Podcast: Sam Sethi, TechCrunch

09-10-2006

by Tom Raftery

An entrepreneur, technologist and consultant, Sam Sethi has worked in the IT industry for over 15 years for companies like Microsoft (strategy director in MSN UK), Netscape, Gateway Computers and CMGi, in a variety of senior technical and marketing roles. Most recently he has been charged with setting up TechCrunch UK.

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Here are the questions Tom posed to Sam and the times he asked them:

Can you give us a bit of background on how you got into the tech business? - 00:51

And how did you break out of that into Netscape, Gateway and your present consultancy role? - 01:54

But Netscape took off for a while and brought us the internet... - 02:39

You have been director of strategy for MSN, what is MSN and what is its strategy? - 03:56

How does Microsoft's new Live.com brand differentiate itself from MSN? - 05:15

So will we see Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc., made available through a browser? - 06:15

And what is to stop me from logging on and telling them that I am a 99 year old woman from Abu Dhabi? - 08:33

Back in the bubble of 1999 it was all about getting eyeballs to your site. The current strategy is very similar today. How do the two differ? - 09:26

Is Microsoft's Adcentre now available outside the US? - 11:54

When you say the MSN one is best, is that because it is more profile specific? - 13:35

When are these Web 2.0 applications going to become mainstream? - 14:37

Audience questions:

Jeremiah Owyang:

1) Future of microformats, what will happen, what will the adoption rate be, if any? - 16:18

2) There are so many start-ups (and the barriers to entry are low) how many per focus area will we have? Will there be a shakeout like in 2000? - 22:34

3) If you had to invest your money in one tech company, and can't touch it for 10 years, which one would it be? (can't choose his own company, or one he's partnered with) - 25:34

Conor O'Neill:

Sam had mentioned microformats a few times on Vecosys and dropped some hints about business ideas in that space. Is he in a position to talk more about the areas he is looking at? If not, does he have any general thoughts on them from a business perspective? - 27:02

Tom's questions once more:

Interesting, can you talk about Liquid List's business model? - 30:27

Any idea of a timeline for launch? - 32:37

And finally, how did the UK TechCrunch come about? - 33:07

All content, including audio interviews is copyright of Tom Raftery of Podleaders.com. Tom is a podcaster, blogger and web marketing expert and is available for freelenace or full-time projects. You can see Tom's skills set here.