The news from across the valley

Well, the bloggers and the media and the founders and the engineers never fail to disappoint.  Week after week, the names change but some sort of either crass or really out-of-this-business-world activity comes to our attention.  Courtesy of those In The Know.

So just for my own amusement, I've started mapping where I think the startups and annointed players behind this week's news stack up on this survivor's value screen.

The x axis addresses the quality of the entity's business idea -- from generic to genius.  Is the company merely transferring an analog business to the digital space?  Is the idea new and exciting?  Does the player take us somewhere new?

The y axis plots relevance to the user -- you know, the one beyond Silicon Valley.

And the arrows by the names -- where the entity might be headed if things continue as they were this week.

Comments:  Redlasso is a great idea and its team is making all the right moves.  Useful product, grownup strategies.  Seesmic is a good idea whose marketing builds the company's relevance daily.  Twitter?  Brilliant but it has GOT to address its scalability -- fast -- with some of that dough coming its way.  And start making itself indispensable to the general public.  23andMe is, I'm sure, scientifically sound -- but what is it doing and why should we care?  Except for Uncle Rupert getting his DNA mapped?  All Things D = All Things Me.  See previous post.  Zivity is an old idea tarted up with business language and a CEO who wears makeup but no undergarments for interviews.  Hard to say whether Zivity will become massively relevant or just a niche play for exhibitionist females, teenage boys and the peter pans of Silicon Valley.  Maybe its code is so fabulous that after those In The Know get past their hormones, that code can be used to do some real digital business.  In the meantime, you prostitutes out there will be happy to know your job description has changed to artist.

Omnidrive is here because it came out of its cave this week.  A miraculous recovery that -- full disclosure -- puts itself in direct competition with a startup I advise.  Which would be most exciting if the competition proves to be transparent.  Sorry to say it, but I'm skeptical.  At least one of its investors saw my startup's investor pitch shortly before Omnidrive went dark -- and asked a few questions about whether we wanted to address storage.  We explained that we do not because we believe the immediate future of utilities is social.  Guess what.  Omnidrive has reappeared with a lot of the same features of my startup!  Not as well-designed, of course.  And, another Omnidrive investor runs a startup bake-off that denied entry to my startup last year!  Maybe a coincidence, but it's fishy.

Anyway, this chart helps me in three ways.

• I blow off steam.
• I test my own assumptions.
• While listening to Tony Bennett's rendition of "If I Ruled the World," I can pretend what it would be like if I ruled Silicon Valley.

I wonder what those In The Know play in the background as they fantasize about their, ahem, power.  The soundtrack of "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?"

Comments

[Sylvia Paull]

great idea, Mary. Could you add the appropriate music hooks as well?

[Mary]

Thanks for the suggestion, Sylvia. Found a wonderful live version of Tony Bennett. For Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, I linked to Amazon. You can hear snippets of the soundtrack there.