Random Musings
o so good:D
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOTU6P8xHMA&hl=en]
yesterday we filmed episode 35 of the gigaom show over at the revision 3 studios. prager, hansen (our producer), josh (camera) and don (superstar) were all in attendance as well. it was the first episode that Om has filmed since his heartattack in december and i must say, it was wonderful having him back:) at first, it was quite nerve wracking to have to main host the episodes myself. the seat is a hard one to fill!
over the past 35 episodes, we have learned a lot about internet video shows, how to do news analysis for video versus print, production cycles, and the list goes on and on. we are still learning new things each day. i hope folks tune in for our next episode as we will be sharing some thoughts about our lives since the show started and give you all an update on our plans moving forward.
i leave tomorrow morning for a few day trip to nyc. i will be heading to a wedding of a dear friend from college, meeting with a cool youth marketing agency called project 2050, meeting up with some old korea town connections (yea, gangsta, i know =P) and stopping by the nextweb event on monday. let’s see whats popping back at home:)
one of the cool companies i previewed in the latest episode of the gigaom show is olaworks, a facial recognition software company based in seoul, korea. i stopped by their office while i was in seoul and saw a demo, played with a mobile phone that had their software and talked shop with the team.
founded by a very bright engineer from KAIST, junghee ryu, the team has been together since 2006. they have spent the past two years building a kick ass product that works better than anything i saw at techcrunch 40. yet, since they are so far from silicon valley, no one is familiar with them. names like riya and viewdle are more common place, but i do think the guys at olaworks have an edge on our SV natives in terms of tech, though they may be lacking in terms of business development.
this raises the question - how should overseas start-ups go about getting a foothold in the US market? do you go for the US bloggers first? try to partner with a good strategic US partner? open an office? hire white guys? or gals? the options are many, but any decision must obviously be influenced by the product, target consumer, natural viral strengths or disadvantages of the product, the team… however, i do think it is important to get people on the ground in the market you want to conquer, especially when you need to win over the tech folks. the speed of development and business and the vocabulary changes fast here. and it is very easy to fall behind.
well, with news that competitor viewdle announced a new round of funding today, i hope olaworks makes their grand entrance into the international stage sooner rather than later!
