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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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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 ·
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Zooomr Zoomed Out – Will Be Back as Mark III.

Posted on March 13, 2007 ·

My favorite photo-site, Zooomr is down – but this time I don’t mind, as it will be back with a major upgrade – Mark III (whatever that is). Wunderkind-Founder Kristopher promises over 250 new features, and Unlimited storage and archival for all users — no limits on photo size, either!  (Oops, I’m no longer privileged as a blogger…)

Watch Kristopher’s video here – oh, boy, someone needs a lot more sleep!smile_yawn

 

 P.S. Wow, they finally listened to me smile_wink  and acquired Zoomr.com, which had been a typosquatting site for long.

 

Filed Under: Blogging, SaaS, Social Networking, Software, Startups, Technology ·
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Microsoft Finds Solution for Sluggish Outlook Performance

Posted on March 10, 2007 ·

As several users, including yours truly reported, MS Outlook is painfully slooooooow.  I especially liked Mini Microsoft’s description:

“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.”

Microsoft recommended solution was to reduce one’s Outlook data file.  Apparently few users followed it, so now Microsoft came out with the absolute solution: Windows Live OneCare  deletes users outlook.pst file.  You know, that’s the unimportant little file where you keep all your email, contacts, appointments, tasks ..etc.

Computer Not Working 3I suppose starting from scratch with an empty data file speeds up Outlook…

This is so pathetic, I don’t really know what to say … Phil Wainewright said it best 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…”

Amen.

Update (3/10):  Deja Vu… MS programs killing MS programs is nothing new… 

 

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, Software, Technology ·
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Those Pennies Add Up

Posted on March 9, 2007 ·

Any time Google makes an announcement, naysayers rush to say it’s the end of the smaller Office 2.0 players. I disagree: it’s not going to be a winner-takes-all market. There will be room for better, differentiated products, better customer service, possible white-label partnerships… Ahh, and talk about partnership: you can’t partner with Google – you can become a customer on their terms.

That said, not all startups survive: we’ve seen Kiko fold, and the iRows team joined Google when they ran out of cash. So it definitely does not hurt to have some longevity if you’re in this “game” for the long run.

Today a service I’ve been beta-testing and like a lot came out of beta: that means it’s fully available, and God Forbid smile_embaressed also charges a fee.

Site24x7 does what the name suggests: monitors your site’s availability, response times, and it also allows monitoring individual web transactions. You can predefine whether you’d like email or SMS alerts in case of outages. Below is a sample weekly (daily, if you prefer) report.

 

Actually, I lied above: the service does have a basic free level. But if you’d like monitoring frequency to be less than 60 minutes, you’ll find the Pro account is well worth it: fees start at 50 cents. Since this is not a user-based service, that means $.50, $1, $2 per site per month. I think it’s a no-brainer.

Why am I talking about it? Site24x7 is provided by a company named Adventnet. Their website is boring. But their product list is over a hundred items long. “Boring”, reliable, solid cash-cows. smile_wink Adventnet is not a startup by any means: they have been in business for ten years, organically growing to 600+ employees and millions of dollars in revenue (without outside investment).

They are the company behind Zoho. Now you know where Zoho’s longevity comes from. Those pennies add up.

(Disclaimer: I’m an Advisor to Zoho)

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Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Collaboration, Personal Productivity, SaaS, Software, Startups, Technology ·
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9223372036854775807 months

Posted on March 8, 2007 ·

Being an early beta user has its perks – a particular service I’ve been using and like just came out of beta, and decided to reward me with $200 credit against future fees.  Now comes the really good part:

“Your current … charges come to $0 per month. With the current …. you have, your credits should last for 9223372036854775807 months from now on.”

Life is good.  And around month 9223372036854775805 we’ll re-negotiate, shall we?

 

Filed Under: Humor, Software, Startups ·
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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.

smile_sad

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:

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:

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

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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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IDC’s Storage Paradox

Posted on March 6, 2007 ·

Tom Foremski points to a recent IDC study over at Silicon Valley Watcher: IDC: We face a looming crisis – we won’t have anywhere to store hundreds of exabytes of data.

The title says it all. According to IDC’s estimates, the world will produce 988 exabytes of data in 2010 – but only 601 exabytes of storage will be available.

Oops, if this is true, I’m in trouble with my push for on-demand.

smile_eyeroll But somehow I’m not worried:

  • Last I checked, data storage was not a natural resource, it is manufactured. Why wouldn’t market forces take care of balancing demand and supply?
  • Just where exactly would the excess “data” exist? Right now I am typing this post – but if I don’t save / post / send it, it does not get stored, it won’t become data – it won’t exist at all. (for simplicity forget caching and autosave). Does IDC count our thoughts as data?

Something does not compute.

(Disclaimer: I have not seen the original report, only secondary sources, like the AP news item referred above)

Update (3/06): It’s worth pointing out that the move to an on-demand model will actually reduce storage requirements: since we work natively online, it will be easier to share / link, we don’t have to send redundant copies of the same file.

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Filed Under: Software, Technology ·
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