Zoli's Blog » Social Networking

The Risk of Starting Your Tweet with @name

Zoli Erdos — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:10:29 +0000

This is so obvious, yet little known – and although Mark Suster warned us all, I keep on falling in this trap. Just today as I wanted to announce yet another great post by Mark, I tweeted this:

@msuster discusses how the Ice Age is thawing for Venture Capital

Big mistake. Had I written “great discussion by @msuster”, a lot more people would have seen it. Why?

Read on to find out…

Brits, the Masters of the Universe… the Facebook Universe

Zoli Erdos — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:12:22 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

The University of Salford in Manchaster will offer a Masters degree in Social Media, focusing on Facebook and Twitter.

Salford claims to be the world’s first to offer a Masters course in social media, but they are not. That title goes to Birmingham City University which announced their one-year course in Social Media in March. For a cool £4,400 ($7,200) you get a Master’s Degree of … well, let’s just say questionable value.

Startups, Present @ Launch: Silicon Valley 2009. Few Days to Deadline.

Zoli Erdos — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:05:31 +0000

Startup Entrepreneurs who did not make it to the recent Under the Radar event, here’s your second chance: join us at Launch: Silicon Valley 2009, co-presented by SVASE, Garage Technology Ventures and Microsoft.

In fact it will be more than a second chance: while the UtR event focused specifically on Cloud Computing, Launch 2009 is designed to uncover and showcase products and services from the most exciting of the newest startups in information technology, mobility, security, digital media next generation internet, life sciences and clean energy. The inaugural Launch event was in 2006, combined with Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start conference.

Are these events worth attending? It’s your call … all I can say is since 2006 presenting startups received a combined $80+ million in venture funding.

So if you are building the Next Great Business in the areas mentioned above, are (almost) ready for launch, meaning that by June 9th, 2009 you will have a product or service available, but have not been out in the marketplace for more than a few months, then by all means send an Executive Summary of no more than 2 pages to Launchsv@svase.org. Submission deadline: May 8th, 2009 – yes, just a few days left. (Garage Technology offers a useful Writing a Compelling Executive Summary guide.)

Last year over 300 companies from all around the country and even overseas applied, so clearly the presentation spots are in high demand. Based on the submissions up to 30 companies will be invited to present at the Launch: Silicon Valley 2009 event on June 9th at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, California. Presentations slots are 10 minutes, running in 6 sessions of 5 companies each. Each presenting team will also be assigned a cocktail table in the Networking Room where they can meet with interested audience members one-on-one to answer questions and explore possibilities.

The evening before, on June 8th the presenting companies, registered audience and selected bloggers and media will be invited to a Pre-Event Party at a prestigious location in Palo Alto, providing a further opportunity for networking with Silicon Valley’s movers and shakers.

So if you are a qualifying startup Founder, remember the deadline: May 8th. For additional details and later for updates check http://www.launchsiliconvalley.org/ and you may also want to follow the event (actually the President of SVASE) on Twitter.

Guy Kawasaki called Launch: Silicon Valley “the poor man’s Demo”. SVASE proudly wears that badge, since this is an event with a price tag that won’t keep any startups away. It’s your turn now: send in the Executive Summary and launch with SVASE in June.

(Cross-posted from CloudAve. To stay abreast of news, analysis and just plain opinion on Cloud Computing, SaaS, Business grab the CloudAve Feed here.)

Two Days Left for Under the Radar Online Registration – Get Your Discount Here

Zoli Erdos — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:51:59 +0000

We’re at the final countdown stage for the Under the Radar: Clarity in the Cloud conference – it’s coming up this Friday, April 24th, 8:00AM – 6:00PM @ the Microsoft Campus, in Mountain View, CA.

If it’s named a conference, it has to have a keynote or a panel, and that’s what you get at 9am: the Buyers’ Wish-list Panel:

What are technology buyers are hunting for?
What cloud technologies have they adopted?
How you can get on their wish list?

But that’s where all similarity to a conference ends. The rest of UtR is actually a giant Startup Launchpad – the American Idol of startups. Except UtR won’t take months to declare the winners. The finalists present in a rapid-fire format – they are grouped in categories of 4 each, in two parallel tracks and each presenter has about 15 minutes. They get grilled by the judges and audience, then all attendees get to vote ( I wonder if they upgraded from paper ballots to SMS yet..) and at the end of the conference the winners of each category are announced.

UtR has a good track record of the participants getting funded – about half of them got funded or acquired in the past. (See more stats here.) If we can believe InformationWeek’s Top 50 Startup list, this year’s roster will also be worth paying attention to:

Then there are the Graduate Circle Companies – fomer UtR presenters, who are no longer truly “under the radar”, having proven themselves:

So if you want to be part of 2009 startup history, network with entrepreneurs, VC’s, media, corporate decisionmakers, join us on Friday. CloudAve is a media partner for this event, several of us (Krish, Graeme, Raju and myself) will be there, and most importantly, we have a deal for you. Use our VIP registration site for $100 off the non-member price.

If you can’t commit full day, drop by just for the afternoon (it’s Friday). For the first time in the history of these events, you can now get an after-lunch pass for $275.

See you there!

(Note to PR types: thanks for all your interest, but I am not making advance appointments. UtR is too vibrant, dynamic, there are too many interesting people to bump into to make such commitments – better go with the flow. But it’s a small place, and several of us from CloudAve will be there, so I’m sure we’ll meet your startup clients anyway.)

(Cross-posted from CloudAve. To stay abreast of news, analysis and just plain opinion on Cloud Computing, SaaS, Business grab the CloudAve Feed here.)

Master’s Degree in FaceBook? It’s Not April Fool’s Day Yet

Zoli Erdos — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:25:43 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Birmingham City University in the UK will offer a one-year course in Social Media that earns you a Master’s Degree for £4,400. Current Birmingham students think:

“Virtually all of the content of this course is so basic it can be self taught. In fact most people know all this stuff already. I think it’s a complete waste of university resources.”

Indeed it is. Also a waste of money, if you consider the price. After all, you can get a Master’s Degree for $499, (nofollow) without having to fiddle around with any courses whatsoever. Just don’t ask me what you can do with that degree.

Update: apparently early April Fool’s jokes are not that unusual.

Startups: Present at Under the Radar

Zoli Erdos — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:02:11 +0000

Under the Radar is Silicon Valley’s most established startup debut platform: a conference series organized by Dealmaker Media (for those with a longer memory, they used to be IBDNetwork) , covering business applications, social media, entertainment, mobility..etc.

The 11th Under the Radar conference in Mountain View, CA on April 24, 2009 will focus on Cloud Computing and Business Applications and as such it’s an obvious fit for CloudAve – media partners for the event.

While a conference in name, it’s actually a giant Startup Launchpad – the American Idol of startups. Typically 32 finalists are selected, who will present in a rapid-fire format – they are grouped in categories of 4 each, in two parallel tracks and each presenter has about 15 minutes. They get grilled by the judges and audience, and at the end of the conference the winners of each category are announced.

But why bother in the middle of the worst recession most of us have seen? After all, no startups get funded now – you may think. Well, if you think VC investment all dried up, just look at these two UtR companies picking up $27M in funding. In fact Dealmaker Media claims that in the past 3 years alone, presenting companies have gone on to raise over $1.36 Billion. Some additional stats on Under the Radar “graduates”:

49% have gone on to raise funding or be acquired
14% have been acquired by companies such as Google, eBay, Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco
$14 Million average has been raised by presenting companies

I guess the Dealmaker name is justified, after all . Other than the presentations, these events are also an excellent networking opportunity amongst the 400 or so attendees, so let’s look at the previous years’ attendance statistics by provided by Dealmaker Media:

It certainly looks like the right crowd to mingle with for investment-hungry startups. Currently about half the slots are filled by these finalists:

Ctera, Eucalyptus, Heroku, New Relic, Sauce Labs, Symplified, Tap In Systems, Twillio, uTest, Virsto Software, Zephyr, Zetta, Zimory, Zuora.

Obviously that means there is still room for more. So if your startups fits one of these categories:

and meets the general criteria:

Unique value proposition
Ability to monetize product/business
Large market opportunity
Must still be considered "under the radar" – launched in 2009
Company must be an actual startup – not a new product from a large company

then what are you waiting for? Apply now to present at Under the Radar. Non-presenting attendees can register here.

We will talk about UtR more over @ CloudAve – it will no doubt be an exciting competition.

(Cross-posted from CloudAve. To stay abreast of news, analysis and just plain opinion on Cloud Computing, SaaS, Business grab the CloudAve Feed here.)

I Hate Fear Marketing

Zoli Erdos — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:19:43 +0000

So I’m cutting off Spoke Software who sent me this piece of junk: If you want to keep your job, use Spoke.

Read on for details…

Come to Defrag

Zoli Erdos — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:30:22 +0000

Next week I’ll be in Denver, attending Defrag, a boutique, intellectual, intense, very participatory conference. I’m attending despite the fact that I’ve cut down on conference attendance, not because of the current economic turmoil, but largely due to burnout. After a while they just all feel the same: empty session rooms, bored exhibitors, people just enjoying ad-hoc hallway conversations. But there is something intriguing about Defrag: friends and smart minds I respect keep on tweeting about Defrag, and the agenda just looks exciting.

I’ve always enjoyed reading Paul Kedrosky, whose posts deliver the punch in just a few words – or an image. I’ve never met him, so I’m looking forward to his keynote.
Howard Lindzon’s keynote, titled It’s Always a Good Time to Start a Web Business will no doubt have a very special meaning in the current economic situation.
I’m really, really looking forward to the next keynote, Getting Into the Flow Applications – a subject I somewhat touched upon, and likely will re-visit before heading to the conference.
The first breakout session will be a huge dilemma: I literally should split myself in two halves, I badly want to attend both Dis (and Re)-aggregating the Web with Disqus, Intense Debate and my6sense, but I can’t miss Re-imagining the metaphors behind collaborative tools with Atlassian, Mindtouch, Liquid Planner, One Place either. (Update: now I really can’t miss it, as I’ll be moderating this session.)

I could go on, but I’ve just realized I’d literally have to duplicate the entire Agenda here. Have I just discovered Defrag’s secret sauce? Conferences are never about sessions, it’s all about the ad-hoc networking, even lobbycon-ing – yet I find myself wanting to attend most sessions, in fact two of them in most of the breakouts. Defrag promises amazing intellectual content, and if I just follow Twitter, an extraordinary group of innovators plan to attend. From what I hear, this is the conference where the attendees participate just as much as the speakers.

Do yourself a favor, check out the Agenda, read Eric’s 10 reasons to come to Defrag and register. (Use discount code “zoli1” to receive $300 off).

Update: Microsoft’s PDC is in full force today, and guess what, the conference wi-fi is failing. This seems to be the fate of all conferences, including ironically Web 2.0 Expo. The only exception I’ve seen so far is the Office 2.0 Conference, which teamed up with Swisscom to build rock-solid wi-fi. What is less known though, that they got the tip and contacts from Defrag organizer Eric Norlin. Yes, Defrag, working with Swisscom was the first conference to provide industrial-strength, reliable wi-fi throughout the entire site, including rooms in the conference hotel, the Hyatt Regency. So if you come to Defrag, you’ll be connected 24/7. (OK, just 24/2: Nov 3-4th)

SocialText Becomes Really Social

Zoli Erdos — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:49:03 +0000

Socialtext, the enterprise wiki company is no more… a wiki company, that is. Not since Socialtext 3.0, the new release announced today. Founder and Chairman Ross Mayfield calls his new baby a Connected Collaboration Platform, that’s modular, built on a widget framework, and consists of:

Socialtext Dashboard – your Communication Central
Socialtext People – Facebook for the Enterprise
Socialtext Workspace – originally known as the wiki

A fourth piece, Socialtext Signals is in the works, in private beta testing – I guess we could call it Twitter (Yammer? ESME?) for the Enterprise. Actually more, since it involves active microblogging – quick messages – as well as pulling in what users do elsewhere (FriendFeed?)

The platform is flexible, easy to customize via widgets, clearly the vision is that in an enterprise environment actionable information is pulled in from the transactional systems, too – i.e. ERP, CRM.

Knowing Ross as the uber-social guy something tells me this is what he always wanted to to: create Social Software. But I tend to agree with Jevon MacDonald, who differentiates social software from the wiki, which is primarily a collaboration tool. So Ross was really in the collaboration business and given his name became synonymous with wiki evangelism, he will no doubt have a hard time changing that image.

This is not to say the wiki part, should be neglected… It is the primary collaboration facility for anything not well handled by process-driven, transactional systems, and all this social layer is just the glue that holds it all together. (Hint: you will hear a lot more about Glue soon).

I had in the past been quite critical of Socialtext’s wiki component, and am looking forward to revisit it, as part of our wiki-series in the coming weeks @ CloudAve. In the meantime, enjoy this video: