Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 1)

Ramu Yalamanchi runs hi5, one of the leading social networking companies in the world. The company is recognized as one of the fastest growing social networking companies. Here I discuss the strategy behind hi5 with Ramu and gain some of his insights for the future.

Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 7)

SM: What is your read on some of the other travel and ad network players out there? There are some vertical travel ad networks which have been reasonably successful so far. SH: There are three things you need to do to have a viable vertical ad network. You need to get a set of publishers,

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Obama’s Economic Policy

Yesterday’s discussion on Obama’s Economic Policy somehow got side-tracked to a discussion on venture capital compensation, which is not what I had intended.

Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 6)

SM: The major gains from purchasing SideStep were adding their display advertising business and their email marketing platforms? SH: That is right.

Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 5)

SM: Obviously you made a big departure from established business models in the travel industry. Can we discuss that in terms of growth? SH: Our business model is very similar to Google’s. We get paid for the referral. We are unbiased which is great for consumers because when you have an advertising driven model the

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Entrepreneur Case Study Widget

Readers, especially those amongst you who have your own blogs and sites, upon popular request, we have created a downloadable widget for you that you can place on your own sites to reference the Entrepreneur Case Studies. The widget is in action on a test site here along with download instructions. Please feel free to

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Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 4)

SM: Let’s discuss the competitive landscape. What was it like when you started and what is it like now? SH: The market has evolved quite a bit but not as much as we expected it to. Initially the only competition came from two companies. One was called FareChase and they did not have a consumer

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Vertical Travel Search Engine Kayak CEO Steve Hafner (Part 3)

SM: When did you launch the service? SH: It was October 2004. SM: Can you give us an idea as to what kind of ramp you saw in terms of traffic building and adoption? The vertical search concept was still new in 2004. SH: There had been folks who tried to do it in the

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