Dienstag, 8. Juni 2010

15 Pitches at Launch Silicon Valley with my votes #svase #svlaunch

Here are my personal votes out of 4 points:
If somebody is interested to invest, I will probably follow votes >3

#zikon 4/4
#a meet Remy Cromer to followup
eInc for flat panels, upgrades via rfid
Invest 1m to make it a product
>Basic Infrastructure for the next blue ocean device "internet of things"

#laster 2/4
Zile Liu
Virtual reality solution with glasses
>Future technology, no product yet

#Taggstr 3/4
Alamgir Mand
New Checkin service with tagging
Crowdsourcing solution for tagging
#a intro to footfeed
>Better forsquare, difficult to grow faster

#micello 2/4 (winner of crowd votes)
Ankit agarwal
#a get the app and intro api to footfeed
Google maps inside of buildings
>Potential POS adnetwork, missing crowdsourcing to get more maps build

#jmango 1/4
Ilan oosting
Software development platform for mobile apps
Makes it easy to support all different operating systems
>Busy market and difficult to sell to a smal target group

#vizibility. 4/4
James Alexander
Google Searchme button for your blog, facebook etc which generates
best search results of you
>Simple great idea, potential like sharethis,

#truedomain 1/4 (winner of crowd votes)
Robert pickup
Email anti pishing system
>Email is dead

#socialamp 3/4
Matt sunbulli
Social commerce tools: mini facebook tools for retailers
>Hard to sell and integrate into retailers website > good candidate for zanox appstore

#scanavert 4/4
Ellen badinelli
Mobile app for Food alergic tagging system via barcode
Diet, gluten free, organic, etc
>High potential for pos advertising network, daily usage, alternative affiliate offers

#lingto 2/4
facebook app: Coolcrap
Video conference / collaboration platform
>Another video conference

#tenCube 3/4 (winner of crowd votes)
Darius Cheung
Wavesecure - security solution if you lose your cellphone
>Peace of technology which needs every phone -nobrainer, why do they need money?

#jungle cents 2/4
Sameer Mehta
ReInverting pay per lead advertising, give the commision direct to customers
>Groupon adaption

#evolver 3/4
Brian nilles
3d avatar creation: (2d example avatara.com)
>Infrastructure for the new world, ready market?

#bccthis 1/4
Email extention wich allows you to send comments to bcc in the same email
>email is dead and bcc is bad for sharing

#appbackr 4/4
Crowdfunding for app developer
Trevor cornwell
>Crowdsourcing for a smal niche

--

Donnerstag, 3. Juni 2010

#sdforum @DLApiper

#ArgusInsights 1/4
Consulting company to help to innovate
>No way

#realLifePlus 4/4
mobile social games
Facebook games for adults, with sub
Invest 1.5m series A
>No brainer

#adeptol 2/4
Streaming solution for in Cloud stored data
Invest 3m series A
>Greate infrastructure

#insight 2/4
Smartphone Coupon solution
>Old world problem, old world software solution, hard to sell

#watersmart 2/4
Software to save water
>Right trend, hard to make money

#marseille networks 1/4

#sytosoft 2/4
Virtual world platform
Invest 750k
>Boring slide = boring platform? Don't get the business model.

#mylawsuit.com 2/4
Platform to find a performance based lawyer
Invest 2m
>Great idea, missing social integration and global scalability

#clientshow 1/4
collaboration platform for creative agencies
>Very competitive. Smal market with agencies

#askyourtargetmarket 2/4
On demand market research platform by surveys
Self service saas like surfeymonkey, facebook, linkedin
Invest 3.5
>Surveys don't work

#veritrix 2/4
Security Capture identification
Capture speech and video after an sms
Invest 3m
>To complicated and hard to do mobile on street

#Oolinum 3/4
#a follow-up with Akash L Pai, CEO
Social media advertising platform
Invest seed 1.5m
>Great idea, how does it work?

--

Donnerstag, 20. Mai 2010

Pitches from Plugandplay EXPO 2010

candidates with my personal voting:

#vufind
Mobile social service

#Mobilizy 1

#imagemetry 2
Algorythm for control of modified images

#vayulogic 2
Text messaging crm

#apparound 2
Rapid software development environment

#ecop 2
Innovative heating/cooling technology

#greenNexxus 2
Accelerating green behavior

#Fundrazr 2/4
Social commerce fundraising solution on facebook

#yoursports 3/4
Crowdfunding sports broadcasting

#a assetize 3/4
Adnetwork for social links, like adsense

#webservius
Data Marketplace

#whatsnexx
Marketing campaigns

#Mobilpay
eWallet, implemented with vodafone romania

#perspecsys

#appsocial.ca 3/4
Tingle.com - Social Dating solution

#Webgreek 2/4
Groupware for universities

#mingleverse
3d next generation of communication facebook app
Talk, share, iphone, ipad

#Teespy 2/4
Facebook app for golfer
Teetimes, advertising,

#myweboo 3/4
One stop shop of all social platforms

#locarna
Eye tracking solution

#a Universaldoctor project 3/4
Realtime speach Translation iphone app

#pqa 1/4
Consulting company

#networkhippo 3/4
Social personal crm consolidation solution
Sales management
#a looking for 300k angel

#vm6 1/4
Virtualization infrastructure

#tencube 1/4
Loosing a mobile phone

#woozworld
Virtual UGC saas kids world like sims

#mobizou 3/4
Mobile marketing for facebook + twitter + reward system

#Pnpexpo pitches

#motoky
Like facebook connect

#2future 1/4
Sustainable data management for cost reduction

#verold 2/4
3d animation for video games

#lixto 2/4
Price comparison saas

#zettar  2/4
enterprise storage in the cloud


Mittwoch, 19. Mai 2010

13 pitches from #Founder showcase Thefunded: evenues snapshop #globumbus

#Founder showcase Thefunded
Great pitch event, top candidates, professional judge, big audiance.

Here the candidates with my personal votes out of 4 points. Official
winner are evenues and snapshop. They all looking for funding!

#cloudcanvas 2/4
Saas tools

#breakthrough 2/4
Healthcare

#monstrous 1/4
Social music game platform

#evenues 3/4
Expedia for Meeting rooms

#koitunes 1/4
Social music platform

#memetales 2/4
Youtube Children stories

#vsee 2/4
Video collaboration system

#trueinsider 1/4
Anonymous reviews and feedback for employees and companies

#salesportal 2/4
Online auction of telephone lead generation

#snapshop 3/4
New Mobile Ecommerce solution with foto and social integration

#amahi 1/4
software platform?? Don't get it

#heliograph 2/4
Make websites faster (like akamai)
Caching, local, compression

#puzzazz 2/4
Saas Casual game for puzzles

--

Freitag, 30. April 2010

Wisdom 2.0 conference #wisdom2conf

#wisdom2conf
wisdom 2.0 conference

First Panel - Managing the Stream in a connected World
@Sacca @SorenG #RoshiJoanHalifax @GregPass @BradleyHorowitz @SorenG
@MeganPallai - Blockles: Multiplayer tetris version , where you have to do 40 things at the same time http://bit.ly/VN0Wt
CTO Greg Pass: Twitter principles 1) pay attention to what ur doing 2) be a force for good #wisdom2conf
Chris Sacca: after removing all distractions (drive, workout etc), only really get stuff done 1-1.5 hrs/ day.
Google has "no meetings Thursday" - amazing how stuff they get done on Thursdays! Chris Sacco #wisdom2conf /via @kanter // LOVE IT!
@jhalifax "the most precious thing I have to give is my presence"-
@sacca philosphy: "staying on offense", as opposed to reacting all day to one's email inbox a public to do list.
You could live your whole life in your inbox and never get anything done" - @sacca #wisdom2conf

detailed notes: http://innergreatness.blogspot.com/2010/05/wisdom-2-conference-managing-stream.html



Montag, 26. April 2010

Summary of #FutureOfMoney summit on: #crowdFunding #newBanking #mobilePayments #virtualGoods #financeTechnology

The Future of Money & Technology Summit
#FutureOfMoney - conference San Francisco about #crowdFunding #newBanking #mobilePayments #virtualCurrencies #socialCapital
26.4.2010 hotel kabuki SF
livestream http://de.justin.tv/futureofmoney#r=-rid-&s=em

Whats the next innovation in finance after ebay and paypal?
>We still pay with paper and plastic, no exciting innovations at all.
Financial crisis is not over yet.
> Stronger regulations and no new models making it even worst.
Why is there no banking revolution in the Valley?
> Lendingclub and kiva could not become the next big thing. Maybe mint, blippy and facebook credits addressing a real customer need.
Why most mobile payment examples are from unbanked people?
> Is there no market need in the developed world?

#VirtualGoods and Markets panel
@PhilRosedale #Lindenlabs
@BillTai #Charles River Ventures
@Vikas Gupta #social gold
@GurbakshChahal #gwallet
@DannyShader #kwedit
#"You don't want to be a poker chip without a casino." On creating new virtual economies/currencies.
#social exposure helps protect against casual fraud
#ILindenlab (second life) annual currency market is more that $700 million
#big topic "Facebook credits" - fraud is their biggest concern before launch

#Funding panel
@steveSchultz - Venrock (moderator)
@BhavaniRana - Intel Capital
@Christine Herron - First Round Capital
@JeffClavier - SoftTech VC
@konatbone TravasKalanick - entrepreneur, angel investor
#Do you see crowdFunding as a future competitor?
not seen yet, they still ask us for money, interesting, could fund we never would fund,
why not
#Angelsoft invested the same ammount of money like VCs did.
#Summary of VC market end of April 2010 "liquidity is amazing and deals are happening fast" Hooray! VCs are investing again!
#Avg person has relationships with 11 financial institutions - no wonder it's so hard to manage.
#Success of blippy is their good PR coverage because of their controverse model.
#Jeff clavier: cost of acquiring an unbanked customer is $50
#Perspective from funding panel: each market is very different in compliance terms. global scaling is much more challenging
#What are your criterieas in A-rounds?
- nice people, exciting ideas (Angel)
- track record of the team (VCs)

#Liquidity panel
@BenParr, #mashable - moderator
@JeremySmith, #secondmarket
@GregBrogger, #Sharespost
@DaveMcClure, #FoundersFund
IPO market will never return to the place where it was.
Time to founder cash has gotten too long.

#DemoSession - on new technologies
#BillingRevolution @AndyKleitsch - mobile payment system
#HomeAccount @MarkGoldstein - mortgage comparison platform
>lead generation landing page and affiliate model
#plasticJungle @GaryBriggs - sell giftcards you dont want
> Why do we buy giftcards, to sell them later for 50% of the original price?
#shwowp @TaraHunt - customer focused ecommerce (forward your shopping data via email to  comment on it)
> I dont get it before they launch it. Right now doing it on facebook.
#pageonce @GuyGoldstein - consolidated finance overview like mint + blippy
>They should allow sharing like blippy to get more user attention.
#a register and check it out
#enole @KurtCollins - zapcash: bluetooth ewallet with paypal on iphone
>just a paypal transaction on iphone. where is the innovation?
#blingNation @WencesCasares - RFID mobile wallet
> its gonna be hard to distribute a proprietary hardware to everybody
#expensify @DavidBarrett - create expense reports on your iphone
> blippy and mint just got funding and make the same issue more fun

#Compliance Issues - Will Voorhess, Silicon Valley Bank
money business is in the highest risk class of the high risk businesses
make sure: identity of your customers, security of transactions, controls about fraud, dont deal with terrorists etc.,

#new banking models panel
Laura hertzfeld - economystory.org
@bruce cahan - GoodBank
@Arno hesse - bernal bucks (german guy)
virtual currency ecosystem (pagerank 2)
"Financial crisis is not over"
@John bates - mindark.se
online game platform, 3D virtual world, virtual currency,
@Rob garcia
Lending club started 2007 very slow
Easy to use for everybody
facebook was not good for finance topics
banks will not go away
3needs: where is my money, better returns, transparent transactions

#mobile payments panel
@menekseGencer (moderator, she runs a #a linkedin group of moderator about mobile payment)
@billBarhydt - m-via
@redgSnodgrass - alcatel
@ronHirason - boku
#biggest challenges: carrier rates, sincerity is market ready to change, financial regulations, safety issues
# to many companoies try to sell tech instead of solving real problems (bonus cards,
# looks like mobile payments right now are only a topic for unbanked people in afrika, india etc.
#Single most imporant customer feedback - appreciation for simplicity.


Sponsors 1/2 of #futureofmoney @m-via @secondmarket @expensify @paypal @transfs @billshrink @mpayy @plasticjungle @pageonce
Sponsors 2/2 of #futureofmoney @socialgold @bling @sonic.net @collecta @mashable @ReadWriteWeb @BillingRevolution

Sonntag, 4. April 2010

Founders Interview Thomas Hessler

A lesson for the startup_school at supercoolschool.com
Founders Interview Thomas Hessler

Donnerstag, 25. März 2010

9 pitches from PACT @plugandplaytc

#namedepot 2/4
SAAS to Detect and protect brand names

#soundOfMotion 2/4
Mobile Apps for sports
Like powermeter with bluetooth heart beat control

#bserious 3/4
Social game company like zynga with a purpose
Play educate and change the world
Looking for 300k

#mvia 2/4
Mobile Money transfer
Mobile wallet

#appAround 1/4
Sync solution between different platforms
Looking for 7m ??
Italien team
The winner of PACT 2010 are: mvia -sms money, volta energy -semiconductor, a-volute - 3d audio technology #startup @plugandplaytc

#Hypios
Crowdsourcing problem solving marketplace

#3d sound company 1/4
Technology for new generation of audio
France team

#mobidigger 2/4
Somain service for mobile phones
German team

#sunplugged 1/4
b2b manufacture
Austrian team

Mittwoch, 24. März 2010

19/25 startup pitches on demoday @ycombinator #yc #angel #startup

#Greplin 4/4
full text search for all your personal cloud data
facebook, gmail, facebook, twitter, linkedin, ....
team of 1

#dataMarketplace 4/4
find, buy and sell data on one marketplace
monetization based on data selling on #crowdsourcing
team of 2

#notifo 4/4
mobile notification system, like RSS
consolidates all notifications and pushes to your cellphone
integrate it in your aquarium and get notifications if the
team of 1

#etacts 3/4
individual CRM - like xobni for gmail
who you care, who you should follow-up, remember me, if i dont get an answer notify me
gmail plugin + iphone app
team of 2

#500friends 3/4
social ecommerce, recommendations in social networks
social rewards (get a coupon if you tweet this offer)
#tracking of social actions
team of 2

#infoharmoni 3/4
analytics of twitter data
find your influencers
team of 2
> candidate for applicationstore @zanox
#tracking of social actions

#embedly 3/4
embedly embeds everything
embeds replace links on the web
monetization 50 times better then banner ads (50$ per 1000 views)
team of 2
> candidate for applicationstore @zanox

#nowmov 2/4
new TV/video experience like easy lean-back - like autoplay for youtube
team of 3


#zencoder 2/4
online video encoding SAAS
like youtube for web and mobile devices
team of 3

#LaunchHear 2/4
introduces top bloggers with unreleased products
team of 2


#zenedy 2/4
mass producing of content
monetizing based on google ranking -> like aufemini

#newslabs 1/4
monetization and seo for editors like adnetworks for blogger

#140bBETS 2/4
sms games, sports game bets
#tweetbracket (first game)
40k visitors in 4 days

#fabricly 2/4
online marketplace for clothes manufacturing -> like alibaba


#answerly 2/4
Q&A search
vertical search engine
monetize websearch
team of 2

#crocodoc 2/4
SAAS collaboration platform to edit documents easy - a new adobe
team of 3

#chromaom 2/4
colourlovers.com, 1mio color paterns, UGC
team of 3

#gamador 2/4
social games
quick to play, skill based, short to play
140.000 daily active user
monetization with virtual goods
team of 2

#seeingInteractive 1/4
save newspapers with whitelabel yelp > dont got it?

6/25 startup pitches on demoday @ycombinator #yc #angel #startup




Mertado, Movity, Newcope, Embedster, Optimizeley, Tweetflow


#embedster 2/4
video monetization (pre-roll ads) for youtube videos
cpm monetization (hard to sell)
team of 2
> candidate for applicationstore @zanox

#newcope 2/4
auction platform for virtual goods
swoopo.com for virtual goods (prices going up in realtime)
team of 2 from netherlands

#tweetflow 2/4
custom twitter websites as SAAS model
wholefoods customer example
integrates pictures and videos, seo optimized, statistics, analytics
team3

#optimizezly 1/4
SAAS A/B testing for websites

#mertado 3/4
social commerce, facebook app -> like groupon or letsbuyit
want to become the QVC of facebook


#movity 2/4
relocation service on google maps -> like trulia

Freitag, 19. März 2010

Peer financing conference embarkon @ sun campus

#peer financing conference embarkon


#crowdfunding platforms
indiegogo, lendfriend, lendingclub, chiatti, virginmoney, smava, prosper, myc4, yoursports, zopa,  #pfin

#appbackr
Invest in iphone app projects beforedevelopment and get paid later with an upsite

#crowdfunding panel
Chris mccoy ceo - yoursports like sellaband
Rob garcia productstrategy - lending club like prosper (passing banks)
David kuchar founder - lendfriend like virginmoney
Ram lakshamanan founder - chittai like kiva
#a Skillocracy #crowdsourcing
 
#peer financing embarkons
Trevor cornwell, ceo embarkons (intro by christian rees)

#alternative funding panel

Nathan beckord venturearchetypes
Kayvan baroumand - pnp
Ankit agarwal - micello
Danae ringelmann -Indiegogo crowdfunding of ideas
-2years, 3000 projects, 39 countries,
-presell your product
-turn costs into revenue (like our blue party)
-get money from customer by selling smal peaces of your product
-internship programs (pizza and beer)

#How to raise first 25k
Eric klein - klein venture, chris gill - svase, mark dangeard -
commons, raymond lay - playhaven
Sources: Friends & family (0%), Angels (10%), Ycombinators (10% incl
advise), Customer (0%)

#globumbus
Proof points for investors:
-proof if they get friends and family money
-get cashflow positive from day1
-25k are enough to get it running
-get something smal running right
-could he convince a team from your idea?
-enough shares for the team?
-15-20% for employees pool
-co-founders hard to find you have to know (friends)
-engage your customers from day1 to proof if somebody wants it
-are they able to bootstrap?
> Consolidate crowdfunding platforms


#a check VentureArchetype, Sandhill angels
# check Launchbox take 10% for first 25k, Ycombinator, Techstars
#a check microseed fund dave mc Lure (by chris maresca) Check his slides on slideshare
#Sponsors
Cooley, appbackr, ostatic, techzlu, venturebeat, cloudbook, semantic
seed, svase, ssv network

Dienstag, 9. März 2010

Dienstag, 23. Februar 2010

23 Tipps from @loic to replace your marketing and sales with social media


(He gave this tipps during his keynote on Stanford Entrepreneurship week 2010)
1 find an empty niche, to become the world leader
2 listen to social networks: if there is nothing about you, you don't exist
3 answer every reaction
4 focus on negative feedback
5 engage 24h a day (with real people)
6 be transparent (also with negative feedback)
7 group feedback with tools like seesmic and voting
8 be agile as you create the product
9 change priorities often
10 don't forget to innovate
11 create presence on social networks
12 create content and share
13 identify your best fans and engage them
14 create your own social network for your tribe
15 love you users, give presents, features, events, exclusive to them
16 help them share about your brand (provide them with stickers, logos, etc)
17 be on every platform
18 use social network internally
19 support by partnering
20 show us real people (faces of your team)
21 use videos
22 create value to share
23 be patient (it takes years)

Montag, 22. Februar 2010

4 new crowdfunding platforms

Grow VC launches, aiming to become the Kiva for tech startups
VC 2.0, fixing traditional mysterious early-stage funding system with transparent, international, community-based approach for mobile and web 2.0 startups.

investiere.ch

Invest even small amounts in the most promising Swiss startup companies and let us guide you through the jungle of the investment process. 

sproutpitch.com
Sproutpitch allows entrepreneurs to pitch their startups, projects and ideas to the world.  
 
sprouter.com
Sprouter is a brand-new startup which facilitates networking and collaboration between entrepreneurs.

Donnerstag, 28. Januar 2010

I think the ipad creates a new blue ocean.

Yesterday Apple announced the ipad with the highest expectations ever in the market. Everybody was guessing and predicting how it would look like and was looking for some missing features and the hair in the soup.
I was really excited about the name ipad (even if they made some jokes about the itampon in US) it is short and brings it to the point. The first tweets I read about it were regarding missing features like: no webcam, no 3G, no multitasking etc. and I also started doubting if this was a good idea from Steve Jobs after his great success with the iphone and that we saw already Apples peak time.

Later on we attended an iphone meetup together with many iphone developers and had an open discussion about the ipad. This discussion changed my mind completely. Now I see the ipad as my new 4th device, beside my iphone, laptop and TV screen.
It will not replace my laptop or iphone but partly my TV and for sure any newspapers, books and magazines, my cookbook, text book, remote controls of my house, console to play on my couch etc.

But the most important target group for the ipad is not me, a computer nerd. The ipad creates a completely new market to use a computer for people who are not comfortable with small buttons, mouses and operation systems in situations, where it doesn't fit. Now my grandma can watch pictures, read her newspaper and movies... on a computer. It is a bit like the wii reinvented the gaming market and opened it up for new target groups who never played a computer game before.

On top of it, the ipad is the fastest computer experience I've ever seen. Switch it on like a radio and use it immediately. Forget waiting times for booting or starting of programs. It looked so natural in using, that you just use it when you need it. It reminds me the time, when I switched from dial-in to flat rate Internet - don't think about, just do it.


So that brings me to the point, that we are talking about a revolution where the ipad creates a new blue ocean - which I really appreciate ;-) That's why I'm going to buy an ipad as soon as it is available!
Thank you Steve

Montag, 28. Dezember 2009

P2P Passenger to Passenger airline screening

Great idea - i love collective intelligence ;-)

P2P Passenger to Passenger airline screening

Yesterday Nina and I went from Saint Martin to Miami. As a result of the foiled terrorist attack we were subject to 2 screenings. One was the already extensive screening that US airports do that are already intense, shoes off and all. But after that we went through another painful passenger by passenger screening that resulted in a 90 minute delay for the flight. Every passenger was searched an average of 2 minutes by 2 security people divided into male and female passenger. This included intense searches on passengers in wheel chairs and people of all ages included very elderly passengers.


As I observed this process I could not stop thinking that there must be a better and faster way of dealing with periods of high alert like the one we are going through now right in the middle of the holiday season. So this what came to mind.


I would leave the first screening as it is but I would change the second screening. Before you go on reading please remember that until yesterday I had never encountered a second screening. Now if there is going to be a 90 minute long second screening process here is a better alternative. It is what I called P2P passenger to passenger airline screening.


The plan would be that in the waiting lounge, before boarding, with all passengers there, airline personnel organize say 20 groups of 10 passengers each. It is important that the assignment be done randomly by airline employees. One way would be to use seat assignments. Then after this groups are formed two leaders would be chosen in each group based on the passengers with the most miles. Then in each group passengers would introduce each other and leaders would ask whatever questions they find reasonable in order to conclude if the members of her/his group are safe to fly with. If they see anything out of the ordinary they would refer the passenger to security for further questioning.


Why P2P?


-passengers have skin in the game. Security personnel stays on the ground.


-it is much faster. 2 people screen 200 passengers for 2 minutes each in 200 minutes. This process should not take more than 15 minutes, possibly 5.


- this is on top of current security, it is one more layer of security.


-many terrorist attacks are stopped by fellow passengers.


-with all respect to the privately hired security forces that screen passengers around airports it is likely that the average well traveled passenger is smarter than the average newly hired private security employee.


-as opposed to Israeli screening methods which are considered best in the world and involved extensive, random interviewing current security does not involve conversations. It is through conversation and normal human interaction that a person who is about to blow up a plane with whatever method may be discovered.


The P2P screening idea is one of those projects like Wikipedia, that believes that collective intelligence is g...



Sent from my iPhone

Dienstag, 1. Dezember 2009

Socialmedia is everywhere

If you think socialmedia is only important for big companies, look at
this picture. This I have seen here in the Valley already at
supermarkets, my butcher an coffee shops like this clocktower:

Dienstag, 24. November 2009

Slides: Crowd Sourcing panel #webplay at pnp with #fixya #peerpong #zecco #zanox

Tiburon-TV Interview mit Viktoria Trosien @ Web 2.0 Expo New York


Viktoria hat mich befragt zu meinen Erfahrungen als Unternehmer, welche Tipps ich Existenzgruendern geben wuerde, was das Silicon Valley so besonders macht und welche Trends ich fuer 2010 sehe...
Hier noch einmal einen grossen Danke an Viktoria und Tiburon-TV fuer euer grosses Engagement in der deutschen Startup-Szene.

Dienstag, 17. November 2009

web2expo NY09 notes - Do what you do best. Link to the rest. #w2e

#w2e NY 2009
#what happens next? Jeff Jarvis
Life is a beta (careers, marriages, kids)
Process over product
(Openess leads to collaboration)
End of mass production
The best is the enemie of the good.
Beta lifestyle
#a what would google do (book)

#enterprise mashing, oren michels
Open your api
Pay attention to potential risks
Good examples: bestbuy, netflix

#Chris Brogan mayor of twitter
#Caterina Fake, hunch, flickr founder

#digg
40mio users
Digg add, user feedback increases add price
Don't hire PR do it yourself, hack the press
Release early and often
Prototypes are cheap to build
Local: gorilla foursquare
#a crunchbase.com blog of kevin rose

#Oreilly
Internet war, not open to the world
Web20: building internet operating system
Don't just open up because you're the underdog.
Do the right thing. You will gratify the people and astonish the rest. Mark twain Jeff Jarvis
If you can't make it, fake it.

#murder as a way to win, Nilofer merchant
@nilhofer
Murderboarding strategy:
Framework for making tough decisions:
-Faster
-With wisdom of any/many
-Dosnt get diluted
-Clear decision at the end

4steps
-decide what matters
-sort
-choose
-test
http://bit.ly/NewHow

#Collaborative problem solving is GOOD
(Engagement, resilient solutions, brains knowing why)
Because, if WE decide together, we will fight together to get it!

#How to?
-Park, don't kill
-Avoid antibodies (love or leave it)
-Pronouncing death (publish what you killed)
-Make it fun by making it end (clear timeline)
-Cloaking devices


#The 5 whuffie factors, Tara Hunt
@missrogue
www.horsepigcow.com
Forget social media marketing strategy!
Think people/customer
-centric (not yourself),
-happiness (make your own choice, effective)
-influencers/enthusiasts care about your enthusiasts
-launch/learn
#a book: Down and out in the magic kingdom. - No money in the future insted whuffie
Slides at slideshare

Freitag, 13. November 2009

All about Crowdsourcing and Cloud Work

Because I believe in collective intelligence, here an overview about crowdsourcing:
What are some of the buzzwords that are commonly used when talking about groups of people working for you? Who should use crowdsourcing? How do you build it out? etc..
Read this:
Summary and Status Quo
List of crowsourcing providers
Crowdsourcing: Opinions Managed
Paid Crowdsourcing – On-Demand Workers in the Cloud
even if I disagree with the summary: The Myth of crowdsourcing
How do Crowdsourced Workers Feel?
More examples of collective intelligence


Crowdsourced Song Created by YouTubers - I’ve Got Nothing:





Mittwoch, 4. November 2009

cloud computing conference Santa clara 2009

#cloud computing conference
Santa clara convention center
My assumption:
The idea of cloud computing is powerful and will change the industry. But not the existing tech industry will make it happen. It needs a web rebel doing this with the concept of "open platform as a service" to get the
cloud alive!
http://cloudcomputingexpo.com

Freitag, 30. Oktober 2009

40 startups @PnP PACT pitch 2009

my rating from 1-4 (4=best)
Mycubi - crowd local mobile service marketplace 4
Passpack - private data management 1  
Avatars united - games mmo 3
Fits.me - robots for fashion industry 1
NetOff - japan 2hand marketplace with stocking 1
RouteBox - global limo service 2
BlooSee - wikipedia for sailors on maps 3
Satalia - the solve engine ?? 2
Efans - facebook for sports 1
Accesco virtual - secondlife f entrepreneurs 1
Active conversion - ??
Arcalife - family tree + social 2
Asat - smart grid technology 1
Atlantis research lab - solar panels more efficient and less costs 4
Awesense - wireless smart grid system 2
ItSportsNet - platform to organize private sports events 3
BCS - tools for easy database usage 1
Bluehome - all in one mobilephone remote control 1
Togetthere - mobile car pooling concept 2
Darkmatterlabs - 1
EnviroSpeak.tv - environmental social media network like utopia - 2
Radial viewer - software to
Stalqer - iphone app like latitude
Digitrad - consolidated address book from twitter, facebook, google etc. 4
Jostle - b2b social software 2

and some more:
locarna
Kryos
Mobovivo
Msr
Naco
Omni
Oprius
ResQ
S4ds
Sgr/2
Solido
Teampages
Titan
Voice 123
Pankaku
Syphan
Sokohealth
Vi-clone

Donnerstag, 29. Oktober 2009

#twitter meetup - apps for twitter

Here some short notes about the first twitter meetup I attend at
hacker dojo last night.
My summary about this in one sentece: The valley is now developing
apps based on twitter traffic and content like hell.
This will become a new universum, regarding realtime- content and
interaction, because now you can react on customer needs or buying
decisions in realtime. So its the right time to think about
monetization of this and cpa is the right currency, using
http://apps.zanox.com There is real potential for the next killer
application.

#twitter meetup
Hashtag: #Tmeetup

#arktan
Connecting your digital activity
Like friendfeed and allows you filtering and auto posting by topics in
different channels

#twihotels
Realtime Hotel queries via tweets and RT

#twitsnaps
Shrina patel
Fotosharing on twitter like tweetpic plus community features and editing

#yourversion
Twitter tool for sharing, search, review and sharing like tweetdeck,
but much more

#krillionkritter
Automatic direct messages for followers and tweets like price comparison

#140h.Me Hashtag tracker
lawrence sinclair
Collects all hashtags and offers in realtime a url for this under
140h.me/hashtag
hashtag plus a wiki page. So everybody can contribute to the same
hashtag to setup up a hashtag-ipedia

--
Sent from my mobile device

Thomas Hessler
CEO/Co-Founder of zanox

Freitag, 21. August 2009

Why I believe in social networks like facebook and twitter

A real business success story – including Twitter, Facebook and half a million Euros

Are you curious, maybe even still skeptical about Facebook and Twitter? Are you of those who have been wondering about what the real advantages of social networks are? Have you been asking yourself what the hell all that buzz is about anyway? Yes? Good! Because here is my answer, including a real business success story, half a million Euros and the importance of being always on!

First of all, here’s a little background information, because this is where our story begins: At the beginning of June, the holding group Arcandor filed for insolvency. At that point, nobody knew for sure what would happen to its subsidiaries Thomas Cook, Primondo and Karstadt-Quelle. We were especially worried about the future of Karstadt-Quelle, a major retailer and one of our biggest advertisers. So we had to make a decision: Either shut down the Quelle affiliate programme, like most of the other networks did – or continue it, and take the risk.

We truly believe in the internet as the most successful and efficient sales and marketing channel – and it was this belief, which made us continuing the Quelle programme. Also, we didn’t want to let down one of our best partners during this tough time. However, we knew that we would have to get in touch with the insolvency administrator immediately. We needed to learn what their next steps were to be, get clarification on the potential risks, and also their confirmation of payments. So we assumed risk, continued the programme and informed our publishers about our intentions and what it would mean for them. At the same time, we tried to get in touch with the Arcandor insolvency administrator via our lawyers and account managers – without any success.

On June 11, I took a look at the Linkmafia blog, a personal German affiliate marketing blog, written by our employee Denis Maibaum, and read the following statement: “I think it’s cool that we don’t shut the Quelle programme, but keep it open for our publishers […] Supporting a client in tough times cannot be wrong. And Quelle is still a major retailer brand, which just won’t disappear from one day to another.”

This blog post motivated me to go public with the whole story – so I personally got in touch with the Quelle insolvency administrator via Twitter. That’s what I wrote:

June 11 at 6:30pm • via Twitter
Thomas Hessler: @arcandor-insolvenzverwalter: We believe in online!

My tweet caught the attention of Paulus Neef, founder of Pixelpark, so he contacted me on Facebook:

June 11 at 10:22pm
Paulus Neef: Hi Thomas – what’s your idea? Maybe I can help. I know him…

June 12 at 12:15pm •
Thomas Hessler: thanks paulus. we’re running about 40 affiliate programmes for arcandor subsidiaries, quelle and karstadt are among them. we were supposed to shut them down because of the announced insolvency, but we really believe that online channels are the most important assets of arcandor right now, so they should definitely survive. it would be pure madness to shut down arcandor’s most efficient sales channel. I think mr piepenburg [the insolvency administrator] would be really grateful for that bit of information. we need a clear statement of him, otherwise we can’t longer take the risk here.

Only a few days later, one of the Arcandor board members got in touch with me and asked for a conference call with the zanox board. At the end of June, the call took place; we discussed the current situation and our cooperation. Only two weeks later, we received the official payment confirmation of 500,000 Euros.

Quelle is still one of our best-performing advertisers and we were even able to enhance the success of our cooperation during the last couple of weeks. The story isn't even over yet, we'll cross our fingers for all of them.

Well, if this isn’t a real business success story on Web 2.0!
See you soon on facebook ;-)

P.S. meanwhile the story of Quelle is over and the company went insolvent

Thomas

Or if you like numbers more, watch this video:

Donnerstag, 11. Juni 2009

#collective intelligence examples

The power of the crowd and peer 2 peer services
#Translation
http://bab.la/
#Finance
http://kiva.org
#Software development
http://www.getafreelancer.com/
#Storage
#News
#University
http://www.uopeople.org/
Start your own virtual School with http://supercoolschool.com 
Feel free to make comments for more examples

Montag, 6. April 2009

web2expo 2009 in a nutshell - The power of less #w2e

Web2expo 2009 - "The power of less"


+++ "What's coming html developments?" +++
Category: Web development tools
-Canvas: for browser graphic apps
-fast java script: dramatic faster
-web workers: doing things in the browser backround
-desktop integration: cutting edge desktop/web link

Example developer tools:
-Ms Silverlight, adobe flash, apple cocoa, sun javaFx
-Open Web Platform: home, documentation, dashboard, directory and roadmap for developers
-Firebug: mozilla environment for developers
-safari: (like firebug)
-chrome (only fiew tools)
-Yui: yahoo framework
-Blueprint: cross browser styling framework
-ms super preview
-thunderhead: grid based layouts from mozilla
-atlas: future web apps
-open web tools: there are hundreds, check out on: open web tools directory
>Thinking of starting, iterate or improve something? - Start today!

+++ "The Lean startup"- Eric Ries +++
http://www.slideshare.net/startuplessonslearned/eric-ries-lean-startup-presentation-for-web-20-expo-april-1-2009-a-disciplined-approach-to-imagining-designing-and-building-new-products
Category: Strategy and business models
Startup #1
Good startup? Plan, vision, best team, well organized - but failed! (40mm lost)
Shadow beliefs:
-we know what customers want
-we can predict the future
-advancing the plan is progress

Startup #2 (Imvu)
No plan
-Shipped product in 6 month (horribly buggy beta)
-charged from day one!
-shipped multiple times a day (50 times a day)
-no pr, no launch (focus on customer needs)
-results: 10mm dollars in 2007
Learnings:
-Commodity technology stack
-Customer development
#a book recommendation http://Bit.ly/tptte

Product development
Old: waterfall process from requirement to mainten.
New: Agile - experiment/feedback/experiment (picture) =customer development + extrem programming
Minimize the total time through the loop:
Ideas - code - data - ideas - code ...

How to builld a LeanStartup
(Learn- code- measure- faster)
-continous deployment (severals a day)
-Tell a good change from bad change quickly
-revert a bad change quickly
-work in small batches (large batch 3 day work)
-break large projects into small batches
-run tests locally
-continuous integration server (buildbot)
-incremental deploy
-alerting and predictive monitoring
-fix problems from customers
-a/b testing is key to validating
-make it simple and measurable and auditable for everyone
-asl why five times when something unexpected happens
-make proportional investments in prevention
-behind every technical problem is usually a human problem. Fix the cause, not the symptom


+++ "Situation normal, everything must change." - Simon wardley, canonical.com ´+++
-Shift: from Innovation, bespoke, products, to services
-Componentisation is the right strategy (focus on your core competency)
-Cloud computing is the future
-Examples of the shift: amazon ec2, google apps, salesforce, Ubuntu: operation system based on cloud computing (from canonical)


+++ "CRM with Facebook" - clara shih +++
Category: Fundamentals
New solutions with facebook connect:
#a Facebook + salesforce
#a book recommendation: Thefacebookarea.com
Facebook ad campaigns to people
Appirio: facebook recruiting tool (employee recomm.)
Customer service: salesforce with twitter


+++ "Its the people, stupid" - Deborah Schulz +++
Category: Marketing and communication
Join, not interrupt people
Be a part of the community
Help users participate
Stay for some value
Love you give, you get back
>Experiment, listen, rinse, repeat

Examples:
-Dopplr
-Photojojo
-Etsy
-Thradless fotos on t-shirts
-Overnight-prints
-Moo business cards with your flickr fotos on the back


+++ General +++
Presentations: http://www.web2expo.com/webexsf2009/public/schedule/proceedings
Tags: w2e web2expo
Twitter #w2e #web2expo
Groups: Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr
Full schedule: http://Web2expo.com/sf/events

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