Technology

Commercial real estate augmented reality

Last modified on 2010-05-24 00:13:56 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

ROFO has partnered with JUNAIO to create the first commercial real estate augmented reality mobile device application

Available now as a free app on the iPhone 3GS and coming soon to Android devices, junaio 2.0 (by Metaio) features a new Rofo commercial real estate channel, giving business owners instant access to complete information on available property listings by simply pointing their phone at a building of interest as they stroll through their favorite city or neighborhood.

Through this partnership, Rofo provides up to date national commercial real estate listings to mobile users by leveraging junaio’s augmented reality technology, which utilizes the phone’s compass and GPS to show digital content overlaid on real time locations. By subscribing to Rofo’s channel on the junaio 2.0 app, users can access information on nearby office spaces, including type of space, space size, monthly rent expense, lease type and can make direct inquiries to the appropriate broker or landlord right from their mobile device.

Users can either point the camera on their phone at an appealing office building or city block to identify availabilities using the Live View functionality, or they can browse nearby spaces within a specified radius using the Map View feature. Users can also snap and post images or notes on interesting locations directly within the app for future reference.

Being involved in commercial real estate myself from both a development and brokerage standpoint make sure you add your commercial real estate listings to Rofo, like any database it is only as good as the information entered.

You can find the Junaio app over at itunes. Happy hunting!

Google building Chrome web store

Last modified on 2010-05-20 00:56:06 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Google is building the Chrome web store to compete with Apple’s soaring 200,000 plus app store. It was unveiled today at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco.

According to VentureBeat the Web store will be based on standard web technologies like HTML5 and Adobe’s Flash (a turf war on standards Apple should not be in). The Chrome web store will be limited to users of the Chrome OS, browsers, and Chrome enabled devices. It sounds timely to me as I’m about ready to take the Droid HTC: Incredible for a spin next week and will do a full review once I give it the full test drive. I’ll be sure to give the Chrome web store a whole shake down as well.

Take a look at the 3rd annual Google I|O below:

Cheap code snippets for the masses

Last modified on 2010-05-17 20:50:29 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

I ran across a website called CodeCanyon this morning that offers snippets of php code html, javascript, ASP.net and JAVA at extremely reasonable prices. Unlike some of the free script websites and resources this php code is actually a quality resource for modern web development and php code snippets ranging in price from $2 – $12 bucks.

The code snippets and plugins are good for the novice to the full blown webdesign shop. My personal favorite is the modern jquery plugin known as sexy slider that is so popular in websites today.

Planon mobile handheld printer and scanner

Last modified on 2010-02-22 02:15:14 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Road Warrior takes on a whole new meaning with the Planon handheld portable scanner and printer for mobile professionals. For under a $700 bucks you can truly have a mobile office on the road. Imagine having mission-critical documents (like a real estate contract) sent to your blackberry and you can print immediately to your Planon handheld printer. Other mobile printing applications could include:

· Dispatch / work orders

· Repair estimates

· Collection receipts

· Maps to customers

· Quotes and invoices

· Satisfaction surveys

The $299 Printstik model PS905ME is a step up from the basic Planon portable printer and gets you into the blue tooth category which is essential for the traveling executive. This will allow you to break the tether and nest of wires. We all like to travel mean and lean these days.

Continuing on with our example, you have received and printed out your critical real estate contract and a buyer just signed, time to present to your seller ASAP. Enter the docupen x series scanner starting at $369 and has color at 600dpi. This allows you to scan and send the contract no problem. You should also consider shelling out another $70 dollars to get some level of text recognition or Professional level OCR Software for the pesky documents you need to change or manipulate.

All in all, Planon handheld devices offer the road warrior plenty of features to be a clutch player in business deals on the go.

Here is also a full list of other reviews

Top 10 Google apps for Small Business

Last modified on 2009-11-29 21:57:50 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Hopefully everyone scored some fantastic deals this weekend online an off. I ran across an article on theTop 10 Google Apps for Small Business that may be of interest. I add my two-cents on the apps as well.

1. Google Analytics – essential for discovering and optimizing your Internet traffic, which is the life blood of your website / blog / business.

2. Gmail – Forget Microsoft exchange and a hosted portal email. Gmail is effective, user-friendly and tons of storage. Did I mention everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid.

3. Google Alerts – Great for monitoring your brand and getting notifications competitors

4. Google Docs – The power of this didn’t really ring true until I was on a public computer away from the office and had to craft a business miracle. Between Gmail and Google Docs the microsoft word doc sent via email was a breeze to edit and return to sender…..life is good in the Airport lounge with no laptop.

5. Google Reader – Once of the best RSS readers on the market probably because it was designed with functionality and simplicity in mind first.

6. Google Calendar – This not only keeps you organized anytime anywhere on the web it syncs with multiple mobile devices like iphone, blackberry, windows mobile. Best of all if your still in love with Microsoft Outlook like me it syncs with that as well. The outlooks sync feature alone is worth it’s salt as a free solution to let your business team know what you are up to (if you want).

7. Google Maps – Beside the obvious uses I need not explain, Google maps can be an effective tools when tapping into the API or using a number of available mashups on the web. To see just how crazy Google map mashups can get check out this blog.

8. Google Translate – This worked very nicely when I doing business in Asia. All websites became legible with the click of a mouse.

9. YouTube – Viral marketing, product demos, product reviews, how tos…..just use it!

10. Google Local – As the the local search market continues to heat up for small business be sure to take advantage by advertising your business to the local traffic users. Be sure to perform healthy keyword research for local searching in your area and then capitalize with your brand

92 percent of developers ignoring Microsoft

Last modified on 2008-06-19 02:08:05 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

Steve Ballmer thought otherwise, but all I have to say after watching these two clips is

Laughter, Laughter, Laughter….

For more info on why developers are giving Vista the cold shoulder head on over to CNET

Spam injection in RSS Feed

Last modified on 2008-06-19 01:38:22 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

For those of you subscribed to the Startup Addict Musings RSS Feed — I thank you. For those of you who stayed with the RSS feed after a nasty bout of spam injection — I commend you. I know what your thinking, spam injection sounds like a bad case of the clap but I assure you, it is nothing to clap about.

I lost about 35% of my RSS feedburner subscribers because the nasty little spammers felt compelled to hack my feed with a string of unsavory link ads. The spammers tainted a wordpress file by embedding a rogue javascript that makes “calls” and implants the nasty links.

I’ve upgraded to a newer version of wordpress (not bragging about my version for security) and cleaned / reinstalled numerous files. I have five older posts (feed only) that are still affected by the spam but have the problem relatively under control. I may repost those entries if I cannot fully diagnose the feed problem. Posts and Feeds going forward are clean so no worries on building the feed subscriber base back up.

I thoroughly recommend hardening your Wordpress install and batting down the hatches for security sake. Also check out the following resources which have been instrumental in my own diagnosis of RSS spam link injection.

RobertGaloppini
Linux-by-Example
Kakkoi
Gordon Dewis
Raph

So if you fall victim to spam injection or feed hacks then go through the following resources above…otherwise take a pill and call your doctor in the morning.

Top 50 Ad Networks

Last modified on 2008-06-14 21:57:35 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

You will probably be as surprised as I was when you see some of the names in the The top 50 ad Network according to comscore

The top 10 Ad Focus properties also maintained their February rankings with Platform-A, the ad network combining Advertising.com, Tacoda, AOL, and Quigo, leading the ranking in March, reaching 91 percent of Americans online. interCLICK gained 9 spots in the ranking to position 14, reaching 58 percent of the 188 million Americans online. Real Cities Network and YuMe Video Network both entered this month’s rankings in positions 38 and 43, respectively.

The real question would be to rank the 50 advertising networks in terms of revenue rather than rankings.

Viral Marketing is all the rage

Last modified on 2008-06-10 11:47:17 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Every Entrepreneur needs to master the ever evolving and elusive viral marketing secrets that turn startups into legends. First, lets make sure we are all on the same page in our terminology. Wikipedia has one of the best technical definitions of Viral Marketing:

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.
[1] Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily.
[2] Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages. The basic form of viral marketing is not infinitely sustainable.

Now that we all know what the real definition of viral marketing is lets explore some of the techniques. Web Marketing today-Wilsonweb is a great resource for garnering attention for your startup. Be sure to to read the in depth article for the six viral marketing techniques.

1. Gives away valuable products or services
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others
3. Scales easily from small to very large
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors
5. Utilizes existing communication networks
6. Takes advantage of others’ resources

Although, be warned, viral marketing isn’t always a rosy picture. Inc. has some interesting examples of Viral Marketing campaigns that take more effort than is probably worth. In other words, hidden costs to put on a viral marketing campaign can make it more expensive than originally intended for marketers.

Vibe Media’s “Vibe Verses” campaign, which invited users to post, share, and rate rap lyrics online. A winner was picked by user vote, and won a prize. The campaign went viral in 36 days and drew tons of traffic to the site, making it profitable. But along the way, Vibe reported there were many efforts to game the vote, which made the campaign harder to organize and administer than they had expected.

The most important aspect of any viral marketing campaign will be proving the success of the results. For that you will need assistance with proper metrics to measure your VM success. The following resources should do the trick:

Divinity Metrics
Admap
Word of Mouth DMC download

Wamp server problem solved.

Last modified on 2009-07-20 18:12:26 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Any technology problem that swallows endless hours of my time, compels me to post solutions so someone else can avoid the same pitfalls. Wamp server is an apache, php, mysql bundle for dynamic website development (a localhost environment). The problem I ran into was I could not browse my local host or load phpmyadmin. It was driving me insane because the server was clearly communicating with the index.php file but would not load. So after numerous uninstalls and reinstalls of Wamp I finally decided to track port 80 (duh!). The port 80 was having a conflict with Skype that also uses port 80. So long story short if Wamp installs and you can’t render anything to the browser, skype is probably running.

As always sorry to the non-geek readers….but I know my previous 1and1 cpanel migration to mysql saved people in the past based on the hits.

Carbon Emission Reduction is next commodity!

Last modified on 2008-06-08 15:11:56 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

We all know that “green” is the new “black” and social responsibility for climate change is becoming everyone’s duty. The reality is carbon emission reductions and other climate change agenda will be a result of the next financial revolution and windfall profits rather than a social duty to reducing our carbon footprint on the planet. It’s not a surprise big business and investors are flocking to this sector. According to Fortune magazine “Carbon Finance comes of age”

Last year traders bought and sold about $60 billion worth of emissions allowances, mostly in Europe and Japan, where governments regulate greenhouse gases. If, as expected, regulation comes to the U.S., this country’s carbon-trading market is expected to be worth $1 trillion annually by 2020. That’s why investment banks, utilities, industrials, and hedge funds – among them GE (GE, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), J.P. Morgan Chase (JPNV.L), and AES (AES) – are rushing into the business of carbon finance.

The new wave of carbon reduction is regulated by the Kyoto Protocol regulated by the United Nations under a program called Clean Development Mechanism or CDM. Thirty-six industrial countries (not including the U.S.) have agreed to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions over time. The key ingredient is that polluting nations do not have to reduce the pollution at the actual source but rather, in part, by financing “clean development” projects in other parts of the world.

Both Fortune Magazine and a recent radio piece on NPR explore interesting examples of how a Carbon Emission reduction CER functions as a commodity.

Take a Company X that gives off the harsh HFC23 gas, a product that is almost 12,000 times more potent than 1 ton of carbon dioxide (as far as global warming goes). Company X has a few choices:

1. Apply for credits under the CDM (which is a red tape nightmare) to obtain reduction money
2. Contact a company like EcoSecurities and have reduction method not only funded but a monthly income based on how many CERs are produced.

A great example of a successful CDM would beWorld Bank seals record CDM China deal from Carbonpositive.

Although the creation of a CER credit is interesting both the CDM and CERs are plagued byadditionality . This is when the reduction would have happened anyway, without the financial incentives offered through the CDM. Wikipedia states the following:

A crucial feature of an approved CDM carbon project is that it has established that the planned reductions would not occur without the additional incentive provided by emission reductions credits, a concept known as “additionality”.

CERs through the CDM can cost up to a couple hundred thousand dollars for compliance. Certianly not making the effort for everyone. The little guy can still fit into the equation with Verified Emission reductions (VERS).

From the EcoSecurities site VERS are the following:

In voluntary carbon markets, activities that reduce GHGs produce Verified Emission Reductions (VERs), that can be sold to companies or individuals wishing to voluntarily reduce their impact on the environment. Purchasing VERs can be an effective means of offsetting the part of a company’s carbon footprint where it is not in a position to reduce its emissions directly.

The existence of a voluntary market for emission reductions can support smaller-scale, sometimes village-level activities – which cannot withstand the costs of compliance with Kyoto (certifiers, validators, consultants etc.) but deliver real emission reductions and significant sustainable development benefits.

Examples of technologies that would produce VERS:

• Windpower
• Geothermal power
• Solar power
• Run-of-river hydroelectricity
• Biomass electricity generation
• Energy efficiency
• Animal and agricultural methane capture and utilization
• Landfill gas to energy
• Forestry

The reason is trend is so interesting is the wave of startups that will flourish from the value-chain of reducing carbon emissions. Startups will be at every stage of the game and revenue streams will go beyond just the gas reducing business model through subsidies, credits and a commodity exchange. We had the dot-com run, we had the real estate run and now we have the carbon reduction run. The best part is we are at the ground floor.

Facebook goes open source –Kinda

Last modified on 2008-06-03 11:18:35 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Facebook announces the “Facebook Open Platform” for developers on the anniversary of its’ platform launch.

The facebook developer blog stated:

It’s been quite a year, with over 24,000 applications built on the platform and over 400,000 developers building new social experiences. We see about 140 applications added to our directory per day, and nearly all of our users have added at least one application.

The Facebook Open Platform is opening up parts of its application platform (open source -kinda) to developers. What makes me spill my coffee and laugh in the morning is the FB “open source” includes , the FBML parser, the API infrastructure, the FQL parser, and FB javascript. All of these custom language enablers are only opening up a proprietary social platform called Facebook. So this is more of a opening of a walled garden approach then true open source like Drupal. There will be some real advantages to utilizing the FBopen platform but open source may be a stretch (I guess there will be a new definition of open source soon seeing how even Microsoft is going down this road).

My bias aside, the FBopen is a definitive effort to compete with the Opensocial club which includes the alliance of Google/MySpace/Yahoo/AOL.

More coverage:

ReadWrite
Andreasengel

Twitter closes $15 million round with Spark Capital.

Last modified on 2008-05-30 01:09:30 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

PaidContent confirms rumors about additional funding for micro-blogging site Twitter. Spark Capital is behind the $15 million third round of financing placing Twitter at roughly $80 Million in valuation. Spark Capital is a fresh VC firm in Boston founded by Todd Darges who I had the pleasure of meeting when he worked at Battery Ventures.

The funding is timely as Twitter is clearly experiencing a growth spurt in users with constant server outages of late. The interesting trend to watch will be the advertising standard that will be used in micro-blogging services like Twitter. I mean…if Twitter is worth $80 Million it should at least make money right?

Other coverage
TC
OM

Cambrian House Sinks

Last modified on 2008-05-23 01:25:16 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Crowd sourcing startup Cambrian House is headed to the deadpool. The company had a bold concept of letting web users submit ideas and rally around the viable ones. The crowd would get a piece of profits as the idea turned into startup success. A significant problem the business ran into was the following:

A key assumption for us, which proved out NOT true: given a great idea with great community support and great market test data, we would be able to find (crowdsource) a team willing to execute it OR we could execute it ourselves. We needed amazing founding teams for each of the ideas – this is where our model fell short.

-Cambrian House CEO Michael Sikorsky

There is no doubt great ideas are still just ideas if poor execution and lack of commitment is evident. According to TechCrunch, Cambrian House was unable to secure another round of funding and will be liquidating assets and intellectual property.

It is sad to see Cambrian House close the doors with such an amazing concept and one so deeply rooted with similarities to StartupAddict.com.

It looks like the next evolutionary step for Cambrian House is VenCorps

Other Startups in the crowdsourcing space are CrowdSpirit, Kluster, CrowdSpring, and FellowForce.

Other coverage on Cambrian House
Matthew Ingram

CBS buys CNET $1.8 Billion

Last modified on 2008-05-15 18:45:42 GMT. 2 comments. Top.

CBS has acquired San Fransisco based CNET for $.1.8 billion. CNET has numerous web properties and enormous traffic from the likes of Gamespot,TV.com, news.com and mp3.com. According to Forbes “The deal values CNET at a 44.6% premium to Wednesday’s closing price of $7.95. CBS said that the deal would catapult it into the ranks of the 10 most popular Internet companies in the United States, with around 200 million users worldwide.”

Pre-CNET purchase numbers indicated CBS lagging in 5th at around 23 Million unique visitors as of the middle of March 2008 according to Adage.

1. TimeWarner 123.8 M
2. Disney 48.1 M
3. NewsCorp 86.6 M
4. NBC Universal 51.5 M
5. CBS 23.6 M

Whether the CNET purchase will truly bring CBS to the number one position time will tell. The CBS Internet acquisition rampage puts some plush holdings under its’ belt:

CBS Audience Network
CBS Local Station Group
CBS Mobile
CBS.com
CBSGames.com
CBSNews.com
CBSRadio.com
CBSSports.com
CSTV.com
The CW (joint venture)
Dotspotter – Click here for previous coverage ($10 Million purchase)
Last.fm – Click here for previous coverage ($280 Million purchase)
MaxPreps Network
Showtime.com
StarTrek.com
The Showbuzz
Wallstrip.com Click here for previous coverage ($5 Million purchase)
CNET.com

*information based on Adage

I continue to devote coverage to CBS because of the bold moves the once traditional media company continues to display on where media is consumed.

Other coverage on the CBS – CNET purchase:

Automated Social Networking for Bloggers

Last modified on 2008-05-14 21:58:14 GMT. 2 comments. Top.

Scoutle a new dutch startup launched earlier this month with an interesting take on how to make automated social networking connections for websites and bloggers. In their words:

Your Scout is your personal webcrawler. He will walk over the Internet and will meet other Scouts. To help your Scout walk, give him some space so install the small Stage on your website. This will not only activate your Scout, but will also bring other Scouts to your website.

What I dig about Scoutle is it takes the concept of data portability or openness of social network data a step further —automating it! I have signed up for and account and will report on my findings. On the surface it sounds amazing to have like minded people know all about me and I know all about them. People I would never have ordinarily met….sounds like real social networking. Now if I could only automate myself to work a room at functions and events.

For more info on how it works check out Scoutle’s video

Other good Scoutle coverage:

Sociableblog
TechCrunch
WorkConnexions

Blackberry “Bold” launches!

Last modified on 2008-05-12 14:24:26 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

For the last ten years I had the equivalent of cell phone ADHD until I experienced the Blackberry line of products (Blackberry 8703 in particular). Blackberry’s newest product announcement “Bold” has all the bells and whistles a modern day smart phone should have coupled with the reliability and functionality of the Blackberry name. A few of the press release highlights:

BlackBerry Bold smartphone’s support for tri-band HSDPA and enterprise-grade Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g) networks and its next-generation 624 MHz mobile processor make short work of downloading email attachments, streaming video or rendering web pages. The BlackBerry Bold also includes 128 MB Flash memory plus 1 GB on-board storage memory, as well as a microSD/SDHC memory card slot(ii) that is conveniently accessible from a side door. It comes with the renowned BlackBerry productivity applications, including phone, email, messaging, organizer and browser, and works with thousands of mobile business and lifestyle applications, making it easier than ever to stay connected, productive and entertained. With this powerful new smartphone, users can even talk on the phone while sending and receiving email or accessing the web, and download Word, Excel or PowerPoint files and edit them directly on the handset using the preloaded DataViz® Documents to Go® suite.

STUNNING DISPLAY

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone comes with the most vivid and bold display ever introduced on a BlackBerry smartphone. Its half-VGA (480×320 resolution) color LCD is fused to the undersurface of the lens, making images leap out with stunning definition and clarity. Pictures are vibrant and razor sharp, while videos play smoothly and web pages, documents, presentations and messages snap with exceptional quality and contrast.

DESKTOP-STYLE WEB PAGES

With its newly enhanced, high performance browser and high-resolution, ultra-bright display, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone gives users an on-the-go web browsing experience with desktop-style depiction. The trackball mimics a mouse, making it easy to navigate sites in “Page View” or “Column View” or to zoom in on specific parts of a web page, while various emulation settings allow users to choose between the full desktop-style HTML content and layout or the mobile version. Attachments can also now be downloaded from within the browser and there is support for watching streaming videos (RTSP – real-time streaming protocol).

RICH MULTIMEDIA

While it is designed to meet the extensive requirements of the business professional during the day, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone also caters to the business person’s consumer side during evenings and weekends. It features a 2 megapixel camera with video recording capability, built-in flash and 5x digital zoom. The enhanced media player can display pictures and slideshows quickly, play movies smoothly in full screen mode, and manage an entire music collection. Audio can be played over the handset’s dual speakers in rich, stereo sound, and when using wired headphones or external speakers, the media player gives the user an equalizer with 11 preset filters – like “Lounge”, “Jazz” and “Hip Hop” – that boost or soften audio ranges to create the perfect ambiance.

For managing music and video, the BlackBerry® Desktop Manager software includes Roxio® Media Manager for BlackBerry® as well as Roxio Photosuite® 9 LE, which makes it easy to enhance pictures and create photo albums on the computer. For users that manage their collection with iTunes®, the new BlackBerry® Media Sync application provides a simple way to sync iTunes digital music collections with the smartphone(iii). Support for High Speed USB 2.0 allows all files to be transferred quickly from a desktop computer to the BlackBerry Bold smartphone.

POWERFUL WI-FI & GPS

For even broader high-speed network coverage, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone supports the 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi standards, ideal for use in enterprise or campus wireless LAN deployments, over Wi-Fi hotspots and on wireless home networks. A new “Push Button Setup” is included, making it faster for users to connect to protected wireless networks that require a sign on process.

Through its integrated GPS, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone can pinpoint its exact location, supporting applications like BlackBerry® Maps and other location-based applications or services. With its improved rendering capabilities, faster download speeds and ability to support simultaneous voice and data, the BlackBerry Bold smartphone even allows users to navigate while on a call.

FIRST CLASS PHONE

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone features a new acoustic design that increases the size of the phone’s audio sweet spot, improving listening quality and clarity. It also comes with numerous premium phone features including Speaker Independent Voice Recognition (SIVR) for Voice Activated Dialing (VAD), Bluetooth® 2.0, with support for hands-free headsets, stereo headsets, car kits (including car kits that adhere to the Bluetooth Remote SIM Access Profile) and other Bluetooth peripherals. It is a quad-band EDGE and tri-band HSDPA handset that supports global roaming(iiii) and features dedicated ’send’, ‘end’, and ‘mute’ keys, smart dialing, speed dialing, conference calling and call forwarding. It also features noise cancellation technology that offsets background noise, a powerful speaker phone and support for polyphonic, mp3 and MIDI ring tones.

“crafted from premium materials” in the beginning of the press release is no joke. I have dropped my phone half a dozen times (hard) and it bounces back every time. It’s nice to see Blackberry staying fresh in the mobile marketplace especially with the success of the iphone.

Other nice coverage on Blackberry Bold can be found at:

Live Universe acquires Pageflakes

Last modified on 2008-04-15 01:53:41 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Live Universe continues the acquisition tear by acquiring Pageflakes according to TechCrunch. Many of you may recognize the Live Universe brand from the Revver acquisition earlier in the year for $5 million. Apparently Live Universe is making quite a business model out of companies that have exhausted their funding and burn-rate. It appear Live Universe has acquired its’ second victim in the Web 2.0 space. Reportedly $4 million has been pumped into Pageflakes to date before the acquisition.

Pageflakes is a compelling web property but always played second fiddle to Netvibes (one of my favorites) in the ajax social widget space. Live Universe continues to build momentum with 100K uniques per month to the main site.

Web Advertising Primer

Last modified on 2008-04-10 13:16:23 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

I received an interesting email from a reader who has limited money for her startup to advertise (who doesn’t right) and inquired about her best advertising options. This is a loaded question in the current Internet climate. Web Advertising has morphed into many forms over the last 3 years. Unfortunately my answer will sound more like a politician rather than a recommendation. The advertising method a startup should choose depends on your marketing and advertising goals. Let’s take a quick look at the 4 horseman of advertising:

PPC (Pay per Click)
CPM (Cost per 1,000 impressions),
CPC (Cost per Click)
CPA (Cost per Action)

PPC should be a component of any advertising campaign and should be used with carefully selected niche “keywords” or at least your competitors keywords. A startup should also look into running PPC campaigns on search engines other than just Google like Yahoo and MSN. If you want to get even more sophisticated look at getting PPC software programs that will select keywords and manage multiple campaigns from one easy interface where user-conversion tracking is less arduous.

CPM is a model that “Federated Media” has adopted quite well and is asking for premium advertising dollars based on the targeted content it provides. The CPM model is one that bodes well for highly targeted audiences and branding. For those of you unfamiliar with Federated Media it is John Battelle’s advertising network of the biggest and best blogs on the Internet across every thinkable vertical (although technology is most prevalent). For instance, I could advertise StartupAddict on Mashable (awesome social media blog) that would run at $30 CPM. This may seem high and it is certainly above normal CPM rates, but I’m gaining exposure to a very specific niche audience –social media. The 1000 impressions or CPM I gain on mashable is more valuable than being on the front page of Yahoo where I may only be getting 200 impressions out of the 1000 that are actually interested in StartupAddict.com.

CPC (Cost per Click) is a cost per click minimum for popular keywords and really should go with the PPC comments above. The more popular the search term the more the minimum cost. CPC advertising protects you by a set amount you pay for each click, but click fraud can also be an issue as well.

CPA (Cost per action) is the new kid on the block and is an advertising model where the advertiser pays only when a certain action is triggered a “pay per play” method. In continuing to use StartupAddict.com as an example, I may only want to pay when visitors become registered users to the social network. The CPA is results advertising, and by far my favorite method. RWW has a good article on cost per action and I found TURN to be an interesting advertising firm that focuses on CPA.

A combination is almost always necessary, but if you could only pick one go with a CPA method until your cash flow gets up to snuff for a bigger advertising budget.

Web 2.0 is not Business 2.0

Last modified on 2008-04-09 22:29:32 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

How to monetize your eyeballs and the social media craze for your next Internet startup is the clear and present danger of web 2.0. Humans are the most intelligent species on the planet (supposedly). Yet learning from our mistakes is simply not in our business DNA. We are doomed to repeat past mistakes similarly to the inevitable demise of protagonists in Greek tragedy.

Alley Insider has a great post about the current “free” situation that continues to be rampant on the web and is attributed to the usual suspects “VC”. Venture Capitalists have distorted the market by infusing massive amounts of money to massively scale startups and use Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn as the poster children of success (thousands die you don’t hear about). My analysis of blame is less on the VC’s and passionate entrepreneurs and more on the consumer. The consumer aka “eyeballs” aptly named “eyeballs” because that is the only value they lend for their refusal to pay for Internet services. This has left anemic business models scrambling for revenue to find refuge in advertising. The only catch is the web advertising model is based on scale, the more eyeballs, the more advertising revenue. The day subscribers pay $9 bucks a month for web 2.0 services is the day advertisers may mean less.

Or will they?

Take the existing model of television and your cable bill. Let’s use Bravo programming for instance (I use to produce content for). They’re content is subsidized by advertisers and yet consumers still pay $80 – $180 a month to a service provider like Comcast to have the 900 channel universe, HD and DVR services. So what is lost in translation? Web 2.0 is Web 1.0 reincarnate? Is the consumer expectation of the web free? Netflix, Amazon, Ebay and Google all managed to make the consumer/business pay for services. This makes me wonder if we’re all crazy to continue down the social media path when it’s so clear that other Internet business models are more effective. What are we missing in the social media web 2.0 space.

Answers welcome….

Social Advertising is still NEXT.

Last modified on 2008-03-18 19:56:43 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

Most of you are aware social advertising has had a tumultuous time in 2007 and 2008. Although not all that different than the overall economy at this point I guess. Probably the most well know social advertising is Facebook’s beacon which has gone through numerous iterations and revisions to walk the line between “user privacy” and “advertiser confidence” for brand exposure among sometimes less than tasteless user-generated content. Despite the difficulties of being Avant-garde social advertising is here to stay. Rich Ord from Webpronews has a great article with some convincing stats on why social networks and technologies continue to get gobbled up by old media. Webpro stated:

The top 25 social media networks delivered over 155 million unique visitors in Feb. 2008 with 70 percent coming from MySpace, Facebook and Classmates.com. Add in YouTube and Flickr and you get another 60 million totaling an estimated 215 million humans viewing social media monthly.

Now imagine the the growing number of concentrated vertical networks in industries like healthcare, financial, beauty, business etc…The numbers are much smaller but the potency of advertising is much greater. The value of a 20,000 member social network on facelifts is greater to an advertiser than a 75,000 member general network.

DrupalCon 2008 – Day 2

Last modified on 2008-03-06 02:38:42 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Day two of Drupalcon was just as amazing as Day one. It’s astounding to see the diversity of Industries and number of people that comprise the Drupal ecosystem. The only thing more impressive than the diversity is the rapid rate at which the Drupal community is growing and the pure dedication everyone offers to better the overall community. Some of my favorite seminars involved case studies of enterprise-level Drupal deployments, companies like Lifetime Network and FastCompany have poured tremendous resources into Drupal based sites that are rendering heavy traffic. Hopefully StartupAddict will become a case study of how to go from bootstrap to enterprise-level Drupal in less than 2 years –time will tell.

Later in the evening we all gathered at an industry networking event at Felt in Boston which was sponsored by Acquia Dries’s new company that will service the Drupal community as it grows. The concept is similar to what Red Hat does for Linux and what Sun does for Mysql (you can read my earlier post on Acquia here). I met some interesting Drupalers including Benjamin from Agaric Design who is a wealth of knowledge on Drupal and often shares his “blood and tears” tips from the trenches on his website. I used a few of his tips to trouble-shoot a module on StartupAddict several months ago.

The development of StartupAddict has forced me to learn more about Drupal than I probably ever cared too….but now I’m hooked (no pun intended). The only disappointment from this year’s DrupalCon was that I had to leave early for other business obligations (ah…the life of a startupaddict).

Day 1 at DrupalCon 2008 Boston

Last modified on 2008-03-03 23:13:11 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Drupalcon2008 Boston

Drupalcon 2008 got underway today and a great day it was. Dries Buytaert the original founder of Drupal kicked off the event with a Keynote about the release of Drupal 6 (only a month ago) and a discussion on where Drupal 7 is heading. Like any conference my head is still spinning from information overload as the next generation of the various Drupal components are discussed.

As Day 2 looms, my decision to delay the launch of StartupAddict.com by 5 months in order to migrate the code to Drupal 5 is a better decision than I even imagined. SA 2.0 is officially ready as of yesterday, but will not likely go live until next week when the dust settles from the conference and the servers are provisioned correctly. Future updates and features should be very rapid for StartupAddict and I look forward to everyone’s feedback. More importantly what you think really works and what you would rather see eliminated.

I have to run to a networking event…but more to come and plenty of “semantic web” fodder from this conference that will fill at least a month worth of posts and discussion.

We have our head in the clouds.

Last modified on 2008-02-22 20:09:13 GMT. 2 comments. Top.

Cloud computing is coming on strong these days where the WebOS is the new desktop. Cloud computing is a web based operating system hosted remotely and accessed via your Internet browser. Two players that have their head in the clouds are Cloudo and iCloud ironically related by the letter “X”. Cloudo was formely known as Xindesk and Xcerion is the company behind the creation of iCloud.

iCloud has launched in beta and you can signup and play around for yourself. The company has a number of applications from money management to IM and video with more being added all the time. iCloud has raised around $12 million according to VentureBeat.

Cloudo on the other hand has been plagued with launch delays (I can relate to that) and is now expected to launch in the last quarter of 2008. TechCrunch stated the following:

This is a product with potential that if it gets off the ground could well convert people to the cloud, however we might all get significantly older waiting for the launch, and Cloudo could be passed function wise and aesthetically by more nimble competitors while we are waiting.

What is interesting about TC’s comment is iCloud is launched and Google could pressure both cloud competitors by upgrading to the cloud and soliciting an already established user base. Take iGoogle for instance, I remember just logging into my gmail or adsense (separately)…but now, I have a dozen services available and Google knows who I am. If you really analyze Google’s portfolio of services and applications, the company already offers and alternative to the desktop. Google would just need to gel together an OS connecting all the services in the Cloud and convert the multi-million user base and viola we are all in the cloud and not necessarily by choice.

The concept could work brilliantly for Google because hosting data somewhere else especially an entire desktop still concerns users and by converting users slowly to hosted services we all become the frog in boiling water, we won’t jump out until it’s too late.

Lotame gets big funding from Battery Ventures

Last modified on 2008-02-19 02:31:36 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

Lotame

Lotame closed a multi-million dollar series A deal led by Battery Ventures. Lotame is a social media aggregator that focuses exclusively on helping advertisers and publishers monetize the ad space/inventory available on social networks. Lotame keeps the consumer interests at heart as well. A statement from the press release gives a better summary:

Lotame is a company that focuses on providing the most advanced revenue solutions exclusively within social media. It aggregates intelligence across multiple social networking sites, which allows advertisers to build the most targeted and customizable audiences, and gives publishers the ability to monetize their inventory more effectively to garner higher streams of revenue.

Lotame is challenging the status quo online advertising networks (ironic, we use to say that about Madison Ave when referring to online advertising networks). This is very similar in concept to Facebook’s Beacon that serves advertising based on consumer interests and privacy tolerance. The key difference from Beacon is Lotame is not restricted to the Facebook community, rather it uses a cutting edge crowd-control technology to gather trends, interests and likes among numerous disparate social networks and utilizes the data to benefit the three stakeholders: Advertisers, Publishers and Consumers.

This could be a win-win if Lorame’s technology can place relevant audiences around user-generated content, you get the new triple play– advertisers (target the audience), Publishers (monetizing the audience) and consumers (willingly participate as the audience).

Satya Patel from Battery Ventures has some great statistics about the brand stickiness of social media and user-generated content for further discussion.

This space is gaining tremendous momentum in 2008 as discussed in previous posts.

Amazon Web Services S3 goes down!

Last modified on 2008-02-15 23:06:02 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Amazon had a unknown server outage today starting at around 5am and lasting until quarter-past 7am. The reports in main stream media and blogs have been comical based on how quickly people want to throw AWS (Amazon Web Services) under the bus. Granted Amazon does not have a SLA (service level agreement) but, is that really any different than owning your own infrastructure. Unless you are hosting applications on the edge (think Akamai) and other CDN’s, hosting is bound to fail at some point….even SLA’s that offer 99.999% uptime have cryptic legal language that exonorates them from legal damages. I had a webhosting company for 2 years before selling off the assets and referring business to parnters and downtime is inevitable. It’s how well you manage the downtime and your customer service requests that matter.

Startup Addict has AWS in our business plan…although not implemented for 1.0 and 2.0 release it will be incorporated by 2.5 release, it just makes good business sense. The impressive aspect of the downtime was how quickly it came back up and you better believe Amazon will be throwing resources at rectifying and preventing this problem in the future. As I reported on earlier, numerous startups are attempting to compete with AWS and are offering SLA’s but, this practice is limited because the SLA is inevitable for Amazon. The reason one is not in place now is very clear after this event –Amazon is still working out the kinks. A new startup will not find a better economy-of-scale anywhere than at Amazon web services for infrastructure (unless your VC funded and have a high burn-rate).

FastCompany not so Fast…

Last modified on 2008-02-11 05:30:31 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

TechCrunch just reported FastCompany has turned social network. It has eerie similarities to StartupAddict.com. It was built on Drupal with OpenID just like SA 2.0. It appears tardiness is the price SA 2.0 is paying for bootstrapping. However, we’re almost out of the box and now have a solid foundation for expandibility that SA 1.0 never would have delivered. Be sure to read our previous post “Why Drupal was the obvious choice for SA 2.0″

6 months ago I may have seen FastCompany as a competitor in this space but with the current trends of portable data I think it actually is a boon. FC has always been a solid brand that I’ve respected. It’s nice to see them turn to the social networking space on Drupal. I think the synergies between FC and SA will benefit entrepreneurs and others addicts in the startup value chain. I look forward to joining the FC community.

If you didn’t get to beta test SA 1.0 back in May 2007 check out our review at

Social Networks losing Luster?

Last modified on 2008-02-11 05:06:23 GMT. -1 comments. Top.

Techdirt poses an interesting counter argument to the typical rocket growth conversations among social networks lately, pointing out coincidences like Bill Gates killing his Facebook page on the heels of Microsoft’s recent $240 million FB investment. Techdirt also discusses the current declining growth trend among early adopters in the social networking space including my favorite, Friendster. FYI – If you haven’t read Inc’s spread on John Abraham’s rise and fall of Friendster “the first social network” from last year it is a must read for anyone interested in this space.

Bloggers attack you, call you “a real asshole” and “a very lucky idiot savant.” Former investors badmouth you. Other entrepreneurs copy your ideas without giving you credit. The New York Times makes reference to your “ballooning ego” and the local Fox affiliate can’t even get your name right.

Here is why I’m not buying into the social network counter argument:

I think social networks as we have come to know them are maturing at a rapid pace. User’s are continually barraged with new social media solicitations and sign-ups everyday. In addition, users are tired of spammers and over zealous ads. Companies like Google, Facebook and Myspace are scrambling to bring order to user’s craving more through the exchange of their social graph data.

Social networks are answering in the form of open api’s, portable data, OpenID and advertising models that will actually have standards. The social network has become a teenager (in Internet years) and is going through some growing pains. Most users maintain accounts hoping to take their profile and friend data with them to the next “it” property when the standards and technology is implemented.

Just like so many Gold rush trends in history, the “me-too” brands will eventually join the deadpool through attrition. The social aggregators and social platforms that hold true value propositions and offer real services to their userbase will survive. Monetization through advertising will continue to be the bloodline for the social network, but don’t under estimate what users may eventually pay for real benefits.

Sending a virtual cocktail or electronic poke is fun and viral but does it benefit a user over the long-term? Expanding your rolodex of like-minded people, pooling resources, solving problems and making money as a user through your social network is the stuff that will stand the test of time.