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- TechCrunch Readers: God is Your Co-Pilot, and Stuff that Piggy Bank
- Uh-Oh: Gameloft Moves Away From Android Development
- Google Wave iPhone App Hits The App Store … Temporarily
- London VC: European Startups Need To Work Much Harder
- Naspers Could Be The Next Owner Of ICQ (And Why That Would Make Sense)
- CrunchGear 2009 Gift Guide: Peripherals
- This Week On TechCrunch: Real-time distractions, Indian outsourcing, rumours, layoffs and Scoble’s brave new world of tweets
- Getting To The SuperTweet: Speedi.ly Classifies The Real Time Web
- The Ellerdale Project Mines The Semantic Web To Help You Make Sense Of Real-Time Streams
- Gmail Creator Thinks Email Will Last Forever. And Hasn’t Tried Google Wave.
- RealTime CrunchUp: Where’s The Money In RealTime?
- RealTime CrunchUp: The Rise Of Geo Streams
- Rippol’s Video Discovery Engine Launches To The Public
- RealTime CrunchUp: Media Streams As The Ultimate Marketing Vehicle
- VideoLobby Wants To Help You Create Your Own Custom-Branded Live Webcasts
- FlixUp Is Rotten Tomatoes For Twitter Movie Talk
- Retweets Are Hot. Will Retweeting Ads Be? TweetMeme Thinks So.
- SuperFeedr Wants To Speed Your Feeds
- PlyMedia: Transcribing And Captioning Videos In Real Time
- Mozzler’s Real-Time Search Engine Scours Twitter For The Most Retweeted News
- Status.Net: The WordPress For Microblogs Gets A Hosted Solution
- Google And The Amazing Technicolor Search Options
- Knx.To Is Your Social Graph And Address Book Rolled Into One
- Qwisk Brings Your Social Networks To The Browser
- Seesmic Ventures Into Mobile With Powerful New Apps For Android And BlackBerry
| TechCrunch Readers: God is Your Co-Pilot, and Stuff that Piggy Bank Posted: 21 Nov 2009 07:45 AM PST
You didn't think that successful entrepreneurs were this pious did you? Neither did I. After all, what did God have to do with Google aside from Jeff Jarvis stealing his book title from fans of Jesus and their much copied meme? Did God build the Internet? Did he build the microchip? I've never been religious myself and have always believed that with hard work and determination, you can surmount just about any obstacles. But I also learned the hard way that you can do everything right and fail. Sometimes you do just about everything wrong and make it big. My belief: success is 51% luck and 49% execution. You need to execute with precision, but a little luck goes a long way. It is always good to have God on your side. So it was interesting and illuminating (pun intended) to see what other entrepreneurs thought about this. To collect and collate precisely that type data, I and several colleagues (with the support of the Kauffman Foundation) researched the backgrounds, motivation and success factors of company founders in several high growth industries including aerospace and defense, computer and electronics, health care, and services. Our earlier paper titled Anatomy of an Entrepreneur revealed that these founders typically came from middle-class backgrounds, have parents who are less educated than they are, and tend to be married with children when they launch their first company. Most had always wanted to start their own companies. They were driven by a desire to build wealth, commercialize business idea they had and to stop working for others. For a new paper, titled Making of a Successful Entrepreneur, we analyzed the factors which made these company founders successful. Nearly all (96%) said that prior work experience was an important factor in their success and 58% ranked this as extremely important. The vast majority (88%) said that previous success and failures were important. But lessons from failures were judged as extremely important by more respondents than lessons from success. That's right, those that had experienced failure valued it more highly than their successes. Management teams were ranked as important by 82%. The next highest ranked factor was good fortune, with 73% ranking this as important, and 22% ranking this as extremely important. When asked what other factors played a role in their success, many who responded stressed the extreme importance of faith and God. It wasn't just those with names from one religion who said this. Rather, it seems that Christians, Jews, Hindus and Muslims alike share the same beliefs. Yes, these people were on a Mission from God – or, at the very least, they strongly felt that their faith fed the entrepreneurial drive and the intangibles required to succeed in the brutal endeavor of making something from nothing, of birthing a company. Another surprising bit of wisdom we got from these entrepreneurs was this. The Lord may be their co-pilot but their most trusted banker was the same guy they saw in the mirror every morning. Anyone who follows TechCrunch probably assumes that the vast majority of successful technology startups receive some sort of outside capital and that, in fact, the outside capital plays a key role in allowing these startups to get off the ground. But our sample of entrepreneurs told us that personal savings was the primary source of funding.
My academic colleagues don't like to hear this, but company founders didn't rank university education as highly as other factors. Yes, 70 percent said their university education was important and Ivy-League graduates valued this more, with 86 percent indicating this was important. But only 20 percent of all entrepreneurs and 18 percent of Ivy-League graduates ranked university education as extremely important, however. And the alum networks which are supposed to be really valuable for business contacts, weren't ranked that highly. Only 19% of the entrepreneurs believed that university or alumni networks were important for their business. Even the Ivy grads didn't think that their legendary networks were so important: only 29% ranked their legendary networks ranked these as important, and of these only 10.5% said these were extremely or very important. Hardly any of the company founders ranked state or local government assistance as important. But those from the Midwest and Southwest put a slightly higher premium on this assistance than others, with 19 percent and 15 percent, respectively, ranking it as important. Entrepreneurs from New England put the lowest premium on it, with only 1 percent ranking it as important, followed by the West and South, both with 4 percent. That seems logical, since high-growth startup mechanisms are most developed and the communities to support them most mature in the West and Northeast. All told, even a skeptic like me was extremely surprised at how much these entrepreneurs valued things that no amount of money could buy – thriftiness (personal savings), faith (belief in the supreme being and oneself), and self-selected networks (friends and weak social ties). The moral of all this, I guess, is luck may be critical but self is essential to the successful startup. Editor's note: Guest writer Vivek Wadhwa Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  |
| Uh-Oh: Gameloft Moves Away From Android Development Posted: 21 Nov 2009 07:33 AM PST  The sudden surge in interest in Android (largely due to all of the hype surrounding the Droid) has caused a lot of developers to reconsider the platform. Atleast one major development house, however, isn't impressed. Earlier today, Alexandre de Rochefort, Finance Director of Gameloft, told an investor conference that the company had "significantly cut [their] investment in Android platform, just like ... many others". Gameloft is one of the largest mobile games companies around, having pulled in roughly $132 million in the last three quarters alone. While there are plenty of fish in the developer sea, this can't be one that Google is happy to see swim away. |
| Google Wave iPhone App Hits The App Store … Temporarily Posted: 21 Nov 2009 06:46 AM PST
One caveat: it’s not built, authorized or in any way endorsed by Google. Spotted by Stuart Dredge over at Mobile Entertainment, the unofficial Google Wave iPhone app seemingly slipped past Apple’s usually and notoriously rigorous quality assurance and trademark compliance team and made its way to the App Store (iTunes link – up to you to decide if this is something you want to pay for). There, it is the top result for a search on ‘google wave’ right before Waveboard, another iPhone app for the company’s experimental collaboration and communication tool that wasn’t built by Google. But at least the latter developer didn’t blatantly use its trademarked logo, company and product name. The Google Wave iPhone app was in fact made by CLapps, a small developer of games for the iPhone and iPod Touch platform. CLapps – or rather, its sole employee David Crampton – notes in the app’s description: “I have no connection with Google or Google Wave but just supply a means by which to use it on your iPhone”. Somehow, I think the search giant’s lawyers are still going to have some objections to the naming part. Expect it to disappear from the Store and (maybe) come back under another name in 3, 2, … PS: while Google hasn’t yet published an official Google Wave iPhone app, simply pointing your browser to wave.google.com works mighty fine. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| London VC: European Startups Need To Work Much Harder Posted: 21 Nov 2009 04:50 AM PST  This is our third guest post written by a London-based VC. To allow them to speak plainly without jeopardising their fund or their career in the small village that is the London VC scene, I'm allowing them to post anonymously. FYI, LondonVC is a genuine VC and TechCrunch Europe has met them face to face. One of the biggest challenges for any investor (regardless of the stage/type of investment they target) and founders alike is hiring great talent. In early stage investing the team may be the single criteria upon which an investment decision is based (considering how many times when that's all there is to go by) and even in later/growth stages, while the founding team has been historically crucial, bringing someone new in to help "get the company to the next level" can be the difference between investing or not. Something I've realised and have to admit is that while obviously the absolute pool of talent is smaller here in the UK/Europe than it is in the U.S. (and that cannot be disputed nor is it anything more than a function of population) another factor. It is one which I keep hoping will change, because if it doesn't it threatens to make a small pool even smaller. And that is a cultural and behavioural issue: work ethic. |
| Naspers Could Be The Next Owner Of ICQ (And Why That Would Make Sense) Posted: 21 Nov 2009 01:55 AM PST
According to the reports, AOL was looking to offload the asset for $300 million and talking to a pair of non-US companies about an acquisition (likely in a part cash, part stock transaction). Question is: who are those potential buyers? We’ve pinned down one who, sources say, has already engaged in late-stage negotiations with AOL about a buy-out that would occur after its planned December 2009 IPO: meet Naspers, a massive multinational media conglomerate that you’ve possibly never heard of. Naspers (aka MIH Group) is a nearly century-old media company headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa that is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and also boasts an ADR listing on the London Stock Exchange. The group's principal operations are in Internet platforms, pay-television and print media. So what would make this a sensible move for Naspers? Naspers’ principal Internet operations are currently in South Africa and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, China, Russia, Eastern Europe, India, Brazil and Thailand. To expand its global footprint, buying ICQ would make sense as it already has stakes in a good number of complementary companies that operate on an international level. An acquisition of ICQ, which has somewhere in between 40 and 50 million active users around the world – mainly in Germany, Russia, Ukraine and Israel – and is ‘moderately profitable’, would be a good move for the publicly listed media company to make in order to increase its international user base and create synergies between some of its ventures. As outlined by Quintura CEO Yakov Sadchikov in a blog post speculating about Naspers’ interest in ICQ: - the group owns a 35% stake in Tencent Holdings Limited, the operator of the wildly popular Chinese instant messaging platform QQ The MIH Group also operates or owns a stake in a number of e-commerce platforms and auction websites, including Ricardo (mostly targeting Western European countries), Poland’s Allegro and Brazilian price comparison service BuscaPé, as well as local social networking sites like India’s Ibibo. In other words, the group has been consistently building up quite a portfolio of multinational Internet and mobile communication properties, and picking up ICQ would fit perfectly into that expansion strategy. According to our sources, Naspers was approached by AOL about a potential sale proactively, but is not the only corporation who might end up as the new parent company of ICQ. We reached out for confirmation or more information, but AOL declined to comment saying it doesn’t respond to rumors or speculation as a policy, and the MIH Group has not gotten back to us at this point. AOL is said to also be eying a sale of other properties, including MapQuest and Bebo. AOL acquired ICQ (well, its then parent company Mirabilis) for $287 million in cash back in June 1998, with another $120 million in earn-outs for its executive team. Most of its 100-or-so employees are still located in Israel, where the company was originally established. Stay tuned for more. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| CrunchGear 2009 Gift Guide: Peripherals Posted: 20 Nov 2009 09:00 PM PST  Peripherals, they say, are the spice of life. Well, maybe they don't say that, but they do say it about variety, and peripherals add variety to your computing life. If you're reading this on a stock HP desktop, clicking on links with the mouse that came with it, and trusting your data to that 512MB USB stick they gave you at work, then you should consider accessorizing. |
| Posted: 20 Nov 2009 08:30 PM PST
I’ve been on stage, heckling participants on the marketing panel, I’ve been Tweeting from the audience, I’ve been following the live-blogging of the panels. Generally I’ve been living the real time dream – which probably explains why I haven’t done any actual work all day. And now I’m twenty minutes away from my deadline, and I still have to read a week of TechCrunch and figure out everything that’s happened this week. Oh, and to make matters worse, Arrington has filled my work room with dogs. Welcome, then, to a completely – and appropriately – real-time edition of This Week On TechCrunch. From first glance, it seems that the entire site has been outsourced to India, with both Lacy and Vivek reporting from the ground. And at one point on top of a camel. On Friday evening Sarah kicked things off with a useful primer on why ecommerce has been slow to take off in the country, and how travel sites like MakeMyTrip.com are acting as a gateway drug to get Indians shopping online, starting with ex-pats. Vivek went one stage bigger, asking whether India has the potential to ‘take on’ Silicon Valley. His conclusion: yes. He’s wrong of course, but it’s a fascinating discussion. As Vivek headed back to the US, Sarah headed to Delhi, and the slums made famous by Slumdog Millionaire. But what she discovered couldn’t be more different from what we saw on the big screen: surrounded by grinning children, she met NIIT, a for-profit company that’s introducing the poorest children to computers by, well, leaving kiosks lying around and letting human curiosity take its course. Meanwhile, back in the Valley, Arrington was starting his working week with rumours that MySpace was on the verge of buying imeem; a rumour that he gleefully confirmed two days later. A million dollars in cash, with half of imeem’s 55 employees (27.5 people) moving to MySpace – and the others looking for new jobs. Speaking of people looking for new jobs, Robin reported on AOL’s appeal for 2,500 employees to voluntarily hand in their notice as the company heads for IPO. The alternative, according to CEO Tim Armstrong? They’ll just be fired. This just a week after the company announced 1000 involuntary layoffs. Cast aside like so many unwanted sign-up discs. Hey, but at least Don Dodge got a new job. What else? In real-real time presidential news, Obama admitted that he has never used Twitter, but – as MG puts it – he’s adamant that people in China should have the right to. In real-time celebrity news, Shakira used UStream to stream her new album to 95,000 live viewers and a further 400,000+ watching the reruns over the next 24 hours. (Incidentally this story saw Jason narrowly missing out on the Headline Of The Week award for: “Shakira's Stats Don't Lie“. I mean, seriously Jason? “Stats?”. The correct title of course is “Shakira’s Hits Don’t Lie”. Better luck next time. In real-time things that I’m already bored of even though they’re not launching until at least next year news: Google previewed their new Chrome OS and rumour has it they’re on the verge of launching a new Google phone. It’s ‘very real‘ says Mike. And it may even be VoIP-only. Splendid. Which brings us nearly to the real-time event. It’s still going on right now, so it’s too early to say what the highlights are – tune in next week, etc – but newsworthy segments include the creator of Gmail admitting that he hasn’t used Wave, an interesting discussion on how to monetize ‘real-time’ and, of course, MG’s Headline of the Week: Google And The Amazing Technicolor Search Options. And that’s just about it. The after-party is calling, and I’m eager to talk to Scoble more about his ‘Super Tweet‘ idea. I have no idea what it is, but it sounds like the future. Have a great week! Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Getting To The SuperTweet: Speedi.ly Classifies The Real Time Web Posted: 20 Nov 2009 07:33 PM PST
What does Speedi.ly do? One thing, very well and at scale. Speedi.ly takes a piece of content, or grabs the content from a URL, and analyzes it. It does this very fast and it outputs some key data. Speedi.ly tells you the language of the content, categorizes it (topics, keywords), and additional metadata. This metadata payload is exactly what Robert Scoble is talking about with his SuperTweet idea. Here’s what Speedi.ly returns for this story we wrote on the Skype/eBay sale:
Speedi.ly successfully categorizes the story as about technology. Not bad for on the fly and human-free categorization. You’ll see the field for entities as well, which is currently blank. Speedi.ly will soon turn that on as well. Now check out the results for this article from the SF Chronicle, properly categorizing it under sports:
Why is this useful? Most URLs passed around today on Twitter and Facebook are completely metadata free. Search engines like Topsy are forced to look at the text in the Tweet or status message, if any, for context on what the URL is about. Even Digg and Delicious rely on data entered in by humans to categorize URLs. With a service like Speedi.ly, those services can create a sort of real time page rank on the fly. If you want to try it out yourself, go to http://classify.speedi.ly/fun and us login:customer and password: logmein. Note that this isn’t going to be a huge wow moment for most users, but potential partners will be able to see what Speedi.ly is capable of. There are a couple of other services sniffing around the same space as Speedi.ly. Factery, which we wrote about earlier this week, looks at shared URLs and pulls out key facts. And Thompson Reuters has OpenCalais, which has 18,000 customers. I interviewed Keith this afternoon about the service on video. It’s embedded below. He also mentions that Speedi.ly is already working with a partner to categorize URLs on the fly. Disclosure: I’m friends with and have had business relationships with both founders – Keith Teare and Louis Monier. And Keith is a shareholder in TechCrunch. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| The Ellerdale Project Mines The Semantic Web To Help You Make Sense Of Real-Time Streams Posted: 20 Nov 2009 07:30 PM PST
Extracting meaning from the Web is a difficult undertaking. Keyword search skims the surface of contextual meaning that is locked in Web pages, Tweets and feeds. That’s where semantic search comes in. The semantic web deals with looking beyond simple links that make up the web to understand a deeper meaning and context behind that content. The Ellerdale Project, which launched in alpha this past week, is hoping to add context to search by using semantic technology to power a real-time search platform. Ellerdale mines the real-time stream, including Tweets, RSS and the, to identify topics, messages and articles that link together based on content, not keyword. So If you looked up Sarah Palin on Ellerdale’s site, you’d see a semantic graph of related content, such as Oprah Winfrey (Palin just appeared on Oprah a few days ago), The Republican Party and John McCain. The data on the site is mostly collected from Wikipedia, Freebase, Twitter, RSS, and by crawling the web. Ellerdale then analyzes and index the data to identify topics in text. Using this information, Ellderdale will show you the latest tweets, RSS articles and trending URLs, organized by topic. The site also analyzes trends in Tweets and feeds to display trending topics and topic clusters organized by categories (i.e. politics, sports, style). For now you can only see topics on the site and cannot actually search for any keyword. While Ellderdale’s platform is still a work in progress, it’s already caught the eye of notable angel investor Ron Conway, who has made an investment in the startup. Startups and companies using the semantic web for search is steadily growing. Microsoft bought Powerset for $100 million to gain semantic search expertise. Hakia, NetBase, Textwise, Twine and other startups are also working on semantic search.  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Gmail Creator Thinks Email Will Last Forever. And Hasn’t Tried Google Wave. Posted: 20 Nov 2009 05:30 PM PST
Today, at our RealTime CrunchUp event in San Francisco, Buchheit and Threadsy founder Rob Goldman sat down for a chat with our own Steve Gillmor and Erick Schonfeld. The topic was: Can We Kill Email Already? All Aboard The Micro-Message Bus. So can we kill email? Well if Buchheit’s quote didn’t tip you off, the consensus was “no.” Though there are some interesting things coming out that are helping to expand our communication, we’re just not at the point now where we can live without email. And in fact, for many of these services like Twitter and Facebook, you still need email to be notified about new followers or new messages. Threadsy (which launched at TechCrunch50 this year) is trying to help the transition away from email by integrating it with other services like Twitter, but even Goldman acknowledges that the email notification problem remains an issue because people keep relying on it. At one point, a question from the audience asked about Google Wave, another would be “email-killer,” and Schonfeld noted that he was having a hard time getting into it because he wasn’t getting notified via email when there is a new Wave message. So you can see the problem. Speaking of Wave, when asked about his thoughts on it, Buchheit noted that he hadn’t actually tried it yet, while laughing. “The invite is sitting in my inbox.” This is significant because Buchheit was instrumental in creating Gmail for Google. But Buchheit doesn’t consider Google Wave as a replacement of email or even Twitter or Facebook. Both him and Goldman agreed that it seemed more of a collaboration tool. And both felt that despite some great technology it was still a few years away from having a polished experience. When asked if there would be a mashup of social and private streams, such as email and Facebook with Twitter, Buchheit said that he felt rather than one thing killing off another that we would just keep layering on new things. Goldman noted that the next step for Threadsy is to provide better context about the messages you’re getting and who you are talking to. He also noted that being able to search across all your messages is key. So, no. Email isn’t dead yet, but it may be changing. [photo: (cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| RealTime CrunchUp: Where’s The Money In RealTime? Posted: 20 Nov 2009 05:15 PM PST
name="utv_n_390889" src="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/2604141" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /> ES: We talk a lot about the overflow of information. Lots of interest in geo-stream. Where do the money making opportunities lie here? We have lots of consumer use cases. GZ: Marc Benioff setting price at 50 per user gives us some room… ES: FriendFeed was the first sig. acqusition in this space. Wasn’t the size of what people were talking about with Twitter, but it’s a milestone. From a founder perspective you were building this system, can you tell us about, what you thought was obviously the future. ES: Brian can you talk about what you guys are interested in? MA: Kimball Musk this morning said there are gobs of money in search. When Twitter bought Summize, I think they gave them like 8% of the company, not sure if that’s been reported, it was a huge part of the company. I think they realized it was still very hard and passed it to Bing/Google. The places where the money is with Yammer, which touches on things like Echange. And search. But where else are people making money. Where are startups making money if not one of those two buckets? RC: Those are good buckets. I agree, what you’re seeing with the programmable web. Some business is going to take off, we’re seeing things that haven’t been created yet that are going to see a huge amount of value in things being created. RC: Coupons alone to inventivize users to go to a nearby place, revenues from that alone could be massive. This is going to happen in 2010. BS: We’ve seen a huge amont of traffic on real-time coupons/offerings. ES: How does microsoft look at this. SG: What do you know about deal with Twitter. RC: The companies we’re investing in today that TC writes about are indiciation of where the market is going. COtweet. Retime search companies. That’s going to be a hell of a horse race. I think one of the real time search engines that exists today will win out. AB: Realtime search is a tough space. I think Google does a pretty good job at information retreival. Facebook has search in a different way (more discovery serendipitious). I look at it, if you go back 4 years ago, most of the companies you would see that were web enabled, you could see the same traffic refeeral chart. 30% google SEO. 40% SEM. the rest direct. Today out of nowhere Facebook/Twitter have become huge reffers. ES: Paul, you’re both a buyer and seller because you’re an active angel investor. To what extent do the companies you invest in fall in this theme. MA: There’s another angle to FB search. Forget where you are, what you’ve done. I found when I look people I know, search results are really good. Reason is because they are ranked based on people who have mutual friends. Google doesn’t address that at all. Applies to more than just people. Who you are is really relevant to almost all searches. ES: As we look forward at where all this is going. Seems like there are a lot of different approaches. Is there danger of confusion here. Do I build on top of Twitter/Facebook, quasi open systems Google is pushing. MA: Stocktwits built on Twitter and now they’ve moved almost completely off it. Zynga is doing it with Farmville now. DL: Big question is whether company that rises as a company like Twitter. Or one like Facebook becomes core platform. Pick starting point but it’s hard to argue that anyone can anticipiate which one is going to get lift like a Twitter. Why Twitter and not someone else. ES: George, maybe you can answer that. Twitter, Facebook, Google each platforms taking different approaches. GZ: The concept of a social network has been around for a long time.The one difference is twitter is unlike geocities etc. Twitter is an example of a horizontal network. They own namespace, let third parties build it out. ES: FriendFeed was ultimate twitter client. Paul, you built it partially on back of Twitter. But then when you sold to FB you bet on FB model. SG: Does anyone have an opinion if lists, RT, etc are going to be plus or minus. DL: I think most of the money will be made in enterprise communications. ES: What will be the biggest real time exit next year? Q: Who is Twitter disrupting? DL: I think Michael has a POV of our position on the web. Not sure if anyone paid attention to what we announced at our dev conf. ———— Full transcript: >> So this is the last session that we’re about to start. And let’s stay here and we can get this one wrapped up on time. >> So if everyone on the final panel, if they’re not behind there, are they all back there? Should we give away the okay. So at the end of this panel, we’re going to give away the sailing trip again. So I’m not going to do it now because everyone left. If everybody who is on this panel can come up. Brian Singerman, Ron Conway, Dan’l Lewin, Paul Buchheit and Andrew Braccia. If you’re back stage, come on up here. >> All right. We’re going to get started. Can you find the other panelists. We’ll have drinks afterwards. So we’ll get started. Okay. Yeah, George, are you giving a demo? >> He’s around. >> George Zachary. You want to come up on stage, guys. All right. Ron Conway. All right. Someone find Ron Conway. He’ll show up. Okay. >> Let’s have everybody introduce themselves and say a little bit about why they think that They have an opinion about real time or not. Let’s start on this end. >> Andrew Braccia, Accel Partners, have no opinion. >> Paul Buchheit, Facebook at the moment, I guess, previously Friendfeed, and >> Facebook, I guess, at the moment? [LAUGHTER] >> That came out wrong. [LAUGHTER] I was trying to decide whether Friendfeed or Facebook part was more relevant. They’re both very relevant since obviously I think realize is a big time where we’re headed In the future. And in particular not just the technical aspect but the human aspect of how we relate to each Other. >> George. >> George Zachary, Charles River. I’m known to have opinions. I missed the question. I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention. >> As it goes, who are you. >> I’m Dan’l Lewin, I’m with Microsoft. I’m here in Silicon Valley, and oversee our outreach to the start-up community in general. >> Great. Brian Singerman, I’m at Founders Fund. >> Okay. So we kind of want to use this panel to, A, wrap up some of the themes that we’ve been seeing Today. And really kind of focus on what both the business and investment opportunities are in the Future. So we’ve seen talk a lot about sort of filtering this overflow of information that’s being delivered in streams. If you would like. You can be Ron Conway. We’ve seen that there’s a lot of interest in geo stream information, lots of start-ups working On that. >> By the way, the doors were locked and there are a bunch of people trying to get in, they Couldn’t get in because the doors are locked. >> Could somebody open the door. >> In real time, please. >> All right. And we’re seeing these streams becoming sort of new distribution mechanisms for both private And public communications, media content, etc.. So where do the money-making opportunities lie here? We’ve got a lot of consumer use cases. Where is the money? George. >> That’s a pretty broad question. Well, we’re investors in three companies that are now starting to accrue revenues in the space. One is Twitter. The second one is Yammer a third in India SMS group shot, people in India call the at which Twitter of India, which is kind of a Twitter and e-groups blend. >> Can you talk about how well Yammerer is monetizing, it’s unclear. It would be good to understand. What percent of customers turn into upgrade into a paid account and what are they paying on Average? What’s total revenue? >> I won’t tell you that level of detail. But I will tell you >> Their advantage is being a private company. >> I will tell you that with a salesperson who is promoted from customer support, no other Sales infrastructure, in zero four marketing we have over10 percent conversion of the install Base. >> They’re paying it is it $12 a month per user? I forgot what is it they charge? >> I can’t remember right now. >> George $1 per use per month. >> You told me in the hall once salesforce announced chatter you started getting a lot of Calls. >> Just to partially answer your question without getting a raft of crap from the company. The company has about 550,000 installed seats up from zero in 14 months. [APPLAUSE] So I think >> Was that David Sacks. >> Has anyone who here has used Yammer and uses it more than what I thought. >> We started using it after TechCrunch after they won the event. At some point we moved the paid. We have to move to paid. Cleared out old accounts and got control of it. It’s an insidious product where you get very sticky. You’re like we have to start paying. And so it’s a good thing. >> It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing for the company and me as an investor. So to answer your question >> It’s good for the customer because you’ll be around for a while, then. >> That’s correct. To answer your question, you know, post Marc Benioff getting up saying we’ve blatantly copied Yammer but I’m not going to tell you because we claim everything. We started getting calls from investment bankers saying since salesforce has chatter I bet All these other companies are going to want Yammer. But we haven’t responded to the calls. >> There’s an interesting thing we’ve noticed at least I’ve noticed in terms of Yammer, as They keep broadening their platform across different devices, like, for example, when the iPhone 3.0 software came out it supports push notification. And all of a sudden if you send an at Steve or at Mike or editor, it shows up, if you have An iPhone still, which Mike doesn’t, it shows up on the, it alerts you. Literally it pushes to the top of the stack. >> It synchs across devices which Twitter hasn’t come close to doing. >> You said there’s 550,000 seats. $1 a month. >> 550,000 installed enterprise seats over 10 percent of new seats convert every month. >> So it’s like 20, 30, 40,000 paid seats. >> No, it’s below 100,000. >> And that’s below $100,000 in revenue per month. >> Near 100,000 paying users. >> It’s $1 per month per user. >> Actually, it’s three to five. >> Okay. So it’s actual revenue. It’s not huge yet but it’s proving it’s a business model. >> Marc Benioff is setting the price, his price at 50 bucks per user gives us some you mean Umbrella for >> But he ties into all this other CRM data, right? So are you saying that you’re going to what’s Yammer strategy to kind of ingest other, you Know, enterprise data systems and make those, you know, alerts within Yammer? >> That’s correct. That’s correct. And just to pick on Marc a little bit, salesforce is a company with more P than E in their P to E and existing off of CRM is not a good way to maintain the company. So he has to spread into the space. And my belief is that the core of all enterprise IT is going to be messaging. I mean, huge franchises have been built off of messaging, specifically e-mail and Dan’l you Would know this well, and I believe that Yammer is going to be the future of enterprise messaging. So I’m very excited about it. There’s going to be serious competition, we know that. >> So, Paul, Friendfeed was the first really kind of significant acquisition in the space. You know, definitely wasn’t in terms of size of what people were talking about Twitter, but Twitter never sold. But in terms of the impact you guys are having, within Facebook, I think that it’s a milestone. And $50 million is nothing to sneeze at. So to what extent, from a founder perspective, right, you’re building the system, can you tell Us a little bit about what extent were you sort of off in the woods doing what you thought Was obviously the future, and at what point did sort of the bigger companies, the acquirers Start sniffing around? >> You know, Facebook kept talking to us. Like from the very beginning. They’re very persistent. And so pretty much always there were people looking. But we were never looking to sell. Even when we did sell. It was a surprise even to us. So but really what happened was that we did start talking to them more closely and got to meet More of the team and learn more about where they saw things going. And you know as we started putting more thought into essentially the future of Facebook, it Started to seem like a very intriguing possibility. And ultimately that was obviously what we did. >> So your motivation for selling was primarily what? >> The opportunity at Facebook is very substantial. You quoted a number which we’ve never no one has ever announced the deal, but obviously The biggest component is the question of what is the value of Facebook. And I think that the value of Facebook is going to be huge. It’s a very successful company. It’s going to get more so I think in the future. There’s really a lot of opportunity in the whole area of all the social and the real time and Everything. And they’re in a somewhat unique position which I think will prove rather lucrative. >> Brian, can you tell us a little bit about your involvement in real time, what kind of real Time companies have you invested in? >> Yes, we’re also in Yammer along with George. And supporting David for a while. But I actually think. >> What kind of revenues is Yammer doing. >> Last time I saw Mike he asked me exactly what the Facebook revenues were. I gladly volunteered that information as well. No. We’re interested in that kind of stuff. But we’re also interested in where real time can go from nonconsumer or enterprise apps. We think there’s a lot of room for real time in devices, and there’s lots of room for real Time in biotech applications, and everything else. >> Biotech, like what? >> Like for instance there’s lots of cool companies doing things like being able to figure Out on the fly if there’s E. Coli in a given substance. And stuff like that. So I know it’s not the exact same type of real time that we’re talking about, but technology Is able to you can leverage technology to do lots of cool stuff that used to take a long Time. Like how news before >> It’s real time in the sense that if you find out before you eat the hamburger, that’s good. >> That’s right. It’s a lot better to find out beforehand. >> But there’s an application in India right now, there are huge issues on global health where People take medicines, drugs, which are purported to be clean and prescribed, but they’re actually Counterfeit. And a third of the time you have a chance of dying from taking the drug. Because it’s not real and it’s not clean. So there’s a public/private key. Real time example of you scrape off a little piece of hidden thing like you do on the prize, And you SMS the code and you get a real time check, is this a real drug or not. And then you choose to take it and live. So there’s a ton of examples outside of many noisy things that are real world applications. in healthcare bio, life sciences, simple things like that. Lots of opportunity. >> I agree. Absolutely. >> That’s one of those things, it’s one of those areas that’s really exciting to us right Now. Just basically taking stuff that used to take a long time and require a lot of capital, making It not require a lot of capital, and having instant gratification. Like in general that’s the theme of real time, and we’re huge fans of that. >> Andrew, can you talk a little bit about in terms of what percentage of pitches that you’re Seeing now either they use this term or that you I mean, is this becoming the new Web two 2.0. Are people using it as a branding mechanism? Is there something real here? >> It’s a very popular part of a lot of the presentations. Both from the perspective of new companies, presenting their ideas, with that lens, but also With existing companies, you know, pivoting around the trends of what’s happening around real Time information. And I think we have a bunch of different thoughts on the space, and I think like Brian was Talking about, and Dan’l, we think that real time has an impact in just about every business That we invest in. You know, whether it be a business that is, you know, in the data storage space, where more Information, you know, is only growing the need for the next level of data center infrastructure Around information retrieval and we have a company that we’re investors in with Ron called Cloudaria commercialization of Adoop, important for the data infrastructure. If you look at a lot of the advertising business and look at the importance that real time Is playing in terms of targeting you look at the rise of demand side platforms that are using Real time exchanges, like right media, double click, Google, OpenX. Those are areas we’re interested in. I think you look at the real time communication aspects of social networks, and you look at Those businesses as next generation platforms for commerce. If you think about Google, you know, Google organized all the world’s information. If you look at Facebook in many ways Facebook is organizing humanity, and in many ways people Are exchanging information and businesses are being built off of that. If you look at social commerce and you look at the frictionless nature of getting offers in Front of people and the virality of that and you see it in social gaming and other applications As well. So we’re taking sort of a wide purview and wide approach to investing. >> I think Mike has some ideas about the offers. >> Social gaming offers? >> I’m not necessarily talking about those types of offers. >> If you look at Kimball Musk from OneRiot in the panel this morning said that there are Gobs of money in search and I think when Twitter bought suchld ummize last summer I think they Gave them eight percent or something like that of the company. I don’t think that was ever verified. I’m not sure if it’s ever been reported. But there’s a huge chunk of the company that Twitter gave to do search. I think they realized that it’s still very, very hard and sort of passed it off to Bing and To Google. But it seems to me like the only places I’ve seen, maybe you disagree, I’d love to hear if You do. The places where the money is a little bit like with Yammer where you’re selling something To the enterprise and you’re convincing they want it and touching on exchange and that huge Potential pot of money, and in search where people are, as Kimball said, using his words, people Are expressing intent right now what they want and you can throw ads against and clearly there’s Lots of money to be made there, too, but where else are people making money. You put Facebook in another bucket and they’re so huge now they’re able to make money more Traditional ways. But for your start-ups you’re investing in, where are they going to make any money if it’s Not in one of those two buckets? >> Those are two pretty good buckets. Those two buckets are going to be a couple of billion dollars a year. But they’ll be new buckets as well that are unique. >> So what are the buckets? >> I completely agree. I think what you’re seeing with the whole programmable Web out there with all these APIs out There and you’ve got a bunch of people on your panels, some business is going to take off that Uses some of these APIs and very interesting unique ways and we’ll see things that haven’t Been created yet that generate a huge amount of traffic and a huge amount of value in that Space to people who are creating these building blocks for the programmable Web. >> Just the location based opportunity with Twitter doing the location API, which is going To help people like Foursquare Goola and Hot Potato, these are companies in their infancy, And they’re huge, huge markets. >> Can you talk a little bit more about that? We just had a geo panel. I know you were in another commitment. We tried to talk a little bit about this. But what’s your sense of how once we get geo data into all these apps, what are the, some Of the business opportunities that that makes possible? >> Just couponing alone to incentivise you to go in and replace a business that you’re within Two to three blocks of, just that in and of itself and the rev share from that could be mass Ive. >> And newspapers used to be the Sunday paper was the home of coupons. And that’s gone. So there’s an opportunity to be replaced. >> And it’s a huge opportunity. This is going to happen in 2010. You’re going to see it on gooala and Hot Potato and Foursquare and five other companies that We’re talking to next week. >> We’ve seen a huge amount of traffic, deal flow traffic on people doing the real time where You are-based coupons and offerings and doing intelligent targeting based on location on the Coupons. >> How does Microsoft think about this in you want to buy companies that are sort of invent you wait for companies to get critical mass to prove it up? >> The first thing for us is to build the infrastructure out, which we’ve been doing. And looking at the big information flows like what we did with the Twitter relationship. But I think that the inevitability is that some of these things that are bubbling up will be Things that we’ll be interested in. I can’t obviously comment on specifics but there’s no question that we have been and we’ll Continue to be inquisitive. Generally speaking, if people don’t know, it’s been about 20 companies on year on average, Probably 10 of those, half of those deals are bubble up like this if you will and become important Parts of a broader strategy that we’re clearly building out as it relates to the infrastructure. The enterprise infrastructure is really important to this. Location, as Ron points out, is fundamental to it as well. But to me, I think, the biggest picture for the company, I know Lili was on a panel earlier Today, probably mentioned some of these things. I’m sorry, I personally missed it. I had to be off site this morning. But real time, it goes way, way back in my mind to the very beginning of data exchange and EDI where who carries the flow? Right? Where is the value at what moment in time in the flow of information. Whether it’s money, or inventory, which equates to money, etc.. So what we’re seeing with the real streams and user-generated content for the most part today Or from what I’ve heard since the noon hour, these are all indications of the inevitability Of real time in a broader customer hall sense. How much will be monetizable and absorbed into infrastructure like a Facebook infrastructure, Which I think is fundamental as Andrew pointed out, and is mapping a very important space, Humanity, if you will. And all of those organizational dynamics around big, broad systems of record, whether it’s Information that Google organized or Facebook has done or we’ve done with Bing etc., those Are foundation points for much more rapid connections and the monetization will come about Where there’s a commercial opportunity. Create a advertising base. >> Do you agree it’s those two buckets, the search and what was your other bucket? >> Search and personal identity and flow, and information flow. There’s huge opportunity in the >> Commerce. >> Huge opportunity in the enterprise. There’s a little company that we’re working with right now that’s building out seven guys doing Math in the cloud using Asher we just worked with them at our developers conference this week. Seven guys optimizing for point of sale information. 5,000 retail points. 20,000 units of inventory in a warehouse. There’s massive inventory opportunity. >> Does the coupon thymine as I’m driving by a mini mall 18 coupons are going to pop up. >> In an ideal world you’ve presented it in a natural way. >> You want to put the filters in place. >> You’re already starting to see this with Foursquare, where >> Exactly. >> In your hand well since you’re here, go in the store, get this. >> I would absolutely add commerce to one of the buckets, to one of Mike’s buckets. I think you have to. >> Can I go through my top 10 list again? >> We did that last time. >> Is it the same. >> Ron’s going to go through his top 10 list. >> Lead generation. Analytics. I’m going to pass over the repeats. CRM. Payments. User authentication. Licensing of feeds. And acquiring followers. >> Licensing of feeds. Dan’l, what do you know about the deal with Twitter? >> Which deal? >> Wow, they did more than one. >> You paid a certain amount of money, allegedly. >> I don’t know >> Let’s go down this which deal. >> Well, you’re asking about a deal with Twitter. >> That deal. >> I think she answered that question. >> Ron Conway is like ask him, ask him, what’s the other deal. Am I disrupting the panel again. >> It’s your prerogative. >> I was asking a simple question. >> Which deal did Twitter do? They did one with us, right? >> Right. The question is licensing of feeds. That seems to be a pretty big license of feeds. What are the details of that license? >> Why would I offer details? [LAUGHTER] >> To a conversation that was a private conversation. >> Okay. I can try. >> You can tell Dan’l likes his job. [LAUGHTER] >> I feel like the panelists up here know the answers to the questions but it’s like, well, They don’t want to share it because they’re venture capitalists and this one company we’re Not going to talk about the fact that they’re >> We kind of got ourselves into this by putting venture capitalists on the panel. >> Exactly. >> So does anybody want to say anything? [LAUGHTER] >> The companies, the venture capitalists are investing in today are going to be, you know, The $100 million companies of tomorrow, or we wouldn’t be investing in them. So the companies we’re investing in today that TechCrunch writes about are an indication of Where this market’s going. You know, we have CoTweet in the corporate space. We have a whole raft of real time search companies. And that’s going to be a hell of a horse race, because they’re going to have to integrate more Relevancy and intent so they deliver better results. But there will be a big winner come out of that. >> How many real time search companies do we need? >> We have quite a few right now. So I would encourage people to go elsewhere. >> Nobody’s won the space yet, though. >> Yeah, there’s room. >> I think one of the ones that exists today will win out. Because their IP will mature. >> Is it going to be Bing or Google? >> No, no, I’m talking scoopler, topsly, Eller Dale, the scrappy ones. >> This is the man that invested in Google. >> Andrew, do you agree with that? >> Real time search is a tough space. I think it’s Google does a pretty good job at information retrieval. And I think a lot of the real time information that’s being exchanged where relevancy is no Longer page rank, it’s the people you know. Facebook does a pretty good job of enabling that. So >> Facebook has search? >> Sure. >> I think search in a different way, in sort of more of a discovery sArn dip to us way, but I think I kind of look at it from the perspective of if you go back six go back three or Four years ago, most companies are companies that you would see that were Web-enabled and business Their businesses off the Web. Literally, you could see the same traffic referral chart for just about every company except For a couple of well-known destinations. It was 30, or 33 percent Google, SCO. It was 35 or 40 percent SCM and 20 percent or whatever the number that’s left over there direct. And referrals to the website. You look at today, most of the companies that I see, whether it be existing companies or new Companies that are popping up, out of nowhere you know, Facebook has become sort of the number Two or number three referral source for those companies. Twitter is all of a sudden become a very significant resource for those companies. So that to me is a lead indicator in many ways of how people are discovering information on The Web and how that’s changing. >> So, Paul, you’re both a buyer and a seller, right, because you’re very active Angel Investor. To what extent the companies that you invest in, fall within this same kind of theme, or do You diversify away from like what you’re doing? >> You know, I don’t know that I’ve invested in too many real time companies. But I think it’s a component of probably most businesses going forward. In that the reason that I think real time is really valuable is basically the word “relevance”. Like, the reason that search is valuable is because it’s relevant. Someone does a search, you can give them a response that’s relevant to what they’re asking For. And what real time does is that that enables that across a lot of other domains. Like if right now I say I’m sitting right here and I get a coupon for the restaurant next door, That works because it’s relevant to me. If I got the coupon tomorrow, it would no longer be relevant. So I think that’s the thing that made search really go. And I think that same dynamic is going to drive real time. >> So when we talk about real time search and monetization of it, how much of that opportunity Is tied to location versus other types of real time. >> Certainly location is the easier one because of the example of coupons. But I think if I’m sharing what I’m thinking right now, if I’m thinking about whatever it Is I’m thinking about, there’s probably a relevant, some relevant information that could be Provided to me. One of the companies that I recently invested in is I can’t remember if they launched so I won’t say who. But they do car they’re in the car business. So one of the things they do is look at like, look for intention of are you selling, are you Looking to buy a car, are you having car trouble, and that’s a great opportunity to contact That person and say, hey, we can help you get a new car. >> There’s another angle to Facebook search, in particular, I find really fascinating. Forget what you’re searching for and maybe even what you’ve recently done on Facebook or even Where you are, when you query. I found that when I’m looking up old friends from high school or just people I might know that The search results are really, really good and the reason they are, even though there’s so Many people with the same name, is that they’re kind of they’re ranking it based on people That maybe have mutual friends or somehow they’re figuring out who I’m probably thinking of Based on that. And Google clearly doesn’t address that dimension at all. But that applies to more than just looking for people, you know. Just who you are and who you know is really relevant to almost all searches. >> They do it. >> Relevance has these multiple dimensions. Google got it on like the keywords. But there’s time relevance, what I’m thinking of, social relevance, and all these other elegance. >> Personalized relevance. >> Time. >> So all those dimensions I think are opportunities for revenue. >> We’re going to start to wrap this up in a few minutes. So if you want to ask some questions, please come to the mics. >> So as we look forward where all of this is going, it seems that there are a lot of different Approaches. There’s sort of a lot of different platforms that developers can build their apps or their Businesses on top of. Is there is there a danger of confusion here? Do I build my do I build my business off of Twitter or on top of Facebook, do I build it On top of quasi open systems that Google is pushing? Like stock Twitter todays they built off of Twitter but they’re still called stock Twitter Todays but they have their own system. They use Twitter to get all the systems and then moved off. It’s fascinating. And Zinga is doing it with farmville. >> Because they have more control. >> You can take advantage of these platforms, get being enough and then ultimately, right, The most value, you can capture enough attention, people to come to use your application or Come to your website. You know, ultimately that would be the biggest win, I would think. >> I would suggest having a pretty good idea of where you want it to start. Then researching what’s out there to help you. Like some of these geo APIs that we looked at today. I know I’m doing a side project right now I’m using one of the geo APIs just because I needed It and it’s very useful for me. And if you need to move off. You need to pivot like all start-ups pivot and figure out this Is what is really working for me they pivot. But I would suggest starting with something pick the tool that’s best for the job right then And don’t be afraid to pivot. >> Start with the platform that gives you the most leverage for the cheapest cost for the Highest number of users. Build your own brand and off you go. >> Exactly. >> I think if you’re fortunate enough to work with great entrepreneurs, they’ll find their Way, right? You look at Omar at addmob and it was built off of sort of a WAP. As soon as the iPhone launched before iPhone launched he was very focused on that as another Opportunity for that business. And they took resources. They moved things very quickly to go and take advantage of the iPhone ecosystem. Very early on. And they benefited from it greatly. So I think when you have great entrepreneurs, great ideas, I think they find their way. They’re scrappy. >> Question: Peter. To me it’s really not a question at all if those platforms like Twitter and Facebook or partner Companies that built their business on it are going to make money. The really interesting thing for me would be is it going to be the first route to take the Low-hanging fruit and in licensing deals, for instance, with Google and Bing and so on, and Are they going to become co-dependent on those, or are they going to in parallel build out Their own direct revenue streams, and to see this through, sort of through the end as their Own companies. >> I hate to be flip. But it depends on how long those contracts are. I hope they’re short. But who knows how long they are. >> It’s a very good question. Very good question. >> I think that I mean, that there is money that’s not the question anymore. I mean, the question is are those companies going to be able to become as big as the ones that >> Some things are catalysts and they continue to exist and reform. And other things are catalysts they instigate connections and dissipate and go away. There’s a big question about whether a company that rises very, very rapidly as a connection Point between two things and builds their platform up like what Twitter is doing in placing Their particular bets and someone like Facebook that turns into a phenomena, that it becomes A core platform around which someone can do something like what ad mob did with a platform They bet on it in some form and leveraged that point. You pick your starting point, but it’s hard to I think argue that anyone can anticipate to Ron and the other investors who place a broad array of ads. Anticipate which one is going to be the one that gets to live like Twitter. Why Twitter and why not someone else. >> Yeah, why Twitter. Maybe George you can answer that from a perspective of, Twitter, Facebook, even Google, they All have platform ambitions but they are platforms, taking different approaches, Twitter lean, They want to take the communication layer and everyone to build on top of it. Whereas Facebook is more feature-rich on its own. Tell us from like in your investment in Twitter, so you have a point of view, but how do you See these different approaches playing out and what’s at stake here? >> It’s a very fascinating question. And I’ve thought about this quite a bit. You know, the concept of a social network has been around for quite a long time. You could posit that geo cities was a cromagnon version followed by e friends and Facebook And followed by Twitter. The one difference with Twitter all the networks are vertically integrated. They owned the name space for the users and then the messaging and then the features above Them. Twitter is an example of the first horizontally distributed network, where basically their Goal was to own the name space and the messaging and control of that. And then let third parties take the risk of basically building out products on top of that, To basically fill out the entire stack. But it’s a horizontal plane. And I think it’s a very cost-effective play from an investor perspective. And as well as user risk perspective. >> Paul, why does Facebook win? You’ve got an interesting perspective because in a sense Friendfeed was the ultimate at which Twitter client. A lot of people kind of said that. Half jokingly, but it was also true. So you built Friendfeed partially on top, on the back of Twitter because that was a very big Portion of the feed that was going through Twitter or through friend feed. And but then with the when you sold to Facebook, you bet on the Facebook model. So why? >> You know, I think both companies have very promising future. I don’t see it as one versus the other. Obviously I don’t like know exactly how the future is going to play out. But they’re both incredibly well positioned. I think that I would love to have or both. >> Right. But can you contrast the platform like >> I think there’s a lot to learn. They have taken very different approaches. But I don’t know that it’s entirely like a conscious thing. I think it’s to some extent like a historical accident, the approach that Facebook took original Ly I think was they looked at obviously I wasn’t there at the time. They looked at the apps that they had already built themselves and said how can we enable other People to do the same thing that we’ve done. So they basically tried to open up all of the capabilities that the native apps like photos Or whatever had to third-party developers. And Twitter, I guess, to some extent did the same thing but they only had a couple of features. So consequently it was extremely easy to build these Twitter clients who grow the site. So they didn’t really make any accept to occasionally remove features. And that I think that worked out very well for them. It’s like a wonderful it’s a great example of like how things can play out differently just Depending on the initial conditions. But what that did was it set up this whole ecosystem of Twitter apps, where you have all the Clients, you have tweetty and Twitter today pick and everybody filled in an amazing example I’m curious if any other company is able to replicate that, because they’ve managed to essential Ly outsource the innovation. >> Does anybody on the panel have an opinion about whether the new stuff that Twitter’s been Building out lists, retweets, etc., is that going to be, a plus for them, neutral, or a minus? Ron? >> It’s going to be a huge plus. People have been screaming for lists for over a year. In the Twitter community. And there’s a whole ecosystem of companies being built on top of the Twitter lists product Itself. So people were saying, oh, is Twitter going to go into the list space? No, they’re building basically a platform and in the next year they’ll probably be 100 applications On top of >> It’s kind of a Microsoft play, isn’t it? >> Twitter lists. >> It’s kind of a Microsoft play where they build the infrastructure and then let people party On it. >> I don’t know I think of Office and the operating system. I don’t know the infrastructure products. >> There’s various ways people talk about platforms in loose ways, and I think that the Early stages of the business, Microsoft, I was not there then, but I was at Apple working on The Mac stuff. And it’s one thing to build a lower level platform on which for the first generation people Built content-less productivity tools, office automation things. E-mail which was talked about earlier as an communication exchange. Things didn’t take off until there was an appropriate standardization, you could then interoperate And move mail around effectively. And then the newer platforms that we’re talking about today in this context, I think, for the And then either bolting on to infrastructure that exists like what Yammer has done in the enterprise Infrastructure for monetization, or very high risk, high return bets like what the at which Twitter guys are choosing to do to partner but at the same time build out and totally open Up the ecosystem for others to add value on top. This is a new it’s a new phenomenon that’s happening in real time and we’ll see the results, I think, as Ron says, year over year, with some interesting brand new winners that have probably Already been funded and then many things that will get absorbed into the platform plays like What a Facebook would do or what Microsoft or Google or anyone else would do that has infrastructure Upon which this stuff connects and moves. So it’s happening ever faster. I think personally, though, to my earlier comment, I think most of the money is going to get Made in enterprise infrastructure. There’s just too much money in enterprise to be as inefficient as enterprise communications. >> To wrap up with predictions. What’s going to be the biggest real time exit in the next year, in terms of just dollar value? Where do you expect, like where are we in this stage? Are we going to see more $50 million deals? $100 million deals, billion dollar deals? What’s your expectation and what’s the time frame? >> You just look at past performance in these areas. I think there will be a number of things that are sub hundred million in the 50 million dollar $50 million range, and I think there will be, if everyone’s lucky, one thing that will be a Billion dollar kind of thing. That’s typically what and it’s happening faster, right? But not even sure there will be exits. I think the opportunity for the big things will be to stand alone, if they’re really going To be big. And witness Ace Book, you were questioning what’s the value of Facebook. It’s big. What’s the who knows. >> George? >> Well, I can’t predict what’s going to happen next year in terms of exits. I think most of the companies in the space are, in terms of revenues, are still fairly immature With the exception of Facebook. So I think it’s more likely that big exits will occur in 2011 and 2012, than 2010. >> I wish that company that you and Ron are putting together could have launched here today. The one that I tweeted out yesterday or the day before that was going to enrage half the audience And make the other half want to basically invest, because that’s the one I think well, it Either completely fall flat and go nowhere or it will potentially just has such a huge mon Etization opportunity. >> This is the one that replaces the U.S. Government. >> That eventually will. Amazing. >> Everyone’s got an option on that. >> I have to clarify. I’m trying to invest in that particular company. George has done all the lifting on that company. So I don’t want to take any credit. Exits in 2010. This market is in its infancy. I think from 15 to $100 million range. Teeing up exits, in 2011 and 2012, there could be a billion. But we have to remember, this is a market in its infancy. The acquisitions that get made in 2010 will be for intellectual property and great killer teams Of people. >> That’s exactly right. >> And Paul Buchheit’s company is a great example of that. >> ZInga is doing more monthly revenue than Facebook right now? >> Wow. >> I’m not privy to either company’s financials but it’s an interesting question. >> Paul? >> Hesitant to make any predictions. I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard rumors of Zinga’s IPO. That would be exciting. >> Andrew? >> No, I agree with the panel. [LAUGHTER] >> He wants to go get a drink. >> One question from the audience here then we’ll wrap it up. >> Question: I don’t know too much about, have too much insight into Facebook and at which Twitter’s monetization models, but it seems to me that Facebook fundamentally disrupts double Click impression ad model and their dollars come from there. What market will either be disrupted or created by Twitter, do you think? >> Who is Twitter disrupting? >> Well, we don’t know yet. But Dick Costolo this morning, I thought, had some very fascinating adjectives. And one of them was that they’re going to their business model is going to mature in 2010. It’s going to be fascinating. Nontraditional. I took lots of notes. Unique and organic. And it was going to be very, very cool and people would love it. >> Who was it that said that that’s a pretty interesting drum roll that 2010’s going to Be a very interesting year in this space. >> Who said Microsoft is afraid of Google maybe is afraid of Facebook, is afraid of Twitter. There was somebody that said that quote last year. I wish I would have thought of it. It’s sort of true Twitter disrupting Facebook, disrupting Google, I think that’s very real Facebook disrupting Google and Google disrupting Microsoft because Microsoft still trying to Figure out the Web stuff. >> Sprinkle all the little start ups underneath that and one of them is going to one of Them is going to disrupt that crowd, the big crowd. Three years from now it’s going to be there’s going to be another company. I hope I invested in it this year. >> [LAUGHTER] >> That is the next wave of disruption in technology. >> You invest in several of those people on that list. Google. Twitter. >> List right there. >> I missed Microsoft. >> All but Microsoft. >> So Dan’l, you were shaking your head. >> I was shaking my head. I think Michael has a point of view about our position on the Web. And I always respect Michael’s opinions, but I don’t know if anybody was paying attention to What we announced this week down at our developers conference, but I encourage you to take A look. >> I think we were still reeling from the Don Dodge layoff. Hire him back but he’s gone now. I think that generally we loved him. So he’s going to be hard to replace. >> We’ve got to liven up the ending. [LAUGHTER] >> So please give the panel a big round of applause. I’m going to give away a sailing trip, I think, maybe. [APPLAUSE] Maybe not. If nobody is here I think I might give it to Dan’l as a consolation prize. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| RealTime CrunchUp: The Rise Of Geo Streams Posted: 20 Nov 2009 04:36 PM PST
Participating in the panel were: Early in the panel, the conversation turned to SimpleGeo, the new infrastructure for location that was revealed earlier this week. Shaffer spoke about how excited he was about the new service. When asked if anyone could copy what Foursquare was doing, Walker talked about Foursquare’s efforts to filter content (which is harder to reproduce). MG then steered the conversation toward bridging the gap between social networks and the real world, noting that mobile devices are paving the way for this change. But he wondered how services other than Foursquare (which has a game mechanic) would entice users to share their location on a regular basis. Lee addressed concerns over Latitude’s continuous location sharing, explaining that you can share your location with certain people who you specify, but that Latitude’s approach to constant tracking leads to the ability to offer interesting services. He says that without continuous sharing nearby alerts wouldn’t be possible (or at least as effective). He says that the check-in model and the continuous model will likely coexist (and that check-in can even help give more context about where you are) but that there’s things you can’t do without continuous tracking. Regarding Checking in verus continuous mapping, Elad Gil says he’s seeing about a “nine to ten” relationship between them. Galligan chimed in by saying that there will be a point when we know where everyone is, but that the context won’t necessarily be known. Galligan then revealed a new technology they are working on involving four dimensions of geolocation that SimpleGeo has created, which allows them to compress location and time stamps into a datapoint, allowing apps to look into the past for the same location. Sarver talked about why Twitter was interested in location, describing how it would help filter through the noise. He mentioned TrendsMap.com as a great way to visualize geotagged tweets. Shaffer said that HotPotato is looking to integrate location into their service, but that another key element is what brings conversation together. He says that just location data isn’t necessarily enough (he points out that people watching a baseball game may actually be at the game, or watching on TV.) In terms of advertising, there seemed to be a broad consensus that geo-based advertising had the potential to be extremley successful. Galligan brought up the potential of special ads and deals, pointing to Yowza as a great example. Saffer later commented that there’s a fine line that these services have to work with — it would be a negative for ads to actually feel like ads (instead it would be better for them to feel like deals). Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Rippol’s Video Discovery Engine Launches To The Public Posted: 20 Nov 2009 03:22 PM PST
We recently took an in-depth look at the service, but for those who haven’t seen it yet, here’s a recap: Rippol looks at your video watching activity on the site, as well as that of your friends and people in your demographic. It then looks at meta data from video content ingested from sites like YouTube and Hulu, and uses machine learning to identify videos it thinks you’ll like. From there you can browse through various genres to look at recommended videos But the site also has a social component, allowing users to identify each other as friends by importing their social graphs from services like Facebook and Gmail. You can use Facebook chat to talk with these friends in real-time. And today, it’s launching a new feature: Friendcasting, which allows users to share a interesting video in real-time with your friends on the site. There’s also a ‘global view’ that lets you see a stream of videos that are being watched by other users on the site, which helps surface content your friends haven’t come across.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| RealTime CrunchUp: Media Streams As The Ultimate Marketing Vehicle Posted: 20 Nov 2009 03:13 PM PST
At our Real-Time CrunchUp today in San Francisco, we are hosting a panel titles “Media Streams: Are These The Utlimate Marketing Vehicle?” Panelists include Sean Rad, CEO of Ad.ly; Ryan Amos, co-founder of DailyBooth; Jesse Engle, CEO of CoTweet; Robin Bechtel, a celebrity agent and Philip Nelson, SVP of strategic development for NewTek. Below find my live notes (paraphrased): ES: What are celebrities doing to leverage the social streams? RB: I oversee Britney Spears’ digital properties and we are using Twitter to build up buzz around her concerts. Using Twitter, we were able to get 8,000 people to Times Square all by herself. PN: Fans can feel like they are an intimate part of your lives. For example, Heidi and Spencer did a live webcast, that we did, from the Bahamas from their hotel room. They had over 50,000 people watching that. ES: To what extent is Twitter a Marketing vehicle and to what extent is it an entertainment and marketing vehicle itself? RB: One thing that’s interesting is that we work with Facebook to sell virtual charms for Britney. We just Twittered that we were doing and it was in the press within a matter of hours. JE: Twitter is the focal point where a lot of elements come together. Twitter is a focal point to stay connected to the public. ES: To what extent can ads and promotions appear within the Stream. Sean? SR: Publishers in Ad.ly don’t feel like they are just marketing their own message, they feel like content producers. ES: But more often than not, that’s just promotion. SR: With Ad.ly we monitor what content is appropriate for consumers. If you are tweeting things that is not valuable to your audience, your value as a content creator goes down. We limit to one ad per day to each publishers. The cool things about Ad.ly and Twitter is that when it comes to advertising, you can get creative and experiment with it. PC: Retweets don’t seem like a metric of success, it seems like a metric of idiocy. SR: If you look at Twitter as an ecosystem, its about sharing information and discovering information. ES: What are the types of content that works? RB: It has to looks like it isn’t an ad, that’s its real. PC: Twitter is unique because its a conversation which makes putting any advertising in the stream hideous. ES: Marketers are experimenting with different ways to use this channel. Until we hear about how Twitter is going to advertise, there’s definitely a feeling that Twitter doesn’t want to pollute the stream. Video: Recording can be seen here. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| VideoLobby Wants To Help You Create Your Own Custom-Branded Live Webcasts Posted: 20 Nov 2009 03:03 PM PST
Urban says that while some other services offer embeds, you’re generally responsible for building your own branded site to insert those in. That’s where VideoLobby comes in: the site helps you build your own custom video portal, and then allows you to include streams from services like Qik, Ustream and Justin.tv. The company calls itself the “Blogger for real-time video”. The service doesn’t just make your page look nicer, though — it can automatically pull in comments from Twitter and Facebook, and also allows users to submit questions directly from the show’s page. Stream administrators can use a management system to heck off their questions as they answer them. And the service is completely free.  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| FlixUp Is Rotten Tomatoes For Twitter Movie Talk Posted: 20 Nov 2009 02:56 PM PST
This new iPhone app unveiled at our Realtime CrunchUp event in San Francisco today essentially scans Twitter for what people are saying about a movie and shows you a rating based on that. It can return a general score from across Twitter, or the tweets about the movie from people you follow on Twitter. But the key is the filtration. Plenty of people say things about movies on Twitter that are worthless, but FlixUp has what it believes to be the perfect algorithm to sort out the useful movie tweets from the not useful ones. They call it the “Twitter Noise Assassin.” And the results seem solid for how the collective views the film. It’s been said that early buzz on services like Twitter can now make or break a movie, so a service like Flixup is the next logical step. They not only show if people are liking it or not liking it, but you can see how much people are talking about it. The company behind FlixUp, Bazaarlabs, also has plans to extend this idea to other entertainment categories beyond movies. And eventually they plan to use more than Twitter as their data source, such as Facebook. The app should be out in a couple of weeks.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Retweets Are Hot. Will Retweeting Ads Be? TweetMeme Thinks So. Posted: 20 Nov 2009 02:35 PM PST
At our Realtime CrunchUp in San Francisco today, TweetMeme founder Nick Halstead has unveiled AdTweets. As you might expect, this involves ads that appear on your site — but with the addition of a retweet button. Yes, you can also retweet these ads just as you would any piece of content. The idea seems like an obvious one for the company. It’s similar to what Digg is doing with its Digg ads, where users can vote on advertisements just as they would with regular content. The difference here is that you would be sending an ad to your contacts on Twitter. Is anyone really going to want to do that? And if they do, will their contacts start unfollowing them? But the idea here is clearly not to share just any ad, but rather ads that have the potential to go viral — particularly video ads. And TweetMeme already has a big partner on board. They’ve just announced that they cut a deal with Federated Media in two weeks time. With this partnership, their button can be added into any standard advertisement that FM allows. The tweeting out of ads or sponsored links has long been a controversial thing. Some are convinced this is a great way to make money, while others consider this absolutely pure spam. It’s an interesting play, to say the least. If TweetMeme is able to spread this idea the way they’ve spread their button, they’re going to make a ton of money. AdTweets will launch in 2 weeks. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| SuperFeedr Wants To Speed Your Feeds Posted: 20 Nov 2009 02:29 PM PST
As they noted on stage, it’s hard to demo something that is API only, but one implementation that we’ve written about before is Excla.im, which we wrote about recently. This allows for the realtime tracking of keywords on Twitter via IM. But this idea works for all content. And one of the most interesting thing about SuperFeedr is their promises. One is that if you don’t get your content served in less than 15 minutes, it’s free. Another promise is that they will meet or beat the cost of your existing system for monitoring feeds. If you monitor less than 1,000 feeds, SuperFeedr is free. If you go over that, you must buy credits (but it’s pretty cheap). Coincidentally, SuperFeedr just 3 days ago raised a seed round of funding from Betaworks and Mark Cuban. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| PlyMedia: Transcribing And Captioning Videos In Real Time Posted: 20 Nov 2009 02:29 PM PST
With services like Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, Kyte, and Qik bringing live video streaming to the masses, the web is turning into a viable competitor to television for real-time content. But while all of these services are great for bloggers remotely broadcasting footage,or streaming live events, but they come with a few problems: video content isn’t optimized for search engines, and unlike TV, there’s no closed captioning. PlyMedia is looking to change that. The company is launching a service that will offer real-time captions and super-fast transcriptions to suit the needs of live streamers. Transcriptions are performed by a human (capable of typing quite quickly, naturally) who listens in to the feed and transcribes in real time, anywhere in the world. To help achieve a true real-time experience, PlyMedia is actually teaming with some live streamers to integrate a slight delay (say, two or three seconds) to give the transcriptionist enough lead time to generate captions in time with the video. Those transcriptions can then be sent to the site hosting the video, where they can be posted to help with SEO (and to give readers a chance to skim through the content to decide if they want to watch the movie). PlyMedia transcribing the Realtime CrunchUp in realtime in our Ustream video. The realtime transcription service will be used by UStream, Livestream, and the Wall Street Journal. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Mozzler’s Real-Time Search Engine Scours Twitter For The Most Retweeted News Posted: 20 Nov 2009 02:10 PM PST
At today’s Real-Time CrunchUp, Mozzler launched its real-time search engine based on Twitter. Mozzler, which has real-time functionality, searches Twitter for the most popular content in the last six hours based on retweets. You can search Mozzler by keyword, similar to searches you can do on OneRiot and other search engines that include Twitter results. Results can include videos and images as well. Mozzler has also created numerous categories of searches under technology, entertainment, sports, business and more. What differentiates Mozzler is the ability filter the stream. You’ll be able to create customized streams by keyword, which are updated in real-time. You can share links to streams on social networks and users can also subscribe to streams. And one particularly compelling feature is Track (which should be sure to make TechCrunchIT editor Steve Gillmor happy), which is like Google Alerts for Twitter. Twitter has yet to implement Track yet, but it’s a very desirable feature to help filter and “keep track” of the stream. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Status.Net: The WordPress For Microblogs Gets A Hosted Solution Posted: 20 Nov 2009 12:48 PM PST
In effect, Status.Net is to the StatusNet platform as WordPress.com is to WordPress. Status.Net will offer a free package for very basic use, and will then offer a number of premium packages that give access to premium features. We first heard about the upcoming product last month when StatusNet raised $875,000, but until now they haven’t introduced the platform to the public. Status.Net remains in private beta for now, but we’ll let you know when it’s available to the public. Also worth pointing out is that Status.Net is launching a new real-time search feature powered by Collecta powered by that company’s recently-released Site Search platform.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Google And The Amazing Technicolor Search Options Posted: 20 Nov 2009 12:42 PM PST
Today, Google has begun testing a new look for Search Options. This offers more visual approach to this sidebar, including colors and graphics (oh my). As you can see in the screenshot, “Everything” (regular Google results), “News,” and “Blogs” are a few of the newly visual tabs. There is also a “More” area that shows other things like “Maps.” Yes, these look quite a bit more like Yahoo search results. But the most significant thing about this new look may be that it’s showing up as the default view for those seeing this test. Yes, it’s no longer as just an expandable option. Could this be the future of Google Search?
[thanks Kevin] Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Knx.To Is Your Social Graph And Address Book Rolled Into One Posted: 20 Nov 2009 12:41 PM PST
Angstro, a 2008 TechCrunch50 startup, launched with a product that socialized the content on the web by tapping into your social graph. At the Real-Time CrunchUp today the startup is launching Knx.to, a real-time search engine capability and API that looks up most recent social information about any of your friends, from their LinkedIn profile to their Flickr account to their Facebook profile. In order to understand Knx.to’s virtue, it’s best to see the technology implemented in an application. Ribbit Mobile, a Google Voice competitor and cloud-based VoIP telephony service, recently launched with the capability of integrating any calls to a contact with your social networks, which was powered by Knx.to. To enable the application, you sign into your Twitter, Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr accounts via oAuth, Facebook Connect and more. When a friend calls you (or you call a friend), the technology will automatically scan all of your social networks, identify if the contact is a friend, and will pull all the most recent photos, Tweets, status updates, and more into its search pane. The idea is to give a social context to all of your contacts, which is definitely useful information for both professional and personal contacts. Knx.to’s is officially launching its API to allow a variety of applications to tap into this new way for adding additional social information to contacts. It’s a innovative idea and something that many applications, whether it be email or VoiP/phone based technologies. The startup also has a standalone consumer facing search engine that lets users easily tap into the most recent information about a friend or contact from one platform. After logging into your accounts via oAuth, Facebook Connect and more, you simply type in a friend’s name and the real-time results of your friends’ latest acitivity on Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, and Yahoo Mail will show up. Additional social media sites will be added in the future. One issues with tapping into social networks for this information is security. But Knx.to’s founder, Rohit Khare, says that all of the results and information are stored in your browser, and don’t break any social network’s terms of agreements. Similar in some ways to email plug-in Xobni, Knx.to adds another layer to your contact list which in the age of social media, is very useful. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Qwisk Brings Your Social Networks To The Browser Posted: 20 Nov 2009 12:35 PM PST
Qwisk, which is launching today at the Real-Time CrunchUp, is an innovative new way to add a social twist to your browser. The site, which is a product of Y Combinator-funded company Socialbrowse, connects with you with your friends on Facebook and Twitter in real-time as you browse the web. We have 500 invites exclusively for TechCrunch users. You can redeem these invites simply by clicking here. It’s important to note that Qwisk is a browser extension, not a plug-in to a browser. On the site’s page, you sign into your Facebook and Twitter accounts via Facebook Connect and oAuth. Qwisk will then add a sidebar to your browser that will show a feed of Facebook status updates and Tweets. You can also share any link or content to Twitter and Facebook from the sidebar itself. Qwisk also includes its own built in social network, where you can share content from your browser with your friends via a drag and drop technology. When you drag a site into your friend’s profile, Qwisk will automatically send him or her a shortened link to the site, You can then conduct real-time conversations around any content on the web. The fact that Qwisk is doing this via a standalone application as opposed to a plug-in is impressive. The upside is that it works on all browsers but it’s not easy to do. Powered by FriendFeed’s Tornado technology, which was just open sourced by Facebook, Qwisk is adding an real-time sharing element to browsing that helps all of us lazy folks who don’t want to jump to our Twitter or Facebook client to share a link. It truly does make sharing very simple. Qwisk is similar in theory to Reframe It and Google’s Sidewiki, which both add a social element to browsing. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Seesmic Ventures Into Mobile With Powerful New Apps For Android And BlackBerry Posted: 20 Nov 2009 12:27 PM PST Seesmic is having a huge week. The startup that develops Twitter and Facebook clients for the web and desktop just unveiled a native Windows client at Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference earlier this week. At the Real-Time CrunchUp today, Seesmic is launching its first venture into the mobile space with impressive apps for both the Android and BlackBerry, which are now available for download here. This is a pivotal moment for Seesmic because the startup is now conquering all the mediums—web, desktop and mobile. I sat down with Seesmic’s co-founder, Loic Le Meur, to test out the apps. The BlackBerry App
The Android App
When you Tweet you’ll see options for Tweeting publicly or via a DM and shorten links through Bitl.ly. You can easily attach a picture or video via yFrog. And here’s the kicker-you can also upload videos directly to YouTube via the app. You can also access other users profiles, see his/her Tweets, who he/she is following and then follow the users. In addition you can also block or unfollow a user. While Twitter rolled out the geolocation API yesterday, Seesmic hasn’t integrated its API into the app. But the app still features a geolocation tool that lets you embed your location in a Tweet via the Android’s GPS, which will show your location on Google Maps. The app works with all models of the Android and was optimized for the newly launched Verizon Droid. While the Android app doesn’t have list functionality or Facebook integration, Le Meur says these features will be added in the near future. The iPhone App A few months ago, Le Meur informed me of Seesmic’s iPhone app. But the app is still being tweaked. While we don’t know the in-depth details of the iPhone app, we do know that it will have functionality for both Twitter and Facebook status updates. Seesmic’s BlackBerry app will face competition from UberTwitter, OpenBeak (formerly TwitterBerry), Tweetcaster and perhaps even a RIM-developed Twitter client. But Seesmic’s app is chock full of nifty features, such as lists and perhaps even Facebook integration in the future. It will certainly be a viable contender in the space. The Android app will face competition from a smaller group of Twitter clients for the Android, which include Twitdroid, Swift, and TwitterRide. But like the BlackBerry app, Seesmic’s Android app is fast, sleek, easy to use and will also have Facebook built in soon, making it very attractive. As I wrote above, Seesmic is now full throttle in developing numerous offerings for the web, mobile and desktop. Le Meur says the Windows clients had 10,000 downloads within 12 hours. I fully expect the the Android and BlackBerry apps to receive the same response. As the startup continues to develop new and innovative products, it is slowly encroaching on rival Tweetdeck’s market share and attracting a whole new set of followers as well. But a little friendly competition is never a bad thing between technology companies. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
When pitching to VC's, entrepreneurs hype the heck out of their ideas, years of experience and management teams. But I've never heard of anyone touting their luck or connection to God. After reading the posts on TechCrunch, one could easily get the impression that God doesn't play much of role in Silicon Valley. But ask any successful entrepreneur in private what made them successful, and you might just hear a different story. In a research project my team just completed, the majority of 549 company founders told us that their most important success factor, after "experience" and "management team", was "good fortune". Many respondents wrote in comments stressing the extreme importance of faith and God.
And this was not by a small margin. Roughly 70% of our respondents used personal savings to fund their first businesses. Even the serial entrepreneurs who probably could have tapped venture capital preferred to keep control of their own funding sources by bootstrapping. In second, third or fourth startups, over half of all entrepreneurs relied on personal savings to underwrite their launch.
Do a search for Google Wave on the App Store from your iPhone or desktop client, and you’ll see an application called just that pop up, ready to be installed as soon as you fork over $0.99 (or €0.79 in my case). 
Last week, it was 
Honestly, it’s impossible to work in these conditions. I’m writing this from the 
“Email is not going to disappear. Possibly ever. Until the robots kill us all.” – 
For our last discussion at the RealTime CrunchUp, we’ve got a panel on actually generating revenue from these services. Participating in the discussion are some of the Valley’s top VCs and veterans of the space.
Today at the 
You know the retweet button you see on content spread throughout the web? You can thank 
The first randomly selected audience winner today at the RealTime CrunchUp is 
I’m a big fan of 
The BlackBerry app, which works with the devices running OS 4.6 or higher, has a extremely sleek nice interface, which is optimized for BlackBerry users with all sorts of efficiencies. You can quickly change from different timelines, easily switching from your inbox, to mentions, to direct messages. Plus, you can monitor various Twitter accounts within one appp. When you send a Tweet, you can shorten a link via Bit.ly, and upload pictures or videos via yFrog. One compelling feature is the ability to email a Tweet to a contact directly from the Tweet. 
The app also includes search (Seesmic stores all the info in cache) and will also feature notifications of new Tweets and DMs while you are scrolling through email (a little raccoon will pop up with a number of new Tweets, says Le Meur). And hands down the two best features of the Blackberry app is the ability to see your Twitter lists directly from the app and geolocation, so you’ll be able to tweet your location directly from the app. Seesmic just added geolocation, as the API was released yesterday. Facebook integration will be added in the near future. 
The Android App also features a very sleek design and a user-friendly UI. The most noticeable advantage is how fast the app is. Le Meir says the app is native to the Android and claims its the “Tweetie for the Android.” Via a touch interface, you can easily navigate though threaded timelines, direct messages, different accounts, and @replies. And you can email Tweets as well as easily switch to landscape mode.
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