Sunday, March 4, 2012

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SV Angel Also Buying Up Foursquare Stock. Dennis Crowley Emerges As Big-Company CEO Top
dennis-naveenSpark Capital isn't the only existing investor buying up Foursquare employee stock in an up round, I've learned. Legendary investor SV Angel is, too. That's an unusual move considering that the firm typically focuses on early-stage deals. Why? Yes, there's the promise of Foursquare becoming the way that you find interesting people and locations around you, the source of data for deals, discovery and yield management. But there's a more human reason why these investors are going out of their way to get more stock at a higher price, too. And its name is Dennis Crowley, chief executive officer.
 
Porn And Parenting: The Brave New World Top
200px-BraveNewWorld_FirstEdition
O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world! That has such people in it!
This quote, from Shakespeare's "The Tempest", embodies a perspective I think many fathers such as myself are experiencing as our children enter this amazing world of technology we now live in. In the play, Miranda, raised most of her life on an isolated island, comes upon a group of drunk sailors straggling off a ship. Miranda, oblivious to any sort of "morals", or "culture", was fascinated by this "Brave New World" she had come in contact with.
 
Post MWC: Total Immersion's Augmented Reality Concepts Assist E-Commerce Top
totalimmersionAnother Augmented Reality update from Total Immersion popped up on my radar at this year's Mobile World Congress. This nifty app, demoed at the Texas Instruments booth, is loaded with retail potential for e-commerce situations. This is not the first AR tool we've seen to assist with retail apparel purchases, however it is one of the best. Excellent AR tracking.
 
Don't Be Afraid To Go Pink: Designing Great Tech Products For Women Top
0111-tech-300x231When it comes to fashion, women have embraced products that were originally designed for men. Flip through any J.Crew catalog and you'll encounter the Boyfriend Jean, Boyfriend Blazer, unisex ankle boots, and of course the classic men's shirt paired with skinny jeans. When it comes to tech? Not so much. In the predominantly male tech world, products are usually, by default, designed by men -- for men. However, women have different design preferences and needs, with research showing that men and women do indeed use the Web and social media in different ways.
 
Work 3.0: How The Employment Model Needs to Change Top
team 061 rWith the economy still struggling to recover, key indicators of economic performance are largely focused on traditional employment — we are fixated on how many people have managed to find on-site, single-employer jobs. But is this an outdated perspective? Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath would say so. In a recent blog post for Harvard Business Review, McGrath questions the pervasive assumption that "regular" employment is always the most stable and desirable. She writes, "Many of the assumptions about society that we take for granted are based on the notion that relatively stable employment relationships are the norm. When will our thinking catch up with the new reality?" Anyone looking for a job or tasked with hiring must wonder what this means for them.
 
How To Manufacture Desire Top
Nir Eyal2Type the name of almost any successful consumer web company into your search bar and add the word "addict" after it. Go ahead, I'll wait. Try "Facebook addict" or "Zynga addict" or even "Pinterest addict" and you'll soon get a slew of results from hooked users and observers deriding the narcotic-like properties of these web sites. How is it that these companies, producing little more than bits of code displayed on a screen, can seemingly control users' minds? Why are these sites so addictive and what does their power mean for the future of the web? We're on the precipice of a new era of the web. As infinite distractions compete for our attention, companies are learning to master new tactics to stay relevant in users' minds and lives. Today, just amassing millions of users is no longer good enough. Companies increasingly find that their economic value is a function of the strength of the habits they create. But as some companies are just waking up to this new reality, others are already cashing in.
 
Aurasma Augments Reality Anywhere — Even Waiting For A Cab Top
aurasmaAt many conferences, like the Mobile World Congress, it seems the best demos usually end up happening while waiting in line for lunch or for a cab. While rolling through the pile of video content I collected at the MWC this year, I ran back across this Augmented Reality demo by Aurasma. It is a perfect example of the "elevator demo" and in one way illustrates the portability of many AR concepts - they don't rely on a bunch of fixed assets or perfect lighting situations.
 
5 Reasons Why Your Facebook Store Might Be Struggling Top
facebook-storeBeware, the sky is falling! Or at least that's what we're hearing from some experts on F-commerce following announcements from a few big name retailers in recent weeks that they are shuttering their stores on Facebook. Going as far as to suggest that the "F" in "F-commerce" now stands for "failure," these critics are boldly asserting that F-commerce's days are numbered and that the entire concept is destined to soon be but a footnote in the pages of tech history. Frankly, such claims are more than a little mind-boggling. Whenever a new medium like F-commerce emerges, companies are naturally uncertain on how to approach it and it always takes some time before strong and effective strategies emerge. Think back to when the Internet first caught on – it was uncharted territory for everyone but now, just about every business has in-house employees that handle things like online reputation, SEO, SEM and more.
 
Three Free Healthcare Apps That Empower Patients Top
11414511-mhealth-is-in-high-demandThe significant adoption of smartphones among physicians has not only led to an explosion of medical apps aimed at healthcare providers, but it has also cultivated an emerging trend of health and wellness apps aimed at empowering patients. While great innovation is happening in the health and wellness mobile ecosystem, it's difficult for patients and physicians to navigate through the large database of apps to find ones they can actually use. My experience reviewing health and medical apps as a writer, combined with my experiences in a high volume Emergency Department that sees a diverse patient population, has allowed me to get a unique sense of this space.
 
How I Screwed Yasser Arafat Out of $2 Million, the Comic Book Top
Altucher-Cover-lowres1Editor's note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. His latest book is I Was Blind But Now I See. You can follow him @jaltucher.
 
Highlight Needs To Let You Switch Off 'Friend Of Friend' Notifications Before SXSW Top
photoAmbient location app Highlight is a big deal. Eldon likes it, Scoble likes it, MG and Mike like it and Grindr fan Charlie Cheever likes it. More importantly, I like it. Before you call me out for being slightly narcissistic with the above statement (which wouldn't make me at all unique in my field), here's why the fact that I like it is important; In case you haven't noticed, I am a female, which means I am an indicative use case for an app that forces you to constantly broadcast your location.
 
App.net Wants To Help Mobile Apps Stand Out At SXSW Top
sxsw crowdsHere's one of the great things about South by Southwest: Everyone wants to launch a cool new product there. Here's one of the worst things about South by Southwest: Everyone wants to launch a cool new product there. That's why Dalton Caldwell, CEO of App.net, is holding a special App Showcase at Beauty Bar on the afternoon of March 10.
 
From Zynga To Flipboard: Why All Eyes Are On China For The Next Mobile Boom Top
china mobileIf you spend any time speaking with Western mobile companies, one topic that's likely to pop up is their "China strategy." Due to a mix of mobile penetration, sheer population, and popularity of the mobile web, Western mobile companies recognize there's a lot of money to be made overseas. The idea is not without merit: China is the world's largest mobile market with almost one billion users, 69 percent of which access the Internet through their phones on a regular basis.
 
One Year Later: How Google Panda Changed Our Business Top
google-pandaFebruary 24, 2011 was a day that will live in infamy for the team here at Viewpoints. That was the day of the Google Panda update. Up until that point we had enjoyed four years of consistent traffic growth to Viewpoints.com. We managed to double traffic each year and had just reached 2.7 million unique users. We had heard that Google was planning to update its algorithm to penalize content and link farms and were excited about the bump we might get as a result. Turns out we were in for a bit of a surprise.
 
PinClout Gets A Cease-And-Desist From Klout, Will Change Name Top
pinclout"Klout for Pinterest" may be a catchy company description, but taking it too literally may lead to legal trouble. Startup PinClout launched about a week ago, and its name seemed to make the company's mission clear — to measure influence on fast-growing Pinterest. And there's been positive interest, with some tech press coverage and what co-founder Chris Fay said is an average of 2,000 to 3,000 unique visitors every day. However, the company just received a letter from Klout's attorney asking it to "immediately cease and desist from all use of or plans to use the PINCLOUT mark and the www.pinclout.com domain name."
 
Google Drive And The Cloud Wars Top
sharksFor the past six years, any startup touching the cloud storage space has lived in anticipation and fear of Google's entry into the market. G(od) Drive's arrival was meant to instantly commoditize existing offerings, kill all future opportunity for new players, and leave a charred ecosystem in its wake as it battled Microsoft and Apple for control of our online lives and content. This was seen as all but a forgone conclusion among investors, press, analysts, and even competing startups since 2006 and beyond. And even beyond that. But the Google Drive never came. Why?
 
On The Shoulders Of Giants: Y Combinator Demo Day Brings The Future To Computer History Museum Top
y combinator demo dayEvery year, Y Combinator Demo Day, where the latest batch of incubated startups make their pitch to investors, seems to get a little bigger. Now, for the first time since the event began in 2005, it's moving to a new home — the Computer History Museum. At the last Demo Day, in August (they're held twice a year), you could already sense that the gathering was outgrowing YC headquarters in Mountain View. Organizers pushed out the walls to accommodate a larger audience, and in order to speed through the 63 presenters (an increase of nearly 50 percent), each company was limited to a few minutes of speaking, meaning they had to give rapid-fire pitches instead of full demos. There was even a tiny stage erected for the demos.
 
Foursquare And Glancee Are Cool, But Here's Why I'm So Excited About Using Highlight At SXSW Top
Austin SunriseThe crowds and hype of South By Southwest make the massive Austin tech and media conference the perfect place for launching, well, any sort of app that needs crowds and hype to break out of tech circles and into the mainstream. So what can we expect to blow up next week, like Twitter, Foursquare, GroupMe and Beluga have in past years? Highlight is what I'm placing my bets on -- and not for what it is today, but for what it could become. That is, the long-sought replacement for business cards.
 
Valve Rumored To Be Working On Steam-Based Console Top
ValveSteamCommunityValve, creators of (among other things) the Half-Life franchise and Steam, the gold standard for digital game distribution, are said to be getting into the hardware game. If The Verge's tip is to be believed, the company is working with partners to establish a base PC gaming standard to sell as a packaged deal, a sort of set-top box PC that would run Steam or other download services and run most PC games. If true, it would be a major step for Valve, which has always been a software company. They haven't ruled out moving into hardware, but their expertise is in software, so they're more likely to be collaborating with an established gaming PC brand like Alienware. In fact, Alienware's compact X51 system is said to have been designed with a spec like this "Steam Box" in mind.
 
Pair Programming Considered Harmful? Top
pair-programming"We have trained, hired, and rewarded people to be cowboys. But it's pit crews that we need," said Atul Gawande -- a surgeon and Harvard professor who writes for The New Yorker in his copious spare time -- in a recent TED talk. He was talking about doctors, but what tech profession might fit that description as well? Yes, that's right. You there, huddled over the IDEs on your MacBook Pros. Step forward, software developers. Coding has always been seen as lone-ranger work; witness the opening scene in The Social Network. Despite managers' dreams of programmers as fungible units, it's nearly universally accepted that a great developer is ten times as productive as a mediocre one, and/or that a small team of the software equivalent of the Special Forces can code rings around an army of hundreds of grunts. The flip side is that one cowboy coder's bad decisions can cripple you; maybe immediately, or maybe next year, when you suddenly discover that your organization has quietly racked up so much technical debt that it has become the software equivalent of Greece. There are various ways to try to mitigate this risk. One of the more extreme calls for all development to be performed by pairs of programmers: two coders at one keyboard, at all times, with almost no exceptions. The idea (to oversimplify a bit) is that a second mind will sanity-check every bad idea and support every good one, so you--counterintuitively--wind up with higher per-programmer productivity. Legendary development shops like San Francisco's Pivotal Labs and Toronto's Xtreme Labs(1) have adopted a 100 percent pair programming mindset, with considerable success. Great! Problem solved, right? ...Not so fast.
 

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