I'm a key influencer. I'm also a technology evangelist, analyst, and journalist. And I can also leverage core competencies. Uh-oh. Sick of me yet?

We live in a world of prototypes, buzzwords, hype, and cliche. That's why I think CIO has hit the market with an article on the "10 Loathsome Technology Industry Types."

Here's an excerpt:

Vendor Marketing EVP You've got great hair—and you know it. Every conversation inevitably returns to "synergistic opportunities for the brand" or "CSR initiatives." You've got an iPhone 4 and you're hip to Facebook and Foursquare. Your most recent and greatest idea (if you do say so yourself): "I know how we'll get potential customers' contact information: Free iPad Giveaway! No one else is doing it!"

Venture Capitalist Wait, wait, don't tell me: You're based in the San Francisco / Palo Alto area, right? Uh-huh. And you once worked for HP or IBM? Yes. You enjoy yachting and golf? You betcha. And, of course, don't forget about your passion for "fine wine." How unique.

The Influencer A relatively new moniker for the same old type of self-aggrandizing, undeserving attention whore of years past: You've probably referred to yourself as a "guru" or "visionary" before. But your "highly soughtafter" methodology for measuring your Twitter influence is a secret worth keeping close to the vest. Definitely.

Pretty good stuff. Go check out the full story at CIO.com: "Influence This: 10 Loathsome Technology Industry Types."

 

There is a surge of startups trying to address the management of smartphones in enterprise networks, which is surely going to be a massive issue. If you think about how the number of smart, networked mobile devices are proliferating, and how employees use them for both work and private purposes, you can imagine this is a big management headache. That's the opportunity that Silicon Valley startup MobileIron is going after. I spoke to MobileIron back to CTIA and have since done some more research on the company. The company last August raised $11 million in Series B funding from top investors including Norwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Storm Ventures. The company is led by CEO Bob Tinker, who was a former business development manager for Cisco's wireless business units. He was also formerly vice president of business development at Airespace, which was acquired by Cisco in 2005.

It's the "third anniversary" of Hulu, otherwise known in the beginning of the end of network TV. And now, the message that Hulu is leaking to the press is that Hulu is a grand success. The company has released revenue numbers -- $100M -- and said it's profitable. The loyal press mavens (myself included, I guess), are lapping up the Hulu success story. Yes, it is a success story. Hulu's a great site, and a good concept. Real media people banded together to take on low-quality Internet viral video. There's no reason we should be surprised that large amounts of high production-quality entertainment TV can't be successful over cat videos on the Web. As I wrote a few months ago, it's likely that video will take on an increasingly large role on the Internet, and become more profitable, because the costs of delivery are declining rapidly. The New York Times has a classic 'We Are Too Erudite to Commit' headline on the topic: "Successes (and Some Growing Pains) at Hul." Thanks NYT. You mean growing a $100M company from scratch has some challenges? To its credit, the NYT story does add a minor scoop: Hulu will have an iPad app. The New York Times says that the Website is coming under pressure from its content owners NBC Universal, the News Corporation and the Walt Disney Company, to add subscription products and boost advertising margins. Well, of course the content companies want more money. That's because they still haven't come to grips with the fact that their broadcast business model is turning to sand, and they think there's going to be a gravy train on the Internet. My message: Chill out dudes, you have a massive, growing Internet property. Use it to your advantage!

So far I've been pretty unimpressed by the "bubble" in GreenTech. It's been the bubble that popped before it even expanded. You would think that will all of the hype, slathering media coverage, and government subsidies, we'd have a roaring party going on in greentech markets. Or maybe even a roaring IPO market? Instead all we have are some pretty feeble success stories and at most, a couple of modest IPOs in 2010. There have been a handful of "greentech" companies slated for IPO in 2010, the most commonly discussed are Solyndra and Silver Spring Networks. I have no idea how they will do, nor I have I (yet) investigated these particularly companies thoroughly, but my initial feedback from reliable sources is an indifferent shrug. A Google-like outcome is not likely. More concerning is some feedback I have been getting from the sources in the venture-backed greentech market, where valuations are under pressure, it's extremely difficult to raise funding, and the general feeling is that of disappointment.

I have been catching up on some data and news stories about the beleagured venture capital industry.  A continuing shakeout in the industry means that fewer venture-capital firms are in the market with less money, meaning tougher terms for startups. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this will change any time soon unless we get some gigantic IPOs to pay back all the funds. Yes, you can read some success stories about M&A and wins from a few of the major, top-tier firms. But that's just a small percentage of the industry. In sum total, most venture capital funds have had crappy performance over the last 10 years and many of them are shutting down. According to this Wall Street Journal article, the number of venture-capital firms shrunk from 1,023 to 794 from 2005 to 2009. And they're raising less money. 125 venture funds in the U.S. collected $13.6 billion last year, down from 203 funds that raised $28.7 billion in 2008, according to the Journal.

BlueKai CEO Omar Tawakol, who just landed $21 million in financing and whose company has an interesting vision for the future of the Internet advertising industry, spoke with The Rayno Report on Monday about the direction of his company and the new financing.  Tawakol believes his company is onto a multi-billion dollar opportunity. BlueKai aggregates anonymous user data from across the Internet for advertising agencies. It tracks the anonymous user data with a cookie. BlueKai's partners and customers then pay for access to that data and the cookie through an auction process, so that they can see more detailed information about users and target their ads more specifically. Tawakol believes the industry is in the midst of a data "paradigm shift," in that the data aggregation model exists in the offline world, but has not yet been effectively implemented in the new online world. "It's a paradigm issue," says Tawakol, "The new winners usually come from the new paradigm, not the old one."

A few weeks ago I told you that Redpoint partner Scott Raney was bullish on many things, including Ad-data aggregation firm BlueKai. Guess I should have listened more closely. Today BlueKai allegedly announced a $21 million round of financing , according to TechCrunch, though we are still trying to confirm this because we have not seen the actual press release. GGV Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and Battery Ventures are in on the action. If true, this would bring BlueKai's total funding to $35 million, not an insubstantial sum in a crushing econmomic recession (can I have some?). What does BlueKai, a Seattle-based Internet marketing firm, do? The BlueKai Data Exchange aggregates annonymous Internet data . Think of this as creating a new "data aggregation" layer across the Internet, allowing advertisers to look at the behavior of potential customers over a wide variety of advertising platforms. BlueKai says this data includes the information of more than 145 million users.

Every wonder how to spot a crappy company? Oh, I have so many ways. I have been working up the idea for this entry for a while but haven't had the angst-ridden energy to pull it off until today. Throw in a lack of sleep and five cups of coffee, and I'm there. My research on crappy companies goes back about 16 years, as long as I have been covering the technology industry. What many people forget in the technology industry is that contrary to the Silicon Valley popular belief, most companies suck. In fact, the vast majority of venture-backed companies fail and there are really only a few public companies that rise to greatness. And when they're great, it's usually because they are run by a bunch of greedy, preppy asses with no life nor a sense of humor. If you are an investor, this is a big problem. This is why it's right to be skeptical, analytical, and do your homework. You will get burned. So, without further ado, here are my top things to look for in order to spot a crappy company: 1) Lead marketing guy has bad breath, a bad wardrobe, and a cold, clammy, and limp handshake. 2) The reception area has no receptionist because some arrogant VC on the board thought they shouldn't splurge for that. Bad move. Walking into an empty room with a handwritten note that says, "Call Bob at ext. 234" is about the worst first impression you can make. 3) The bathrooms are dirty. I could give you more color here, but you already get the picture... 4) They can't show you the product. Or, they show you the product and it doesn't work. 5) The CEO isn't available to meet because he's yachting in the Cayman Islands. 6) The S-1 filing contains at least four related party transactions, including a annual sales meeting that was catered by Billy Joe Jimbob, the VP of Sales's stepbrother in Tuscon, AZ. 7) The company press kit consists of a black & white photocopy of an old press release 8) The company is 80% sales people ... or 9) The company is 80% product people, with one sales person ... 10) "We don't do a lot of marketing." 11) VP of Business Development offers to take you to a strip club after the first meeting. 12) There is one customer. This customer appears to be extraordinarily large. The company is very small. There is an air of mystery about how this one tiny company got such a huge customer. Figure it out, there's a reason. And it's not good. 13) Earnings appear suspiciously predictable. The company keeps buying other companies. The CEO has the ego the size of a truck. This CEO appears to be obsessed with his company's stock price. 14) Company keeps moving into larger, shinier, more extravagent headquarters buildings. But you still have trouble getting your calls returned. Or they still don't have a receptionist. 15) Company has a generic Web 2.0 name like, "Yoono," and the lead marketing person thinks Web 2.0 is "really cool." 16) The company issues press releases using celebrities. 17) Company contact page has Web forms instead of real phone numbers. 18) "We're leveraging our core competentcies." I once thought I made this phrase up as a joke. Then I found it on the Internets. 19) Ask around. You hear stories about managers calling employees "bipolar psychotics," or there's regular sex harassment suits against the CEO, or the executives are spending all their time hanging out at a hedge fund. 20) Media figures and "analysts" appear to bend over backwards coming up with esoteric ways to praise the company's business model. When you read it over and over, you still can't seem to make sense of it. 21) There's wayyyy too much business going on in Russia and China. 22) The company is ready to synergize, move forward, give you the 50,000-ft. view, and grab the low-hanging fruit. 23) The company hasn't been doing well and the management team is addicted to mergers. This is a sign of distress and denial. 24) Top executives are regularly dumping lots of stock.

Surely 2009 wasn't the best of years for the venture-capital industry, with Wall Street trying to sort out credit turmoil, startups struggling, and the capital simply out of whack with bloated amounts of funds looking for a place to go. But there were some victories -- some IPOs even, and 2010 is looking a lot better! Redpoint Ventures partner Scott Raney points out that the IPO market is creeping back and that M&A activity is picking up substantially. That means more exits for startup companies, which will be good for pumping new blood back into the venture capital market in 2010. Raney also says that deal flow is increasing, M&A talks are increasing, and investors feel better about things. Will it hold up? Just follow the bouncing ball of the stock market, which leads the psychology here. "The mojo is back, pricing is back, and things are full-steam ahead. It's a little surprising, actually," said Raney in an interview yesterday. "We're bullish about a lot of things especially cloud computing and on-demand software." How about some more buzzwords? Here are some other areas Raney likes: "Internet Infrastructure, virtual goods, open mobile." Some of the Redpoint investments that Raney says are doing really well right now: HomeAway.com (online vacation rentals), Solyndra (thin-film solar), and BlueKai (online marketing). I will be using some of Raney's input, as well as input from lots more people, in some research I'm doing over the next few weeks. If you'd like to talk to me on the topic of venture capital, startups, and innovation, send me an email at scott@rayno.com.