The Workstreamer Blog

Fred Wilson wrote two articles in the last few days about globalization and its effect on the Internet. When Union Square Ventures raised its most recent fund, Fred told investors

“The Internet is getting more global, more mobile, more social, more intelligent, and more playful.”

These are many of the same sentiments Workstreamer was built to support. Our Macro thesis is essentially that work is changing: it’s increasingly project based with talent and opportunities dispersed globally. Workstreamer is meant to be a platform to facilitate the connections, collaboration and ultimately the marketplace we expect to evolve from this new world.

Apparently Fred has some quantitative data to support his case! The following are numbers for total Internet audience by location:

Worldwide - 853mm (up 10% from 772mm last year)

North America - 185mm (up 4% from 178mm last year)

Europe - 240mm (up 8% from 223mm last year)

Asia - 323mm (up 14% from 283mm last year)

Latin America - 63mm (up 19% from 53mm last year)

Middle East/Africa - 43mm (up 23% from 35mm last year)

In a second post by Fred called upon some collective intelligence – asking for someone to find a chart of revenue per user by location. Fred assumes that the United States would represent ~80% of the total revenue. However, Fred also said that he and his fellow venture friends see this figure as rapidly changing. As such they are in the process of allocating resources to internet-based ventures in emerging, or more non-traditional Internet markets. In fact, Fred has spent the last month in Europe exploring opportunities there.

It’s a very difficult balance trying to invest on a longer time horizon. Fred is looking to invest in a still-developing future while also retaining current rates of return. We agree with the USV strategy and look forward to keeping an eye on what he does.

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Paul Graham of Y Combinator just published a list of 30 types of startups he and his crew are interested in funding. The range of ‘fundable’ companies is large, even though many are simply taking existing products and giving them web 2.0 updates. The types of companies include enterprise 2.0 (go Workstreamer!) photo-sharing 2.0 and somehow devising an end to the music-stealing era. For me, perhaps the most interesting thing about Paul’s list is the industry variation. It almost seems like Graham is calling for the rethinking of almost every industry!

I also really admire the proactive approach Graham is taking as an investor; blogging about companies you’re looking to invest in is brilliant — especially when it’s from an established venture capitalist. Here’s why: people respect Paul Graham and believe that if they execute one of his fundable ideas that he – or someone he knows — will invest. More importantly from Graham’s perspective, this strategy likely gives him the first investment opportunity because people who read his blog and create a startup based on one of this ideas are predisposed to seek his capital first! Graham now gives himself an edge on the competition by having a first look. To an extent, Fred Wilson has used this same ‘first investor advantage’ strategy successfully for years.

Plus, at the end of the day those who elect to execute against one of Graham’s suggested areas know that they are addressing markets that smart investors are talking about. So, even if Y Combinator doesn’t invest, they are at least catalyzing the creation of products that have potential to really make a difference.

As everyone already knows, Twitter acquired Summize.

What does it mean about for Twitter?

First and foremost, this makes Summize gives life to the data inherent in Twitter. We now have a faster and more efficient way to find people, objects and anything in between which we may want to track in Twitter. Thus Twitter is now a legitimate business intelligence tool with Summize acting as a stepping-stone to a demographic of early technology adopters and likely higher-income individuals. Cool.

Second, Summize serves the purpose of helping connect and establish new relationships. Here is a concerete example: let’s say you needed to hire a logo designer. Before, you would create a status update stating “looking to hire a designer” and hope that the people following you would help connect you to someone looking for work. Now, with much improved search we could actually locate someone out of our network, allowing users to be even more proactive and ultimately driving more viral growth as the number of connections grows. In some ways, Twitter suggests that there could be a marketplace or ecosystem more akin to Craigslist.

Summize is a great addition and we can’t wait to see how exposing more data and relationships drives Twitter adoption and usage. Also check out this great interview between Michael Arrington and Evan Williams.

I saw this on the Go Big Always Blog and had to pass it on. Enjoy!

In an article from the Big Idea Blog about how email is going out of fashion, it’s argued that in a rapidly changing business environment (where terse communication is frequently necessary) becoming unnecessary.

Is that really true?

The article claims that Twitter and Basecamp are replacing email for most tasks, and in my opinion, they probably are. Even though twitter tends to crash at least several times per day, people keep using it and it grows every day. Also the company is completely revamping itself with its new funds. It has a significant social aspect and for a person who has at least 200 people following them and who also follows 200 people, they have all kinds of worthless tweets mixed in with work. Although it’s an effective medium for communication, I don’t think it’s perfect in the workplace.

Basecamp is a much better alternative. First off, it is designed specifically for work and allows users to collaborate through its software. Secondly, it eliminates the social aspects of twitter and really allows users to concentrate on work and easily access desired documents.

If this trend continues then the world needs a piece of collaborative software that is easy to use and eliminates the need for email while combining the high points of a twitter and camp. After working on Workstreamer, I think it’s got the potential to do that and more.

Check out this latest addition to Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboratory

The Wikinomics Blog raised interesting questions regarding collaborative tools. They describe email as a “push” medium where you distribute the information and wikis as a “pull” medium where you can take from it and add on. However, they raise one very interesting point: liability.

With both types of collaborative tools, users can copy and paste confidential data and analysis and contribute to the slew of securities fraud we’ve recently witnessed a la UBS.

This raises interesting points and ideas for both Workstreamer and the future of collaborative software. In your projects, should a manager be allowed to have his or her software encrypt their work so that it cannot be so easily copied and pasted?

Obviously this brings up another issue: trust. If we can’t trust our employees then why should we hire them?

All of this is interesting and Workstreamer has the capabilities to provide a potential solution. But with all these issues at large in our society, we really need to choose a direction and let web and enterprise 2.0 come up with the solution.

In recently reading an article from the DM Review website about teams of professionals and how they’re managed and organized, I realized how low the level existing management solutions is and how that can be improved.

The main piece of software that the article talked about is Microsoft Office Project which allows a single person to create a schedule and manage a project. It does not allow for collaboration.

It also talked about email and how managers distribute important documents through it and get everyone on the same page via the documents. However, email also has the inherent flaw that you never which email you’re supposed to look at and which document is the most accurate (assuming your boss sends several copies).

This article called for improvements in service-oriented architecture (SaaS) and collaborative technologies to fill this void. Although the article said that this software is improving, there was no recommended means of managing a project using existing software.

What should the ideal software look like? We think we know, but in truth it varies for everyone. What do you think?

From ReadWriteWeb:

Human history is one of progressive improvement in communication. From the 20th century mail was a fundamental form of communication. The invention of electronic mail (email) changed two things. It became cheap to send short mail, and delivery was instant. Email became favored for both corporate and personal communication.

But email faces increasing competition. Chat, text messages, Twitter, social networks and even lifestreaming tools are chipping away at email usage.

….Email has been the blockbuster and the Internet killer app for the past few decades, but it doesn’t have a monopoly. New more contextual ways to communicate are emerging and slicing pieces of the email pie, particularly in the consumer market.

We’re likely to see a consumer shift from email towards more compact forms of communication, but in the enterprise the email hold is strong and unlikely to be replaced any time soon.

I disagree with RWW’s analysis here. Any change that is as fundamental as the communications shift we currently see in the consumer sector will relatively soon percolate into the ‘enterprise’ setting. This is especially so because we are seeing a rise in entrepreneurial and contract based work. The enterprise setting itself is changing. Workers among these newer, more progressive types of companies — who we call modern web professionals — seek social, cheap and intelligent communications without the restrictions of middle management and corporate red tape.

I believe that a shift away from email will begin as soon as we see products that can demonstrate a true ROI based on their use and I think that time is nearly upon us.

Other Responses to This Discussion:

Broadstuff

Mark Evans

Alexander van Elsas

Zoli Erdos

This has nothing to do with online collaboration, but you could probably use a break, right?