VentureBeat |
- TidalTV raises $30M to optimize video advertisements
- Netflix planning overseas invasion, slowly but surely
- Google demands order in Android land
- What Google needs to make mobile commerce happen
- Forget swapping headphones: MyStream lets you share music wirelessly
- 3 strategies to achieve web start-up success
- GameSlam makes watching baseball into a social game
- IBM says it sees 13 billion cybersecurity alerts every day
- Microsoft’s first antitrust target: Google
- The seven ideas everyone can learn from game designers
- HuffPo co-founder explains the secrets of viral content
- Can social media save lives?
- LinkedIn founder Hoffman: All my investments will embrace social data
- Google: +1 on search links, -1 on ad clicks
- Why Kleiner’s hiring of Meg Whitman is a very shrewd move
| TidalTV raises $30M to optimize video advertisements Posted: 31 Mar 2011 08:27 AM PDT
The company's product helps advertisers deliver ads to target demographics across online video, mobile video, and television. TidalTV offers what it calls "zero waste advertising", where it optimizes the distribution of in-stream ads so companies can reach the market they're looking for. The company says that if its platform doesn't allow your ad to reach the audience you want, you get your money back. eMarketer estimates that by 2015, 76% of internet users will be watching online video each month, and online video advertising spending will increase from $1.97 billion to $5.71 billion. The round of funding was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from existing investors Comcast Interactive Capital and Valhalla Partners. The funding will be used to accelerate growth, expand into new markets and to deploy new products. TidalTV, which is headquartered in Baltimore, has raised $61M to date. Companies: Tidaltv People: Patrick Kerins
|
| Netflix planning overseas invasion, slowly but surely Posted: 31 Mar 2011 08:23 AM PDT
Netflix has put out job listings seeking people for its Hillsboro, Oreg. customer service call center. While based domestically, the positions will support Netflix customers outside of North America, and the applicants must be fluent in a foreign language in addition to English. The languages listed are Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), and Spanish (Latin American and European). One of the jobs, the position of a Training Supervisor, also explicitly calls for help in growing globally: "We are rapidly expanding internationally and are looking for a very bright Training Supervisor to help us educate our CS reps for that growth." Netflix hasn’t publicly said which country or region outside the U.S. will be the first international market for the company. Judging by the languages listed here, most of Europe is covered as well as important markets in Asia and Latin America. Also, the reach seems to cover countries with deep penetration of laptops, computers and games console networks, which Netflix could leverage for its streaming-only service. Netflix did say back in January 2010 that as far as demand goes, Europe could be first: "The big market for Hollywood content (after the U.S.) is Europe…Third is Asia. Fourth is the rest of the world." (Canada was "international-lite", according to Chief Executive Reed Hastings.) In addition, Netflix was planning for a launch in the UK in 2004 but scrapped its plans to build its domestic business, which now boasts some 20 million subscribers in the U.S. After all this I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Netflix first going after a major European market, as it sets out for world domination. Via Engadget, photo via RyAwesome Companies: Netflix People: Reed Hastings
|
| Google demands order in Android land Posted: 31 Mar 2011 08:15 AM PDT
That seems to go against Android’s open source nature. When Google first launched the OS in 2008, it was heralded as a completely open platform that would compete against Apple’s closed iPhone OS. That meant any manufacturer could install Android in their devices and make any changes necessary to it. But Android is no longer the scrappy mobile underdog — it’s the global smartphone leader with 31 percent market share — and Google can no longer afford to be idealistic. Open source advocates will surely take issue with Android’s new direction, but anyone who has been following the platform closely will likely view the tighter controls as necessary. Users, developers and device manufacturers have been complaining for some time about Android’s fragmentation issues — which include apps and features only being available on certain phones and Android updates that take forever to reach older devices. Google’s only real solution is to take a stronger role in managing Android’s development and deployment. Google has recently been enforcing “non-fragmentation clauses” with Android licensees, which prevents them from changing Android code too much, sources tell Businessweek. The clauses themselves are nothing new, but Google is apparently being much more vigilant about enforcing them. Other recent moves by Google may face scrutiny from regulators. Sources say Google has tried to hold up the release of Android phones on Verizon that use Microsoft’s Bing search engine. (Microsoft this morning announced that it’s filing antitrust complaints against Google in Europe.) Last week, it was revealed that Google will be delaying the release of Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” to the public — something that falls in line with the news that Google wants tighter control of Android. It was inevitable that Google would eventually move away from being completely open with Android. Being completely open allowed an immature Android to gain its footing. Now that it’s a mobile titan, Google needs to ensure that Android can grow up and offer an experience as polished as Apple’s iOS. Companies: Apple, Google, Microsoft
|
| What Google needs to make mobile commerce happen Posted: 31 Mar 2011 07:00 AM PDT
If the industry clears those barriers, then mobile commerce will be able to bridge the gaps between offline commerce and online commerce, giving consumers a much more satisfying experience, said He said the web is going mobile in a big way, with mobile search queries up four-fold in the past year at Google. The web is also increasingly local, with 40 percent of searches on Google Maps now done with mobile queries. But the mobile payment system is lagging and it needs a lot of help. “We are at an inflection point,” Bedier said, noting that smartphones are outselling PCs and broadband use on phones is starting to exceed broadband use on PCs. “We know there is potential to do more. For commerce to take a big leap forward, there are challenges we need to solve.” The web is personal, since people are 20 times more likely to accept a recommendation from a friend or family compared to one that comes from out of the blue. But in many ways, e-commerce vendors are failing Bedier said that, as much as companies say they are personalizing their pitches, consumers say that 75 percent of the time they receive a pitch for something they already have. That we have a long way to go to make e-commerce better. Mobile commerce promises to bring offline and online advantages together. Offline, you get to touch and hold a product and pick it up immediately. Offline, you get the best selection and prices, but delivery is slow. Some merchants are starting to take advantage of this. Domino’s Pizza in the United Kingdom gets a third of its delivery orders online. Tesco has a heavily downloaded app that lets you scan grocery items in the store so that clerks can set aside the item for you to check out.
Inventory needs to live in the cloud, so that consumers can get their goods immediately and easily. The inventory of existing retail stores needs to be accessible and viewable online so users can go to the right place and pick it up. And identity has to be interoperable, so that you can sign up for gift cards that can be used across multiple sites without any worry about security. You should not have to sign up at every single store to get access to a gift card, discounts or credit. What does the future of commerce look like? Bedier said it is much the way it worked 50 years ago, when you went to a small store and the owner knew your name. They could tell you your favorite cheese is in stock. If they don’t have something, they can order it and deliver it to you. If you forget your wallet, they can put it on your tab. “If the experience is like that, why would I buy anywhere else?” Bedier asked. “This is the experience we used to have. By solving these challenges, technology can bring this experience back.” You can pay for the items with near-field communication (for another view on NFC, click here), or waving your phone over a reader. The sensor can detect that you’ve paid for it and it will let you walk past a doorway without signaling an alarm.
Companies: Google People: Osama Bedier
|
| Forget swapping headphones: MyStream lets you share music wirelessly Posted: 31 Mar 2011 06:50 AM PDT
MyStream allows you to see what other people in the same wireless or Bluetooth network are listening to. It lets you listen in on the songs other MyStream users are listening to, or 30 second clips from other songs on playlists they’ve created. Says Richard Zelson, founder of MyStream, "Imagine immediately being able to listen to a song stored on a friend's iPhone at the same time as them without needing to share their headphones or be tethered to them using a splitter." Richard Zelson came up with the idea when he was traveling in Europe and wanted to listen to his friends' songs on the train. After being frustrated that the only way to do this was to share headphones, he set out to find a solution. All audio is streamed via an iPhone's WiFi or Bluetooth wireless technology, so the application works whether on a bus or plane and doesn’t require a connection to the Internet. When the application is being used it is public to anyone in the wireless network, and more than one person can listen in on the music. According to Richard, when the application is running there is an additional 20% battery drain on the phone. With regards to potential copyright law violations, the company believes it has a low level of liability. The application does not enable any music sharing that is not already possible through portable speakers or an audio splitter. MyStream’s business model is based around revenue from 5% commissions it receives from songs sold through the application, advertising from the bar on the app, and in the future, potentially from money it will charge for the app. MyStream was founded in June 2010 by Richard Zelson, who is a first time entrepreneur. The company, which currently has five employees, has raised $800,000 in funding, $300,000 of which came from friends and family and $500,000 of which came from the founder of Blue Water Capital. Companies: MyStream People: Richard Zelson
|
| 3 strategies to achieve web start-up success Posted: 31 Mar 2011 06:00 AM PDT (Editor’s note: Clate Mask is co-author of the New York Times bestseller Conquer the Chaos and CEO of Infusionsoft. He submitted this column to VentureBeat.) It used to be that software companies could become very large – and very successful – by putting a bunch of "shelf ware" into the market. In other words, it didn't matter whether the customer used the software. As long as the customer paid that fat licensing fee, the vendor was happy. In the old enterprise software world, many large companies were built on this model. Web-based software (hosted, SaaS, on-demand, in the cloud, etc.) is different. If the customer doesn't use the software, the vendor is unlikely to achieve success since the customer pays on an ongoing basis instead of paying a large licensing fee. If the customer doesn't get value, the customer stops paying. Simple as that. This model is great for aligning the interests of the customer and the vendor, which is why it has become the norm over the past 10 years. So, for the vendor, the game is all about usage of the software. To break this down a little further, I like to think of this in terms of three foundational strategies that accelerate usage (thereby leading to success for Web-based software start-ups). Obviously, the vendor must have a great product that meets the needs of a specific target market. Beyond that, there are three strategies can make or break the success of the company.
When these strategies are pursued, alignment with the vendor and customer naturally falls into place. Glowing customer remarks start pouring into the company. Employee morale skyrockets. Momentum builds. And the market takes note of the solution's effectiveness. Of course, all of this depends on the basic premise of a good product that is tailored to a clear target market. As long as that premise is true, these three foundational strategies will accelerate usage of the product and lead to great success for the web-based software start-up.
|
| GameSlam makes watching baseball into a social game Posted: 31 Mar 2011 05:00 AM PDT
So a startup has created a social online game GameSlam where you can bet what will happen next in the real baseball game. If it works, Game Time Live Sports Services could unlock a lucrative audience for interactive television. The Highland Park, Ill.-based company is announcing GameSlam today in public beta form for fans who want to bet against their friends (with virtual currency, not real money) and predict what’s going to happen next in the play-by-play. “It lets you do something during the game so it’s no longer a passive experience,” said Kenny Mazursky (pictured below, left), chief marketing officer of the company, in an interview.
You can play the free-to-play game on an iPhone in a sports bar or on a laptop in your living room accessing Facebook or a web site. The game works on Apple’s iOS devices, Android, Macs, PCs web sites, and Facebook. For no charge, you can play with 100 random people or invite a group of friends into a big room. If you want to have a private experience with only your friends, you have to pay extra. The company says there are more than 80 million baseball fans watching games on TV. But only about 30 million are serious enough to join fantasy baseball leagues, where they painstakingly keep track of players and scores. With GameSlam, getting into a game is easy. And since you don’t have to bet on every single pitch, it’s not as stressful as real-time fantasy sports games. As fans watch TV, they check stats online, play an app, or update their status on TV. But they’re not doing something that is completely tied into the action on the screen. GameSlam basically channels your otherwise distracted attention right back into the game, said David Domm (pictured right), co-founder and chief operating officer/chief financial officer, in an interview. GameSlam immediately updates the score of the game and the outcome of your bets. It also shows a 3D animation of what happened with the play in real time. That animation isn’t extremely realistic; it doesn’t for instance, have the likenesses of the players. But it will show you what happened and where a ball was hit. Over time, GameSlam will start tournaments and give players rewards for winning the most points, said Kenny Mazursky, who co-founded the company with his father Rick Mazursky (chief executive) last year. The Mazurskys came up with the idea as they were discussing the popularity of fantasy sports and how that didn’t jibe with the fact that sports fans can’t interact during game time, which is the most exciting time to play. The game has chat functions, league creation, check-in, head-to-head challenges and other features. The 3D animation uses the Unity 3D engine so that the company can create versions of the game that run on multiple platforms. The real-time game stats come from Stats LLC, which delivers the stats instantaneously, roughly in time with the slightly delayed cable broadcasts that last for about seven seconds or so. The goal is to offer fans a console-like game experience. Game Time Live Sports Services has 20 employees and it has raised $5 million. Rivals include Thump and Pre Play Sports. Kenny Mazursky said the company is talking to a number of large broadcast networks and leagues about possible partnerships. Rick Mazursky is a seasoned entrepreneur with leadership positions at companies such as Vtech, Digital Innovations, G.P. Toys, and PDQ Mazoo and a board position with Leap Frog Enterprises. Kenny Mazursky is a 13-year veteran of internet marketing companies such as Rollingstone.com, Ignite Sports Media, and Down to Earth Marketing. Companies: Game Time Live Sports Services, GameSlam People: David Domm, Kenny Mazursky, Rick Mazursky
|
| IBM says it sees 13 billion cybersecurity alerts every day Posted: 31 Mar 2011 01:42 AM PDT
Those events are part of a growing problem. IBM says that cyber crime and malware saw a big increase in 2010, according to a new company report. The year marked the rise of increasingly sophisticated and targeted security threats against both governments and companies. The report means that IBM, one of the world’s biggest tech giants and security vendors, is counting itself among the companies that are increasingly worried about the state of cybersecurity and the growing threats from a variety of fronts. In the 2010 Trend and Risk Report, IBM’s X-Force security division said that phishing attacks (where cyber criminals try to trick users out of passwords and other information) declined to a quarter of previous numbers. But targeted attacks, or “spear phishing,” was on the rise. That suggests a focus on quality of attacks, rather than quantity of attacks. IBM found that there were 8,000 new web vulnerabilities discovered during 2010, up 27 percent from 2009. The adoption of smartphones within the enterprise posed added risks, raising the need for tighter security on password management and data encryption. Attacks against mobile phones are on the rise. IBM also said that the shift to cloud computing (web-connected data centers) carries risks as well and companies have to improve security so they can assure users that none of their data stored in the cloud.
"The numerous, high-profile targeted attacks in 2010 shed light on a crop of highly sophisticated cyber criminals who may be well-funded and operating with knowledge of security vulnerabilities that no one else has,” said Tom Cross, threat intelligence manager at IBM X-Force. “Staying ahead of these growing threats and designing software and services that are secure from the start has never been more critical.” Companies: IBM People: Tom Cross
|
| Microsoft’s first antitrust target: Google Posted: 30 Mar 2011 11:04 PM PDT
The move will be Microsoft’s first antitrust complaint against another company, which makes it more significant than a typical antitrust cry. Simply put, it’s a sign of desperation. The antitrust complaint tells us that Microsoft can no longer compete with Google directly, especially when it comes to Google’s key search technology, and that it has no recourse but to try and slow down Google’s progress through other means. Why Europe? According to the NYT, Microsoft is hoping that European officials, who have already received complaints against Google from smaller companies, will impose limits on Google. And of course, Microsoft is also hoping that US officials take the hint. Microsoft and other companies claim that Google has undermined its competition when it comes to search, its Android mobile software, and online advertising. In particular, Microsoft says that Google prevents other search engines from fully indexing information from its services like YouTube. Microsoft’s Bing search engine, which has slowly eked out a small amount of search market share, is Google’s only big search competitor at the moment (Yahoo is now powered by Bing as well). Microsoft’s complaint will likely have more weight in Europe, where Google’s search engine is even more dominant than it is in the US (with over 90 percent market share in most EU countries, compared to 65 percent in the US). The company also says that Google is holding tight technical information that would offer a better YouTube experience for its Windows Phone 7 platform. Microsoft says that both Android and Apple’s iPhone OS support that technical information in their YouTube applications. Google has also released an updated mobile website for YouTube that would work across all mobile browsers, but Microsoft clearly doesn’t find that an adequate solution. (Personally, I find YouTube’s new mobile site far more usable than the Android or iPhone apps.) Microsoft also takes issue with the way Google hands its ad contracts. Google keeps ad buyers from using third-party apps that compare ad pricing results and allow them to easily switch between ad platforms. It’s worth noting here that Microsoft would likely be making the same decisions Google is now if their places were switched — and if Microsoft hadn’t already faced major scrutiny for its competitive tactics in the 1990s. In 2001, Microsoft entered into a settlement with US regulators that forced it to tone down its previous bully-like tendencies. The company has also faced fines and other rulings from European regulators. Microsoft still needs to prove to European regulators that Google is actually harming consumers with its market advantages. That’s tough to show for search engines, according to antitrust expert Herbert Hovenkamp, because consumers can easily switch to another one.
|
| The seven ideas everyone can learn from game designers Posted: 30 Mar 2011 10:48 PM PDT
Kim said she wasn’t a fan of the word “gamification,” which means using game mechanics to improve the engagement users have with non-game applications. She prefers the word “game thinking” and believes that games are going to be everywhere, noting that game designer Will Wright refers to this time as a Gambrian Explosion, much like the Cambrian Explosion that gave birth to so many new life forms 500 million years ago. Games are everywhere.
Kim said that some people describe gamification as a loyalty program on steroids; or using game techniques to turbo-charge products, services and apps; or taking a real world activity and turning it into a game. But game thinking cuts through the hype and it is a more important story. It’s about teaching what game designers now that everybody else should know. Here are the seven ideas explained:
2. Build fun, pleasure, and satisfaction into your core activity loop. Many critics felt that FarmVille had no game play. But Kim said the core activity actually was fun. You planted crops, watched them grow, harvested the beautiful fruits of your labor, and enjoyed rewards. Foursquare also creates positive emotions, since the location-based game is fun, useful in terms of educating you about your surroundings, and it’s social. Even Amazon has a core activity loop where you click on something, get immediate information about it, then you buy it and receive assurance that the transaction has gone through. Amazon imparts a positive emotion that makes you feel like you can trust it with your money transactions.
4. Game designers aspire to build a system that’s easy to learn and hard to master. You can look at applications such as Quora, the question and answer site. It’s easy to figure out how to read answers to questions or ask questions. Other users can edit your questions so they will get better answers. You can learn from their example how to write better questions. The quality of the questions goes up. Quora can do to teach people how to master the question and answer process. 5. Use game mechanics to light the way towards mastery. The Nike + Coach program trains users how to run. It offers clear feedback and progressive goals that show you how to master long-distance running, share your stats with the community, and understand what your stats mean. It shows you the path to get better.
7. Embrace intrinsic motivators. A book by Dan Pink — Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us — tells about intrinsic rewards and extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic value trumps extrinsic rewards in many ways. You can get your user to complete tasks by stirring their intrinsic motivations that deliver real value to players. Modcloth lets users create a crowdsourced clothing line that gives people who create it a lot of satisfaction, but not a huge external reward. Kim and other experts are holding gamification workshops in the coming weeks. Beyond Gamification: 7 Core Concepts for Creating Compelling Products View more presentations from Amy Kim Companies: eBay, Electronic Arts, Netflix, Nike, Shufflebrain People: Amy Jo Kim
|
| HuffPo co-founder explains the secrets of viral content Posted: 30 Mar 2011 06:50 PM PDT
One of the key things to understand, Peretti said, is that "content spreads for different reasons on different platforms." Google's search engine is built around information. Sites like About.com are perfectly optimized for Google, because they're "knowledge-centric" and "keyword-centric". Things work very differently on social networks like Facebook. Users are less likely to share how-to articles and more likely to share content that's funny or that they identify with. As Peretti put it, on Facebook, users share things that "define you and make you look good." As an example, Peretti talked about a funny photograph of two basset hounds running that was posted on BuzzFeed. There's no useful information in the photo, so from the perspective of Google, it has very little value. Yet the photo has received more than 45,000 Facebook "likes". In other words, he said, publishers who want their content to go viral need to stop thinking about it as “information to get into people’s heads” and more as “an excuse for social action”. "This is something Google struggles to understand with their content initiatives," Peretti said. (It will be interesting if Google's new social effort, +1, bucks this trend.) He also talked a bit about how these ideas have influenced BuzzFeed, which operates a site for viral content and also offers tools for publishers to measure viral lift. The company has really focused on viral lift as the new measure of success, rather than straight pageviews, Peretti said. And it takes the social idea even further in a redesign that he previewed today. Instead of dividing the content into traditional topic areas like "politics" and "sports", it's divided by users' reactions: "LOL", "OMG", "Fail", and so on. [photo by Dean Takahashi] Companies: BuzzFeed, Facebook, Google, The Huffington Post People: Jonah Peretti
|
| Posted: 30 Mar 2011 05:49 PM PDT
The student, Robert Chatwani, discovered that one of his closest friends had leukemia, as did another friend. Both patients had a chance to get a new lease on life through a bone marrow transplant, but they needed as close a match as possible from a donor.
They turned to the internet. They created a network of friends on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media networks. They organized web pages that showed how people could help and stage their own bone marrow drives, using what they called a “mass-micro” strategy aimed at creating an instant brand around their friends in need and making it easy for volunteers to collaborate. They automated the process of writing form letters to bosses to get approval for drives to “Help Sameer” and “Help Vanay.” They created viral videos and banner ads. Corporations stepped up. Adobe ran a big bone marrow drive. Accenture also held one. Cisco produce a public service announcement and held a bone marrow drive. IDEO held a drive and gave other support. And Bain focused on bone marrow drives in India. In 11 weeks, the volunteers arranged 470 bone marrow drives and registered more 24,611 South Asians. Bhatia received an exact match, while Chakravarthy got a close match.
Lynn Aaker calls the revolution around social media the “dragonfly effect,” now a book co-written with Andy Smith. Like the “butterfly effect,” where a small change like a butterfly flying can cause big changes in the world, the dragonfly effect is doing small acts that can create a big change because the core idea has deep meaning. Her recommendation on how to achieve these effects with social media are to: 1. Focus on a single goal. The effort has resulted in a lasting legacy for two men, and there are more folks who need bone marrow matches. Here’s Lynn Aaker’s and Andy Smith’s slide deck. Companies: Google, Twitter, Web 2.0 Summit People: Jennifer Lynn Aaker, Robert Chatwani, Sameer Bhatia, Vanay Chakravarthy
|
| LinkedIn founder Hoffman: All my investments will embrace social data Posted: 30 Mar 2011 05:22 PM PDT
His basic Web 3.0 pitch is straightforward: If Web 1.0 is about static Web pages navigated by search, and if Web 2.0 is about social networks built around real identity, then Web 3.0 is about taking advantage of all the data generated around real identities. AllThingsDigital's Liz Gannes, who was interviewing Hoffman on-stage, asked him whether he's putting his money where his mouth is. Specifically, Hoffman is now a partner at Greylock Partners — so are his investments moving into Web 3.0 and building features that take advantage of this social data? Hoffman answered that if they're not doing it yet, they will soon. For example, he said that right now his investment Airbnb doesn't really have a significant data piece — it's just a marketplace for short-term rentals. However, Hoffman said, “I’m sure there are really interesting data patterns” around users and what they like to rent, and Airbnb will probably look at those patterns in the future. Hoffman covered many of the same points he made in his speech at the South by Southwest conference two weeks ago, but he also elaborated on his ideas. In his previous talk, he warned companies looking to collect social data not to ambush their users, and he said they need to distinguish between data that users will willingly share and other data that's more sensitive. Today, he added another tip: Only ask for the data when you actually have a value proposition for the user. For example, he said that LinkedIn as a company would probably benefit from asking users about their gender, but it can't provide anything useful in return, so it doesn't ask. [photo by Dean Takahashi] Companies: Greylock Partners, linkedin People: Liz Gannes, Reid Hoffman
|
| Google: +1 on search links, -1 on ad clicks Posted: 30 Mar 2011 03:19 PM PDT
It is a cardinal rule of advertising that you present the user with one call to action. Clicking on a +1 next to an AdWords ad makes no sense at all – it is already hard enough to get people to click on an ad without adding confusing paraphernalia around the unit. A store selling futons in San Francisco that pays for a targeted ad to people in the Bay Area searching for futons wants people to click on the ad, not the +1 next to the ad. The Google +1 AdWords implementation is an obstacle to conversions with very little upside. Google Instant is already impacting click through rates by automatically populating search results as users type, and Google +1 is going to make the problem worse. Google is clearly attempting to mimic the popular Facebook ad feature where people "Like" a Facebook page. However, in Facebook, Liking a page is essentially opting in for newsfeed updates — the Facebook equivalent of a mailing list opt-in — which is why marketers are willing to pay for ads that incent users to Like their Facebook page. Google +1 offers no such benefit. In addition, while users are happy to "Like" Disneyworld, chances are they are not going to like "25 percent on futons today only!" Granted, the +1 feature will help Google better rank search results by involving crowdsourced humans instead of algorithmic computing, which have been increasingly gamed by search marketers. However, it seriously begs the question, why isn’t Google simply ranking results based on what people are clicking on? If a user clicks on one link and doesn’t come back to click on other results, that indicates they have found what they are looking for.
Peter Yared is the vice president of apps at Webtrends, which acquired Transpond, a social-apps developer he founded. Companies: Google People: Peter Yared
|
| Why Kleiner’s hiring of Meg Whitman is a very shrewd move Posted: 30 Mar 2011 03:10 PM PDT
It’s one more power-move by Kleiner to shore up a bullpen of super big-name partners at a time when most venture capital firms are becoming dangerously commoditized. There’s lots of money sloshing around these days, with lots of people running around willing to give it. If you’re a venture firm, and don’t have big brand names as partners — who carry considerable recognition and a large Rolodex, as well as solid business operating experience — what do you really have any more? What I mean is that the old days — when a select group of four or five venture capital firms were branded as elite and remained that way — is coming to an end. Ten years ago, the finance world was notoriously opaque. It was a crusty world, where start-ups needed support from large funds with backing of at least $5 million in a first or second round, and then at least $20 million more in subsequent rounds. But what we’ve seen since is a radical transformation of venture capital. So-called “super angels” are running around funding consumer startups that only need $500,000 or so to launch a prototype because they can build on thee cheap, or even use free Internet tools, and then take advantage of social marketing techniques to fuel growth from there. Large enterprise companies, from traditional players like Intel and Qualcomm to new kids on the block like Google, Amazon, Zynga and Facebook are investing in startups. And new firms like Yuri Milner’s DST Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz are moving in, and placing extremely aggressive bets too — paying a premium to get in early to hot-start-ups, many of which are now ensconced in new sexy fortresses like Y Combinator or Techstars. Finally, savvy entrepreneurs have easier, more efficient ways to network, using tools like LinkedIn and Facebook. They can also tap into the networks of the droves of accomplished entrepreneurs – who have now turned into angels, and who provide advice, mentoring and pep talks at ever more conferences. The big venture firms have been pushed further and further from the core of the action. Back in 2000, if you got funding from one of the top 10 or so venture firms, you were part of a club. That’s just the way it was, in part because people crave a pecking order, and so they looked at those top firms to create that order — leadership was bestowed on those firms and so the best firms won leadership status, and they kept it because the best entrepreneurs kept going their way. But that’s over, and Kleiner knows it. Really, no one should find it odd that John Doerr, a left-leaning venture capitalist, should want to team up with Whitman, the failed California Republican gubernatorial candidate. His firm has long been on both sides of the political fence. Senior Kleiner partner Floyd Kvamme, was a technical advisor to the Bush Administration. Kleiner has also hired folks like Secretary of State Colin Powell, who by the way, also served under a Republican Administration (of George W. Bush), Vice President Al Gore, and all-star folks like Morgan Stanley internet analyst Mary Meeker,
Whitman joined eBay when it already 30 employees, and her stature will be inspiring to entrepreneurs, and help Kleiner sell itself as a great firm to take money from the best of those new companies. The Whitman hire is just one more reflection of the marketing flair of Kleiner’s leading partner, John Doerr. With Doerr, the godfather of Silicon Valley venture capital, it’s not personal, it’s all business. Companies: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers People: John Doerr, Meg Whitman
|
It’s been a long time coming. The video-on-demand provider 
How open is open? Google is reportedly tightening access to its open source Android mobile operating system and restricting the sort of tweaks manufacturers can make to the OS, 
To grease the skids of commerce on smartphones and tablets, there is still a lot that the tech industry has to accomplish before users will start taking to new ways to pay for goods.
Osama Bedier, vice president of payments at Google, said in a talk Wednesday at the 
Bedier said the payment system needs to go digital. Credit cards, debit cards, and gift cards all need to move into the cloud so they can be used more conveniently.
Calling all mobile executives: This April 25-26, VentureBeat is hosting its inaugural 
Have you ever sat next to a friend on the train and wanted to listen to the music he or she was listening to, only to be forced to uncomfortably share headphones? 
Baseball fans will be happy couch potatoes today with the opening day of Major League Baseball. But some fans might get fidgety in between the action.
In an online arena of 100 fans, users get 10,000 points to bet during a real-time (live) baseball broadcast. The fans could wager 100 points that the next pitch will be a strike or a ball. Or they could make a bet about whether a team will score a run in the inning. Or they could make a wager about who will win the game. As the game proceeds, they are awarded points for staying with the game. If they bet everything and lose it, they can still stay in the action by earning new points gradually.
IBM
IBM says it will open its Advanced Institute for Security in Europe to provide access to security research. The group is based in Brussels. IBM says it has a database of more than 50,000 computer security vulnerabilities and it monitors in real-time 13 billion security events every day for more than in 130 countries. IBM says it has the world’s largest security services practice with more than 3,500 security services, nine research labs, 250 security-related products and 11 security acquisitions since 2006.
How the tables have turned. Microsoft, a company who is no stranger to regulator scrutiny, is planning to file an antitrust complaint against Google in Brussels today, the 
Gamification
Kim worked on games such as The Sims and Ultima Online for Electronic Arts and she has helped design game-like experiences for eBay, Netflix, and Rock Band.
1. Know who's playing – design for their social style. There are a lot of different ways to entertainment people. What is their style of playing? Are they so competitive that they like to beat their opponents and brag about it?Is the audience into exploration? Is the gamer cooperative, or playing for the sake of self-expression? These considerations will affect the core actions in the game or service.
3. Game designers know how to design an experience for a user that changes over time. There are three key stages of a player’s life cycle: novice, regular, and enthusiast. They won’t experience a web site, game or other experience in a static way. They need different content to be satisfied. Foursquare uses points and badges for leveling up. Regulars need fresh content, activities and challenges. Enthusiasts need exclusive rewards, recognition, and impact.
6. As players progress, you want to increase the challenge and complexity. This is called “flow” in game play, where you try to keep the player interested in the experience, balancing between anxiety and boredom. You have to keep the gamer in the middle, or the flow channel. You can do this with progressive quests, which give you more tasks to do once you’ve leveled up in games like CityVille. You can make the user interface more complex after someone masters the game and give the users new tools when they are ready for them.
Jonah Peretti, who co-founded both the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed, has spent a lot of time thinking about what makes content go viral. Today, he shared some lessons on-stage at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco — and in the process, offered some thoughts on the difference between how Google and Facebook look at the world.
Jennifer Lynn Aaker, a professor at Stanford University’s business school, gave an unusual talk about social media at the 
The two young men — Sameer Bhatia and Vinay Chakravarthy — were of South Asian descent, but only 1 percent of the donors in the national registry of bone marrow donors were of South Asian descent. Getting a genetic match for them in a matter of weeks was going to be extremely difficult. Meanwhile, there were a billion Indians available in South Asia who could possibly donate, but there was no national bone marrow registry. A match could be found for every one in 20,000 South Asians. So the friends decided to form a new registry and find a match.
They received their bone marrow transplants. Bhatia blogged prolifically and even shared his bone marrow transplant in a video on YouTube. Sadly, both died a few months after the transplants in 2008. Bhatia’s memorial service was shared on YouTube and 6,000 people viewed it. But from the new registrants, 266 matches for other patients were found, giving all of those people a new hope for life.
LinkedIn founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman talked about his vision for Web 3.0 today at, uh, the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.
Google finally unveiled its 
Google +1 is a great step forward for Google as it is finally admitting that perhaps humans can be smarter than machines when it comes to detecting relevant content. But Google has already nailed how people like ads: By clicking on them.
The 
Indeed, the bigger question is why Whitman is joining Kleiner, and not Benchmark, the firm that shot to fame after it invested Whitman’s former company, eBay. But she’s certainly more qualified to help companies scale than a person like Meeker, who doesn’t have as much operating experience. Whitman worked at large companies like Procter & Gamble and Hasbro, and led eBay for years through impressive growth. And it’s not like Whitman has been slacking since she left eBay. She recently | You are subscribed to email updates from VentureBeat To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar