post

Google’s FeedBurner Social Isn’t Quite Ready. Back to TwitterFeed – for Now.

Posted on December 14, 2009 ·

googtwitWhy bother with an intermediary when we can now have FeedBurner send our blog post to Twitter directly?

– I wrote in Startup Bloodbath in Social Media and I meant it.  But for now, we’re switching back to TwitterFeed.

The new Feedburner service that pushes blog posts to Twitter directly isn’t quite ready. Let’s just say it’s a bit too trigger-happy: it pushes an update after every “save”, even minor updates to already published posts.

This is so crappy, we’re switching CloudAve back to TwitterFeed – for now.  Because it is crappy enough for Google to fix it soon – and then we’re back to the original formula: no need for intermediaries.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Software · Tagged: , , , , ,
post

Startup Bloodbath in Social Media?

Posted on December 14, 2009 ·

Image credit: Evil Fish Google announced their own URL shortener. Great.  But some startups may be panicking.  The TechCrunch title says it all: Bit.ly Just Got Fu.kd: Facebook And Google Get Into The Short URL Game.

Of course bit.ly is not the only possible casualty, but they are the dominant one in the URL shortening space – or at least they have been so far…

But what most commentators haven’t noticed is another feature from Google: FeedBurner social, which might very well kill TwitterFeed.  Yes, why bother with an intermediary when we can now have FeedBurner send our blog post to Twitter directly?  Check out the URL for this very post on Twitter: it’s the shiny new goog.gl variety.

And it’s not over yet.. just as we’re absorbing what all this means, here’s news of Twitter testing business features, including the ability of multiple users posting on behalf of one organization..  Somehow I don’t think CoTweet, HootSuite and a bunch of others are too happy about it.

Are they all doomed?  Not necessarily – right now they all offer additional features (multiple accounts, scheduling, stats..etc), but nevertheless, it must not be very comforting when the Ultimate Giant enters their space…

Oh, yeah, I know … we’ll soon see the statements from all these startups welcoming Google, validating their markets…etc. 🙂

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: SaaS, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
post

Why Isn’t There a Reliable Pay-As-You-Go Internet Fax Service?

Posted on December 10, 2009 ·

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

But wait, isn’t it 2009 (almost 2010?).  Yes it is. An therein lies the rub.  I wrote this two years ago, and the fact that most of it is still valid is quite sad.  Fax technology should be dead  – it’s ridiculously unpractical to translate meaningful text to dumb image, when on the receiving end they need meaningful text again. Yet in many professions faxes are still used, and from time to time all of us are forced to dealing with it.  That means finding a service appropriate for the ad-hoc, just-in-case use, nothing less, nothing more.

I’ve had a trusted old eFax numer for perhaps a decade, never gave it a lot of thought.  However, some glitches prompted me to check again. Here’s an updated version of the matrix I published in 2007 – the comparison of 10 Internet fax services by Top Ten Reviews:

faxmatrix

What’s wrong here?  There’s not a single offer tailored for individual ad-hoc users.  I’m sure a busy office has enough fax traffic to justify the $10 or so that most of these services charge, but as a consumer, the grand total of faxes I receive in a year is perhaps 2-3, 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?   Oh, well, since the previous (2007) vintage of this post, I’ve found two free / pay-per-fax services that solve the outbound problem:  FaxZero and GotFreeFax.  Very well – problem solved.  Except now there’s trouble on the inbound front.

In the past two years two of my eFax numbers “disappeared”, and so did an alternative one @ FaxDigits (in fact FaxDigits no longer seems to exist). For now, any time I need to give my fax number to someone, I need to send a test fax to it first to check if it’s still operational.  That’s crap.  Yes, I get what I pay for, you might say – which is zero.  But like I said, I’m willing to pay, just not $10 per month – that would make the 2-3 faxes I receive par year really expensive.  I can’t believe I am the only one with such usage pattern and there is no reliable provider with a usage-based pricing plan to match such usage.

I understand it may not be economically feasible for a service provider to maintain all these phone numbers and charge pennies – so perhaps the solution is lump it with another service that already runs millions of phone numbers – Google Voice?  Let’s hope they will step up. 🙂

Finally, here’s Dilbert’s take on the issue.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: SaaS, Technology · Tagged: , , , , ,
post

Twitter in the Enterprise – Round 56745327

Posted on December 8, 2009 ·

In the last minute I had to cancel my trip to the SAP Influencer Summit, but I am following it almost as if I was there – by following the Tweet Stream.  SAP has also provided a Virtual Environment, where analysts, media, bloggers can interactively participate – right now I am watching a live video on their On Demand Strategy (hm.. how appropriate – watching the On-Demand session on-demand).  The Virtual Environment includes Twitter tools, including sentiment analysis based on SAP’s Business Objects technology:

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Enterprise Software · Tagged: , , , , , ,
post

If it Swims Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck, then it Probably is a Duck. The Anti-SAP Duck.

Posted on December 6, 2009 ·

RubberDuck

Two SAP-related conferences will run literally next door to each other in Boston next week.  One, which I am attending is the SAP Influencer Summit where analysts and the media get to meet SAP execs – the other is what some of us quickly dubbed the Anti-SAP Conference.

The Sapience conference  is focused on “Alternatives for leveraging  your investment in SAP”.  Fellow Enterprise Irregulars Vinnie Mirchandani and Ray Wang will both be presenting – no surprise there. Vinnie has long earned the nickname Vinnie Maintenance (well, when he’s not Vinnie Merchantsmile_wink) for his crusade against bloated integration and maintenance costs, which “can make up 70 to 90% of TCO in an SAP shop” and Ray also has a track record of taking the customer side.  No wonder the two are now working together as Enterprise Advocates.

Are enterprise software fees outrageously high?  Probably… see my old post on how SaaS subscription can be half of only the maintenance component of traditional software’s TCO.  Do System Integrators, Consultants overcharge?  Probably … although let’s be real, they charge whatever they can get away with, i.e. whatever the market allows. Hence alternatives are good – SaaS, nimble, less expensive third party providers and even strategic client-side consultants like Vinnie and Ray who can make a decent living on advising customers on how to reduce their ERP TCO.  The market is all about competition and and market players have to take sides, no shame in that.

But then I don’t understand why Vinnie and Dennis Howlett are vehemently denying the anti-SAP nature of Sapience. I prefer to call it what it is – just take a look at the sponsor list:

It’s a who is who of SAP’s competitors – now let’s look at some of the Conference Speakers:

  • Craig Conway, PeopleSoft’s last CEO before getting swallowed by Oracle
  • Jan Baan, Founder of Baan, a “hot” SAP competitor in the 90’s
  • Paul Wahl who left SAP for Siebel, and took the creme of SAP’s leadership at the time with him

golden oldiesThey share one thing in common: all former SAP competitors but also representative of the very same “fat” business model they will no doubt speak out against.  They are joined by several former SAP Execs and current service providers.

Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite is a great competitor and one who does not miss a chance SAP’s fumbling with their own SMB SaaS offering, BYD offers him.

It’s hard to not see what the conference organizer, Helmuth Gumbel assembled here: the Anti-SAP All Star Band.  Oh, and let’s not forget how Dennis Howlett had introduced Helmuth: SAP’s feet put to the fire.

How about the timing?  If you believe it’s pure coincidence that Sapience coincides with the SAP Influencer Summit both in time and location, I have a bridge to sell you.  It’s just as “accidental” as Netsuite’s SAP for the Rest of Us Party was during SAPPHIRE 2006, right across the Convention Center.   Nothing wrong about guerilla marketing, but why be shy about it?

A conference designed to steal some thunder from SAP’s Summit, at the same time and place, sponsored and keynoted by SAP’s competitors, and it’s not “anti-SAP”?  C’mon… you know the quacks and all.smile_wink But don’t get me wrong: Sapience may very well be a healthy contribution to the SAP ecosystem – it just does not need any whitewashing.

You may also want to read the healthy debate that developed in the comments to Vinnie’s post.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Enterprise Software · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
post

SAP: Enterprise Software for Children

Posted on November 30, 2009 ·

Or not?

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Enterprise Software · Tagged: , , ,
post

Prezi Dazzles: Live Recording of a Social Media Class

Posted on November 9, 2009 ·

I’ve said before: if you wanto to dazzle with your presentation, use Prezi.  The Prezi team did to presentations what Google did to email: throw away all pre-existing notions, re-think why and how we use email (presentations) and build something from scratch.  That’s how you get results that truly dazzle.

Of course that brings up the question of just how much you want to dazzle: probably not too much in the corporate world: as Prezi throws away all notions of what presentations are (used to be), there would be  too much “undoing”, too steep a learning curve.  PowerPoint and Enterprise are too deeply intertwined.  That said  Prezi is a great tool (online and offline) for superstar freelancers, small groups, or just about anyone who gets on stage and wants to … yes, dazzle.

But Prezi can make you dizzy 🙂 at least in the video below, played 10 times the original speed.  So hold on to your chair tight, and enjoy…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Software · Tagged: , , , ,
post

Fun Video from FakeOffice.org

Posted on November 8, 2009 ·

Filed Under: Humor, SaaS · Tagged: , , , , , ,
post

Why Windows 7 Will Be a Success, Whether Good or Not

Posted on October 8, 2009 ·

BallmerWin7 Windows 7 hasn’t even arrived yet but the speculation started: What’s wrong with Windows 7.  To be fair, the speculation is fueled by an unlikely source: Steve Ballmer himself.  He is trying to manage a potential fallout by warning us:

“’The test feedback (on Windows 7) has been good, but the test feedback on Vista was good,’ Ballmer, 53, said in an interview last week. ‘I am optimistic, but the proof will be in the pudding.’”

Indeed. But I actually think Windows 7 does not even have to be good to be a success (and my readers know I am not exactly a MS-fan). Here’s why:

  • Vista was such a disaster, that everyone will be happy to escape it.  Says Walt Mossberg: In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft’s long operating-system nightmare will be over.  Yes, we’ll be happy to leave that nightmare behind, even if we got raped in the process (had to pay ransom to get out of a failed OS)
  • Those who avoided Vista (smart decision), and that includes most of Corporate IT  are on a good but ancient WinXP, which will be phased out eventually, so the only choice is to go ahead with Windows 7.

In other words, this OS does not have to be particularly good.  This is it, the World will adopt it.  And if it turns out to be another dud (which I doubt)  well, we will have a few years to ponder why keep on buying software ( and that includes Office and more) from a company that hasn’t been able to produce a decent OS in a decade.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Software · Tagged: , , , , , , ,
post

Dubious SaaS Awards

Posted on October 7, 2009 ·

SaaS Directory has announced September’s most popular SaaS companies.  The top 5 are:

September’s top 5 US winners are:
#1 – Gogrid
#2 – WebECS
#3 – CariNet
#4 – Rackspace
#5 – American Data Technology

That’s a strange list..or perhaps SaaS Directory has a strange definition of “SaaS companies” since the top 5 are all in the web hosting business. (ASP, anyone?).  Well, it triggered my curiosity enough to dig deeper and look at the full list.  I’m not picking on any business here, simply stating my own ignorance, but I have to admit I haven’t heard of Robson Communications, Younicycle, Apptix or Yuba, just to name a few.   But perhaps it’s just me, so I asked around on Twitter:

How many “SaaS” companies do you recognize in this so-called “most popular” list?

Here are a few responses:

list1

Hm.. you tell me:-)

list2

6 from former Industry Analyst and current SaaS Exec Chris Selland – should say something about the list

list3

Ben makes a living writing about this stuff, and he only recognizes a third of these companies…

There’s one on the list I know by pure co-incidence: Vembu Technologies, whose CEO I happened to meet at his brother Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu’s office (disclosure: Zoho is Cloudave’s exclusive Sponsor).  I guess it proves it’s an entrepreneurial family: but wouldn’t Zoho be a more recognizable SaaS brand than Vembu?

The more I look at the SaaS Directory, the more confused I am.  Or perhaps they are the ones quite confused?  Here’s their definition of SaaS Project Management:

SaaS is an effective project management tool which enables teams to work together towards achieving common objectives dramatically improving the overall user experience while offering increased flexibility

“SaaS is an effective tool”… LOL.  (By the way, for SaaS PM discussions you may want to read this thread, or Andrew Filev’s PM 2.0 Blog)

Clicking further I’ve discovered the SaaS Directory Forums – they all seem to be overrun by commercial  spam:

saasforum

I rest my case.  Awards are a great way to recognize effort, success – but some awards can only harm a company’s reputation. As for the SaaS Directory – well, it’s a directory sans the SaaS part.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Filed Under: Marketing / PR, SaaS · Tagged: , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »