Mark Kolier’s Blog

Archive for May, 2011

One of the benefits to my studying Mandarin is recognizing some Chinese words and phrases. This week RenRen http://www.RenRen.com – a Chinese company raised $ 740 million in an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. RenRen in Chinese means ‘everyone’.

With 450 million internet users in China and Facebook access disallowed by the PRC, buying RenRen stock is a bet that despite Mark Zuckerberg’s continuing efforts, Facebook is not likely to make any headway in China in the near future. Since I don’t see too many people outside of China using the RenRen platform, RenRen isn’t for ‘everyone’.

The IPO was successful in that it was offered around $ 14/share and closed today at just under $ 17/share. Not a home run but something to consider as a buy and hold since its potential user-base of 450 million people and counting is a number to reckon with.

The problem with RenRen right now is that in 2010 the company lost money. That is in stark comparison to Facebook’s $ 2 billion annual income projection. However it does not take a huge leap of faith to believe that RenRen will be profitable shortly and quite possibly in a big way.

Alternative social networks to Facebook pop up all over the place but companies trying to make a dent in Facebook’s lead have been largely unsuccessful. RenRen will by default be successful unless the Chinese government allows Facebook access for Chinese citizens. Something I don’t suspect will happen in the near or even far future.

I think it’s sad that Chinese people will continue to not have the opportunity to interact on the world’s social network – Facebook. So while RenRen serves a purpose of offering Chinese people a social network interface, we all suffer due to the limitations of access.

I am guessing non-Chinese people will not be in a hurry to set up their own RenRen account. But maybe I am wrong?

”Tis the season of IPO’s” and last week proved that with the offering of shares in car-sharing pioneer ZipCar. Nearly $ 175 million was raised creating a market cap of more than $ 600 million. The rent-as-you-need-it company founded in 2000 is trying to stave off car rental giant Hertz which launched ‘Connect’ in 2008. ‘Zipsters’ as users are referred to carry cards that enable them to access the fleet 24/7 (as the keys are inside) without necessarily making a reservation (although it is recommended that you do make a reservation).

The concept of car-sharing is very appealing (to me at least) and I daresay even green. At the Low-carbon business development forum I attended in Shenzhen a little over a week ago ZipCar was referred to as an embodiment of progressive transportation. I noticed little mention of Hertz Connect.

As the concept and business model matures there have been some rumblings of inadequate automobile liability insurance provided for ZipCar’s 560,000+ members. In an April 22nd article in the NY Times http://nyti.ms/ilpP4N both ZipCar and Hertz were cited as offering liability coverage that is sorely lacking. More members would obviously increase the pool and perhaps allow for the upper limits to be raised to the more traditional $ 1,000,000.

I’ve a few friends that are ZipCar members and they proudly note that they do not own an automobile and flash their card as evidence of being green. Decidedly ZipCar is for city dwellers and university students. For $ 13/hour you pick up the car at the ZipCar lot, drive it for as long as you need and return it; gas up to 180 miles per day, reserved parking and insurance are all included.

There’s something very green about not owning a car and city dwellers actually are greener on a per capita basis than non-city dwellers. ZipCar still has a first mover advantage (ZipCar bought Flexcar in 2008). An article in Fortune magazine last month did a good job of summarizing the advantages and environmental benefits of car sharing http://bit.ly/m8Vqyr.

Car sharing is an idea that is ready to take off in my opinion. But Americans are married to their cars and it will take time for car sharing to take hold beyond its niche status at present.

Would you give up your car?

Having just returned from China and a trip to South Carolina I’ve had to use a mobile phone (it’s a Blackberry Storm) as my primary communication device for nearly two weeks. Although I won’t get into the problems that Research in Motion (RIM) has in general with loss of subscribers and a still paltry amount of applications, I have to report that the BB Storm performed admirably and reliably.

Despite the BB Storm’s limited apps, the ones I have downloaded, I use on a consistent basis. Even the Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter applications worked from my phone while I was in China although access via the hotel’s internet connection from my laptop was denied. I read newspapers, watched videos on YouTube, checked email, used Google Maps to find where I was going and even tried Foursquare (it worked fine but all the locations were written in Mandarin characters so that was a bit tricky).

In recent years mobile phones have been designated as the ‘third screen’. The idea is that television and computers are the other two screens. But in this increasingly fast paced and mobile world a smartphone is no longer a luxury but a necessity for many people – including me. My internet connection in the hotel in Shenzhen was glacially slow, such that at times I just did not even bother trying to do things that I would normally accomplish in a nanosecond here at home. Instead I used my mobile phone.

I also find myself using mobile sites with increasing frequency. In so doing I’ve found that many companies do a poor job of creating a good mobile experience for their customers and prospects. (Full disclosure – our team is building mobile sites for clients so we are attuned to this issue). With smartphone adoption continuing to grow the importance of having a really good mobile site has never been greater and will continue to grow.

I think mobile should be considered the first screen. A mobile phone is within arm’s reach at all times for most people and is likely the first screen people look at each morning.

How about you? Is your mobile phone ever out of sight or access? Is it the first thing you look at in the morning? Are you doing more and more on your smartphone?