Archives for March 2007

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Sell Software – Ship T-Shirts

Posted on March 23, 2007 ·

That’s a line stolen from Atlassian’s CEO:

“When you’re selling virtual goods, having something concrete to tie it to is a good idea. That’s why we ship t-shirts all around the planet on a monthly basis. If you buy any top-tier Atlassian product, we ship a t-shirt to your desk.

…

If you’re going to make a corporate t-shirt, make it fun like Tangosol’s “Coherence – Don’t get fluster clucked”, our “JIRA – Because You’ve Got Issues” etc. If it’s boring, people are that much less likely to wear it.”

Atlassian just issued T-shirt 2.0, and indeed, they are funsmile_teeth (see all of them here.)

P.S. They won yet another award – but hey, that’s not even news anymore smile_wink

Filed Under: Business, Marketing / PR, Software · Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
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Do We Need Another Web Meeting App?

Posted on March 22, 2007 ·

Does the World need yet another “webex-killer“?  The answer is probably no. Other then Webex, whose name became a synonym to web-conferencing, there is  GoToMeeting, Vyew, Teamslide, DimDim  1videoconference , Vyew, Live Meeting, Thinkature and probably quite a few more I forgot about.

So why on Earth has Zoho announced Zoho Meeting, entering such a crowded market?  One answer is that it’s a “software-making machine”, turning out new product regularly, so why not … but I think there’s more.

Zoho Meeting has a few unique features, and as usual, TechCrunch provides a good review, so I won’t even attempt to “compete” with them.

smile_wink  I’d rather lament on what this really means.

After a year of pumping out standalone products ( I think the count is at 15 for now) this year Zoho will start focusing on tying them together.  This means integrating them, as well as some external products, create workflows and use some “glue” products in the process.  Mail, Wiki are such glue products (both are going through enhancements), and to some extent so is Meeting, as well as Chat.  They will enhance collaboration in context, while you work on your document, spreadsheet, presentation..etc.  The video below shows how Meeting is embedded in Zoho Show:

 

If you watched the video you may have noticed a spreadsheet in the background, while Raju was talking about embedding Meeting in Chat, which in turn will become part of all other applications. While the integration of Chat into Zoho Writer was somewhat of a non-event, I can give you a sneak preview of how it will work in Zoho Sheet, where the consequences are far more significant.

 

What this means is that Zoho Sheet, which recently added the capability to plot 21 different types of charts now supports real-time collaboration with instant updates on the individual cell level – this has been Editgrid’s competitive advantage so far.

This is just the beginning – keep an eye for Meeting, Chat and other “glue” products making our online life easier.

Last, but not least, several of the companies mentioned here will present at the Under the Radar Conference tomorrow, so if you have a free Friday, you may want to register here – today is the last chance to get $100 off.

(Disclosure: I am an Advisor to Zoho) 

 

Filed Under: Bay Area, Business, Collaboration, Personal Productivity, SaaS, SMB / SME, Software, Startups, Technology ·
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Startup Epicenter in Mountain View, CA

Posted on March 20, 2007 ·

No, it’s not the Big One, not even an earthquake… for three days next week, Startup Epicenter by SF Bay Ventures becomes the place to be in Mountain View.  

It’s a 3-day intensive workshop and startup demo event, opened by VC Legend Vinod Khosla‘s keynote on The Killer App vs. The Killer Capability, followed by workshops, panel discussions – see the agenda here.

Each day concludes by a VC/Angel panel judging the pre-approved startup company presentations.  To be selected to present, you’ll need at least 3 of the following:

  • 1-2 page executive summary
  • web page – secure view acceptable
  • link to product demo
  • blog link
  • video on YouTube,etc.
  • Customer Referral/Testimonial
  • 1-2 paragraph description (your 30-45 sec. pitch)
  • Financial Estimates
  • powerpoint funding pitch presentation

…but not a Business plan! 

Presenting startups receive e-mail consultation prior to and after the event.

The first day, March 27th will be a very full day; the 28th and 29th are afternoon sessions.  Participants can pick and chose or attend the full program.  Register here.

Update (3/24): Check out Stowe Boyd’s interview with Scott Lane, Event Organizer. 

Filed Under: Bay Area, Social Networking, Software, Startups, Technology ·
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"Personalized" Mass Email

Posted on March 20, 2007 ·

It’s always nicer to receive a personal email than mass PR-releases.  Like the letter below:

“Hi Zoli,

 I wanted to make sure you saw this today…”

Damn mail-merge, the color gives him away… smile_party

 

Filed Under: Marketing / PR ·
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They Shouldn’t.

Posted on March 19, 2007 ·

BusinessWeek Online: How should companies hire bloggers?

They shouldn’t.  Find them within.

 

Filed Under: Blogging ·
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Gmail Mail Fetcher Quietly Expands

Posted on March 19, 2007 ·

Without much fanfare Gmail’s Mail Fetcher service now appears to be available on Google Apps for Domain accounts.  Google also lifted the restriction of not allowing to fetch mail from other gmail accounts (although Help does not indicate it yet). 

This is pretty significant: if you’re like me, you may have opened several gmail accounts, and as the gmail service matured, you may have realized that with all the labels, search, etc. you really are better off consolidating all those into one (OK, twosmile_tongue) accounts.   Now it’s possible; in fact while I’m typing this, Mail Fetcher is happily consolidating my Gmail accounts.  Of course the beauty of the process that for the first time my PC isn’t brought to a death-crawl while doing such housekeeping chores: it’s all happening in the cloud!  

And a bonus: if you  – like me – had already created a gmail archive of all your past email using the Thunderbird redirect trick, you probably noticed that gmail displayed the forward date, not the original send date.  Mail fetcher now fixes all that – random checking now shows emails from 1997 in my archive.

Happy Fetching!

Update: Fetching is a slow process… at this rate it will be days or weeks. Apparently the more it fetches, the more remains (and I know the real number is in the thousands):

  • Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 5:27 PM  200 mails fetched.  267 mails remaining.
  • Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 4:27 PM  200 mails fetched.  235 mails remaining.
  • Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 3:26 PM 200 mails fetched.  225 mails remaining.
  • Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 1:53 PM 200 mails fetched.  155 mails remaining.
  • Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 12:29 PM 200 mails fetched.  123 mails remaining.

 

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, SaaS, Software, Technology ·
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Windows Update Follow-up | My New Policy on Microsoft

Posted on March 18, 2007 ·

My previous post on Windows Update disabling FireFox attracted over 10k readers and I guess it generated enough noise that Microsoft approached me for specifics.  Kudos to MS for that!  Clearly the issue wasn’t very widespread, but several users reported experiencing it on this reddit thread.

Then today I just had the inclination to check my blog in IE7.  For about two minutes I was staring at a black screen, while the little “Phishing filter is checking website” indicator was flashing at the bottom.  I thought turning the auto-check off would resolve the issue, but no – IE7 simply does not load my blog, while I can happily see it in FireFox.  This is the first time I’m experiencing this, and also the first time I started up IE7 after the update.

I’ve had enough.  I don’t work for Microsoft, but given the amount of time I spend fixing their products (and trying to keep my PC healthy) I feel they should pay me.  Time is money, even for me.  So I’m done here. I will not try to figure out what went wrong with IE, just like I won’t bother fixing the reoccurring archive problem that’s slowly killing my Outlook.  I simply can’t afford “working” for Microsoft.

My new Microsoft Policy: whatever dies, dies. I won’t bother fixing it, I will let MS Bugware slowly die, and move on to better alternatives.  Online, whenever possible.

 

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, Software, Technology ·
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Windows Update Disables Firefox as Default Browser

Posted on March 16, 2007 ·

After the OneCare fiasco (the “protection” program removed the users Outlook data file) Microsoft quickly issued a patch, along with some other fixes.  The most recent Windows update no longer attacks Microsoft’s own products. Only the competitor’s. 

After this week’s Windows Update, Firefox is no longer the default browser.  Now, this is so stupid, and most users will obviously reset it in minutes, that I don’t really believe it’s an intentional attack on Firefox. It’s just careless, ignorant.  Classic Microsoft.

Update: Oh, now I’ve got it: “We’re in it to win”

smile_tongue

Update (3/18):  Microsoft contacted me. That’s nice, I guess they are not 100% careless after all.  But the story continues.

Update (3/26): Read the solution here. 

Filed Under: Software, Technology ·
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Cisco / Webex and What Your Blog Visitor Stats Can Tell You

Posted on March 15, 2007 ·

The news of the day is clearly Cisco’s $3.2B acquisition of Webex.  Give it half an hour and TechMeme will become useless for the rest of the day, as Cisco/Webex news will push out everything else.

But that’s not what my post is about…  the first news on the deal came out less then an hour ago, around 6am PST.  Unaware of this, I followed my morning habit of looking at my blog visitor stats:  about 3am there was an unusual number of hits, all coming from Europe, coming from the Google search result “Webex rumor“.  So clearly, the news leaked and people were franticly looking for information 3 hours prior to the official release. 

Blog referral logs are an amazing source of information….

 

 

Filed Under: Business, Technology ·
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Bracelet Phones

Posted on March 15, 2007 ·

Hm … I was holding out for the Startrek Communicator … but I guess these will do:

 

 

Filed Under: Technology ·
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