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EU cites emails to support Intel anti-trust case (AP)AP - The European Union is publishing computer makers' e-mail excerpts to support a ruling that Intel Corp. pressured companies into choosing their chips over rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 21 Sep 2009 | 4:29 am Disney gets its large white mitts on Wideload GamesFROM GAMERTELL - Disney announced that it has agreed to purchase Wideload Games, makers of Stubbs the Zombie, Hail to the Chimp and Texas Cheat’ Em. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 21 Sep 2009 | 4:26 am Helmet Mount Puts Cameras Up-Top and (First) Personal
I’m already preparing my Christmas gift list. And if, for the first time in years, somebody actually buys me a present, they can buy me this, the Photojojo Happy Helmet Bike Camera Mount. The mount is dead simple — a pair of 1-inch wide nylon straps which thread through the ventilation holes in a bicycle helmet and cinch tight with plastic clamps. In the center is a quick-release tripod socket, strong enough to hold a compact point-n-shoot camera as you jiggle down the street. Why is this better than, say, our own abortive attempt to build a handlebar camera mount? Because, being up on your head it is rattled much less, as you body absorbs the shock, making for a safer camera and also (unless you are a heavy drinker on a morning ride) less shaky pictures and video. It’ll also follow what you are looking at instead of slavishly staring ahead into the backs of frustrated, traffic-jammed cars. And we guess video is what this mount will be best at, unless you want to rig a remote shutter release, too. Worried about looking dorky? Too late! You’re already wearing a bike helmet, so it can’t get much worse (note, we fully endorse wearing a helmet. We just don’t like the look of them). $20 each, or $36 for a romantic his’n’hers double-pack. Available now. Product page [Photojojo]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 21 Sep 2009 | 4:24 am Firms plan unified web measurement - The Press Association
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 21 Sep 2009 | 4:21 am Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch Talks–But Not Omniture! [BoomTown]
BoomTown went to visit the HQ of Adobe in San Francisco several weeks ago for a chit-chat with its CTO Kevin Lynch. We had a lovely discussion about the future of its Flash video technology, as well as of its more recent AIR offering. Lynch also discussed smart phones and other such devices, although he somehow neglected to mention the then-pending purchase of Omniture (OMTR) by Adobe (ADBE). That would be the $1.8 billion that the company said last week that it would fork over for the Web measurement business. Reaction to the deal has ranged from mixed to WTF? And some consider an attempt to–as one smart exec put it to me–”buy revenue,” even as Adobe’s other businesses face major challenges ahead. While the iconic company’s Photoshop and Acrobat software offerings dominate the Web publishing business, Adobe must still deal with the increasing move of all software into the cloud and onto non-PC devices. And–with Microsoft (MSFT) continuing to aggressively push its own Silverlight online video technology and other companies like Google (GOOG) likely to have more to say in the arena–even the Flash business, which is now installed on more than 90 percent of Web-enabled PCs, will be more challenging than ever. Lots to think about, so here is Lynch in a video interview: Source: All Things Digital | 21 Sep 2009 | 4:15 am 7 myths about iPhone Exchange policies - InfoWorld
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 21 Sep 2009 | 4:07 am iPhone Apps for Designer CollectionsThe Internet and advances in technology are transforming fashion, making it easier for designers to create collections and less expensive for them to show and sell their work, experts say. The Sydney...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Sep 2009 | 4:05 am Akamai Expands Into Virtual Desktop DeliveryNetwork specialist Akamai has developed a managed service for optimizing the delivery of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) over WANs. The solution, a derivative of Akamai's IP Application Accelerator,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am Newspapers' Bad News Get Less Bad – But Not By Much [MediaMemo]
The New York Times polls some of the remaining analysts covering the industry, as well as people who actually work in it, and concludes that Q3 ad revenue will be down 25%, or “possibly a bit less”. Awful by any standards except those of this year: Q1 was down 28.3% and Q2 was 29%. Worth noting, but not in an newsworthy way: We’ve been headed in this direction for a while. Publishers including the New York Times (NYT), Gannett (GCI) and McClatchy (MNI) started making hopeful murmurs — or less hopeless murmurs, really — earlier this summer. But all they’re really saying is that:
Source: All Things Digital | 21 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am 7 myths about iPhone Exchange policies
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 Pocket-lint.com | Amazon branches out into own-brand electronics TG Daily Online megastore Amazon is to undercut its regular suppliers by branding electronics accessories under its own name. AmazonBasics will initially offer a range of cables and blank media, but it's hard to imagine that the retailer will ... Amazon Starts Own Brand Sales With AmazonBasics Name Amazon starts private label electronics accessories line AmazonBasics threatens to undercut with own-brand cables & media |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I was reading over a pitch tonight for a new streaming movie service called Epix HD, when I looked up from my computer to my TV stand. On it, I saw an Apple TV, an Xbox 360, and a cable box. Right there, that is 3 different ways to get streaming movies to my television. And that’s not even mentioning the Netflix service over Xbox Live, and the streaming service that can come right to my TV. That’s 5 ways to get movies within a foot of my TV. It’s madness.
Now, choice is of course a good thing, but the problem is that each of these services don’t really offer much choice. If you want a complete way to get movies over the web, you almost have to have all of these boxes. That’s because the movie studios form partnerships and alliances with various services and not with others. And they have silly rules about who can stream/download what, when, and how. It’s a mess. And Hollywood really needs to sort it out soon, or they are just asking for trouble as broadband continues to improve.
Now, none of this is to say that Epix is bad. It sounds pretty good. They claim to have more than 3,000 titles from Lionsgate, MGM and Paramount at launch. And eventually, they want to tap the full library of over 15,000 movies between the partnering studios. They also claim that Epix will have the largest collection of HD films streaming online. That’s all great, but what they don’t say is that even at 15,000 titles, that’s just a sliver of what’s out there — it’s only movies from those few studios. And, if you want this content in your living room, you’re going to need Verizon FIOS, which only some 2 million people have.
I still find it preposterous that I can walk into a Blockbuster and rent a movie the day it comes out, but cannot do that with all new releases on iTunes and the Xbox 360. Even more perplexing is when studios demand movies be pulled (or made for purchase only) so then can run them on the premium cable channels. Netflix has a great selection of old movies, but has basically no new films. And the HD selections on all of these services are pretty poor.
So while it may sound great that another competitor (Epix) is entering the game, it’s really just another half-effort. I’ll be honest, I’d rather have one service that has everything I want, even if it’s slightly more expensive, then 10 of these half-services. I do not want or need more boxes or pipelines coming into my home just to get content than one of my 5 other boxes doesn’t have because of some backward-thinking licensing agreements.
Of course, while I say all of this, I do not expect it to change anytime soon. Even Apple, which famously bullied the music business into its one-music-store-to-rule-them-all (iTunes), has had a lot of trouble getting the movie studios in line. It’s a crapshoot every week when new movies come out on iTunes whether they’ll be available to rent or only buy (or neither). And the total number of HD downloads — which were unveiled in March — can’t be more than 25 or 30 total, still.
The problem the movie studios face is that while broadband limitations in this country have limited piracy, speed and options are slowly improving. It’s only a matter of time before piracy becomes a large scale issue if Hollywood doesn’t start coming up with some kind, any kind, of comprehensive plan for digital distribution. Obviously, we ran into the piracy problem the previous decade with music, and the lone success to rise up was iTunes. Why? Because it had all the major labels on board and was very consumer-friendly. The current offerings from Hollywood are anything but.
More isn’t always better. Sometimes, it’s just more. Even in Hollywood. Actually, especially in Hollywood.
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A kunai is a tool the ancient Ninja used to gouge holes in walls and to kill off people. Now, thanks to Tokyo-based gadget maker Solid Alliance, you can have one of these things [JP], too, if only as a USB memory stick. This is the same company that released the USB Ninja star shuriken back in May.
The new USB Kunai holds 2GB and you can get it over at Geek Stuff 4U for $125.33 plus shipping. Pay the same amount of money for the shuriken star and you’re on your way to become a true USB Ninja.
Companies and brands always want to have their Twitter profiles and background images fit their profile. Tweet Scenes is hoping to make the process of creating backgrounds for Twitter users much easier. You upload your logo, photos, text and links, and give some basic background information on your company and what you’re looking for. You then pay a flat fee ($129) up front, and get your design done in three business days.
Tweet Scenes is owned and operated by a web design and development company (Carnes Media) with over a decade of design and branding experience. Carnes Media has done sites like Tatango, who we recently covered, Derek Media, and many others.
There are lots of free alternatives to Tweet Scenes, like TwitterBackground.com, which is currently the number one free Twitter backgrounds site. According to Nathan Carnes, the founder of Tweet Scenes, there aren’t any good Twitter background companies that make good quality backgrounds for the brands on Twitter. Also, you should consider the fact that there are numerous third party applications that don’t use Twitter.com, so you will never see the backgrounds.
It’s a little unclear why someone would pay $129 for a Twitter background when you could get one for free — if you wanted to spend that much you might as well just find a designer to do it for you. If you don’t like the background you get, there’s a money-back guarantee. You can find an example of one of the backgrounds below.
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 TG Daily | Seagate's 6Gbps desktop hard drive now available CNET News Six months after showing off the demo, Seagate announced Monday that it is now shipping what it says is the word's first 3.5-inch 6Gbps 2TB hard drive. The drive is based on the third generation of the Serial ATA (SATA) standard, ... Seagate Launches High-End Barracuda XT Drive Seagate 2TB Barracuda drive features 64MB cache Seagate 2TB Barracuda XT: world's first SATA 6Gbps hard drive |
By Jad Mouawad and Kate Galbraith, Reporters, New York Time
With two laptop-loving children and a Jack Russell terrier hemmed in by an electric fence, Peter Troast figured his household used a lot of power. Just how much did not really hit him until the night the family turned off the overhead lights at their home in Maine and began hunting gadgets that glowed in the dark.
“It was amazing to see all these lights blinking,” Mr. Troast said.
As goes the Troast household, so goes the planet.
Read the rest of this post at the original site
By Nate Anderson, Senior Editor, Ars Technica
With a new school year in full swing, Ars takes a look at the RIAA’s newly updated copyright curriculum. Your kids could be learning from it—so what does it say?
School kids in America could certainly stand to learn about copyright in the classroom—it’s a fascinating topic that increasingly impacts the life of every “digital native” and intersects with law, history, art, and technology. But should they be exposed to industry-funded materials meant to teach kids:
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By Peter Burrows, Senior Writer, BusinessWeek
As iPod sales ease, the company is focusing more and more on software—to the dismay of the record labels
Right after unveiling new iPods and iTunes software at an event on Sept. 9, Apple (AAPL) Chief Executive Steve Jobs invited singer Norah Jones on stage to perform for the assembled tech and media pundits. “Like you, we love music,” he told the crowd. “That’s probably the primary reason we do this.”
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By Kevin Poulsen, Blogger, Threat Level, Wired
A Defense Department intelligence analyst hit with a federal computer hacking charge last week says he’s being made a scapegoat for a security slip-up that sent a password in a nationwide terrorism investigation to “tens of thousands” of analysts without the need-to-know.
“I think on one of the blogs, somebody said, how about this: I give you my username and password, you log into my account, and then I file criminal charges against you,” said Brian Keith Montgomery, in a telephone interview with Threat Level on Thursday. “That person hit it right on the head.”
Read the rest of this post at the original site
By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Staff Writer, Boston Globe
Two students partnered up to take on the latest Internet fad: the online social networks that were exploding into the mainstream. With people signing up in droves to reconnect with classmates and old crushes from high school, and even becoming online “friends” with their family members, the two wondered what the online masses were unknowingly telling the world about themselves. The pair weren’t interested in the embarrassing photos or overripe profiles that attract so much consternation from parents and potential employers. Instead, they wondered whether the basic currency of interactions on a social network – the simple act of “friending” someone online – might reveal something a person might rather keep hidden.
Read the rest of this post at the original site
I’m leading a double life: I primarily use a Mac, but I just bought a Zune HD. (WHAT THE HECK?!)
Behind the scenes look at PGA Tour’s ‘ShotLink’ technology
The GoGoStand fits in your wallet, transforms to hold your phone
Concept: Tie with built-in bottle opener
Hyperbole: Get ready for Sony Ericsson to change the way you listen to music, *forever*
By Suzanne Vranica
and Jessica E. Vascellaro, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal
Yahoo (YHOO) is planning to reintroduce its battered brand to the public Tuesday with a massive global marketing campaign, according to people familiar with the effort.
The Internet company’s new tagline, according to one of those people: “It’s You!”
The Y in the “You” is the Y from “Yahoo,” and the famous Yahoo exclamation point will pop up too, this person said. The ads are being created by Ogilvy & Mather, a unit of Dublin-based WPP, according to people familiar with the effort.
Yahoo declined to comment.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
In "What If Star Wars Was Made By Environmentalists?" the movie is reimagined as "Star Non-Violent Resistance" and eco-tourism is used to establish independence from the empire; Vader is forced to file environmental impact statements on planetary destruction, etc. Funny!
What If Star Wars Was Made By Environmentalists?
Source: Boing Boing | 21 Sep 2009 | 12:15 am
Kristian Hammerstad
(via Street Anatomy)
Source: Boing Boing | 21 Sep 2009 | 12:11 am
Library of antique and scrap leather books for the neck - eleven miniature books
(via Neatorama)
Source: Boing Boing | 21 Sep 2009 | 12:09 am
What about iTunes? Doesn't that show people will pay for content? Well, not really. iTunes is more of a tollbooth than a store. Apple controls the default path onto the iPod. They offer a convenient list of songs, and whenever you choose one they ding your credit card for a small amount, just below the threshold of attention. Basically, iTunes makes money by taxing people, not selling them stuff. You can only do that if you own the channel, and even then you don't make much from it, because a toll has to be ignorable to work. Once a toll becomes painful, people start to find ways around it, and that's pretty easy with digital content.I think he goes off the rails in the next graf, where he talks about how writers can self-publish merely by uploading files; this commits the same error that he's upset about: confusing "publishing" and "printing."
I also wonder if St McLuhan might not object here, with something about the form being the content.
Post-Medium Publishing
(via /.)
Source: Boing Boing | 21 Sep 2009 | 12:03 am
Technology conferences are supposed to have Internet. Most don’t. In fact, audiences are trained to be grateful for even a trickle of bandwidth. Maybe enough to get off a Tweet or two. But uploading photos and videos is something that you do later, after the event is over. Because it can take days.
It’s been a real problem for us over the years. We’ve thrown money at the problem. We’ve tried new vendors and technologies. We’ve prayed. And cursed. I’ve offered vendors a big wet kiss of a post on TechCrunch if they could get it right. They never have.
Last year we had a full day Internet outage at TechCrunch50, and it wasn’t better on day 2. The only good thing about an Internet outage is that most attendees can’t blog or tweet about it, since they can’t get on the Internet.
Giving 2,000 hard core Internet users simultaneous access from a single location is very, very hard. I’ve seen grown men cry when they tried and failed.
This year, though, WOW. There was more Internet at TechCrunch50 than you could shake a stick at. And for that, Mariette Systems gets that big wet kiss I promised.
The team: Ernie Mariette, Cliff Skolnick and Tim Pozer. They came in, brought bandwidth (100 Mbps line-of-site microwave link from WiLine and 30 Mbps from Telekenex), hooked it into a BSD router and distributed it throughout the building via more than 100 Cisco switches and 28 wifi access points. There were hundreds of ethernet connections (and power strips) at attendee tables. Plus dedicated bandwith to Ustream, the DemoPit area and the main stage. And, overall, lots of very happy attendees.
There were more than 1,200 simultaneous connections at peak points, and bursts of up to 88 Mbps inbound bandwidth usage. But no one was ever cut back. And I noticed multiple people in the audience watching the live Ustream feed on their laptops. Others were watching the US Open livestream. In other words, the audience was totally wasting bandwidth. And it was wonderful.
In fact, I was a little disappointed that the audience failed to make our Internet fail. They tried their best, and were found wanting.
Thanks very much, Mariette Systems. We owe you. And we love you. Keep doing Apple’s WWDC and other huge events, but keep your calendar clear for our conferences, too. I wouldn’t want to work with anyone else.
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One of Microsoft’s top execs, Debra Chrapaty (pictured here), who heads its infrastructure business, is leaving the software giant to take a top job at Cisco (CSCO), sources said.
Chrapaty–whose title is corporate VP of Global Foundation Services–is also one of increasingly few top women tech execs at Microsoft (MSFT), where she has worked for seven years.
The job put her in charge of, as a Microsoft site notes, “strategy and delivery of the foundational platform for Microsoft Live, Cloud and Online Services worldwide including physical infrastructure, security, operational management, global delivery and environmental considerations. Her organization supports over 200 online services and web portals from Microsoft for consumers and businesses.”
In other words: A lot of plumbing.
She was recently featured onstage with other key execs at Microsoft’s financial analysts meeting earlier this summer.
Sources said Chrapaty will now shift to products at Cisco, running the collaboration software group.
That unit’s former exec, Doug Dennerline, recently moved to Salesforce.com (CRM), to take a job as its EVP of sales for the Americas.
At Cisco, as had Dennerline, Chrapaty is likely to play a large role in forming the networking giant’s cloud computing and software-as-a-service strategies.
Chrapaty has worked at a lot of tech companies, including Organic, AllBusiness and E*TRADE Technologies. She was also CTO of the National Basketball Association.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 Telegraph.co.uk | $60 for an expansion pack? Halo 3: ODST underwhelms Ars Technica Halo 3: ODST began life as an expansion to Halo 3... and based on our retail copy of the game, that's also where it ended up. One new multiplayer mode, three new multiplayer maps, a short campaign, and two "new" guns shouldn't add up to $60, ... Halo 3: ODST Review (Xbox 360) Toys R Us Offers Free Figure, $20 Gift Card for ODST Purchase Halo 3: ODST |
Another high-ranking Yahoo exec is leaving–this time, Jim Schinella, the company’s SVP for corporate partnerships.
Sources said that Schinella (pictured here) announced the move internally recently, telling staff he would stay on until the end of the year.
Located in New York, he has been focused on big Yahoo (YHOO) partners, such as with big telecom firms like Verizon (VZ).
Schinella joined Yahoo in 2003 and left in 2005, after becoming its global VP of business development.
He returned in 2007, as Yahoo said at the time, to focus on “proactively identifying strategic partnership opportunities that align with Yahoo!’s brand and leverage the company’s broad product offerings.”
Many of the widgets scattered across the Web are made in Flash, but Adobe doesn’t participate in the widget economy. Today, it is taking a first tentative step towards changing that with the release of a new Distribution Manager for widgets created on the Flash Platform. In addition to making it easier for people to share the widgets across 70 Web and mobile destinations, it will track their usage, and serve as a widget ad network as well.
Adobe is obviously interested in getting into the advertising end of the business, which is why it recently announced it is acquiring Omniture for $1.8 billion. Rather than just getting paid once for the tools to create Web apps and content, it wants to get a piece of those recurring advertising dollars too. The widget distribution play is along the same lines, except that for now Adobe is doing it through a partnership with Gigya, the widget distribution and advertising network. What that means is that any money Adobe makes will be split more ways, but in return it achieves faster entry into the market.
The Distribution Manager allows Flash developers to put a share button on their apps, which opens up a menu giving consumers the option to send that particular widget to Facebook, iGoogle, MySpace, My Yahoo, or various other destinations. It also supports the iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Symbian phones. (Since the iPhone does not yet support Flash, a version of the apps must already be present in the iTunes Store in non-Flash form).
Many advertisers themselves are creating Flash widgets which they are hoping will be spread around virally. They can buy installs on Adobe’s widget network for $1 per install. On the flip side, developers who choose to run these ads will get an effective CPM of $5 (i.e., for every 1,000 impressions). Adobe and Gigya will split whatever is the difference between those two numbers, which will be a function of the exact (undisclosed) revenue share, the number of times an ad widget is installed, and how often it is passed along.
Developers also get an Adobe AIr app which helps them keep track of all of their widgets. They can measure unique users, number of impressions, interaction rates, installs, and how many times it is passed on. The Distribution Manager can also break down installs and usage by social network, device, or country. The next Flash platform service Adobe wants to role out is the ability to develop an app once and distribute it anywhere without re-writing the app.
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 MiamiHerald.com | FCC 'Net Neutrality' Rules Expected to Advance Washington Post The Federal Communications Commission's proposal of new rules to prevent companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deliberately blocking or slowing certain Web traffic is expected to advance with three votes out of the ... FCC moving to require 'net neutrality' by providers FCC Seeks to Protect Free Flow of Internet Data FCC Reportedly Prepping Net Neutrality Rules |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 BBC News | Google Working to Revise Digital Books Settlement New York Times For months, Google and its partners in a class-action settlement that would allow the company to create a vast digital library appeared unmoved by a rising tide of opposition. Google and its settlement partners — the Authors Guild and ... Digital-Rights Signatories Revisit Google's Deal Google Books' Latest Foe Google's book settlement: Here comes the DOJ and likely deal tweaks |
AP - With their advertising revenue drying up, newspaper publishers spent much of the spring and summer debating whether to cut off free online access to some of the material they run in their shrinking print editions.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 CBS News | Fla.-bound space shuttle Discovery stops in Texas The Associated Press AMARILLO, Texas — The space shuttle Discovery is making stops in Texas as part of its cross-country flight to Florida. The shuttle is being ferried atop a modified 747 aircraft, known as a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Discovery landed from space Sept. ... Shuttle headed for Fla. after stay at Barksdale Hitchin' A Ride - Discovery Comes Home Space shuttle Discovery passes through Fort Worth |
The LRO has already provided us with a lot of fascinating high-res photos of the Moon’s surface. But photos are just the start.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter also has more instruments aboard and one of them, the Diviner Lunar Radiometer developed and operated by the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is sending back some wild info about the Moon’s surface temperature.
The contraption works by measuring the infrared radiation’s intensity that’s emitted by the lunar surface. The hotter the surface, the great the emitted infrared radiation’s intensity. The map generated by Diviner will likely be used to help plan future manned Moon missions – whenever the hell that might be. But even still some of the info sent back is still of scientific value.
Apparently some spots on the lunar surface are always in a shadow and can nearly reach absolute zero. It’s thought that these spots can hold frozen water and might be some of the coldest spots in the galaxy including Pluto. These cold traps as they are called have been theorized about for nearly 50 years so you can imagine geek-types getting excited about the possible confirmation.
The unit will take about six months to complete its survey. The instrument was first turned activated on July 5 though, so it’s about 50% done.
 Siliconrepublic.com | Facebook To Wind Down Beacon To Resolve Privacy Lawsuit Mediapost.com Facebook said Friday it will pull the plug on its troubled Beacon ad program, which tells members about their friends' off-site e-commerce activity, in order to settle a privacy lawsuit. The company also will contribute $9.5 ... Facebook Beacon has poked its last Facebook pays $9.5 million to bury Beacon Facebook settles privacy suit, to shut down Beacon |
This guest post was written by Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg. It is the first in a series of posts he’s writing about the decisions a young entrepreneur needs to make when she/he is first starting a business. The timing is perfect, there is more than a little overlap with Vivek Wadhwa’s guest post on venture capital earlier today. We’ll update this post with links to his further installments.
I was one of those kids who just couldn’t stop trying to start a company. I think I just really feared working for the Man. Problem was, I seemed to suck at the whole startup thing. Multiple attempts followed by multiple failures. At some point I just said, “screw it, I’ll get a high paying job.” Problem was, I couldn’t stop thinking of the next great thing that got me ridiculously excited. Turns out, it wasn’t so much that I was the problem. Rather, I didn’t have anyone around me familiar enough with startups to tell me that I was doing it all wrong.
This is the first post in what’s going to be a series of blogs on how to go from nothing – no connections, no team, no money and no knowledge of how the startup industry really works – to operating a growing business. I mentioned to Mike that I was going to kick this series off over on the Meebo Blog, but he suggested I start it here. Gladly! So for this first post, here’s the best advice I can give you: join an awesome founding team and get your product out the door ASAP. Then, forget everything else, VCs included, and just build.
One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Nine times out of ten, the meeting ends with them asking me for introductions to VCs. Little do they know that, even if they could raise VC, it’d start them down the wrong path. So, this is what I tell them:
At the exact moment you had your idea, ten other people had the exact same idea. There was just something in the environment that made it the right time for folks to think that one up. The race has already begun! Who’s going to execute first? Who’s going to execute best? If you want to waste nine months trying to raise VC money for that idea, great. But six months in, you’re gonna cry when you see someone else put out that same product you’re pitching me right now. Like I said, forget everything else and just get your product out the door. Now.
Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. I don’t know any developers. I need money for the servers. I want to get that last promotion at my current company first!
Here’s the rub: in consumer internet (and often enterprise), if your founding team doesn’t have the chops to get a prototype of your product out and in the hands of a blogger to test and write about, you might as well save yourself a lot of pain – you’re not going anywhere. Need proof? Just look at some of the most successful tech companies in the last decade: eBay, YouTube, Sun, Oracle, Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Yahoo!, and Google. All of them share a couple common traits: they launched before taking outside investment, and they were able to do it because they had a set of founders with the skills to build the initial version of the product themselves. Only eBay was founded by a single individual – the rest were team efforts.
With that background, let’s get to the three most important things you can do to go from nothing to a kicking startup.
First and foremost, find a great founding team. One person is almost never enough. You just can’t do it all. Rather, team up with one or two other people who have skills synergistic – not overlapping – with your own, but with similar goals and passions. I can’t tell you how frequently teams of three business school students tell me they’re going to start the next great consumer Internet company. When I point out that they’re all business people, and wonder who’s going to build the product, they almost always fall back on “we’ll get a couple of undergrads to do it,” or, “we’ll outsource it.” If I hear either one of those, I know the startup’s already dead. Sorry, folks. Harsh, but probably true.
The best composition is probably one engineer whose passion lies in the pixels on the screen and another engineer whose passion is making bits fly really fast through servers. In Meebo’s case, for example, I was lucky enough to partner up with Elaine and Sandy. Elaine is a JavaScript wizard who has a great visual eye and makes sure every pixel is in its place. Sandy is a straight C nerd and is all about efficiency. Together, they built the first versions of Meebo from scratch. Now, if you have a business guy along for the ride, that works too. But let me tell you, the sum total of my contribution to Meebo prior to our launch was getting us incorporated (read: easy) and suggesting that “the button might look better over there” (read: not much). Post launch, if you gain traction, is where the business person will help take the load off of the technical folks. The business person can take all the meetings while the technical folks work on making the product better.
Second, like I said, forget everything else and just get your product out the door. No office. No phone system. No hiring. No press. No legal muck. No raising money. No looking for partnerships (who’s going to partner with you anyway?). The success or failure of the adoption of your product is what will create 99% of the initial value of your company. If no one ever uses your product, you have no value. Oh, and for the record, raising VC does not help get traction – in another blog post, I’ll argue that if anything, it hurts. So just forget everything else and focus on what matters – getting an alpha of your product out the door and into the hands of your friends and family. Use some URL like www.mygreatstartup.com/shhh.html. Then, once you’ve fixed the initial bugs and incorporated a feature or two that everyone requested, go live. Remember: keep it simple. The initial product you build is for you – you don’t know what features everyone else wants. Launch fast and light, and listen to your users for feedback. In the product, always have a way to ask for user feedback. Remember, once TechCrunch or GigaOm writes about you, you’ll most likely get crushed with a single surge of traffic (we fondly call it the “blog spike”), only to watch almost all of it flitter away. Take advantage of that surge to learn and iterate.
Finally, get good mentors. If someone had been there and just told me “join a great founding team, focus on the product, and forget everything else,” I would have saved a lot of time and heartache. A good mentor is someone who has been part of the startup community themselves – someone who has a realistic understanding of some of the basic dos and don’ts of starting up. You don’t need many – one or two to begin. In Meebo’s case, two of our friends, Todd and Cam, gave us a ton of pre-launch advice. Every time we started straying down a wrong path, like flirting with just talking to that one VC or even thinking about approaching a company about a partnership, they’d always come out with something like, “is that going to get the product out faster?” Trust me, once you’ve launched and achieved traction, you’ll have your pick of mentors, VCs, partners and all the legal expenses you need.
I hope that some of this hit home for those of you who’ve been working on your own startups. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like. You can follow them over on the Meebo Blog, so bookmark this post and Mike tells me they’ll link to subsequent posts. Alternatively, follow me on Twitter (@sethjs) where I’ll mention when I put up a new post.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Pretty interesting behind the scenes article and video over at Sandbox8 about how the seemingly endless stream of statistical data flows around the course at a PGA Tour event. Most of the data is gathered by on-course volunteers armed with various portable survey equipment and wireless devices.
From the article:
If you have ever watched a PGA Tour event on TV, in person, or on your computer, you probably have wondered at some point, how are they able to get the precise distance a ball has traveled, how far it is away from the pin, or the statistics for number of putts Tiger Woods makes within 10 feet?
All that data comes from an army of 300-400 volunteers that follow the action on the golf course using survey grade lasers and handheld devices to record every move each player makes on the golf course and that data is sent in real-time to the PGA TOUR ShotLink truck.
Check out Sandbox8.com for the full article and to take a look at a behind-the-scenes video.
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FROM GAMERTELL - Say it with me: You are your gamerscore. Okay, not really but, gamer points, we love ya…
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There’s been some chatter about this over the last week, but I wanted to wait until something a little more solid came up. After all, how many times have price drops been reported for the other consoles that turned out to be bogus? But it appears that Nintendo itself is now confirming the price drop (not just retailers), so you can probably expect a $200 Wii starting September 27th.
Of course, in concordance with the Tetris effect of retail pricing, I’d expect a new SKU at the original price or higher to push down the old model. What do you guys think? Wii Fit Plus package? MotionPlus?
[via GoNintendo]
There’s no question about it: Google is great at search, and its huge lead over competitors is well deserved. But the site’s spartan design can sometimes leave something to be desired — sure, the company gradually makes tweaks to it, but we haven’t seen many radical changes in a very long time. Now WebMynd, a Y Combinator startup that launched back in early 2008, is looking to help spur the search giant to make itself a little better, or at least give it a few ideas to help. Tonight, WebMynd is launching a contest appropriately called RedesignGoogle.com that invites designers from around the world to give Google a makeover.
WebMynd has posted all the details details on its blog, but here’s the gist of it: designers are invited to revamp Google using any CSS modifications they’d like. The contest starts accepting submissions today, and will run through November 1. Then, a number of judges (which include Y Combinator’s Paul Graham, the WebMynd team and — full disclosure — myself) will pick the best designs. The winners will take home a brand new MacBook Air.
The nice thing about the contest is that it isn’t purely theoretical — you’ll actually be able to start using the new design in your browser, using a stripped down version of WebMynd’s browser plugin. The Plugin, which launched back in March, gives users the ability to customize their search experience and includes a number of other features, like a comprehensive browsing history (advanced features won’t be enabled by default on the streamlined contest plugin, but users will be able to turn them on).
Here are a few of the early submissions to the contest. You can see a full gallery here.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
It’s time for a quick primer on the proper way to interact at conferences and other business events. Since I just came back from one of those types of events, this is on top of mind for me.
What’s surprising is how few people get it right and move a conversation towards their business goals. The rest let ego and sloppiness get in the way, usually leaving people on both sides of the conversation frustrated. I’m here to help.
I get approached a lot at technology events (usually entrepreneurs), and I also approach others (usually about a story I’m working on).
A typical frustrating interaction for me: I am being hit on all sides by people saying hello, or trying to pitch me, or whatever. A new person pops up in front of me. They look vaguely familiar. A hand is thrust towards me and they say “hey Mike!”
At this point all I’m thinking about is damage control. I frantically try to remember if I’ve met him/her before. Because if I say “nice to meet you” and I’ve met them before, I usually get a “yeah well we met three months ago, i can’t believe you don’t remember” back with a negative tone. If I’m not sure, and usually I’m not, I say “nice to see you.” It’s a trick I’ve learned that sort of works in any situation. Any anyway, I’m also already annoyed that the person put me in an awkward situation.
Then the person jumps right into whatever it is they want. Often its to step aside for a pitch. Which puts me in bad situation no. 2, because I probably can’t step aside at just that moment. And the middle of an event is certainly not the time to expect me to pay attention to whatever you’re pitching. And since you deserve that attention, why start things off in such a crazy way?
Remember your ultimate business goal. It isn’t to have me listen to a pitch. It’s something more. Like a story on TechCrunch about your startup, or an introduction to someone who can help your project. If you keep the ultimate goal in mind, you won’t screw up by forcing intermediate goals that don’t really help you, and just frustrate the listener.
So here are my tips for making the most of these interactions:
Instead, say “Hey Bob, It’s Mike from TechCrunch, good to see you again” slowly and clearly. You’ve just told them your name, where you work, and the fact that you’ve previously met. Trust me, they are thankful for all that information, and everything will go smoothly from there.
Some of the most well known people I know never assume people they talk to know who they are. Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha, for example, introduces himself to me every time I see him, and asks if now is a good time to talk. I’ve known him since 2006, and it’s far from necessary. But I always appreciate how polite he is.
Want to be like Roelof someday? A good start is basic business etiquette. Just because someone can’t register your face, name and workplace in less than the second it takes for you to say hello to them doesn’t mean they don’t want to help you out. Just help to avoid that awkward moment by giving them all the information they need. And then watch body language for your cue to wrap things up.
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FROM GAMERTELL - Walmart’s plans for global domination now include used game sales, as the company is now promoting deals that come right into GameStop’s wheelhouse…
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This is a guest post by Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Executive in Residence at Duke University. Follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa.
Back in 1986, when Bill Gates was still making sales calls, he pitched my group at First Boston on why we should bet the farm on Windows. Despite the risk involved, we gave his fledgling startup the deal. This wasn’t because of his financial backers (he didn’t even drop any names), but because we believed in his vision and nerdiness. In the same way, Google became a huge success long before the deep pocketed VC’s arrived to ride Larry and Sergey’s coattails. They simply had a great technology and winning strategy.
So I’m miffed by the National Venture Capital Association’s (NVCA) claim that companies like Microsoft and Google “…would not exist today without the funding and guidance provided during their early stages by venture capitalists.” And I’m amused that the NVCA claims credit for creating 12 million jobs and generating $3 trillion in revenue (that’s only 21 percent of U.S. GDP). In the software industry (which includes Internet/Web 2.0), they stake claim to 81% of the all jobs created. Yes, 81%. Can they please give the entrepreneurs who risk their life savings, max out their credit cards and put their families in the back seat a little more credit? We’re not talking about divvying up the company’s stock here, just a pat on the back.
How’d they come up with these numbers? They added up all the revenue generated in 2008 by any company a venture capitalist ever invested a dime in. So if John Doerr bought Bill a lunch in 1985, they’d count Microsoft as part of their empire. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. But seriously, the NVCA numbers aren’t even remotely credible. How can VCs claim credit for the revenue of a company which they cashed out of twenty or thirty years ago? And even then, claiming credit for 81% of tech jobs and 21% of GDP? More to the point, would those jobs never have been created if the VCs had never appeared on the scene? How can the NVCA prove causality?
The answer is, the NVCA can prove nothing and a growing pool of data suggests that VCs at best have little to no impact on these companies and at worst have a negative impact. I just completed a research project in which we interviewed the founders of 549 successful companies in several high-growth industries – the ones VC’s are most likely to fund. We selected companies that had made it out of the garage and were generating real revenue. Guess what? Hardly ten percent of the serial entrepreneurs took venture money in their first startups. In their subsequent launches, the proportion who took venture money went up to a quarter. In other words, three-quarters of even the most experienced entrepreneurs didn’t rely on venture capital (new report to be released in October).
NVCA claims that VCs created entire industries like biotech and turned the software development and semiconductor industries “…into prime drivers of the U.S. economy.” I am a big fan of Vinod Khosla’s and believe he is a real pioneer. But he is the exception rather than the rule. The fact is that VC’s follow innovation, they don’t lead. They go where they smell blood.
The correlation between venture capital investments and productivity growth was researched by Masako Ueda, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. She analyzed total factor productivity (or TFP, which is a measure of innovation) in several industries. She found that VC investment actually lagged behind TFP growth by two years and later rounds of VC investments actually caused a decline in TFP. In other words, venture capital slowed down the innovation process. What’s more she found that delayed TFP growth is correlated with first round VC investment. In simple English, this means that money goes where the innovation is, not the other way around.
The NVCA report also touts all sorts of statistics about how their investments outperformed the overall economy. But this isn’t what Kauffman Foundation’s Paul Kedrosky found when he researched the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies. His study determined that from 1997-2007 venture industry lagged the small-cap Russell 2000 Index by 10 percent (this includes returns from the dot-com hey-days). What’s more the study found that only 16 percent of these 900 companies had venture capital backing. And less than 1 percent of the 600,000 new employer businesses created in the United States every year obtain venture capital financing.
What’s behind the NVCA’s voodoo economics? Even though they vehemently deny it, VCs are looking for bailout money and tax-breaks. After spending so much time, energy and breath in the past decade arguing that government subsidies distort markets, now the wealthy, bloated VC community wants its own handouts.
My VC friends complain over drinks about a new breed of VCs who are crowding out the really smart and experienced. These gold digger VCs bear MBAs and have no real operational experience but plenty of taste for IPOs. (Interestingly, if they don’t have an MBA, they have a law degree. Go figure.) With all this dumb VC money sloshing through the system, VCs end up funding hordes of “me-too” companies. This leads to declining returns and high startup failure rates. Everyone loses.
What we need to do is to apply the same rules to VC’s which they impose on their companies – force them to make tough choices and get their business models in order. And instead of giving the tax-breaks to the middlemen, let’s give these directly to the entrepreneurs who take the risks and create the innovation. It is the entrepreneurs who fuel the economy, not the venture capitalists or investment bankers.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Section: Peripherals, Webcam/VoIP
Avaak just recently released its Vue personal video network and you’ll soon have the chance to win one from Avaak and Gadgetell (check back on Monday for more details). If you haven’t heard of the Vue, it’s an easy to set up webcam system. Attach a base station to your router and then place the wireless cameras where ever you would like. They are very small (about the size of an egg) and light so they are easy to mount. The cameras magnetically attach to the included mounts.
We also got a chance to take a look at the Vue iPhone app, which lets you keep an eye out on your webcams. The app is very similar to the web application that is accessible via a browser and gives the user the option of switching views to see other cameras attached to your base station.
Product Site: [VueZone]
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
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Even casual fight fans know that last night was UFC 103 and Mayweather vs. Marquez. No spoilers here, of course, but I do encourage you all to, I don’t know, buy the replays or find them wherever you find things these days. While on the topic of mixed martial arts, full credit to whatever marketing company put this ad together for Norton Anti-virus. Yes, that’s Kimbo Slice, and he’s admonishing a caterpillar.
The problem with Kimbo—and this is not breaking news or anything—is that he’s a jacked up backyard brawler. He’ll destroy any of us in any type of fight, but what happens when he meets a professional fighter who’s spent the past 10 years down in Brazil learning Judo and BJJ? That’s where the intrigue lies with Kimbo Slice: how he’ll perform when he meets people who can take him to the ground and work him. I guess we’ll find out this year on the Ultimate Fighter, one of only three shows I DVR (the others being Top Gear and Curb Your Enthusiasm).
As for Norton Anti-Virus, am I wrong in thinking those guys don’t have the best reputation? Not that it’s an Evil Corporation, but that the software just ain’t what it used to be? (Maybe that’s an “online” opinion?)
Anyhow, considering how wacky commercials have become (see: the Geico googly eyes spots, the old Microsoft Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld spots, etc.), this one is probably a winner. Looking only at the YouTube comments (“This is perhaps the single best thing that has ever been created by somebody with a vision”), yeah, it looks to be a hit.
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FROM APPLETELL - Let’s take a look at how TomTom’s iPhone navigation app compares to the other big names in navigation on the App Store.
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Section: Peripherals, Mice / Keyboards
We first saw Hillcrest’s air mouse back at CES 2009. At first, it just appeared to be the same kind of thing as a Gyration mouse or a Nintendo Wii remote. However, after getting to test out the Hillcrest Loop for a short time, this is actually quite a different device than those other ones. First, you’ll notice the unique round shape. It’s very unusual for a mouse to be in a ring. Here’s what’s really different about the Loop - there’s no shake. If you’ve ever tried to choose a setting on the Nintendo Wii, you know that in-air devices often include your shakes, so it can become difficult to hit small targets using the in-air pointer.
The Hillcrest Loop was able to hit this small target easily since it takes out your hand’s natural shake.
Hillcrest’s Loop mouse takes out the shake. In a quick test, I was able to choose a show on Hulu from about 5 feet away on a 20-inch monitor. The Hulu show target is quite small, but the device moved smoothly and stayed secure while I selected the text link. Also, you can hold the loop horizontally or vertically and mouse control will remain the same. It actually turned out to be quite the impressive device that could make living room computing a lot easier. If only they would build their tech into a Logitech Harmony remote. The Loop costs $99 on Amazon and is available now.
Company Site: [Hillcrest Labs]
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 New Zealand Herald | Advice for Apple: Grow the iPod Touch PC World It's no secret that Apple isn't exactly earning praise for rejecting Google Voice. A recent "truth-stretching" response to the FCC about its action didn't help the company's image either. But instead of kicking them while they're down, ... Google Releases A Nuke. Apple Won't Win This Fight. Now, Apple Gives Developers Roadmap To App Approval Google says Apple silenced its Voice |
Section: Video, Accessories, HDTV, Portable Video, Peripherals, Webcam/VoIP
At Intel’s Developer Forum, companies Point Grey and Fresco Logic are showing off the world’s first USB 3.0 streaming HD video camera. The unit streams 1920 x 1080 video at 60 frames per second and streams uncompressed from the Point Grey camera to the Fresco Logic controller. Clearly, USB 3.0 is fast.
“We are very excited to partner with Fresco Logic and be able to visually demonstrate the bandwidth offered by USB 3.0,” says Vlad Tucakov, Director of Sales and Marketing at Point Grey. “One of the potential benefits of the increased bandwidth of USB 3.0 is that it allows the main processor to handle compression. This means that different types of compression can be used for different applications and that some applications, like face recognition, can work on uncompressed video data for increased performance. We certainly see USB 3.0 as a key interface technology for machine and computer vision, and one we plan to integrate into future Point Grey imaging products.”
Allowing applications to pick and choose what definition video is required for processing is a big step forward and would open up things like power saving, faster performance, and better processing. Video is one category that is sure to benefit from the autobahn-like speeds of USB 3.0, but not the only.
Any portable storage device that connects via USB can take advantage of the higher speeds. Even things like iPhones could see a huge boost in sync times (you know, if Apple figures out the quirks behind iPod back up and the other hiccups in syncing). The act of connecting a device and walking away while it syncs could soon be a thing of the past.
Company site: [Point Grey]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
The S&P 500 is up 58 percent from its lowest point last March, the worst of the economic recession seems to be behind us, and even perennial stock market bear Jim Grant is calling for a barn-burner of a recovery, yet predictions of the next stock-market crash are already here. And you can find them on Twitter. Individual traders love to talk stocks on Twitter so much that they have given rise to a whole offshoot service, StockTwits. In fact, some argue that Twitter is becoming a pump-and-dump playground. But it is really no different than the Internet stock boards of old, which mixed honest financial discussion with attempts to manipulate the market with misinformation.
Either way, traders are flocking to Twitter because if there is one area where real-time information is really valuable, it is in trading stocks. The question is, who do you trust and who should you listen to? There are countless stocktwits who are now being joined by more professional prognosticators. One is BAM Investor, which markets its financial model to hedge funds. BAM stands for Behavioral Analysis Of Markets. It uses fractal theory (and the Fibonacci sequence!) to predict emotional mood swings in the market.
About five days ago it predicted that the current stock market rally would crash by 50 percent. It also thinks that Crude Oil is heading down to $56/barrel. But it is bullish on natural gas, predicting a 400% “melt-up”.
Why should anyone listen to these trading tweets? BAM Investor claims that its financial model predicted the crash of crude oil from $147 to $36, the rise in corn and wheat futures from their 2007 lows, and the 400 percent rally in shares of Ford from February to August, 2009.
But as with any financial advice, investors should beware. BAM Investor is simply using Twitter to market its financial model, which you can subscribe to if you are a serious investor. The true test of a financial model is the consistency of its predictions and its accuracy over time. In other words, can you trust it? Is it right more often than it is wrong? It’s putting its predictions out there for anyone to follow and judge for themselves.
If its predictions start making people money, you can expect its number of followers to grow, but that is also a function of press and marketing. What we really need is a service that keeps track of all of these public financial predictions and rates their accuracy so that the smart money can be separated from the twits.
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One European company that picked the TechCrunch50 conference to launch a service was DemoPit participant deciZium, which launched its travel planning website YourTour in public beta and gave the audience a demo of its capabilities during the event's breaks.
Granted, there are a lot of travel-related websites and applications out there which makes it quite difficult to come up with something unique in this space, but YourTour does have a number of interesting features that deserve a second look. In essence, the website offers personalized travel planning assistance based on one's wishes, preferences and limitations.
FROM GAMERTELL - Haven’t caught all of the Gamertell news this week? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles! Ten things to do with your Xbox 360 after you get the dreaded Red Ring of Death“Well dear readers, I have just dealt with the tragedy that many Xbox… MORE »
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