Mike Arrington at TechCrunch Real Stream conference started with a panel of Ron Conway (Angel Investor) and John Borthwick (BetaWorks). Ron invested in Google at a $75M valuation. Valuation today is over $130B. That was just one of several home runs by Ron Conway. John Borthwick has invested in lots of Twitter style companies including Twitter, StockTwits, Bitly, and others. BetaWorks is an operating company that also invests in other companies.
Ron invests in people first, idea second, and then how much IP innovation they have. Ron is looking at lots of “real Time” investments. That means content that is being created spontaneously by everyone. That content can be categorized, manipulated, searched, managed, etc.
Mike Arrington says the dumbest thing Twitter could do is add friction (subscriptions) to an open process. Ron Conway says innovation is happening in Silicon Valley, not Sun Valley. This was a jab at the old media execs (John Malone, RupertMurdoch, Barry Diller) meeting at Sun Valley this week.
Ron says Real Time apps like Twitter have brought lots of new content to the web. This new content will create a whole new industry. Real Time search will be big. Ron Conway believes this new wave of the Real Time Web could be as big as the original dot com boom.
Top 10 monetization opportunities in Real Time from Ron Conway (More than $5B of revenue opportunities)
10. Lead generation – Twitter and other apps are great lead generators. Followers broadcast to their followers, etc.
9. Coupons – printed coupons is a huge business, even bigger on the RT web.
8. Analytics of the data – tons of RT data that can be analyzed for trends
7. CRM – Customer relationship Management in real time, using social network apps
6. Payments - like PayPal on Twitter
5. Commerce – selling products, referring products
4. User authentication – verification of users and accounts
3. Syndication of new ad types – There will be innovation in advertising types
2. Context sensitive advertising (Display)
1. Real Time Search – Think Google in real time, filtered by your social graph
Lots of new opportunities. New tools and services will be created that take advantage of the social graph and real time activity. Think about all the products and services created for the original web boom. Now think about how they need to change to accommodate the Real Time web. The question is, how many of them will be stand alone companies that endure, and how many of them will be acquired by the existing big players. Facebook is here to stay. Twitter…the jury is still out.
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