Thursday, February 24, 2005

More M2M Austin Mills of SensorLogic (see comment on post below) suggested checking out another M2M Weblog at http://machineblog.com. I did. It also is very new. I would like to know who is sponsoring it, though. Who is Dennis Baldwin? One thing about Steve Pazol's blog is that he identifies all the principal bloggers (and by the way, only the half-dozen or so bloggers can post, which is an unusual blog) so that you know where they are coming from. Anyway, still looking for an answer to the question, "Who is going to make money in the M2M market?" Thanks Austin. I've added it to my RSS feed. 1:10:58 PM    comment []

M2M Some of the leading proponents of a system called M2M -- for "machine-to-machine" -- have started a blog at http://www.m2mblog.com. Steve Pazol president of nPhase posted a blog called the M2M Inflection Point. For those not familiar with the technology S curve, analysts say that a new technology starts out with low adoption for a period of time (the bottom of the S) until suddenly something like a critical mass, great new application, price drop, whatever, makes the market take off so rapidly it's almost vertical on a chart (the middle part of the S). That point is the inflection point. It's what every investor is guessing about and predicting on every new technology. You have to invest close to, but never after, that point to achieve riches. Anyway, Steve talks about chatting with a "VC" which in this case means, I presume, venture capitalist. The VC wanted to know about the inflection point of the M2M market. Steve replied by analyzing his market, noting how fragmented it is. I beleve the question was something like this, "Steve, when is your company going to reach the inflection point? When should I invest in an M2M supplier company? Or, should I?" So I wrote to Steve and asked him those questions. What companies are going to benefit from M2M? How will they benefit, i.e. growing or being bought out? When will that happen? Will the market eventually just be absorbed by the "big guys?" What's your vision of the future business of M2M? I'm still waiting for an answer, but a PR person for his company is setting up appointments at National Manufacturing Week in two weeks. Maybe I'll find out something then. 9:33:22 AM    comment []

Ads Embedded in Online News Raise Questions. The practice of generating revenue by embedding keywords into online news articles to steer readers to advertisements is generating debate. By By NAT IVES. [NYT > Technology] I edit a magazine, Automation World (http://www.automationworld.com/). Being a business-to-business book, it is free to subscribers. Our income is derived principally from advertising. This makes for a never-ending tension between the sales folks who feel great need to get "press" for their advertisers and prospects and editors who are journalists wishing to maintain integrity assuring readers that what is written is valuable--not just paid for. That's one part of this article that disturbs me. Read it and look at the example of an article on rising oil prices. The article, in all facets apparently good journalism, cites the Conference Board. That is still good journalism. Now I've been trained on Web hyperlinks that when a name is highlighted, underlined or otherwise marked out the link will go to the Web site of that entity. However, the business types in this case sold the word "conference" to someone not the Conference Board. So when someone clicks on the highlighted word "conference" they are directed not to the Conference Board, but to another Web site. I'm beginning to think that the Web stands not for information but for deceit. Marketers are continually looking for ways to "trick" people into hitting a link that is paid for. Even worse are the tricks designed to download programs that execute on your machine unbeknownst to you that track your online history in order to provide marketers information so that you can be targeted with perhaps unwanted ads. Check out Brian Livingstons' newsletter at http://www.WindowsSecrets.com/050224. Now I'm not opposed to advertising. It's a good way to see what's going on in the world's you are intrested in. You find out about new products or new companies in the market. And if I'm considering a purchase, I search them out for comparison shopping. But I want to make the choice. I don't want to be tricked, especially if the trickery clogs up my machine. I download no program that I didn't consciously go after. I never believe that there's something truly for free. You really need to check out your sources. In that vein, we at Automation World (and others in the industry that I know) try darn hard to be a trusted source. 8:52:51 AM    comment []