coup d'oeil » rss feed reader » B2Day (Business 2.0 Blog)

B2Day (Business 2.0 Blog) (10 unread)

Links for 2007-12-31 [del.icio.us]

Posted: January 1st, 2008, 12:00am CST
- Your Social Network
  Classic
Links for 2007-10-29 [del.icio.us]

Posted: October 30th, 2007, 12:00am CDT
- Inside Facebook » Facebook’s News Feed Knows What You Did Last Summer
  Insight into how Facebook chooses what to show in people's News feeds("NFO is the new SEO").
Housekeeping

Posted: October 22nd, 2007, 3:39pm CDT by Erick Schonfeld

For all my Next Net readers, this site will probably be shut down soon. So I have created an archive site with all my posts over the past few years. I may use the new site in the future as my personal blog as well. But the best way to keep up with me is at TechCrunch, where I am writing every day. Here is where you can sign up for the TechCrunch feed. Hope to see you all there.
Links for 2007-09-26 [del.icio.us]

Posted: September 27th, 2007, 12:00am CDT
- US State Department dips into world of blogs - Yahoo! News
  The State dept. is now blogging.
Links for 2007-09-20 [del.icio.us]

Posted: September 21st, 2007, 12:00am CDT
- The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: We're thrilled about this NBC download service
  "Roll out all the different systems that don't work together. Bring on all the different kinds of software, none of which will work as well as iTunes."
My Next Job, at TechCrunch

Posted: September 20th, 2007, 6:45pm CDT by Erick Schonfeld

So I haven't said much about the demise of Business 2.0 or what I will be doing in the future (despite getting asked about it at least 50 times a day). I will leave the carcass-picking to others. But I will also be leaving the magazine business to others. As of next week, I will become co-editor of TechCrunch with Michael Arrington.

It's tough to leave a place like Time Inc. after 14 years. I often felt I had one of the best jobs in journalism—finding and writing about the smartest people on the planet. But over the past two years, as I had one foot in print and the other in the Web, the Web stuff just seemed to matter more—both to my readers and to me. So going all-digital seems like the natural thing to do.

I really do feel we are still at the very beginnings of what could become a vibrant Web media industry, with its own rules and its own consumption patterns. I can think of nothing more fun than trying to help Michael figure out what those rules are going to be and how to build a media company that can thrive under them. I'm just glad he trusts an old-media guy like me not to screw up what he's already built.

Beginning next week, I can be reached at erick at techcrunch. For my feed subscribers, if you are not already a TechCrunch reader, you can keep up with me here. And, oh yeah, I'm looking for some office space to sublet in lower Manhattan. Anyone with some good leads, please shoot me a line.
Links for 2007-09-19 [del.icio.us]

Posted: September 20th, 2007, 12:00am CDT
- Google Program Enlists Mini-Sites as Selling Tool for Advertisers - New York Times
  Google turns widgets into ads..
Links for 2007-09-18 [del.icio.us]

Posted: September 19th, 2007, 12:00am CDT
- Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site - New York Times
  The NYT finally comes to its senses and pulls down its subscription wall for TimesSelect online.
Liveblogging TechCrunch 40: Day 2

Posted: September 18th, 2007, 12:08pm CDT by Erick Schonfeld

Here are some highlights from Day 2 of TechCrunch 40 (in reverse-order of appearance):

The winner of the $50,000 prize for best demo went to Mint (see below). I caught up with the CEO for a quick chat at the conference, and he explained his business model,which is all lead generation. Since Mint keeps track of all your spending habits, it can suggest ways to save money by switching services, Those are leads that it gets paid $20 to $50 apiece for, In the future, it could suggest products to buy as well.

Kaltura: This startup was voted on-stage from the demo pit by the conference attendees. Slick, collaborative video editing software. It's all Web-based. Lets you collectively create a video with your friends. A wiki/peer production platform for making videos.

Zivity: User-generated porn. The site shares revenues with the "models"who upload photos. Just what the world needs: a company that is lowering the bar on porn. One of the presenters had this weird handlebar mustache. What's with that?

WooMe: Speed dating site where you spend a minute meeting potential mates via Webcam. Real-time social networking. Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom is a backer.

Metaplace: Build your own virtual world that can appear on any site as a 3D virtual-world widget. The big idea is that every object in the world can be linked to. "Metaplace is trying to Facebook Second Life," says panelist Loic Le Meur. Yahoo's Brad Garlinghouse argues Second Life has too much traction to be displaced.

BeFunky: Turns photos and videos into cartoons. Sort of makes everything look like A Scanner Darkly. Also lets you create "uvatars" that look exactly like you. (They are hand-drawn now, but will soon use the same "Cartoonizer" technology you can already apply to photos and videos). Startup is from Turkey. Cool FX. Panelist MC Hammer thinks its funky.

Wixi: Yet another file sharing site. As panelist Loic Le Meur says, "Everybody is doing that."

mEgo: Have too many social networks to keep up with? mEgo lets you cerate a profile once and upload it to 20 social networks and blog sites, including MySpace, Facebook, and even your mobile phone. The founders are women, which might explain why the customizable profile widget actually looks like something you might want to put on your Facebook page. Mouse over the mEgo widget, and you can call up your Flickr photo feed, delicious bookmarks, twitter messages, Amazon wish list, or Last.fm playlist. Panelist Caterina Fake is not sure about the widget business model: "It's all satellite and no planet."

xtr3D: Throw away your computer mouse. xtr3D uses a Webcam to translate 3D hand motions into a computer peripheral controlling what happens on-screen. Very cool. But this will require people to learn an entirely new interface. It could be good for games, though. The CEO showed a boxing game where he punched the air and his character did the same.

Angel investor Jeff Clavier, on a panel, just announced that he is starting his own $12 million seed fund to put $100,000 to $500,000 into early-stage startups.

Google Docs Presentations: Google is demoing its online presentation software that it just added to Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets. Now, Google has finally completed its trifecta, and has a complete Webtop suite to compete with Office. You can't do everything you can do with PowerPoint, but the value to these types of Web apps is the collaborative aspects. You can invite other people to help you create the slide show and all of you can work on it at the same time. In response to a question about whether it is important to have offline versions of Google Docs (using Google Gears), the Google employee presenting says, "Yeah." So maybe we'll get that in the future.

Kerpoof: A new Website for kids where they can write stories, create art, and make movies. They pick a scene, grab characters, make them bigger or smaller. Kids can print them out and make birthday cards or coloring books, and also share their creations digitally. (This startup secretly wants to teach kids object-oriented programming). Guy Kawasaki likes this one.

Mint :This site will be up later today. Mint ingests all of your financial information from your bank and credit card accounts, and instantly shows you what you are spending your money on in easy to read pie graphs. The site looks at your financial history and suggests ways to save money by finding credit cards or bank accounts with lower interest rates, or alerting you to promotions from your existing financial institutions. It will also find better deals on phone, cable, and other services. Esther Dyson (on the expert panel) says she'd use this one. I think of it as LowerMyBills 2.0.

Orgoo: Consolidates all of your e-mail and IM accounts in a single browser pane. Also lets you send video messages and create chat rooms where you can invite friends or colleagues for a real-time conversation, complete with video streaming.
Breaking: Facebook's Zuckerberg Announces FB Fund

Posted: September 17th, 2007, 7:52pm CDT by Erick Schonfeld

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg just announced on stage at the TechCrunch 40 conference that he is creating a $10 million fund, to be called the FB Fund, to give $25,000 to $250,000 grants to software developers creating applications on Facebook. He is doing this with Peter Thiel of the Founders Fund and Jim Breyer of Accel Ventures. These will be no-strings-attached grants. Founders and Accel won't get a stake in the companies, but they will get first rights of refusal to invest later if any of the startups raise a more sizable venture round.

The money will be doled out by an advisory board to consist of Thiel, Breyer, Zuckerberg, Josh Koppelman, and Reid Hoffman. Says Zuckerberg:
Any developer can submit their app. If we think the project is good we will give a grant.
Zuckerberg clearly wants to create as many incentives as he can for developers to create cool apps on Facebook, as do Thiel and Breyer (who are investors in Facebook).