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| You Did Get the Memo, Right? Here’s a Better Way to Book Meetings Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web This post is part of Mashable's Startup Review series, which highlights great unsung startups. The series is made possible by Sun Startup Essentials. Company Name Bookmeetingroom.com 20-Word Description A tidy and useful 'Web 2.0' SaaS application designed to simplify the management of meeting rooms in the office environment. Niche and Nice! CEO's Pitch Using our online ... | |
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| ShareThis, AddThis. Tomato, Tomatoe. Which Blog Plugin Rules Them All? (OWAs) Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web This article is part of the Open Web Awards, an open, international contest for the best websites and services. So far, voting in the Blog Plugins category is neck and neck between two services with very similar functions: ShareThis and AddThis. The two plugins make it easy for your blog’s ... | |
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| 5 Must Have Tools for Web Working Moms Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Jessica Smith is Chief Mom Advisor of MomForce.com and Chief Mom Officer for Wishpot.com. She chronicles her experiences as a mom and virtual executive at JessicaKnows.com. More and more moms are leaving the nine-to-five corporate grind and finding themselves working virtually from home in order to spend more quality ... | |
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| How a Tweet Lead to a Phone Call From Shaq Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web As we reported yesterday, Shaquille O’Neal is on Twitter, and it’s definitely the real Shaq. But two days ago as a few people started discovering The Big Aristotle’s account, not everyone was convinced. Bryant Blount (aka lord_b) was one of the doubters after first hearing about @THE_REAL_SHAQ on ... | |
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| Sloshspot: The Website and iPhone App for Professional Drinkers Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web As its name suggests, Sloshspot is a website for people looking to have a good time – perhaps too good of a time. Like many sites before it, Sloshspot is an index of bars and nightspots, where users can leave reviews, post photos, and check out other “regulars” of ... | |
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| LimeWire Co-Creator Launches LittleShoot: The New Model for P2P? Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web LittleShoot is a new web-based p2p file sharing site founded by one of the creators of LimeWire that could live up to its pedigree and then some. While being web-based naturally makes the service more attractive than downloadable file-sharing apps, LittleShoot has a few other killer features that could ... | |
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| 5 Great Unofficial Gmail Themes Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Well, it took 6 months since we first heard a peep about an official release of Gmail themes for Google to make them a reality. But even with this week’s rollout from Mountain View HQ, some of you will still want more. Indeed, the Google design corps won’t hit the spot ... | |
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| Thanks to Mashable’s Valued Sponsors Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Thanks to this week's advertisers and partners for helping us grow to be the #1 website on social news and technology. Advertise with us to get noticed. Help us to help you. Mashable is seeking out site sponsors for our large diverse audience -- social media users, venture capitalists, early adopters, ... | |
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| Here Comes the New StumbleUpon Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Social browsing site StumbleUpon is preparing a new version. Beta users were able to see some of the new features, but now StumbleUpon has temporarily "degraded" them back to the old version of the site in order to prepare for a full rollout of the new version. Important new updates ... | |
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| Google Launches SearchWiki Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Google has launched a new feature to search for all searchers with Google accounts entitled SearchWiki. The new feature hasn’t propagated to any of our accounts here at Mashable yet, so I have no hands-on experiences to report, but from the description and the Google screencast, the feature allows ... | |
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| 40 Great Resources for Making Lists Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web We like to keep all kinds of lists; wish lists, checklists, lists of lists... you get the picture. In this roundup we will focus on services specializing in wish lists (things we want) and checklists (things we want to get done). Using these 40 mobile and web-based tools you can keep ... | |
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| 19-Year-Old Lifecaster Commits Suicide on Justin.TV [smcb] Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web [Editor’s warning: many of the links in this story lead back to the original sources of the drama. We've decided not to embed them in-line and thus we've left it to you to decide to view. Viewing them might be disturbing for some readers. Please be advised.] In a tragic story ... | |
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| Clearspring is Eating Your Widget for Lunch (OWAs) Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web This article is part of the Open Web Awards, an open, international contest for the best websites and services. We know that Clearspring is the biggest widget network in the world, but they are also dominating early voting in the Embeddable Widgets category of the Open Web Awards. Top competitors ... | |
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| Twittertise: Playboy Does it. Why Not You? Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web That's right, Playboy really does use Twittertise. This post is part of Mashable's Startup Review series, which highlights great unsung startups. The series is made possible by Sun Startup Essentials. Company Name Twittertise 20-Word Description Twittertise allows you to schedule tweets and track their clickthroughs. CEO's Pitch Twittertise allows you to advertise on Twitter and track ... | |
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| Stop Smoking: 9 Resources to Help You Quit Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web The third Thursday of every November has been designated the Great American Smokeout by the American Cancer Society since 1977. While it's important to quit smoking the other 364 days a year, designating one day allows everyone to rally around and draw more attention to the cause. From websites, ... | |
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| OMG Boobies: Victoria’s Secret on Your Mobile Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Lingerie connoisseurs will be happy to know that CBS has launched a multi-media, multi-platform Victoria's Secret assault on all senses. That's right: no longer will you have to search through the Internet's wastelands to get your Victoria's Secret fix; it's all there on the official website and on your mobile. ... | |
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| Twitter Rocks the Early Vote; Who Can Catch Them? (OWAs) Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web This article is part of the Open Web Awards, an open, international contest for the best websites and services. Since kicking off the voting round of the Open Web Awards yesterday, we’ve seen nearly 10,000 votes cast across 26 different categories. In the Mainstream Social Networks category, Twitter has the ... | |
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| My MapQuest: A Google MyMaps Clone? Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Having long played the part of a utility that allowed users fast access to places near and far, MapQuest now seems to be taking a cue from Google's 2007 launch of MyMaps and is making things a little more personal for regular visitors. If you register a fresh account with the ... | |
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| The Real Shaq is on Twitter and He’s a Must-Follow Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web The always quotable basketball star Shaquille O’Neal (see: Kobe, How’s My #$! Taste?) is on Twitter, and it is without a doubt, the real Shaq. Twitter welcomed the Phoenix Suns star to the service in a blog post, and The New York Times has a profile of how the ... | |
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| Mufin Now Open to All: Discover Music by Sound Analysis on iTunes and Facebook Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Mufin, the music recommendation engine that suggests songs based on their sound characteristics, is now open to everyone in public beta. With the launch, Mufin is also introducing two new applications: Mufin for iTunes and Mufin for Facebook. As you might expect, Mufin’s iTunes add-on analyzes the songs ... | |
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| Lively, and Three Other Google Flops Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Google was once invincible and unable to make a mistake. Well, although its share price is not what it used to be, one can argue they're still invincible in most areas they've dabbled in, but the mistakes and flops are now piling up. Google Lively, a virtual world in which ... | |
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| HOW TO: Send Huge MS Office Files Really Fast Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web There are three kinds of items users of Microsoft’s Office application suite share with one another more than anything else: Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations. Yet precisely how such files are being transferred between co-workers as well as companies and their clients isn’t so straightforward. Email attachments are popular, ... | |
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| That Was Quick: Google Shuts Lively Down Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Without much fanfare, the 20% time project Lively is now facing the end of its brief lifespan, as Google announced today that the virtual chat and meeting tool is set to be shut down by the end of the year. “…despite all the virtual high ... | |
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| Yahoo! Glue Launches in America Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Back in May, Yahoo launched a new variant of search entitled “Glue,” something which combines news, images, videos, and other content from around the Web (and other Yahoo properties) along with traditional search results that link to web pages. We just received word that Yahoo found the ... | |
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| HOW TO: Use Twitter for Social Bookmarking Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Mashable reader Patrick de Laive over at Fleck, at the suggestion of our fearless leader Pete, put together a simple bookmarklet that posts URLs to Twitter (in a shortened form, of course) and then saves that tweet as an easy to find bookmark in your browser. The tool, Fleck Lite, looks ... | |
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| But My Portfolio is Already Managed by a Monkey Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Is it time to put your portfolio online? Portfolio Monkey thinks it is, offering a set of tools for managing your portfolio on the web. This post is part of Mashable's Startup Review series, which highlights great unsung startups. The series is made possible by Sun Startup Essentials. Company Name Portfolio Monkey 20-Word ... | |
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| Write the Next Great Novel with FortyChapters Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Writing a novel is a much different beast than writing magazine articles or maintaining a blog. That’s why a new tool called FortyChapters makes a lot of sense. The site is essentially a web-based app for organizing your work, saving it so it can be accessed from anywhere, ... | |
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| HOW TO: Track Expenses Using Twitter Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Simon Salt is CEO of marketing communications company the IncSlingers. He writes for www.simonsalt.com and Dad-O-Matic You use Twitter, email, IM and even your phone to stay in touch with your world. Maybe your office uses services like Yammer for internal communication. But once you are done tweeting, emailing ... | |
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| Use Google’s Grand Central on a Mac Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Maybe you’re a fan of Google’s Grand Central phone controller. Maybe you also happen to be a Mac addict. So how do you match those two loves into one? Vocito, that’s how. Savvy to your Mac OS X desktop and things like Address Book, Automator, and the third-party engineered QuickSilver, Vocito ... | |
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| iPhone MMS: Coming to a Carrier Near You? Via Mashable | All That's New on the Web Mobispine, the mobile services developer already responsible for introducing a $1.99 self-titled iPhone application for RSS news junkies, has debuted a white-label option for wireless carriers to deliver to subscribers seeking classic MMS utility from their devices. Just short of an extension of the iPhone’s standard SMS software, Mobispine’s offering ... | |
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| Yup, Apple’s Advertising Budget Is Bigger Than Microsoft Vista’s Via TechCrunch 
When Apple started running the anti-Vista commercial mocking Microsoft for spending $300 million on Vista's own ad campaign instead of on fixing its problems, I called it hypocritical:
Apple’s advertising budget is also pretty massive. I mean, I see more Apple commercials on TV than ads for Barack Obama. Apple is on track to spend more than $3.5 billion on SG&A (selling, general, and administrative expenses) for its fiscal year that ended September 30. How much of that was spent on advertising? I don’t know, but 10 percent doesn’t seem unreasonable.It turns out that I underestimated Apple's advertising budget. Lindsay Blakely, a former Business 2.0 reporter who now blogs at Bnet, found the actual numbers in a subsequent SEC filing. | |
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| YouTube: We’ll Do It Live! Tomorrow, 5 PM Via TechCrunch 
Tomorrow, YouTube will be showcasing its first live stream as it broadcasts its YouTube Live celebration, which will bring together a host of celebrities, musicians, and notable YouTubers for a massive event in San Francisco. The show will be streamed on YouTube beginning at 5 PM PST, and will include performances from Katy Perry, will.i.am, Joe Satriani, Tay Zonday (the Chocolate Rain guy), and a number of other musicians. I'm personally looking forward to a special appearance from the Mythbusters team.
YouTube hasn't yet made any announcements regarding a livestreaming service for regular users (which would pit it directly against services like Ustream) but it won't be surprising if we hear from them tomorrow about the company's upcoming plans. We first heard about possible streaming functionality back in January, and later confirmed that it would be coming some time this year. | |
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| The Best This Kid Can Hope For Is A Takedown Demand Via TechCrunch 
A 17 year old named Eric Calisto is about to learn a valuable lesson in dealing with disappointment. He's asking Google to use a logo that he created on their site on December 2, his birthday, and urging people to call, email and fax Google with their support.
Not going to happen.
But he may make a few dollars on those ads.
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| Get a Free Ticket to LeWeb and Thank TechCrunch’s sponsors Via TechCrunch In partnership with the LeWeb conference, which is in Paris on December 9th and 10th, we are going to be giving away one ticket to the TechCrunch reader who leaves the best comment about why they want to go (and includes a contact e-mail address). We are also excited that LeWeb’s organizers are offering TechCrunch readers a 20% discount Thank You LeWeb Without our sponsors TechCrunch would not be possible. Accordingly, we want to thank the following sponsors for their support. | |
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| Meezoog: A Social Network That Cares If You Actually Know Your “Friends” Via TechCrunch 
Every time I scroll through my list of 'Friends' on Facebook, I inevitably come to the same (somewhat depressing) conclusion: I have absolutely no idea who many of these people are. This is mostly my fault - my standards have always been pretty low when it comes to accepting inbound requests, and I never kept up with assigning them to appropriate Friends Lists. But there's also the fact that Facebook doesn't do much to automatically differentiate between friends and acquaintances (while it does filter your News Feed based on who it thinks you're interested in, there isn't a way to automatically generate a list of "good friends" versus everyone else).
Meezoog, an Israeli startup backed by veteran VC Yossi Vardi, is looking to help differentiate between acquaintances and close friends. Today the company has launched its own social network at Meezoog.com that attempts to determine how strong the connections are between users by analyzing their relationships on other sites across the web (it also asks you to manually input your relationship with each friend, but this isn't required). | |
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| In The Afterglow Of The Election, HuffPo Looks To Raise $15 Million Via TechCrunch 
The elections were good to the HuffingtonPost, the political uber-blog. It's audience in the U.S. rose fivefold in the last year to 5 million monthly uniques in October, according to comScore. In what may turn out to be perfect market timing, the Times UK is reporting that the company is close to raising $15 million. In the past, it has raised a total of $12 million from investors including Softbank Capital, Greycroft Partners, Bob Pittman, and Ken Lerer.
As with all political sites, it is likely that the HuffPo's traffic will dip now that the election fever is over. The question for investors, though, is whether its current levels represent a peak or, whether it can take advantage of its new-found audience to establish a solid, new traffic floor from which to keep growing. If you look at the HuffPo's chart from Google Trends (above), it looks like traffic is at the very least plateauing so far in November, as you would expect.
Where does it go from here? | |
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| Check Out Diggnation Today In BitGravity’s Multiview Via TechCrunch  If you were intrigued by BitGravity's Multiview product that allows viewers to choose from six different camera angles as they watch an event, check out episode 177 of Diggnation today at 3 pm PST.
The regular "director's cut" will be shown at at Diggnation.com. The customized version will be available here on the Revision3 website.
We've got a few screenshots of today's show (actually, we've seen the show, but we can't post it here, you'll have to watch at 3 PM). | |
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| SEC Gives Facebook The Greenlight To Go Beyond 500 Shareholders Without Going Public Via TechCrunch 
When most private companies reach 500 shareholders, they trigger an SEC rule which effectively treats them like a public company and requires them to some of the same reporting requirements. Google ran into this issue just before it went public. Now Facebook is quickly reaching that same threshold as it continues to hire and allows employees to sell shares to outside investors.
But in a letter dated October 13, 2008 (embedded below), Facebook's lawyers argue that rule should not apply to Facebook because most of the shareholders are employees. The SEC granted the exemption.
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| Breaking: Yahoo Finally Sells Off Kelkoo Via TechCrunch  Yahoo has been rumored to be selling Paris-based comparative shopping site Kelkoo for some time now, and it appears that they have found a buyer. Yahoo acquired Kelkoo in 2004 for €475 million.
The company has been sold to a UK-based private equity firm called Jamplant Ltd for something less than €100 million, according to sources with knowledge of the deal.
Ex-Kelkoo CEO Pierre Chappaz announced the news on his blog (in french), and a copy of the internal email announcing the acquisition is below.
The company has lost much of its momentum since the Yahoo acquisition in the face of significant competition.
The email is below. | |
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| Evernote Passes 500,000 Registered Users, Most of Them On The iPhone Via TechCrunch 
Some apps wander around the wilderness for a while until they can find the perfect home. For Evernote, that home is the iPhone. The note-taking, picture-capturing, voice-recording, handwriting-recognizing universal memory service has been under development for years and launched last February in private beta on the PC. But it wasn't until May 29 that it debuted on the iTunes store as an iPhone app. That's when it started to take off.
Now Evernote has 512,000 registered users, who have created 13.8 million notes. | |
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| BringIt Lets Gamers Put Their Money Where Their Mouth Is Via TechCrunch  Even before "The Wizard" enchanted and inspired the gaming generation, gamers have sought that final prize: making a living playing video games. Unfortunately, dreams of professional-gamerism have been shown to be as elusive as dreams of being a professional gambler. Luckily, startup BringIt is attempting to make both those dreams a little more attainable. BringIt made the connection between the huge online gambling market and the exploding online gaming community, and has created a site where gamers can challenge one another with cash on the barrelhead.
The guts for this system have been in place for a long time: ranking systems already set up gamers for matches based on skill; half the sites on the net already have an evaluation system for users, comments, or what have you; gambling sites already have systems in place for handling accounts and paying out securely. Someone just needed to stitch these services together and give it a name. Thus, BringIt. | |
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| 360 Cities Brings Stunning Spherical Panoramas To Google Earth Via TechCrunch 
Color me impressed with this one: Prague-based 360 Cities, a network of 'Virtual Reality' photographers promoting high-resolution spherical imagery, has integrated its portfolio of stunning 360° panorama shots into the Featured Preview Layer for Google Earth.
A collection of the panoramas just became visible automatically to every user of the free 3D earth visualization software, and the rest of the 360cities database, which is nearly 10,000 spherical images strong, has been added to the Gallery in Google Earth as well. | |
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| iPhone 2.2 Update Up Close Via TechCrunch 
I took some shots of 2.2 in action. The walking directions would have been great for the past two weeks - I've had so much trouble using car-based GPS in walking/biking cities. Streetview is also great for cities like New York but it's very limited right now - there was no information for Paris, for example. The podcast download is also really nice to have. An impressively end-user-oriented update by Apple this time around.
  
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| A Small Data Glitch At Facebook Via TechCrunch 
We've received two reports tonight of users having their email notification settings on Facebook deleted. They were notified at login that there was a problem, and told to head over to the Notifications page to reset them.
At least one user is angry about it. The other, who sent the screenshot above, was more contemplative. He suggests someone simply forgot to back up a table before implementing an enhancement. I checked my account, and it's fine.
Whatever happened, it's a small embarrassment. The kind you see with young startups all the time. And Facebook, despite its massive growth, is still a young startup. | |
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| Google, It Wasn’t Broke Via TechCrunch  Bucket tests and experimental products are one thing. But to mess with the real Google search is serious stuff. Why did they do it?
Google's overall search share has grown substantially this year (and all other years since it went live). Their share of search advertising dollars is likely even higher.
The changes Google made to search today certainly make it more interactive and social. I can now write comments on search results, and read comments from everyone about TechCrunch (or anything else - see the awesomely useful TechCrunch comments in the image below, along with my votes on each) and vote them up or down. I can move search results around on the page - up, down, or off the page entirely. I can also add other URLs into search results. | |
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| New Beta Version Of m.yahoo.com In The Works - We’ve Got Screenshots Via TechCrunch 
Further proving that security through (very, very light) obscurity isn't a good means of keeping things secret, a new beta version of Yahoo's Mobile Front Page (generally known as just m.yahoo.com) has been found hiding just one character away from the beta announced to the public back in January.
Where as the public beta can be found at beta.m.yahoo.com, our tipster dug up the new version by instead navigating to beta2.m.yahoo.com. Unfortunately, it seems we weren't supposed to see this just yet; within a half-hour of us reaching out to Yahoo! for comment, the page had become password protected - but not before we snagged a couple screenshots.
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| Yieldex Takes Top Prize In Amazon Web Services Startup Challenge Via TechCrunch 
When we announced the 7 finalists of Amazon Web Services' Startup Challenge two weeks ago, we dubbed Yieldex an "online ad optimization engine for Web publishers". It's time to take a closer look at what that means, because the company has just been awarded the top prize in the contest, bringing home $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in services credits plus an investment offer from Amazon.com.
Yieldex has a solution for managing ad inventory, enabling Web publishers to allocate advertising campaigns more efficiently by forecasting overlapping inventory and predicting how ads are going to deliver. All in all, it seems like a nice solution to hmm ... yield more revenue out of premium ad inventory, but I'm left wondering if ensuring optimal ad campaigns isn't something that's baked into most ad serving solutions already, or at least should be? I mean, it's one of the core reasons for using an ad serving system, right? | |
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| Orb for iPhone Launched: Stream TV, Video, Music from Your PC Via TechCrunch 
Orb, a $9.99 iPhone application that should be familiar to home networking buffs, is available now and will stream music from your home computer, photos, and live television from a TV tuner card - all over the Internet. It can even stream input from a webcam to your phone. | |
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| iPhone Update 2.2 Now Available: Google Street View, Walking Directions, Rate-on-Delete Via TechCrunch 
The calendar now reads November 21st and, just as expected, iPhone firmware 2.2 has been released to the masses. Seeing as a pretty good number of developers have had their hands on test versions of 2.2 for sometime now, and as NDAs generally turn to pudding after a few hundred people are in on the secret, we've had a pretty good idea of what this release would bring to the table for a while.
For the sake of those who may have missed a day or two, though, we'll recap: Safari's address bar/search has been tweaked a bit, apps now request a rating upon deletion, over-the-air podcast downloads (which, oddly, works over 3G, though podcasts downloaded over radio can't be over a certain size, determined by the carrier), various video and audio quality tweaks, and assorted bug fixes throughout. Oh, and Google Maps has been upgraded to include Street View and directions for public transit and walking - if you have an iPhone rather than an iPod Touch, that is.
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| Stalk That Twitterer Via TechCrunch  A new site called TweetStalk is in private beta. It allows you to "follow" Twitter users without them knowing you are doing it (Twitter tells you when someone new has subscribed to your data). It's all through a Firefox Add-On and appears to modify the Twitter page itself via Greasemonkey or otherwise. You are then able to follow the person without them knowing, and the service provides a RSS feed as well.
This isn't as bad as it sounds. Twitter pages are public by default so all the content is there for everyone to see anyway. Twitter should probably just implement a private follow feature of some sort to allow this anyway. But until they do, you've got TweetStalk. | |
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| Mixx Growing Fast, But Are They Really More Mainstream Than Digg? Via TechCrunch 
Social news community Mixx is seeing healthy growth ever since they left stealth mode. They got a nice traffic spike last May after CNN integrated 'Mixx it' buttons in their articles, roughly doubling their number of unique monthly visitors to nearly 1 million, and it appears their new community building features aren't hurting them either.
A screenshot from their Google Analytics account shows that the Digg-competitor is gaining traction, receiving over 5.8 million unique visitors last month. Compete (as usual) estimates lower numbers but shows a similar growth pattern, as does Google Trends. Quantcast seems to affirm the number of reported visitors as well.
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| TechCrunch Euro Tour 08: Yes, even Belgium has startups Via TechCrunch  A couple of weeks ago I headed over to Belgium as part of my ongoing TechCrunch Euro Tour, to get a taste of the local web/mobile entrepreneur community (BTW, come to the London and Helsinki events soon). I hooked-up with another TechCrunch writer, Robin Wauters, who had kindly arranged a TechCrunch Belgium meetup in Gent. Gent is quickly becoming one of the main places to startup in that country, as it's a short drive from Brussels (which has the main airport and the excellent Eurostar), but Gent is cheaper, somewhat prettier and is a big university city with lots more potential talent to draw from. The startups each pitched their wares and here's what I found. | |
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| Who Would Have Guessed? Blackberry Users Love MySpace Via TechCrunch  When I think of Blackberry users, I think of accountants, lawyers and anyone else who wears a tie and carries a briefcase. MySpace users, sorta the opposite.
But there must be some significant overlap, because 400,000 people downloaded the MySpace Blackberry application in the last week, says MySpace - it was launched on November 12.
Both RIM and MySpace say this is a record - no other application has been downloaded so quickly onto Blackberry devices, and MySpace has never had an application on any platform be downloaded as often.
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| YieldBuild Launches Self-Serve Ad Optimization In Public Beta Via TechCrunch 
YieldBuild, an ad optimization platform that helps users manage multiple ad networks and position advertisements on their webpages, has launched its self-service program to the public. When we last covered the company, YieldBuild was still in private beta and only sites with more than 500,000 monthly visitors were eligible to participate. Now, web publishers of any size are welcome to join, and the installation process has been streamlined to require only a few snippets of JavaScript.
YieldBuild helps publishers maximize their ad revenues in a number of ways. To begin, the publisher ties their accounts from Google AdSense and similar services to their YieldBuild account. Next, they designate a number of hotspots on their page where ads can appear, but don't necessarily have to (for example, I could tag five possible ad spots on a page and let YieldBuild figure out the ideal configuration). YieldBuild will automatically display different configurations to different visitors until it figures out where each ad should be placed for optimal results. The service also takes into account ad appearance, adjusting font size and color as needed. In the past the system would take around 100,000 visitors until it had 'learned' the ideal settings, but the new algorithm needs only a fraction of that traffic.
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| Google Makes Major Interface Change To Search: SearchWiki Via TechCrunch 
We'd noticed an increasing number of people emailing on a large-scale bucket test (a product change tested on just a percentage of total users) that Google has been conducting for months - adding a Digg-like voting feature to search results (which also changes the ranking) as well as user comments.
Tonight, Google apparently said "what the hell" and turned it on for everyone.
The changes are called SearchWiki, and are a dramatic departure from Google's streamlined, algorithm-rules approach to search. It takes features from Digg to allow users to vote site results up or down, as well as features from Wikia Search to allow users to add comments, move search results, etc. | |
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| The Growing Ex-Amazon Club and Why It’s a Good Thing Via GigaOM  Call it a coincidence, but over the past few days I have spent a lot of time with folks who used to work for Amazon but are now out doing new things. It all started with Jason Kilar, the CEO of Hulu, who was a keynote speaker at our NewTeeVee Live conference. Then last night I met with Dave Schapell, founder and CEO of TeachStreet, an e-marketplace for teachers. And this morning I had coffee with Jeff Lawson, co-founder of Twilo.
My buddy Dave McClure was the one who pointed out that they are all part of the Ex-Amazon club. Just like the rising number of ex-Google entrepreneurs I wrote about last year, these guys are leaving top jobs at one of the best technology companies in the U.S. Here is a list of just some of those names, their current companies and their previous positions at the e-tailer:
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| Survival Is Not a Strategy Via GigaOM In these perilous economic times, the layoff memos often follow a familiar refrain: "We have cut costs by 20 percent. That gives us an additional year's runway. Or two." But while yes, companies can cut costs and prolong their survival, when it comes to startups, just because they can doesn't mean they should. I'm speaking here of venture-backed startups, which represent a small minority of companies. The sole purpose of most companies is to create a steady income stream for their owners and operators -- in other words, survival. Venture-backed startups, on the other hand, are created with the sole purpose of a successful exit. Why growth is crucial Whether that exit comes in the form of an acquisition or an IPO, in the meantime, the lifeblood of any startup is growth, be it in terms of customers, usage, revenues or profits. Under most economic conditions, an IPO is impossible without revenue and profit growth, and we are unlikely to see that change any time soon. From an acquisition point of view, stagnant companies are valued at low multiples of revenue, say 1x-2x. And while popular meme suggests that flat is the new growth -- given the downturn in the economy, the argument goes, even keeping revenues flat is sufficient -- this argument does not apply to startups. By definition, startups are supposed to be attacking nascent market opportunities and unsaturated markets, and as such should be able to grow even during a downturn. If a startup cannot find growth in this environment, it's a clear message that the market opportunity might be better served by an established company. Of course, growth in profits or revenues are far better than just growth in usage, but even growth in usage is better than stagnation on all three fronts. There is at least the possibility that a company with strong usage growth might one day be attractive to an acquirer with a good monetization engine. It's no fun to work at a startup that isn't growing. Stagnation leads to low morale, with people sitting around waiting for the axe to fall. Rather than let the company become a zombie, management would be doing their investors and employees a favor by pulling the plug and returning the remaining capital to investors. Why VCs often don’t put companies out of their misery Founders and executives have a lot of emotional capital invested in their companies, so when it comes to making the ultimate decision, their reluctance is understandable. What's surprising is how often VCs let companies turn into zombies. The reason for this is a subtle misalignment of interests between VCs and their investors. As long as a startup still appears to be, on some level, alive, VCs can carry the company on their books at the valuation set by the last round of financing. Once they pull the plug, the fund will receive pennies on the dollar, a loss that has to be recorded on the books and doesn't look good when the firm goes to raise their next fund. Every VC portfolio, therefore, has its fair share of zombies. Another contributing factor is excessive preference overhangs. Investors receive preferred stock with the right to get back their invested capital ahead of common shareholders in an exit; in some cases they have the right to receive a multiple of their invested capital ahead of common shareholders. The total amount that investors need to receive before common shareholders can participate in an exit is called the "preference overhang." If a company has raised so much capital that any realistic acquisition will be below the overhang, then common shareholders stand to receive nothing from the sale -- and company management has no incentive to look for such an exit. In such cases, it's important for the VCs and management to agree to restructure the preference overhangs to make such exits attractive to management. Otherwise the company is destined to become a zombie. Every startup founder and employee has to consider three possible outcomes: success, failure and zombiehood. Success is much better than failure, but quick failure beats wasting years of your life on a zombie. If you are a company founder, and you are considering layoffs to extend the runway (perhaps on the advice of your venture investor), you should look in the mirror and ask yourself whether you are cutting away your growth opportunity and just choosing a lingering death over a quick one. Anand Rajaraman is a co-founder of Kosmix and Founding Partner of Cambrian Ventures. Disclosure: He is also an investor in Giga Omni Media, parent company of GigaOM. | |
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| Thanks to Our GigaNET Sponsors Via GigaOM We’d like to say thanks to this month’s GigaNET sponsors:
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| Supercomputing: It’s All About the Software Via GigaOM  At the SC 08 show that ends today in Austin, I was struck by how much the lines between supercomputing and corporate computing have blurred. The show even had a panel on high-performance computing and cloud computing! But after visiting with vendors of all types and sizes, I realized that since supercomputers can be built with commodity chips and networking gear, high-performance computing isn't really about the hardware like it was back in the days of Cray. Today it's all about the software.
Heck, IBM's Roadrunner, currently the fastest supercomputer in the world, runs on AMD x86 chips and the Cell processor found in millions of PlayStation 3 gaming consoles. But it's the software that integrates those two types of chips together that make the computer interesting. And software is what will enable HPC systems to keep moving out of the scientific niche into corporate offices and even into workstations for traders and researchers.
Reza Rooholamini, director of engineering at Dell, reinforced his boss's keynote, in which Dell talked about the fourth wave of supercomputing. He pointed out that the next generation of supercomputers would rely most on manageability and other software features to attract customers. That will enable Dell to drive high-performance computing to the level of workstations and smaller professional nodes. "Our strategy from the inception...was how can we take this high-end expensive technology and make it available," Rooholamini says. "This fourth wave is a focus on manageability, scalability, high availability and tools automation."
This sentiment was echoed by John Lee, V-P of the Advanced Technology Solutions Group with Appro, a company that builds and delivers custom-high performance computers to customers ranging from Renault to Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Lee said the HPC market is attracting new customers who don't have the experience or inclination to build and customize their own machines. When it comes to programming and operating HPC systems those corporate customers also lack the free labor provided by students who work at labs or universities, meaning the software and services piece of the equation is more important.
"Instead of a government lab where they understand the bleeding edge, now we're talking to financial institutions and gas and oil guys who know they are behind the curve and so they rely on the vendors to make sure it will run fine," Lee says.
So while there will always be niche players such as SiCortex, which is building custom semiconductors for the HPC set, it's far more likely that the key to growing the market for these systems will be software -- a fact underscored by Microsoft's entry into the space in 2005 and bolstered by the software giant's push into a desktop supercomputer offered by Cray. "Thirty-three years ago people asked Bill Gates 'Why are you getting into computers?'" said Jeff Weirer, a senior product manager at Microsoft. "At that time Bill Gates had a vision of a PC on every desk and this is really just the evolution of that vision."
As HPC moves downstream, plenty of vendors are lining up to make supercomputing look pretty much like personal or corporate computing. Since few people could really define a supercomputer outside of the types of jobs it does, those vendors appear to be succeeding. | |
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| Time to Say Good-bye, and Thanks Via GigaOM [qi:076] Three years ago, when John Battelle and Chas Edwards met with me for a cup of coffee across the street from the old Business 2.0 offices in downtown San Francisco, their company, Federated Media, was still in its infancy, and our company, Giga Omni Media, was little more than a dream. John, a long-time friend and a peer from the tech media world, asked me if I would sign on with his studio of talent and let them represent my then one-man effort, GigaOM.com, commercially. Naturally, I said yes. In the time that passed we had our ups and downs, successes and embarrassments. But we progressed and prospered together. John now sits atop a gigantic company that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and represents everyone from BoingBoing to mommy bloggers like Dooce. And Federated Media has become more than just a studio for technology bloggers, but a leader in the conversational marketing movement. Progress is often accompanied by a divergence of ideas and ambitions within partnerships. At Giga Omni Media, we have been developing a network that revolves around niche verticals. As our needs became more specialized, we sat down with the folks at Federated to try and figure out how we could continue to work together. But both sides quickly realized that instead it was time to wrap up what has been a successful business relationship. Now we have teamed up with the IDG Group to represent the sales of advertising on our properties -- seven today, and many more in the months to come. IDG has a growing blog ad network and I look forward to working with them. Of course, we will continue to supplement their work with our internal sales team, which has been instrumental in selling sponsorships for both our events and specialized weblogs. Sure we are parting company with our business partners, Federated Media, but we are not ending friendships that have spanned two bubbles, many magazines and countless memories. Thanks to John, Chas, Jason and everyone at Federated for being part of our dream, and for working tirelessly on our behalf. | |
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| Google: Algorithms Aren’t the Only Answer Via GigaOM Google has finally pulled back the curtain on a new feature that until now has been in restricted beta: the addition of wiki-style functions in standard search results. Once logged into a Google account, this allows you to click a small up or down arrow to move a specific result, click and delete it from your search entirely, or click on a small comment bubble and leave your comments on that result. Google will remember those settings the next time you search for the same keywords, and has said it may even work for similar or related searches. In many ways, Google is taking the same principles that power a site like Digg and applying them to search.  Adding these kinds of features isn't a universally popular move. When Wikia Search -- Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales's attempt to do the same thing to search, with editing of results and comments (or "annotations") encouraged -- launched earlier this year, there was plenty of criticism aimed not just at the execution and the lack of usable results, but at the very concept of wiki-style search. Many said that opening search results up in such a way would leave the system vulnerable to the inevitable SEO gaming and trick-playing that hampers many other "crowd-sourced" services such as Digg. This is a little like complaining that the furnace heating your house is too hot, and that you're afraid it might burn someone. In many ways, wiki-style search is just an extension of the way that Google has always worked: that is, by aggregating the choices of millions of users and then using the PageRank algorithm to produce something approaching the best result. Voting and commenting features simply give Google more pieces of data they can use to arrive at the best result). They will also provide a fairly rich trove of activity-based information that the search engine could use to improve its regular results -- that is, the ones that users who aren't logged in will see -- or to tweak its overall search algorithms based on the behaviour of wiki-search users. Why did so many people move that result up? Why did they move another down? Why did some delete that result and not others? Will these new wiki-style functions be subject to rampant gaming and manipulation? Of course they will -- just like everything else that the search giant touches. When you wield as much power online as Google does, gaming and manipulation follow in your wake like pilot fish following a shark. Presumably, the company has taken that into account, and will use their resources to reduce gaming as much as possible. And meanwhile, they will use the results of all that clicking to teach their engine a thing or two about human search behavior. | |
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| LBS: A Dream Continually Deferred Via GigaOM  The Wall Street Journal this morning had a short article pointing out the somewhat obvious reasons why location-based services on cell phones are still not mainstream. It also helpfully pointed out that carriers were working on it. To recap, LBS services need three main things: a way to get location (which we have thanks to GPS chips and even the ability to triangulate using Wi-Fi networks), software that can make sense of geographic information and do something with it (which are out), and cooperation between handset makers and carriers to enable developers to access such services easily.
It's the cooperation piece that fails, but the article points to several companies such as Nokia, uLocate's Where application and SkyHook Wireless that are attempting to bridge that gap by offering a platform that will sit between carriers and smaller developers. For example, uLocate has signed a deal with Sprint to act as the LBS platform for its WiMAX network. Smaller developers can sign on through Where and get access to WiMAX subscribers without worrying about working with Sprint or getting the location information form a provider. I suppose since we've waited this long for LBS, most of us can wait a little longer.
image courtesy of Where | |
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| Yieldex Wins AWS Startup Challenge Via GigaOM  Yieldex, a startup that helps online publishers forecast ad inventory, has won the Amazon Web Services Startup Challenge, netting $100,000 in cash and services. Yieldex built its ad forecasting platform using the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud and the Amazon Simple Storage Service. It won $50,000 in AWS services as well as $50,000 in cash, and may even get an Amazon investment. In addition, it and six other finalists got to pitch their businesses to several VC firm including BlueRun Ventures, CMEA Ventures, Greylock Partners, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Madrona Venture Group, who help judge the contest. Last year's winner Ooyala managed to score $8.5 million in venture funding two months after it won. But those were different times. | |
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| In Search of a Research Assistant Via GigaOM [qi:015] If you follow me on Twitter, then you already know that I'm looking for a research assistant, a person whose primary job would be to help me dig up information for longer, in-depth blog posts. This position doesn't require a special degree or even a permanent address in San Francisco. What it does require is the ability to quickly ferret out information from various public sources. When I want to write about a certain trend, for example, I will want help tracking down all the companies in that sector, and to have a coherent dossier written on it that is both short and sweet. It would be a great learning opportunity for a student. My research assistant will of course be paid a nominal hourly fee for their efforts and should expect to work between 30-40 hours a month. Clearly the part-time money isn’t going to help your retire, but if you make yourself indispensable, it might eventually lead to a full-time job. So how do you apply? As I said in my tweet, I want you to find my personal email address (the GigaOM.com address doesn’t count.) Use it to send me an email outlining, in 250 words or less, why you are the best person for the job. To tilt the balance in your favor, include a list of five of my favorite brands. The final step would involve an assignment – if I like your work, you're hired. | |
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| Telcos Will See a More Activist Congress Via GigaOM  I'd better hightail it to Washington, because a reshuffling of Congressional Committee members is poised to herald more regulation for telecommunications firms on issues ranging from rural access to Net Neutrality. Yesterday Rep. Henry Waxman ascended to the head of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce -- which you may remember for its investigation into how web firms use consumer data -- and convened two hearings into online privacy.
As the head of that committee, Waxman has considerable influence over its agenda. The Wall Street Journal speculates that Waxman will delegate many telecommunications issues to Rep. Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, who has already pushed for a Net Neutrality bill, and has a fondness for consumer issues.
In the Upper House, Sen. Jay Rockefeller from West Virginia will likely be named the head of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology, and as the representative from a heavily rural state, is likely to push for access to broadband. He would replace Sen. Dan Inouye of Hawaii, who will chair the Appropriations Committee. Inouye had supported Net Neutrality rules, as well as the entrance of new bidders into the 700 MHz auction.
Of course, if politicians are willing to float regulations on telecommunications, they're also likely to float more regulations in general -- some of which the pro-Net Neutrality crowd won't enjoy. Rockefeller wants to introduce legislation to make the FCC regulate television violence, while Markey has sent letters to the FCC expressing concern about the use of product placement in television shows. | |
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| Modern Networking Tools: Swapping Bits, Not Biz Cards Via GigaOM  With the recession in full swing, industries across the charts have been laying off hundreds of employees — making the job market increasingly competitive. So what’s a freshly unemployed tech professional to do? Hit the streets and start networking. As the hordes of job-seekers descend upon trade shows, conferences and meetups around the country, a few mobile startups could be poised to profit from their misery: digital business card services. The last few months have seen the launch of a number of services, delivered via mobile technologies from iPhone apps to text messages, that aim to do away with the business card. Previously, companies may have pitched their product as a “green” alternative to dead-tree info swapping, but in today’s market, the dynamic nature of the digital business card could prove to be a more powerful selling point — at least for a startup that can dispatch updated, social media-connected personal data securely across the range of mobile devices.
The iPhone has been a key driver of the market for digital business cards, at least in terms of visibility. Gabe Zichermann, CEO of rmbrME, says his company, which had previously offered an SMS solution with about 1,000 users, had 10,000 users (and even more downloads) of its beamME application in the first 10 days it was available on the App Store. Other apps include Nameo, Handshake, FriendBook and iCard. Most of the services work roughly the same way: Bring two iPhone users together, pull up the app, and a simple touch command sends information between their devices.
However, Nameo, Handshake and iCard are limited to contacts with an iPhone. But what about those of us without iPhones? Dub, which was launched in beta in June of this year, is another option for the BlackBerry set, and as of this week, its service is also available for Android phones (currently that's just the T-Mobile G1). (The company says service for the iPhone and Windows Mobile are due out in December.) Perhaps Dub's biggest claim to fame is that it offers integration with common business services. Data can be beamed to a Salesforce.com contact management system, as well as to mobile devices, and Dub users will soon be able to sign into the service using their LinkedIn login and password.
But even Dub, which allows for limited cross-platform sharing, requires that both users have a smartphone and install the app. For on-the-go information sharing, the "Do you use this app?" conversation can add an extra layer of awkwardness and time. For universal sharing, users might be better off with an SMS service from players such as Dropcard, TextID and rmbrME. Even iPhone app-addicts have an option: While most iPhone apps rely on Wi-Fi networks and geolocation, rmbrME's iPhone app, beamME, allows users to send personal data from their iPhone to any phone, whether it has a data connection or just a simple voice connection.
I'm still slogging along with a Nokia 2610, so I'm partial to technology that doesn't leave me (with my pesky insistence on multiday battery life) out in the cold. I've found services like rmbrME and Dropcard to be simple to use, and I could easily send my data to smartphone-carrying folks via shortcode. Better yet, people could send info to me, without even knowing that I still carry a Stone Age-era device.
While there hasn't been much venture investment in the space just yet, Zichermann says rmbrME has raised just shy of $1 million in angel investment, and DubMeNow has reportedly raised $1.1 million in angel funding. DreamIt Ventures provided seed funding for Dropcard. But the startup founders are optimistic: Zichermann says VCs are exactly the kind of social, tech-savvy users that "get" services like rmbrME, which should make it easier to raise funding when the time is right.
Also promising in this market: None of the services is dependent on advertising revenue. Most of the services use a "freemium" model, and several are working to add enterprise-level functionality. DubMeNow's BlackBerry-focused, Salesforce.com-integrating app seems aimed squarely at the business-to-business marketplace. Zichermann says rmbrME also has its eye on premium services aimed at the enterprise market, such as offering a branded, customized look and feel for user cards.
You probably can't throw away your business cards just yet. But if you're in the market for a new job, sign up for an SMS service and head out to the trade shows.
Image courtesy of rmbrME
This article also appeared on Businessweek.com. | |
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| PE Obama’s Phone Records Breached By Verizon Employees Via GigaOM Verizon Wireless today admitted that some of its employees had been looking into President-elect Barack Obama's cell phone billing records. In a release, the company said: “This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed President-Elect Barack Obama’s personal cell phone account. The account has been inactive for several months. The device on the account was a simple voice flip-phone, not a BlackBerry or other smartphone designed for e-mail or other data services. “All employees who have accessed the account -- whether authorized or not -- have been put on immediate leave, with pay. As the circumstances of each individual employee’s access to the account are determined, the company will take appropriate actions. Employees with legitimate business needs for access will be returned to their positions, while employees who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action. “We apologize to President-elect Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day.”This is a good enough reason for all of us to question the privacy policies of our phone companies, which have time and again shown that they are ready to play loose-and-easy with their customer's privacy. Of course, they are known to use underhanded tactics to position themselves as the good guys, though they are anything but. [digg=http://digg.com/tech_news/President_Elect_Obama_s_Phone_Records_Breached_By_Verizon] In my opinion, this breach -- regardless of what your political leanings -- is not a good thing. If President-elect Obama's records are not safe, who is to say a disgruntled employee won't mess with those of private citizens with whom they have an axe to grind. What do you think Verizon's punishment should be? | |
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| Facebook Launches on Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Phone Via GigaOM  Facebook, which is quite a hit on smartphones such as Apple's iPhone, is making a debut on Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 phone as a panel. Panels are special interface mechanisms unique to Xperia; they allow phone users to interact with a specific web service or an application.
With this release, Facebook is now available on the iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile (almost) platforms. No Facebook on Nokia's Symbian or Google's Android -- not yet, anyway.
 I wonder how many people will actually end up buying the X1 device, which is about to go on sale. I returned the review phone earlier today so I don't know how this app, which you can download for free, actually works. But I do know you can use it to check status updates, friends’ profiles, pics and notifications. Facebook on the iPhone remains one of the best mobile web apps -- and even other versions of Facebook pale in front of its capabilities. (Read: my X-1 Review.) | |
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| 5 Things to Do for Your Career in an Economic Downturn Via GigaOM Economic downturns are hard for everyone, at both work and at home. Week after week there are requests for managers to further reduce budgets, lay off more people and cut projects that were previously classified as “necessary to sustain normal business operations.” These pressures forge managers made of diamond, and those who perform well in both boom and bust are destined for greatness. The very best managers get out ahead of downturns and take action early to minimize shareholder losses and, ideally, create shareholder value. Here are six simple questions to determine if you are one of these managers.
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| Can Heidi Klum Save MediaFLO? Via GigaOM  Today Qualcomm scored a huge coup for its MediaFLO mobile television service by winning the right to broadcast the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and to create a 27/7 channel devoted to the event. All MediaFLO subscribers will be able to watch the broadcast when it airs on Dec. 3. The fashion show pulled in a television audience last year of 6.5 million, exactly mirroring the number of people who are watching any form of mobile TV, which includes options other than MediaFLO.
But as the February transition to digital television looms, groups such as the National Association of Broadcasters and the Open Mobile Video Coalition (pushing a jointly developed LG and Samsung standard) are seeking to develop alternate methods to watch TV on the go to avoid being beholden to wireless providers. The OMVC and it's backers are branching out beyond cellular networks, hoping to install their technology in cars and laptops. Should those efforts succeed, Qualcomm's investments in MediaFLO won't pan out.
With its Ultra Mobile Broadband 4G wireless effort officially shuttered last week, Qualcomm needs to find another way to mint money. It still has a platform effort in Gobi, MediaFLO is still around, and 3G networks aren't going anywhere for a while, but Qualcomm built its success on controlling the IP for the widely adopted mobile standard CDMA. It can certainly play in other fields, but without a choke hold on some widely needed intellectual property, its negotiating power and royalty rates will be lessened.
Image from CBS | |
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| What’s a BlackBerry Without a Keyboard? Via GigaOM  RIM's recently released Blackberry Storm is a device that tries to outdo Apple's iPhone by including a beefed-up OS, polishing up the interface and marrying it to a really fast 3G network (instead of AT&T's pokey 3G network.) The device even has visual voice mail, and a cut-and-paste feature. And oh by the way, RIM got rid of the the keyboard and got itself a touch screen.
Verizon seems to have orchestrated a nice launch and the early reviews give the Storm a thumbs up. If you believe everything reviewers say, then you gotta wonder: Why has RIM only gotten around to making BlackBerrys like the Storm (and the Bold) now? I think it was due to a lack of imagination -- and fear of taking risks. Now that that iPhone has made touch screens cool, RIM is jumping on the bandwagon.
Our own James Kendrick has taken an in-depth look at the Storm and has posted his findings on jkOnTheRun, along with a fantastic video that takes you through the pros and cons of the device. He sent in his thoughts for our readers:
The Storm is unusual for a Blackberry as it lacks a physical keyboard of any kind. The screen is a large display that uses SurePress technology from RIM that makes it feel like using a physical thumb board when you type on the screen. In our brief experience it works very well and we won't be surprised to see the Storm take off in the consumer space.He seems to like the device a lot (You can find his complete review at jkOnTheRun). I, however, am not sold on it. While I can live without a keyboard on iPhone, I cannot do the same on a BlackBerry. One of the reasons I like BlackBerry is the physical QWERTY keyboard. The Bold's keyboard was one of the reasons I gave that device a big thumbs up. The keyboard and push email make BlackBerry a device to love because it allows you to plow through copious amount of email when on the go. The reason I carry both an iPhone and a BlackBerry 8800 is because I use the first one for browsing and talking, while the other is for everything that involves text: Google Talk, Twitter, Facebook messages and of course, staying on top of a steady torrent of daily email. As Walt Mossberg says, "[U]sing the Storm's keyboard is much more like using the iPhone's keyboard than a traditional BlackBerry's. I found that I could type quite well on the Storm after awhile, but that a greater adjustment, and more practice, were required than with a physical keyboard." He is also miffed that you get a Suretype keyboard when the device is held in vertical and goes into a QWERTY mode only when the device is held horizontally. I agree -- it's a boneheaded UI feature. I am of the opinion that devices that stick to their true strengths are the ones that succeed the most. Apple is winning with the iPhone because touch is an integral part of the entire experience. All the applications are being built on top of that experience. In losing its keyboard with the Storm, this BlackBerry device has lost some of its uniqueness. The Storm reminds me of the St. Louis Cardinals phenom Rich Ankiel, who was an awesome pitcher till he flamed out, got hurt and came back as an outfielder and a hitter. He scored a lot of runs last seasons, but he isn't a center fielder like Mickey Mantle. He is just another player. Storm will be that -- just another touch-screen smartphone. Photo Courtesy of RIM | |
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| We’ll be back up…very, very soon Via My Weblog College Mogul Fans, I know many of you have been asking us when we’re gonna be back. Its been a while and I’m finally excited to announce that we have finalized anew design! We’re working on a few more things and should be up very, very soon! Check back in the next couple of weeks and join [...] | |
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| We Are Building - A New College Mogul Will Be Up Soon! Via My Weblog Hello College Mogul Fans, We apologize for the appearance of our site; we are in the process of building, redesigning, and launching a new College Mogul. The new College Mogul will be up soon! Join the Facebook group so we can let you know when College Mogul will hit the ground running again. Thank you for your patience, College [...] | |
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| Ottawa students take prize for desalination technology Via My Weblog A recent estimate for the total global freshwater is 35,000,000 cubic kilometers. Sounds like a lot right? Not quite. Humans depend on freshwater to survive, but unfortunately it only accounts for 2.5% of the Earth’s total water volume. Geophysicists and climatologists maintain that changes in climate conditions and stresses on water supply from overconsumption of [...] | |
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| $500,000 Business Plan Competition Via My Weblog We thought the DFJ Gotham $250k competition was huge, squashing the Forbes $100k and MIT $100k. Although a very niche competition, the Global Security Challenge offers $500,000 cash as a prize as well as mentorship from leading venture capitalist firms such as Siemens Venture Capital. Students are welcomed to enter since they are looking for [...] | |
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| Obsidian Launch: Accelerate Your Business Via My Weblog The majority of startup incubators, such as Y Combinator, require entrepreneurs to give up small percentages of equity in exchange for small amounts of seed financing, usually in the range of $15,000. While they are usually tremendous opportunities to work alongside seasoned entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, it is still questionable whether or not they actually [...] | |
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| UCSB New Venture Competition Winners Announced Via My Weblog Aaron Belsh of PhatDeals recently informed us of the winners of the UCSB Technology Management Program New Venture Competition. A total of $25,000 was distributed to five winners in different categories. Taking “Most Fundable Idea” and “Dow Materials Use” categories ($10,000 and $5,000, respectively) this year was Nitride Solutions, a startup developing products used [...] | |
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| Promising Startups: EasyBib and ThinkGum Via My Weblog StudentBusinesses.com is excited to announce the launch of a new column, in which we will feature some of the most promising startups on our site. This week, we have selected two startups that each target college students and could improve your performance in school - but in completely different ways. Founded by a PhD candidate at [...] | |
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| Entrepreneurship at Harvard University Via My Weblog Facebook is the obvious one, but there are plenty of other startups that have sprung from Harvard University students and recent graduates. They’re attracting millions of visitors to their websites and millions of dollars in funding. Facebook has certainly spawned an immediate copycat phenomenon, but what about Microsoft? Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, but [...] | |
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| RoboScooter: Revolutionizing Urban Mobility Via My Weblog You want a RoboScooter, you just don’t know it yet. The MIT-designed lightweight, folding, electric scooter is one their labs latest innovative creations that is bound to revolutionize urban mobility. The prototype of the new design, which was unveiled at the Milan Auto Show a couple of months ago, is a product of MIT’s Smart [...] | |
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| Elevator Pitch Contest: Win an iPhone Via My Weblog We are in the process of forming a partnership with VenturePORT and talking with their project manager, Tracy Buzzell. VenturePORT is a resource and networking site for entrepreneurs as well as a major sponsor for the The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour. Right now they are hosting a video elevator pitch competition in which winners take [...] | |
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