Will Barcelona Lose the Mobile World Congress (ex-3GSM)?

I read, via Carlos Blanco, that Barcelona is very close to losing its status as host to the Mobile World Congress (for old-timers, the old 3GSM conference). Apparently, the organizers are wanting to leave Barcelona because of:

  • Price gouging on the part of hotels during the conference. For example, I know a 3-star hotel up the road that normally costs 150 euros/night, which during the conference was trying to get away with charging 2000 euros/night (yes, three zeros!).
  • Lack of transportation, particularly taxis. This I simply can't understand. Taxi drivers complain they're underpaid, then when an amazing opportunity like MWC comes along they don't show up to get the additional work.
  • High volume of theft against participants. This is where Barcelona's ongoing, ever-present problem with street crime come back to haunt it.
I think it would be tragic for the city to lose such a major, prestigious event. Everyone would lose: hotels, taxis, restaurants, the city government, local startups, barcelona's reach and influence... It's almost like there's a common complacency about Barcelona's status/brand that everyone is just milking and abusing...until that inevitable day when the brand becomes so damaged that people simply leave for alternatives.

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Properazzi is Finalist in Red Herring Competition Again

Looks like Properazzi has for the second year made it to the final 200 companies in Red Herring's annual list of top 100 private technology companies in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa). This is as far as we got last year, but since then the company has been growing like crazy. Maybe this year we'll go all the way. The winners are going to be announced at their conference in a couple of weeks in Malta. Obviously curious to know our own result, but also curious to know how many sister companies in our investor's portfolio, and how many Spanish companies, have made it. Exciting! Will post this also on Recurring Thoughts.

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Something Is Rotten In This World

A true WTF moment: A English soldier, Private Jamie Cooper, loses a leg and a hand in battle in Iraq. Total compensation: 57 thousand pounds. An English civil servant strains his back whilst lifting a printer in the office. Total compensation: 202 thousand pounds. What a disgrace. (footnote: I'm sure the differences in America are even more extreme. I don't have the facts, but I wouldn't be surprised if American soldiers were getting squat for losing limbs in battle, while some asshole spilling coffee on his lap win millions for exposure to such grave and stressful danger). Link: from the Times

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RIP: Arthur C. Clarke

One of the most inspiring authors of my childhood has passed away. Besides being an amazing writer, Arthur C. Clarke was phenomenally brilliant and insanely productive (he wrote 100 books!! *One Hundred*). Thank you for your legacy: good thought-provoking, entertaining books, sharing your passion for science, the invention of radar, the invention of satellites, the source of inspiration of thousands of young science students in the possibility of a better world.

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Is America's "Magic" Over?

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner claims that the "magic is over" for America's image overseas. Is he right? Certainly the politics of George W. Bush has caused great damage to America's standing in the world. And other events have also chipped away at it in recent years: lots of anti-Americans delighted in the images of Hurricane Katrina making the US look like a 3rd world country unable to organize its own relief; and who hasn't been awed by the incredible devaluation of the Dollar in recent months? Nothing is certain in either way, but there are some very strong arguments for why the US will continue to be a global leader for many years to come. To me one of the most powerful is that America's commercial strength is deep, far deeper than what statistics or exchange rates show. I see this list today in Forbes on the top 10 cities in which to do business. Not one of those cities is New York or Chicago or LA or San Fransisco or Dallas or Miami....and yet all are business-friendly, growing quickly, and competing fiercely to attract skilled labor and capital. The sheer wealth of human and capital assets embedded deep within America is a source of tremendous staying power in any crisis. America's got problems, but I think it's completely misguided to write it off.

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Update: The Fascinating, Booming Market for...Laptops

Update: just caught this news from SAI- turns out Apple laptops are skyrocketing in growth in the US, hitting 14% market share on 50-60% growth rates. Makes me wonder why the US and World markets are so disconnected... Yes, laptops. I figured that market would be just a short step behind desktops in market maturity, but I was surprised when a friend sent me this article showing global laptop sales trends (it's in French). Some salient points:

  • The global market grew by a sizzling 41% per year. That's a google-esque growth rate, truly stunning.
  • Among the top 9 brands, Asus is the fastest-growing (50%). Asus is a monster company from Taiwan that started as a motherboard supplier.
  • Apple gets tons of credit for it's fast-growing laptop business, but its growth rate (38%) is actually *below* the market average. So in spite of great growth, Apple is losing market share in laptops.
  • The fastest growing laptop seller is called "All Others" (sizzling 64% growth!). That is, the laptop market is becoming more, not less, fragmented over time.
Interesting stuff.

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BlackBerry is the Best!

I've been using a Nokia N95 for a year, and have just switched to BlackBerry (during which I also took a good look at the iPhone). And all I can say is, WOW. The BlackBerry is a business user's Godsend, with tons of little details specifically tuned to business users' needs. The keyboard is fantastic, the browsing a bit slow but easily better than my old Nokia. The calendar and email are killer. I even use the to-do list, and other little apps. I know, I'm very late to this party, but the truth is that most business people still use interfaces designed for consumer use, and have no idea just how much of a difference to their productivity getting the BB makes. On a side note: I find it interesting that after about a decade of using almost only Nokia and SonyEricsson phones, my shortlist this year was between two 'outsider' companies: Apple and RIM. Interesting changes are afoot... Further side note: it seems to me that *finally* mobile phones are supporting strong, differentiated brands that are actually meaningful. When a plane has landed and you see people whip out their phones, it actually says something about someone whether they're holding a BlackBerry Curve, or an iPhone, or some other brand. Just like with cars. Interesting signal to Nokia: it's not strong enough to differentiate your brands by model numbers: i.e. teenagers use 6310's and retirees 6630's or whatever....

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Trabber searching hotels now

I think it's great that local startup Trabber has now added hotel search to its site. Oscar Frias, one of the site's co-founders, tells me this move should greatly enhance the experience of his growing userbase, now exceeding 7,000 per day. Taking advantage of the exchange to ask about any initial impact from Kayak's entry into Spain, Oscar said they've seen no effect on their growth. I gave the new hotel search functionality a try, and it works well and at the same standard as the flights search. Missing a maps functionality, though- something which I've found does come in quite handy in browsing for hotels.

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Recession Watch: some interesting anecdotal evidence

It's always interesting to try to reconcile press headlines about the economy with what's actually happening around you. Here are some datapoints that have come my way this week, most of which are pointing to a nasty recession already taking place:

  • Cabbie with no fares. I get into a cab, terribly late to a lunch across town. The driver, who nearly comes flying into the pavement to pick me up before another cab, tells me I'm his first customer of the day. It's past 2pm. Then he says that business so far in 2008 is the worst he can ever remember, and that it was already starting late in 2007.
  • Cafe with no customers. Next day, I go into a cafe with two colleagues to have an end of day meeting. It's already past 7pm. But the place looks about ready to close, so we hesitate when stepping inside. The bartender tells us that since there had been no customers *at all* during the afternoon that she just decided to prepare closing a couple hours early.
  • Shops with no tenants. Getting a coffee this morning on my way to work I happened upon a conversation between locals in our neighborhood, gossiping about the massive oversupply in retail space in the area. Lots of shops available to rent, but no tenants in sight. Some of these places have been empty for many months.
  • PR firms with bankrupt clients. A friend of mine in the UK is in the process of hiring a PR firm for his company, and was asked abruptly by the firm to prepay all the next three months' retainers because many of their 'thought-to-be solvent customers' were now communicating an inability to pay the firm's invoices.
Oddly, in the US where things are meant to be worse than in Europe, friends and suppliers are reporting excellent business. Only a few people connected to the mortgage industry are having a very tough time. Just some data points, nothing worth extrapolating from. But it does highten sensitivity to what may be a major turn in economic conditions around the corner. On a side note, getting an accurate, bigger picture of trends like this is something I've always wanted to do with the massive data that we are generating at Properazzi. We've started analyzing real estate for sale and for rent on an ad-hoc basis for some professionals asking us for very precise analytic queries, with interesting results. It would be interesting to explore this further...

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