Hitwise Ranks MocoSpace #1

One small step in our bid to conquer the world.  MocoSpace #1

MocoSpace Among Fastest Growing Communities

According to Opera’s 2008 report, MocoSpace is the fastest growing site for uniques outside of Russia, and the only US mobile community listed in the top 10 globally.  2008 was a great year for MocoSpace.  2009 looks even better.  Mobile is clearly a fast-growing market, and one advertisers need to be participating in.   That’s where people are spending their time.  We are fortunate to be working with great partners like Google, Quattro, Admob, Millenial, Smaato, Enpocket and others who are at the cutting edge of the great opportunity at the crossroads of mobile and social networks.

Hitwise Ranks MocoSpace #1

Here’s an excerpt from an email MocoSpace received today from Hitwise:

“Every quarter and annually, Hitwise produces top 10 results for the Mobile Phone entertainment category (based on visits).  Clients use this is their press releases and the media often uses the data in industry stories.  Here is the recent list for your category:

Entertainment – Mobile Phones
1	www.mocospace.com
2	www.myxertones.com
3	www.mycricket.com
4	aolmobile.aol.com
5	m.myspace.com
6	pictures.sprintpcs.com
7	www.gocomics.com
8	www.phonezoo.com
9	offers.thumbplay.com
10	mobile.yahoo.com

That bad?! When’s the last time the collective media was right?

I’m sick and tired of turning on the news and reading the paper only to see overhyped negativity wherever I turn.  All this talk about plunging this, and great depression that.  I’m sure it sells papers, but it also terrifies people and perpetuates the downturn they are madly pitching.  Here’s the problem.  When was the last time that everyone in the media was in total agreement on something and it turned out to be right? Y2K? Nope. SARS? Nope. $200 Oil? Nope.  Patriots winning last years Super Bowl? Nope.

Given that incredible track record, I have to wonder if everyone thinks this is the Great Depression what the odds are that it is? That’s not to say that economy is good or getting better any time soon, but falling off a cliff…..I don’t think so.  Yes, like tech stocks, homes were and are overpriced, there’s too much debt, and a deleveraging is necessary and occurring.  Still the media all but ignores much of the decent news coming out.  For example, what about small companies like Coke, Johnson & Johnson, Wells Fargo, Google, IBM, etc. beating earnings estimates? What about plummeting gas prices and commodity prices in general? Wasn’t gas supposed to cost $5 a gallon by now? What about the fact that as many dollars in mortgages were written this Sept as there were last Sept.? What about the many startups still getting funded? What about Warren Buffet, the greatest investor the world has ever known, writing a New York Times Op-Ed saying it’s time to BUY the US stock market?

Ok so Warren Buffet says buy, Jim Cramer says sell.  The weatherman can’t tell me with much confidence what the weather will be next week.  Yet, for some reason we can all predict with near certainty the collapse of the US economy for the next 2 years?????????? Let’s not only hope they are wrong, let’s work to make sure they are!

MocoSpace Wins at TWS2008

MocoSpace was selected as one of Israel’s top 10 most promising Internet startups! Although MocoSpace was founded and HQ’d in the US, our kickass R&D team is based in Israel.  Judges included Guy Kawasaki, Pete Cashmore and Om Malik among others.  You can check the release here.  It’s always great to get recognized in such a positive light, and this was extra special as our R&D team doesn’t always get to exposed to much of the recognition Moco has recently been garnering in North America.  It goes without saying that our R&D is the foundation of the company, and is among the most efficient in the industry.  With the entire company clocking in at a whopping 23 employees, I think our pageview (over 1.5 billion this month) to employee, let alone engineer ratio, is at hall of fame levels.

Itai and Ofer (2 of our very best) had the chance to present to a captive audience of leading entrepreneurs & investors in Israel.  Afterwards, they got the rare “privilege”, for engineers at least, to run the MocoSpace booth.  They quickly learned how exciting standing around a booth for a few can really be.  I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to pass on any and all future opportunities to man the booth for us at future tradeshows.  See the photos below:

Itai proud to sport his Moco tshirt!

Ofer preaching the Moco gospel!

Hurray for Hitwise!

It’s good to see a firm that actually thinks that there may be a few mobile sites generating mobile traffic.  I had this conversation yesterday with a pretty senior analyst at a major money manager who was telling me that he is equally baffled by the whole notion of 1 web.  He said when he first got his iPhone he surfed websites, but has now switched to mobile because….they actually are better on mobile.

I also was lucky enough to attend a luncheon yesterday where Jim Spanfeller, the CEO of Forbes.com, spoke.  He was discussing digital media, and more specifically the web, but what he said holds true in my opinion for mobile as well.  Simply put, taking content from other mediums and pushing them onto new mediums isn’t the answer.  Forbes.com shoots something like 30 made for Web clips per day.  Based on his experience and success, you need to create content tailored to the medium.  Conceptually this is simple, but the execution of course is not obvious.  I don’t think the mobile code has been entirely cracked, but it will be.

In any case, here’s an cool chart Hitwise put out.  My only problem with it is that MocoSpace isn’t #1:

Mobile Web is Dead! Really???

I was disappointed to hear about Mowser’s demise this past week, but nearly shocked to read the parting blog from one of its co-founders, Russell Beattie.  For those who haven’t read it, I summarized it in the title.  According to Russell the mobile Internet is dead, “…I think anyone currently developing sites using XHTML-MP markup, no Javascript, geared towards cellular connections and two inch screens are simply wasting their time, and I’m tired of wasting my time.”  He goes on to state that the traffic isn’t there and really won’t be until iPhones and other HTML browser-enabled devices become the norm.

Personally, I don’t know Russell, though I’ve met his other co-founder Mike Rowehl.  Both are clearly mobile savvy guys, and I’ve enjoyed reading their blogs and playing around with Mowser.  I always hate to hear about entrepreneurs failing, unless they are competitors.  In Russell’s case it sounds like he’s endured some pretty serious financial hardship.  Still, I’m surprised by how jaded his view of the mobile Internet is given the early success of many companies he’s familiar with such as Admob, Getjar, MyWaves, Radar, yours truly (MocoSpace).  Each of these sites are  generating 10’s of millions, and in MocoSpace’s case over 1 billion page views per month off of a unique audience in the low millions.  Those numbers may not stack up well to the Web…yet, but the trend certainly appears to be our friend.

The obstacles to mobile Internet adoption are substantial and include handsets, awareness, operator data price plans, and more.  But again, the trend is our friend here based on what I see everyday, ie better, cheaper handsets, growing awareness, and operators moving more aggressively to make the mobile Internet happen.  In fact based on the impressive traffic that some relatively small operators such as Metro PCS generate thanks to their open garden and simple, affordable data pricing, I spend a lot of my time salivating about what the next 2 years will bring.

Ever since my first foray into the mobile consumer industry, mobile game publisher JSmart, which I co-founded with mobile engineering guru Jamie Hall, I’ve been very suspect of people trying to predict US consumer behavior based on what happens in Japan.  So I agree with Russell, we won’t be Japan.  However, I also remember people scratching their heads here in 2001-2002 wondering if SMS texting would ever take off.  And many thought not.  In December 2007, over 1.5 billion messages were sent per day! Technologies may take longer to cross the chasm here, and take different shapes along the way, but in my opinion there is no doubt that the mobile Internet is both here and on its way.  Americans and consumers around the world will use the Internet on their phones, and it will be different in all sorts of ways than the wired Web.

People who argue for this notion of 1 Web make me feel stupid because frankly I have no idea what they are talking about.  Russell pulls out some M:Metric stats to support this idea that the iPhone proves there’s no chance for success.  “It would be easy to say that the iPhone “disrupted” the mobile web market, but in fact I think all it did is point out that there never was one to begin with.”  Without getting into why I think M:Metrics data are biased towards smart phones etc., I just have to wonder how he arrives at this conclusion when so much of what I read about are companies building iPhone-ready sites, applications, games, etc.  Aren’t the best iPhone sites ones that were built for it? If you’re building Internet sites to look great on a mobile device, isn’t it reasonable to call that site a mobile Internet site? Doesn’t it mean that even the coolest device, with the coolest HTML browser needs mobile Web sites to offer the best experience? Facebook thinks so, ESPN does, and so does a whole slew of other well run consumer Internet businesses.

Simply put, I don’t buy that a 2, 3, 4 inch screen is going to ever deliver the same experience as a 20inch screen, any more than I expect my friends to invite me over to watch the SuperBowl on their new MacBook Air while the 50inch hi-def flatpanel from Sears stays dark in the other room. Then again as a Giants fan in Patriots territory, I may not get invited to next year’s Super Bowl party anyhow.

People will expect, and they will get different content, formats, features, etc. for different devices.  Unless you expect the wired Web to stop improving and taking advantage of the horsepower that desktops and flatpanels deliver, I don’t get how someone could ever think there will be a unified Internet experience across such a range of capabilities. In my opinion, the bottom line is that people are and will continue to develop new sites, services, applications, etc. specifically for mobile devices, and they will be different than those browsed on machines with 5-10x larger screens and orders of magnitude more power and bandwith.  Just as Walmart had to build a website as a distinct experience from its bricks and mortar experience, it will build a mobile site.  In fact, just the other day I noticed that Sears now offers mobile phone alerts.  It’s very safe to say that Sears has not been considered an innovative company in my lifetime, though prior to it they did reinvent American commerce through the mail-order and catalog business.   Now, if Sears is tipping its hat to mobile on its homepage, I think you may want to think twice before putting any nails in the mobile Web coffin.

For Russell and all fellow entrepreneurs, I end with one of my favorite quotes from Theodore Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat

Mobile Matters

The other day Compete posted a chart showing the top 20 social networks in the US. Not surprisingly, none of them were mobile as they, nor does anyone I’m aware of track mobile Internet sites yet. Actually Nielsen & M:Metrics do, but in a flawed manner that really only counts Internet sites surfed by smart phones with html browsers. I’ve never really understood from either of them how this is representative of the 200million + non smart phones in the US, but that’s another story. Anyhow, using Compete’s data on MocoSpace’s web traffic we mocked up our own chart to see how we would rank based on our web traffic alone. Moco would be #26 based on visits and quite a bit higher based on uniques:

However, we then added in our mobile traffic and this is how things shook out:

From this chart, it looks like mobile is starting to matter, and I believe will matter more and more to everyone from consumers to advertisers over the next 2 years. As the chart shows, reach is still an obstacle as mobile is in the early adopter phase, but once hooked, consumers are active on their phones.

btw – if anyone knows of any third party sites that track mobile traffic, please share

A billion pages and counting…

We just announced our second round of financing along with some updated stats.  MocoSpace’s traffic is now at 1 billion page views per month driven by over 2 million members.  It’s a great milestone for us, and a tribute to the hardwork of Moco’s team to deliver on our mission to offer our members the best place to find friends, have fun, and stay connected on their mobile phones…for free.

Since founding the company at the end of 2005, Jamie and I have believed that the mobile Internet, like its PC counterpart, should be free and ad supported.  Today, the tremendous community we have at MocoSpace reinforces our belief, and demonstrates the untapped power of the mobile Internet.

Some people I speak with question the potential, and in some cases even the existence, of the mobile Internet.  Others believe that the only sites that will enjoy any significant traffic and success are websites with mobile extensions.  I believe that there millions of people in North America that don’t sit in front of a computer all day, don’t have broadband access at home, but want and deserve a great way to find friends, have fun, and stay connected.

In 2008, I believe MocoSpace will eliminate any doubts about the potential of the mobile Internet.

Eddie Lampert worst CEO of 2007?!

In case you missed it, Herb Greenberg picked Eddie Lampert (ESL Investments) as the worst CEO of 2007 here.  In his own article, he lists much more appropriate candidates but choose Eddie probably to make some more headlines and come across as a bit savvier than the rest of the crowd.  Frankly, I think Herb should be embarrassed.  By all accounts Sears has had a bad 6 months, with it’s stock getting cut in half from a high of nearly $200/share, and a 99% drop in profits in the most recent quarter…..wait did I say profits? Yes! And here’s what makes Herb’s pick such a bad attention getting joke:

Sears this year will turn a profit all 4 quarters, as well as generate cash (Herb couldn’t find a company that may actually lose money to be a candidate?)

• Sears unlike dozens of lenders & banks will not undergo the 10’s of thousands of layoffs announced by failed and struggling players in the housing & finance sector.  In fact, Sears & Kmart continue to hire in every store I’ve seen.
• Sears actually had a very solid first 1/2 of the year
• Sears continues to make improvements, but the results will take time

So some how despite many companies going under, others laying off 10’s of thousands, and others bleeding cash, Sears which is doing none of these things has the worst CEO. Oh wait there’s more, Eddie Lampert isn’t even the CEO!

Herb, do you really crave the spotlight that much, that you’d make such a stupid pick just to get people to talk about you more? I guess there’s no such thing as bad press when you write for an ad supported blog.