Posts tagged Hold
SOPA, PIPA On Hold, But a New Threat on Horizon
Jan 23rd
SOPA and PIPA protests appear to have caused enough backlash to make Congress and Senate think twice about passing controversial legislation… at least during an election year. So why is a data retention bill on the calendar again?
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Google Motorola Deal Put on Hold by European Commission
Dec 13th
The European Commission has put Google’s proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility on hold pending further investigation.
The EC issued a filing last month asking Google to provide additional details on how the acquisition will be …
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Nerf Guns Hold the Line Between Startups and Corporatocracy
Dec 9th
Growing up on the coast Maine we would do all sorts of things to pass the time. In back of our house was a small stream with steep banks surrounded by a forest that ran from the tidal sections of the Royal River to the Cousins River. We called it The Creak. By the time we were about 10 years old or so, The Creak had become an epic battle ground for the neighborhood kids, would-be commandos yielding sophisticated weapons chasing each other through the mud and sticks. It would be my introduction to the Great Nerf Wars.
I had mostly forgotten about the simple joys of Nerf guns. That was until I started covering technology and spending time at the offices of local startups. There is a theme that permeates the startup ecosystem from coast-to-coast – the Nerf gun is king. We decided to take a deep look into this phenomenon to answer the basic question: Why are startups obsessed with Nerf? So, we went to go pick a fight.
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The destination: TechStars Boston and DogPatch Labs at One Cambridge Center in the heart of MIT. The incubator, I had heard, boasted a healthy artillery of Nerf weapons. It is also the best place in Boston to find a bunch of stressed out startups in one place looking to blow off some steam.
Note the Advil.
There were a variety of answers to the question of why startups like Nerf.
“So we get to take up all of our pent up aggression on each other without killing each other,” said one of the co-founders of Kinvey, a mobile cloud “backend-as-a-service” startup that just partnered with Urban Airship.
“We were a bunch of geeks growing up and because our mother’s wouldn’t let us play with them when we were younger,” said the Ginger.io team, a startup working on behavioral health analytics through smartphone data.
“Stress release, you can hit someone and not hurt them,” said team members of PromoBoxx, a retail promotion platform startup.
“We all grew up with Mom saying no ball in the house,” added a Kinvey team member. “Now we have no Mom.”
The Angry Bird is going to get it!
Less than a mile away lay the offices of SCVNGR, where founder Seth Priebatsch describes himself as “chief ninja and Nerf artillery acquirer.” Priebatsch said he once Nerf ambushed venture capitalist Peter Bell from Highland Capital with his entire team.
That is an interesting way to go about getting funding.
“Startups like Nerf because it keeps productivity high. Not because it’s fun (though they are) but because they’re effective,” Priebatsch said. “Meeting running too long? Nerf gun to the face. Fill out expense reports? Nerf gun to the face. Build a great product? Ok… nerf guns down. A copious supply of Nerf guns are the only thing standing between startup culture and sigma-six certified corporatocracy.”
Am I stalking my prey, or trying to get out of the camera frame? (OK, I was trying to get out of the camera frame.)
Back at TechStars, the weapons were assembled. TechStars and DogPatch do not have a variety of artillery. Rather, they lots of the same gun (pictured above) and they can be found in every nook and cranny on the sixth floor of One Cambridge Center.
Word was spread that a Nerf battle was to take place. It did not take long for the forces to assemble. They came willingly and quickly. It was a surprise how easy it was to pull more than a dozen people away from their desks for a Nerf fight at a moments notice.
Carnage ensued.
At the end, when the stricken went back to their desks and the victors picked up the mass of little foam darts, a valuable lesson was clear. Startups are often made up of young, brilliant geeks that face enormous pressure to create companies out of nothing. They have clients, venture capitalists and the media to answer to on a daily basis. Idiosyncrasies evolve. Having Nerf guns around is a quirk that helps relieve the tension, causes a chuckle and ultimately does not damage. It is the same reason you see Ping Pong tables or dart boards.
Nerf may predominate, but there are a ton of other ways that startups blow of steam. How does your team do it? Let us know in the comments.
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What Goodies Does Google+ Hold for International Search Marketers?
Jul 20th
If you’ve been active on social media in the past few weeks – or have been reading Search Engine Watch and other geek and tech media – then it’s been just about impossible to notice the arrival of Google’s third attempt to …
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Google: Hold Off On Creating Business Profiles On Google+, “Non-User Profiles” Will Be Shut Down
Jul 6th
Tonight Christian Oestlien, The Ads Leads on the Google+ Project, posted a message along with a brief YouTube video about future Google+ plans on his Google+ account. The video is just over a minute, but Christian covers a variety of topics. The most importan of which is that users should refrain…
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MURRIETA: High schools hold commencement ceremonies – North County Times
Jun 9th
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MURRIETA: High schools hold commencement ceremonies
North County Times They will be joined at the Westwood campus by Meagan Hennessy, AJ Smith and Dong Ah (Anna) Seo, the top three graduates among 701 seniors at Murrieta Valley High School. The two schools held commencement ceremonies on their respective football fields … |
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Google Asks Manufacturers to Hold Off on Google TV Debut at CES
Dec 20th
It looks like there’s been an interruption in Google’s regularly scheduled programming. The company has asked three separate television makers to hold off on their Google TV debuts at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month after receiving a round of lukewarm reviews.
Already, both Sony and Logitech have released Internet-enabled TVs and Google TV devices, but Google has asked other companies to hold off until it can “refine the software”, reports The New York Times.
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According to the Times, “Google has asked the TV makers to delay their introductions, according to people familiar with the company’s plans, so that it can refine the software, which has received a lukewarm reception. The late request caught some of the manufacturers off guard.”
Google just released one such refinement last week, introducing a voice-controlled Android remote app, enhanced controls over split screen viewing and refined movie searches. The biggest feature of last week’s update, however, was a Netflix app that was actually worth using. No longer do Google TV users need to use a separate device to choose content to view on their Google TV. It’s problems like this that left many early users complaining that Google TV wasn’t ready for prime time and it seems that Google has heard that message.
An unusable Netflix app, however, is just the beginning. As Janko Roettgers points out at GigaOm, Google TV is missing several features that would make it a whole, usable product, such as apps. It also needs to differentiate itself embrace the idea that it is indeed a cord-cutting device and not just a tool for users to enhance pay TV service. (Currently, Google TV only works with Dish Network, further limiting its attractiveness to potential users.)
According to the Times, “TV makers have been asked to hold off on releasing products until Google completes the new version of its software, adding features like an application store,” which means we aren’t likely to see more Google TV devices until some time in early 2011.
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