

Ron Conway To Focus On Real Time Data Startups: 40-50 New Investments - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/03/ron-conway-to-focus-angel-investments-on-real-time-data/

======
pierrefar
The key point here is that real-time monitoring of data is the next big thing.
I agree wholeheartedly that it is one of the biggest next things coming up.
That and data visualization so that people make sense and understand what the
data is saying.

Calling it Web 3.0 is just rubbish. There is real value in services that can
produce info/knowledge/data in real time, and we certainly don't need a silly
label for it.

<sarcasm>Maybe now _live_.com will become useful for something </sarcasm>

~~~
drusenko
i'm starting to become increasingly skeptical that with all of the free-flow
data out there, there is no algorithm that can magically "put it together" in
a way that shows you exactly what you want to see.

the problem? what you want to see is mixed in with a whole lot more things you
don't want to see, and there is no metadata available that enables anyone to
automagically figure out what to show you -- the data's just not there, even
for facebook, and if facebook can't do it, twitter doesn't have a chance in
hell.

absent of that magic sorting algorithm, "Real Time Data" becomes too time
consuming to sort through.

~~~
pierrefar
No one said it was easy, and we have a good model of how the industry might
evolve: the problem of "search".

We had things like Altavista, Yahoo!, etc, and then came Google with a better
algo. It made sense of the data out there without any real use of meta data
(meta tags in HTML notwithstanding, at least initially).

And even to this day, we're seeing interesting experiments in solving the
problem of finding information on the web, and how to present it. All I'm
saying is that the next step is doing this in real time.

~~~
drusenko
i certainly won't exclude that it's in the realm of possibilities... just
that, lately, i'm finding it more and more unlikely.

twitter "authority" seems to me to be an even more difficult problem than blog
authority, and even that was easily game-able.

besides, twitter doesn't even have the same social graph for me as facebook
does, and facebook still has a pretty difficult time separating the wheat from
the chaff.

if that breakthrough doesn't show up, it will be revolutionary. if it doesn't,
the "real time web" might just be overhyped.

~~~
pierrefar
Remember we've only just recently managed to accumulate all this data in a
mainstream way. It will take time for that breakthrough to happen, but it will
happen.

Example: when AOL released their "anonymous" data, it took the NYT a few days
to personally identify a user. It took humans, working on it for a good few
hours, being creative, and produced only one data point (one person), but it
still happened. We need to find ways to make deep data mining happen much
faster... in real time :)

Emphasis on mainstream, by the way, because data mining is not a new field by
any measure.

------
wallflower
The better definition I have heard of technology cycles (via UX's Jared
Spool):

1.0 (First generation) is all about the technology. "Hey check out my Motorola
cellular phone. It weighs 2 pounds and is portable."

2.0 (Second generation) is all about features. "Text messaging, pictures,
ringtones, games, address book, MP3 player, J2ME, comes in pink"

3.0 (Third generation) is all about the user experience. The iPhone.

~~~
zach
Efficiency, effectiveness, experience. They don't have to all be generations,
they can co-exist.

 _Cars_ : Compact, SUV, sports car

 _Laptops_ : Acer, MacBook, MacBook Air

 _Grocery Stores_ : Costco, Whole Foods, Wegmans

~~~
wallflower
I agree. Generations might not be the best term, even though generations of
people (grandparents -> grandkids) can definitely co-exist and learn from each
other. Maybe a better term is waves (as in one wave rolling into another)

------
ojbyrne
Oooh. New buzzword. Goodbye, Web 2.0, Hello "Real Time Data."

For those of you who aren't older than dirt, "Real Time" probably first
appeared circa 1972.

EDIT: s/1972/forever/

~~~
psykotic
The OED has quotations going back as far as 1953:

1953 Math. Tables & Other Aids to Computation VII. 73 With the advent of
large-scale high-speed digital computers, there arises the question of their
possible use in the solution of problems in ‘real time’, i.e., in conjunction
with instruments receiving and responding to stimuli from the external
environment. The criteria for satisfactory operation in such real-time service
are different from those generally encountered.

~~~
ojbyrne
Thanks for the correction. Anyway the discussion of real-time vs. batch has
been going on since (before) I grew up. I would even argue that the term
"scalability" bandied about these days is really a reversion to batch
processing - even caching algorithms are a form of batch processing.

------
krav
Personally, when it comes to investing, I'd rather be a contrarian. Out of
these 40 to 50 investments, most will not fly unless they get acquired. "Hope
we get bought, fingers crossed" is not a business model. It only works if you
invest across a broad section and one of them hits big (which Ron is doing).

I'd rather invest in 40 to 50 simple cash-producing businesses on the web
(affiliate networks, lead generation, sticky / viral apps in closed platforms,
etc.)

------
ntoshev
Where is the value?

There has always been important real time data like stock market prices,
weather, air traffic control etc. None of this changes a bit with the
proliferation of internet and web apps, so it is hard to expect any new value
here.

The new real time data is generated by real time user interaction - between
users and computers and among users (using computers as intermediary). The
real time user interaction itself has value and this has been demonstrated: we
have continuously invented new kinds of social media built on computer
networks. For social media instant is certainly better than fast.

In fact, focusing on data seems wrong here, you'd better focus on the
interaction. Even if the actual value is the data, this is where the data
would be both generated and used.

~~~
wglb
Doesn't it seem like the information you mention has become available in a
fundamentally different way (quantity, speed) with the internet?

In this data stream, it would seem that the interaction itself would be part
of the data, that is, "user-a -> user-b at 21:31:22.034"

The trick will be to find the value in this data.

------
zaidf
I wanted to know what Eastern Time Obama's speech was going to be. I spent 10
minutes on google with no luck.

I went on twitter search and immediately found 100s of people with the same
question. It took me a few minutes to find a post with the answer.

------
felixmar
"Real time" to me means an interaction delay in the range of milliseconds. If
the delay is more in the range of seconds like the web application i am
working on then "live" would probably be a better term.

~~~
anonymousDan
I think event-driven (as opposed to request driven) is probably a better term
to describe the conceptual difference being discussed here. Obviously you
could then have different latency requirements for event delivery depending on
the application.

~~~
wglb
I think this is the best way to think about it. Event-driven unstructured or
lightly structured data.

------
dunk010
I think that real time data is indeed going to be the next big thing. One
question which remains is are there any data sources outside of twitter which
can be aggregated to make something greater than the sum of the parts?

------
david927
I know this is a generic question that's a bit off-topic, but how do you pitch
to someone like this? How do you get introduced (especially if you're in
Europe)?

~~~
krav
Not easy. Connections, basically. Better yet, build something on your own that
gets traction. Then Angels / VCs will come knocking on your door.

He's the top Angel in the valley. It's like asking, how do I pitch "Speilberg"
when I'm in Europe. Instead, do your own Indie film, get it in film festivals,
get traction, and the right people will find you.

~~~
david927
Perfect answer. Thanks.

------
antirez
Maybe with the Real Time hype my <http://lloogg.com> is worth something?

------
Harj
it's a shame people are figuring out things to term web 3.0 before anyone
figured out how to really monetize web 2.0

------
rokhayakebe
The "Real" real time data mining will happen when credit card companies/banks
offer an API. Otherwise, this whole real time on the web is not that big of a
deal for most people.

