Isaac Mao

在某超级聪明人士的建议下，把本网志的标题改为“We make art not money”。向”We make money not art” 和”We need money not art” 学习。

Yes, it’s Anothr, not typo.

Anothr.com is a new service based on Skype “that can provides just-in-time alerts for your favorite feeds. It can simplify your blogs/news eading experience and improve the effectiveness of your daily information flow.” I experimented this service for a while before its formal launch. It’s simple and ease of use because you can just “add” and “chat” with the “Skype Robot” to learn how to use it. Its much smarter than other RSS/ATOM readers online or offline especially for those Skype fans.

对一个初创公司来说，因为生存、竞争和发展速度的需要，每天都要作出关键性的决策，而这些决策的二分结果就是可能让公司很快偏离可能唯一的成功轨道而进入不可逆转的境地。所以必须积极寻找合适的顾问团队(Advisory Board)来帮助决策，这等于给创业项目增加了外脑，做出更加聪明的判断。

寻找并建立一个合适的顾问团队，应当选择与项目发展关联的行业专家（例如，电信）或者功能专家（例如，渠道建设，财务等等）。如果有这样的顾问团队，并且创业者能够谦虚讨教，很多问题其实自然容易得到答案，或者能够规避很多风险。

另外，有一个实用而且“有名”的顾问团队，还可以让创业团队更容易说服风险投资商，这是一个侧面效应。

Got a new message fro Jan’s blog that another team in Russia leaked news(with pictures of a mock-up skype client) that they have cracked skype protocol. However, yet to find the real application downloadable. So there are someone commented on Jan’s story that “Without working functionality (sing-in, speech), its nothing. I can create the same UI in 15-30mins “. Whereever the comments from, there raised some questions like “Who really hacked skype in depth, China team or Russian team?” and “How valuable to crack the protocal of skype?”

The first question seems weird but its true. I knew some of China crack team members, but I know they are very low key( because of shy, or?) to disclose details of their work. So the dilema is they either want people to know them or don’t want people know them well. The acted very professional like a big company to carefully deal with the public relations. However, the drawbacks are very clear, their competitors catched up in the same direction, but more agreesive.

I won’t doubt on the truth that they may all find the core algorithm of Skype already. But just like any other businesses around the world, they have to utlize the findings carefull and smartly. I hope there are fair competition between Skype and others. Also I hope there are fair competitions between Skype crack teams. Whoever develops good applications based on their findings, who can win the market. Instead, if anyone of them just wants to tease and leverage from capital market, the market will forget him someday in the future.

So I may not care who is now the real cracker, I just want to see how many benefits can end users get from the cracking.

YouTube 被Google 收购，当然是一件大事。对公众是热闹、对投资界是正常、对行业是紧迫、对Web 2.0企业是激励。看似YouTube如同火箭升天，不可思议地成就了新的网络创业奇迹。但是，在这样的收购案中，人们往往只看到了Power Law，也就是收购通常发生在排列前茅的企业之间，却往往会忽略Power Law只是结果，而往往忽略了今天不断涌现的新星背后的长尾巴形成过程。这也是为什么此番收购让众多Web 2.0企业欢呼，仿佛这就是他们的未来价值。

我支持他们的欢呼，一方面是收购者是Google，他们在美国善用了策略和资本；另一方面是为YouTube，我们不但是他们早期的用户，更是因为相信这些服务能够长成。因为众多Web 2.0企业看似在行业中地位微薄，但是他们一旦善良地运用了长尾巴的效应，他们很可能会逐步撕裂传统的领头羊，用新规则建立新的行业布局。

所以现在看来，1.0 也看似能够接受长尾巴（因为他们也大谈Web 2.0，说没什么特别的），对他们来说Power Law，“成者为王”是唯一的法则，因为他们总是喜欢挑挑拣拣行业的长尾巴根部（虽然只有少数人可以做到）。而2.0思维的长尾巴是真正的长尾巴，他们的尾巴来自多样性的用户创造，至于是否能够成为1.0眼里的长尾巴根，现在并不重要。

从现在起，你可以用手机来订阅Isaacmao.com/venture的内容了。

方法很简单，只需要注册Widsets 帐户，然后在你手机上下载Widsets的终端程序（一个Java程序），再点击以下的按钮，就可以订阅年会的Blog到你的手机上了！（注：Widsets基于开放设计，不限于Nokia手机，支持大部分Java手机）