Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Today was the Facebook episode. 

We're discussed three things:

  1. Yesterday Facebook announced a whole new suite of privacy controls.  We talked about what they are, and whether people will use them.
  2. Facebook also previewed their new IM client.  Is this the beginning of a push into Real Time Communications?
  3. Comscore announced that Facebook has surpassed Myspace in daily visitors.  What does that mean?

Enjoy!

{ 0 comments }

Lead, follow or get out of the way

by alec on March 19, 2008

Jeff Pulver is a vision guy. His keynote yesterday was proof positive, as he presented example after example of how the demographic segment called the "Millennials" (kids and teens) are communicating differently from the way that previous generations have.  Cell phones, social networks, and the web have completely changed the dynamics of how people reach other. 

So, here's my beef, telecom industry.  One of the industry's true visionaries stands up every six months and paints an incredible picture of where we can all go.  He does it with enthusiasm, zeal and fervor.  And what does the industry do?  Nada.

Iotum was the proud recipient of a VON Magazine Innovators Award last night for the work we've been doing to build conferencing services into social networks.  And we were in good company.  But none of the companies that can actually act as a channel to market for the innovations that we and the other 64 recipients of these awards are developing, were represented. 

Lead, follow or get out of the way you Old Skoolers… there's a crop of innovators out there who are champing at the bit to reach markets.  

{ 3 comments }

VendorRate will buy you a latte for your opinion

March 19, 2008

Walking the aisle at VON yesterday, I ended up talking with Ray Beauchamp, VP Strategic Development for VendorRate.  They're a new company that allows potential purchasers of equipment to see how others felt about the relationships they have with the vendors they purchase from.  It's free to use, and he was offering a $5 Starbucks card [...]

Read the full article →

The elephant in Rick Segal and Albert Lai’s room

March 19, 2008

There's a message being lost in the very public fracas between Albert Lai and Rick Segal, which is that startups in Canada are undersupported.  Canadian VCs have a reputation among entrepreneurs for being excessively cautious, which is perhaps undeserved.  After all, the size of the funds they've raised are dramatically different from Silicon Valley funds, so [...]

Read the full article →

Squawk Box March 18

March 19, 2008

A lively and interactive Squawk Box from San Jose California today! We discussed Lifestream Aggregators — FriendFeed, Twitter, Plaxo Pulse and so on.  There were a few people who shared their experiences, good and bad.  We also discussed Broadsoft's new eXtended — a platform play to compete with Ribbit in the web telephony mashup space. And [...]

Read the full article →
Alec on LinkedIn Alec on Twitter Alec on Facebook Calliflower on Youtube RSS Feed Contact me