Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

September 09, 2010

Google Instant technology advances, not just UI changes

Google Instant was announced yesterday but the underlying technology has been under development for years. Google Instant vastly improves the search experience for users, but it is much more than just cool User Interface changes in how search results are displayed. Competitors in the search business will have a very difficult time replicating this technology and providing a similar search experience to their users. Matt Cutts from Google and Matt McGee from SearchEngineLand have excellent reviews of Google Instant.

The first thing you notice about Google Instant is the predictive search query help. With each letter you type Google displays relevant search queries. They change and update in real time with each letter you type. Here are a couple screen shots that show how the query and resultant search results change on the fly as you type.

Google Instant knows what topics are hot and current. Type the single letter A and see what searches pop up. Things like Amazon, Apple, AOL, Android. These are the most popular searches that begin with the letter A. Try typing the letter "i" and see Ikea, IMDB, and Inception, then new movie. To do this well takes years of search query analysis, and a super fresh index that captures the newest information.

This looks simple but there is a lot of technology and computing infrastructure required to make this work.

In the past search engines had "related searches" that suggested other relevant search queries, but those only appeared after hitting return and seeing the first page of search results. Google Instant suggests other relevant search queries instantly as you type each letter. So, there are constant requests going back to the Google servers in the background without you hitting the return key.

Sure, AJAX technology has done similar real time calls to a server in the background for years. But, delivering relevant, real time search suggestions and search results has never been done before. This is truly an amazing technological feat.

It took years of technical improvements in browser technology, search algorithms, server enhancements, spelling correction, auto-complete, real time search, faster search index updates, and analysis of trending search queries to make this work.

The beauty of Google Instant is that it all works instantly in the background with no change in user behavior. It just works.

There have been lots of changes over the years in how search results are displayed, or how other relevant information is added to the search results. These were relatively simple User Interface (UI) changes that could be easily replicated by competitors. Google Instant is totally different. I don't think you will see anything like this from other search engines for a long time. This is extremely hard to do, and very expensive to implement.

If you look closely at these screen shots you can also see improvements like Maps, Places, Directions, Telephone Numbers, Photos, etc. All of these have been quietly added to the search experience without any change in user behavior. Search has been constantly improving with little changes that we all have come to expect. Google Instant is a BIG change that has been developing over several years.

When Can I get Google Instant? The service is available now in the USA and will be launching in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Russia within a week or so.

What do I need? You must be signed into your Google account for Google Instant to work. You need to have a current browser version like Chrome v5 or v6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac or Internet Explorer v8. Google Instant takes advantage of the latest browser technology so you might want to update your browser. Now might be a good time to check out Google's browser called Chrome. I use Chrome all the time. It is fast and powerful, and it supports the latest HTML5 technology. Google Instant will work with browser based search plug-ins and on mobile devices later this year.

The most effective technology improvements are the ones that happen automatically in the background with no change in user behavior. Google Instant significantly raises the bar in search technology...automatically, in real time.

There are other amazing technology advances underway at Google in other business segments that we can't talk about yet. There will be some game changing announcements coming. It is an exciting time to be working at Google.

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Posted by DonDodge at 07:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

August 31, 2010

Gmail Priority Inbox focus on important messages first

Google today announced Priority Inbox in beta test. Priority Inbox automatically sorts your Inbox by "Important and Unread", "Starred" and "Everything Else" so you can focus on the most important messages first. Gmail is great at filtering out Spam. Now that filtering technology has been expanded to detect the most important messages and bring them to the top of your inbox.

Gmail uses a variety of signals to predict which messages are most important to you. For example, people you email most are likely to be most important to you. Gmail also tracks which messages you open, save, delete, and star, to build a profile of what is important. You can also help the algorithm by clicking a "plus" or "minus" button at the top of each message to indicate its importance to you. In addition you can set up your own filters and categories to better organize your inbox to fit your specific needs.

The Priority Inbox feature will be rolled out to all Gmail users, including those who use Google Apps, over the next week or so. You will know you have it when you see the "New! Priority Inbox" message link in the top right corner of your Gmail account, or when you see the new Priority Inbox tab on the left navigation bar. See the screen shot at left.

I have been using Priority Inbox internally at Google for months. It is very helpful when you are in a hurry and only have time to glance at the most important messages. The "Starred" feature is also great for important messages that you need to go back to later, or keep in a special priority category.

This might be a good time to check out all the cool features available in Google Labs. These are features that are being tested, but not yet fully released into the Gmail product. Look in the upper right corner of your Gmail account and click on "Settings". Choose "Labs" over on the right. Then scroll down the list and choose the features that you would like to try. Simply click "Enable" and you can start enjoying some of the advanced feature tests from Google Labs. I particularly like Picasa, Maps, and Flickr previews, Language translation, and "Canned Responses". There are lots more that may help you better manage your email experience. Check them out, and give us feedback.

UDATE: Om Malik of GigaOm is an expert on email systems. This quote from Om about Gmail Priority Inbox is particularly impressive given that he is often skeptical of Gmail.

"The feature is impressive and fantastic, and works as effectively as Google’s spam filters. In fact, it works so well that you almost forget it’s still in beta and hasn’t been a standard feature. Google’s been testing it internally with 10,000 Googlers and few non-Googlers. The feature has impressed me enough that I’m considering abandoning my own methodology in favor of this web-based marvel."

Read Om's complete review on his blog.

Posted by DonDodge at 11:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

August 29, 2010

Why aren't there more women in Tech? My list of 30 great women

The Wall Street Journal today wrote about the lack of women in tech pointing out that 11% of venture backed companies have current or former women CEOs. The writer also pointed out that Ycombinator has just 14 female founders out of 208 companies funded. Then the article took a swipe at Techcrunch - “Part of changing the ratio is just changing awareness, so that the next time Techcrunch is planning a Techcrunch Disrupt, they won’t be able to not see the overwhelming maleness of it,” said Ms. Sklar, referring to the influential tech conference."

Apparently Ms. Sklar wasn't at the conference, or perhaps she missed Carol Bartz or Marissa Mayer on stage. Or maybe she was unaware that Heather Harde is the CEO of Techcrunch.

This slam was totally unfair to Mike Arrington, Heather Harde, and Techcrunch. Mike responded here. Mike and Heather always try hard to get as many women as possible on the Techcrunch stage. I have personally helped them get women speakers and panelists. All the top women in tech get more invitations to speak than they can possibly handle.

Carol Bartz and Arianna Huffington are among my favorites. They speak as often as they can, but they are incredibly busy. Mike Arrington had Carol Bartz on stage at Techcrunch Disrupt in New York. It was one of the best interviews ever. Carol matched Mike for sharp wit and quick come-backs. I would pay to see that again!

Here is my list of Top Women in Tech that I read and follow. They are smart and insightful. I listen to them and love to see them on stage at conferences. I have a Twitter list of all of them if you would like to follow them.

@Sarahcuda - Sarah Lacy, author of several books and writer for Techcrunch
@MarissaMayer - VP of products at Google
@KaraSwisher - Writer and provocateur at BoomTown and All Things D
@Christine - Christine Herron - First Round Capital
@MaryjoFoley - Writer for ZDnet, follows Microsoft
@Pistachio - Laura Fitton, founder of oneforty.com
@Cshipley - Chris Shipley, longtime at DEMO, founder of Guidewire Group
@JessiWrites - Jessi Hempel, formerly at BusinessWeek, now at Fortune
@CharleneLi - Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group
@Kabster728 - Katie Boehret, writer at Wall Street Journal
@AriannaHuff - Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post
@Megan - Megan McCarthy - TechMeme and MediaGazer
@Edyson - Esther Dyson, conference organizer, Angel Investor
@InaFried - writer at Cnet
@Zephoria - danah Boyd - researcher, writer, Microsoft
@GigaStacey - Stacey Higginbotham - writer at GigaOm
@Sarah_Ross - Head of Digital at Katalyst Films, formerly at Yahoo
@ElizaBrooks - Elizabeth Brooks, formerly VP of marketing at Napster
@Jhurwitz - Judith Hurwitz, Consulting Group
@Alexia - Alexia Tsotsis - writer at Techcrunch
@ShiraLazar - CBSnews, Media personality, always at tech conferences
@Halley - Halley Suitt, exec at Communispace
@XeniJardin - Editor at Boing Boing, contributor to Wired Magazine
@Caterina - Caterina Fake, founder of Flickr and Hunch
@Mollydotcom - Molly Holzschlag - open web, blogger, conference speaker
@Missusp - Christine Perkett, Boston based PerkettPR agency
@GinaTrapani - LifeHacker , blogger, techwriter
@JolieOdell - Jolie O'Dell, writer at Mashable
@Caro - Caroline McCarthy - writer at Cnet
@Padmasree - Padmasree Warrior, CTO at Cisco

There are lots of great women in tech, but on a percentage basis it is still pretty low. That may change over time as more women graduate from engineering and sciences, and go on to start companies, or become execs at tech companies. Until then, read these women, promote them, ReTweet them, and encourage others to get involved.

Posted by DonDodge at 06:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

August 25, 2010

Gmail Voice and Video Chat - make calls from Gmail

I live in Gmail. I travel a lot and need to communicate with people all over the world. Regular email and Instant Messaging is great, but sometimes a phone call or video conference is necessary. Now Gmail has voice calls and video conferencing built in. Google today announced Gmail Voice and Video Chat.

Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of year, and calls to other countries will be billed at very low rates. Take a look at this rate comparison chart. Calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan, and may others for as little as $0.02 per minute.

Dialing a phone number works just like your normal phone. Just click "Call Phone" at the top of your Chat List (left side bar of Gmail) and dial a number, or enter a name from your Contact list.

As a Google employee I have been using Gmail Voice and Video Chat for months. The calls are clear and crisp. The Video Chat is absolutely amazing. Great video quality, no latency or jittering. Many times I simply use the built-in camera and microphone in my MacBook Pro laptop. The quality is great. If I want even higher quality, or don't want to disturb the people around me, I use a headset and mic. Even better quality! At Google we have a video conference bridge server so we can do multi-party video conferences....right from our laptops. Very convenient!

Gmail Voice and Video Chat is being rolled out to users in the U.S. over the next several days. Try it out and let me know what you think. It may take a day or two to see it in your Gmail. Refresh your browser and look for a notification like this.

Posted by DonDodge at 06:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

August 12, 2010

What happened to AltaVista and Yahoo? From innovator to imitator to forgotten

Paul Graham of Ycombinator wrote an excellent blog on "What happened to Yahoo?". (YHOO) It reminded me of what happened to AltaVista, the first and most popular search engine. Yahoo thought they were a media company, not a software company. Simple, yet deep implications. AltaVista was hatched inside DEC, a hardware company. They had no idea what to do with a search engine. Ironically, AltaVista was later acquired by Overture and ultimately by Yahoo.

Thirteen years later the competitive environment is very different, but the lessons of that time are still valid today. Paul Graham takes us back to that place in time.

"Hard as it is to believe now, the big money then was in banner ads. Advertisers were willing to pay ridiculous amounts for banner ads. So Yahoo's sales force had evolved to exploit this source of revenue. It wasn't just Yahoo. All the search engines were doing it. This was why they were trying to get people to start calling them "portals" instead of "search engines." Despite the actual meaning of the word portal, what they meant by it was a site where users would find what they wanted on the site itself, instead of just passing through on their way to other destinations, as they did at a search engine."

"I remember telling David Filo in late 1998 or early 1999 that Yahoo should buy Google, because I and most of the other programmers in the company were using it instead of Yahoo for search. He told me that it wasn't worth worrying about. Search was only 6% of our traffic, and we were growing at 10% a month. It wasn't worth doing better."

The Dot Com Boom was a surreal time. AOL was king of the hill. Every week it seemed AOL was announcing a $40M sponsorship deal with a company like Ford to sponsor the Auto section. Or, Yahoo was announcing a $50M deal with Proctor & Gamble to sponsor the Health section of Yahoo. Content was king. "Sticky" services and content that kept viewers on site was believed to be the key to success. Yahoo had the curse of early success, exploding growth, and no software culture.

Paul Graham argues that Yahoo was doomed because it lacked a "hacker culture". He says "In technology, once you have bad programmers, you’re doomed. I can’t think of an instance where a company has sunk into technical mediocrity and recovered. Good programmers want to work with other good programmers. So once the quality of programmers at your company starts to drop, you enter a death spiral from which there is no recovery."

Apple is the exception - Apple is the only company I can think of that went from technical visionary, to marketing cluelessness, and back to visionary leader. It can be traced to Steve Jobs as a founder, getting kicked out in the John Sculley and Gil Amelio era, and coming back again. Only someone like Steve Jobs could pull off that transformation. For any other company...you better stick to your engineering roots.

Media Company vs Software Company - AltaVista started out as a software project in DEC's research labs. The technology was amazing at the time. But, no one at DEC knew what to do with it. DEC sold hardware and software to big companies. The Internet was just a novelty at the time and there was no business model for anything on the Internet, much less a search engine.

AOL and Yahoo changed all that. They were media savvy and knew how to monetize audiences through advertising and sponsorship. What we called software project managers, they called producers. What we called web sites, they called channels or properties. We looked at page views, they thought about "time on site". It was more than just a language difference. It was a totally different approach to what the company was about.

AltaVista was a pure search engine, no content, no portal, no "sticky" services like email, maps, horoscopes, news, etc. Just a search engine. Compaq acquired DEC, and with it AltaVista. The Compaq guys brought in consultants from McKinsey to figure out what to do with this search engine thing.

AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Excite, Lycos, and other media companies were building consumer internet portals. Content was king. The obvious thing to do was to copy these companies and recreate AltaVista as a portal, build an audience, and sell banner ads and sponsorships.

Build a Brand - The management hired a branding company to rebrand AltaVista. Ad agencies were hired to create TV advertisements for the Super Bowl, and a $100M ad campaign in print, radio and TV. AltaVista hired 500 people, all of them content producers, media sales people, and marketing people.

Engineering faded into the background. No budget for additional engineers or hardware to expand the service. We weren't able to crawl the web and build a new index for 3 or 4 months at a time. This meant that new web sites were not included in the index and not visible in search results. The search engine became stale, not growing, no new features. All engineering effort went into building out the content portal, creating new web pages and paths, etc.

From innovator to imitator to forgotten - Trying to be the sixth or seventh web portal was a bad idea. AOL, Yahoo, and MSN already dominated that space and knew the business much better. AltaVista spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to transform into a media company. It was doomed from the start.

Google is born - Google was a tiny little search engine in 2000. They had no content, no advertising, no sticky services...just a search box. Ironically, Google was just like AltaVista was years earlier. They had better technology and better search results, but so what? The audience numbers were with the big portals. Google didn't have any banner ads, and no source of revenue.

The Crash - The Dot Com Boom became "The Crash" in 2000 and the "Nuclear Winter" of 2001 and 2002. The rest of the economy was doing OK, but in tech, especially Internet related, it was total destruction. Even "successful" portals like Excite and Lycos went down. AltaVista went down with them. AOL, Yahoo, and MSN felt the pinch too, but they had enough cash to weather the storm.

Google survived the "Nuclear Winter" by staying small and focused on search. They later introduced simple text ads next to search results, avoiding the banner ad curse. They also adopted the ad auction model to sell ads directly to the long tale of the market. You know the rest of the story.

Conventional wisdom is usually wrong - Startups create new products for new markets. It is never obvious or easy. If it were, hundreds of companies would have already done it. Trying to chase the latest idea or craze rarely works. Trying to follow conventional wisdom in a startup puts you on a path like AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, or Yahoo.

Stay small and stay focused until you achieve product - market fit. Build, test, iterate. Repeat. Avoid the "suits" management types for as long as possible. Hire the best engineers. Don't compromise. Bad hires will kill you. Mediocre hires will kill you slowly...and more painfully. Read Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Dave McClure, Mark Suster, Techmeme, and others for great insights every day. Good luck!!

Posted by DonDodge at 01:39 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

August 06, 2010

Freemium business models for enterprise software?

The Freemium business model is normal for consumer applications, but can it work for enterprise software? Freemium usually means a free service with an "up sell" to paid premium subscriptions. Examples include Skype, LinkedIn, Flickr, Ancestry.com, Typepad, Dropbox, and many others. Freemium differs from Free Trial in that a free trial is the fully functional product but only for a limited time. Freemium is always free, but you can purchase additional features or service for a premium price.

Freemium business models usually involve a Free service, sometimes time limited or feature limited, supported by advertising. The ads rarely cover costs. The goal is to convert these free users to paid subscriptions. Most consumer services start with a $10 per user per month subscription and scale up to $20 or $50 per month based on a small, medium, large usage scale. Enterprise software is also using the Freemium model, sometimes with higher prices commensurate with the power and functionality of the product. They all have slightly different measurements and cut-off points, but most have some notion of small, medium, large.

Most companies see a 1.5% to 5% conversion rates, with most of them averaging around 3%. That doesn't sound like much but they are reaching tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of users...sometimes millions.

Do the math. 100,000 free users convert to 3,000 paid users. If they pay $50 per user per month, that is $150K a month or $1.8M per year. That is an excellent revenue stream for small startups that typically have 3 to 5 employees. And, it is an annuity stream that continues to grow every year. By the 3rd or 4th year these small companies can be generating $5M to $10M a year, still with less than 10 employees. Most of these small companies don't take Venture Capital so they own the whole company. It is a pretty good cash flow business.

Recently at Google IO I moderated an all-star panel of VCs on the subject of Freemium in the enterprise.
Making Freemium work - converting free users to paying customers - Venture Capitalists, Brad Feld (Foundry Group), Dave McClure (500 Startups), Jeff Clavier (SoftTech VC), Matt Holleran (Emergence Capital) and Joe Kraus (Google Ventures) discussed strategies for building free products that can be upgraded to paid versions.

Some key points from the panel;

Your initial thoughts about how much customers will pay, and how much they will pay, is probably wrong
Start collecting usage statistics from day one, even if you don't have time to analyze them. These stats will help you understand which features customers really use, and what they are likely to pay for.
Customers tend to optimize for "least surprise" so they tend to purchase a service level one above what they think they will need. Think cell phone pricing models.
Gmail Enterprise is a good example of an enterprise Freemium product based on usage limits. The first 50 users are free, but convert to paid subscription over that.
Freemium works best where there is a "network effect" or where more free users contributing content or data makes the service more valuable.
Put your business model in beta at the same time you put your product in beta. Test several business model scenarios to see what works best.
Consumers don't pay for additional features, turning off advertisements, analytics, etc...but businesses may be very happy to pay for these things
Google Apps Marketplace is a great channel to get your product to Google Apps business customers.

Watch the video for more details and insight. This group of VCs has built lots of companies based on the Freemium business model. They have some great insights.

Posted by DonDodge at 07:50 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

TechStars Boulder launches 11 new startups

TechStars is a seed accelerator program that selects about ten companies a year and provides funding of $18,000 per team, as well as support and mentorship. The last Boulder TechStars class of 10 companies in August 2009 had six of ten companies (including SendGrid and Next Big Sound) go on to raise $10M in venture investment.

TechStars has now been operating for four years. According to results data that TechStars has published, six of the first twenty companies to go through the program have been acquired by larger companies, and about 70% of its companies have been funded and/or are now profitable. This week, TechStars is debuting 11 new startups from the fourth Boulder class. The teams presented on Thursday to about 250 VCs and angel investors for the first time. These companies are about three months old and have two or three founder employees.

ADstruc is an auction and listing marketplace for outdoor billboard advertising. The company says that outdoor advertising purchases are currently managed offline. They provide an online inventory management service for sellers, as well as a marketplace for transactions. Today, it’s difficult for would-be buyers to identify and purchase outdoor advertising. ADstruc aims to bring the same level of access and transparency to the outdoor advertising market as Google does with Adwords for keyword search.

StatsMix allows companies to easily build, visualize, and share custom management dashboards for displaying and analyzing key metrics from their own Websites and external APIs. StatsMix already supports and integrates with metrics from about 30 popular web services, including Google Analytics, Quantcast, MailChimp, Freshbooks, Twitter, Facebook, Get Satisfaction, WordPress, and YouTube, and is adding more regularly. They also provide a REST based API and other simple mechanisms to integrate with internal metrics. The company showed off a unique “insight engine” which automatically draws correlations between various metrics, helping users to quickly identify what may be driving trends or anomalies.

GearBox is a smart toy company that has created a robotic ball which is controlled via a smartphone. Applications can be built on the smartphone via a simple API which requires minimal coding. Early applications include “Sumo,” where two people attempt to knock each other off of a table, “Golf,” where you swipe the phone to shoot the ball at the hole, and “Kittens,” in which users can earn points by playing with their cat and causing certain interactions. Here’s a video of the ball that has already attracted 63,000+ views. The company has other smart toys already in development that will use a similar API.

Vacation Rental Partner makes it easy to manage your vacation rental home. Targeted at individuals who have vacation rental homes that they manage who don’t want to pay 30-50% of their income to management companies, Vacation Rental Partner handles the entire process including managing booking requests, contracting, billing, as well as handling outside vendors such as housekeepers and pool cleaners. The system allows homeowners to manage their vacation rental calendar in one place, but allows for automatic distribution to popular advertising outlets such as VRBO, Craiglist, and many others.

Omniar wants to make the real world clickable. They demonstrated impressive visual search technology that enables others to easily build applications using their toolkit. They are working with early adopters in the real estate, museum, and retail sectors, enabling them to allow one-click visual search and information retrieval. For example, Omniar is working with real estate companies to allow users to simply snap a photo of a home which then returns information about it. For museums, they demonstrated snapping a photo of a specific piece of art and then quickly retrieving details about it such as the artist and the story behind it. The interesting thing here is that Omniar allows anyone to enable their own applications with visual search capabilities, using their own corpus of data. Those customers can use Omniar’s technology to “scan” in the 3D models using the mobile phone as well, by simply recording a video from multiple angles. Omniar says that it is different from other visual search technologies by their unique ability to recognize fully 3D objects from any angle.

Spot Influence finds top influencers for specific topics across the entire web including Twitter, blogs, and other types of content. The company provides a search engine and has made their technology available using APIs for partners who want to integrate it more fully. Rather than using a generic “influence score” and focusing just on Twitter, Spot Influence searches the entire web and returns results based on influence for specific topics.

BlipSnips is a way to create social context around specific moments in time in a video. Long-form videos are hard to “sample” or quickly “scan” and as a result don’t attract the quick social web interactions that shorter clips do. BlipSnips allows users to easily share specific moments in a video across their social graph and increases engagement with those videos. BlipSnips has a set of free consumer tools, but also works with video publishers to drive engagement for commercial video.

Kapost creates a marketplace for web content. It enables publishers to use the same crowd-sourced virtual newsroom approach popularized by The Huffington Post and others. Kapost works with existing content management systems such as WordPress and Drupal via plugins, and enables publishers to collect and manage content from a network of community members or external contributors. Kapost provides both the tools to manage the process as well as a marketplace for publishers and contributors and tracks reputation, manages rights, and handles payment transactions between parties.

RentMonitor takes the headache out of being a landlord. Targeted at landlords who are managing 3 to 50 properties, the system handles rent collection, advertising, tenant screening, maintenance, and tax issues for landlords. If you have ever rented a property either as a landlord or as a tenant you will understand the need for automating the process. As a tenant, wouldn’t it be great to just fill out one set of documents, background checks, credit checks, and use it to apply to multiple landlords? The system is very affordable, ranging from just $5-$50 per month depending on the number of units being managed.

ScriptPad transforms the iPad and iPhone into a digital prescription pad allowing doctors to write prescriptions faster and safer than their existing paper process. ScriptPad eliminates deadly prescription writing mistakes that contribute to over 7,000 deaths each year and sends the prescription directly to the patient’s pharmacy. The company integrates with all major pharmacies through existing partnerships. ScriptPad described a “magic” business model, in which even their free users generate revenue for the company because they are paid for each prescription that is transmitted. ScriptPad also offers a premium version that qualifies doctors for government incentives. Here’s a fun Apple-style video showing how their e-prescribing application works.

RoundPegg scientifically ensures that every hire you make is a fit for your company culture. According to RoundPegg, half of all hires fail due to poor fit with the company employees and culture. Most companies do a great job of hiring for skills, but they are flipping a coin when it comes to cultural fit. Through simple self-service surveys, RoundPegg blends technology with psychology. It allows hiring managers to make sure candidates have a strong fit, provides interview questions to ask, answers to look for, and pros and cons that are specific to the match between the candidate and the company, the team, and the hiring manager.

I first saw these companies three months ago when they started the TechStars program. They have made tremendous progress in just three months. Some of them may pivot or change significantly over the next six months based on customer feedback, but that is pretty common for young startups. All the Techstars companies did an impressive job presenting their product and vision. There will be some winners in this batch of startups.

Posted by DonDodge at 07:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

August 04, 2010

Top influential women in tech on Twitter

There are some great women in tech that I follow on Twitter or read their blogs. After reading two related stories today I decided to write a post on the women I read regularly. TwitterGrader just published a Top 100 Women on Twitter, and Engadget also published a list "Who should I follow on Twitter" Here is my list in no particular order. I know all of them personally and have great respect for their opinions and insights.

@Sarahcuda - Sarah Lacy, author of several books and writer for Techcrunch
@MarissaMayer - VP of products at Google
@KaraSwisher - Writer and provocateur at BoomTown and All Things D
@Christine - Christine Herron - First Round Capital
@MaryjoFoley - Writer for ZDnet, follows Microsoft
@Pistachio - Laura Fitton, founder of oneforty.com
@Cshipley - Chris Shipley, longtime at DEMO, founder of Guidewire Group
@JessiWrites - Jessi Hempel, formerly at BusinessWeek, now at Fortune
@CharleneLi - Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group
@Kabster728 - Katie Boehret, writer at Wall Street Journal
@AriannaHuff - Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post
@Megan - Megan McCarthy - TechMeme and MediaGazer
@Edyson - Esther Dyson, conference organizer, Angel Investor
@InaFried - writer at Cnet
@Zephoria - danah Boyd - researcher, writer, Microsoft
@GigaStacey - Stacey Higginbotham - writer at GigaOm
@Sarah_Ross - Head of Digital at Katalyst Films, formerly at Yahoo
@ElizaBrooks - Elizabeth Brooks, formerly VP of marketing at Napster
@Jhurwitz - Judith Hurwitz, Consulting Group
@Alexia - Alexia Tsotsis - writer at Techcrunch
@ShiraLazar - CBSnews, Media personality, always at tech conferences
@Halley - Halley Suitt, exec at Communispace
@XeniJardin - Editor at Boing Boing, contributor to Wired Magazine
@Caterina - Caterina Fake, founder of Flickr and Hunch
@Mollydotcom - Molly Holzschlag - open web, blogger, conference speaker
@Missusp - Christine Perkett, Boston based PerkettPR agency
@GinaTrapani - LifeHacker , blogger, techwriter
@JolieOdell - Jolie O'Dell, writer at Mashable
@Caro - Caroline McCarthy - writer at Cnet

There are hundreds more awesome women in tech that I don't know personally, or don't follow. Let me know who I am missing. Please add them in the comments section on the right side panel.

UPDATE: I created a Twitter List so you can easily follow all of them. Top Women in Tech

August 02, 2010

Windows 7 Tablets vs Apple iPad. Not about the OS

Steve Ballmer says Microsoft has an Operating System (OS) for tablets and it is Windows 7. MaryJo Foley at ZDnet says Microsoft is placing multiple bets that probably won't payoff until mid next year. ArsTechnica says "Ballmer still doesn't get the iPad". Ballmer and Microsoft believe the key to success with a tablet is the OS (Windows 7) and the Intel microprocessor (Oak Trail) which will enable all Windows apps to run on the new tablet. And, he says emphatically "It will print". Perhaps they are right for some segment of the market, but that is not why the iPad has been so successful.

Slates are not PCs - Microsoft has been trying to push tablet PCs for the past 10 years. They worked from a technical point of view, but never took off in the marketplace. They were basically PC laptops with a convertible fold down screen, and a stylus for input. They ran all the same software and applications that PCs ran. That is not what the market wanted.

Not about the OS - The iPad has been successful because it doesn't try to be a PC or a Mac. It is not about the OS. It is about the browser, the touchscreen, and most importantly, the User Interface. Apple has spent years optimizing the browser on the iPhone. It is incredibly fast and tuned to the touch screen and OS. The display is clear, sharp, and fast. The User Interface is optimized for the device. Everything else has been stripped away.

Microsoft will not be successful by simply modifying a version of Windows 7 and Internet Explorer and dropping it on a smaller form factor slate. It will be too heavy and slow. Battery life will be a problem. Text input will be a problem. The UI will be clunky.

Slates need the following characteristics if they want to compete with the iPad;

Browser optimized for small touch sensitive screen. This is not as easy as it sounds. Apple has spent years figuring this out.
User Interface that is visual and touch sensitive. Again, there are optimizations and nuances in the iPhone and iPad User Interfaces that are very specifically tuned to the device. Apple didn't just take the Mac UI and downsize it. They started with a clean slate and designed for a different use case.
Touch Sensitive Screen that is optimized for the browser and UI. This is a case where Apple controlling the hardware and software results in a much better user experience.
Operating System stripped down to just the essentials, and optimized for the hardware. Again, Apple didn't start with the Mac OS and strip it down. Microsoft will have a very difficult time trying to strip down Windows 7 for a slate device. It will work...but it won't be optimal.
Battery Life is determined by optimizations in the OS and microprocessor. Every software change during development needs to be tested for its impact on battery life. Unless you are developing for a slate this isn't a big consideration. This is why retrofitting an existing OS, browser, and UI will not be optimal and will kill battery life.
Apps not Applications are the mind set for slates. Slates have a different use case, and will use different apps. iPad users aren't buying it to run business applications and print stuff. They don't want Mac applications on their iPad, and slate buyers won't want Windows, Office, and print functions on their slate.

Slate success is not about the form factor (size) or the Operating System, or being able to run Microsoft Office, or the ability to print. This is where Microsoft fundamentally doesn't get it. Hey, I didn't get it either until I started using an iPad and thinking about how it is different, and most importantly, how I use it differently. It took Apple years of development and optimization on the iPhone to be able to deliver the goods on the iPad.

Microsoft would be better off ignoring Windows 7 and instead starting with elements of the xBox and Zune architectures. They have a UI, design foot print, and use case, that is far more applicable to the slate. Who knows. Maybe Microsoft is right. Maybe people really do want to run Windows, Office, and other applications on a slate...and they really do want to print stuff. Time will tell.

Posted by DonDodge at 04:55 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Productivity improvements and Musical Chairs. What happens when the economy slumps?

For more than 30 years businesses have invested in software technology with the promise of increased productivity and cost savings. Those investments have paid off, especially in the last 10 years. The result? We are able to do everything faster and cheaper. The impact? Fewer people required to do the same work. This is great in a growing economy, production increases and profits soar. But what happens when the economy slumps? Layoffs and dislocation, the corporate version of Musical Chairs. Some of those jobs are never coming back.

Manufacturing jobs were out-sourced to developing countries because labor rates were cheaper. But labor rates had always been cheaper. The real reason for moving offshore was low cost, fast, reliable transportation. The transportation costs were low enough to make it feasible to manufacture offshore.

More recently, customer service call centers have been moved offshore because international telecommunication costs have come down dramatically. Advances in telecommunications, high speed networks, high voice quality, and much lower costs, have made it feasible to locate customer call centers offshore.

Disintermediation - The Internet disintermediated many markets, cutting out the middleman, or several layers of distribution. Internet companies like Amazon, Ebay, craigslist, Travelocity, Expedia, Zappos, and many others have changed the way we purchase almost everything. WalMart, Costco, and other "big box" retail stores eliminated layers of distribution by bringing warehouse stores and wholesale prices directly to consumers. Gone are the wholesalers and distributors of yesteryear...and with them tens of thousands of jobs.

The Internet disintermediation has sharply reduced the need for jobs like travel agents, stock brokers, music stores, secretaries, admins, presentation graphics, MIS analysts. These jobs have been reduced by software productivity improvements that make it possible for any knowledge worker to make their own travel arrangements, buy their own stocks and mutual funds, purchase music directly, etc.

What is next? Fast, reliable Internet bandwidth is now making it possible to do Information Worker tasks anywhere in the world. Fast, high quality, Internet video enables knowledge workers to connect anywhere, anytime. Inevitably, work tasks move to the lowest cost producer. It happened with manufacturing, customer service, and it is now happening with "knowledge" work. Hmmm, OK, this productivity thing has gone far enough. This is getting too close to home. Too late...there is no stopping progress.

Musical Chairs - Productivity is great when the economy is growing. It allows for increased production and profit. But what happens when the economy lags? Production falls, fewer workers are required, laid off workers don't consume as much, and the economy goes into a tail spin. It is the corporate equivalent of the childhood game of Musical Chairs. When the music stops there are fewer jobs available, and some will be left with no chair to sit in.

Full employment - I am reminded of my first trip to China many years ago. My local guide was taking me around to see the sites when I noticed a gang of 50 men digging a ditch on the side of a dirt road. They had several donkeys or horses with wooden carts to carry away the dirt and rubble. I commented that back home one man on a bulldozer or frontend loader and another man on a dump truck would have that job done in a few hours. My local guide said "Yes, that is true, but then what would the other 48 men do?" Incredulous, I said, they would go do more productive work.

Don't displaced workers just move into new areas that are growing? Some do, many can't. And, when the economy slumps there are very few areas growing and hiring people. Advances in transportation technology made it possible to move manufacturing offshore. Advances in telecommunications and Internet technology have disrupted retail and distribution markets. Now it is the "knowledge worker" or "information worker" that is getting disrupted.

Given enough time people can adjust, retrain, and start new careers. The key to survival today is being multi-talented. Prepare yourself to do several different jobs...simultaneously.

Maybe my Chinese guide had the right idea many years ago. Something to think about on your summer vacation.

Posted by DonDodge at 02:05 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)