What if the investment bankers have to change...

I don't know about you, but I've never really understood how an IPO that on the first day raises , for example, over 25% could be a successful one. For me, that's an underpriced stock in the IPO process. But hey, I'm not an economist. Maybe that's the same thing as offering a product at a 30% higher price and giving the difference in rebate...  ;-)

Anyway, talking about IPOs and using the Internet. Here is an article from CNET that I found interesting.

"Using a system known as a Dutch auction, Hambrecht collects bids from all interested investors, big and small, and groups them by how much each is willing to pay. Its bankers then count down from the top bid until they reach the highest price at which the selling company could sell all of the shares it wants to offer.  The company can choose that price or, for various reasons, a lower one. Hambrecht then sells at the chosen price all the shares that were bid at that price or higher.

In a typical first-time sale of stock, investment bankers meet with managers of mutual funds and hedge funds to gauge their interest in a company, then set a price that is slightly below what they estimate is the market value. That method, as much art as science, often excludes most of the individual investors who want to buy shares and occasionally sets off a frenzied first day of trading. "

The interesting part is that well-establied business like Investment bankers have to change their buesiness due to a more effecient processes using technology. I wonder what will be the next big step for the property industry?

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A new start-up for residential homes

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blog_zillow_240px.gifEarlier this week a new service called Zillow opened up for a Beta (is there anything else these days?). It is all about automated valuation on homes in the US.

'How much is your house worth? Zillow knows'  A CNET article on the 7th february
'How scared should brokers be?' BusinessWeek on the January 13
'Zillow aims for realty riches' RedHerring, october 26, 2005
'Vad kostar Bill Gates hus?' Realtid.se, february 15th, 2006  (In Swedish)

The power of mobile working

The last week I've been working from the island Bequia in the Caribbeans.
Sure beats the Stockholm office!

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Brought my laptop, conntected it to a WiFi network and I'm able to reach all the digtal material, technical environments, emails and everything else. Add to that the Skype services and it easy to be effecient on the road.     

Talking about telecommuting, here is the reason why it is not taking off;
''In an era when so much of our communication is electronic, the value of a face-to-face meeting has actually intensified, since the phone and e-mail have become routine while a meeting reflects the importance of the person or topic.''
According to a study presented in the Pikenet Dispatch (17th januari 2006) found here.
More pictures from the stay in Bequia?
See me and my wife's site (in Swedish).

 

The long tail

The table below shows that 40% of Amazon’s unitsales fall in titles with ranks above 100,000. That is that 40% of all the books sold are not among the 100 000 most sold titles! (You may have heard the number 57% and that is if you update the graph with 2004 sales figures.)

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This phenomenon is called 'the long tail'.

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"The term refers specifically to the yellow part of the sales chart above, which shows a standard demand curve that could apply to any industry, from entertainment to hard goods. The red part of the curve is the hits, which have dominated our markets and culture for most of the last century. The yellow part is the non-hits, or niches, which is where the new growth is coming from now and in the future." Definition from at thelongtail.

Read more at 'The Long Tail 101' at thelongtail.
The graph above is from a MIT paper on the long tail issue.
To read the original Wired article is found here.  

The question is; how do you reach your tail?

 

"Microsoft Dead"

On thing is clear, if Microsoft goes into a new area you know there is business in the area (or a threat to another). The last couple of weeks there has been much writing about their 'Live' solution. So no bigger surprise that one man in San Francisco couldn't hesitate to make a comment... and what a statement. 
"The speech was an amazing bracket to his famous Tidal Wave speech on December 7, 1995 about how Microsoft would own the Internet. But over this 10 year span, what has Microsoft done for business on the Web besides cloning a slow browser? The answer: nothing. "
...
"Last month, our number one competitor surrendered, and decided to take its place beside several former competitors at software's Shady Pines Rest Home, also known as Oracle. It was a merciful outcome for shareholders, but a time of con"fusion" for customers."
...
"This transformation goes by many names: On-Demand, Web 2.0, Software as a Service. But they all point to the same conclusion: The era of the traditional software "load, update, and upgrade" business and technology model is over. It is time for "The Business Web."
...
"A new range of start-ups are showing how this is just the beginning of the business Web--that there are new technologies coming to replace traditional word processing, spreadsheets, and other staples of business with Internet services. Companies like Writely, Numsum, Zimbra, and Goffice are breaking Microsoft's hypnotic trance that the Microsoft Office, and its myriad of clients and servers we are installing today, it is simply a dinosaur. "

Thanks Mark (Mark Benioff, CEO and founder of Salesforce) for putting words to the thoughts of every believer. Read the entire "internal memo" here.

 

 

Google teaming up with CoStar

Now days you can't really be too surprised when Google is expanding it's services. The funny thing about this one is that I was discussing it with Andrew Waller at Remit Consulting just a few days before. Maybe I should go back to consulting...  ;-)

Talking about Andrew.
You have to check out his new book "IT for property people". Click here.

One more thing, from the article above regarding CoStar.
"CoStar's proprietary data doesn't come cheaply to its clients and presumably would be a premium feature on Google. One San Jose brokerage house pays $9,000 a month; larger corporations can pay up to $20,000 for information on commercial buildings that includes high-resolution photos of the exterior, lobby and loading docks, 360-degree photos of some sites, floor plans, marketing notes and sales data."
Maybe time for us Swedes to upgrade our pricing!  ;-)