Marketing / PR Archives - Page 9 of 16

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:

… as well as the Graduate Circle Sponsors:

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: DealMakerMedia, entrepreneurship, IBDNetwork, marketing, networking, startup pitch, Startups, Under the Radar, UtR, vc Funding, venture Capital

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.

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.

Tags: techcrunch, crunch network, mike arrington, startupcrunch, arringtonsucks.com, michaelarringtonsucks.com, rip-off, clone, startups

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Marketing / PR, Software, Startups, Technology ·

Radar Relay – What’s Happening in Office 2.0

Posted on March 7, 2007 ·

I might as well have titled this post Radar Delay – first it was due last Friday, as part of series of reviews leading up to the Under the Radar: Office 2.0 event, but then fellow Enterprise Irregular Rod Boothby posted an “extra” article the same day, so I decided to wait till Tuesday. Yes that was yesterday, the day when Comcast, my ISP ironically responded to my push for On-Demand with a service outage.

But first things first: Web-based products received a surprise promotion from an unexpected source: Microsoft. As Phil Wainewright says on ZDNet:

“It’s astonishing that in the midst of a serious challenge from a new generation of Web-native office suites, Microsoft should give its rivals a helping hand by handicapping its own product so badly that it performs worse than an online product on a slow dial-up line.”

He is referring to the Outlook 2007 meltdown several users experienced:

“You’d think I had just sprayed the inside of my poor mega-laptop with saltwater to induce non-stop fritzing. I’ve learned to meditate while Outlook ruminates over ten incoming POP messages of 69K. Perhaps it takes a few seconds over each incoming message or RSS feed to contribute to solving a Grand Challenge. Or it and Desktop Search have to play 333 iterations of rock-paper-scissors everytime a change has to be written“

You can hardly accuse the above user with anti-Microsoft bias, since he is none other than Mini-Microsoft, who is obsessed with fixing Microsoft, the company. The Guardian, Dennis Howlett, Jason Busch, Tim Anderson, Chris Pirillo, Dan Farber, Phil Wainewright had similar experiences. Phil asks:

“But is it an even better fix to abandon Outlook and Exchange altogether and switch to an on-demand alternative?

My answer is a loud YES, and I’m making my point in Desktop Software: A Failed Model. Of course glitches occur in the On-Demand world, too, as we just witnessed Google Apps collapse soon after the announcement. We’re not quite there yet, but I share Rod Boothby’s view that we have passed a tipping point: while 2 years ago the ideal mix would have been desktop computing with additional online access, now I feel as a user I am better off mostly working online, with occasional offline access.

A somewhat doubtful friend, who happens to be the CEO of a cool company making web-based products sent this question:

“Do you really think people will use Word processors (in any significant number) through their web browser? “

Yes, I really do think, but why believe me? Listen to a US Government Agency instead: FAA May Ditch Microsoft’s Windows Vista And Office For Google And Linux Combo.

Some of the Under the Radar “Graduate Circle” sponsors posted significant news recently:

Atlassian announced a WebDav plugin which allows users to seamlessly work with both MS Office documents and the Confluence, their market leading enterprise wiki. They also released a hosted version of Confluence – this is something I’ve been waiting for impatiently. This was followed by the announcement of Crowd, their single sign-on authentication software.
Zoho announced integrating Zoho Sheet to Omnidrive, updates to Zoho Projects and overall performance improvements. Web Host Industry Review reported that Zoho doubled customer count in 5 months, going from 100K to 200K.
EchoSign, an innovative solution provider that can proudly wear the SES badge, if we ever get tired of SaaS, has just announced their integration with Zoho Writer .
FreshBooks anounced integration to BaseCamp for easy invoicing. This “Graduate Circle” sponsor could also wear the SES label:-) It’s really promising to see more and more integration within the Office 2.0 ecosystem.

Talk about user base, Nielsen/NetRatings issued a press release claiming that Google Docs and Spreadsheets dominate web-based productivity tools since October, with a market share of 92 percent of unique visitors. Ismael Ghalimi did some research and proved them wrong concluding that Google’s market share may be closer to 50%. His take:

“It is actually quite amazing that companies like ThinkFree and Zoho, with their ridiculously small marketing budgets, can play in the same league as mighty Google.”

Ismael is the creator of last years successful Office 2.0 Conference, and he is already preparing for Office 2.0 2007. But that’s in September – first we’ll have an exciting full-day conference:

Under the Radar: Why Office 2.0 Matters on March 23rd, in Mountain View, CA. Here’s the updated agenda and a list of presenting companies:

The Conference is put up by DealMaker Media, which was until recently known as IBDNetwork. (Too bad I missed their Launch Party.)

Hope to see you there!

Update (3/09): Passing the baton to Stowe Boyd, here’s his Relay post.

Filed Under: Bay Area, Blogging, Business, Collaboration, Marketing / PR, SaaS, Social Networking, Software, Startups, Technology · Tagged: atlassian, confluence, DealMakerMedia, EchoSign, freshbooks, google apps, IBDNetwork, ITRedux, microsoft, Office20con, offiice 2.0, Omnidrive, On-Demand, Outlook, Radar Relay, SaaS, Under the Radar, vista, weboffice, zoho

The Scary Thing about Contextual (?) Advertising

Posted on February 19, 2007 ·

No matter how much ad-placement algorithms improve the inevitable mistake happens from time to time. The article on Yahoo News discusses how Eastern European countries who agree to host the US missile defense system risk being targeted by Russian missiles. Now, what better ad to display, than a cute little Yahoo Rocket?

Of course this is not as extreme as this ad right after Katrina hit New Orleans:

Starbucks 2.0: Terra Bite Lounge, Where Coffee is Price-less

Posted on February 6, 2007 ·

If it’s Web 2.0, it’s free – we’re quite used to that, but would you expect it in the real world?

Terra Bite Lounge is an upscale cafe in Kirkland, WA that doesn’t list any prices on its menu. That doesn’t mean it’s free either. The owners’ definition:

“Terra Bite Lounge is an upscale voluntary payment cafe/deli.We serve espresso, blended drinks, baked goods, sandwiches, and desserts in a hip upscale setting.

Patrons choose what to pay, and are encouraged to pay what they would elsewhere. You may use this as a convenience feature, e.g. get your daily coffee and drop in a $20 at the end of the week.

We also cheerfully serve those who cannot pay, in a non-stigmatizing customer setting, with no political or religious message, and with full-time availability. ”

The idea emerged from a debate where founder Ervin Peretz, a Google programmer (ahhh, is Google moving into the cafe business?

) argued that people are inherently good. To prove his point, he created Terra Bite. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is… to the tune of 6 figures. But he does not run a charity, he plans to build a growing for-profit business. Will people pay (enough)?

“Even without posted prices, “social monitoring” — the feeling that others are watching what you do — can enforce payment, said Erica Okada, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Washington Business School.” But Terra Bite employees are instructed not to look at the drop box where patrons can discreetly drop payment – if they so chose:

With its anonymous drop box, Terra Bite has minimized, if not eliminated, that effect. Under these circumstances, Okada said, the economic model predicts that Terra Bite customers won’t pay anything.

The Professor’s pessimism does not deter Ervin, who plans to expand Terra Bite into a chain – last time we checked, Starbucks hasn’t crumbled yet.

What do you think? (If you can’t see the poll in your feed, please click through to cast your vote).

Full story at the Seattle Times.

Related posts: Web Worker Daily, Metroblogging Seattle,

Tags: terra bite, starbucks, starbucks 2.0, cafe 2.0, social experiment, social monitoring, startup, google, entrepreneurship, social entrepreneur, zoho polls

Filed Under: Business, Marketing / PR, Startups ·

Sutter Health Committed a PR Suicide – Firing Military Hero Nurse

Posted on January 24, 2007 ·

Lieutenant Colonel Debra Muhl of the U.S. Air Force Reserve got fired from her job at Sutter Health two days after she told her supervisor she was being deployed to Iraq. Now she filed a lawsuit.

“Colonel Muhl is an honest-to-goodness war hero,” her attorney said. “She has treated thousands of wounded individuals and service members …”

Sutter Health insists that Muhl’s termination was based on internal economics only.

While I’m not qualified to comment on the legal merits of the case, I do recognize a major blunder when I see one. Whether the firing was lawful or not, the PR nightmare of firing a military hero (and wherever we are on the Iraq war issue, we have to recognize her as such, not being in an active combat position but saving lives) .. anyway, repairing the PR damage from firing a war hero will far outweigh the savings from whatever “internal economics” Sutter Health referred to.

Sutter Health could not have made a more stupid decision.

(full story at the San Francisco Chronicle)

Tags: sutter health, military, reservist, USERRA, PR Blunder, PR nightmare, PR suicide, Iraq, war, iraq deployment

Filed Under: Bay Area, Marketing / PR, Misc, Politics ·

Finally! MWVULNSE has Arrived!

Posted on January 21, 2007 ·

No kidding! It’s the Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Limited Numbered Signature Edition!

Signed by The Man himself…

WTF?

(hat tip: Engadget)

Tags: vista, windows vista, limited edition

Filed Under: Marketing / PR, Personal Productivity, Software ·

Google Killing the Picasa Brand, Round II.

Posted on January 11, 2007 ·

A few weeks ago I noticed that Google was in the process of slowly killing the Picasa brand. You can still download the program, in fact it is still called Picasa, but Google ads now refer to Google’s Photo Software:

I guess I was partly right: Google now advertises Picasa as part of Google Pack. Although it’s possible to opt out, users who don’t pay attention end up with a bundle of apps they did not want: by deafult they get Google Earth, Google Screensaver, Google Desktop, Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar, Ad-Aware SE Personal, Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition, Adobe Reader 7. Nice “gift” from the company that wants to do “no evil”.

Tags: google, picasa, google pack

Filed Under: Marketing / PR, Software, Technology ·

The Official Google Blog is NOT a Blog

Posted on December 31, 2006 ·

(Updated)

“The definition of “googol” is a number, and Google lives by numbers. So how else should we look back over the year but with numerical bits?”

That’s the opening line of A year in Google blogging, then it lists the number of posts, products unveiled, acquisitions ..etc. There is one number remarkably missing: the number of comments. I wanted to ask about this in a comment, but I couldn’t. The Google Blog does not allow commenting. .

They claim they love feedback: but the only way to leave feedback is by emailing them. Hm, not much of “love” here, if you ask me.

Whatever happened to “conversation”?

I’m sorry, Google, you have Blogger, but until you open up commenting, you don’t have a Google Blog.

Update #1: Scoble is right, Matt Cutts does a better job for Google PR than this…

Update #2: Mike at TechCrunch agrees, in fact he’s running a poll on the issue – worth checking a little later.

Update #3: The TechCrunch post drew a lot of attention to the subject, all of a sudden. Quite a few commenters don’t feel comments are necessary – and ironically they make that observation in … yes, that’s right, comments. In the meantime I re-read the Google post, and found this towards the end:

“And before long, perhaps you can begin leaving comments directly. We’re working on that.”

Hm.. that makes me feel a bit silly … am I pounding the table for something Google has already agreed to? I don’t remember having read this originally, but it could very well have been my mistake. A quick check on Google cache finds a more explicit statement:

“Meanwhile, we really appreciate your interest and feedback, now visible through “Links to this post.” We know some of you would like to offer comments directly, and we would like that too, when we can add resources to the blog crew.”

~~The cached version is time-stamped 5:18pm, while the current blog post has 4:23pm, so the earlier version appears to be live … go figure~~. ~~In the end, it really does not matter, what’s important is that the Googlers agree to bring the conversation on.~~

[Update to the update: I was blind, sorry. The cached version is from the end of 2005. Thanks to Ionut for pointing this out. It’s pretty sad though… if commenting was already on the agenda in Dec 2005, and it still is, it tells us just how seriously Google takes this “promise”. ]

And as for the lack of resources, well, perhaps the solution isn’t formally hiring more “blogging crew”, but embracing Matt Cutts’s idea:

“- Each project at Google should monitor the blogosphere for issues. Reduce the disconnect to reduce the danger.

– Get more Googlers talking online. There will be some mistakes, but the conversations will be worth it.”

Blogging crew or not, let Googlers volunteer on the Google Blog. I’m sure we’ll have a lively conversation.

Update (01/02): Amazingly this is the third day in a row this discussion lives on TechMeme ….

Update (7/11/07): Fred Wilson brings the subject up again:

“You can’t turn off the comments and have a truly interactive blog with a community. Comments are where it’s at in blogging. If I turned off comments, I’d quit blogging.

… A blog without comments is a one way medium. And that’s not as good as a conversation.”

I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately we’re seeing examples of just the opposite, like Marc Andreessen whose otherwise excellent blog is now commentless, or Zooomr, who simply turned off comments to redirect the conversation to their internal groups.

Tags: google, google blog, blogs, blogging, conversation, blog comments

Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing / PR, Technology ·