The latest from TechCrunch
- The Importance Of Enthusiasm In Any Product
- TC50 Demopit Company TweetFunnel Launches Enterprise-Friendly Twitter Publishing Platform
- TechCrunch50 Wrap-Up. Congrats To All The Startups Who Made It.
- Posterous Adds Theme Support; Continues To Grow
| The Importance Of Enthusiasm In Any Product | Top |
| A video took the web by storm today entitled “ Incredible, amazing, awesome Apple .” Basically, it boils down Apple’s lastest event into a series of superlatives. It’s a funny video because Apple really does have a pattern of using these types of words over and over again in its demonstrations. Cynics will say this is how Apple brainwashes the masses into buying their products, and gets people jazzed about the tiniest features. But I think there’s something much deeper here. While certainly there is some element of hearing something so many times that you start to believe it, that’s nothing new, any good salesman will do the same thing. But why I think the tactic works so well with Apple is because they actually believe what they’re saying. Just watch Steve Jobs in that video. It sure seems like he’s damn sure that what he’s talking about is amazing. He’s excited about it. So is Phil Schiller and the others on the Apple team. And that excitement translates on a level unseen. You’ve undoubtedly seen used car commercials where the used car salesman uses superlatives as well to the nth degree. But the difference is that he’s not genuine. Do you think he loves the junky cars he’s trying to pass off to you? No. Contrast that with Jobs. Do you believe that he loves the Apple products he’s trying to pass off to you? Yes. This is hardly an Apple-only phenomenon. They’re just one of the best at translating their enthusiasm on a big stage several times a year thanks mainly to the charismatic Jobs. But really, I think you’ll find in most successful companies, the enthusiasm about their product is a key to how well that product is doing. Another good example is Twitter. I’ve had to opportunity to meet a lot of Twitter employees over the past few years. One thing I noticed about each of them is their passion and excitement for what they’re doing. Certainly, if you look at it from the outside, the concept of Twitter was something that was just as likely to be a complete failure as it was a success. But the people running it and even the newest employees have a passion about it. When co-founder Biz Stone says he thinks Twitter can change the world, it may sound crazy, but it’s not, because he believes it. Speaking of the newest employees, Twitter’s new COO, Dick Costolo , just started at the company recently. During TechCrunch50 , he was asked on stage why he joined Twitter. After all, he had sold his previous company, FeedBurner, to Google for $100 million, and upon leaving Google, he probably never needed to work again. But his response is telling, “ My first reaction was, you don't get a chance to work on potentially one of the pivotal companies. ” He’s not going to work at Twitter for the paycheck, he’s going to work there because he believes in what they are doing. And that enthusiasm can only further the company. This type of enthusiasm also seems to be prevalent at companies like Facebook, Netflix, and Zappos (which was of course recently acquired by Amazon) . And not surprisingly, people seem to love working at those companies. For a long time, Google was in that realm too. To some extent, it still is, but as it gets bigger and bigger, there seems to be no shortage of people who leave, discontent . Google is still making great products, but whenever you have talent leaving, for whatever reason, that’s not a great sign. Maybe Google can overcome that, but you simply can’t discount the recent talk about a possible Google decline . Not to single out Yahoo, but they are one company where employee enthusiasm has seemed waning in recent years, to say the least. It’s hard to know if that started before or after the great products stopped and it fell into decline, but it’s a serious problem, nonetheless. That’s not to say no one is enthusiastic about being there, but I do get the feeling that plenty are there simply to get a paycheck. And a company will never win that way. Microsoft is more of a mixed bag. There are plenty at the company who love it passionately. Most notable of these is of course, CEO Steve Ballmer . While I don’t believe he’s being disingenuous with his Microsoft zealotry, I know that his passion is not shared by everyone at the company. And I believe that translates one way or another to the public (be it by sub-par products, or other less tangible means). And to some extent, that may be why we don’t see the same type of “fanboy” fervor that a company like Apple gets. But you’ll notice a common theme among the last three examples: They’re all huge companies. It’s undoubtedly very hard to keep everyone happy and on the same page about the products as you grow in size. That’s really why Steve Jobs is more important to Apple than doing any tangible work he may be doing. He is the glue that seems to make enthusiasm stick at the large company. When he wasn’t there in the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, things went downhill, and undoubtedly the enthusiasm went downhill. It was interesting talking to startups at TechCrunch50 this past week. A lot of them seemed to have the passion for what they were doing, and that was great to see. But I’m not sure that all of them did, and I have no doubt that those companies are going to be much more prone to failure. My point is an obvious one, but I think it’s often overlooked. Enthusiasm and passion are so important, no matter what you do. If you don’t feel like you have that towards the company you are with, you should seriously consider leaving. Of course there is something to be said about a paycheck, especially in tough economic times, but if you have the means and are simply spinning your wheels doing something that you don’t believe in, you’re really not helping anyone, and especially not yourself. And you’re not helping us, the public, either, because if you’re not enthusiastic about something, we’re certainly not going to be. Better yet, if you have the power in your company to start something that you are passionate about, do it. Even if it’s something that seems silly, like say, Twitter (which of course, started as a side project at Odeo), your enthusiasm about it just may push it through. And it may slowly bubble up into something bigger. And it may just blow up into the next big thing . Because enthusiasm translates. [photo: flickr/ acaben ] Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| TC50 Demopit Company TweetFunnel Launches Enterprise-Friendly Twitter Publishing Platform | Top |
| As more and more businesses dip their toes in the Twitter stream, there’s a need for enterprise-focused Twitter applications that cater to businesses’ needs from the microblogging platform. TechCrunch50 demopit company TweetFunnel is business-friendly publishing platform for Twitter. The web-based application is both a Twitter client and a platform for businesses to manage all their Twitter accounts. TweetFunnel lets you aggregate and use multiple Twitter accounts, and also makes it easy for several employees to post to one Twitter account. Users can also schedule, monitor and assign posting of Tweets within the platform. And TweetFunnel offers Bit.ly link analytics within its platform. TweetFunnel breaks down users into three different categories—administrators, publishers and contributors. The administrator has permissions to add users to the account and to review and publish tweets. Publishers also have the ability to review and publish tweets and contributors can add tweets to the review queue, but cannot publish tweets. The platform is appealing and has a number of compelling features for businesses, including the ability to time and assign Tweets. Of course, TweetFunnel will face competition from the growing number of clients and services that provide variations of enterprise-friendly Twitter clients, including PeopleBrowsr, ViralHeat, and Socialseek. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| TechCrunch50 Wrap-Up. Congrats To All The Startups Who Made It. | Top |
| To all those startups who made it to TechCrunch50 this year, whether it was on stage or in the DemoPit, congratulations and thank you. We wouldn’t be here if there weren’t so many creative entrepreneurs out there trying to build something worthwhile out of nothing but ideas, sweat, and a little risk capital. A little risk can go a long why. And while it is true that this year’s crop brought fewer wild ideas than in the past, it is also true that by and large there were a lot more solid ideas as well. One of the best things about TechCrunch50 is not what happens on stage, but what happens before companies even get there. Startups that don’t even have a working demo or a product are forced to build one just to be considered. So many startup founders at TechCrunch50, even those who don’t make it to the final 50, have told me how valuable this selection process is. There is nothing like a deadline to focus your ideas. And once you are there, the dealmaking in the DemoPit was intense. Over the course of the two-day conference, we covered all 50 finalist demos, put up more than a dozen video interviews, and reported announcements made at TC50 from Bing , Facebook , Google , AOL , and MySpace . Even the TC50 winner from two years ago, Mint , had its own little announcement. If you weren’t one of the nearly 2,000 people in attendance, perhaps you were one of the 97,855 unique viewers who caught some of the presentations streamed live on video. The video was shot and uploaded by the team at Ustream , who also were able to cut and upload archived video clips for each presentation within an hour of each one. Those video clips are embedded at the bottom of each post and is probably the best way to relive the experience. There was so much happening at the conference, even if you were there you missed half of it. Below is a handy list of links to all of our TC50 coverage, including every company demo, announcement, backstage interview, and commentary. There is also an extensive list of links to other coverage (if we are missing something, let us know) and, at the very bottom, to Crunchbase profiles of each of the 50 finalists. TC50 Winner: RedBeacon TC50 Finalists: Threadsy AnyClip CitySourced Best Presentation: iMo Best International Company: Trollim Microsoft BizSpark Award Winner: AnyClip Demopit Winners: oDesk YourVersion Socialwok Chyngle The TC50 Video: The TC50 Video Photos: Flickr Stream TC50 Companies in Order of Appearance: Penn and Teller StorySomething Clasemovil ToonsTunes SealTale iTwin FluidHTML ToyBots Spawn Labs Clicker 5:1 DataXu SeatGeek HealthyWage Rackup Udorse iMo RedBeacon Yext LocalBacon Refmob TheSwop Mota Motors oDesk YourVersion ClientShow Metricly Affective Interfaces CitySourced Trollim CrowdFlower Cocodot LearnVest BreakThrough Glide Health Sprowtt Thoora Insttant Perpetually AnyClip CrowdFusion Hark! Threadsy lissn Radiusly Stribe Clixtr The Whuffie Bank Socialwok Chyngle Interviews: Penn and Teller Ron Conway Jason Hirschhorn Jim Lanzone Ross Levinsohn Marissa Mayer Marc Andreessen Paul Graham Tony Hsieh CitySourced Kevin Rose Bradley Horowitz Tim O’Reilly Dick Costolo Dick Costolo (again) Reid Hoffman Panels: Advertising Commentary: TechCrunch Drinking Game American Flag Is Toybots Dreaming Big Enough? Memo To Start-ups: You’re Supposed To Be Changing the World, Remember? Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Europa Announcements: Facebook Prototypes Facebook AIM Google Fast Flip Bing Visual Search MySpace Has Built Its Own Recommendation Engine, And They're Open-Sourcing It | |
| Posterous Adds Theme Support; Continues To Grow | Top |
| Posterous , the dead simple service that makes it super easy to share your blog posts and media across the web, has launched a feature users have been waiting for since the site’s launch: themes. Sure, most of us have gotten used to the site’s standard white and yellow layout by now, but with a greater variety the site may be able to appeal to a broader user base. Posterous is launching the the feature with five built-in themes, including one designed by well known Tumblr theme creator Bill Israel . Posterous is also allowing users to change their blog header and to custom modify any colors on their site. Beyond basic visual changes, Posterous has bigger plans for its theme engine. Widgets, for one, will have their own open API so that anyone can write widgets that can then be embedded into Posterous users blogs. For more technical folks, the site will also be introducing more features that will gradually turn Posterous into a content platform. Examples of this are the PostLocation block that Posterous added recently internally so that they could support GPS / Geocoded locations for posts. People often compare Posterous to Tumblr due to the simplicity of the way to upload content, but Posterous is leveraging Tumblr’s set of themes. This is a huge step for Posterous, considering Tumblr has thousands of beautiful themes that exist out there, and it’s a matter of changing just a few lines of HTML to convert them to full-fledged Posterous themes. Posterous has seen enormous growth over the last 12 months. The site is doing 10 times the traffic they were doing one year ago, and over the last 30 days alone, traffic has gone up to 4.1 million unique visits worldwide, according to Quantcast . Posterous is proving that they are a force to be reckoned with. In June 2009, Posterous acquired Skinkset and brought on Brett Gibson on board to the team of 3 people. Posterous has taken $740K in funding from investors like Guy Kawasaki , Tim Ferriss , Mitch Kapor , Satish Dharmaraj , Eric Hahn , and of course Y-Combinator . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
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