March 12th, 2010 / No Comments » / by Avram Davis
Are we lurching towards another tech bust? It’s starting to look like it from where I sit.
The culprit might just be Google, despite its having heroically kick-started the tech sector by setting out on a fiendish buying spree of smaller technology companies. As the search company continues to lead the tech establishment in attaining control of the future of cloud computing, few techies seem to notice the impending endgame.
This week, the web giant bought DocVerse, an online software company founded by ex-Microsofties. Earlier this month, Google acquired Picnik, an online photo editor, seeking to bolster the capabilities of Picasa, its existing photo application. In the past six months alone, the search company made nine software acquisitions.
Of course, this has been great news for the tech sector. As Google set out on its buying bonanza, the industry experienced a noticeable uptick. And tech watchers are tripping all over each other trying to predict Google’s next takeout targets. It was widely believed that Google was readying to purchase the online video company Brightcove. In December, the All Things Digital blog predicted that Invite Media, MediaMath, DataXu, x+1, Turn and AppNexus could be among the potential takeout targets. Google even became its own rumor-mongerer for a while, stating in October that it was seeking web analytics companies to acquire, and noting in January that it would buy one real estate site per month.
But if anyone believes that the sector is roaring back to its buoyancy of a few years ago, I caution a word of advice to the cheerleading squad: We’ve seen this game before. While it’s tempting to observe all of the recent M&A activity and call the tech sector red-hot, a better descriptor would be a bloody brawl. When competing tech giants binge on add-ons like Google and Microsoft are doing, someone eventually takes the crown jewel, and is declared the winner. And when that day comes, buyout season is officially over.
I was chatting with Ken Yager, a principal at the distressed investor MorrisAnderson, earlier this week, and he called the current smackdown “World War III,” comparing the situation to Microsoft’s feud with Lotus in the 1980s, and Internet Explorer’s war with Netscape a decade later.
Similarly, the current situation will create a few winner and many losers. When one of the buyers corners the market, Yager said, someone will have to tell all the remaining tech start-ups, “Sorry, you lose. You can all go home now.”
Someone should start calling those start-ups pretty soon to share the sad news. If Google hasn’t already cleaned house, the day of reckoning is rapidly nearing.
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December 8th, 2009 / 7 Comments » / by oddbits
Sunnyvale, CA -based Yahoo! has launched a new site to rally its audience of some 600 million people into random acts of kindness. Timed to coincide with major holidays in December, the site encourages users to post activities, such as volunteering at a homeless shelter or helping an elderly neighbor. Once an activity is posted, the user asks, “You in?” to inspire others to do likewise.
“We believe that one small act of kindness can ignite a ripple of generosity and we hope to inspire the Yahoo! community to create a wave of goodwill around the world,” said Meg Garlinghouse, senior director of Yahoo! for Good. “Update your status to share what you’re doing to spread holiday joy and inspire others to also pay it forward.”
Just launched, the site already has a fair amount of content with people posting text and images. You can find the site at kindness.yahoo.com pictues can be uploaded to Yahoo! owned Flickr, or users may visit Yodel Anecdotal.
Know a company that’s doing something good in the holiday spirit? Drop me a line at catherine@helzerman.com
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Tags: Holidays, social network, Yahoo
September 28th, 2009 / 4 Comments » / by oddbits
Everyone has their own must have list of iPhone Apps. Here’s mine. What’s yours?
Communication:
1. BeeJive: (Based in San Francisco) This multi-client instant messenger isn’t free. At $9.99 it’s more than most (if not all?) other iPhone instant message clients …but it’s worth it. The reliable platform allows users to sync up on AOL, Yahoo!, Facebook and other popular instant message services. Features include, manage your buddy list, including add/remove, nicknames, groups, & blocking, set custom status messages, invisibility, set an auto-away status, and quick switch between multiple chats. Users can also call from chat and email chats.
What I love: look and feel, custom avatars for each IM service, ability to have multiple user accounts for each IM service.
Room for improvement: could use an option for on screen notification based on individual IM accounts.
Poor man’s alternative: eBuddy -not as reliable and does not have all of BeeJive’s features, but it also supports multiple IM clients and it’s free.
2. Twitterific Premium: Twitter client that allows multiple accounts, saved searches, local and trending topics. Twitterific has a slick interface with customizable font sizes and an easy to use toolbar for popular features such as retweeting, replies, etc. Clicking on a user’s author button also allows you to see both if you are following them and if they follow you on one screen.
What I love: easy switching between accounts, intuitive interface
Room for improvement: Sometimes the service is unable to connect. This could be either because of Twitterific or Twitter itself.
Poor Man’s alternative: Twitterific: a free, somewhat limited version of Twitterific Premium. If you have one Twitter account and are looking for a free client, this one is hard to beat.
Productivity
3. Evernote: (Based in MountainView) This free application allows users to record their thoughts in text, voice, or picture format. Information is auto synced to a web-based user account (again free, although there is a premium version for those who want tons of space -I’ve never felt the need to upgrade). Features include tagging, multiple folders, and an easy to use interface.
What I love: It’s free yet offers more features than some paid applications. Very easy and quick -great for notes on the run.
Room for improvement: Synching from computer to iPhone (when you begin your docs on your laptop versus your phone) could be smoother. More features for doc editing on the web version.
Poor Man’s alternative: This is the poor man’s alternative.
4. Lose it: Ever wonder just how many calories you consume each day? Some experts say that Americans underestimate their food intake by 30%. Whether you’re looking to achieve a certain goal weight or just want to stay on track, Lose It is a great too. The calorie counter / exercise journal features a database of foods (including calories, fat, carbs, protein numbers), and exercises (and how many calories you burn doing each). Users can view their progress by the day or by the week and past entries are saved.
What I love: ease of use, ability to make fine adjustments to food qualities, ability to enter your own foods.
Room for improvement: Would love to see charts showing counts of fat grams against goal (as it is, it counts fat grams but does not give you a recommended amount per day as it does with calories.
Poor man’s alternative: None! This app is free.
5. Camera Genius: One of many enhanced camera apps for iPhone, this one stands out for the number of features you get for a mere 99 cents. Features include camera zoom, sound capture, anti-shake, a timer and guides for lining up shots.
What I love: the “big button” feature -especially useful when you’re turning the camera on yourself and can’t “see” the button.
Room for improvement: The lag time when using anti-shake can be annoying.
Poor man’s alternative: If you are just taking quick photos on the fly, use iPhone’s built in camera feature. No zoom, timer, etc., but if you don’t need it and really don’t want to spend the buck, the built in app isn’t bad.
Fun and passing time
6. Police radio: This app allows users to listen in to police radio from precincts all over the country. Included are big city forces like the LAPD, Oakland Police and NYPD. Small cities are represented as well, however, and I was pleased to find both my home town of Troy, NY, and current city, Campbell, CA. Some reviews on iPhone caution that you “never hear the good stuff”, but the first night I listened in I heard, “Man threatening to kill his girlfriend…” along with a slew of police code, helpfully translated on the app’s screen.
What I love: huge number of cities covered, easy to navigate, surprisingly clear reception, low price tag of 99 cents.
Room for improvement: Sometimes the app can take a few seconds to connect to the police feeds, so the first time one uses the app, it seems like there is no activity or the app is not connecting. I have a feeling this is more to do with what it takes to grab the feed versus any fault of the application.
Poor man’s alternative: Although not on iPhone or easy to grab, many local feeds are available on the web. A simple Google search will likely bring you to the web-based feed for your city.
7. Dexter: Any fan of the show is likely to enjoy this game, which follows vigilante, serial killing, Dexter on his adventures. This app is not kid friendly (nor is the TV show and book series it is based on), but for adult fans, it’s a fun time waster. The graphs are incredible and the game takes full advantage of iPhone’s unique features (sometimes in gruesome ways…such as in how Dexter “takes care” of his victims). This game is not for everyone, but for show fans, I recommend it highly.
What I love: great performance from actors in voice over, effects, story line.
Room for improvement: None.
Poor man’s version: There are no other Dexter games, but free, non violent games are plentiful and easy to find on the iPhone app store.
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Tags: App Store, Apple, BeeJive, Camera Genius, Dexter, Evernote, iPhone
September 25th, 2009 / 2 Comments » / by oddbits
Cupertino, CA based social site, Tokoni, is reaching out to businesses and organizations with a new set of offerings designed to help brands connect with the community through shared experiences.
The company, founded in 2007 by two ex-eBay employees, has been operating with simple mission: provide a platform where people can share common experiences and offer support, advice, and an ear to others. Until now, Tokoni has been almost exclusively focused on individual, and not business, communities.
The initial inspiration for the site came to co-founder Mary Lou Song when she was taking a class, “I was taking a writing course, one of those where we were reading others work, and I just loved all of the stories from my fellow students. I felt like what a shame that these might get tucked away somewhere and not see the light of day. As writers we all aspire to be published someday, but it doesn’t happen for everyone. I thought there should be a place for those stories.”
Song was also a new mom and thought it important that parents have a place to share their unique challenges and life occurrences, be it mothers struggling for work-life balance, handling tantrums, or more serious subjects such as childhood illness, a struggle her brother knew personally.
“My brother and his wife were struggling with their newborn son who is allergic to everything and has a heart condition. They wanted to find people with similar experiences so that they could see what lies ahead for them. It’s different from getting medical advice from doctors. They wanted to know what its like to live with his particular heart condition.”
So, the question was, “How do we find people who have the same sort of life experiences that we have?”
Enter Tokoni.com, an ad free no-cost site where users can set up communities to discuss everything from gardening tips to erotic literature (seen only if filters are turned off).
The tenor of conversation in Tonoki communities has mirrored that of Americans (the site communities are still mostly based in the USA) in general. For example, although a site might be devoted to stay-at-home moms, those women might find themselves veering into discussions about relationships, economic hard times, and politics.
Politics, in particular, has been on the minds of many Tokoni members, so it is not surprising that when Meg Whitman looked to build an interactive community for her gubernatorial campaign, she turned to her fellow ex-eBay colleagues.
Song explains, “If you look at Meg Whitman as a brand it makes sense. What makes politics so great is talking about life stories and the impact. She was excited about her site and letting Californians talk about their lives.”
Thus far, Tokoni has been successful in avoiding the flame-throwing bouts that can drag conversations off track and into the murky world of online insults and bickering.
“That’s one of the ground rules we had in the Tokoni community,” said Song. “There is room for all different kinds of perspectives and we’re trying to keep it civil. We say it in our terms of service and put it in our participation guidelines. We have community manager who gets in to conversations and if it gets out of hand we remind each other, let’s be kind and let’s mind our manners.”
Now, the company is set to take the next step and offer white-labeled sites (or hubs) where people can share their stories about/experience with brands, companies, and organizations. Tokoni has already had some success in this area as the architect of eBay’s online community.
The company is launching Tokoni Community Platform, a branded community offering targeted toward companies and organizations. The platform enables brands to build custom community sites that can be used to build brand loyalty through shared customer stories and an interactive dialogue between company and customer.
One can imagine such sites including posts on product customizations, DIY projects, funny anecdotes, and advice. Considering the popularity of user group organizations, fan sites, and viral videos featuring brands, this appears to be a natural market for the story sharing community.
According to a statement issued by the company, “Tokoni’s platform is a complete management solution for turning social media conversations into customer insight, offering a way to optimize consumer stories and experiences to drive business and brand objectives. The resulting interactive communities provide clients and marketers with a brand-building tool that helps them truly leverage the collective voice of users to improve customer experiences and drive word of mouth on the Web. In addition, feedback and contributions can be used to inform and improve product development and marketing efforts.”
Companies and individuals can create dedicated hubs on Tokoni.com. Users can also create branded websites that, “feature stories from the company and its audiences; connect customers with various social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; and help companies mine customer feedback and stories to increase reach, improve customer experiences and inform product development.”
Happily for users, while companies, such as Twitter, are changing their terms of service to open the door for advertising, according to Mary Lou Song, Tokoni will remain ad free.
“We believe that your story page should belong to you and we do not believe that it should be cluttered by advertising. We want people to feel like their stories belong to them.”
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Tags: California, community, eBay, social, Tokoni
September 7th, 2009 / No Comments » / by oddbits
Just today, there were stories on the news about H1N1 Virus outbreaks at colleges during the first week of classes. One school even set up a ‘quarantine dorm’. Tales like this can feed fear, talk, and misinformation. Those wanting to know what’s really happening, should check out an influenza research sharing site recently announced by Google.
PLoS Currents (Public Library of Science), has launched a new social-site for scientists to quickly share research and findings on topics such as flu outbreaks in a faster, yet still well vetted, way than formal publication. The research and site will be hosted by Google Knol.
Harold Varmus, chairman of the Public Library of Science posted on the Google Blog,
“The successful development of open access publishing by organizations including the Public Library of Science (PLoS) in recent years is a dramatic illustration of how the Internet is revolutionizing scientific communication. Today, after several months of work, I’m delighted to announce that PLoS is launching PLoS Currents (Beta) — a new and experimental website for the rapid communication of research results and ideas. In response to the recent worldwide H1N1 influenza outbreak, the first PLoS Currents research theme is influenza.”
Read his whole post here.
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Tags: Flu, Google, H1N1
The Next Tech Losers
