USA market intelligence for Australian companies

Welcome to DatelineUSA for 21 November 2010.

See the DMGPR blog for thoughts from Peter Beattie on how Australia can tap new markets for tourism in the US by going after the baby boomers. Beattie says we must make the most of the upcoming visit by Oprah to put Australia on the radar for this growing and important market segment.

Australian Angles

The Australian Holden Commodore may still realise its American dream: A senior engineer for General Motors, Al Oppenheiser, confirmed to Drive at the Los Angeles motor show this week that negotiations were under way to sell the Commodore in North America as a Chevrolet sports sedan. "We are definitely looking at that, although we have made no official announcement as yet," Oppenheiser said. "We are definitely looking at doing something with Holden for the retail market." The VE Commodore was previously exported to the US as a Pontiac G8 with V6 and V8 engine options. That program ceased when GM crashed into bankruptcy last year and the struggling Pontiac brand was killed off.

The US Government is taking a closer look at Australia's MySchool website: The United States deputy secretary of education, Tony Miller, led a delegation of American officials to Canberra this week for the first of what will be an annual dialogue on education between the two countries. Mr Miller said he had been given a demonstration of the redesigned My School website, which Prime Minister Julia Gillard launched this week. Mr Miller said the United States did not have a national website on school performance, but would soon publish information comparing school performance between states. He said the administration wanted to provide more detailed data and the next step would be to publish information at a school district level.

Australia is losing its allure as the hot offshore destination for American film-makers: So-called runaway Hollywood productions were queuing up to shoot in Australia, attracted by handsome studios in three states, world-class crews and an attractive exchange rate. But those days now seem to be from a galaxy far, far away. When sequels of The Matrix had Sydneysiders tripping over Keanu Reeves in restaurants and coffee shops, the dollar was roughly US53�. As it hovers around $US1, filming is now twice as expensive for US producers. If that was not disincentive enough, there has been aggressive competition from US states and eastern Europe.

Australians love to visit the US. New data from the Department of Commerce shows visitors from Australia increased by 29 per cent in August 2010 compared to the previous year, and were up for 27 per cent for the year to date. That compares to a 10 per cent increase overall in international visitors in August 2010, and a 12 per cent increase for the year to date.

Tech & Web

There's a lot of talk about another tech bubble: Ready or not, it appears to be coming. In fact, it may already be here. And it seems to look, not surprisingly, like the last Internet bubble. (Well, maybe with fewer sock puppets.) First, there's plenty of deal flow. Dealogic data shows that the number of technology deals - more than 5,100 so far this year - is at its highest point since the year 2000. Back then, in the peak year for Internet deal-making, there were 7,007 technology mergers and acquisitions. True to the scrappy start-up nature of tech investing, the deals are small. According to Dealogic, the average technology deal this year is $46 million, not much more than the average of $40 million in 2000. It's not just small deals and a lot of them, however, that make people feel that a time warp is under way.

There may well be a bubble in start-up accelerators: Accelerators take on very early stage startups for a brief period, offering them support, mentoring, and often investing seed capital in them. TechStars is probably the second most prominent such program, after Silicon Valley's Y-Combinator. There are now over 60 accelerator programs in the U.S. alone, which Cohen thinks is unsustainable: "There will be a run up to a couple hundred and then we'll probably see a run down to 10 would be my guess over the next five years."

Mark Zuckerberg turned in a more impressive public appearance at this week's Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco: "Ah man, I've made so many mistakes in running the company so far," Zuckerberg said, answering a question from an audience member who called him a "celebrity entrepreneur." "Basically any mistake you think you can make, I've probably made" -- Zuckerberg paused to smile -- "or will make in the next few years. But, I think if anything, the Facebook story is a great example of how, if you're building a product people love, you can make a lot of mistakes." If Zuckerberg still has the ramrod straight posture that actor Jesse Eisenberg imitated as he played Zuckerberg as an ambitiously malevolent nerd in "The Social Network," the 26-year-old Facebook CEO on stage at Web 2.0 looked light years away from the panic-stricken kid who nearly fainted at All Things D. Zuckerberg watchers who have noted the change say he seems to have found his public presence, displaying the gravitas he has long had in private.

Speaking VC

What a VC means by 'no': Last year, Claremont Creek Ventures was exposed to over 500 startup ideas and entrepreneurs. As is probably typical in most early stage technology VCs, we ultimately invest in less than 1 percent of the deals we see. That means we are saying "no" at least 99 times for every time we ultimately say "yes". It is therefore understandable that VCs can seem negative, arbitrary and arrogant to the entrepreneurial community. "No" doesn't always mean what you think it does, though. So over the next two days, I'm going to try to explain what the many facets of a VC's "no" means and perhaps more importantly, what it doesn't mean. Hopefully this will help entrepreneurs cope and adapt as they seek funding.

Business & Economy

The Wall Street Journal breaks news of a major insider trading investigation: Federal authorities, capping a three-year investigation, are preparing insider-trading charges that could ensnare consultants, investment bankers, hedge-fund and mutual-fund traders and analysts across the nation, according to people familiar with the matter. The criminal and civil probes, which authorities say could eclipse the impact on the financial industry of any previous such investigation, are examining whether multiple insider-trading rings reaped illegal profits totaling tens of millions of dollars, the people say. Some charges could be brought before year-end, they say. The investigations, if they bear fruit, have the potential to expose a culture of pervasive insider trading in U.S. financial markets, including new ways non-public information is passed to traders through experts tied to specific industries or companies, federal authorities say.

Clean Tech

Electric vehicles in the heart of oil country: When power plant heavyweight NRG Energy announced yesterday that it would invest $10 million in the rollout of the nation's first privately-finance electric vehicle charging network it also revealed that the city it would debut in would be ... Houston, Texas. Um, what? Houston is known as the nation's oil capital, and as a resident, I can't say I disagree with that assessment. It's also in a state where oil is still cheap compared to other parts of the country, and the same is true for electricity costs. At nearly 15,000 square miles, it's purported to be bigger than Maryland, and is known for bad traffic and long commutes. And despite its traffic and air pollution issues, Houston has been reluctant to adopt mass transit.

Frequent Friskers

Thanksgiving holiday travel could be more difficult than usual this year thanks to an Internet-inspired protest against new security procedures: Even if only a small percentage of passengers participate, experts say it could mean longer lines, bigger delays and hotter tempers. The protest, National Opt-Out Day, is scheduled for Wednesday to coincide with the busiest travel day of the year. "Just one or two recalcitrant passengers at an airport is all it takes to cause huge delays," said Paul Ruden, a spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents, which has warned its more than 8,000 members about delays resulting from the body-scanner boycott.

President Obama says he understands the frustration of travellers, but the enhanced security measures are necessary to keep Americans safe: In response to a question at a press conference in Lisbon,where he was attending a NATO summit , the president said that the Transportation Security Administration has been "under enormous pressure" to find better ways to screen for explosives and other dangerous items ever since the attempted 2009 Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner over Detroit. In that case, a passenger with links to an al-Qaida extremist group tried to set off plastic explosives concealed in his underwear.

The Los Angeles Times says shut up, and be scanned: Would you rather pose for a nude photograph or be groped by a federal employee? To hear many fliers these days, those are the only two choices for air passengers as the Transportation Security Administration installs full-body scanners at airports and introduces a more invasive pat-down technique that some have likened to sexual molestation. We're not wild about the new methods either, but they're a necessary evil in the era of suicide bombers who board planes with chemical explosives in their underwear.

Water Cooler

Getting ready for the American version of 'Top Gear': The studio audience's parking lot for the taping of the American version of "Top Gear" was filled with the cars that guys who love cars love to own: Subaru WRXs with flat-black hoods, ancient Chevy Novas in primer, gymkhana-ready Mazda Miatas. There were also Mustangs, Corvettes, BMW M3s and at least one Ferrari - about 150 cars in all. It was a solid turnout for a rainy Tuesday afternoon in October at the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro. "I just want it to not suck," said Dave Coleman, 37, a Mazda engineer who took the day off to witness this third (or fourth) attempt to produce an American version of the BBC's wildly popular "Top Gear" television show. And considering the cringe-worthy record of virtually every automotive television series produced in the United States, that's a real worry for anyone who was already emotionally invested in the British show.

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