Diego Giol Internet and many other things

Well, obviously not everyone can get those returns, but let me tell you, I am seeing that happening over and over.

Let me show you some facts and numbers:

Argentina’s debt rating was upgraded by Standard & Poor’s again last week. For some of you, probably the last time you heard something about Argentina it was either because the national football team was playing an important match or it was three and a half years ago when the economy collapsed.

Well, since those days many things have changed. The economy has been growing almost at a 9% rate for the last three years. The stock market, the real estate market and some other sectors like wine exports and tourism have boomed at incredible rates. Last year, the fiscal surplus was around 3 % of the GDP.

These are some of the reasons why foreign investments in the country rose by 30 % last year. According to S&P the country is expected to grow in 2006 and 2007 as well.

If you are planning to invest there, the opportunities are immense but it is important that you find good advisers. In my case, I have found excellent international advisers that analyze every detail. I also have very good friends in those sectors and thay keep me up to date with the different opportunities.
Some sectors that I consider interesting are:

• The wine industry (it has been growing steadily for many years at high rates). Mendoza produces 70 % of the Argentinean wine.
• Real estate (inexpensive compared to international markets but with incredible returns).
• Partnerships and acquisitions (specially in growing sectors).
• Tourism (since the boom started only three years ago there are still many niches ).

There are still very good deals in to be made there.

Diego Giol

Some of you might have heard about FON, the company created by the entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky. If you have not, well, he basically wants to provide wireless internet access in every possible corner of the planet with the help of a rapidly growing FON community.

The foneros (members of the community) will have the option to choose between earning money when they share their internet access or having a roaming service for free wherever FON is available.

His numbers are impressive. Even though he is just starting with the project and there were no massive marketing campaigns so far, there are already more than 25 000 members spread throughout the world.

Why did both Google and Skype put money into this project?

The answer is kind of obvious, with all the new WiFi handhelds, laptops, smart-phones etc etc. WiFi access is and will be THE way to be connected.

Now imagine this situation: you share your ADSL connection at home through the FON network so if you are going, let’s say, to a different country or to a different city you could theoretically (if the network is available there) use your smart-phone or handheld to make a phone call for free using Skype for mobiles. You could even check how to get to your hotel using Google maps, all for free or at a very very low cost.

I really hope to see my mobile phone with a broadband connection and at reasonable prices. This seemed impossible a few months ago but so far, it looks like they are going to make it possible.

• Skype
• Google
• FON
• Martín Varsavsky’s blog

The Mix06 conference — which is hosted by Microsoft — is taking place in Las Vegas.
From the conference site I found a link to an informal but interesting 17 minutes long interview where Bill Gates talks about new Microsoft products, his favorite sites, the video on demand revolution and the world.

• Seventeen minutes with Bill
• Speech at Mix06

I tried the new Google Finance Beta. At first I thought it was too basic, probably the same impression I had with Google Talk some months ago. But after playing around a bit with it I can see an enormous potential in it.

Here there is an example on the information available when we search for a company: Google’s info.

What I loved:

• Totally dynamic interface
• Flexible charts
• Whenever some information is not provided there, they link to Yahoo Finance or Reuters
• Clean interface

What I would add to the final version:

• A dynamic stock screener. (Yahoo screener)
• A portfolio tracker
• International markets

My overall experience was good. I might use it sometimes.

Diego Giol

Lately we are listening quite often about Web 2.0, but what is web 2.0?

I personally don’t think that the AJAX technology is revolutionary enough to be considered “the new internet”. For those who have not heard about AJAX it is basically a technology that makes sites interactive without “re-loading” pages.

But if AJAX is not Web 2.0, then what is it?

I believe that the real revolution is coming from the large broadband connections that we are seeing here in Europe and in many places on the planet + Wi Fi internet + community development.

Some of the examples I have to mention are:

• Apple and its super successful iTunes software/store: they have sold millions of mp3s and videos and have become the biggest on-line digital media retailers.
• Flickr (bought by Yahoo) not only offers no-limits disk space for pictures but it also has a fantastic structure based on communities and has made this site one of the big winners in 2005.
• Yahoo! added video and music search capabilities to its search engine and it already had Yahoo! Launch (streaming video and music).

Finally, two websites that in my opinion are indicating the path in which the media and the internet are going:

• Google Video has a mix of free upload-it-yourself videos and TV produced videos for which you pay a reasonable fee.
• YouTube.com has created (thanks to its community) one of the biggest video database. Not only that, the site is so popular that some people are becoming famous after putting their videos there.

A very clear example of this is the video made by German group of teenagers who created the Grup Tekkan and had such a success within a week that they ended up in one of the top German TV shows: Live presentation

For me, even though that the big media groups are going to stay in the business as radio stayed when the first TV stations appeared. Are we are seeing the democratization of content production but also the creation of a worldwide oligopoly on media distribution channels?