E-mail
del.icio.us
Technorati
DiggSergio Monsalve, a principal at Norwest Venture Partners who used to work at Photobucket, said that companies need to realize that web-delivered products are services that need to be constantly updated. He is searching for startups in these three areas:
1) SMS - Wants to provide the ability to use SMS as a platform with more functionality
2) MMOG - Massively multiplayer online gaming companies such as World of Warcraft
3) UGC - Finding companies that realize they are limited by the quality --not quantity-- of content
Chi-Hua Chien, an associate at Accel who was instrumental in the firm's Facebook investment, said he's thinking about communications innovations and virtual worlds. He added that one of the main challenges investors have now is that there's no technological defensibility in many of these startups. So, he looks for structural advantages. In the case of Facebook, he suggested that its edge was a regional monopoly gained when so many students at so many schools used the service. Then, its market position became defensible.
For more on the Next Generation Tech conference, see:
ABC News video
San Francisco Chronicle
GigaOm
Tags: sdforum, vc, venture+capital
