Notes from Momentum Growth Conference (4/...)

Notes from Momentum Growth Conference.

Partnerships - Relying on the Kindness of Strangers
Small companies pursue big companies for partnerships -- they need credibility, access to markets and channels, and the means to scale. Whether for distribution, marketing, development, monetization strategy, or just leveraging existing APIs, teaming with a giant is the strongest route to building an empire. Learn from those who've negotiated on both sides of the table what it takes to get a deal done and how to make it work for you.


Meebo - Seth Sternberg, CEO


Kayak - Drew Patterson, VP Marketing


Photobucket - Peter Pham, Vice President, Business Development


SAP - Jens Weitzel, Sr. Director, Business Development Global Ecosystem & Partner Group


The discussion provided some (basis for) partnerships examples and points of views:

• Value swap - offer cross traffic, (missing) features, etc.
• Build together - instead of buying technology - work with the technology providers as partners to create the capability, needed by both.
• Have a mentality of "everyone is not a competitor" - build honest relationship early on with other companies - including other start ups. Find areas where others may have better value proposition (tools, experiences) to your users and work with them.
• Partner with companies that 'will be around' in the future.
• People - integrity, trust and personal connection is important - as you will work with these people closely. Do not partner with someone you do not feel comfortable closing a deal with a handshake (as a first step...).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued...


E.T.

Technorati Tags: Event, Web 2.0
, dealmaker, undertheradar, meebo, SAP, kayak, Photobucket

Notes from Momentum Growth Conference (3/...)

Notes from Momentum Growth Conference.

Ones to Watch


Leverage Software - Mike Walsh, CEO and co-founder



Moola.com - Arlen Ritchie, President and CEO



mShopper - David Gould, CEO



Multiply - David Hersh, VP of Business Development

6 minutes per presenter - too fast for me to Blog about at real time...
Interesting...
I may have another look into it later on.
Especially on Multiply. As the feedback from the panel clearly showed that they miss the value proposition of Multiply, except Martin Nyman (Best Buy) - who made some comments about multi-generation challenges.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued...


E.T.

Technorati Tags: Event, Web 2.0
, dealmaker, undertheradar, Moola.com, mShopper, Multiply

Notes from Momentum Growth Conference (2/...)

Notes from Momentum Growth Conference.

Freelancer/author Sarah Lacy chats with Tina Sharkey, Chairman, Babycenter.com

• Communities are about looking for solutions for needs (current, long term), sharing interests and about human connection.
• The audience is growing and change all the time - do not expect to have a winning formula that could last long...
• Find out where your audience live and serve them there - eMails, online, RSS, newsletter, etc... Fine tune the messages based on 1-to-1 marketing concepts.
  
• Be true to your core.
• Statistics: 8M unique users in 10 counties. Revenue from eCommerce (larger) and media business (profitable).
• The company is part of Jonson & Jonson. It was bought from eToys when eToys declared bankruptcy in 2001.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Imeem - Steve Jang, VP, Marketing and Business Development
Sugar Publishing - Brian Sugar, Founder, Publisher and CEO
Slide - Keith Rabois, VP, Business Development
Babycenter.com - Tina Sharkey, SVP Instant Messaging & Social Media
RockYou - Ro Choy, Vice President of Business Development

• In a discussion on users loyalty - both Slide and RockYou agreed (and it did not happen a lot) that the main challenge was to get the 'first time' users, as users are not switching to much after they invested in creating content and learning a system.
• It is important to know the demographics of your service - as advertiser require depends on it.
• People are going where other people (friends) are. The features are secondary.
• The debate between reach or niche went on... It was claimed that "viral engagement" allows you to go for a wide reach, while building engagement with focusing on niche (using a dedicated application). FaceBook was mentioned many times as the platform allow you to achieve this.

Overall - after over an hour of 'buzzwords exchange' it seems everyone are still looking for ways to put some logic into their success as well as define the next steps and trends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued...


E.T.

Technorati Tags: Babycenter, Event, Web 2.0
, dealmaker, undertheradar, community, babycenter, slide, rockyou, imeem, Sugar Inc

Notes from Momentum Growth Conference (1/...)

Notes from Momentum Growth Conference.

How I Got Mo' - Momentum Company of the Year
Ellen McGirt / Paul English (Co-Founder & CTO of KAYAK).

• Building a service around technology and most important - customer service.
• A team of 30 engineers and 9 Biz are supporting 20M transactions per month.
• Every inquiry is answered by a person.
• The development policy is that a developer can develop a new feature only when there are no open issues with the the current features/codes this developer is responsible for.
• Spending a lot of time on usability testing - as the technology is allowing to modify the experience very rapidly and cheaply.
  
• Facebook is a great social platform which brings a lot of value and power to small companies to start with.
• Ways to create customers momentum - Google ads, affiliate programs, word of mouth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Business Models That Drive Momentum
Find a high-paying job. Find a telephone listing (for free). Make a coffee table quality book yourself. The internet has enabled a number of niche businesses to flourish quickly. These momentum companies have found a need and are serving it well. What were their secrets of success and how do they plan to keep the momentum?

Blurb - Robin Goldberg, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development
TheLadders.com - Robert Turtledove, CMO
Gaia Online - Craig Sherman, CEO
Jingle Networks - Lyn Chitow Oakes, SVP Marketing

• Great businesses are based on passion and on personal pain...
• Business models emerge from feedbacks and conversation with the user's community. The users will let you know what they need and for what they are willing to pay for it.
  
• When a business offers a great service and provide proofs, the users are willing to use and pay part of the service - marked as 'premium'.
• Raising capital has to based the market, real needs and expectations , shared by the founder and the investors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued...


E.T.

Technorati Tags: Office 2.0, Event, Web 2.0
, dealmaker, undertheradar, KAYAK, undertheradar, FastCompany

Rebooting My Morning

I was on my way to the Momentum Growth Conference today when I had to stop for fuel.


The fuel pump had this kind of media screen and it showed commercials.

Suddenly, the screen went black the and the computer rebooted - and froze.




Great start...

(I am glad to use a Mac...)

:-)

E.T.

Web 2.0 Summit/Plane

Although I did not register to the upcoming 'Web 2.0 summit', I got rejected.
( I did attend some in the past... so I guess I am marked man now...)



At times when every week a new record is set and broken and there are so many hypes and peaks, a summit is just a plane.
(so I keep telling my bruised ego...)


source: http://www.teamstraydogs.com/images/RobMilne-VinsontoShinn-7Summits.jpg



E.T.

Running on (Adobe) AIR

I was working on some interesting prototypes using Adobe Flex recently..

Well… some of them got achieved before more than 2 people saw them, while others got some traction.

One of the demos I supported was the SAP xApps Spend Analytics demo, shown during Adobe MAX this week.

SAP xApp Spend Analytics is a next generation analytic application that allows organizations and the end users to consolidate their spend data for end to end visibility into their supplier base. Identify savings and sourcing opportunities and to facilitate regulatory and internal compliance while identifying Supplier's rationalization opportunities.

The application is based on SAP Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver), and it aggregates data from heterogeneous data sources, prepares and enriches the data for analysis and accurately classifies the spend data for budgeting and sourcing savings.

Note: SAP xApp Spend Analytics is currently in Ramp-Up, so please stay tuned to additional information on SAP.com.

(Additional SAP Spend Analytics information is available here)
(Adobe Max keynote coverage is available here and here)

some screen shots:

Opening a briefing book from a list of available books on the server




Sorting data




Using the page-flip experience...

The most interesting part of the demo ( at least from my point of view ) was showing a scenario when the presenter added some information, gathered during off-line, by D&D a table from MS-Excel into the book, as well as updating the book’s data from the server (per page or the whole book).


E.T.

Technorati Tags: beta, Adobe, Flex, AIR, Demo, Beta, AdobeMax, SAP

Adobe's Buzz(word) and Share

Great buzz around Adobe's Acquisition of Virtual Ubiquity, the developers of Buzzword (previous review) ,as well as on the new sharing service.

Buzzword



Share





And yet again we see the page-flip feature...


Will Adobe step into the 'office 2.0' space, leveraging their experience in content creation and collaboration?

It seems Adobe is focusing on 'documents' and not on every type of office-file-format.

In any case - yet another new shining way to collaborate available now...

However - the interesting part is how would Buzzword use the Adobe AIR off-line capabilities.
Many other 'on-line' applications are using Google Gear or a similar local-server solutions, for going off-line. I am looking forward to see if Adobe will make Buzzword an example for AIR capabilities, in the loosely-connected scenarios.



E.T.


Technorati Tags: beta, Adobe, Buzzword, Flex

Enterprise Collaboration Session

As part of the office 2.0 conference, I was attending the Enterprise Collaboration session.

Speakers

• Dan Farber, Vice President, Editorial, CNET Networks
• Scott Dietzen, President and CTO, Zimbra
• Etay Gafni, Architect, SAP
• Sam Lawrence, Chief Marketing Officer, Jive Software
• Oliver Marks, Senior Project Manager, Sony Computer Entertainment America
• Paul Pedrazzi, Oracle AppsLab Director, Oracle
• Jay Simons, Senior Director of Product Marketing, BEA Systems
  

View the recorded session.
(In great quality using Veodia)

It was an interesting session as we all tried to explain what 'collaboration' is (in different context).

Beyond the shared views and the common stories about how the consumer market affecting the enterprise - the main theme was transparency and relevancy.

I was trying to make the point (I hope I did...) that there is a 'sales' phase/process for these ideas/technologies/tools within the enterprises. Unlike the consumer market, there is a need to convince a centralized organization or an executive before these ideas/technologies/tools become 'Kosher' for the enterprise.

Another point was that we make sure that the 'ideas/technologies/tools/solutions' we would like to 'create/use/embrace' have to be able to be 'industrialized' to the level in which they provide the level of service required by a customers/companies. One of the aspects is security.

Interesting enough, I agreed with Paul (Oracle) on many of the topics he presented.

Well - it was a long successful day. I hope you would have the chance to view the recorded sessions in case you were not around this week.


E.T.

Technorati Tags: Office 2.0, Event, Web 2.0

Classroom 2.0

As part of the office 2.0 conference, I am/was attending the Classroom 2.0 session.

Speakers

• Steve Hargadon (Moderator), Editor, Classroom 2.0
• Kyle Brumbaugh, Technology Coordinator, San Mateo Union High School District
• Guillaume Cohen, Chief Executive Officer, Veodia
• Steve Dembo, Online Community Manager, Discovery Communications
• Adam Frey, Founder, Tangient
• Anastasia Goodstein, Editor, Ypulse
• Karen Greenwood Henke, Founder, Nimble Press
• Rushton Hurley, Founder, Next Vista for Learning
• Sylvia Martinez, President, Generation YES

The discussion was around the role of educators and the usage of 'web 2.0' tools by schools.

Some (interesting) comments by the panel:

• The role of teachers is to teach students how to find information, but most important, how to validate the information.
• There is more adoption of 'Web 2.0' technology and tools by individual educators, than the universities and schools. The IT organization are still resisting...
• 25% of education traffic on the Internet goes to wikipedia.
• The challenge is to keep students engage, or they will find "black market education" resources and learn from them. 'Free' resources with content which is not consider to be updated or the truth. (...truth and history are written by the winners...)
  
• Content creation helps students to improve their understanding of the domain they focus on.
• We need to stop blocking the students from using the learning tools or their choice, while learning in the schools.
  
• The teachers may feel intimidated by 'losing' their role as the single source of knowledge and authority.
• Classrooms are the places where students learn that they can do more than they thought can/want to do. Educators role is the coach and push students to excel.
  

As I see it, we had few discussions in parallel:
There are issues and ideas around content generation (quality, relevancy, tools, etc.), knowledge management (knowledge find-ability, clustering) and education administration (running schools and more).

There is a wide agreement that Web 2.0 'capabilities' do change the education domain.
Applying the relevant tools to the relevant tasks is necessary (dauh...).
The real challenge is to match the content development to the collaborative space while the school is not blocking it... and them to scale it beyond that school to include additional schools in the state/country and globally.

E.T.

Technorati Tags: Office 2.0, eLearning, Event, Web 2.0

Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco

I’ve been busy lately with preparation for the up coming Office 2.0 conference in San Francisco.


"...The Office 2.0 Conference is a collective experiment organized every year in San Francisco, CA and aimed at discovering the future of online productivity & collaboration. It is a unique gathering of visionaries, thought leaders, and customers using innovative online services for getting things done at the office, at home, and on the go..."

The agenda is packed with great topics and I am working with my friends at SAP on some cool demos and information we would like to share.

I am also participating in one of the panels on Friday, talking about Enterprise Collaboration.

It is going to be a great event.

Stay tune for some massive buzz in the Blog-sphere.

E.T.

Technorati Tags: Office 2.0, Web 2.0, Event

Image Data Analysis

I saw this interesting image analysis demonstration few days ago.
Beside the fact that one of the contributors is teaching in the university I 'visited', I thought it could be a good concept for other tools.




Source: Fascinating! Content Aware Image Resizing
And comments: A Tempest In A Teacup?
And more comments: Image Resizing: Third Party Online Working Demo


What if we could apply this to eMail as well?
Let's say that you wake up in the morning to a list of 200 eMails in your Inbox...

Imagine you could resize the Inbox (of use another controller, such as a slider) to filter out eMails, based on the level of 'energy'/'relevancy' and so on.

We all know tools that assist you file and filter these types of eMails - but to actually be able to see the 'spam' vanish would be a great, satisfying experience.

I plan to work on it (when I have some time...)

E.T.

Technorati Tags: image, Adobe

Club Penguin

Last year my young daughter came to me and said: "I need a Job"

"Why?" I asked. "So I could subscribe to clubpenguin and buy an ice castle to my penguin" she replied.
She also wanted to buy a disco floor for the castle (and she was laughing when I showed her what disco was all about...).

So our connection to the club was established long time ago...



As "...Club Penguin has joined the Walt Disney Company in a business partnership..." time will tell if the Penguin will save its unique experience and features - or would it become an extension to the other Disney network (Mini-penguin)...

The "official" image may hold the answer:

(press release)

Club Penguin price tag was around $700,000,000....

E.T.

Technorati Tags: clubpenguin, Disney

Buzzword Preview

I was looking into "Buzzword" an Adobe Flex based word-processor from developed by virtub.

Beyond beta related issues (loosing connection to the server and other errors), the Buzzword behave as an application (not as a Web application / Website).

Like other current (online) word processors, Buzzword is focused on the practical features and not on everything.

The main features I liked were:

1. Group Tool Tip - When hovering on the toolbar, Buzzword present the tips to all the items in the category - allowing the user to find what s/he looking for without the need to 'click around' for help.
   
   
   
   
2. Table Controller - Buzzword introduce a very simple and powerful interface for controlling a table. It is simple to use the toolbar (as in other applications), and you could also edit/control the table, using in-place controller. It is really cool way to add and remove rows and columns without looking context.
   
   
   
   
3. Color Schemes - Buzzword makes it easy to select and to use matching colors across the document. Just select a scheme and stay with it.
   
   

There are many other nice features, some are common and some may differentiate Buzzword from other similar offerings.

For early access to "Buzzword" click here.


E.T.

Technorati Tags: beta, Adobe, Buzzword, Flex

Notes from reading "The Myths of Innovation" by Scott Berkun

The book includes many interesting topics and anecdotes about innovation, innovators and other factors, effecting and building the myths around innovation.

Scott did a great job encapsulating different phases and steps an innovative person or team go through doing the 'innovation' process as well as the different perspectives people have on the innovation before and after the acceptableness of it.

For Example:

Challenges: Find an Idea, develop a solution, secure sponsorship or funding, reproduce, reach customers.

Probability: (assuming 50% success rate and based on the challenges)
50%x50%x50%x50%x50%x50%x50%x50%=0.390625%
(do not get depressed, just yet...)

Feedback you better expect:
It will never work, no one will want it, it cannot work in practice, this is not the problem... Get out of my office...

and why you got it:
Ego, pride, politics, fear, priority, sloth, security, greed and consistency.

The bottom line is that there is no magic (now you can get depressed...) but there is a lot of hard work, timing, luck, curiosity, knowledge and focus involved.

the book includes many interesting quotes, such as:

"...History is written by those who wind and those who dominate... - Edward Said"
"...History is the lie commonly agreed upon... - Voltaire"
"...It does not matter where you start, as long as you start... - John Cage"
"...How do you systematize innovation? ... You do not... - Steve Jobs"

So - get back to work and hope one day you could look back and notice/appreciate your innovations.

E.T.

Technorati Tags: book, innovation

Visuals and Contact Us

Like many, I am also looking for original visuals during presentations, demos and prototype development. There are many good (and reasonably not expensive) sources for these visuals.

If you are using Adobe CS2/3, it is easy to use Adobe Bridge and the stock photos.



For other images, I sometime use iStockPhoto as well.



But sometime, you just need something completely different.

There are many amazing independent photographers and artists who can provide you with unique visuals.

Some of them are using their Blogs or Websites, like Jon Hope to promote their work



while other are using services such as http://www.zhibit.org, where many artists have a platform to show their work (and get paid as well...).



A side note:
Sometime you would like to contact the photographer.
I think the "Contact Us/Me" page is a very important part of the branding.
Sometime you find a long list of links and phone numbers, sometime just an address, but some time you get more...

I really liked Jon Hope's contact page.


This visual gave me the feeling this person been places and is not just a name / URL.
(plus + he has some great work of art on his site).

E.T.

Technorati Tags: Adobe, photo, prototype, visuals, presentation

Adobe Flex Prototypes

I am working on some prototypes using Adobe Flex (again).

The applications I'm prototyping merge information from several systems and hopefully would have a cool UI...

Adobe Flex has a great 'out of the box' containers, controllers and other layout capabilities, which make it a great tool for building these type of applications.

As you can imagine, some custom containers are required to enhance the basic capabilities and experiences.

Many good people are creating these components and sharing/selling them.
For example, the Adobe Flex Exchange, Andrew Trice Blog and Quietly Scheming (as shown).



I am using the Flex Style Explorer to create and test CSS play with visuals ideas.

Back to Flex syntax now...

E.T.

Technorati Tags Adobe, Air, Flex, multimedia, photo
, prototype

I've touched an iPhone...Well...Almost

I met one of my friends at work today and he showed (or should I say - 'showed off') me his new iPhone.

"What is this rubber box?" I asked...

"iPhone with a condom" he replied.

Well... I guess this is what 'safe communication' is all about...



Source: apple store

What can I say...The screen looks very protected and the rest was very black.
Great to view and 'interesting' to touch.

This is the closest I will get to an iPhone until my friend will have more trust in me...

E.T.

Identity by the Crowds

I was looking into several online identity management systems over the weekend and got derailed to another track. Many of these systems based their users identification on eMail-verification and complex passwords permutations. I thought to myself - why not using my Webcam or image related data as a step in the process.

I've checked some of my bookmarks for an old project I did a long time ago, trying to find some references and examples. I found some new links and ideas.
For example:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_recognition_system
• http://www.betaface.com/
• http://www.face-rec.org/
• http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/tryFaceRecognition.php
  
  

So far so good. There is a progress in the technology as well as in the related products and services.

Then I started wondering...

What would happen in case my face and my identity are being matched by the crowd?

Riya and Polar Rose Provide the capability to assign names (identities) to images/faces.

Riya:

Polar Rose:


Few questions came up:

• What would happen if, let say, 5-100 of my 'closest friends' decide to get a 'head start' and assign a different name to my public photos/face... "The community will moderate itself" is usually the answer...
  
• Can we use these techniques to recognize Avatars ( and is this the next step? :-) )
  
• (When) Can we expect ads based on face/item recognition?

From a product/service point of view, I would like to use these capabilities off-line (as well), so I could have some control over the identities associated with my photos and videos collections, before I upload them to the crowds...

E.T.

Technorati Tags video,face,riya, security, avatar,
security, Identity

The Fast and the Arrogant

During one of the sessions on virtual worlds at the Under the Radar conference last week, one of the VC panel members talked about "conventional social network" Vs. virtual worlds.
Although I was listening to buzzwords all day long, this phrase caught my attention. I joked about it with Andreas from SAP Venture. It made me feel so old for 'still' having interest in social network and for having the feeling this domain should not be "archived", just yet...

I was thinking about this over the weekend. I could not find the right way to express what I thought about it, until I saw Marc Andreessen's post:

"...

More recently, aided and abetted by new communications technologies such as blogging and instant messaging, the inside baseball effect has become particularly acute and short-sighted among the group Josh Kopelman famously dubbed the Techcrunch 50,000 -- the core group of Internet industry aficionados and early adopters, including myself and many of my friends, who live, sleep, and breathe this stuff.

It works like this: A new technology hits the market in its earliest form -- social networking, or peer-to-peer video streaming, or voice over IP, or widget-style embedding, or now the Facebook platform. Said technology is rapidly adopted by the Techcrunch 50,000, who jump all over it, enthuse about it, dissect it, analyze it, write about it, use it some more, find some limitations in it, tire of it, cynically dismiss it, and then move on to the next thing, almost overnight.

Sometimes the new thing then proceeds to fall over and die, starved of attention and press coverage, and forever confined to life in a tiny niche of die-hards. And the Techcrunch 50,000 say, yep, called it.

But sometimes, the new thing goes on its merry way, ignored and dismissed by the in crowd, and grows, and grows, and grows, and grows, and grows, and grows -- and is ultimately discovered by millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or even billions of people all around the world who incorporate it into their daily lives and don't have the foggiest idea that there was ever a group of insiders who dismissed it a few weeks into its pre-adolescence.

..."

Open questions:

• Are we moving too fast?
• Do VCs dismiss good ideas/products/companies just because they are on a chase for the 'next big thing'?
• Are we 'early adopters' or just beta testers?

Going fast in great, as long as we do not miss or dismiss opportunities and as long as we are not being arrogant to those who think they can improve current products/services/technologies. Event if they are "so 5 minutes ago"...

E.T.

Technorati Tags SAP , undertheradar, VC
, techcrunch