Tunewiki Breaks Into Top 10 Free iPhone Music Apps on Day 1

Congrats again to Rani, Amnon, Chad, Jared and team Tunewiki for an amazing iPhone app launch. Just days after taking the #1 overall spot in Blackberry's Appworld in the first week since launch of their Blackberry app, Tunewiki launched its iPhone app and on day 1 of launch Tunewiki has broken into the top 10 free music apps on iPhone (see screenshot below).  Tunewiki is also getting quite the buzz and positive response on Twitter Search. Here is the Gizmodo review from today. Go team (Full Disclosure:Tunewiki is a Benchmark investment)!

Tunewiki Is the #1 App in Blackberry AppWorld

Kudos to portfolio company Tunewiki (Rani, Amnon, Chad, Jared and Team) who reached #1 on the Blackberry Appworld chart yesterday.

Tunewiki is really one of the best examples I have run into of the realtime, ubiquitous web.  

You can check out the website, with its Geography-filtered REAL-TIME music maps and top 50 charts as well as the addictive REALTIME feed of who is listening to what, where and on what device (see screen shot below)! The instant translation of LEGAL music lyrics is a big hit internationally and the fact that you can access the same experience in multiple places, mobile, web and Twitter (check out the people tweeting out what they are listening to) is what makes it ubiquitous.

If you are a music lover, eager to discover music and watch the trends and learn lyrics, you have to try Tunewiki.  If you have a blackberry or an Android phone, you can download the app. Hopefully it will soon arrive in the iPhone Appstore. In the meantime, Windows Media Player users can also get the app for their PC.

For more reviews on various tunewiki apps, check out these

Gizmodo on Tunwiki for Android

Cnet Reviews on Tunewiki App + Streaming Radio

Crackberry on Tunewiki for Blackberry

Blog coverage of Tunewiki

While on the topic of music sites and apps, I see that SAI is reporting the Greylock's David Sze led a $35MM round for Pandora after they got their royalty agreement straightened out.

Michael Jackson Killed the Iranian Revolution

For over a week the people of Iran captured the imagination of the world, tweeting, youtube-ing and texting their way to international support.  Despite the best efforts of the Mullahs, Ayatolla Khameni and "President" Ahmandinejad, who cut the internet lines and jammed cell phone, the green people revolution marched on.  The Iranian oppressors were on the run, or so it seemed, even though western leaders such as President Obama, did little to support the Iranian people. Civilians around the world set up proxy servers, retweeted information from Iran, and spread YouTube videos of Neda and others. in fact #iranelection and other variants of it, occupied the top 3-4 spots in the Twitter top 10 for over a week.

That was, until Michael Jackson died. The 50 year old Pedophile, with the plastic face and unauthentic hair knocked the real people of Iran off the top 4 spots on twitter within hours of his death. Instead of retweeting the heroism of the people of Iran, they were speculating on the reasons for Jackson's "untimely" death. His death propelled his songs to the top of the download charts and and moved Neda's death down the charts. The Pedophile overtook the student revolution and the world's attention to the events in Iran waned. 1.6 million people signed up for the Michael Jackson memorial at the Staples Center tomorrow but only a small fraction of that number turned up to support rallies for the Iranian people.  The contrast and the irony is too great. Even today, Michael Jackson is in spot #4 and #iranelection is number 8. The people of the world have lost interest in Iran and Jackson continues to grab headlines.

We have a problem. If our attention and that of the news media can be swayed from earth shattering events and real people, fighting real oppression with the ease that Michael Jackson swayed it, we have a problem. If we are riveted by a miscreant pedophile, who lived extravagantly and ran away from reality, then we have lost our moral compass. Twitter is a pretty accurate reflection of what people are thinking and CNN is a reflection of what media people are thinking. Jackson is ahead of Iran on Twitter and the top story on CNN today was Jackson's memorial. We have a problem.

Do We Really Make Our Own Decisions?

Koby at Seeking Alpha forwarded me this fascinating video of Dan Ariely's talk at the TED conference this year. I highly recommend watching it.

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange

Esther Levanon, CEO of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, gave the below interview on CNBC this morning. A few comments:

1. If Israel wants to attract serious foreign investment and liquidity to the TASE, it needs to get the liquidity up in the big companies and that means loosening the grip of the "Tycoons" on the big companies. We need a carrot approach that gives tax relief to tightly controlled companies to sell their stock to the public. This would also help retire a lot of the debt they have on the books.

2. Getting more liquidity on the TASE and the deal with the NYSE could possibly help Israel's tech companies raise later stage funding for which there is a severe shortage in Israel. We need local liquidity options to jump start that funding base.

3. While Mrs. Levanon has done a much better job than any of her predecessors in getting the word out on Israeli financial markets and in expanding their global reach (I have now seen her twice on CNBC and interviews in the written press), we need to get her some help and training in English. Like many Israeli spokesman from the Foreign Ministry down, Press training and English Language skills are sorely lacking. 

You can see some of my stocktalks and posts on Israeli companies on my page on Seeking Alpha

Kiteboarding VCs and Entrepreneurs

Here is a shout out to my partner Arad,  and CEO of Tunewiki Rani Cohen, Kitesurfers extraordinaire and great partners!

**Update - My Partner Arad sent over two pictures of himself KiteBoarding!

*** Update 2 - Dave Yovanno, CEO of Gigya, Sent over a video and picture of Himself Kiteboarding nearly horizontal with a big wake and Rani Cohen, CEO of Tunewiki, sent one of himself airborne.

Dave Y. Emma Wood Kiteboarding from 1wave on Vimeo.

Stanley Fisher's Dollar/Shekel Dilemma

As the Dollar weakened over the last 2 weeks against the Israeli Shekel, per my prediction, Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fisher is up against a difficult dilemma. Fisher managed to lower the value of the shekel by dropping interest rates and buying up dollars on the open market. But he is running out of choices because interest rates are already very low and I do not think he wants to get stuck holding a currency (Dollar) that is rapidly devaluing due to US  inflation fears. The Chinese are facing this dilemma NOW. Printing shekels like the US has done to the dollar is also not an option because the tiny Israeli economy cannot bear 80's style inflation.

As an export economy, Israel depends on its goods andservices being competitive in quality and price in other markets, especially the USA. Furthermore, in tech land, Israeli R&D struggles to be cost-competitive in global markets when the shekel/dollar exchange rate drops much below 4:1 (see chart below). I don't have any bright ideas for Governor Fisher but I do have some suggestions for start ups and Israeli traded public companies. Some of these are rehashed:

1. Plan your budget conservatively. Project a 3.5:1 Shekel:Dollar exchange rate for the rest of the year.
2. If you are a start up or a public company then convert dollars to shekels to cover at least 12 months of shekel-denominated operation costs. There is no reason for you to take currency risk and I imagine that most of you are budgeted at somewhere less than 4:1 which is roughly where the exchange rate is now as it heads south.
3. If you are in investor in an public Israeli company with large shekel exposure (full disclosure: I am invested in Publicly traded MAIL and Babylon) then see what that company's currency hedging policies are.
4. Already create a plan on how you make more with less. As your R&D budget increases in dollar terms, you may be forced to trim staff.

5. Target some non-US markets with your goods on services. This is a good time to be targeting China and India if you can. Those revenues will be more valuable in Shekel terms over the next period of US inflation.

6. Think about putting at least some of your cash reserves in TIPS, which are inflation protected.

None of these are a panacea. The US is still Israel's biggest trading partner and is still the default market for venture backed start ups. But I hope these suggestions will make some of the pain a bit easier.

More reading on inflation here and here  and here @seekingalpha

My previous posts on Dollar/shekel are here (1/08), here (9/08), here and here.

Watch Lebron and Superman Tonight With ALL of Your Friends!

For a long time I have been arguing that the social network is an unnatural place to connect with your friends. In real life, i have different friends in different contextual settings. There are Synagogue friends (no chatting there), Baseball buddies, Political colleagues, Poker buddies (not mine) etc. Today the social world though has much duplication and is a blunt tool. I use Linkedin for business, Twitter (full disclosure: Benchmark company) for link sharing and Facebook for more casual friends but there is a lot of overlap and no context except my status update. What we have always needed is to bring the appropriate friends from all of these social networks to a context.

Facebook Connect was the first step in that direction, enabling my Facebook friends to be with me on Techcrunch, at the Obama inauguration or at one of the other 5000 sites FB connect supports. But I have colleagues and friends on other social nets. Tonight Gigya (full disclosure: Benchmark Company) and Turner are letting you watch the NBA conference championship with all of your friends and all Basketball fans across the world who are not yet on your social net but are guys you would high 5 with at the game or the bar (screen shot below).

Alongside the live video feed of Lebron vs. Dwight Howard, you can invite friends who are in your Facebook AND Myspace AND Twitter networks plus join the chat with thousands of basketball fans world wide and watch it together. You can virtually high-5 and discuss the game with all of those friends and fans. Dwight Howard makes a spectacular block, you can ooh, aah and thump and be heard outside your living room. Want to trade coaching advice whether Orlando should foul Lebron on a last second 3-point shot attempt. Share it and go on the record. You will get feedback in real time. 

So have fun sharing a virtual Bud, High-5, and coaching from your couch with an audience. Watch the game online with your all of your basketball buddies. Watching live sports will never be the same again! 

If you want to start inviting friends to the game, click here!

Is the Israel Policy Forum Really Pro-Israel?

Our good family friend Morton Landowne penned the following letter to the Israel Policy Forum Executive Director Nick Bunzl in response to the IPF's ad in the New York Times. Judge for yourself (a copy of the ad is below and the full size ad is in the previous link). I will add one comment to the ad. "Yes you can" and "Yes you should" are two vastly different comments.

Dear Mr. Bunzl:

I am writing to express my disgust with your “pro-Israel” organization’s $60,000+ gift to the depleted coffers of the New York Times that I encountered on Page A13 of this morning’s edition.

First of all, I find the omission of any reference to the newly, and democratically, elected Prime Minister of the State of Israel, to be a calculated insult.  No, you will point out, this advertisement was intended to address Mr. Obama’s meetings with all “leaders from the region this month.” However, the implication I draw from the ad is that Mr. Obama’s “determination to achieve progress” is based on “implementation without delay” and that Israel shares some of the blame for that situation.

Secondly, I am incredulous that your message ignores the most important threat facing that region:  the creation of a nuclear-armed Iran.  If you are “pro-Israel,” wouldn't you think to urge Mr. Obama to treat that scenario with the seriousness with which Israel views it?

A few more questions:  Why do you accept as fact that the legal demolition of illegally built houses in Jerusalem is an impediment to a resolution of the “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?”  How dare you, a “pro-Israel organization” accept as fact that Israel has created “superfluous checkpoints and unnecessary roadblocks?”  What is the basis of that information?  A press release from Khaleed Mashall?  Why must the Gaza Strip be “reconstructed” if the conditions that led to its destruction have not been ameliorated?  Why must the “Arab Peace Initiative” be embraced if there has not yet been clarification that it will include a renunciation of the “Right of Return?” 

To me, your statement “We Support You, Mr. President,” is a blanket endorsement of unilateral pressure on the sovereign state of Israel.  If you are truly “pro-Israel” then you must know that no government of Israel could long survive if it ignored true gestures leading to peace.  It was Menachem Begin who invited Anwar Sadat to Israel and negotiated the most successful peace treaty in Israel’s history.  It was Ariel Sharon who evacuated Gaza.  Why do you preemptively insult Prime Minister Netanyahu by stating in a full page ad in the New York Times that the President of the United States has to “insist” on steps that would pressure Israel?  No pressure, whatsoever, would be necessary, if Mr. Obama were able to offer Israel a true peace from its neighbors:  recognition as a Jewish State, secure borders, and  monetary  compensation for all those truly displaced by the U.N. Partition.

If the Israel Policy Forum is in fact “an American pro-Israel organization which supports sustained United States leadership to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” then you will give the duly elected government of Israel the benefit of the doubt and urge Mr. Obama to give Israel the assurances it needs to let down its guard.  Nothing else is necessary.

Yours truly,

Morton Landowne

Big Opportunity In Entire Wireless Web in my Pocket

I can't help but escape the following futuristic prediction, you will carry your personal version of the web in your pocket. Let me unpack that sentence:

Carry - on your mobile phone

Personal - Because you will not need the whole web and won't have room to store it all and you only need what YOU want.

Web - Because that is what you want from your phone

In Your Pocket - Because it won't be able to get to the device over the air.

This WSJ Article entitled Demands on Network are an iPhone Hangup gets it right. The laws of physics won't allow wireless bandwidth hogs to be carried synchronously (or asynchronously) over the air, especially not at peak times. This will force networks to build ever-more capacity and it still will not solve the problem. However, there is a solution.

Storage capacity is still increasing at a rapid rate (way faster than bandwidth) and its footprint is shrinking. A terabyte of storage in your home can be less than $100! And today you can already pack 32GB+ on your mobile phone. We are not far from the day where you will be able to get a terabyte of storage in your mobile phone. It is much cheaper to build in storage than it is to build cell towers, even without the physics problem.

What we need is software for that phone that downloads your personal web to your phone and lets you browse it locally. It needs algorithms that are smart enough to know your browsing habits and caching mechanisms to keep it updated. If you need to download the delta because you decided you need something new, that is no big deal. It also needs to do something uniquely mobile which is pre-cache on the phone relevant local data, since much mobile web use is for local information. 

That is the future: Your music library, your email and YOUR WEB in your pocket. We just need the software to get us there. Drop me an email if you have figured it out.