The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘attention’

I first learned of Allmyapps at Le Web ‘09 when the company’s CEO Thibauld Favre, and co-Founder Aranaud Coulondre, grabbed my attention and enticed me into a demo. I nearly missed my flight. Allmyapps, a small but ambitious startup based in France, aims to become the “iTunes for software applications” as Thibauld puts it, bringing simple 1 click multi-application install to end-users.

Cascaad, which is billed both as an ‘awareness engine’ and a ’smart social media browser’ by the Italian startup behind the service, aims to make the realtime streams you tap into more about you.

Essentially, the tool is designed to filter the never-ending incoming message stream from your friends and millions of others by continuously distilling which part of the chatter is about stories, things and places that match your specific interests, context and social affinities.

Here’s how the service, currently only available as a beta iPhone app (iTunes link), gets pitched in their own words:

The goal is to potentiate your extended awareness of what is happening right now of personal relevance in your world. It is basically a very sophisticated realtime networked search, discovery and filter engine that distills automatically what both your friends and millions of other people are paying attention to on Twitter and other social platforms into the attention-grabbing stories, things and places that match personal interests and social affinities.

Cascaad will soon be releasing a full-fledged Web-based experience, and the company is also working on integrating new data sources and capabilities, including location awareness, as well as extending the platform’s reach. Last week, Cascaad released its first beta of what it calls the SuperTweet API, which it says will allow third-party Twitter applications to “add smart contextual information and monetization [...], including semantic entity markup, nonintrusive in-text affiliate commerce links, related content [and] social relevance scores”.

The startup was founded in 2008 by Erik Lumer (PhD Stanford, formerly at Xerox Parc and founder and ex-CEO of Internet TV startup Babelgum). The company’s R&D unit is based in Milan, employs 8 people and will be opening an office in Silicon Valley some time this quarter.

Cascaad has raised close to $2 million in financing over two rounds (one in November 2009, and one last month) from Italian VC firm Innogest Capital.

Another venture-backed startup doing similar things is Israel-based my6sense.

What is it with publishers fascination with second-hand sales? Yes, for every used video game you buy on eBay, the publisher sees zero dollars and zero cents, but are they operating at such razor-thin margins that teens auctioning off their old PSP games is worth their attention? You don’t see Ford or GM or Toyota or Honda or anything complaining about used cars sales, do you

See the original post here:
Maybe used game sales are actually good for the industry?

Online productivity suite Zoho has been open to allowing users to use their Google, Google Apps and Yahoo accounts to log-in to Zoho Apps. Zoho says that most of its users are using their log-ins for other applications to use Zoho’s offerings. Today, the productivity suite is adding a social layer to its suite by integrating the ability to login with Facebook Connect.

Similar to its integration with Google apps, Zoho users can login to Zoho using their Facebook credentials. Users with existing Zoho accounts can now link the two accounts so that they can login with Facebook credentials alone. But the plus of using Facebook Connect now allows Zoho to transcend platforms. So you can now share documents with Facebook users who don’t have a Zoho Account. Of course this isn’t Zoho’s first foray into Facebook’s territory. Zoho’s Facebook app allows users to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations from within Facebook and includes the ability to view and edit all existing documents, spreadsheets and presentations (both personal and shared) from Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show.

Of course, you can add a social layer to Google Apps, a competitor of sorts to Zoho, with Socialwok. But the plus of using Zoho’s applications is that suite ties into its other productivity applications seamlessly. And Zoho is affordable, with a free version of the suite. Last year, we wrote that Zoho has continued to implement an intelligent strategy to launch new products and add-ons to its existing offerings, partly to keep users from flocking to Google Apps and Microsoft’s Web-based version of Microsoft 2010. It looks like Zoho is continuing this strategy in 2010.

The adoption of Facebook Connect makes sense for a number of reasons. First, productivity apps in the enterprise are naturally becoming more social. Second, Facebook, with 400 million users, could bring more traffic to Zoho. Last year, startup unveiled a new version of Zoho Reports; launched a deeper integration with Google Docs; rolled out Zoho Discussions, a online forum tool for businesses; and debuted Zoho Recruit.

And over the past two years, Zoho has added support for Sharepoint, mobile, Google and Yahoo IDs and group sharing. According to out latest states, Zoho has definitely reached over 2 million users is even catching the attention of its competition.

If you’re a startup looking for some early angel investments, you probably have a list of people you’d love to work with mapped out in your mind. Unfortunately, there’s also a good chance that you have absolutely no idea how to get their attention and pitch them. Today Venture Hacks is launching a new project that may help with that. Dubbed StartupList, Venture Hacks will start sending a weekly Email digest featuring three startup pitches that will get Emailed to some of Silicon Valley’s most respected angel investors. Venture Hacks founder Babak Nivi likens it to a DailyCandy for startups.

The project is a followup to the Venture Hacks AngelList, which launched yesterday. AngelList is a basic directory of over 80 established angel investors, including their all-important contact info (or, at least, the best people to get a reference through), what the investor looks for in a startup, and other key information. These members of the AngelList will all be receiving the weekly StartupList, which obviously makes it a huge boon to any startups that land a spot on the list.

Nivi says that the system is already working — after an initial release on Twitter they’ve had nine angel investors ask for intros to the startups, including David Cohen (Techstars), Mike Hirshland (Polaris), and WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg.

To get on the list, you’ll have to apply through this site. Your pitch will be judged by the two members of the Venture Hacks team (Nivi and Naval), who will be looking for traction, ’social proof’, and a solid team (though you don’t necessarily have to be excelling in all three areas). Your elevator pitch will have to be kept to around 150 words, and you need to have a minimum viable product (as defined by the Venture Hacks guys).

I’m still scratching my head at Mark Cuban’s comments about news aggregators being freeloading vampires that should be blocked by news sites.

As Danny Sullivan points out, Cuban is an investor in Mahalo, which is an aggregator extraordinaire.

And in 2008 at the TechCrunch50 conference, Cuban said he’d like to be an investor in news aggregator TechMeme. He says: “Gabe from TechMeme, I’ve been running after him for two years to try to let me do something with him because I think its a brilliant idea and I think I can add value…I try to stick to things that are strategic to me that I think are fun that I think are game changing.”

Cuban was mostly railing on Google News in his talk, but TechMeme has a similar model of linking to stories with a short excerpt. You can watch the entire interview here.

I’ve emailed Mark to get see if he wants to talk more about this, because I continue to be more than confused.

As a transplanted Brit in America, I’m having something of a hard time getting my head around this whole Late Night debacle.

Unlike most American television, late night talk shows – the Conans, the Lettermans, the Carsons (he’s the one who’s dead, right?) – never really made it out to the rest of the world.

The first, and biggest, reason for this is that the shows tend to be vehicles for movie stars to promote their latest project: movies that probably have different release dates outside the US. Watching Ben Stiller talk about a movie that we won’t be able to see for six months isn’t so much entertaining as annoying.

The second reason is that, to my eye and ear at least, most of the shows are astonishingly unfunny. I mean, really. The men are paid millions – tens of millions – of dollars and given armies of writers to be hilarious and yet they still have to hire a sidekick to laugh at their punchlines. Hell, one of them – is it Leno? – even has a drum rimshot to telegraph when we’re supposed to laugh. It’s about as pathetic as me hiring some guy to add a ‘LOL’ comment to all of my posts on TechCrunch. Which come to think of it isn’t a bad idea.

I’m sure I’m missing the joke somewhere, but I suspect the real reason these shows are so popular to you Americans is that they’re institutions. And what was it Groucho Marx asked? “Who wants to live in an institution?”

Amiright folks? Badoom-tish!

But still, I live in America now, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the most important cultural rift in the country’s history since the great Cheersquake of ‘83. In particular I’d be doing the world a disservice if I didn’t respond to the growing number of apparently sane commentators who are urging Conan O’Brien to take his act online.

Nick Summers at Newsweek began the Siren call:

“The new comedy prestige─to be the material that dominates Twitter’s trending topics list, to create the clips embedded on a million blogs─has nothing to do with airing on a certain network at a certain time.” 

Nick Bilton at the New York Times joined in:

“Mr. O’Brien’s youthful supporters won’t crowd around the television at a specific time, instead they go to YouTube and Gawker to watch their late-night television, and share their own commentary around each clip. So here’s my advice to Mr. O’Brien: After he leaves NBC and spends a few months healing his wounds and pulling the troops back together, he should come back and make the Internet his time slot.”

But it wasn’t just people called Nick. Jim Louderback from Revision3 went as far making Conan a formal – if attention-seeking – offer: “I’m willing to give him a substantial ownership stake in Revision3, if he makes the jump here.”

In his open letter, Louderback adds that “the [online] space has seen a 35% average increase in advertising spending in 2009.  (Just think how many cigars that would buy for Triumph The Comic Insult Dog).” Bilton meanwhile accepts that “the expenses associated with producing a high-quality show needed to attract celebrity guests quickly add up show” but points to Seth McFarlane as a star who has managed to convince advertisers to move their dollars online.

The size of the potential online audience excites Louderback too: “Conan’s voice – and own special brand of entertainment – deserve to be viewed not just by the 300 million people in the US, but by the 6 billion people around the world,” he says, confident that the Chinese and the Iranians are just crying out to be entertained by an American and his masturbating bear. As Bilson says: “It’s clear we are approaching a fork in the road, and the road sign for the next generation clearly points to the Web. For Mr. O’Brien’s core audience, the time slot is being replaced by a URL.”

These are arguments we’ve heard many times before. Television is a sinking ship! The Internet is the future, and smart talent will jump aboard and reap the spoils. We’ve heard it for newspapers – journalists should create blogs and become their own bosses; print is dead! – we’ve heard it for books – the Kindle means anyone can distribute their own writing;  publishing is dead! and we’ve heard it for music – bands should release their tracks online for free and make money from live gigs; record labels are dead! And always the same arguments: audiences and advertising money will follow talent, without need for intermediaries. It’s just a matter of time before stars like Conan realise this and then the rest will follow!

It’s a great message; it’s just a shame that it’s also – and obviously – total horseshit.

Let’s start by putting to rest the myth that audience follows talent. Howard Stern’s move from nationally syndicated radio to Sirius satellite might have made him a fortune, but it also lost him a huge chunk of his audience and almost all of his pop cultural influence. Likewise, the vast majority of high-profile bloggers who were given book deals have failed to earn back their advances through sales, despite publishers being certain that their millions of online readers would translate into book buyers. Those journalists who quit newspapers to go solo have struggled to pull in readers. And the idea that Conan’s audience will follow him online is equally ridiculous.

The truth is, audiences aren’t loyal to a particular star: they’re loyal to a medium, and often within that medium they’re even loyal to a slot. Conan knows this which is why when he was offered a later slot for his show – 12:05am, with Leno being moved later to replace him – he refused. “Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter,” he said. “But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.”

The other reason he refused is that he understands that in the media the most important thing someone can have is not money or viewers or readers or listeners… but prestige: that X factor that makes people know you’re a star.

Getting prestige isn’t easy – and that’s the point. We live in a world that’s full of people who want our attention and we can’t possibly filter all of them ourselves, so we accept that we need certain media gatekeepers to do the filtering for us. NBC is one of those gatekeepers: the Tonight Show spot is the very expensive jewel in their crown – a crown that can only be worn by one person. By choosing Conan to be that person, NBC immediately signals that he’s worthy of our attention. He’s a rising star. He has prestige. As a result, he gets paid a fortune and attracts a large fan base, not just on television but on the Internet and on any other medium he appears.

It’s the same signal that’s sent out whenever a blogger gets a book deal, or an unsigned singer becomes signed to a major label or a local journalist is hired to write for the New York Times. We know that publishers don’t give book deals to everyone, the Times (really) can’t afford to recruit bad writers and record labels don’t hire people who can’t sing. So by being accepted by one of those gatekeepers, an author, or singer or journalist is granted prestige. They are a star.

But the tricky thing about prestige is that it only works in one direction. Moving from obscurity to a prestigious job, or moving from a prestigious job to an even more prestigious job tells everyone that your star is in the ascendancy, that they should keep watching. But the moment you move even one step in the other direction – say by going back a less coveted time slot, or by switching to a less prestigious medium – it’s all over. All of your hard-earned prestige can vanish in months or even weeks.

And that’s why Conan would be insane to leave behind television and move exclusively online. The Internet might have huge audiences and growing ad spending but it has zero prestige. Its greatest selling point is that it isn’t a gatekeeper; everyone is welcome. Anyone with a webcam, some cats and a Roomba can get a million viewers and anyone willing to spend a ton of money can produce a show that looks as good as the Tonight Show. And yet no matter how much money they throw at their video, or how many YouTube views it gets – no matter how Internet famous they become – they’re never going to be a star; not like Conan is a star.

Likewise, by turning his back on the prestige that he has from television, and moving online, Conan’s star – and his associated ability to command large audiences and even larger paychecks – would fade in a matter of months. We might all claim now to be ‘With Coco‘ but before long our attention would drift away to whoever the gatekeepers decide is worthy of it next.

And when that happens, Conan becomes just another ginger cat on a Roomba.

I decided to take a gander through the car audio section of the show and was met with quite possibly some of the most grandiose automobiles I have ever been within 5 feet of. Despite the purpose of these vehicles being to showcase the audio systems these companies can create, flashing lights and bright colors seemed to be the attention getting method of choice. Although, more often than not, I heard Soulja Boy being passed as music

Read more from the original source: 
The most ridiculous cars of CES

I don’t have kids (yet), but I’d be all over this if I did … and if I were a native English speaker: TC50 finalist Story Something is cautiously opening up to the masses during the holidays – intentionally.

While the service is still ‘most definitely in beta’ according to co-founder and CEO Jim Rose, it gives you a pretty good idea of what the startup’s building.

As our initial review of Story Something lays out in detail, the service generates personalized stories for children that make them the heroes by putting them at the center of the narrative. The hero takes on the child’s name, and a story is generated which can be viewed on the Web or e-mailed to the parent.

The startup is launching in open beta with 55 stories, some of which get featured on the homepage. Stories come in two flavors: ones that are not interactive and fairly short, and ones that are a bit longer and allow the parent or child to have some control over the storyline by giving options that effect the narrative.

Rose tells us they decided to launch close to the holidays because of the fact that many parents will be travelling with their children, and their stories can help in keeping them entertained in the car, on the plane, and so on. Story Something also published a special holiday-themed story (of the kind that lets you choose your own adventure) for the occasion. If you have kids, you’ll want to check this out.

Story Something will focus much of their attention to increasing the available library size and soliciting feedback from parents and authors in the coming weeks and months.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Social network for chess fans Chesspark is merging with that other online chess community site, Chess.com, the two companies announced last night.

Chess.com is making the transition easy, as former Chesspark users can simply log on with their familiar credentials and find that their usernames, avatars and ratings have automatically been transferred.

West Palm Beach-based Chesspark.com raised $1 million from angel investors in July 2007, including True Ventures founder and managing partner Jon Callaghan, Burnt Norton and Eaglebrook School.

That was around the time Chess.com surfaced as well, with a better domain name but a very similar offering (see our coverage).

Chesspark founders Jack Moffitt and Brian Zisk likely decided a merger was in everyone’s best interest because they decided to focus more of their attention on their latest venture, real-time search startup Collecta.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0