Yammer

I finally had a chance to watch the Yammer demo at TC50, the official winner of the 1st place $50,000 prize.  Terrible name, powerful product.  Twitter adapted to enterprise functionality is a great idea, especially for collaborative projects that are separated by distance.  This is something that we should look into as we develop some ideas and being working more closely on them.  They have already created integrated use with Instant Messaging clients, cell phone text message and are currently working on an iPhone App.

Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you working on?”

As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced.

Anyone in a company can start their Yammer network and begin inviting colleagues. The privacy of each network is ensured by limiting access to those with a valid company email address. The basic Yammer service is free. Companies can pay to claim and administer their networks.

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Sources:
http://www.yammer.com
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/10/yammer-takes-techcrunch50s-top-prize/
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/yammer

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I didn't realize there were so many pro's at TC50

I didn’t realize that many of the ‘poor starving startups’ TechCrunch promotes helping were actually wealthy, pre-funded veterans of Silicon Valley.  Read THIS article.

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plaYce – Hello Cloud Computing! Goodbye SaaS?

In a previous post, I blogged about how Cloud Computing is the future, and the latest release of Google’s Chrome will speed up this process.  Companies such as NetSuite, NETtime Solutions and EnterpriseWizard publicly announced they will support Chrome last week.  This year’s TechCrunch 50 had several good examples of utilizing Cloud Computing to begin the next wave of computing.  A great example of this is the start up plaYce. While I am not yet convinced that this will be THE platform that will revolutionize worldwide, streaming, high quality gaming; I believe they are heading in the right direction and paving the way for similar companies and platforms to step in.

plaYce’s proprietary technology automatically and accurately reconstructs the entire world in 3D and streams it with high frame rate from within the browser. Consequently, this unique, immersive, “Mirror World” gaming experience does not rely on a heavy client download. plaYce is designed such that every pixel has a world co-ordinate, enabling integration with user generated content and other forms of geo-tagged data.

plaYce connects gamers with their social graph through quick engagement, synchronous, social games. At the same time, plaYce provides Game-Infrastructure-as-a-Service, enabling independent developers to design games situated anywhere in the world: car races in Hong Kong, first-person shooters in the Amazon, treasure hunts in Manhattan, etc. Aside from the technological benefits, plaYce saves game designers 50-75% of development costs and significant time to market.

What a great example of Cloud Computing.  After seeing their demo, I was curious whether this is technially considered SaaS or just falls under the general category of Cloud Computing.  It seems it fits more into the latter category.  While plaYce is not the first to roll out this concept, their platform may be the one the ultimately brings it to the masses.  RuneScape was the first and probably still is the most poplular MMORPG.

RuneScape is a Java-based MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) operated by Jagex Ltd. It has approximately ten million active free accounts and is a browser-based game with some degree of 3D rendering. RuneScape was created by Andrew Gower, the creator of DeviousMUD, the forerunner to RuneScape, in 1998. Rewritten and renamed, the first version of RuneScape was released to the public on 4 January 2001 in beta form. It has a free-to-play option, and a simple interface that is accessible on most web browsers.

According to an article on ZDNews, Harry Derbes, CEO of Lawson, seems to think that SaaS is on its way out over the next two years and will be making way for Cloud Computing to step in.  While I don’t necessarily believe it will be gone in two years, I think Cloud Computing will become much more prevalent than SaaS in the marketpalce over the next decade.

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Sources:
http://www.playce.com
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/playce
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210500320
http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/612033
http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-218408.html
http://www.runescape.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuneScape

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iCharts

Of all the presentations that I have seen and read through from this years TechCrunch 50, this is the one that I would invest in if I was a VC.  It addresses a very common problem that I have faced multiple times, and creates a simple solution that is very verstile in application.  This is an easy way to create an interactive, taggable, portable chart that can be shared in blogs, PDFs, presentations, etc.  This product will appeal not only to techies, but to business people and students as well.  TechCrunch description:

iCharts makes interactive charting simple. http://www.icharts.net is the portal where everyone can search and share charts. Integrated into the portal is iCharts Studio which allows anyone to create high quality, interactive charts (iCharts) within minutes for private use or for publishing. Every iChart comes with a host of interactive features such as audio comments, data value pop-ups, zoom in/out and show/hide data series. iCharts can be embedded into any web-site where they can be updated by simply uploading new data to icharts.net. As a path breaking feature, iCharts can be embedded offline into PDF documents while retaining their full interactivity. iCharts contain rich tags making them highly searchable through existing search engines in an unprecedented way. iCharts is for publishing houses and market researchers, for academia, scientists, for business professionals and for every individual working with charts. iCharts is built on a combination of Adobe Flex and search-engine friendly JSP/HTML.

Although they haven’t completely solidified their business model, there are multiple ways to monetize this idea.  In my opinion, the 2 biggest will be:

• Advertising – When enough traffic is drawn, which I believe will be very likely by the coveted financial and business analyst community if marketed properly, then advertising reveues will steadily grow.
• Licensing – This will be the cash cow.  With proper marketing, plenty of businesses (including web-based) will have a great use for interactive and easy to create charting tools.  This was Mark Cuban’s advice to them, what a great idea.

Here is their demo at the 2008 TechCrunch 50:

 

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Sources:
http://www.icharts.net/
http://www.techcrunch50.com/2008/conference/presenter.php?presenter=69#video

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Sekai Camera

I was going to just leave a comment on your post, but I thought this was an intriguing enough idea that I would actually create a post withy my analysis.  

Presentation Comments:  I actaully was able to watch this demo yesterday, and it was absolutely hysterical.  It was definitely entertaining.  The demo was impressive, and the presenter was very charismatic and funny.  There was quite a bit of language barrier there, so it’s hard to say how developed their concept truly is from the Q&A section.

Feasibility Comments: (Let me begin by first saying, keep in mind that there demo is not anywhere close to a fully functional prototype.  As an example, for my senior capstone project, we created an X10-based home video alarm system (uses powerlines to communite signals through radio frequencies)  that interfaced with desktops and PDAs via the internet and could be monitored mobily by the user or a 3rd party.  It was far cheaper than commercial grade standard equipment.  In concept it was a really cool idea that would have taken a bit of funding to work out developmental issues that we had with our crude prototype, but with limited resources we were able to create a “demo” that made it look really kick ass.)  I really like the concept of the technology, but I remain skeptical that what was shown in the demo can become a usable application in the next several years for several reasons.  

Sekai Camera feasibility comments:

• The key to making this work is object recognition AI, and that is still a little bit away as I have seen MIT demos of this type of technology, and it is very crude right now.  Without it, like one of the commenters brought up, you would just have lists that generated based on positional data.  This would require constant updating by users or a 3rd party.
•  Even if this AI technolgy is developed right away, modern day cell phones don’t yet have the computational capacity to run object AI algorithms of this complexity yet.  There are only very crude versions of it now, like recognizing a “face” on a body in facebook.

That being said, I think there is some potential in the future generations of cell phones and “intelligent” object recognition AI sofware will definitely mature.  

 

To answer your question about how we could potentially profit off of this, here are my thoughts:

 

• Getting involved in the AI scene is way over my head.  The field of AI is extremely interesting to me as I was able to interact with some people in college that were invovled in some projects, but they are so complex it’s not even funny.  
• The area that will be essential and more doable is information agrregation and presentation.  Similar to what social network and information aggregators are doing  will have to be done to the extreme amount of geographic, product, business and internet data that would need to be access and preseneted on the fly by Sekai Camera.

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Sources:

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tonchidot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

http://cbcl.mit.edu/projects/cbcl/publications/ai-publications/2005/AIM-2005-023.pdf

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Mark Cuban – What a great example of an entrepreneur

“when I die, I want to come back as me” – Mark Cuban

Great interview with the legend.  It seems like Mark can’t go wrong in anything he does.

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Chris’s comments:

Great interview, I have an infinite amount more respect for this guy after seeing him speak and get interviewed at TC50.  Here are some notable quotes from his interview with Jason Calacanis.

On his past goals:

I “retired” when I was 30. My goal was to drink with as many people in as many countries as possible. I sold a company and all I wanted was a lifetime pass for American Airlines. They had them for $125,000 for two people. I used to go into bars and ask women if they wanted to go on trips.

On ideas:

In the past people used to tell me to shut up a bit. But what I believe is to put out your opinion and let everyone else react. If I’m wrong I’m wrong. People are afraid to put our their opinions and get push back.

On entrepreneurial advice:

Ill tell you what I learned from Bobby Knight: everybody’s got the will to win but when it comes time to doing something, it’s always about someone else. Not many people have the will to prepare. You got to be willing to know your product and environment better than anybody. No matter what you do there is someone out there trying to kick your ass. You got to be the smartest guy in the room about your product. Then you need to have a revenue source. You need a company with a revenue to make money. Concept, competition, and where the money is — plus something you love doing. I’ve never had a day of work. When I die I want to come back as me.

On educating himself:

Pre-internet: stacks of books and magazines. I have PCweek magazines going back 10 years. I would read 2-3 hours per day of regular stuff.

Now online: I need a break because I spend so much time reading. If theres something I get into, I won’t stop. I read a lot of industry trade publications for cable now.

On reaching out to him:

Send me an email and in three paragraphs or less, tell me about your business. Dont say you need an NDA or want a call. Just tell me how youre going to make money and how I’m going to add value. Give me a URL if you have a website, I’ll figure it out. 5% of the people will hear back from me.

On assembling a startup team:

I’ve always been a driver from a tech perspective so it’s been easy to find people who complement me. Finding someone who you trust and who complements you is important. It’s easier to find people you trust who are cheap and can be trained. Believing in the business is important too. The worst place to hire is the Silicon valley because everyone’s a hero in their own mind. There are great people everywhere you can find. The poeple I dont like to work with are people like me. I need people who can compliment my skill set, people who can do the nitty gritty with me. People who will be good verse look good.

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F*#%ing AMAZING!!!!

Sekai Camera

This is some of the most incredible technology I have ever seen.  The potential of possibilities is huge.  I wonder if there is a way to profit off of this?

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Peter Thiel at TechCrunch 50

This is taken straight from the TechCrunch Website.  This was a great excerpt from the interview with Peter Thiel (VC, founder of PayPal) last night.  The interesting point that he makes is that MOST people that do get VC funding do not ever reach the point where they can sell their company for their big payday.

 

In a long-ranging discussion today at TechCrunch50, investor Peter Thiel (PayPal, Facebook, Slide) gave his thoughts on what is the best predictor of startup success.  At the Founder’s Fund, one of the most important factors he likes to look at before deciding to invest in a startup is how much the CEO is paying himself. (This is also a factor that one of his investments, YouNoodle, looks at tovalue private startups). Says Thiel:

The lower the CEO salary, the more likely it is to succeed.

The CEO’s salary sets a cap for everyone else.  If it is set at a high level, you end up burning a whole lot more money. It aligns his interest with the equity holders.  But [beyond that], it goes to whether the mission of the company is to build something new or just collect paychecks.

In practice we have found that if you only ask one question, ask that.

In Startupland, everybody should be working towards the same goal: that big juicy exit. That’s the only payday any CEO should be worried about (even though more than half of them will never get it).

What’s the average salary for CEOs from funded startups? Thiel was hesitant to answer, but eventually said “$100-125k.”

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Source:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/08/peter-thiel-best-predictor-of-startup-success-is-low-ceo-pay/

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2008 TechCrunch 50 Company List

I want to keep a copy of this list (52 companies this year) on our site so we can use it as a reference later and track some of these company’s progress.  By clicking on the links, it’ll take us to the developers website, and the “CB” will take us to the CrunchBase profile.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Session 1: Youth and Culture. 9:00-10:15am

• Blah Girls – Backed by Ashton Kutcher, Blah Girls is a gossip site that features a group of animated teenage girls who provide opinions on what’s going on in the world of entertainment
• Tweegee (CB) — A hub for tweens, Tweegee offers the youth market a suite of online tools for social interaction and organization
• Shryk (CB) — Web-based financial software for children aimed at promoting financial literacy and good saving habits
• Hangout Industries (CB) — Blends social networking with virtual worlds by creating a 3D, online environment where 16-24 year olds can chat and share media

Session 2: Memes & News. 10:30 – 11:45am

• DotSpots (CB) — Tracks the memes spreading across the web, aggregates the content associated with them, and gives everyone Wikipedia-like control over that content
• Angstro (CB) — Lets you set up a feed of news about your friends, instead of news by your friends
• LiveHit (CB) — Tracks the music, videos, and entertainment sites people are clicking on right now
• Quant the News (CB) — Creator of StockMood.com, a service that tracks the sentiments of online news stories about stocks and then measures their potential impact on the direction of those stocks’ prices

Session 3: Enterprise. 2:30 – 3:45pm

• FairSoftware (CB) — Creates virtual shares around software projects that gives each contributor a portion of any resulting revenues
• Yammer (CB) — A web application designed for businesses and organizations that asks its users to answer the question, “What are you working on?”
• Connective Logic (CB) — Along with the company’s real-time middleware, Blueprint will make it easier for developers to design, generate code, and deploy complex multi-core software applications without requiring expertise in multi-threaded software development
• Devunity (CB) — A platform for writing code in a browser-based editor that doesn’t force developers to use a proprietary layer
• OpenTrace – Traces items through the supply chain and adds them together to show the impact of products on the environment

Session 4: Advertising & Commerce Monetization. 3:45 – 5:00pm

• Burt (CB) — Collects user data to tailor individual advertising campaigns and target users more effectively
• Adgregate Markets (CB) — Brings online stores to consumers through a display ad that is a fully transactional widget
• Adrocket (CB) — Contextual text-based advertising for email; assigns keywords to each address depending on known demographic and contextual data
• OtherInBox (CB) — Provides an easy way to quarantine the spam and the messages you receive from online services

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Session 5: Collaboration. 9:00 – 10:15am

• Tingz (CB) — Offers a unified platform for delivering internet content across multiple devices including mobile phones and PCs
• MIXTT (CB) — A group based social network/dating site that encourages real world interaction that’s more comfortable than the 1-on-1 format of most similar sites
• Imindi (CB) — Based on neuroscientific principles, Imindi’s Thought Engine tries to exceed human thought and help its users find new ideas, concepts, and questions on the Web
• Popego (CB) — Surfaces the most meaningful information from within your social graph based on your interests and other factors

Session 6: Finance & Statistics. 10:30 -11:45am

• PersonalRIA (CB) — Allows users to shadow a professional investment advisor’s portfolio, automatically executing trades (which most brokerage sites cannot do)
• Emerginvest (CB) — Offers commentary and analysis on Emerging Markets and tools that provide you with information on how to diversify globally
• ExchangeP (CB) — Dubbed a “fantasy stock market,” ExhangeP’s service allows users to sign up for free and start investing in private companies
• Me-trics (CB) — Lets you see how mood, weight, and goals correlate with other metrics, including web services like Facebook or RescueTime
• iCharts (CB) — YouTube for embeddable, interactive charts

Session 7: Mobile. 2:15 – 3:30pm

• Mytopia (CB) — A gaming platform that lets players compete across mobile devices and social networks
• Tonchidot (CB) — Makes the Sekai Camera, a camera system that aims to merge the virtual and real worlds by using a digital device as a viewfinder
• Mobclix (CB) — An analytics and monetization platform for iPhone developers
• FitBit (CB) — Developing a small wireless sensor called the Fitbit Tracker, which automatically records data about a person’s activities, calories burned, sleep quality, steps, and distance throughout the day

Session 8: Language & Communication Tools. 3:45 – 5:00pm

• Alfabetic (CB) — Translates any blog or Website into another language and places ads alongside it in the new tongue
• Postbox (CB) — Based on Mozilla technology, Postbox saves users time when looking for particular information within their email
• Swype (CB) — A new method of text input on touch screens; does away with traditional “hunt and peck” in favor of a more fluid motion
• DropBox (CB) — Provides an easy way to backup your files, share them with coworkers and friends, and synchronize them between computers

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Session 9: Rich Media. 9:00 – 10:15am

• VideoSurf (CB) — A visual video search engine that allow users to search across millions of videos for a given actor and to view summaries of videos through a series of detected keyframes
• GazoPa (CB) — An image search engine developed by Hitachi that uses visual similarities between photos to suggest matches (rather than simply relying on keywords).
• Fotonauts (CB) — A photo sharing application that turns every album instantly into a Web page.
• Bojam (CB) — Although there are a slew of online music services already on the Web, Bojam is trying to do something a bit different: it wants to connect musicians and allow them to collaborate over the Web.

Session 10: Games. 10:30 – 11:45am

• Grockit (CB) – A “Massively Multi-Player Online Learning Game”
• Akoha (CB) — A web-based social game played with trading cards aimed at spreading good deeds around the world
• Atmosphir — A platform for creating 3D interactive games by selecting blocks (such as a sand castle tower, fireball-breathing bird, or trap door) and snapping them onto a grid.
• PlaYce (CB) — Provides a 3D virtual world inside the browser for games and social interaction that is based on the real world

Session 11: Vertical Social Networking. 2:15 – 3:30pm

• Birdpost (CB) — A social network for birdwatchers
• Closet Couture — Fashionistas need a social network too and Closet Couture is looking to give them one by connecting them to other fashion lovers, stylists, and retailers
• Footnote (CB) — For those looking to create historical records of loved ones or themselves, Footnote offers a timeline-based archive where you can upload photos and documents linked to historical databases
• Causecast (CB) — Causecast leverages social networking to connect nonprofits, leaders, celebrities and brands with those who want to make a difference through good causes
• Shattered Reality Interactive (CB) — A new massively multiplayer online game (think World of Warcraft) that lets the crowd guide the direction of future expansions

Session 12: Research & Recommendations. 3:45 – 5:00pm

• GoodGuide (CB) – Provides information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies
• GoPlanit (CB) — A one-click travel planner that assembles a customized trip itinerary with the click of a button; also supports mobile microblogging
• TrueCar (CB) – A site that allows users to assess the current market value of their automobiles in a given geographic area
• Goodrec (CB) – A mobile and online recommendation service that provides brief, to-the-point recommendations from friends and trusted sources

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