketball team has done in the NCAA tournament.

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised to find the University of Richmond Business School ranked #20 in Business Week’s top 50 Undergraduate Business Schools. Also included in the list are the big guys such as Wharton, Stern, Sloan and Haas. (I graduated with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Business Administration) Despite its small size, it’s nice to see Richmond getting recognized with the big guys.

Go spiders!
university-of-richmond-logo.jpg





Steve Kirsch on Fox Business

2 03 2008

Here is an older video piece of Steve Kirsch talking about Abaca Technology on Fox Business from this past December. The technique in which Abaca’s technology blocks spam tends to be difficult for folks to grasp and it seems that the anchor wasn’t quite getting it.