Posts tagged Start
When Is the Super Bowl Start Time? The NFL Finally Gets It Right
Feb 5th
Super Bowl 46 kicks off on February 5, 2012 at 6:30pm EST on NBC. Amazingly enough, I found this information by searching on Google and clicking on the second result: nfl.com. Amazing because every year, football fans flock to search engines searching for the start time, and until now,…
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How to Start A New Business in Less Than 50 Hours
Jan 29th
Just about every weekend someplace on the planet a peculiar series of meetups is happening called Startup Weekend. The idea is to bring together a group of people, many of whom have never set eyes on each other before, to form new ventures, many of which are tech-related. So far the model seems to be working: each weekend on average has produced two or three companies. According to the master website, more than 5,000 startups have been created since the process began, and some 2,000 just in the last year alone. We last wrote about the process last April and here is more information about the process and the role that the Kauffman Foundation has played.
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The schedule is uniformly consistent from city to city. They start with open mic pitches on Friday evening where attendees bring their best ideas and try to inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas and building a minimal viable product. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts. Over the course of both Saturday and Sunday, volunteer mentors roam the halls and meet with the teams that want their advice. That is where I come in.
I signed up for this past weekend in St. Louis. I could have gone to Nice (France) or Minsk or Bergen (Norway), but the event in my hometown was a lot easier to get to. I met with several different teams who were struggling with their direction and implementations, and helped to refine their focus and mission, and suggest some ways that they could incorporate existing technologies into their process. By the time Sunday rolled around twelve teams were left to present what they had accomplished.
The weekends aren’t free: the cost is less than $100 but that covers all your meals and a chance to rub keyboards with other smart folks in your city who are interested in building something new and exciting. You also get a $50 credit for hosting and cloud computing services per each team, something that came in handy for those teams doing some Big Data implementations.
The groups met in the Railway Exchange building in downtown St. Louis, down the hall from the tech accelerator that Capital Innovators is running and which we wrote about here. It was a good choice, because you could see the fortunate companies that have been part of that process: several of their founders were working over the weekend, no surprise given the scrappy nature of these entrepreneurs.
Startup Weekend – Full from Eighteen Eighty on Vimeo.
What I found interesting was the mix of skills and people that came together for the weekend. I was expected a lot of multiple-pierced 20-somethings that were all sizzle and no steak; instead there were lots of minorities and women and people nearing my advanced age sitting around with the Gen Y’ers. That was amazing: everyone had something to contribute. It was a nice mix. Several of them came from other cities that don’t have their own weekend code-a-thons.
As the weekend progressed, I was drawn into other teams by just ambling around the building and stopping in to visit and watch them collaborate. Computers were everywhere, and several folks brought their own monitors to connect to their laptops. Several teams also sent around surveys to the group email list to start doing some basic market research.
The master of ceremonies for the weekend was Steve Chau, who hails from Kansas City (about four hours away by car) and who has run several weekends in other places for the past four years. He knew what he was doing, and clearly was having a lot of fun. “I am getting emails from the participants who have had ideas and gotten ignited,” he says. “Spending 54 hours with a complete stranger doesn’t happen anymore, and it is pretty cool.” Now is a full-time employee that works for the operation, but that was a relatively recent circumstance: before he was hired, he volunteered his time. There are more than 80 similar facilitators around the world. “I can’t think of any other event that has the diversity of the participants.” While there are numerous hackathons held by private software companies, the Startup Weekenders are trying to build new things that could become big successes. Zaarly.com is one of the success stories that started about a year ago, Foodspotting.com is another company that had its origins with one of the Startup Weekend.
I would tell you more specifics about the services and products of the teams that I mentored, but I can’t: not just because it wouldn’t be fair to them, but also because things are in a state of flux. Several teams even changed the name of their ventures before the weekend was over, and mission statements were flying fast and furious.
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Start Your Engines! Connected Cars at CES
Jan 12th
As each year passes, the connected car makes more of a noise at CES. This year several car manufacturers were touting new features, including Mercedes-Benz, Ford and Audi. The term “connected car” refers to the integration of smartphone apps and content into the car. Typically this is done via the car’s dashboard, enabling you to listen to online music, access Web data, stream video to the car’s passengers and more. In this post we’ll look at three such systems: Ford Sync, Mercedes-Benz mbrace2 and Audi Connect.
What all three of the above car manufacturers, and others like General Motors and Toyota, have in common is that they are leveraging the rapid evolution of smartphone technology – rather than trying to build new Internet devices into their cars.
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Mercedes-Benz
Today Mercedes-Benz announced “mbrace2,” which connects web apps and smartphones to its vehicles. It will include new apps for Facebook, Yelp and Google Local Search. There will also be iPhone and Android smartphone apps that enable users to track car usage, control door locks, see diagnostic information and more. Mbrace2 is expected to be available in 2013 editions of Mercedes-Benz cars.
Audi
This week at CES, Audi announced new features for its Connect system. Audi defines Connect as “networked mobility” for its cars. The new features include a seven-inch 3D screen, improved control wheel and integration of LTE (Long Term Evolution, designed to handle large amounts of data). The A3 will be the first car to get these upgrades, but not for another 18 months or so.
What’s more interesting is the next generation of Audi’s heads-up display (HUD), which can project information onto the windshield just below a driver’s normal field of vision. it reminded the New York Times of the film Minority Report. The system can be used by passengers as well as the driver, for example to look at travel routes.
Ford
Perhaps the car company doing the most with web and smartphone app integration is Ford. The American firm first introduced Internet technology inside its cars with Sync, launched in 2007. Sync is voice-activated technology which connects your smartphone and MP3 player to your car’s dashboard and steering wheel. There are currently 4 million Ford cars in North America that have Sync running. The latest evolution of Sync is called MyFord Touch, a “cabin tech” system which we covered at last year’s CES. Ford recently announced free upgrades for MyFord.
At CES, Ford announced a new hybrid car called the 2013 Fusion. One of the main features in this car is the integration of Sync and MyFord Touch.
According to Ryan McGee, a technical expert at Ford interviewed by Technology Review, “with Sync we empowered the driver [and] our next leap is into empowering the vehicle.” It hopes to do this using Internet technology. In other words, making cars smarter. Use cases include fuel optimization, predicting your travel route on-the-fly, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication (which could help reduce crashes, among other things).
Smartphone as Car Component
All of the systems we discussed above – mbrace2, Audi Connect and MyFord/Sync – are enablers of smartphone applications and content. In other words, the smartphone becomes a component of the car via its connection to the dashboard system.
It still feels like early days for these technologies, but Audi’s futuristic heads-up display is an indicator of where the car manufacturers will eventually take us.
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Start Up Beats Microsoft In Releasing Office iPad App
Jan 3rd
A low-profile Silicon Valley startup beat Microsoft in delivering an application that allows users to access MS Office documents on their iPads.
CloudOn launched its eponymous iPad app Tuesday. Working in conjunction with DropBox, CloudOn lets users access and create MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents on their tablets. Unlike CitirixReceiver and other desktop access apps, CloudOn is designed to work specifically and only with Office.
Microsoft originally said it would try to take on Apple’s iWork suite of productivity applications by developing an iPad app when the original device was first introduced. By the time it was launched in 2010, however, Microsoft had changed its mind. In November, citing unnamed sources, The Daily reported that Microsoft planned to launch an iPad Office app in the first half of 2012.
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We haven’t had a chance to review CloudOn’s app just yet, but screen shots on the Web site show the familiar MS Office toolbar. In its limited test of CloudOn, MacRumors said it performed “as advertised” and included “a significant number of tools and functions.”
“Given the constraints of operating on an iPad and via a cloud-based interface, however, there are some limitations such as an inability to insert outside images into a document via the interface,” MacRumors concluded.
CloudOn, formerly known as AppToU, was formed in 2009 by several former Cisco employees. The company, which has a sparse Web site, has attracted several rounds of financing.
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Yobongo Opens Global Chat & Private Rooms, “iPhone Is Just The Start”
Jan 3rd
Friday night, New-Year’s-Eve Eve, I had just stepped away from my blogging station when Yobongo CEO Caleb Elston recommended I open the app. That’s interesting, I thought to myself. I never had to download an update. I’ve been watching Yobongo since it launched. It has only been open in Austin, New York and San Francisco since its debut, but I’ve kept my version updated, anyway. When it launched in my area, I didn’t want to miss it.
So when I opened Yobongo on Friday, my first thought was, There must be a Web app in here somewhere. My second thought was, Oh, wow! Global Yobongo chat and private rooms are open to everyone! So that’s the news. You can now use Yobongo no matter where you are, although the location-specific rooms are still only in select cities. But there’s more. As Caleb told me coyly, “iPhone is just the start” for Yobongo. “We want to help people communicate more efficiently,” Elston says, and that means everybody.
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I was wrong about the Web app part. Elston explained to me that they simply put some switches to enable the new functionality later. But I was barking up the right tree. Yobongo uses links sent via email and SMS to connect users. That makes it easy for Yobongans – a word I just made up – to communicate across different device platforms. For now, it’s still iPhone only, but Elston has given me the distinct impression that this won’t be the case for long.
The Transition From Texting
I’m home in Atlanta for the holidays, and, fortunately, so are tons of my friends. Now that I finally could, I decided to beta test Yobongo with them. When Elston contacted me, I was on my way to see those friends at the time, and a great many of them have iPhones. So I created a private chat room for us, invited them all via a Web link in an SMS message, and told them what Yobongo does.
“It’s a live, persistent chat room,” I told them. “There are public rooms and private rooms.” I was improvising based on the new version. “There’s a global room now, and soon, there will be local, neighborhood-based rooms, so you can meet people around you. We can use this private room I made, and it also has direct messages.” They got the idea.
We already used Apple’s native iMessage for this, but group texting is annoying. It’s hard to tell who sent the message, some people don’t have group messaging turned on, et cetera. The new Yobongo features made the transition easy. It just used the contacts on my phone. I could send them invitations via SMS or email, and when they clicked on the link and downloaded the free app, they were in.
A Sense of Place
My friends are geeks in that they are the kind of people who have smartphones. But they aren’t geek geeks. They consider my obsession with the details and minute improvements of applications to be somewhat embarrassing. For my part, I think that makes them perfect beta testers.
I brought in a Web designer, a pro photographer, a third-year medical student, a senior congressional staffer and an Interscope-signed rock drummer. That’s a pretty good range of the geek spectrum, and only one is as OCD about apps as I am.
To my delight, the adoption was instantaneous. Everyone remarked on how the faces and simple bios, as well as the graceful, in-line photos, created a feeling of being together. When I explained that the goal Yobongo declared at launch was to bring new people together based on location, they understood. You could meet people here and then keep in touch with them, as well as bring your outside friends into the conversation.
Some Compromises
I won’t overlook the negatives. Some of the less native-feeling functionality had downsides that put a few bumps in the road. All my guinea pigs friends were frustrated by the app’s tendency to refresh when launching instead of bringing you back to your last screen. This morning, I noticed that the performance was a bit faster, and I could leave the app briefly and get right back to where I was. It doesn’t feel all the way native yet – though Elston assures me it is – but it’s getting there.
Another feature we want is access to the address book on the front screen, so we can invite our friends straight into private messages. As it is, you have to invite them through a private room first, and then you can message them. Presumably, when the beta period is over, the prominent ‘Feedback’ button can be replaced with this. In the meantime, Yobongo feels like exactly what it is: a work in progress by creative people who are open to suggestions.
Beta, But Beautiful
The global Yobongo room is clearly labeled as a beta, and the local rooms for your location are still in the menu, even if they aren’t open yet. So Yobongo currently feels like a sandbox. That is to say, it’s childlike, a little messy, playful and fun. Meet people, mess around, take pictures of your burritos, who cares? Talking to strangers in IM is good practice for real life.
I met Elston for coffee in San Francisco last October, and we discussed awkwardness. That’s the problem he was talking about solving with Yobongo. Awkwardness is in the mind, we agreed, and communication is the cure. Text messaging is awkward. It’s hard to type with thumbs, auto-correct can be hilarious and embarrassing, and, with groups, it’s hard to tell who said what. The little touches of Yobongo warm up the medium.
My friends and I planned our whole New Year’s Eve in our Yobongo room. And now that we’re starting to fly back to our respective new homes, we’re still using it, sharing little updates and hanging out live with one another for a few minutes at a time. It’s almost like we never left.
iPhone Is Just The Start
Thanks to Yobongo, Twitter, Instagram and a little bit of real life, I’ve gotten to know some of this team. The Yobongo people care about quality. They meditate in the office. They wouldn’t make compromises without a reason. So I know there’s something behind this functionality, the reconnecting on launch, the email and SMS invitations, things that the iPhone can do more natively, but Yobongo doesn’t.
“I’m just going to ask this straight up,” I said to Elston. “Is all this Web and email and SMS stuff setting the stage for a cross-platform adventure?”
“iPhone is just the start,” he replied. He followed with the Yobongo mantra, “We want to help people communicate more efficiently,” and then he changed the subject. “Standing in line for a burrito,” he said, and he sent me a picture.
If you have an iPhone, visit the App Store and try out Yobongo with your iPhone-wielding friends. See if it’s as natural for you as it was for me and mine. And non-iPhone folks should stay tuned, because that burrito pic was some serious sleight of hand.
How do you communicate with groups of friends at once?
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Facebook Games Will Start Appearing In The Mobile News Feed
Dec 23rd
Facebook has announced that it is testing game stories in the mobile news feed. Now everyone will see which games their friends are playing the most. Every week the news feed is becoming increasingly cluttered, prompting Facebook engineers to tweak the news feed algorithm. The fact that games will show up in the mobile news feed seems like great news for gamers, but what about everyone else?
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Facebook has also updated the bookmarks counter on the left rail. Once a user clicks on the notification, it will clear. Previously, these counters would only clear after the request expired or the developer deleted it.
The current iteration of the Facebook news feed gives users two options: sort by highlighted stories first or sort by recent stories first.
Among the other news feed noise, Facebook recently added sponsored stories to the news ticker.
Earlier this week, Facebook told us that come 2012, sponsored stories would start showing up in the news feed.
Gamers who care about what their friends are playing will welcome this new information in the news feed. For everyone else, it’ll just be another story to hide.
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Sponsored Stories Will Start Popping Up In Your Facebook News Feed
Dec 20th
Facebook has confirmed that in early 2012 users will start seeing sponsored stories in the news feed. A Facebook spokesperson tells us that these sponsored stories, which are essentially ads that a company or organization pays to feature, will roll out slowly. It hopes to show users no more than one clearly labeled sponsored story in the news feed per day.
Facebook recently added sponsored stories to its news ticker, the sometimes-useful though mostly annoying constant stream of news in the upper right-hand corner of the user’s homepage.
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This new type of advertising is 46% more effective than standard Facebook ads. Like most things on the social Web, the “sponsored stories” ad format takes socially focused content and transforms it into a marketing message. Sponsored stories ride the line between content and advertising, and usually do so with rich photos and engaging questions that make it feel less invasive than traditional advertising.
How do you feel about sponsored stories in the news feed?
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Did A Twitter-Fueled Latvian Bank Run Start With One Account? [UPDATED]
Dec 13th
Analysis by the social network analytics company Orgnet.com shows how rumors fueled a run on Swedish-owned banks in Latvia over the weekend.
Banking officials are calling it the world’s first ever social media-fueled run on banks, and officials say that the misinformation campaign may have been a deliberate attempt to destabilize Latvia amidst the ongoing European debt crisis.
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The doomsday messages, which were quickly re-tweeted and shared on social networks, targeted Swedish banks operating in Latvia. None of them, which ranged from closed branches to the arrest of a bank executive, were true, according to bank officials and regulators. Latvian officials said they are still trying to piece together what happened over the weekend.
Typically, news stories originate from several different information sources when they spread among social network users, but Orgnet.com’s graphic of the Swedbank run shows all the information going back to one main source. Update: Orgnet.com has identified the main source in the graphic as Swedbank and its efforts to quell rumors on Twitter.
From the graphic: “The nodes are Twitter users, mostly in Latvia. Links are drawn between two nodes who RT’ed or @ messaged each other. The time period is December 6-12, 2011.”
Twitter’s rumor mill spinning out of control isn’t a new story. But this appears to be the first time it disrupted a financial institution, which could result in serious consequences. According to a Swedebank representative quoted by Marketwatch, “authorities may bring legal charges against the persons spreading the rumors, as such activity is illegal in the country.”
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Did A Twitter-Fueled Latvian Bank Run Start With One Account? [GRAPHIC]
Dec 13th
Analysis by the social network analytics company Orgnet.com shows how rumors that fueled a run on Swedish-owned banks in Latvia over the weekend may have originated from a single source.
Banking officials are calling it the world’s first ever social media-fueled run on banks, and officials say that the misinformation campaign may have been a deliberate attempt to destabilize Latvia amidst the ongoing European debt crisis.
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The doomsday messages, which were quickly re-tweeted and shared on social networks, targeted Swedish banks operating in Latvia. None of them, which ranged from closed branches to the arrest of a bank executive, were true, according to bank officials and regulators. Latvian officials said they are still trying to piece together what happened over the weekend.
Typically, news stories originate from several different information sources when they spread among social network users, but Orgnet.com’s “>graphic of the Swedbank run shows all the information going back to one main source.
Twitter’s rumor mill spinning out of control isn’t a new story. But this appears to be the first time it disrupted a financial institution, which could result in serious consequences. According to a Swedebank representative quoted by Marketwatch, “authorities may bring legal charges against the persons spreading the rumors, as such activity is illegal in the country.”
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Should SEO’s Start Thinking About Other Search Engines – Caribbean Media Vision
Dec 2nd
 Caribbean Media Vision |
Should SEO's Start Thinking About Other Search Engines
Caribbean Media Vision For most SEO's, search engine optimization means ranking in the top three on Google, no matter what. There are many different approach this usually involves creative link building, SEO consulting, and keeping up with the latest trends to optimize sites … Google's Freshness Update: New SEO Opportunities Is Google Dated Or Are SEOs Dated Like A Patch Update, Google's Putting Its Algorithm Changes on a Monthly Schedule |
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