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Tech jobs rebounding, analysts say

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Article from SFGate.

“Tech jobs are coming back after hitting bottom early this year, according to economy tracker Moody’s Analytics. The U.S. economy has added 47,000 technology jobs so far this year amid resurgent demand for tech products in Asia and Latin America.

That represents 15 percent growth in tech jobs, compared with an 11 percent jobs growth in the economy overall since the beginning of the year, according to Moody’s. Since a peak at the end of 2007, the tech industry had lost 307,000 jobs nationally in the economic downturn.

“It seems like this industry is embarking on a new growth spurt,” says Sophia Koropeckyj, a managing director for Moody’s Analytics. “Tech jobs seem to be accelerating.”

Asia and Latin America’s demand for tech products has resulted in new hiring and is one contributor to the recovery, Koropeckyj says. After slumping in the first half of 2009, global PC shipments – bread and butter of U.S. companies Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Apple – should rise 14.3 percent this year, to 352 million units, according to consultant Gartner.

Billions in government stimulus funds have spurred recent purchases by agencies and businesses, such as those building out broadband networks. Corporate and government information technology spending should rise 8.1 percent this year, to $758 billion, according to consultant Forrester Research. Already, networking gear maker Cisco Systems saw sales for its fiscal first quarter ended Oct. 30 rise 19 percent from a year earlier, to $10.75 billion.

“The first wave of growth is going through,” says Andrew Bartels, a vice-president at Forrester.

But the recovery may be uneven: During Cisco’s quarterly earnings call in November, Chief Executive Officer John Chambers mentioned several challenges the company faces, such as slower-than-expected pickup in orders from government agencies in the United States and Japan.

Recovery among Detroit’s automakers, helped by a government bailout, is driving a resurrection of related tech-sector jobs. Last year, Detroit experienced a 15 percent drop in high-tech jobs from a year earlier, according to a new study from technology industry association TechAmerica Foundation, which studied jobs and wages data for the 60 U.S. cities with the highest proportions of tech jobs.

Detroit’s was the worst drop in high-tech jobs among any of the 60 cities last year. But in a Dec. 1 blog, carmaker Chrysler announced it will hire 1,000 more engineers and other high-tech workers by the end of the first quarter of 2011. The company has hired 5,000 workers overall since emerging from bankruptcy in June 2009. In November, rival General Motors said it will hire 1,000 engineers and researchers in Michigan in the coming months to help expand its lineup of electric cars, whose sales are expected to climb.

In some technology industries, salaries are starting to inch back up again.

Information, media, and telecommunications professionals have seen their wages rally slightly this year, according to survey data from PayScale, which tracks global compensation. In 2009, high-tech salaries nationwide slipped 0.8 percent, which was less than the decline in the private sector overall, where the average salary dropped 1.4 percent, according to the TechAmerica report.

“The gap has widened. It’s significant,” says Josh James, vice president of research and industry analysis at TechAmerica. “Especially in hard times, companies are trying to cut costs, and one way to do that is to implement technology solutions.””

Read more here.

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Generating wealth from the web. Is “follow” the new economic model poised to take on “search”?

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, tagged , , , , , , , on December 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »

By: Tony Fish – Principal at AMF Ventures and member of Board of Intellectual Capital.

I wrote that Social filtering is deeply human at the beginning of November and I knew that there was more to the topic/ theme/ thought then but I could not articulate it.  Since then I have been juggling with various ideas, these have often been driven by my necessity to justify Twitter.  Twitter, get it or not, provides a function called “follow” – you can follow who you like, and you get updates/ insight/ information/ attention from them. However, can you turn “follow” into value and is following your social filter based on those you trust.

Follow has an obvious value to the person who follows the leader.  You gain free insights/ selection/ value/ updates/.  This social filter is based on trust and it is different from curators and editors who have specific agenda’s and income/ profit requirements. In the original post I quoted David Armano  “Often times the quality of links and information I get on Twitter is better than what I would have gotten from Google because the knowledge of the human feed is deep, niche, and fickle.”

Scenarios
Here are several scenarios to consider when thinking how we could turn follow into value and comparing outcomes from search and social networking, they are not exhaustive but should provide a good place to start a train of thought.

1, I am looking for a great Thai restaurant

  1. Search.   Type in “Great Thai restaurant” into Google, my mobile sends my location and Google takes a guess I want food tonight and near to where I am search, reasonable assumptions driven from our need for context and personalisation.  From the “unknown algorithm based results” that favours Google, I then read some third party reviews which I cannot judge if they are paid, biased or just vocal. Is the selection any better than walking past and seeing how many people are sitting in the restaurant?
  2. Post to Facebook and ask my friends and my network where a “Great Thai restaurant is” – there is more work to this one and I am wholly dependent on someone helping.  Size of network helps at this point.
  3. Twitter/ follow. I love Thai and I am already following others who love Thai.  I Tweet to my network of same minded followers who can deliver a recommendation.

In option 1 – Google wins.  In option 2 – Facebook wins.  In option 3 – the community wins and the person who helped me may get a discount on their next meal.

2.  I want to invest some money

  1. Search.   Type in “Great Investment fund” into Google. From the “unknown algorithm based results” that favours Google I will click on some links and read, subject to many legal notices, about the performance of various funds.  If I invest I will have watch and wait for the results.
  2. Post to Facebook and ask my friends and my network about their experiences with “Investment funds.” Not sure I would really be that happy with this for many reasons including telling the world about my desire to invest.
  3. Twitter/follow.  I love to invest and I am already following others who love investment.  I follow a service that allows me to manage my own money (never give up control) and I invest based on what the best in class is doing (www.covestor.com) To follow the best investor I share some of the upside.  No management fees, no overheads, risk on my terms, stop and start when I like.  Worth noting that J.P Morgan funds investment advice is now on iTunes

In option 1 – Google wins.  In option 2 – no-one wins.  In option 3 – the person who I follow gets a share of my upside, assuming that they want to create value over time and not destroy it once.

3.  What is hot in tech/ service/ my industry

  1. Search.   Type in “what is hot in tech” into Google. From the “unknown algorithm based results” that favours Google I will click on some links and read.  The top tech web sites are there with breaking news.  I can use various tools to determine what is hot and trending or I can use my “reader” to filter from my own favourites.
  2. Post to Facebook and ask my friends and my network about what they think is hot.  Day 1; I will get a few views. Day 10; I will get a less help and probably a polite note telling me not to ask again.
  3. Twitter/ follow. I look at what is trending and select a few “trusted” people to follow and follow updates as and when they occur.  I add value to my network by adding my own opinion, or pay to sit there and listen.

In option 1 – Google wins.  In option 2 – no-one wins.  In option 3 – the community/ cluster wins.

Logical response
The obvious contention to these three and very simple scenarios is; to Quote Paul Rodriguez who commented,  “lemmings, pied piper, following somebody the wrong way up a one way street, jump off a cliff if I told you, following the falling domino in front and having the falling domino behind follow you, following somebody you trust, who is following somebody they trust who is following somebody they trust who is following somebody stupid, the list is endless…the risk is that instead of having the madness of crowds, maybe the 21st century equivalent is the madness of tweets? Laws such as the snowball effect and the law of unintended consequences become far more amplified in an interconnected world. In which case market (and wealth) fluctuations become more volatile, but then you only *truly* make money on the gradient.”

I expect that there is a lot of empathy for the logic of this response, however, is follow (Twitter or other tech based follow services) any different from what we have today with editors/ press/ celebrity and broadcast as we all believe everything from the red top tabloids and sky/fox news!

Context
However, putting follow into context Researchers at HP Labs discovered that Twitter can predict, with astonishing accuracy, how well a movie will sell. The researches at HP started by monitoring movie mentions in 2.9 million tweets from 1.2 million users over three months. These included 24 movies in all, ranging from Avatar to Twilight: New Moon.  Then they took two different approaches, dealing with two very different performance metrics: the first weekend performance, which is largely built on buzz and the second weekend performance, which is largely built whether people actually like the movie. To predict first weekend performance, they built a computer model, which factored in two variables: the rate of tweets around the release date and the number of theatres its released in. Lo and behold, that model was 97.3% accurate in predicting opening weekend box office. By contrast, the Hollywood Stock Exchange, which has been the gold standard for opening box-office predictions, had a 96.5% accuracy. “

What should be even more alluring to business strategists and CEO’s; as Tech Review points out, Twitter might be more than just a mirror of mass sentiment – the service might also influence it. In other words, could you actually make a product launch far more successful with a really smart Twitter/ Follow strategy?   However are we measuring or observing the results of a system in motion and in the process influencing those results? For anyone with a science background this will bring up Werner Heisenberg and The Uncertainty Principle Heisenberg determined that “both the position and momentum of a particle cannot be known simultaneously.”   The dichotomy raises the mind-boggling prospect that unless we observe an event or thing, it hasn’t really happened, that all possible futures are quantum probability functions waiting for someone to notice them – trees falling unheard in a forest. Maybe this blog never existed until you searched for it and Google created it as you wanted it!

(Yes for those who have mastered QM I am confusing the observer effect of with the uncertainty principle. Technically the uncertainty principle has nothing to do with “observing”, it has to do with measuring. The observer effect is a supposed effect of observing an event and the influence of your observations on the event. No one would ever have to actually observe a particle’s position to obfuscate its momentum, the mere act of using the photons to measure its position, even if nobody ever observed it, would suffice. It’s the act of measuring, not actually observing that causes the uncertainty principle, but when observation requires something that may cause change the problems occur).

Anyway, how does this relate to the analysis and feedback within my framework of thinking about Follow?  Think about it this way:  The mere act of observing a social change, changes the behaviour of that social object.  In “reality TV” they put cameras in front of “real” people for the viewer to watch how “real” people behave, date, compete, etc.  But this in fact makes those on camera less and less real.   They’re not actors, nor are they behaving like normal people.  They are somewhere in between the two.

In the case of Twitter predicting a movie success, could an editor or critic have the same effect, if they could do it in real time and not on paper? How does Google real time search affect your searching habits and techniques.  You no longer have freedom in the web, as the recommendation is based on what the crowd says is important and therefore we are actually just lemmings.

Restating the Problem
Therefore the problem (Generating wealth from the web) is far more complex, multifaceted and inter-twangled, as there is unlikely to be a single source.

  • Do I want to be directed by people I trust but I may not be able to determine their source – Follow
  • Do I want to be directed by an unknown algorithm that can change at any time and could be biased to their own needs – Search
  • Do I want to be directed by Brands – Marketing/Ads
  • Do I want to be directed by the media/ editors/ critics where I may be able to determine their bias – Broadcast/ News
  • Do I want to be directed by the fashion/ celebrity – Sales

This complex dependency is an issue that editors and bloggers have faced time over.  Do I post based on what people want to read, based on clicks and response data or what I find interesting – are we (am I) adaptive or reactive, do we want to be individual or loved or make money or provide democracy or lead?

I really don’t need to know what you had for lunch and I don’t have to follow you.  Follow would put me in control and can seek out value from the community and not some bland algorithm that controls what part of the web I can see. However the issue facing follow is how will I pay the platform that underpins the service?

Wrapping up
This long Viewpoint started with the idea that “follow” is the new economic model poised to take on “search” and I believe that there is value in “follow.” Reading that Google offered $3bn for Twitter makes be believe that there are other strategists who are struggling with the same issues and the value!

If you would like to chat about the opportunities that digital footprint data brings, especially from the perspective of mobile and real time feedback, please contact me at tony.fish@amfventures.com.  The book is free on line at http://www.mydigitalfootprint.com/ or you can buy it direct from the publisher at the web site. There is also a summary and a eReader/ Kindle version.

We hope that our Viewpoint improves awareness, raises questions and promotes deliberation over coffee. We will respond to e-mail, text, twitter (@tonyfish)  or blog comments. http://blog.mydigitalfootprint.com
Kind regards,
Tony Fish

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Microsoft, Facebook strengthen partnership

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, tagged , , , , , , on November 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Article from SFGate.

“Microsoft Corp. and Facebook Inc., the onetime technology king and the claimant to the throne, are forming an increasingly unified front in the battle for industry supremacy against Google Inc.

The software and social-networking giants have announced a series of partnerships in recent months, including the integration of Facebook user data into Microsoft’s Bing search engine results and the use of its Office applications in the Palo Alto company’s planned communications service.

No single initiative announced so far represents a clear game changer, analysts say. But the Redmond, Wash., software company lends some hefty industry support to a Facebook vision of the Internet that’s far different from the one that fostered Google’s rise, some argue.

‘Substantial threat’

“When you add all of these (collaborations) up – and there seem to be more of them every week – then it really is a very substantial threat to Google,” said Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner Inc.

He and others believe that cues in social networks, like a friend’s links and “likes,” are becoming increasingly important guides to the Internet experience, which could over time undermine the importance of the online searches that Google has long dominated. If so, it might become increasingly difficult for Google to sustain the growth in its core business and it could give Bing a powerful advantage, because its search results now incorporate friends’ preferences.

But, of course, those are all big ifs, mights and coulds.

For one, it assumes that Google won’t develop its own social capabilities – an effort it’s known to be pouring resources into after several whiffs – or strike a similar deal with Facebook. It’s unclear whether Google would want a partnership that would grant its competitor so much credence, or whether the Bing relationship is an exclusive one. Microsoft referred the question to Facebook, which didn’t respond to an inquiry from The Chronicle.

It’s also notable that even with the spectacular rise of Facebook, marked by a six-year sprint to more than 500 million users, Google’s advertising revenue from keyword searches continues to swell. Meanwhile, the Mountain View search behemoth is demonstrating an ability to generate money outside its core business, saying during a third-quarter conference call that display advertising and mobile revenue reached $2.5 billion and $1 billion, respectively, on an annualized basis.

“As the Web evolves – from mobile to video to display ads to cloud computing – our business grows with it, and the results speak for themselves,” a Google spokesman said.

Different philosophy

Google has stressed that its philosophical approach to technology differs fundamentally from those of key competitors, dubbing theirs an open system that allows users to control their information and other companies to adapt the software as they see fit. By extension, it has suggested or stated that companies like Facebook, Microsoft and Apple Inc. generally operate closed systems that tightly control user data and experiences.

“I worry … that the business structures are causing (companies) to keep too much private information,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said during an interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week. “We’ve taken the position that user data is the user’s, and it should be possible for them to move it back and forth.”

Open, closed systems

There’s ample debate, however, over the appropriate definitions of open and closed systems, and whether Google sometimes acts like the latter when it fits its interests. Moreover, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs said last month, when discussing the highly popular and tightly integrated iPhone, closed systems sometimes win.

“The link between (Facebook and Microsoft), especially across applications and communications, can be a very powerful partnership,” said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Inc. in Campbell.”

Read more here.

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Cogenra Solar’s system includes practical twist

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, tagged , , , , on November 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Article from SFGate.

“A gleaming array of mirrors tucked behind a Sonoma County winery promises a new wrinkle in renewable energy – solar power without all the waste.

Solar panels convert into electricity just a fraction of the energy the sun throws at them, typically 15 to 20 percent. The rest is wasted as heat.

But the solar array nestled next to the Sonoma Wine Co. captures the heat as well. The winery gets electricity for its lights and bottling machinery as well as hot water – up to 165 degrees – for cleaning barrels.

The array is the brainchild of the Mountain View startup Cogenra Solar. Backed by $10.5 million from clean-tech venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, the year-old company aims to make renewable power more cost-competitive with fossil fuels. Cogenra will own the solar arrays it installs, charging its customers for the electricity and hot water rather than the equipment.

“Practically any location we’ve looked at, we can beat their utility rates,” said Chief Executive Officer Gilad Almogy.

Cogenra claims its arrays produce five times the total energy output of comparably sized traditional solar systems, one reason the company can offer attractive rates. The other reason – Cogenra pieces its arrays together using pre-existing solar equipment rather than inventing all its own gear from scratch.

Almogy “said to me, ‘Derek, you could go down to the hardware store and get most of this stuff yourself,’ ” said Derek Benham, who owns the winery in the small town of Graton. “It looks kind of Avatar-like, but you take a close look at it and think, ‘Hey, this looks like siding.’ ”

Benham and Almogy unveiled the system last week at an event packed with curious representatives from other wine-makers such as Bogle Vineyards and Kendall-Jackson. The event also drew former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, an adviser to Khosla Ventures, who praised the technology’s potential for lowering greenhouse gas emissions and fighting global warming. Cogenra arrays cut the amount of natural gas customers burn to heat water, in addition to replacing electricity from fossil-fuel power plants.

“We won’t win this unless business is our ally,” Blair told the crowd. “What is really important right now is that instead of losing interest in this issue or pushing it back, we need to pay attention.”

Cogenra’s arrays combine elements of other, older forms of solar power.

A curved trough of mirrors, similar to those used in large-scale solar power plants, focuses sunlight on a narrow strip of common solar cells. Behind the cells runs a tube filled with a liquid chemical. The liquid absorbs heat from the solar cells and transfers that heat to water. The trough, mounted on a beam about 7 feet off the ground, pivots to track the sun across the sky.”

Read more here. 

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MyWire, Inc.- Date Certain M&A of its Assets and Intellectual Property

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Distressed IP, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Investments, Strategy, Technology, Venture Capital, tagged , , , , on November 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Sale of MyWire, Inc.

Gerbsman Partners (www.gerbsmanpartners.com) has been retained by MyWire, Inc. (www.mywire.com) to solicit interest for the acquisition of all, or substantially all, of MyWire’s assets.

IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE:

The information in this memorandum does not constitute the whole or any part of an offer or a contract.

The information contained in this memorandum relating to MyWire’s Assets has been supplied by MyWire. It has not been independently investigated or verified by Gerbsman Partners or their respective agents.

Potential purchasers should not rely on any information contained in this memorandum or provided by Gerbsman Partners (or their respective staff, agents, and attorneys) in connection herewith, whether transmitted orally or in writing as a statement, opinion, or representation of fact.  Interested parties should satisfy themselves through independent investigations as they or their legal and financial advisors see fit.

Gerbsman Partners, and their respective staff, agents, and attorneys, (i) disclaim any and all implied warranties concerning the truth, accuracy, and completeness of any information provided in connection herewith and (ii) do not accept liability for the information, including that contained in this memorandum, whether that liability arises by reasons of MyWire’s or Gerbsman Partners’ negligence or otherwise.

Any sale of the MyWire Assets will be made on an “as-is,” “where-is,” and “with all faults” basis, without any warranties, representations, or guarantees, either express or implied, of any kind, nature, or type whatsoever from, or on behalf of MyWire and Gerbsman Partners.  Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, MyWire and Gerbsman Partners and their respective staff, agents, and attorneys, hereby expressly disclaim any and all implied warranties concerning the condition of the MyWire Assets and any portions thereof, including, but not limited to, environmental conditions, compliance with any government regulations or requirements, the implied warranties of habitability, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose.

This memorandum is not to be supplied to any other person without Gerbsman Partners’ prior consent.  The information contained herein is not subject to the Confidential Disclosure Agreement, however any additional requested information would require execution of the attached CDA attached hereto as Exhibit A.

Overview

MyWire is poised to ignite a paid content revolution that will redefine the economics of online content for publishers and consumers.
MyWire’s publisher program includes:

·     MyWire Publisher Network, a market-based platform that links publishers together, creating a pinball effect that keeps users on publisher sites longer.

·     MyWire-branded multi-publication subscriptions comprised of paid content from hundreds of publishers. Content is viewed on originating publishers’ websites, and subscriptions are sold by publishers on their own sites.

·     A single MyWire user account for organizing, interacting with, and purchasing content as the user traverses the Publisher Network.

The transition to digital presents publishers with both a formidable challenge and an enormous opportunity to achieve outcomes similar to those achieved centuries ago with the invention of the printing press – an explosion in knowledge, a better way of life for consumers, and long-term publishing industry expansion.

A privately held company, MyWire (founded in 2002 as KeepMedia, Inc.) is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California.  Over $30 million has been invested to date in MyWire by Mercury Capital Management, an investment group headed by Louis H. Borders.

Publisher Network

·              Publishers have traditionally been focused on content creation.  To be relevant in the digital age, publishers must add curation to their repertoire – being connected to other content has proven to be the key service of the winning digital-only publishers.

·              MyWire’s Publisher Network provides a menu of web-based services that enables connectivity to other content.  The services are easy to implement, and operate independently of publishers’ own content management systems.  As a result, publishers improve their site metrics with new pages, better ad-targeting, and a network effect that recaptures traffic from search engines.  And unlike aggregators and hubs, the MyWire Publisher Network does not draw traffic from publishers’ sites; instead, it supports each publisher’s own retail presence.

Consumers experience the Publisher Network as enhancements to their favorite publisher sites which provide instant access to content from across the web – curated lists of content, high quality related abstracts, and new topic pages.

Multi-Publication Subscriptions

MyWire multi-publication subscriptions make available, for one modest price, paid content from hundreds of publishers.  Packages are designed to fill distinct and universal consumer needs such as news, business, and knowledge (referred to as Universal Packages).  MyWire has launched or is ready to launch three such packages (see drawing) and has designed a collection of packages that would comprise a “basic digital” service similar to a cable offering.

Packages are sold by publishers as co-branded offerings on their own sites.  As has been proven in the cable industry, the simplicity and variety of a package enables each publisher to earn more revenue than it would by selling single publisher subscriptions.  Unlike cable, MyWire packages are easily understood by consumers, and the marketing of the packages leverages existing publisher traffic.
The MyWire subscription program gives publishers complete flexibility to set the pricing of their own content.  Because packages have a higher sell-thru rate than a go-it-alone offer and because of crowd-selling (many publishers selling the same package), MyWire packages are capable of achieving broad adoption and an effective paid content revenue stream for publishers.

Market Opportunity

·     Size According to PWC, $558 billion in non-internet paid content revenue is currently subject to internet competition.  The pace of the transition has been steady and gaining momentum.  With the estimated delivery of 100 million mobile tablet devices in the next three years, the pace of transition is expected to increase dramatically.

·     Need for paid content Many sectors of the publishing industry, such as news, B2B and music, are struggling to successfully transition to a paid digital model.  While they strive to capitalize on a direct retail presence via the internet, they are unable to adequately monetize their content.  For many publishers, an effective paid model is their number one priority.

MyWire Technology Platform – Intellectual Property Assets

MyWire’s end-to-end solution consists of web-based offerings that are easy for publishers to implement, can be used as a menu of services, and work independently of publishers’ content management systems.  The Publisher Network infrastructure has a content engine that ingests and processes content feeds, a set of self-contained web flows to provide end-user services such as subscription forms, and web services invoked by publishers for access control and content delivery.

The main architectural components, focusing on capabilities for publishers, consist of:

·     Content Engine Responsible for ingesting content feeds from publishers and performing the processing necessary to deliver relevant content to users.

·     Loader/Feeder Multi-threaded processes that monitor incoming feeds, preprocess these feeds into a standard format, queue up the feeds for processing, extracting and persisting metadata, write content to the file system, and execute business rules such as price type calculation and duplicate detection.

·     Search Indexer Responsible for adding new and updated items to a scalable pool of search servers.

·     Relatedness algorithms MyWire performs semantic analysis and metadata extraction using a combination of licensed commercial text mining engines and its own proprietary algorithms.  The resulting calculations are used to determine relatedness between content objects and to generate recommendations.

·     Search MyWire implements full-text search on top of open source systems extended with proprietary business logic to support time slicing, boosting and filtering based on price type, package assignments and other metadata.

·     Page delivery Web pages are built using a standard J2EE MVC model and delivered via caching layers to ensure scale and high performance.

·     Service Calls MyWire uses REST-based APIs, all based on the same Spring/Hibernate infrastructure, to deliver its:

·     Access control service to determine if a specific paid item is available for consumption to a specific user.

·     Paywall service to deliver embedded HTML containing a subscription offer around a specific item or package.

·     Widget-based blocks of relevant content, based on curation, related item calculations, or search results.

·     Data Warehouse A separate data warehouse is populated via daily and weekly ETL jobs and stored procedure-based summarization logic.

·     Performance measurement tools Frameworks to enable MyWire and publishers to effectively measure a system’s performance characteristics, identify bottlenecks under load, and verify successful tuning.

MyWire’s architecture uses a mix of traditional, Java-based enterprise open source frameworks, proprietary modules, and when necessary, enterprise systems, such as Oracle databases for transactional customer information.  Designed as a modular system with efficient schema, carefully tuned queries, and appropriate in-memory data caching, the MyWire platform performs well under heavy load and is horizontally scalable.

Intellectual Property Assets

MyWire product development to date consists of:

·     Almost 100 product releases delivered on an Agile basis in a mix of two-week and three-week product cycles.

·     Over 275K lines of Java code, 9K lines of PL/SQL code, and 200 JSP files.

·     All code delivered since 2008 conforms to a documented set of coding standards and code review checklists.  All existing consumer-facing functionality has been redesigned to meet the coding standards.

·     Over 1,500 unit tests covering 50% of the code base.  The covered code has 78% method level coverage.

·     Over 1,800 documented user stories.

·     190 automated test cases.

·     Automated continuous and daily build systems to apply Java, JSP, CSS, JavaScript, and xHTML linting and perform unit tests, performance regressions, code coverage, documentation generation, and deployable packaging.

·     Modular J2EE deployables for:

·     Consumer and Publisher web experience

·     Partner Network services

·     Content Engine services

·     Content Engine processing

·     Batch processes for search-index updates, related-item calculations, near-duplicate calculation, analytics data capture, and expired-item purging

·     Back-end financial reporting and review

·     Batch messaging services

·     Search engine

·     Executive metrics dashboard

MyWire product architecture:

·     Database schema for content targeted to MySQL 5.0.  Master database is replicated to a read-only cluster and a back-up server.

·     Database schema for customer accounts targeted to Oracle 11g.  Deployed to an active/active two-node configuration.

·     Database schema and stored procedures for data warehouse targeted to Oracle 10g.

·     J2EE deployables for middle-tier business logic and UI client code targeted to Resin 3.0 and JDK 1.5.  Deployed to a cluster of web servers and a cluster of search servers.

·     Frameworks for metric calculation, performance monitoring, reporting, logging and caching.

Supporting development resources:
·     Subversion repository containing version history of code base.

·     Automated continuous and daily build infrastructure using Ant and CruiseControl.

·     Jira database recording release history, use cases, and open and closed issues.

·     Company wiki containing coding standards, requirements, UI and technical design documents, and test cases.

Competitive Advantage

MyWire’s platform uniquely empowers publishers.  Several large-scale, high-profile efforts (Project Alesia, Next Issue and Skiff) have attempted to provide publishers an effective paid model. However, their business models weakened publishers by drawing off their traffic.  Existing services in the digital marketplace similarly weaken publishers (see chart below).  MyWire’s platform connects publishers as a network of equals, provides services to publishers to enhance their sites, and enables their users to conduct media commerce directly on publisher sites.  In addition, MyWire has no advertiser relationships, avoiding disintermediation of publishers from their advertisers.

Why MyWire’s assets are attractive

MyWire’s platform has been tested on a modest scale and is ready to deploy on a large scale.  An acquisition of MyWire’s assets can enable the purchaser to realize significant short and long-term value.

·     End-to-end built platform The MyWire team has proven development expertise with visionary, high performance, large-scale deployments.  The MyWire platform is comprehensive, PCI-compliant and designed for scale, speed and high service levels.

·     Market Position that empowers publishers The MyWire Publisher Network harnesses the power of publishers to shift the momentum to paid content, recapture traffic from search engines and even extract fees from them.        MyWire has conducted hundreds of review meetings with senior executives at leading publishing companies, primarily in the news and B2B sectors (the sectors most amenable and in need of a paid model).  The result is a platform that fits publisher needs and supports their direct consumer relationships.

·     Ease of use for publishers The MyWire platform is designed to operate independently of publishers’ content-management systems.  Publisher participation in the menu-based Network services is as simple as placing widgets (similar to ad widgets) on their sites.  Paid content services are handled by MyWire as embedded services on publishers’ sites (again avoiding integration issues with publishers’ content-management systems).

·     Usability for users Consumers experience the Publisher Network as a variety of unbranded enhancements to their favorite publisher sites, such as curated lists of content, instant access to quality related abstracts, and new topic pages. As a result, consumers will use their favorite publisher sites more frequently.

·     Efficient marketing model MyWire’s Publisher Network leverages publishers’ existing traffic by using related links to broadly market publisher content (free and paid).  MyWire pays a “seller bounty” to publishers that sell a subscription package to which they are contributing paid content.  The bounty is paid as a share of subscription revenue and has the dual benefit of attracting publishers to the MyWire program and eliminating front-end marketing expenses for MyWire.

·     Market dynamics MyWire pays out the largest portion of subscription revenue to publishers based on usage.  Since, in the initial stages of a package launch, a subscriber will likely view mostly free items, paid items earn extraordinarily high revenue per view.  This market-driven dynamic will induce publishers to add paid content to MyWire Universal Packages, initiating a virtuous cycle.

·     Antitrust protection MyWire requested and received a business review letter from the Department of Justice regarding its subscription package program which provides a high degree of comfort that the MyWire program will be compliant with US antitrust law.

·     New Category MyWire defines a new category – the organization of publisher-only content (and high-quality, focused search results) for digital delivery,  distributed on participating publisher sites.

·     Scale of business opportunity Cable has 95 million subscribers in the US alone with an average subscription rate of $70 per month.  Digital subscriptions can expect US revenues comparable to this $80 billion annual rate.  Even in the nascent digital subscription market, the leading digital multi-publication subscription, Netflix, has already garnered over 15 million subscribers for its movies package.  The MyWire platform is architected for multiple packages that can roll out quickly, and with minimal development effort once the first package reaches scale.  The Publisher Network is also well suited for extensions that support additional publisher monetization efforts, such as mobile delivery, lead generation and their existing commerce.

·     Location MyWire’s location is ideal to build a major internet consumer-branded platform company.  MyWire is located within 30 miles of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and eBay.

Executive Development Team

·     Louis H. Borders – Founder and CEO Founder/co-founder of Borders Books & Music, Webvan and Synergy Software.  B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Michigan, graduate studies in mathematics at MIT.

·     Dan Climan – Vice President, Software Engineering 18 years of engineering, media, and retailing experience; Principal at Booz Allen & Hamilton; Webvan.  B.S. in Computer Science from Yale University, M.B.A from Wharton.

·     Daniel Lipkin – Vice President, Architecture 18 years of software architecture and engineering experience; Director of Development at Visible Path; Chief Architect & Director of Development at Saba Software; Oracle.  B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University.

·     San Mai – Vice President, Product Management 20 years of product management experience; Vice President, Product Management at WorkingPoint, MarketLive and Inktomi Corporation; Netscape.  B.S. in Computer Engineering and M.B.A. from Santa Clara University.

The Bidding Process for Interested Buyers

Interested and qualified parties will be expected to sign a nondisclosure agreement (attached hereto as Exhibit A) to have access to key members of the management and intellectual capital teams and the due diligence “war room” documentation (the “Due Diligence Access”).  Each interested party, as a consequence of the Due Diligence Access granted to it, shall be deemed to acknowledge and represent (i) that it is bound by the bidding procedures described herein; (ii) that it has an opportunity to inspect and examine the MyWire Assets and to review all pertinent documents and information with respect thereto; (iii) that it is not relying upon any written or oral statements, representations, or warranties of Gerbsman Partners, or their respective staff, agents, or attorneys; and (iv) that all such documents and reports have been provided solely for the convenience of the interested party, and Gerbsman Partners (and their respective, staff, agents, or attorneys) do not make any representations as to the accuracy or completeness of the same.

Following an initial round of due diligence, interested parties will be invited to participate with a sealed bid, for the acquisition of the MyWire Assets.  Sealed bids must be submitted so that they are actually received by Gerbsman Partners no later than Friday, December 17, 2010 at 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time (the “Bid Deadline”) at MyWire’s office, located at 275 Shoreline Drive, Suite 100, Redwood Shores, California 94065.  Please also email steve@gerbsmanpartners.com with any bid.

Bids should identify those assets being tendered for in a specific and identifiable way.  In particular, please identify separately certain equipment or other fixed assets.  The MyWire fixed asset list (attached hereto as Exhibit B) may not be complete and bidders interested in the MyWire equipment must submit a separate bid for such assets.

Any person or other entity making a bid must be prepared to provide independent confirmation that they possess the financial resources to complete the purchase where applicable.  All bids must be accompanied by a refundable deposit check in the amount of $250,000 (payable to MyWire, Inc.).  The winning bidder will be notified within 3 business days of the Bid Deadline.  Unsuccessful bidders will have their deposits returned to them within 3 business days of notification that they are an unsuccessful bidder.

MyWire reserves the right to, in its sole discretion, accept or reject any bid, or withdraw any or all of the assets from sale.  Interested parties should understand that it is expected that the highest and best bid submitted will be chosen as the winning bidder and bidders may not have the opportunity to improve their bids after submission.

MyWire will require the successful bidder to close within a 7 day period.  Any or all of the assets of MyWire will be sold on an “as is, where is” basis, with no representation or warranties whatsoever.

All sales, transfer, and recording taxes, stamp taxes, or similar taxes, if any, relating to the sale of the MyWire Assets shall be the sole responsibility of the successful bidder and shall be paid to MyWire at the closing of each transaction.
For additional information, please see below and/or contact:

Steven R. Gerbsman
Gerbsman Partners
(415) 456-0628
steve@gerbsmanpartners.com

Kenneth Hardesty
Gerbsman Partners
(408) 591-7528
ken@gerbsmanpartners.com

Dennis Sholl
Gerbsman Partners
(415) 457-9596
dennis@gerbsmanpartners.com

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