Chip Griffin: Pardon the Disruption

Check Out DonorsChoose

I spend a lot of my day looking at and discussing innovative technologies, techniques, products, and companies.  But we all need to remember that innovation isn't limited to for-profit operations. In fact, a great example of innovation in the non-profit sector is DonorsChoose.

From the organization's web site:

DonorsChoose.org was pioneered by teachers at a Bronx public high school in the spring of 2000. Charles Best, then a social studies teacher, saw first-hand the scarcity of materials in our public school classrooms and the profound impact of this scarcity on kids' education. Looking for a way to address this problem, he sensed an untapped potential in people who were frustrated by their lack of influence over the use of their charitable donations. DonorsChoose.org, a website connecting classrooms in need with individuals who want to help, was born.

I first became involved with DonorsChoose as part of venture capitalist Fred Wilson's "challenge" that he took part in along with other bloggers.  The idea was to get readers to participate, and I did. 

I have been very fortunate over the years and work to support various charitable endeavors as a result, but I am one of those who like to be more directly involved with my giving and this group gives me the chance to do so. 

But what really impressed me was the follow-up.  I chose to fund a printer for a vocabulary program in a Brooklyn, NY elementary school.  Recently, I received a thank you note from the school, which would be great in itself.  But it was simply a cover letter for a stack of thank you notes, handwritten by the students and decorated with drawings. 

That kind of follow-up will serve DonorsChoose well and help keep supporters engaged.  Well done!

The Real Problem with Information Isn’t Overload or Underload

Paul Kedrosky raised an interesting question at the Defrag Conference in Denver yesterday.  He led a panel discussion that kept circling back to the notion of information overload, but Paul suggested that the 200+ people in the room likely represent edge cases who frequently overwhelmed by the amount of information that they have to process, whereas most people may well suffer from information underload.

Much of the discussion centered on what tools to use to better cope with information overload.  Chris Shipley, executive producer of the popular DEMO conference, said she copes by simply ignoring the flood of email and other information when she doesn’t have time to deal with it.

This all got me thinking a bit about this topic in a way that I probably hadn’t before.  Here’s where my thought process arrived:

You Never Miss Information You Need to Know

That’s absurd you say. I say it isn’t.  If you actually have a real “need to know,” then you will get the information. Think about it: the only time you are upset about “missing” some piece of data is after you learn that the information existed. Somehow that information will eventually make its way to you.

The Real Challenge is Getting Information at the Right Time

This is the aha! moment for me.  Figuring out how to get the right information at the right time is really the challenge we are facing here.  Knowing that Tom Brady won’t be able to play next weekend is something that will help your fantasy team if you find out now.  If you learn it next Monday, it’s too late to act effectively on that knowledge.  Similarly, if somehow you had gained that knowledge a year ago, it would be extraneous data for many months before it could actually be acted upon.

Ideally, you want to focus and limit your information intake to deliver each tidbit or bombshell at just the right time so you are not forced to harbor surplus facts for long periods of time or end up finding out what you need to know only when it is too late.

Focusing the Funnel is Hard

Salespeople talk all the time about “feeding the funnel” – meaning getting sales leads in place to help close more sales.  As the sales process moves forward, more and more leads fall off the board, hence the funnel shape of the activity.

It’s the same thing that happens with information.  You start out with the understanding that there are millions of words written or spoken every day.  That information can be classified in several different ways:

Of course the vast majority of information generated each day falls into that final category of data that will never be of use to you.  Ideally, you want to get the first category ASAP and find a way to make sure that the “future useful” information gets filed properly to be brought back for you to see when it is actually ripe for acting upon.

So What Can You Do About It?

So what’s the problem here?  Is it a tools problem that we need to address through greater innovation?  Is it a behavioral problem that we need to address through our own decision-making?  Or should we all just use the Chris Shipley “duck and cover” approach?

Like most problems, the answer isn’t black and white and really involves a bit of each to be solved.  Here’s my quick take on it:

• It’s Not a Tools Problem.  There are tremendous tools already available to help you process and distill information.  Everything from email programs to fancy web applications can help you move through large volumes of information more rapidly than we were ever able to in the past.
• We Think We Need to Know More than We Do, So Spend Time Thinking About What You Actually Need. Paul Kedrosky talked about how we all don’t know a bunch of important pieces of data.  He polled the audience at Defrag to find out who knew the current U.S.-Canada exchange rate, how many people are being evacuated due to potential dam failure in China, and what the price of oil was yesterday and what caused it to spike.  But most of us don’t really need to know those things.
• Find Good Information Curators. Chris Brogan has talked a lot about this concept and he’s absolutely right.  There are plenty of really smart people aggregating interesting information, especially from the online world.  Some of these are pay services, but many are free.  If you’re an executive, you may well have staff that does a lot of reading. Don’t reinvent the wheel here.  Let your staff, friends, or smart strangers curate your information for you.
• Go On an Information Diet. Try the Chris Shipley approach for a few days or even a week.  Ignore most of what’s in your email inbox.  Toss out every piece of mail except bills or anything else that is obviously critical.  Stop reading blogs and web sites.   Chances are that when you do, you will find you are missing far less than you thought.  After you have gone through this “information detox” figure out what you were really missing and slowly add it back to your diet. 
• Schedule Routine Information Check-Ups. At least twice a year, you should review your information needs.  Combine an information diet with an assessment of what information you feel you might be lacking.  Going through this exercise every six months will help you avoid continuing to gather information simply because you always have. 
• Track What Works for You. To make these semi-annual checkups more effective, it would be good to have hard data.  Keep a notebook or a computer file where you note big achievements that you reached because of information you had or challenges you had to endure because you didn’t.  Flag emails or blog posts using whatever software to use to note any indispensable pieces of information you got that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise.  At your six month checkup, figure out the sources of information that contribute most frequently and make sure that you stay on top of those in a timely fashion.  Conversely, if you find you are reading or doing something that never leads anywhere, STOP!

So, does this provoke any ideas on your part?  I hope so.  If so, please share them with me.  This is an interesting problem to define and solve.

Privacy Nuts Hurt Us All

Privacy matters.  We all should be able to keep things private when done in the privacy of our own homes.  But when you go out on the public Internet, no absolute right to privacy exists.  Nor should it.  Tracking your clickstream, using cookies to measure visitor behavior and perhaps target ads, building databases of activity, intentions, recommendations, or anything else should all be considered kosher behavior.

Those who would advocate a Do Not Track list, rights to access all data in a vendor's possession, severe restrictions on the use of clickstream data, or other "protections" in the name of "privacy" do more harm than good. 

Why shouldn't we want better targeted ads?  Is it not better to see an ad for something we might be interested in than something random?

Why shouldn't we want better targeted pitches from vendors?  Why wouldn't you want to know about a good deal on a book, movie, or other product you might actually want to purchase?

Why shouldn't a web site owner improve the product based on click behavior?  Isn't it a great idea for web sites to be more effective?

Frankly, I'm getting tired about the mantra that "I own my data and I want to control it."  Baloney. If you created it and gave it willingly to some third party, they have a right to do what they will with it, unless they promise you otherwise. If you don't like it, don't give them content either explicitly or by surfing to their site.

Do consumers matter?  You bet.  Should vendors care about what consumers want?  You bet.  Will vendors that listen to their customers do better -- all other things being equal -- than those who don't?  Probably.  But there's a difference between companies voluntarily -- and I mean truly of their own volition -- doing things and forcing them to do so through legislative, regulatory, or quasi-regulatory means.

Doc Searls spoke this afternoon at the Defrag conference and took companies to task for a number of things, including why the same consumer review can't be used for Amazon, NetFlix, and other sites.  The answer?  You can, but what's the incentive to the vendors to make it easy?  A key part of the secret sauce at Amazon and NetFlix are their recommendation engines.  We must not forget that these companies need to operate on a for-profit basis, not merely for the benefit of consumers.  If you don't like it, do as Esther Dyson suggested at Defrag: go to one of their competitors, get them to adopt what you want, and make it so successful that the big boys need to take it on to maintain a competitive edge.

What about health care data?  Doc argued that we should own our health care data and providers should have to make it easy for us to make it portable and controllable by us.  Is it mostly a good idea, yes.  As someone with a treatable medical condition, I would love to have the data more easily available to the various physicians I have seen over the years. But am I under any delusion that I own that data?  No way.  The doctors themselves created the data.  Yes, it is about me, but I didn't create it.  If I did, I could very easily have copied it before handing it over.  That's my recourse.

Doc Searls asked what it would be like if it was a two way street where consumer and vendor both benefit.  He suggested that since he doesn't like to hear ads when he calls tech support, he could enter into an arrangement where he would pay 50 cents per call to avoid the ad.  And that's a fine idea.  At least it recognizes that there is no absolute right to avoid ads. Of course, in the Q&A session after his talk, he backtracked and said he was just trying to be provocative by saying it.

For the successful future of the Internet, we must learn to tame our privacy hangups.  We all have them.  Ultimately, the more that vendors, publishers, advertisers, and others know, the better the experience can be for all of us. 

Don't Overcomplicate Things

I love innovation.  I love playing with new services and gadgets.  But the only ones I stick with tend to be the ones that are actually useful. Unfortunately, in listening to entrepreneurs at the Defrag conference (and through repeated observation elsewhere), I am startled by how many companies and products seem to be solutions in search of a problem.

In fact, one of the speakers stumbled upon this point, perhaps without realizing it, when he talked about how his company uses email lists very effectively for collaboration among employees, fostering discussion, debate, and sometimes consensus. Yet there are countless vendors here and elsewhere peddling all sorts of feature-laden collaboration tools.  Wikis, social networks, and more are all creeping into the entreprise with the promise of being more effective than "traditional" communications tools.

But I really wonder whether or not email might not be a better solution in most cases.  Getting users to adopt RSS or forcing them to visit an intranet site doesn't seem like a viable concept for most companies.  I have no doubt that there is a place for this sort of technology, but I think that some of the efforts that my fellow tech enthusiasts are making could prove to be counterproductive.  Slower, more managed growth of these tools in ways in which they are actually useful will have greater long-term benefits to the enterprise and to the entrepreneurs, at a slight short-term expense to startups looking to grow quickly to impress investors.

Exponential growth in advance of a flameout should never be considered more valuable than steady, sustainable growth.  Let's not overcomplicate things in search of that short-term buzz; think of the benefits to the user.  Somtimes the old way may still be the best way.

Coming August 1: StartRocket

I'm launching a new venture.  Let me tell you about StartRocket and why I'm doing it.

Lots of great web entrepreneurship happens in Silicon Valley.  There are tons of successful companies, aspiring startups, ambitious entrepreneurs, and savvy investors.  Most tech conferences are easy to get to, just a short car or plane ride away.  High-tech journalists abound.  Bloggers?  Can you really drive down the road or walk the streets of San Francisco without running into one?

After Bubble 1.0, however, the level of attention paid to East Coast web entrepreneurship diminished.  Gone were the NYC conferences and publications.  Silicon Alley Reporter disappeared.  The Javits Center in New York was no longer the home to the massive Internet World conference.  And those of us back East find ourselves forced to trek cross-country for many interesting conferences.   We have far fewer parties and networking events to attend.

These aren’t complaints, and it's not all bad.  Indeed, in some respects it signals what I think is a natural tendency of those of us on this side of the country.  Certainly up where I live in New England there's a reluctance to be flashy or toot one's own horn.  But sometimes it's necessary.

A Thriving Web World Exists Outside of the Bay Area

Great things are happening outside of Silicon Valley.  Chicago-based FeedBurner was recently acquired by Google.  CBS picked up New York’s WallStrip.  The innovative incubator/investment fund Y Combinator has had great initial success, as well, though it straddles the coasts with operations in Cambridge, MA as well as out West. 

VC David Beisel operates a successful every-other-month-or-so event known as the Web Innovators Group that hosts huge gatherings of entrepreneurs to sample startup activity in the Boston/Cambridge area.  Frank Gruber, Eric Olson, Nick O’Neill and others introduced TechCocktail to the Washington, DC community recently and it was a great success from what I understand.  And that very event started in Chicago, not on the Left Coast.

Brad Feld seems to be at the hub of the activity in Colorado, where he is involved with TechStars (similar to Y Combinator)  and is working with Eric Norlin to start what should be a great tech conference away from the West Cost in defrag which will take place this December in Denver. Fred Wilson champions the startup community in New York City, just recently hosting a Facebook developers meetup.  Also based in New York, Greg Galant has done a nice job interviewing entrepreneurs for his Venture Voice podcast, though he does seem to do so with less frequency than he used to, and I'm sure many miss it.

Obviously there's much more, but you get the idea.

Non-SV Entrepreneurs Aren't Ignored, But...

Despite all of this activity -- and perhaps in part because of it -- there remains a void.  Mike Arrington has always seemed to make a real effort to cover non-Silicon Valley startups, and as his team has expanded, they’ve done a pretty nice job of it.  (Disclosure: TechCrunch profiled CustomScoop when the blog was still a newborn.)  Robert Scoble of PodTech interviews and videotapes demos from some companies not on the West Coast, but for the most part he covers that which is close to home, and that’s understandable.  TechCrunch and the ScobleShow (as well as others, of course) provide great opportunities for exposure for web entrepreneurs.  StartRocket is inspired by those two but will complement, not compete with, their efforts.

Here's Where StartRocket Comes In

There’s really no substitute for “local” coverage of local talent.    This media site will focus on web entrepreneurship outside of Silicon Valley, and especially East of the Rockies.  It won't ignore innovation in California, it will just be more of an East Coast/Midwest perspective on the industry.

It’s more than a blog.  The future of online media involves the dismantling of artificial silos that segregate text, audio, and video.  StartRocket will use the right medium for the content being delivered.  In addition, the plan calls to roll out applications related to the editorial mission (details to come in due course).

StartRocket isn’t about me or any one person.  It’s about information.  I will continue to maintain my own blog and podcast that provides a venue for me to share my opinion, discuss my vision for the future, and other topics.  Indeed, I expect that soon I will not be the only voice sharing information at StartRocket.

Some of the things you can expect to see at StartRocket in the future include:

• entrepreneur interviews,
• company profiles,
• conference coverage,
• VC and angel information,
• product demos, and more. 

It will be a gradual evolution.  StartRocket itself is a startup activity and will follow the same evolutionary path of any startup.

Here's Where You Come In

To make this launch successful, I need to ask you to do a few things:

1. Sign up to be notified when the site launches,  
2. Tell your friends about StartRocket, and
3. Email me with ideas for companies to profile and other story tips and ideas.

Together, we can make this project a success and shine a brighter spotlight on "outside the Valley" web entrepreneurship.

Technorati tags: startups, entrepreneur, TechCrunch, ScobleShow, Robert Scoble, Mike Arrington, new media cocktail, media, online video, online news, web 2.0, high-tech startup, venture capital, angel investing, seed stage, seed funding, bootstrapping

If There Was Any Doubt the Patent System is Broken...

You simply must read this laugh out loud funny list of crazy patents that have actually been awarded by the USPTO.  I picked up on it from a post by Seth Levine where he reports on (potentially) good news about pending changes in the way patents are handled.  We can only hope.

My favorites from the crazy patent list:

• One patent included this claim: "9. The method of providing user interface displays in an image forming apparatus which is really a bogus claim included amongst real claims, and which should be removed before filing; wherein the claim is included to determine if the inventor actually read the claims and the inventor should instruct the attorneys to remove the claim." (Remember these are all patents, actually approved by USPTO.)
• "This patent shows you how to patch a hole in a wall by cutting out a piece the same size as a pre-formed plug, and then inserting the plug and plastering over it. Isn't that pretty much the way drywall is always patched???"
• "Apparatus for facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force." 
• Then there's the one patenting the use of a laser pointer to exercise a cat.  Dumb as that seems, it's made even worse by the fact that USPTO issued this patent 5 times to different "inventors."
• I also like "Method for Swinging on a Swing."  Here's the commentary on the Crazy Patents list about it: "So these fools think that in all the years of swinging no one has ever before thought to pull on the opposite chains and swing form side to side? Well, I guess they got the PTO to issue the patent, so I'm not sure who the fool really is... But, even so, what do these guys expect to do with this anyway? Are they going to go around and collect royalties from kids on the playground?"
• Then there's the tricycle lawn mower.  One can only hope that USPTO sent a copy of that one over to the Consumer Product Safety Commission as soon as they issued it.

Go check out the rest of the list for yourself.  In some cases you have to fault USPTO and in others you wonder what the inventors were thinking.

Technorati tags: patent, patent reform, USPTO

Is Facebook the Answer to Social Networking Overload -- Or Is It Part of the Problem?

Nick O'Neill does a nice job today of asking (and answering) the question: "Is There Any Point In Launching Your Own Social App?" 

I've been wondering the same thing myself.  With the sudden explosion of Facebook among my friends and colleagues, it feels like there might be a central meeting place already.  As Nick points out, Facebook offers great functionality to enable it to serve as a one-stop shop for people.  Many companies are racing to roll out apps that will work on that platform to take advantage of the dramatic growth the service is experiencing.  In fact, just this morning I heard from a senior exec at a major web player who told me:

Up until a week ago I had absolutely no interest in using facebook. As a marketer, I certainly get the market impact, but I couldn't ever care much about the concept. But with the platform release, we've all been rushing around trying to get apps released onto the platform ... Its just crazy.

At the same time, however, new "walled garden" social networks are cropping up.  Many in my circle have joined either MyRagan or the Melcrum Communicators Network or both. 

It is getting to be too much, as Mary Hodder pointed out recently when she discussed "social information overload."  Shel Holtz addressed the question several months ago:

I’m skeptical that a bajillion social networks will make for good social networking. It’s not that people won’t join networks like ”The Classical Guitar Network” (although it does have only one member so far); it’s that people will belong to so many that their participation will be cursory rather than fully engaged. Nope; sorry. I just don’t see it.

Here's Nick's conclusion:

Is there any point in launching your own social application? In the long run, probably not. All sites will eventually become content providers that allow users to decide for themselves how they are going consume information. RSS feeds and OPML are only the beginning of such technologies. While this is going to take time to manifest, in the foreseeable future you are going to have access to all the information you want right at your fingertips, all from one page. While search will still be necessary to find new sources of content, users will be able to avoid navigation the web on a daily basis to consume all the information that they want. While its not going to happen immediately, Facebook has just taken a huge step in that direction.

Now mine: Facebook seems to offer some real benefits and could be the standard social networking platform going forward.  The ability to easily layer apps on top of the service provides a real benefit.  There are still issues that need to be sorted out (someone recently suggested a secondary relationship on the service, like "fans" to allow limited interaction between users), innovation that needs to occur, and of course, time must pass to see if the growth trend continues and if all these new users become regular diners and not simply nibblers at the Facebook table.

But if I were seeking to build a social network today, I'd think long and hard before I built my own closed system.  Facebook may or may not be the ultimate answer, but for social networking to be truly effective there needs to be fewer, not more, platforms.

Technorati tags: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, social networks, Mary Hodder, Shel Holtz, Dan York, Nick O'Neill, MyRagan, Melcrum

Calacanis' Project X Revealed: Mahalo, a Human Search Engine

I'm a big believer in the notion that computers can't yet do everything that humans can. No matter how comprehensive a job that a programmer does, nobody has yet replicated all of the judgment of people -- for better or worse.  As good as Google is, there are still results that don't make sense.  (For a time, one of my blog posts was the #1 result for "teacher tenure" for instance, which I'm fairly certain is not what someone was looking for.)

So the concept behind Jason Calacanis' much talked about "Project X" is promising:

Mahalo is the world's first human-powered search engine powered by an enthusiastic and energetic group of Guides. Our Guides spend their days searching, filtering out spam, and hand-crafting the best search results possible. If they haven't yet built a search result, you can request that search result. You can also suggest links for any of our search results.

It feels sort of like Google meets Wikipedia. 

It could prove to be a valuable resource.  Right now, however, just hours after it was unveiled, it feels thin to me.  I'm not talking about the number of searches that have been customized -- I expect that it will take time to get that to a broad level.

I guess what I mean by "thin" is that the results pages don't feel especially robust.  They do a decent job of providing the obvious links, but I'd love to see the results page act more as a portal for more information -- perhaps a "dashboard" of information for the search term.

I should also note that this is likely to work best when you are searching for a concrete topic, company, product, person, etc.  For instance, there is a "Star Wars" page but if you type in "Star Wars AND Lucas" you get zilch from Mahalo.

If it doesn't evolve significantly from its present form, though, I'm not certain that Wikipedia isn't actually more helpful since it provides the nuts and bolts on one page, whereas Mahalo just provides links to the real info.  Google and the other generic search engines are all pretty good at the basics.  They tend to start having difficulty with more complex searches.  And that's where I'd love to see Mahalo or some similar engine come through with tailored results.

Nevertheless, glad to see this project has come to life, and I'll be watching to see how it evolves.

Read more about Mahalo: TechCrunch, WSJ, Danny Sullivan and Mashable.

Technorati tags: Jason Calacanis, Mahalo, Project X, Google, Wikipedia, human search, search, innovation, startup

A New Way to Grow Startup Companies

Leave it to a New Hampshire guy to shake up the way companies innovate.  James Currier, founder of Tickle, has taken his windfall from the sale of that company to Monster.com and has started a new kind of innovation incubator: Ooga Labs.

He calls it a "technology greenhouse," a hydroponic environment that harnesses so much energy and ingenuity that it can nurture a crop of companies. The 13-employee San Francisco startup currently has five stealth projects under development, including GoodTree.

Until recently, the Internet incubator was dismissed as bubble-era folly. But the comeback of Idealab, the original Internet incubator founded in the 1990s, and the early success of Obvious Corp., the San Francisco idea factory that spawned Twitter, the popular Internet messaging phenomenon that tells your friends what you're doing at any given moment, are generating renewed interest in testing many ideas at once and turning the best of them into businesses.

...

The small staff is organized into two-person speed teams, each pair an engineer and designer, who are the only employees working on one of the five businesses. They sit side by side in an open pit in Ooga Labs' Financial District office so people can get to know one another and what everyone is working on.

For my next act (or one of them at least), I've played with a similar concept myself.  I'm one of those people with more ideas than resources and I'm a firm believer in rapid development.  Since almost every startup changes course significantly over the course of its lifetime, why not admit that up-front and try a different approach?  It's what the big companies do -- Microsoft, Google, and the others all have teams of people trying out new ideas.  Some stick, some don't.

It will be fascinating to see how Ooga and Obvious play out.

(via Silicon Valley Watcher)

Technorati tags: Tickle, Ooga Labs, James Currier, Monster.com, Obvious, Evan Williams, incubator, entrepreneurship, innovation, Silicon Valley, startups, Twitter, GoodTree, Google Labs, Microsoft Research

Is GooBurner a Good Idea?

Sam Sethi today starts a rumor in the blogosphere sure to spread like wildfire: Google is to buy FeedBurner.  I have no information to confirm or deny the rumor, so instead I find myself pondering whether it's a good thing.

Certainly it is likely to be for FeedBurner shareholders.  But what about bloggers, podcasters, and social media readers?

RSS feeds will continue to take on increased significance -- just as soon as we stop calling them that and make it easier and more advantageous to average Internet users to consume them.  FeedBurner plays an important role in this ecosystem as they manage feeds for a significant number of bloggers ... if not a majority of those who blog "seriously" (in other words, for business or professional reasons).

But is Google becoming a typical big company where innovative acquisitions go to die?  Certainly Google will find value in FeedBurner from an advertising medium perspective, as Sam points out.  But will they be as interested in FeedFlares?  Will they continue to be creative about feed metrics?

Small companies can generally innovate more quickly than big companies, and we have certainly seen that with Google.  There are benefits to the stability offered by a big company that tweaks and tests instead of radically innovating, but my feeling is that FeedBurner remains at the edge of the frontier and still needs that rapid innovation cycle that could be compromised under Google's guardianship.

Definitely one worth watching to see how it plays out. 

(Thanks to Bryper and CC Chapman for drawing attention to this item on Twitter.)

Technorati tags: innovation, mergers and acquisitions, m&a, FeedBurner, Google, Dick Costolo, venture capital, media consumption, advertising, new media, social media

When Does Twitter's Free Pass on Poor Performance Expire?

We in the tech community can be very forgiving of the growing pains of a startup.  Especially those of us who have been there or are there now.  That's exactly what has happened with Twitter ever since it exploded onto the scene at South by Southwest in March.  Despite my early reservations about the service, I came to adopt it and I find it valuable.  I know others do as well.

But the performance has been lagging the entire time.  Web site outages are routine.  Message deliver is delayed.  Pictures of cats fixing servers are amusing the first few times -- OK, they are still amusing -- but eventually the problems need to be solved. 

None of us who use the service pay any cash for it, but we do invest our time and energy into making it a success.  Like many Web 2.0 companies, Twitter is nothing without its users. 

System slowness made sense during SxSW and in its immediate aftermath.  What startup can truly be prepared for that sort of sudden explosion in usage?  Most established companies would (and do) have trouble with rapid traffic growth.

But the problems don't seem to be getting better.  In fact, they may be getting worse.  Neville Hobson reports today on something I have noticed myself over the past week -- tweets submitted to the system are simply disappearing into the ether, never to be seen again.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

So when does Twitter have to solve these problems before users abandon the service?  How much longer will they continue to get a free pass?  We all love innovation, but Twitter may be at risk of finding out the limits of user patience. 

This is a question all startups must ask themselves.

Technorati tags: Twitter, performance, entrepreneur, startup, scalability, infrastructure, coding, Ruby on Rails

Facebook Follows Smart Expansion Path

Brad Stone of the New York Times hits the nail on the head today when he writes of Facebook: "Only designated friends or people in users’ networks can see their full profile pages, in contrast to the chaotic freedom on MySpace, the site owned by the News Corporation that is Facebook’s main rival."

Chaos vs. intelligent expansion.  That seems to be the path that many fast-growing companies must choose from in the current environment, and Facebook appears to be charting a smart course through those waters.

The big news today is that Facebook is becoming somewhat of a media property as it enters the classified advertising market in competition with newspapers and Craigslist.  It will be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out. 

I, for one, am a strong believer in the notion that there are too many social networking options available today and that if a player in that space can roll together the best package of valuable features and establish a wide presence in the marketplace, it will come out on top.  It is difficult currently to belong to all of the hot social networking groups currently available -- MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.  And plenty of other companies are attempting to introduce the social networking component to their own existing products and services.  Or the countless niche social networks targeted at pet owners, PR professionals, and sports fans.

Facebook has pursued a policy of controlled growth, opening up gradually to new groups only after establishing a firm foothold in the markets it was already serving.  This intelligent expansion policy should serve it well, especially if it continues to follow it as it grows its circle of offerings and audience.  This just may be the social networking company of the future.

Technorati tags: social networking, classified advertising, chaotic expansion, intelligent growth, startup advice, startups, web 2.0, entrepreneur

You Can't Really Know It If You Don't Do It

Some great advice from Charlie O'Donnell:

I think marketing & PR firms, VC firms, anyone who has any kind of business interest whatsover in social media needs to mandate that the decision makers on your staff, right on up to the top, all "walk the floor".   Maybe Fridays should be "social media days" where the whole office plays in MySpace, Second Life, blogs, plays World of Warcraft, Twitters, etc...   Like Google's 20% time.  Take some Flickr photos, poke some people in Facebook...   

I'm not sure an entire day every week is required -- I think that depends on precisely how social media fits into your company and job.  But I do believe it needs to be a significant investment by everyone involved.  More important, it shouldn't be mandatory.  If employees aren't interested in social media and inclined to use it of their own volition, they may not be the best fit for a social media-focused company or job position.

This is the same reason why most managers and coaches are ex-baseball players.  It's hard to coach a team if you haven't been there yourself.

(via Brian Oberkirch)

Technorati tags: socia media, employees, employee training, Charlie O'Donnell, Brian Oberkirch

Twitter's Reverse Adoption Problem

I had promised I would not write about Twitter since it is clearly overexposed right now.  But I haven't seen this particular angle discussed elsewhere so I thought there was some value in contributing it to the dialogue.

For most online services with a social networking component, they need to attract more users to reach critical mass to be truly useful to its user base.  Think of a genealogical service, for instance, like Geni.  The more people who use it, the more value you extract from it.  Same goes for something like Wikipedia.  As more users contribute content, the service becomes more robust.  Or with LinkedIn, the more people who join, the broader you can use your network.

But Twitter actually suffers from the opposite problem. The more people who use it, the less value you can extract from it.  Obviously, there is a need for a certain number of people to be involved to provide any value, but once you hit that sweet spot, the value of the service continues to diminish.

In reading and listening to user experiences with Twitter over the past few weeks, it struck me that as more people became engaged with the service, the more I heard from people about being overwhelmed by the volume of information flowing in.

Most folks seem to have turned off the SMS messaging because it got too annoying (and expensive).  Neville Hobson mentioned on this week's FIR that he has trouble even keeping up with the RSS feed of his network's messages because they are so abundant.  And I have read of numerous people who can't use the IM because it disrupts them too much, if it is even functioning at the time (which I can tell you for me it rarely does).  

It will be interesting to see if the Twitter Phenomenon navigates these waters effectively by changing etiquette/behavior or if it simply collapses under its own weight. 

Technorati tags: Twitter, Geni, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Nevill Hobson, For Immediate Release, social networking

Microsoft vs. Google: Round 4,719; This Time Over Copyright Law

Last night I saw an article in the Financial Times that said that Microsoft was preparing to attack Google over copyright issues regarding its book indexing project.  Unfortunately, I was tied up completing the first episode of my Disruptive Dialogue podcast, so I didn't have the time to blog about it then.  Regardless, it hasn't seen much discussion yet in the blogosphere, so I'm going to address it this morning.

The article states:

Tom Rubin, associate general counsel for Microsoft, will say in a speech in New York that while authors and publishers find it hard to cover costs, “companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the back of other people’s content, are raking in billions through advertising and initial public offerings”.

Setting aside the merits of the copyright argument, doesn't that sentence sound just a bit whiny on the part of Microsoft?  To me, it smacks more of jealousy than of a substantive business disagreement. 

Personally, I have mixed feelings about Google's book indexing project.  I think it is a tremendous service and offers benefits to the public and publishers alike.  At the same time, I understand publishers are concerned and should have a right to control their own property.

What we really need is reform of the copyright laws in the United States to more clearly define what constitutes fair use. Those who know me understand that I hate to have the government settle business disputes.  But in this instance it is the ambiguous laws already on the books that cause the confusion. 

Ultimately, copyright law ought to enable fair use -- such use to be defined as less than X number of words or Y percentage of a work.  Existing tests simply leave too much gray area. 

Like it or not, the search industry is here to stay and antiquated laws and stubborn publishers can't turn back the tide of innovation.  That genie simply isn't going back in the bottle.  But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be protections for people's words.  As someone who writes prolifically, I understand and appreciate that desire.  But we must find a balance.

Technorati tags: Google, Microsoft, book indexing, copyright, fair use, Tom Rubin, book publishers, publishers, content

What is Disruptive Innovation?

The name of this blog -- "Pardon the Disruption" -- derives from the notion of disruptive technology or disruptive innovations generally.  But what exactly is that?  Or, more precisely, what does it mean to me?

Wikipedia says:

A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is a technological innovation, product, or service that eventually overturns the existing dominant technology or product in the market.

Not bad.  But here's how I'd put it: Disruptive innovations change the rules of the game.

To truly cause disruption, an idea or invention must radically alter its environment.  Mere improvements, enhancements, additions, or modifications don't count.  We're talking the Next Big Thing here -- or at least something approaching that level.

Let's look at some good examples:

• Downloadable Music/MP3/iPod.  Like the CD before it, downloadable music changed the dynamic in listening to music.  The rules were altered.  No longer do consumers need to go to a music store or order a physical CD online.  And who needs boxes of jewel cases?  Music stores are being shuttered, consumers are no longer tethered to bulky portable devices, and the music industry is stuck in a quandary over DRM.  That's disruptive.
• Digital Photography.  Forget about the 24 hour photo store and carrying rolls of film on vacation.  Digital picture-taking makes photography simpler.  And consumers can now take far more pictures than before, increasing the odds of capturing the perfect shot.  That's disruptive.
• Email.  When was the last time you wrote a letter to a friend and put it in a stamped envelope?  That's disruptive.
• eBay/Online Auctions.  Flea markets, yard sales, classified ads, and even some offline auctions have been radically altered by the new marketplace that has sprung up at eBay and, to a lesser extent, other online auction sites.  That's disruptive.
• Automobiles.  If you thought disruptive innovation was a new phenomenon, you'd be wrong. Ridden in a horse-drawn carriage recently?  Not likely, unless you were taking a nostalgic ride through Central Park in New York.  That's disruptive.

In a separate post, I'll touch on what this means for the PR and marketing industry.

Technorati tags: disruptive technology, disruptive innovation, mp3, ipod, digital photography, downloadable music, email, ebay, online auctions, automobiles

Web 2.0 Description, YouTube Style

This is a great introduction to Web 2.0 for normal people.  It has an obligatory Flickr reference, of course, and is posted on YouTube.  Watch it below. Thanks to Alice Marshall for pointing this out -- I agree with her sentiment that videos like these could replace many PowerPoints.  It obviously takes a bit more skill to craft video, but the impact is much more dramatic than simple slides. 

The video itself was created by Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University.  Nice work.

 UPDATE: John Battelle has a great interview with Wesch.

Technorati tags: Web 2.0, YouTube, Flickr, Alice Marshall, Michael Wesch, PowerPoint, presentation

Yahoo Trying to Make Entrepreneurial Magic From Within

Yahoo has a new plan to compete with Google.  No, it isn't the much-hyped Panama.  It's a move to combat the perceived success at innovation at its Valley rival.  Yahoo execs decided that they didn't want to keep acquiring small startups as a way to get new ideas, but would rather incubate startups inside of the company.

To that end, they have created something called The Brickhouse located in downtown San Francisco rather than at Yahoo headquarters in Silicon Valley.  The effort is headed by Caterina Fake of Flickr fame and will reward employees who come up with successful ideas with some sort of financial bonus.  The terms are not disclosed in the Business Week account of the plan, but it suggests that while potentially significant it won't be on the same level as what an entrepreneur might receive in an acquisition.  Then again, the risk is lower for the employee since the have access to Yahoo resources, audience, and of course their regular salary while they're working on the new projects.

This week saw the launch of its first major project, Pipes.  Pipes appears to be a largely inside baseball play within the tech community with more of an infrastructure feel that a consumer appeal. 

The question is will Brickhouse work?  The article notes that similar concepts have failed in the past.  I've looked into the idea of creating a similar effort and decided it wouldn't work, though I don't have the resources of Yahoo at my disposal.

So will Brickhouse work for Yahoo?  Obviously only time will tell.  But it has some inherent problems:

• will entrepreneurial sorts within Yahoo with really great ideas find the benefits of Yahoo resources outweigh the potentially greater upside of going it alone?
• can an entrepreneurial effort really achieve its full potential when the pressure of survival -- and the strategic decision-making it forces -- is taken away?
• will Yahoo execs actually be able to create an environment that fosters the entrepreneurial spirit rather than smothering it?
• will Brickhouse projects be able to create the aura of magic around Yahoo that Google currently enjoys (fairly or not)?
• will the effort help retain bright employees?

This will be interesting to watch. 

For more reading on this check out: PaidContent.

Technorati tags: Google, Yahoo, BusinessWeek, Business Week, Caterina Fake, Flickr, Brickhouse, Pipes

Interconnectedness in the Era of Electronic Communication

I used to spend much of my day with a phone glued to my ear.  Now it is my laptop and Treo that keep my fingers and yes, rather than my mouth and ears, busy.  In this, I am not alone.  There are countless others out there just like me.  We're mostly white collar professionals of a certain age and in a select set of industries.

How does this dynamic change the interconnectedness among individuals?  Does it build stronger or weaker relationships or is it largely irrelevant? 

My sense is that these technological developments that I have adopted enable me to build a broader, but more shallow, network.  I communicate on a daily basis with far more people than I used to, but rarely have the depth of conversation, engagement, or information exchange as I recall doing when it was a smaller circle. 

I honestly don't know whether that is good or bad.  And perhaps that's not the right metric anyway.  Maybe it is just different.  I do now have a wider range of viewpoints to consider and information to process, but there is less of the casual back-and-forth conversation that could occasionally lead to greater insight on important questions or ideas.

Electronic communications certainly have a different dynamic than voice calls.  Though email is informal, and instant messaging even more so, one still has the time to more carefully parse language if one chooses.  Spoken conversations tend to be much more fluid and unpredictable, with a clear ability to convey through tone greater meaning.  In many respects, it is this latter characteristic that can often make electronic communications tricky.  What a writer intends to be humorous may instead be perceived as sarcastic; what is said tongue-in-cheek could be taken seriously. 

Much as I argued in my "Inside the Bubble Thinking" post last summer, technology can be a great enabler, but we must not permit it to overcome our better judgment.  We must seek to go beyond our own comfort zone to find information and opinions that challenge our world views, whether those be in business, politics, or life.  In this, electronic communications can help expose us to that sort of thinking.  It doesn't mean we have to change our views, just be open to listening.

Ultimately, the broader interconnectedness permitted by electronic communication certainly benefits us, but we must be cognizant of what it takes away.  We should strive to strike a balance between electronic and voice interaction, rather than eschewing the latter entirely.

 

Technorati tags: interconnectedness, email, IM

Painkillers vs. Vitamins

Brad Feld points to an entrepreneur's story about folding an online publication that rated winery web sites.  As Brad says, "The lesson here – well articulated by the author – is that he failed to address a point of pain."

A colleague of mine, smart in the art of marketing, frequently reminds me that people are much more likely to buy painkillers than vitamins.  So you better be sure that you can effectively relieve pain with your product -- and communicate that to your target audience.  It's not to say that you can't sell vitamins, but it's a much more up hill battle, as The Winery Web Site Report discovered.

Put another way, consumers and businesses will open their wallets much more easily for needs, not wants.

Best of Demo 07

Below are my picks for Best of Demo 07, for what it is worth.  These are my own personal judgments based on what I liked, what I thought had good business potential, or what just struck me as cool.  It will be interesting to see how much -- if any -- overlap there is with the official DemoGod Awards (past experience suggests it will be very different).

Best Peer to Peer Service: eJamming.com

Best Product Competing With the Big Boys: Digger.com

Best Information Intelligence Product: ZoomInfo PowerSearch

Best Video Product: Magnify.net

Best Security Product:  Alcatel-Lucent Mobile Endpoint Management System

Product I'm Most Likely to Use: Iwerx Sentinel

Product Most Likely to Change the Lives of Average Consumers: ZINK Digital Imaging

Coolest Demo: Total Immersion D'Fusion

Technorati tags: Demo07, Demo2007, Demo 2007, Demo 07

UPDATES:

Shel Israel, a veteran of Demo and similar conferences, offered up his list of DemoGods on his blog.

Official DemoGod awards went to Dart Devices, Boston Power, Total Immersion, Inelex, Pair Up, Blinkx, Panjea, eJamming, Qtech, and the Kauffman Foundation iBridge

Loose Ends from Demo 07

Several companies have provided me with additional information to clarify my confusion about their offerings, and I am including revised information below.  In addition, one company did their demo after a speaker on the afternoon of Day 1, but I didn't realize they were coming so they didn't make my wrap-up of that session.

eJamming.com

These folks were impressive in their day-end demo on Wednesday.  Allows bands to play together online so they don't have to be physically in the same place. Audio quality was excellent. Apparently they have some technology to sync everything despite the streaming. The demo we saw included one guy playing a guitar here and another guy singing and using a synthesizer in another city. Sounded like they were both right in front of me.

My Take: I'm not a musician but these guys look like winners.  A contender for my Best of Demo list.

Wyse N10

I was a bit befuddled by this one during the demo on stage, but Matt Alfano reached out after he read my original blog post and asked me to stop by their booth for more information.  Basically they are offering the technology for what I would call a "dumb terminal" but which today is more commonly called a "thin client" -- sounds better, I agree.  It certainly isn't dumb and it offers considerable advances over what's currently in the marketplace.  Using standard protocols -- the same ones in Windows Remote Desktop app -- it lets users take advantage of a virtual machine on a centralized server.  From the user's viewpoint, they have their own computer right on their screen as they always have, but from an IT standpoint, it is just a little tiny device that connects the monitor to a networked server.  This way, both parties are happy.  IT can manage a secure central environment without having to deal with hundreds or thousands of desktops.  And users get all the functionality they are used to. 

The Wyse N10 offers a real breakthrough in that it allows multimedia -- including streaming video and VoIP -- to function smoothly, without the reduced quality and interruptions typical of normal remote desktop software.

My Revised Take: An impressive product that could well find a home in enterprise environments.  It's really a philosophical question for companies: to deploy powerful thin clients with centralized computing power or continue to give individuals their own desktop computers.  It's sort of a "back to the future" question but with many more possibilities than we saw 20 years ago in dumb terminals of that era.

ThePort Blerts

My review of this company was hampered by the fact that in their 6 minute demo they didn't have enough time to tell the full story.  I viewed the product they released yesterday, Blerts, as little more than a feature.  It turns out I was mostly right.  The company actually offers a full suite of social networking and web portal services to organizations.  Clients include sports fan sites and major daily newspapers.  They provide a hosted solution to give these web sites the social networking functions they are seeking.  Blerts will be part of that offering, although it is also available for download separately.  ThePort is positioning the software as a way to bring RSS to the masses.  Thanks to Jacqui Chew of the company for reaching out to me and giving me more information.

My Revised Take: As part of a broader offering and released to affinity groups with default feeds, Blerts could find some success.  I'm skeptical of it as a standalone offering, but I agree with the company reps I spoke with that it makes sense to make it available that way and see what the market says.  After all, the cost of putting it out there is pretty low, especially when there is already a revenue stream in mind for it from existing customers.

Serendipity Technologies WorkLight

Server based solution to enable employees to access data outside of their native applications.  Widget to display RSS feeds securely.  Also allows secure tagging through existing apps like Delicious.  Supports RSS, XML, SAP, SQL, and other apps.  Designed to help younger employees use the apps they have become comfortable with.  Can integrate the data into Google, NetVibes, Yahoo, etc. 

My Revised Take: As I have noted in other reviews, I am not an expert on very large enterprise solutions, so I don't have a lot of experience on which to base my judgment here.  I do think making data more accessible to employees is a good thing, as for the specific mechanics of this solution it is hard for me to say. 

Technorati tags: Demo07, Demo2007, Demo 2007, Demo 07

Demo 07 Day 2 Afternoon Session

This is it, folks.  The homestretch.  It becomes increasingly difficult for demonstrators as the afternoon goes on.  Attendees tend to start disappearing for their flights home.  And by the time you hit company 65 or 66, if you're still in your seat, you are likely feeling a bit numb.  But the companies are ready, I'm ready, so let's go!

Boorah

Launching initially doing local restaurant search in 3 markets.  Uses semantic analysis and natural language processing to develop star ratings from user reviews on blogs and other sites.  Slick AJAX interface. 

My Take: Has potential.  Obviously a lot of it comes down to how accurate the analysis is and how comprehensive the spidering may be.

PairUp

Aimed at helping business travelers set up serendipitous meetings.  It claims to securely compare travel itineraries to alert you when people you know will be in the same place at the same time.  Outlook contact data is uploaded to the web site.  It appears that it requires manual entry of trips, however.

My Take: This would have greater potential if calendar data could somehow sync up more cleanly.  Unfortunately, Outlook doesn't track location data uniformly, so this would be difficult.  Adoption is likely to be very slow if each itinerary must be entered manually.

Zoho Notebook

Free online collaboration tool.  Chris Shipley described it in her intro as a "next generation wiki."  In watching the demo, I think that's the best way to describe it, too.  It offers greater customization and more visual effects than the wiki solutions I have seen.  Enables integration of a wide array of content types, including spreadsheets, charts, graphics, drawings, diagrams, etc.  It also permits aggregation of feeds and collaborative editing.

My Take: Feels like a natural evolution in the wiki game.  The fact that they use terminology familiar to most people (notebook-centric) rather than scary terms like wiki and RSS shows that they get it and are interested in moving beyond the geek crowd.  This could make my Best of Demo list as one of the best and most practical offerings I have seen here this week.

Me.dium

Attempts to create connections among users based on what they are viewing online. Software is a browser sidebar.  Facilitates chatting between readers.  Suggests interesting content.

My Take: I see this as something that might appeal to the techie and blogger crowd, but I have a hard time seeing it gain mass appeal.

CircleUp

Another group communication solution, this one focused more on text communication.  Will tally results and allow members of a group to see each other's answers (if so permitted by the organizer).  Communication can be conducted by email or IM.

My Take: A bunch of companies seem interested in improving group communication.  Someone will need to gain traction in this space and become the leader of the pack.

Nexo

One of the more entertaining demos of the conference.  The theme was "Lindsay Lohan's Rehab Support Group."  In any event, this could be best described as the next generation of Yaho! Groups -- or put another way, what Yahoo! Groups ought to be.  Very simple and fairly flexible group site creation tool that enables group discussion and information sharing.  Polls, email contact, etc.

My Take: A winner and a candidate for my Best of Demo list.

Attendio

An "event-discovery service." Recommends events based on your profile and friends.  Can also take recommendations from "trusted" celebrity recommenders.  Integrates with existing calendar programs including Outlook and Google Calendar.  Microsoft featuring it as a option for the Windows Vista calendar.  Can get recommendations via SMS.

My Take: There are a number of startups in this space.  It's going to be a traction game to see who survives.  The Microsoft deal should help.

MyDesignIn

Collaborative space planning and design application.  Pulls data from manufacturers sites to help in the design effort.  Creates designs that look like typical blueprints on screen.  Can share the design with designer, contractor, etc.

My Take: Seemed like a pretty slick application and I can see where it would have real-world value. 

My-Currency.com

Reputation system that will focus first on the real estate market and then expand from there.  Purports to use "wisdom of the crowds" and "prediction markets" to assess real estate prices.  People predict home sales prices and their accuracy is tracked over time.  Aggregated data then seeks to advise home buyers and sellers on pricing.

My Take: The trick will be getting enough people to make predictions to make this valuable.

Nextumi Share2Me

Seeks to make content sharing easier.  Creates a browser button to enable sharing without having to detour to an email application.  Integrates with existing contact lists in email and IM.  Can send to people on multiple platforms simultaneously.  Supports text messaging as well.  Example showed sharing a photo with a group of people via all the different methods.

My Take: Looks pretty easy to use.  People who share a lot of content would likely benefit from this.

Aggregate Knowledge

Performs behavioral analysis in order to help retail and content sites suggest related products and content.  Examples shown are Overstock.com's "People who bought this also bought that" window and the Washington Post's related articles window that drives users to content not related by terms, but by behavior.

My Take: Automated behavioral analysis for content recommendation is a key component, in my mind, of the future of the Internet.  Based solely on their demo, these guys seem to get it and appear to be offering a useful product.

ZoomInfo

A semantic search engine that automatically creates company and individual profiles from web crawling.  Pulls a lot of data together in one place based on search alone.  Powerful tool for anyone seeking business intelligence for sales, marketing, bizdev, or related tasks.

My Take: Accuracy will be key here, but the examples shown were impressive.  Since I'm an information junky and this has always been an area of interest to me, these guys have an edge for a Best of Demo award when I compile that list after the show.

Trailfire

Using a browser plugin, users can annotate pages with "marks" and "trails" that others can follow.  Basically it seems to be the ability to annotate pages and mark contextual bookmarks.  Users rate existing trails to help the most useful ones bubble to the top.

My Take: Too geeky to achieve significant penetration.

Reveal

A "lightweight peer to peer app" that allows document sharing inside and outside of a company.  Allows searching and shared access for email, documents, and other data. Caches documents so files can be accessed even when the host computer is offline.  Tagging is supported.  Can specify who can access which documents. 

My Take: This will make management and IT skittish in many companies, I would think. Even with the ability to tailor who has access to which documents, decentralizing this would seem to open major security concerns, especially for public companies. 

Helium

Provides a competitive writing environment where individuals come to offer articles on various subjects.  Readers rate the content so that the best writers end up being rewarded financially.  Content can be straight up information or debates.  Pro/con arguments can take place to encourage high-level debate.  Aims to get rid of ad hominem and rhetoric-laden commentary -- or worse, juvenile putdowns -- that tend to permeate other debate oriented sites.  Claims their rating system is democratic and ungameable. 

My Take: It will be a challenge, but if it works it would be revolutionary.  It opens up the possibility of creating higher-quality content than what one can find on wikipedia for any controversial subject.

Digger.com

Attempts to discern context for search words to deliver more relevant results.  For instance, tries to understand when you type "Ford" whether you are seeking information on the car, the former President, or something else.  Claims to learn from your past behavior what you are likely to want in the future.  Example search was "hotel with a view of the Golden Gate bridge."  Processes related words, synonyms, and other data to improve results.

My Take: There is still a long way to go in improving search and these guys seem to be on to something.  It will be interesting to see how the results hold up on other searches. 

Iwerx Sentinel

Attempts to fight sploggers and others who would plagiarize web content.  A product aimed at bloggers.  You register your blog and it monitors for sites that seem to be stealing the content.  Tries to pierce sites that use synonyms or other methods to mask plagiarize.  Enables abuse complaints to be sent.  Has an API to provide a plagiarism blacklist.  It will be interesting to see if anyone tries to abuse the blacklist structure to flag blogs that they don't like rather than ones that are truly plagiarizing. 

My Take: Seems simple enough to use and free for bloggers to track one blog, so I imagine it will get some decent adoption. Will be interesting to see where the company goes in the future, since this doesn't feel to me like a business in its own right.

blinkx

These guys got stuck with the last slot of the conference, but they worked some humor into the presentation to keep people awake.  Today's announcement was that they are now offering a widget to enable bloggers and other site owners to integrate video search on their own sites to find related video.  A "Blinkx.it" logo appears at the end of blog posts and when clicked a little AJAX gizmo pops up with related video clips being shown.

My Take: Blinkx may be a good video search engine, but this feature announcement seemed underwhelming to me.

Technorati tags: Demo07, Demo2007, Demo 2007, Demo 07

Demo 07 Day 2 Morning Session

We've passed the halfway point of Demo 07.  Below are my real-time notes and initial impressions of the products and services revealed today.  This session is heavy on mobile devices and applications.

DART

Allows diverse devices to interoperate and communicate effectively with each other.  Showed a slide show application operating a mobile device that was simultaneously controlling the same slide show on 6 different devices that had the DART software but not the slideshow app installed.  At the end of the demo, they made pigs fly.  No, really, they did!

My Take: Looks pretty powerful, but this is outside my area of expertise. 

Devicescape

Simplifies connections to WiFi networks.  Tiny application (50k) that installs on many devices.  Register devices with their web site.  Tell it the right username and password for any hotspot accounts you may have.  Especially useful for WiFi phones, it seems.

My Take: This seems to me to be a bet on whether WiFi Hotspots are the wave of a future or merely a stop on the way to other wireless broadband solutions.

Whisher

Claims to aggregate all WiFi networks into one "free global wireless community."  Can use your wireless connection to allow nearby users to access selected files and engage in various social network activities.

My Take: Is it a localized social network tool or is it a WiFi access utility?  Seems like it is really more of the former, despite the way they initially frame themselves.  If you're interested in hyperlocal social networking, this could be worth another look.

Nuvoiz

Softphone application.  They touted the quality, but it seemed like there were some hiccups and echos.  I'm not sure if this had to do with the a/v dynamics in the room or the software itself, though it seemed like the software.  Connects to SIP phones.  They call it Skype for the enterprise.

My Take: They extend the capability of SIP phones, though I know in the case of my own provider for our office, we already have many of those through them.  Not sure I fully understand the value prop here.

Alcatel-Lucent Mobile Endpoint Management System

Project Evros is what they call it.  An enterprise solution that empowers IT departments to control their fleet of laptops everywhere.  Hardware solution that includes GPS, linux, battery, and more.  It is literally the key to the laptop (without it installed, the laptop won't run).  Designed to provide better security for laptops and to enable IT folks to take remote control of any laptop.  Works even if the laptop is off. Data on laptop is encrypted and encryption key is on the card.

My Take: This is an area that I have spent some time looking at and was once even in discussions about a startup in this arena (it never got off the ground).  This product is very impressive and given the concerns of many companies about their laptop fleets, I expect this has real potential.  Price point is the major question, but I suspect many companies would pay a good price for this.

Boston-Power SONATA

They sell it as a better battery.  Fast charge of 80% in 30 minutes.  Claims the battery lasts longer and doesn't experience fade as quickly as most batteries, which they say start to fade within 4-6 months (I agree with that based on my own anecdotal experience).  They say their battery will not fade during the 3 year lifespan of the typical laptop.

My Take: They are batteries so it is hard to judge without real world experience.  If their claims are accurate it could be useful. 

GETaBUZ.com

Allows voice mails to be sent to mobile phones.  The messages can be mixed with music.  Can do the same with your voice mail answering message.  Done on the web site and can record messages using a phone or microphone on the computer. 

My Take: Maybe I'm just not hip enough to get it, but seems to me music mixed with voice messages isn't that exciting.  It's a lot of work.  Why not just leave a message the normal way?  Heck, you can play music in the background if you want and get a similar effect.  I guess there's a little more value in creating an interesting answering message, but does that really make a business?

Seagate DAVE

DAVE = Digital Audio Video Experience.  A wireless mobile storage solution.  Can be accessed by a mobile phone or other devices.  Available this summer.  The demo had technical difficulties so they had to describe what it could do, but couldn't show it.  They handled the flop as w