Keen On… Anand Rajarama...

Anand Rajaraman is one of Silicon Valley’s less well-known superstars. A successful serial entrepreneur, the Indian born, Stanford educated Rajaraman co-founded Junglee in 1996 which he later sold to Amazon for $250 million. After running Amazon’s technology strategy and inventing its Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing marketplace, Rajaraman then co-founded Cambrian Ventures before going on to found the web guide Kosmix which he sold to Walmart for an undisclosed sum last April. And now the multi-talented Rajaraman, who is still based in Mountain View, is the SVP at Walmart Global eCommerce as well as the guy in charge of the newly created collaboration network @WalmartLabs, So what, exactly, is Rajaraman trying to do at Walmart? I asked him, when he came into our San Francisco studio to talk to me about his new gig. Social and mobile are fundamentally changing the way we shop, the Walmart SVP explained. There is now a blurring of the lines between physical retailing and e-commerce as shoppers now have a single identity which ties together the online and brick-and-mortar experience. His job, Rajaraman explained, is to make both mobile and social integral to everything that Walmart is doing, both on and offline. As it says on @WalmartLabs Twitter page: Retail + Social + Mobile = @WalmartLabs The opportunity for Walmart, the ex-Amazon executive told me, is to “leapfrog” over Amazon and seize the leadership of the next generation retail experience. And if anyone can pull off this daunting feat, it’s Anand Rajaraman, an entrepreneur, investor and technologist who has been successfully reinventing online commerce since the mid Nineties.

India’s Times Internet ...

A few years ago, we saw a wave of startups ( such as Cake Financial and Covestor ) that tried to reinvent the way people made financial decisions, usually by adding social features or more data and analytics. Now elements of that approach are coming to India with the launch of ET Speed . The site was created by Times Internet Limited , the online arm of India’s Times Group. As the name suggests, the big emphasis is real-time information — users should be able to track Indian stocks in real-time. They can also follow other users (including some yet-to-be-named financial experts, according to TIL), sharing and receiving financial advice. CEO Rishi Khiani that the site was created “keeping in mind the requirements of the Indian consumers — a mix of real time news/analysis, expert advice and community advice.” He characterizes the whole combination as a “Twitter-like strategy.” The “ET” in the site name refers to The Economic Times , whose website receives 7 million unique visitors a month. Khani says ET editorial staff will play a role in curating ET Speed. “ET has largely been a publishing site, with little interactivity,” he says. “We understand that ET has a unique set of visitors with great insights and knowledge within their respective domains. However, we did not have any tool or product to allow the readers to share this with others and benefit from this knowledgebase. With ET Speed, we believe we have made a beginning.” TIL seems to be pretty busy launching new properties — last week, I covered the announcement of Tweek , a weekly tablet-only magazine aggregating content from a number of Times Group publications, created in partnership with startup Genwi .

What On Earth Is Google...

Just spotted in Orkut , Google’s also-ran social networking site: a new Google+ badge, one of the first integrations between the two services. Orkut members who also have a Google+ account are now being rewarded in the form of a badge reading “Google+ user,” which they can choose to make visible on their Orkut profile. No, it’s not a big deal in terms of the feature itself ( oooh , a badge ), but it’s an indication of Orkut’s current status in Google’s eyes. Orkut and Google+ are different products, and both sites will continue to exist, the company tells us today by way of explanation. “Orkut has a large user base, especially in Brazil and India, and we will continue to invest in the product,” notes a Google spokesperson. Wait really? How on earth does that fit in with your current social strategy? Sorry, Google, continuing Orkut support just doesn’t make any sense. The badge was spotted over on Indian tech blog pluggd.in , which prompted the inquiry into Google’s official position on the matter. The company says that over time, it will determine how to best integrate the two products, and that we’re just now starting to see this play out. Things like the Google+ badge, a minor, non-threatening, but obviously awareness-raising new feature is one of those first steps. Orkut, which still has a sizeable audience of 66 million, thanks to Brazil and India, is still far from dead, though it’s now losing out to Facebook in its home country of Brazil ( comScore , January 2011). Google continues to support the service, even confusingly releasing a new Orkut iPhone app just last month, a move some dubbed “too little, too late.” The increased Facebook usage in the few countries where Orkut once had an edge impacts Orkut’s metrics, but the shift is gradual. The service even grew by 5% in Brazil over 2011 and it’s still the 3rd most popular social network in India, behind Facebook and YouTube. So it’s not that users are shutting down their Orkut accounts, necessarily, it’s that, in time, they’ll slowly abandon them as they migrate to Facebook. It’s not too unlike how we all collectively moved from MySpace to Facebook. It didn’t happen overnight. (You may even still have a MySpace account, but the question is, when is the last time you checked it?) Given the declining mindshare for Orkut, however, Google’s continued support for the service doesn’t seem to make much sense. Now is the time to strike, before Orkut turns into a wasteland of inactive accounts. Now is the time to shift those users over to Google+. What’s surprising is how gentle the Orkut to Google+ shift is beginning – a huge difference from Google’s other efforts at forcing G+ signups across its platform. New Orkut iPhone apps? That’s a confusing message for a company that has pushed Google+ at all costs since its 2011 launch, even to the extent of compromising search results and cluttering up its stark homepage with a “share” button. But with Orkut, Google just treats a large chunk of the world’s social networking users as “those other folks,” using that “different product.” Sorry, Google, that’s wrong. If your agenda is to kindly shove Google+ down the web’s collective throats through  controversial Google+ search result favoritism, forced registrations , cross-platform unification  and the like, why does Orkut get a pass? Look, I may not be a fan of the pushy, inorganic growth strategy Google has adopted for Google+, but it’s a strategy . And 90 million accounts later , one could even argue that it’s a strategy that’s working. But Google, if you’re going to go all in, don’t flounce around with Orkut. There’s a narrow window to push those Google-loving, social networking holdouts from one Google product to the next. Kill the Orkut iPhone apps, forget the silly badges, and announce to the entire Orkut user base that all data will be migrated (or will be exportable) to Google+ in X number of days. Then prepare your blog post touting all the new users Google+ now has. ( Sigh ). Image credit, Orkut badge: Pluggd.in .

Top Online Auctioneer S...

Last week, we wrote about a startup called Paddle8 , which raised $4 million from Founder Collective in an attempt to marry an “online destination for both beginner and veteran collectors to access fine art works” with a transaction platform that looks to automate (from top to bottom) the purchase, sale, and shipping of fine art. Albeit niche, it is an interesting play, for the very reason that, while there has been growing interest among investors and entrepreneurs in luxury brands and disruptive ideas targeting this niche, lucrative market, the fine art space has remained largely outside of the reach of technological innovation and disruption. As the art world and the market for fine art and collectible items have becoming increasingly international, one would think digital platforms and technology would help speed their growth, open up new markets, and make transactions more seamless. After all, eBay was founded in the mid-90′s. When one looks to the international scene to find the prime movers of tech-based platforms, one of the names that surfaces is Saffronart . Saffronart was founded in 2000, taking a page from eBay’s book, as an online auction house — yet one that specializes in modern and contemporary Indian art. Almost immediately, the company found an audience, quickly selling $125K worth of fine art. Despite some bumps along the way (the global financial crisis in 2008 wreaked havoc on the art market), Saffronart has grown to be the largest fine-art auction house in India, online or otherwise, and one of the largest online fine art auction platforms in the world. Its model has been successful enough to make it recently became the subject of a Harvard Business School case study and prompted art auction giants Sotheby’s and Christie’s to jump into the Asian market. Since “officially” launching in 2001, Saffronart has come to deal not only in fine art, but jewelry, watches, collectibles, and even homes. The online auction house has played a role in some of the largest online art auction sales, as Co-founder Nish Bhutani tells us that it (by all accounts I could verify) set the global record for highest value for a single piece of artwork auctioned on the Web — a $2.2 million canvas in 2010, and one of the highest auction bids placed via a mobile app ($1 million in 2011), along with a $235K purchase via the company’s mobile app in 2010. For Saffronart’s main auction events, which are 2-day auctions offering 100 or so works on sale, the average per-transaction value of artworks is between $40K and $100K. And, as indicated in the prior statistics, a big part of the company’s success has been that its auction platform includes both a web experience as well as for mobile devices, as it offers apps for iPhone, BlackBerry, and iPad. Saffronart re-launched its iPad app a few days ago. (Auctions are held entirely on the Web, too, in case there’s any confusion there.) Back in 2007, seeing some good early traction, Saffronart raised $12 million from Sequoia and Baer Capital, which the co-founder said was instrumental in allowing it to survive the financial downturn. Part of Saffronart’s appeal to investors was the alternative it was provided to physical auction houses through place-shifting — in other words, as the art market becomes more global and as buyers pop up across the world, success in the market requires businesses to cater to all locations by way of live bidding from mobile devices, etc. What’s more, although its auctions are 24 or 48 hour events, Saffronart thinks it provides an advantage to bidders located in different time zones, who get to experience the convenience of being able to log in and bid over an extended period of time, versus the traditional 3-hour timeframe of physical auctions. Being on the Web also benefits users in that they can find out more about Saffronart itself as well as objects being sold, view catalogs, register to bid, etc. There’s that and the ability to offer a higher level of transparency than physical action houses, including comparable prices, additional charges (commissions, shipping, etc.), and dynamic updating based on current bid values, shipping destinations, and all that good stuff. Offering digital service also allows Saffronart to be more nimble, enabling them to experiment and move quickly. For example, in the past few months, the startup has increased the number of auctions they offer as well as new selling mechanisms, like “absolute auctions,” which have no reserve prices and bidding starts at $100, even for artworks worth tens of thousands of dollars. Which brings us to the announcement the company is making today. Saffronart has been, up to this point, solely focused on the sale of Indian fine art, watches, and other luxury items. While it has become the largest online auction platform for fine art in India, 40 percent of sales come from outside India. Of course, the majority of that 40 percent is driven by Indians living overseas. Saffronart has had offices in New York and London for years now, and plenty of international buyers, but the company has never offered Western art in its auctions. Today, the company announced its entry into Western art with an inaugural auction of impressionist and modern art pieces — a first for India. The auction offers works from Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, and more in a total of 73 lots and includes paintings, drawings, and sculptures. The auction is taking place at Saffronart.com over the course of February 15th and 16th (today and tomorrow). You can also check out Saffronart’s new iPad app here. Western art obviously represents a big strategic push for Saffron to further expand its reach into international markets, and Bhutani says that the company plans to ramp up these kinds of Western art auctions in the near future. For those interested in checking out Saffronart’s live auction summary, you can see it here , and the auction catalog is here . (Although it should be noted that Saffronart requires its bidders to apply for approval in order to make bids, although everyone is welcome to apply. Generally, this means that Saffron checks out a combination of bank references, credit checks, etc.)

Twitter, Democracy, and...

Editor’s Note: Richard Fontaine , a Senior Advisor at the Center for a New American Security, is the co-author of Internet Freedom: A Foreign Policy Imperative in the Digital Age . Follow him @rhfontaine . Twitter has taken fire in recent days from activists and bloggers who fear that the company’s new censorship policies will muffle online freedom. News reports recall the ways in which protestors have had made use of Twitter to oppose dictatorships, and dissidents express concern that their ability to communicate will be harmed. The more immediate issue, however, may lie elsewhere. Twitter’s new policies demonstrate vividly the complicated relationship between Internet freedom and democratic government. The complications take on greater importance in light of America’s global Internet freedom strategy. The U.S. government began an active policy of promoting Internet freedom in the second George W. Bush term, and its efforts have accelerated in the Obama administration. The State Department devotes tens of millions of dollars to support technology and training for online dissidents, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has given a series of major speeches highlighting the issue. In one , she invoked Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous four freedoms, added a fifth — the “freedom to connect” — and observed that “the spread of information networks is forming a new nervous system for our planet.” It is easy to imagine two sides locked in pitched battle over Internet freedom: The democracies, embracing the freedom to connect for all, and the dictatorships, who censor, monitor, and disrupt. Indeed, pressing the cause of Internet freedom has thus far generally meant taking on autocracies, like Beijing and its Great Firewall, the Mubarak regime when it shuttered Egypt’s Internet during the 2011 protests, or Iran as it systematically monitors domestic dissidents. But it has become increasingly clear that autocracies alone do not challenge Internet freedom; democracies do as well. In the blog post explaining its new policy, Twitter hit on this truth, noting that the company will be active in “countries that have different ideas” than the United States “about the contours of freedom of expression.” All democracies restrict speech to some degree, and the forms of banned expression vary, ranging from child pornography (which is illegal virtually everywhere) to hate speech (banned in Europe and other places but not the United States) to country-specific expression (such as criticism of national heroes or monarchs). America, however, is an outlier. The United States recognizes some limits on free expression – slander, perjury, “fighting words” and certain other forms of expression are illegal online or off – but its commitment to free speech is nevertheless the most absolute of any major country. This puts it in potential conflict with fellow democracies about what constitute legitimate restrictions on online expression. Given Washington’s role as the world’s most active proponent of Internet freedom, it also complicates its efforts to rally fellow democracies behind the cause. The examples of differing democratic practice abound. Witness, for example, the recent request by Indian telecommunications minister Kapil Sibal to Google, Yahoo, Facebook and others that they remove content deemed insulting to leaders of the Indian Congress party. Mr. Sibal pledged that his government would take unspecified steps to act if the private sector would not. This month, during a hearing on a related case , an Indian high court justice said that, “like China,” the government could block websites entirely if their hosts do not remove offensive content. Turkey banned YouTube for two years because it refused to remove videos that Turkish courts deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Germany and other countries prohibit Holocaust denial online, and France bans the sale of Nazi paraphernalia over the Internet. Governments in Britain, Italy and Germany have established lists of blocked websites – generally those containing child pornography, hate speech, or online gambling platforms – even though those lists are not always transparent. The differences arise not only in national policy, but in international law as well. A number of European democracies, including Denmark, France, Slovenia and Switzerland, have signed an additional protocol to the European Convention on Cybercrime , which requires them criminalize such acts as using computers to distribute xenophobic material or insult people because of their race, religion, or ethnic origin. The United States faces its own potential contradictions. Secretary Clinton used one of her major addresses on Internet freedom to explain why the notion did not apply when Wikileaks published thousands of classified cables online. A district court recently ruled that, as part of its lawful intercept authorities, the Justice Department can seize Twitter feeds. And then there is the tremendous debate that has emerged over the Stop Online Privacy Act. The truth is that the U.S. government will always enforce some limits on free expression, and our political system will continually wrestle with where the limits should be drawn. But we should not allow this to undermine the important cause of promoting global Internet freedom. Authoritarian governments will inevitably attempt to shield themselves from criticism and pressure by pointing to democracies that ban online expression. Denying them the opportunity to do so successfully will require the United States and other to articulate, publicly and consistently, the critical distinction between the restrictions placed on online speech by democracies and the repression favored by many autocracies. The distinction rests not only in the kind of banned speech, but also in the process by which the decision to restrict it is made. True democracies bar forms of expression based on law and regulation, and they make decisions to do so in accordance with due process. Their pronouncements are generally transparent, with decision makers accountable to the law, to legislatures, and ultimately to the people, who can turn them out of office in periodic elections. There is a world of difference between a democracy banning speech on “security” grounds when the citizens know what the decision is, who made it, and how to change it, and a dictatorship banning its own “security”-infringing speech by autocratic fiat. It is crucial to make that distinction clear. Doing so can benefit America’s diplomatic effort to promote Internet freedom, and it may also help guide policymakers at home. Resolving tough new issues often involves complex considerations of technology, law, and fundamental principle. In remembering what makes a democratic approach to the Internet distinctive, we might avoid falling prey to measures that would suggest we are otherwise.