I need an iPhone app just to feed me news on new iPhone apps.

you're hilarious. you're always good for comic relief! thnks, gary

I love the Picture of You at the Bar with your Wine! I could just see you screaming in the bar for the Home Team! I need to get an iPhone.....

Great show Meliza. It's quite sad that MySpace is cutting back jobs due to Google's pullout. I'm curious to see the outcome and to observe if MySpace has something else up their sleeves. Also, me as a B-Ball fan. It's great to finally be able to watch March Madness on the iPhone (though I own a BlackBerry). Too bad. Darn. :)

"If Google can't make money off of social networks, who can?" scary thought, considering what's being sunk into them (and how fast their popularity is growing....among consumers that is...not VC's). I think the answer may potentially lie in 2 concepts - the long tail and aggregation.

Hyper-niched social networks provide higher value connections among their users (because a larger percentage are likely to be super users) and also higher value to advertisers AND are by definition small and so therefore less expensive to maintain. The long tail of social networks may not have the volume of its competitors, but I'd guess they are more profitable (albeit, on a smaller scale).

Aggregation services (via sites like socialthing and ouibox (in alpha)) have lower overhead because they don't have to store the data from multiple sites on their servers (i.e. multiple social networks, in the case of socialthing) but they do solve the inevitable problem brought up by hyperniching. This theoretically is how you have your social cake and eat it too as a consumer. I want be in "tight" communities with minimum riffraff, but I don't want to have to visit all of them. Google is working to solve this (and every other) problem with iGoogle, it's apps suites, etc. but there are still many aspects of a person's online life that could be aggregated...and social life is one of them, arguably the biggest, and potentially profitable. A model that allows a free trial and then begins a subscription charge would retain customers because they would be used to the added convenience. If Google Reader ever made plans to start charging, I'd pay...I couldn't imagine having to check all those sites manually, or even using another reader that's not integrated into all the other google products I'm using.

....facebook, in my opinion, solves as many of these problems as well as any one conglomerate can...the above are simply the only other ways social networks, with their current revenue models, could actually make economic sense.

March Madness on the iPhone is pretty sweet. How is the quality?

I think it's premature to say Google won't renew. Sure, given the current ad market and rates, Google might not renew, but with 15 months left, a lot can change! The market can recover, or they could renew at a (slightly) lower rate, but it's hard to believe they'd just abandon all that inventory.

Either way, nice to see you out from behind a desk :)

March Madness Fever has been spreading - and social networks are not safe. Watercooler’s 2009 Bracket Challenge saw a large jump in their active user base to over 111,000 users. The CBSSports.com tournament application saw a jump of over 22,000 users. Due to Facebook's 100% market saturation among college students, the application has the potential of attracting a million +.

iPhone is no different. The portability of iphone is its prime attraction for March Madness fans. Wifi access + iphone will allow you to watch many games on their iPhones for $5 and that's a great deal or you can just hear the audio on 3G or EDGE network. It is a good idea to take advantage of quick ramping situations however CBSSports will need to figure out what to do with their fan base once their users are compiled together. The decision to charge for their application might be questionable because paid apps do demonstrate increases retention over free apps, but retention may not be a significant issue granted that March Madness will soon fade.

MySpace is definitely improving in terms of offering entertainment to its users ranging from fast-loading games to a wide music base. As far as Google monetizing MySpace - its just ugliness, and my personal suggestion is for MySpace to model after Hi5. Actually, I'll have to do some research to properly comment on this topic because I am not too familiar with MySpace's hypertargeting scenario.

The exit market should definitely pick up around 2010, all markets in general in fact. Ammar is looking for "IT infrastructure and web-enabled consumer and corporate applications". This all traces to increased speed and connectivity for both B2B and B2C companies. All consumer applications, by definition, should be web-enabled, even if they are based on Adobe AIR. Applications such as TweetDeck will be prime targets for acquisitions in the near future. Since entrepreneurial activity in general will climb due to the leveled playing field of starting a venture (especially in the tech industry) - that my also be a reason that M&,,A activity will climb, since there will be more gems to pick from. It's hard to say what exactly will happen but it will be interesting to see how things turn out. As a co-founder of a company dealing with the web app space, I'll be actively watching and hopefully influencing!

This is hilarious Meliza! I like the part when you at the bar when you suppose to be working. Also I like part when you eat someone else lunch.It amazes me how myspace has to cut down on cost because they can not keep up with revolutionize technology. Facebook and Twitter are skyrocketing. I believe Myspace will not survive within 10 years.

What Is She Missy? Meliza's offerings here are world-class, a network of good humor and terrific info all to itself.

I love: the use of fast forward accelerated video; the perkiness; the lighting; the capsulized formats.

Kind suggestions: more close-ups of everything, especially Meliza's lovely face. More insights into your topics -- tell the truth and don't follow -- lead. New topics!

-- thom calandra at www.tickertrax.com

Congratulations on another excellent program. I actually look forward to seeing what you and your team comes up with each week.

I fully expect to hear that someone has picked this up for national distribution. It's not only an innovative program; I think it's a superior format.

Fantastic stuff Meliza! Keep it coming!

I concur with Ammar Hanafi.

The money needed to develop and role out services is much scarcer in 2009 than it has been for quite a few years. For example, business models that depend upon interactive video, such as flash overlays for "Buy Nows" or the Intel-Yahoo WidgetTV framework, won't be able to launch such transactional services at full steam until early 2010 at the earliest. Large-device equipment makers will not innovate this year, while service providers/gateways will be slow to development and deploy on the cutting edge, according to Lance Koenders (TA at Intel Digital Home Group), who spoke to the outlook of new ventures in a discussion panel "The Marriage of TV and the Internet" at the Cinequest Film Festival. A similar timeframe estimate came from Reed Hastings in his keynote to NewTeeVee Live in November 2008, where the VC panel on investment outlook underscored this air of caution. You know it's going to be a weak year when everyone tells you to wait for the next CES.

The bigger question is how the smaller businesses will innovate with those services and hardware which are already available, without making too large an investment in technology and methods that will be superseded by mid-year 2010.

it should be interesting to see how this (and other) iPhone app business models evolve once iPhone 3.0 is released and in-application purchases occur...

I hope you have the appropriate license in place to use the image and likeness of the Kool-Aid Mascot . . . OOOOOHHH YEAAAA!!!!

Also: Were you drinking wine at a sports bar??? LOL.