So What's Keeping me Busy lately?

Well, my other blog, for sure. I launched FohBoh.com officially January 2, 2008 with my partner, Ted Cohn. In the last 154 days, we have spent an enormous amount of time developing technology, branding, staffing, raising capital and managing a very fast growing community of passionate members from 75 countries that work in, or support the global food service industry. We have over 6,200 members with increasing pageviews.

We are the leading B2B social network for the restaurant industry and look forward to maintaining that lead.

Check out fohboh. better yet, join and get better acquainted with the real restaurant world.

The Flake List

I'm sure no one has the temerity to actually create a list for posting the names and offenses of flakes, but I would applaud loudly if some one would.

Here’s the deal. We all know who they are, what they did and why it irritated us soooo much, that you want to tell everyone you know about that asshole that ….
Here are a list of offenses that we all can relate to:

• Someone sets up a luncheon and doesn’t show
• A conference call is scheduled and you are the only one listening to the music
• Someone says they will help you move your furniture on move day…nope, you’re all alone
• You assemble an advisory board for your start up…and no one advises you
• You ask your attorney to help introduce you to investors. Instead, they send you a $662.00 bill for “Monitoring Trademark Matters”…and you don’t have a trademark
• A simple desire to have coffee with a friend turns into a month long reschedule affair…and you give up
• You score two extra tickets to the hockey game and call five sets of friends and no one returns your call. You go, and try to sell them at the gate…no takers.
• Dinner is prepared and planned for 7 PM, dinner guests show up at 8 Pm

So, I Googled Flake and didn’t come up with much. So, I added Out, as in Flake Out. I found:

1. To fall asleep or collapse from fatigue or exhaustion.
2. To act in an odd or eccentric manner.
3. To lose interest or nerve.

Only the Urban Dictionary got it right:

flaked

• to decide to "bail" or leave at the last minute
• dude he totally flaked
• he flaked out on us

I know a ton of flakes and so do you. I would love to post my list of flakes on www.flake.com. if someone would have the temerity to start that list.

Television Writers are the Change Agents

I recently had a discussion with someone about the television writers strike. His perspective was that "they otta just get back to work and quite whining". I, as you can imagine, have a different perspective based on a little experience with digital rights. The world is changing pretty quickly and intellectual property is a slippery slope. Internet TV didn't exist when a lot of the writers negotiated their agreements. There are new verbs. new technologies and way to disseminate media that was not clearly defined by a writers' contract.

Here's my thought about fairness. Those greedy entertainment executives need to have a reality check and start embracing the backbone of the industry. The days of work for hire (WFH) are gone. If I produce something that is distributed to a wide audience and generates revenue, then I, as a writer should share in that stream regardless of the medium.

If canceling the Golden Globes is any indication who has the power, then the executives better start playing nice. Internet TV is coming and I for one, can't take any more reality TV or game shows.

Annual 2008 Predictions

Since this is the start of my second year as a blogmeister, I revisited my 2007 predictions and was amazed. Nearly everything didn't happen. Just like a weather forecast. I'm going to ignore what I said previously and just focus on the future, the next forecast. Why go back. You can't change it. So I was wrong. So here goes:

Video Games
Microsoft will do what they normally do...rip off, reinvent and dominate. The next hot interactive video game called Thee, will feature belly dancing, Yoga, line dancing and skydiving. We all want to spend even more time indoors in front of a TV so we can avoid the interactive thing we used to call exercise and socializing.

Apple
Okay, I did predict this...kinda. Apple is now doing what analysts said they should be doing since the Mac IIe. Be a consumer electronics company. Expect more and more cool devices from Jobs and Co. that will continue to surprise their competition and delight the market. The iPhone will go on sale to match the Blackberry by March, with its next release.

Facebook
Goes public in Q3 and starts aggregating successful vertical social networks that have suddenly become relevant. CPM rates, on a weighted basis, are now $15 because beacon isn't needed.

Brinker International, Outback Restaurants and Darden Restaurants
These huge restaurant companies that invented casual dining start selling their concepts like crazy. Valuations will average less than 6X trailing company-level EBITDA. Casual dining is dead. Long live casual dining.

Boutique Wine
The tail will start wagging this big dog. Small, independent wineries will start consolidating and creating efficient distribution machines that will force the big, bad ass liquor distributors to rethink, retool and reassess their value add...and futures.

Detroit
More bad decisions from stodgy, head-in-the-sand leadership will force deep discounts as Toyota continues its march to own the car world. Small is better. Remember the 70's?

Venture Capitalists
They all meet in Bali for a conference and decide to focus on funding high school students that are mentored by serial 20-something EIR's. Here comes 3.0.

To be continued...

The Funded

I have been following The Funded blog for a number of months now. At first, I thought it was an amusing little web site. Like a Yelp just for VC's. The whole notion of making a generic web site a vertical is compelling, for more than one reason. But is this niche VC bitch site really serving its community? Does it help? Is it relevant? Does anyone care?

I classify The Funded entrepreneurs in two camps:

• Camp 1: Serial, successful with a track record.
• Camp 2: Not so much.

Camp 1 is generally forgiving and kissing ass because they are looking forward to another financing and want to make nice.

Camp 2 are pissed off because they want what Camp 1 has (had or is going to soon have).

So, what up with VC's? Well, I classify them too:

Camp 1: Tier 1 don't care. They have enough deal flow and believe that nothing original ever comes from noobs. VC's have their network and are used to being hated.

Camp 2: The rest of the VC's haven't had better than a 10% IRR anyway and are always sucking up to Tier 1 for crumbs. They don't care either. They are happy being 6th on the deal team.

So, what's the point of The Funded? You tell me.

Making a New Social Network Work

www.fohboh.com is a newly launched social network and business exchange developed exclusively for the huge restaurant vertical. Did you know that there are 12.8 million employees working at over 900,000 restaurants in the U.S.? That these restaurants generate over $500 billion a year in sales? Moreover, when you add vendors and service providers, over $1.3 trillion is generated. This is a big industry and the largest employer outside of the government. This I assume is why we need a restaurant vertical. So like-minded people can really socialize, share, learn, find jobs and essentially, shrink their professional universe.

FohBoh has a lot of interesting and innovative ideas on how to attract and retain millions of members (Front of the House, Back of the House, corporate staff, CXO's, vendors, suppliers and even service providers). FohBoh is focused on the business side of social networking - maybe a mix of Alibaba and Facebook. Since the restaurant industry is pretty social and very viral, it seems to be a natural.

What is also very interesting and almost counter-culture to what VC's are looking for, is that FohBoh founders have significant domain expertise and are much older than the average 20-something's that start most of the Web 2.0 companies. My sense is that vertical SN's will have older founders because domain expertise is critical. This industry expertise (generally outside of the tech industry) is won by age. I believe that most verticals will be started by older, more experienced founders, but the communities will be managed by young online community managers. We shall see.

2007 marks the beginning of vertical, or niche social networks. One of the more astute entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley is Gurbaksh Chahal, founder and CEO at BlueLithium has his opinion.
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Published: May 07, 2007

Social Networks: Niche vs. MySpace

By Gurbaksh Chahal

BlueLithium's CEO explains why brands and their agencies should consider niche social networks to reach a targeted audience.

When MySpace emerged victorious from the social network battle royale, marketers saw a new channel to reach an astoundingly large online audience. But while the massive reach of MySpace has proven a boon for dating sites and wireless carriers, brand marketers are still coming to grips with how best to leverage the power of social networks. Beyond providing broadcast-size audiences at a fraction of the price, some are discovering that social networks provide brand engagement at a deep level. But it's not necessarily the household name social networks that are best suited for this role.

Quantity v. quality
2007 is seeing the rise of the niche network. As noted by LeeAnn Prescott, director of research at Hitwise, in her recent report, "The social networking category will continue to grow as new sites emerge with unique offerings." Niche networks such as Kongregate, MingleNow, deviantART, and Bebo, among many others, serve a different need for consumers by focusing on hobbies, nightlife, cultures, health and other topics that a general purpose site such as MySpace can't adequately address.

Niche sites can inspire passion and loyalty among users. People don't join niche networks just because their friends are there, as often happens with MySpace or Facebook. They join them out of a genuine interest in the subject matter. Entrepreneurs start niche sites because they can't find what they want at MySpace. This should be a clue to marketers that there are other people like them who you also won't be able to reach on MySpace.

Niche networks also break through the stimulus-overload that plagues today's modern, tech-savvy consumers. With myriad different media channels and technologies from which to choose, a social network whose content adds real value to their lives is going to be chosen over simply watching TV or listening to an iPod, or even browsing on the larger traditional social networks.

And the winner is…
As a marketer, you can have an impact with your most avid users with a niche network. If the niche has a tight synergy with what you make or sell, they may even encourage you to integrate seamlessly into the content, creating a best of all worlds situation. As an integrated partner, you can do more than just branding. You can use a niche social network:

• For detailed user surveying-better than focus group research and often cheaper
• For product marketing and product ideation
• To test new ad campaigns before you run them across the web
• To build grassroots demand and "buzz" for new products or features

Which niche social network to choose? Ask your users, especially those who are particularly avid about your product. Ask your younger, web savvy employees. See what they use in addition to MySpace, Friendster, Facebook and the "Goliath" social networks.

Fundamentally, MySpace and the niche networks will each play a role, like network TV vs. a cable show on cross-stitching. Social networks are a new marketing channel; one that, when used wisely, has the potential not only to impact your marketing programs but to transform your business. Only time will tell whether David will slay Goliath, but bigger may not always be better for the marketer.

There is a lot of opportunity still for Web 2.0...hopefully, fohboh.com will keep its focus as a B2B social network and not follow others in this space as a way to connect with other bar flys.

Fresh Perspectives

I took a week off and had a revelation...taking time off is good for the soul, refreshes the mind and increases your energy. I needed to refresh and I hope the net result was a positive for my business.

Check out fohboh, the new vertical social network and business exchange beta exclusively for the huge restaurant and hospitality industry. There are over 900,000 restaurants, 12.8 million employees working in a $500 billion a year industry. This is just the U.S. and does not include hotel workers and executives.

The idea is to open this up to employees, vendors and suppliers and not consumers. It's not about reviews and making reservations. It's about business. I hope it succeeds!