Archives for March 14, 2007

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Blogger Discount for the Under the Radar Conference

Posted on March 14, 2007 ·

Just a week left till the Under the Radar: Why Office 2.0 Matters conference, and DealmakerMedia agreed to offer a discount to my readers. Registering through this URL offers $70 off the non-member advance registration, or $170 off the walk-in price.

Here’s a list of the 32 presenting startups:

Approver | Blogtronix | Brainkeeper | Cogenz | ConceptShare | ConnectBeam | Diigo | EditGrid | Firestoker | InvisibleCRM | Koral | Longjump | Mashery | My Payment Network | Proto Software | Scrybe | Sitekreator | Slideaware | Smartsheet | Spresent | Stikkit | System One | Terapad | Teqlo | TimeSearch Inc. (Calgoo) | Tungle | Vyew | WorkLight | Wrike | Wufoo | Xcellery

… as well as the Graduate Circle Sponsors:

Atlassian | Colligo | DabbleDB | EchoSign | Etelos | FreshBooks | Jive Software | Joyent | iUpload | Oddcast | ThinkFree | Zoho

The 32 startups will be presenting in 8 sessions, which will all start out with a panel discussion of the sector, and then, 4 companies will demo their products to a panel of industry experts who are active in this space, along with an audience of early-adopter technology insiders.

Both audience and experts will get a chance to beta test and offer feedback based on favorite features, areas for improvement, the ideal industry “partner” match-ups, and how best to reach out and build up their audience. The conference will also offer ample time for presenters and attendees to network and share ideas and information.

Hope to see you there!

Filed Under: Bay Area, Blogging, Business, Marketing / PR, Social Networking, Software, Startups, Technology · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Economic Prognosis from Zoho :-)

Posted on March 14, 2007 ·

I can’t help but laugh when I see the last three chart types on the illustration of Zoho’s latest announcement:

 

Web. Bubble. Stock.    Do they know something we don’t? smile_tongue

 

Filed Under: Humor ·
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The Blog Poll Platform You Should Avoid

Posted on March 14, 2007 ·

(Updated)

Polls are an easy, simple way of getting immediate customer/reader feedback, and also letting the voters know what their community thinks.

There are a number of good products to chose from, like dPolls often seen on TechCrunch, the platform GigaOM is using (whatever it is), Blogflux and Majikwidget seen at Guy Kawasaki’s, PollDaddy used by the ReadWriteWeb …etc. I tend to use Zoho Polls, which, other than its native display also allows me to easily chart out the results using Zoho Sheet. All these apps have a clean interface, are easy to use and immediately display vote results right where you voted (in the blog).

The one you should avoid is Blogpoll. My friends at Atlassian put out a poll, and after voting, and a ridiculously looong wait, this is what I saw:

WTF… where’s my poll? Ahh, perhaps that blue bar that says “your title”? Yes. If you scroll down, you can actually see your poll results in a tiny box, surrounded by a jungle of advertising.

Now, I understand the economics of a free service, but guess what: when you overdo advertising so badly that customers have too look for what they came for … chances are, they won’t be repeat customers. And that’s the end of your service.

(P.S. Jon, I hope you’ll still invite me to the User Conference…)

Update (3/15): Jon is now running a poll on what’s the best poll software… cast your vote over at Atlassian.

Filed Under: Blogging, SaaS, Software, Technology · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
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StartupCrunch: Yet Another TechCrunch Clone

Posted on March 14, 2007 ·

StartupCrunch.org appears to be another site that attempts to capitalize on TechCrunch’s popularity  (no link love from me, rel=nofollow).  They will promote any startups that pays €100 (100 Euros) and sends in a video pitch. 

The “secret sauce” is CrunchRank, but before you think it’s TechCrunch-meets-Digg, let’s look at how this “rank” is calculated: it is assigned by the reviewer, whose identity, just like anyone behind the site is unknown.

Why would anyone want to advertise on an anonymous site is beyond my comprehension – but hey, if they get 10 victims customers, they are already in the money. 

Business model aside, and whether Mike Arrington has any legal protection for the use of “Crunch” on websites, the name itself is a clear rip-off. Obviously, this site is in to make some quick money by implying association with TechCrunch.  I also seriously doubt the sponsors are real (I’m trying to verify this See Update below)- just look at the pixelated badges, they clearly were lifted from elsewhere.  My guess: this is just another attempt to legitimize the site.

The launch strategy so far appears to have two legs: a dozen or so blog posts, most (all?) of which are sponsored through pay-per-post, and – here comes the smart part – someone commenting on recent TechCrunch posts under the name StartupCrunch, of course with a link back to the site.

I expect this site to be fairly short-lived… which reminds me: perhaps it’s time to check on Arringtonsucks.com, an attack-site launched late January.  Well-well: last post dated February 15th – that’s a lifespan of … 3 weeks, if my math is correct.

smile_wink

 Update (3/14):  I’ve contacted two “sponsors”, Zoho and Vecosys.  Both confirmed that they had nothing to do with StartupCrunch, infact haven’t heard of this site at all. They both contacted StartupCrunch, which apparently complied with their demand to take off the fake sponsorship badges.  I don’t see the point in checking out all other “sponsors” – have seen enough already.

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Marketing / PR, Software, Startups, Technology ·
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Why Isn’t There a Pay-As-You-Go Internet Fax Service?

Posted on March 14, 2007 ·

The title pretty much says it all, and frankly, how is this possible in 2007 is beyond me.  

I’ve had a trusted old eFax service for perhaps a decade, never gave it a lot of thought.  However, now that Fred Wilson is asking for advice, I thought I’d do a quick research.  Voila!  Here’s a comparison matrix of 10 Internet fax services by Top Ten Reviews:

What’s wrong here?  There’s not a single offer tailored for individual users.  I’m sure a busy VC like Fred has enough fax traffic to justify the $10 or so that most of these services charge: there are term sheets, legal documents..etc. (Although I certainly hope EchoSign would obliterate the fax machine soon.) 

As a consumer, the grand total of faxes I receive in a year is perhaps 1-2, and I don’t send more than 5 per year.   $10 is not a huge amount, but why would I pay a monthly subscription optimized for 1-200 pages monthly traffic? 

The free version of eFax (btw, how could the granddaddy of Internet fax services escape the comparison?) allows free inbound services, but no sending at all.   I don’t expect free sending, but why can’t I pay per use, only for the pages I send?  Sure, I would not bring a huge business volume, but there are tens of millions just like me: occasional users, sending a few faxes a year. Charge me triple price, but don’t force me into a subscription deal!  Then I could kiss goodbye to the modem and phone cable.

phone

Update (313):  There is an interesting comment-exchange re. the economnics below.  And some good news: EchoSign will soon have doc-to-fax functionality.  Of course what I meant above by EchoSign obliterating fax machines was wider acceptance of electronically signed documents and eliminating the need for faxed copies at all.

 

Filed Under: Business, Customer Service, Personal Productivity, SaaS, Software, Technology ·