Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

I briefly glimpsed at Techcrunch's 2008 New Year's resolutions blog.  There were a few interesting pieces that I wanted to comment on:

• Microsoft focusing on Webtop applications.  No, as I mentioned Microsoft should shift their strategy completely away from the online area and let Yahoo, Google and other smaller ventures take over that space.  The better area should be in appliances, robotics, space, and medicine.  Those are more difficult business opportunities with far more money collectively involved and bigger prizes at the end of the tunnel.  Microsoft would do themselves and the world a huge favor by not competing in the online space, and focusing on those other areas, which I doubt these web companies will bother with.
• Apple opening up the iPhone.  Truthfully, Apple's killer is that they have a bad history of keeping their resources closed.  Eventually, having too much proprietary stuff just hurt them in the end and it might do the same thing here.  So I do agree with this point.  But in general, I think Apple should not just focus on that area but also on other aspects of lifestyle outside of music like appliances.  Music is a nice-to-have, not a need.  Apple should work on things like intelligent microwaves along with Sony to improve these aspects of integrating computer functionality with the rest of the home. 
  
• Facebook's data retention.  Yeah, I do agree that they should open up their data.  But I believe this should be the case of all major social networks.  The bigger picture for Facebook is the fact that they're quickly becoming a platform, not just a service for social networks.  Their APIs should be expanded upon to increase the number and granularity of services while developers can focus on creating the polish.  That would save Facebook the issue of doing any work outside of regular maintenance. 
  And make sure that the CEO's young ego is in check.  This isn't about pride.  It's about making things work in a transparent manner.
• Yahoo using their traffic.  I think the traffic really doesn't matter at this point for Yahoo.  I think it's manipulating the traffic to employ their services in a more efficient manner.  Again this is the whole problem of enforcing people to use their "My Yahoo" piece as opposed to having this ugly front site that is a clusterfuck to look at.
• ebay selling off Skype.  Well, ebay's big problem is that like other big internet companies, they still want to be everything to everyone.  Instead of selling off skype (because it's really a great service), ebay should consider creating a holdings company that manages the various services.  Just look at what IAC did.  This would work out well because the holdings company could manage all the subbrands from ebay and ebay would focus on auctions and internet shopping.  The problem was that Skype along with some other websites like Stumbleupon, truthfully had no business being in a business portfolio (no pun intended) in an online auction site.  I don't think ebay acquiring other potentially decent companies is a horrible idea; but I think not aligning these companies up with their core business model is a huge problem for investors.