I want to root against Google+ so badly I can almost taste it. A failure here would make my life so much easier! This isn’t like Google Wave where I saw something that could potentially be useful, helpful and game-changing for how I could communicate with people. This is just more of the same stuff we already have.
Google+ is just sharing things with a mixture of friends, acquaintances and strangers. That’s it. Just sharing and following. The content isn’t any different than I can get from these people anywhere else; it’s the same kitty video I see on Facebook, now with a whiter background design.
So, I want to root against this new, redundant time suck. I don’t need it and I certainly don’t need more social networks to keep tabs on.
That said, I am now on Google+.
It’s research only, I swear! Strangely addicting research…but anyway, the point is that I am on Google+ despite my desire to watch it fail. I still hope it amounts to nothing, but in the mean time, I might as well check out what these circles are all about, and spruce up my profile, and well…I have to come clean. I’m hooked.
Maybe we are now hardwired to enjoy novelty in any form, but every time I sign on to Google+ it feels like getting into a new car. All I want to do is take it for a spin and see what kind of power it has. I am enjoying every bit of minutiae, every second of exploration. I mean, not that I still don’t want it to fail and all, but it is kind of fun.
I went to one of the first colleges to get Facebook, and in the early years, it had a similar feel. Simple acts of navigation were novel and everything had a weird lawless and vaguely stalkerish feel about it.
It’s this fun with form (a new system to navigate!) and function (new people to stalk!) that Google+ has going for it. I don’t think we need Google+ at all, and I still wish it would go away, but I’m pretty sure I like it, against my better judgement. As Facebook would say, “it’s complicated.”
- Jason Oberholtzer
Tags: Facebook, Google, Google Buzz, Google Wave, New People, Search Engines, Searching, Social network, Twitter
We are lucky enough to be able to peek into two tech worlds. One, is a well established, revenue producing, tactile-based yet well understood world of telecommunications, i.e. how you watch TV (set top boxes, TVs, electronic program guides, Video on Demand, PVR, etc.). The other one is the topsy-turvy exciting world of web 2.0 technology that you can’t really get a grip on but you know its there and your friend Trixie uses it, so it must be ok. These are the people that bring you Facebook, the cloud, Twitter, social networks and the like.
The telco world lives pretty much in a fact-based (although somewhat altered) world of actual subscribers, content rights and a general understanding of how to move their industry forward. Now I said “general”. They don’t succumb to hype and when they get a feature that they think will make the vertical trade press wake up and listen, they go for it with gusto – currently the red hot chili in this world is “3D”, multi-screen delivery and social TV (also the cloud). Suffice it to say, they never really cave into hype.
However, in the other world – they live in a bubble that thrives off of hype and works on the premise of “if a few are doing it, we all must be doing it”. This brings me to location based social networks.
Recently there was a great article via CNN about why location apps haven’t gone mainstream yet. When CNN writes the story, it takes on a different perspective because by the time the “hype” of the start-up technology or craze (location based social networks) comes their way, they actually decide to look into it and see what in reality is going on. The article goes on to say that only 7% of all Americans actually are AWARE of location based social networks. This would have to be 7% of all Americans (around 21 million people) But if you tune into any start up technology news source, it would read as if the whole planet is using it and its growing by leaps and bounds. So many issues affect normal users that don’t affect early adopters. Most early adopters (those with smart phones like iPhones, etc. rather than feature phones) tend to care less about privacy than those outside of that market.
VCs still are funding location based start ups and they are putting more pressure on them to monetize and gain traction with users, but how many location based social networks can NON-early adopters handle? And how many of those care more about privacy than the early adopters. If early adopters don’t care about privacy nor the fact that their sign up and usage is just paving the way for targeted advertising, what happens when it hits mainstream and they do care? How will the model be adjusted then? It could be just an issue of usage = complacency, which is normally how technology gets assimilated into our lives, we just get used to it and then we can’t part with it. Or rather, its like a drug, we crave it even though we are forfeiting some of our privacy rights. After all, no one is making you sign up for these services.
Here is our take: Location as it relates to your life where you are in the moment will be relevant to the mainstream user (not early adopter). For example, I am shopping on this street, let’s see what else is around me. Not WHO is around me, but WHAT is around me. If I see that there is something near to me, I want to get there easily, and if there is a money saving voucher or coupon, I am more incented to go there.
According to UK-based Juniper Research, mobile coupons are redeemed at a 5% to 20% rate, compared with about 1% for print coupons. They recently forecast that 1 out of every 10 mobile subscribers in developed regions around the world will use mobile coupons by 2014, generating nearly $6 billion in redemption value. The fact of the matter is that consumers like coupons/vouchers. In the fourth quarter of 2008, coupon redemption was up 7.5% in the US alone. And, according to Hitwise, internet searches for discount vouchers in the UK grew by 47.5% in 2009.
We aren’t the experts, but this sort of feels a bit like maybe how the Gold Rush felt — lots of people rushing in to get their claim, but most of the claims just pinch out. Where LB social networks go from here is up to the user, and they are a fickle lot. – JLH
Tags: Advertising, CNN, Facebook, Social network, Telecommunication, Television, Twitter
So we met Laurent, the CEO of Silentale nearly a year ago at Plugg in Brussels where he presented on stage in the start up rally. We instantly liked him and his sweater but didn’t quite get his presentation. This didn’t stop us from stalking him at the cocktail party to give him a few tips on improving. Each successive time we ran into him, LeWeb, NextWeb he was better and better and now he’s got users banging down his door and a whole lot of mojo going on with the application. We were recently both coaches at the KIS Partnering Forum in Rome and I had the chance over many bottles of wine to finally get him on a Tattletech Hot seat. Here is what we discovered.
Tattletech: So, you created something that let’s back up and store all of our online conversations, what gave you the idea for Silentale? Why did you think this was something we needed?
Laurent Féral-Pierssens: It came from a personal need to automatically consolidate and organize all my messages, a few going back as far as 1988 on Arpanet. And the need only grew stronger as individuals started to have multiple profiles while using multiple addresses and devices! After drafting a few algorithms for automatically matching identities I realized it was feasible, while initial assessment of the market showed a strong need and productivity gain from organizing contacts and messages.
TT: I was talking to a VC in London a couple of weeks ago and he told me he could not figure out how Silentale works, so tell us, how does it work? It has that elusive cloud ingredient that we all like to talk about but probably don’t really get.
LFP: Well, it’s quite simple in fact. Silentale polls your different messaging services, indexes their content and attachments while making a long term backup of the original messages in the cloud. While doing so, Silentale organizes the messages and figures out who are the recipients of the messages and matches them automatically to the people you know (on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Contacts, Twitter….)
This allows Silentale to do something unique, displaying your conversations with the people you know in context. Inside your inbox or email client, social/professional networks, CRM and collaboration tools. We’re a productivity tool to your real-time communications.
TT: You are a bit of a hybrid – French-Canadian from the New World now living in Paris from the Old World, what do you think are the main differences in the start up community?
LFP: Entrepreneurship is not seen in the same way and comparisons can take years to debate. This being said what strikes me is that Europe is a real network of hubs; of startups, talent and markets. You really need to think outside of your country/culture to see what’s happening and to be successful, and it’s extremely enriching. Gives entrepreneurs of the Old World methodology and practice that you can’t experience or learn anywhere else.
TT: You said recently in a blog post that it was lonely being the only one at the dance, do you still feel that way?
LFP: Hell no! The dance floor is getting more crowded and I’m happier everyday to see great companies, both in the US and in Europe, taking a stab at the underlying problem. Gist, Xobni, Backupify or even projects like Mozilla Raindrop have great product or services that aim at solving one or more aspects of the conversation social graph.
TT: Why Silentale? Is it a quiet company?
LFP: We work silently… to rise above the noise. Here’s a longer answer to this question: http://blog.silentale.com/2009/10/02/whats-in-a-name/
TT: Before Silentale, you started and sold three successful Canadian start ups – so you clearly have a track record of how to grow and sell a business, what mistakes have you learned from in the past that you won’t do with Silentale?
LFP: So many mistakes were made along the way, it’s impossible to know if I’ll make them again in the future. But there’s definitely something about acquiring the right talent at the right time and keeping yourself open minded enough. When you’re starting and later growing a business, it’s all about the equilibrium: looking far enough ahead while executing day-to-day. And it’s really hard to keep identifying subtle nuances and forseeing the changes happening under your nose, and still apply a steady direction without being rigid.
TT: In a fight to the death, which superhero would win? Batman or Superman?
LFP: Gotta be Batman: he already defeated Superman, at least in the “The Dark Knight Returns” series. Anyway, any geek would support Batman!
- JLH
Tags: Arpanet, Silentale
Posted by Tattletech on Jun 24, 2009 in
Enterprise 2.0,
Social Networking 
Today on the Emerging Web Memo out of Boston from the E 2.0 Conference, ink Communications Director of Social Media, Alexandra Crabb talked about how she is using social media to engage employees of companies internally. Alexandra is using it to extend the enterprise outward through her marketing campaigns. The article goes on to talk about thinking about Enterprise 2.0 in three new ways: 1. Consider ROI Through Imagining Absence 2. Rethink the “I” for Which You’re Trying to Achieve “R” 3. The Nature of Social Media Implies Return. It’s an all around great article on whats happening with Enterprise 2.0 right now.
Tags: Alexandra Crabb, Enterprise 2.0, ink Communications
This week in a ReadWriteWeb article on the changes of MySpace, the writer Marshall Kirkpatrick said “Facebook can’t rule the world for ever. No one can.” We could not agree more – we believe social networking should represent a free exchange of personal data, contacts, photos, videos and any content the user want to share. Instead of a walled garden, we see a community garden that allows users interact, share, exchange, collaborate, and discuss whatever they want to. This raises a question around social networking in general – is it “platform agnostic” or not? Absent any substantial differences in quality, does it really matter whether you park your online persona at Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr or any of the dozens (hundreds?) of other sites?
Obviously, we don’t know exactly what the future looks like – if any of our readers do, please e-mail us! But we do think that the future of social networking is not going to be about the providers/platforms per se, but about the larger community and how providers facilitate user interaction. Open standards or open social may be at the bedrock of this future networking, going hand in hand with the augmented reality demonstrated by LBS. Just a quick glance in the direction of Egypt in the past year or two, and more recently Iran, shows exactly what we are talking about: its back to the old saying that its the message (real time interaction) that counts, not the media (Facebook, Twitter, et al). – JLH
Tags: Facebook, Marshall Kirkpatrick, MySpace, Social network
We just stumbled on JuiceCaster while doing some research on a story on location based geo tagging (we think this is the space to watch) and now are distracted. Why? Well first the name is just plain cool. Second, their value proposition is simple and does what we should be doing with content from our mobile, geo tagging without having to think to add a geo tag. It’s automatic.
Fierce Wireless reports that JuiceCaster provides one-touch, real-time sharing of pictures and videos directly from a camera phone to many social-networking and blogging sites. JuiceCaster is about keeping people constantly connected to their online communities/social networks. The beautiful thing is that because all pictures and videos are geotagged, users can look for content based on specific location criteria. Isn’t this is what having a mobile is all about – we are on the go, we take a photo and it should be tagged from the spot where were took the photo. It should easily flow to our social networks and better yet, it should pop up on map that not only shows me where my friends are but where that content was taken or where other geo content resides. I want one big snapshot of my content and my social networks. Better yet, give me a real life screenshot of my social network and content. Seeing this already with the visual social network platform IRLConnect where you can now see geo tagged live mobile video broadcasts (via Bambuser), mobile video and photos (via MobyPicture) and all your social networks on a map. Yup, that’s what I want, a screenshot of my life. - JLH
Tags: Bambuser, Geo tagging, IRL Connect, JuiceCaster, Mobile content, MobyPicture, Online Communities, Social network
Nimbuzz, the super fly mobile social messenger, just brought in a new CMO, Neal Fullman. Neal has chops. He is the former International Communications director at fring and is in charge of brand development, marketing and communications strategy for the ever expanding Nimbuzz.
It’s like someone added MiracleGrow to Nimbuzz and they are seeing unprecendeted growth with more than 25,000 new users joining every day. Plus, some very strategic global distribution deals which are not yet announced. (more on that later). – JLH
Tags: Neal Fullman, Nimbuzz
Posted by Tattletech on Mar 15, 2009 in
Conferences,
Cool stuff,
Entrepreneurs,
Good things,
Innovation,
Intelligent Search,
New things,
Sexy tech guys,
Social Networking,
Start ups,
Web 2.0 stuff,
Women entrepreneurs 
Tattletech was at Plugg last week in Brussels (that Robin Wauters puts on a good show) and it was one of the best events we have been to in a while. The agenda was superb, the speakers were excellent and the food was outstanding. The start up rally was fun with our audience participation paddles, but the majority of the start ups were not that compelling, with the exception of three that stood out WAY above the others. We are planning on having all three of them do a Tattletech Hot Seat in the coming weeks.
Here are the three companies we think you should keep your eyes on. (Plus one extra)
Jinni – Everything is changing so why not how we search for TV shows and movies. Long time IPTV industry veteran and former Oracle guy, Yosi Glick thinks its about time we re think how we search for movies. So enter Jinni. Tattltech saw a super secret demo of Jinni last fall at IBC and now the train is on the track as Jinni has brought its new search technology to the forefront. Blending both a social networking element with a more logical way to search for what you want to watch (a social search and recommendation engine), Jinni will change the way you think about searching for content. They will. Sign up for the beta online. Watch them, get on board now, this would be like missing the Skype train. Yes, I said that. A fantastic management team makes all the difference and Jinni has that.
Myngle - Learn a language online. Okay, so at first glance that may not sound innovative, but it is. It is because it connects you to the global marketplace where you are talking with folks that know that native language. Its interacting with them in a way you would normally if you knew a language, not the “phrases” that you normally go through in an old school language class. It’s e learning mixed with educational social networking and we think that this is one of the best ideas for applying elements of social networking today. Imagine the possibilities this could have on developing nations.
Global classroom, cultural exchange takes on a whole new meaning. Founder by Marina Togenetti and based in the Netherlands, this woman gives entrepreneur a whole new name. Winner of the Plugg Audience Choice awards and more than 20,000 users in seven months.
Softatutor – It is unfortunate that their site is only in German, but trust me when I say to you this CEO has his eye on the big picture. And like Myngle, Sofatutor is focusing on applying the elements of social networking to education. Sofatutor blends video with social interaction to create an online “tutor”. And the CEO, Stephan Bayer at Plugg 09 says that he wants tutors to get paid for their work – educational advocate. Nice. Not to mention the fact that if we did a Top 10 list of sexy tech guys at Plugg, he would be on it.
Now, also on our list is Nimbuzz who has won all sorts of awards and plans to become the gobal communications platform for IP-based communication between mobile devices and social media platforms. Watch for their upcoming Tattletech Hot Seat interview with Tobias Kemper. And rounding out the trip was the excellent conversation spent with two fantastic “personalities” we had the great pleasure of spending our breaks with – Nicolas Mertens (picture a young David Spade with the same sense of humor), The Next Web and Jeroen Mirck.
– JLH
Tags: Myngle, Nimbuzz, Robin Wauters, Social network service, Yosi Glick
Tattletech always finds itself in good company – always around start ups that seem to have their finger on technology that will pull the current market forward and with entrepreneurs that do more than focus on the technology but how to apply it to our lives. When we met Dragos, we knew immediately this compay was onto something. We caught up with uberVU’s Co-Founder, Dragos Ilinca and here is what he had to say. (uberVU was also a 2008 Seedcamp winner!)
Tattletech: So… let’s start with the question you are probably asked over and over again, what DOES uberVU mean?
Dragos Ilinca: uber is a German word that means “more, better, super”, just like in ubergeek or uberblogger. “VU” is just a misspelled “view”. we weren’t trying to be cute, but uberview.com <http://uberview.com> was taken. So in its essence uberVU refers to having a “superview” of the conversation on the Web.
TT: Will aggregating all of the conversation threads into one place make the online world a smaller one, in the positive sense of the word?
DI: Quite possibly. All the people that comment on a story are part of the same community, they’re interacting around the same social object. So the online world around a story will be bigger, as you’ll be aware of people you did not know commented on a story. It might be smaller in the sense of more intimate, as in time, there will be many more familiar faces around each story or blog or content source. The point is that people should care about who is commenting and what they are saying and not have to worry about the underlying platform.
TT: At the end of almost each article or blog post we see an unending list of icons and link backs – will Ubervu end all of that clutter?
DI: Some of those icons have their purpose, such as sharing the article on different services. The purpose is not necessarily to end that clutter, but be able to interact with people on the services that the icons represent without paying much attention to the service itself. This means getting comments from people everywhere in one place and also allowing you to reply to those people from one place. It’s about freeing the conversations from closed silos and exposing people to each other.
TT: What is the main differentiator between what you do and others? Do you trace the conversation and not the user profile?
DI: Yes, that’s the main difference. We get comments around a story, not around a person, user profile or keyword. Whether those will be included I don’t know at this point. One more difference is the ability to reply from within uberVU, in the sense that they reply gets sent back to the site/service where it should belong. From this point of view, we seem to be a great complement to a lot of existing services that people are already avid users of.
TT: Do you think users will quickly adopt using uberVU?
DI: Hopefully, although that’s not the goal in the short term. Our main goal is to understand how people are using uberVU, what they need and don’t need from it and how to transform those demands into usable features so that they do start to use uberVU regularly. I think we still have some way to go until uberVU hits the bullseye and becomes just right for people. That’s why we’re experimenting with different things right now, such as being integrated by Disqus through our API. Maybe we’ll be a great destination site, or maybe we’ll serve as an infrastructure service that will only be used by way of API.
– SM and JLH
Tags: Dragos Ilinica, Social Networking, Ubervu
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2a30bde4-7821-44fa-b54b-a93c226ba19c)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d9dd8d12-be44-4199-a058-c9f19403107c)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=721b77c5-ec5f-4e8a-956a-9da8342df19f)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=cbd384ab-edee-48ac-b071-28fb8a9ce72e)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c87b156a-2e3e-4d47-ae8f-00ede1404d89)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4841b1b1-6540-4e0b-8b7a-ff5fea0137a7)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0c47621d-1e0f-41c0-8422-5ed55f2200f9)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=61ebb300-fcad-410a-a5c6-dd45ba664e4e)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4a195688-8cb0-49ca-8fe2-b037371cfe76)
