Social-media start-ups find it harder to stand out

September 20, 2011 Gadi ShamiaLeave a comment

Great article and a video featuring me and Bizzy‘s VP of Marketing Ryan Kuder, talking about Bizzy and interacting with our users in Portland and Seattle.

Executives of Bizzy, an online check-in service primarily for restaurants, are traversing the Pacific Northwest, getting in front of customers at local restaurants and bars to introduce themselves and get feedback. The jaunt through Oregon and Washington is an abbreviated sequel to a trek in July that took Bizzy execs from Silicon Valley across the Southwest and Texas and up to Washington, D.C.

The eye-catching publicity swings, while time-consuming, speak to the lengths some social-media start-ups are willing to go to gain traction in a marketplace larded with competition.

VIDEO: Bizzy’s founder explains his app for foodies
Continue reading “Social-media start-ups find it harder to stand out” →

Local Search: Who Should Tell You Where To Eat Tonight?

June 21, 2011 Gadi ShamiaLeave a comment

There is much discussion about the role of traditional search engines like Yahoo and Google when it comes to local search. Traditional web search was built and optimized to value the popularity of a page rather than the popularity of a place.

The rise of Web 2.0 gave birth to products like Yelp, focused on collecting reviews from local business patrons and organizing them into search results, with the most liked businesses at the top. Yelp created a step function improvement over what Google and Yahoo had to offer, allowing real customers to voice their opinions and be heard.

Seven years later, it’s time to re-imagine local search for this decade. This next generation search will be highly impacted by the two leading trends of the last few years: social and mobile.

Read the full post on Search Engine Watch

It’s Just Not in the Stars

January 31, 2011 Gadi ShamiaLeave a comment

Imagine, for a moment, a dating site where users are asked to rank single men and women using from one to five stars.

That rating is then aggregated, averaged, and displayed on the profile of every user on the site. When someone goes looking for the love of their life, or maybe just a dinner date, their search results are ranked in order of star rating. The top results are the Brad Pitts and Angelina Jolies of the dating pool. For Everyone. Always.

Read the full post on Bizzy’s blog

The world was not ready for Haiti. Again.

January 16, 2010 Gadi Shamiadonate, haiti, rescue, UNLeave a comment

Haiti earthquake is one of the biggest natural disasters in the recent years. Just like with all other disasters, the world was willing to help instantly. Willing, but not ready. Americans are opening their hearts and pockets, doctors and rescue teams are flying from all four corners on the universe, but they can only save that many people. Why? Because the efforts are not coordinated. Year after year we are facing similar situations and every time the word reacts with a chaotic response in the first days and weeks, that gives way to organized response after it is already too late.

This situation begs the question- why there is no central disaster command under the UN supervision that sits idle 364 days a year, and get into action the second when a disaster strikes? Continue reading “The world was not ready for Haiti. Again.” →

The Tale of Many Bubbles

September 2, 2009 Gadi Shamiabubble, market research, TwitterLeave a comment

You are living in a bubble! This is a claim that many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs often hear. To some extent it is true. It is always sunny here, and new technologies are introduced every day, so we tend to be more cutting edge, just by diffusion. I want to argue though, that there is a bigger bubble than the geographical one: the Twitter bubble. Wait! Before you stop reading hear me out. I am not saying Twitter is over hyped, nor that it is not great. I am saying something different: Twitter creates a bubble for its heavy users and creates a virtual global world, in which Twitter is the main mean of communication.

Take Robert Scoble, one of the most admired new media evangelists in the valley. In a blog post posted recently claiming that Twitter worth 5-10 billion he said: Continue reading “The Tale of Many Bubbles” →

The one thing branding can’t do

July 20, 2009 Gadi Shamiabranding, Gadi Shamia, marketing, product4 Comments

We are planning a branding expertise this week and in the spirit of all good workshops the moderator sent us some pre-work (AKA homework if you ask my kids). One of the questions were:

What are your thoughts on what makes some brands inspirational while others struggle?

In order to answer the question, I listed the brands I like: Apple, Amazon , Virgin Atlantic, SPG and Facebook to name few. When I thought of these brands, I found one thing in common: All are brands I like talking about with my friends and colleagues. A great brand is one that its target audience wants to speak about.

Why does it matter to my branding exercise? Continue reading “The one thing branding can’t do” →

The Well Known Secrets of the VC world (Part 2)

May 23, 2009 Gadi Shamiaentrepreneur, start, start-up, startup, startups, VC, VCs, Venture, venture capital1 Comment

OK, it took a while since part 1. It is kind of busy here in Project-X and weekends are the only time left for some writing. Before it gets too far from my VC days, I wanted to write the promised (but perhaps not anticipated) part 2 of my post, and get it out of the way. The last post covered some basics: What’s a good VC, getting meetings and the strange habit of VCs not to pass on deals. Today we will focus on what’s important- what will a VC look into when meeting you. Continue reading “The Well Known Secrets of the VC world (Part 2)” →

Apple Destroys iPhone Apps Credibility By Encouraging Bad Ratings

May 8, 2009May 11, 2009 Gadi Shamiaapp, app store, Apple, apps, Gadi Shamia, iphone, iphone app store, Ratings2 Comments

I tend to have great level of appreciation to Apple’s ability to design amazing and easy to use products. In most cases, there is a lot of thinking behind each feature, but here is one which is far beyond my understanding: Apple intentionally destroys third iphone delete screen party apps credibility by encouraging bad ratings. Continue reading “Apple Destroys iPhone Apps Credibility By Encouraging Bad Ratings” →

Workday Raises $75 Million- Good Sign for the Business Software World

April 29, 2009 Gadi Shamiainvestment, IT, SaaS, Software as a Service, Workday1 Comment

Workday, a financial and human resources SaaS provider, has secured $75 million in Series E funding. In my humble opinion, this is a very good sign that investments in business software are going to get a boost in the next few years.

Look back 15 years ago and compare the progress in “consumer computing” to the progress in “business computing” – the differences are amazing. Consumers moved from 14K modems to cable, from one inbox per office to unlimited mail accounts and storage, from backing up files on floppy disks to box.net, from from Rolodex to manage their personal lives to Facebook, from expensive and complex Photoshop to Picasa, from mail orders to Amazon and from paper atlas to Google maps. Our lives as consumers are almost 100% digitized now. Continue reading “Workday Raises $75 Million- Good Sign for the Business Software World” →