FOWA Notes: The Magic formula – Mike Arrington | Muffin Research Labs by Stuart Colville:
3. Data and service protability (teqlo, ning and pipes)
Frees user data, no-ones figured a way to make money out of this yet. But they will
Obviously we agree that this is a great opportunity for 2007. Mike was right to point out that the big idea here is not a technical one, it’s freeing people’s data and giving them more control of the increasing complexity that we all have to deal with in our daily online life.
At SAP it was always acknowledged that there were two core competencies at the center of the company, controlling transactions and being the system of record (master data). I’m not so sure that Teqlo has to be a system of record, what we can do is stitch together the bits and pieces of master data that are increasingly scattered across systems that are themselves websites. If I could identify two core competencies for Teqlo at this point they would be rooted in enabling context across web services by integrating them in the browser (point of contact) by the user, and aggregating “experience” by extending a broad array of web services with a single point of contact by users. Managing complexity, providing great service, enabling self-expression, and getting things done are all important consequences of us doing our job right.
Yeah, we need to make money doing this and aside from the obvious subscription opportunity there is a less obvious opportunity to process transactions between subscribers and web service vendors (WSVs), aggregate billing and metering, and provide premium services that help overcome the quality of service issues that are real problem areas for web 2.0 apps. Our focus is on building momentum in the market (get the flywheel spinning in VC terminology) and then use that as a spring pad to revenue generation. There’s a lot of work to do from now to then but considering how much we have already accomplished in our little company with the small amount of investment we have, I don’t doubt we’ll get there.
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