For my first post on Leveraging Ideas I thought I would share a business thought. As an MBA student interested in pursuing a career in venture capital, my main problem is that I have no capital. However, forgetting that aspect for a minute, I’m going to pretend that I have money to spend on an acquisition for my portfolio’ .my choice for the next big thing? MyBlogLog ’“ but not with that name, and not with the current business model.
What I really like about MyBlogLog is the idea of ’presence.’ MyBlogLog knows who you are and where you have been and makes it easy to share that information using a community approach.
My issue with the MyBlogLog model is that they didn’t think big picture ’“ their name limits them; blog communities are strong, yes, but the percentage of people with the know-how to insert the code into their blog, or even the percentage of people who read blogs on a regular basis is still very tiny.
What’s more, RSS readers (Google Reader, Net Vibes) are disruptive to the MyBlogLog model, so while MyBlogLog might continue to grow, as an investor I’m interested in something with the potential to reach a much larger audience.
The answer is the MyBlogLlog model, made for Television.
Let’s take a show like ’24’ as an example. Many young people like myself watch television with their laptops handy. Some people even watch television directly on their computer via various LCD devices or Slingbox. This mean that the computers’ IP address is already half way ’talking’ with the TV.
So how cool would it be if I could go to the 24 home page, while watching 24, and see the profiles of everyone else watching ’“ similar to MyBlogLog? To make it really smart, all I would have to do is go to say www.fox.com/me and my computer recognizes that I am watching 24 and thus loads the 24 community page, complete with all the profiles. I would be able to sort by geographic region since there will be thousands of profiles for a really popular show.
Going a step further, I’m sure it won’t be too long until MyBlogLog adds instant messaging functionality. The idea is especially strong for sports. Take for example a RedSox vs. Yankees game. Once on the RedSox Community page during a game, I might search for my buddies also watching the game. Seeing an old college roommates’ profile might prompt me to IM him and re-connect. Similarly, I could have an ongoing ’conference call’ with my three best friends as we watch the game together and talk for free via Skype – also integrated with this network.