Social is the Next Search

Another incredible chart courtesy of our portfolio company Gigya. If you are not plugging in Social Infrastructure to your website, you will lose. As Gigya likes to say "Gigya Socialize is the new SEO."

LiveU Broadcasts...er...narowcasts my nephews' bris

My sister and brother-in-law made a bris this morning on their twin sons in Jerusalem. 3 of us siblings are in the US and were pretty bummed at missing the momentous occasion. Cousin JJ volunteered a beta unit from LiveU to live stream the bris up to an internet link where we could watch it. So, my sister in NYC, my sister and I in LA cozied up to the laptop to watch live.

The broadcast is not without glitches as it cuts out every once in a while and the photographer was a bit late so we missed the first bris (good thing there was a second one) but the experience was absolutely magical. Seeing the bris and our family live from a living room in LA (no CNN necessary) was amazing and really brought the family closer together for this wonderful occasion.

A few tips if you want to do this in the future:

1. LiveU works by multiplexing multiple cellular uplinks. Therefore, make your bris outside where cell reception is better. Alternatively, bring your own picocell along with the LiveU unit.

2. Make sure your cameraman has a steady hand as the camera does not have VR.

3. Have a blackberry handy so that you can email and text the cameraman to move to a better angle

4. Sit back and enjoy the family moment. It beats the satellite video phones CNN uses and is much more personal.

ISRAEL' DISPROPORTIONATE RESPONSE. Amen

Dear Judge Goldstone, Prime Minister Erduan of Turkey and Delegates to the UN

This came to my inbox today from Marcia and Dov. Nuf Ced.

ISRAEL' DISPROPORTIONATE RESPONSE

Many countries and world leaders have accused Israel of responding disproportionately to aggression from Hizballah inLebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

However, it is time that the world press and media speak of another disproportionate response from Israel.

The terrible disastrous earthquake in Haiti has generated responses from many nations. The US has sent supplies and personnel, Britain sent 64 firemen and 8 volunteers, France sent troops for Search and Rescue. Many large and wealthy nations of the world sent money. The Arab and Moslem world nothing.

Israel, a nation of 7.5 million people has sent a team of 220 people that include Medical personnel and has established the largest field hospital in Haiti, treating up to 5000 people a day, an experienced Search and Rescue team and medical supplies. As in previous earthquake disasters, such as in Gujarat India in 2001 and in Turkey, in the bombings in Kenya, Israel has been one of the most generous givers of aid and assistance

Turkey seems to have forgotten this help as its extreme Moslem Government is cozying up to Iran.

Judge Goldstone, where are you now? Eating your heart out and hanging your head down in shame I hope.

The favorite occupation in the UN is Israel bashing. More resolutions have been passed condemning Israel rather than all the so called democratic nations such as Sudan, China, Russia and others for their crimes against their minorities.

I think it is time that the world should know about Israel's disproportionate response.

Please forward this to as many people as you can.

Dear Investment Bankers: Please Do Not Ruin The IPO Window

Ahead of the live discussion panel taking place today on Seeking Alpha* about the thawing of the IPO market, I would like to make a plea to the investment banking community. Please do not rush "unsuitable companies" to the public markets to take advantage of the IPO window. That is the best way to close it again.

One of Benchmark's companies OpenTable.com officially reopened the IPO window with its IPO in the first half of 2009. The company performed well on the road show and the stock has performed well in the aftermarket, up over 25%. A123, the first clean tech company to burst through the window last year is also holding up well (Chart).

However, with two quality companies through the gate, bankers and investors are running to IPO their companies. A list of Q4 filings raises some questions about the quality of IPOs being rushed to market. 2 more companies have already filed in the first week of 2010. If history is any guide, CEOs of high quality companies and venture capitalists should be worried.

The IPO markets are open because institutional investors need new product, growth stories that represent the growth of the internet, cleantech, mobile computing etc for the next decade. What we and they do not need is unprofitable companies, without clearly profitable business models, that consume cash and need to source that cash in the public markets to survive. Slow growth companies will also find it tough in the demanding public markets. Our memory is short but we have been through this in 1999 and 2000, when bankers brought all the Pets companies and sock puppets public, ultimately cratering and ruining the IPO market for years. As I read Sellout by Charlie Gasparino, it is obvious that the same syndrome manifested itself in the bond market, where bankers rushed much subprime debt to market without calculating both the risk of the individual bonds and slices nor the risk to overall market liquidity from these low quality deals.

So while we all look for this decade's "Netscape Moment," I beg of both bankers and investors to keep the quality bar high so we can enjoy a sustainable open IPO window for great entrepreneurs for many years to come.

* Full Disclosure: Seeking Alpha and OpenTable are Benchmark Portfolio companies.

Chart of the Day from Gigya: Social Networks a Threat to Google Traffic Hegemony

This is incredible data (click to enlarge chart) from our portfolio company Gigya. Huffington Post passed the Washington Post and the traffic source that drove it was Facebook!

Gigya is seeing that Facebook connect, Twitter's APIs and 7 other social nets are driving significant traffic to sites that are implementing them. It is a paradigm shift on traffic generation and engaging users.

Outbrain's Outloud: An Online Hyde Park for Your Opinions

As part of a Twitter deal (partial screen shot on the right) with serial entrepreneur Yaron Galai, I tested Outbrain's blog promotion service OutLoud in November and early December. Yaron provided me with a free account up to 20 links and I agreed to write a blog post about the results. Had I paid for the account it would have cost $31.

I was not very prolific at the end of Q4 so I did not get Yaron the full 20 links. He may still want to comp me some freebies but I do have results from the batch of 7 links I sent OutLoud. For those unfamiliar with OutLoud, OutLoud uses the distribution of the Outbrain widget to promote your blog posts "in context" under a relevant posts section on other blogs and media sites.

Outloud drove almost 1661 readers, ~2,500 clicks and over 2MM impressions to my 7 posts over a one month period. Not bad. It equated to a CPC of about $0.03. Very cost efficient. My most popular blog by far was a post on agreeing with New York Times Columnist Tom Friedman. The post got exposure on sites such as the Jerusalem Post, Seattle Times, Slate, Chicago Tribune, & Alternet to name a few. One take away from the popularity of this specific post is that people were surprised that I would agree with Tom. Another conclusion could be that Tom Freidman is popular but nobody knows who the heck I am. However, i think the truth lies in a bias in OutLoud toward political relevance.

Of the 7 posts I put into OutLoud, 2 were politically oriented: the post about Tom Friedman and a post calling on Israel's leaders to reappoint the very successful Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer for another 5 year term. Those two were the most popular posts by far. The 5 others, which focused either on public market stocks or technology were far less successful. Therefore, it seems that Outbrain's widget distribution is highly correlated to sites that focus on politics. There could be entertainment and other verticals as well but all of my posts were about stocks, tech and politics. I do not fully understand how the relevance engine works and how OutLoud decides where to post that. I would certainly encourage the company to be more transparent about that. The reporting set is also very focused and good.

So, if you are very interested in having your political views heard, Outbrain's Outloud service is a very cost efficient service for you. Think of it as Hyde Park for the masses that is both measurable and less embarrassing. As for the claims that it will supplement PR, I think it is still too early to tell. Outbrain's CEO Yaron Galai assures me that there is more distribution coming in other and high value verticals. So stay tuned.

Chart of distribution of visits to my posts

Date	Imps	Clicks	CTR
11/11/2009	1,733	3	0.17%
11/12/2009	92,833	91	0.10%
11/13/2009	106,599	94	0.09%
11/14/2009	55,809	43	0.08%
11/15/2009	60,881	90	0.15%
11/16/2009	88,426	89	0.10%
11/17/2009	91,695	95	0.10%
11/18/2009	96,625	84	0.09%
11/19/2009	122,422	120	0.10%
11/20/2009	63,736	55	0.09%
11/21/2009	53,615	54	0.10%
11/22/2009	28,079	32	0.11%
11/23/2009	54,194	112	0.21%
11/24/2009	57,423	108	0.19%
11/25/2009	78,514	149	0.19%
11/26/2009	37,996	69	0.18%
11/27/2009	40,510	76	0.19%
11/28/2009	39,627	71	0.18%
11/29/2009	56,253	113	0.20%
11/30/2009	94,219	113	0.12%
12/1/2009	257,016	218	0.08%
12/2/2009	116,609	72	0.06%
12/3/2009	137,336	60	0.04%
12/4/2009	117,903	62	0.05%
12/5/2009	24,260	28	0.12%
12/6/2009	36,092	47	0.13%
12/7/2009	67,057	69	0.10%
12/8/2009	63,330	77	0.12%
12/9/2009	55,821	75	0.13%
12/10/2009	46,122	56	0.12%
12/11/2009	481	2	0.42%
ALL	2,243,216	2,427	0.11%