Many startups believe that advertisements are a good way to make
money. However, apart from the big players there is not much space for
others to make money. So looking at advertisement as a monetizing
model is not a good idea.

He also talked about “deportalization”. Previously people went to
sites like yahoo and altavista. There, it was possible to find about
information about many things (stocks, movie listings, weather, etc.),
catch up with friends and families, have an email account, etc.
However, it is different now. People visit blockbuster for movies,
ebay for buying/selling stuff and amazon for buying stuff. Which is
one reason why facebook opened up its API: Companies can now place
their application on facebook. Users of facebook will now visit
facebook to get everything done.

There is a large market for TV based advertising. However, it will not
be as valuable as online search of the future. Companies involved in
search are doing plenty of research to find out more about the people
who use various services online. These would involve metrics such as
how long an individual hovers his/her button over a link or button,
which part of a page a person views, how long they view it, etc. Once
it becomes possible to figure out the demographics of the users based
on this statistics, it will be possible to target advertisments to
this particular market. On the other hand, many people in a family
could be watching the same TV (the parents, a son and a daughter for
example). The father might be interested in cars while the wife might
be interested in clothes while the son might be interested in
computers or hardware. Hence it is difficult to target advertisments
that will interest everyone.

The following books were recommended for reading:
Recommended readings:
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Search
Innovator’s dillemma

Finally, this bit will be of interest to NUSEA.

Satish said do not start a company with the end goal of starting a
company. Instead, find out what you are passionate about. See if
someone else is already doing it. If someone else is doing a good job
in the field of your interest, consider working with them. As for
looking for new ideas, look at companies that have failed. Some would
have failed because it of poor management or team. There are some that
failed because they were ahead of time. Look at the current trends and
see if that technology is feasible now. For example, mobile phones
were ahead of their time. Hence most companies failed when mobile
phone technology was still at its infant stage. Once it became
feasible to mass produce phones cheaply, it became a great product to
sell. Another example is ebay. Barter trade has been around for
thousands of years. With the advent of the internet, it is possible
for hundreds of people to participate in the trade. This would be
simply impossible before internet use exploded.

Warmest Regards,
Anis