Good morning, world, and happy Tuesday!
In a final stretch before the holiday season, some good stuff keeps us busy amidst final shopping and pushing those reports out. To kick off, here’s a great product quote from a long list on product management.
When the wind blows, some people build walls, others build windmills. — Chinese Proverb
Enjoy!
Non-Travel Starters
The messaging wars continue — as the new platforms of communication and why not even the Internet, messaging companies exert more power on distribution than ever. Just recently WeChat is rumored to have closed a number of Uber accounts in China, potentially hurting access of the company to the massive consumer base using the chat service. The curious part is that WeChat is owned by Tencent, which is heavily invested in Uber’s competitors. Well, something to note — the gatekeepers for the next few years won’t be the OSs, but the messaging services. Game changer. Link.
Staying in China, Alibaba’s mimick of Amazon continues — now the holding is buying a newspaper (after J. Bezos bought The Washington Post). South China Morning Post’s purchase for $266M doesn’t seem to be a natural fit for the e-commerce giant, then again — multiple reasons from tax breaks to messaging outlet could be at play. The purchase could also signal the beginning of a new buying spree, as some analysts predict that Ali could spend as much as $38Bn in investments in 2016. Yup, you read that correctly. Link.
Palantir raised again, this time $129M, bringing the total to $668M. The data company plans to remain private forever and not much is known in the public space about the products, but suffice it to say part of their algorithms was used to find Osama. Link.
India’s e-commerce is booming, but at $1,500 GDP per capita, the burn rates to subsidize growth in the second biggest market in the world might be a bit too much to swallow long term. Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, and One97 (backed by Ali) are all going through piles of cash in figuring out logistics, market reach and inventory. My bet will be on the big guys, as they’ve done it before, but let’s not discount the startups, either. Link.
Snacks
Star Alliance is pushing for extending its network with LCC and Hybrid carriers in an initiative to get network coverage at scale. The first approved carrier is Mango and there are more in the works. That’s critical — as tech boundaries start to allow this kind of virtual interlines, more LCCs will be looking to get the first/last mile access. Happy that we started strong on that front — our solution for Flybe is just that. Link.
Priceline extended its investment in Ctrip, the company that swapped shares with Qunar and now created the biggest OTA in China — eLong, Ctrip, and Qunar all work together. The total $$$ in so far is $1.9Bn. Link.
Look-to-books are starting to get insane and the current 1,000:1 could easily become 10,000:1 very soon. Shopping and pricing needs to move to the cloud and Amadeus is leading the charge. Yet, distribution at scale in the Messaging Economy (note: change of term here, not Internet Economy) will become even harder. Link on cloud and Link from Tnooz.
To Whom It May Concern: If you happen to have left 3 Boeings 747s at KL in Malaysia, please claim them — the government has put an ad in the paper saying it will appropirate them if unclaimed. I’ll take one — probably the Cargo one, given my pre-holiday size. Link.
Dessert (Stats)
$25Bn: The size of the music industry in 2015 in terms of copyright. Link.
28,000: Stuffed toys that Calgary’s hockey fans threw on the hockey rink as part of a charity campaign. Link.
Some Cool Reading (Watching)
Humble-brag: My musings on Free APIs Access and why we need to protect the new — re-post on CodeVoyagers, our engineering voice. (3 min) Link.
Uber’s smart control over its shares and issuing of RSUs (restricted stock units) helps it stay private without any violation of the SEC laws. How exactly? Well, here’s a good acocunt. (5 min) Link.
Tim Draper’s thinking on schools, enterpreneurship and a story of one of the VC pillars in the valley. (5 min). Link.
The Golden State Warriors record winning streak ended this week, but their future is even better than what we think. A good analysis of how the NBA Champions threat is only from their future.(6 min) Link.
Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo talks about Jack Dorsey, product, and China. A good listen, interview by Kara. (60 min). Link.
//Expressed views and opinions are my own.
Photo Credit: National Geographic is amazing. Please share and give credit to their photographs and photographers. Here’s the link for your daily inspiration: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/
