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Posts Tagged ‘Coffee Shops’

New York Times to appear on big displays at coffee shops and other venues

The New York Times and RMG Networks are launching a venture where the newspaper’s web site will appear on digital displays in coffee shops and other locations in five major cities.

The NYTimes.com web site will appear on more than 800 screens in business district cafes and eateries in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. That’s a subset of more than 60,000 screens that RMG (formerly known as Danoo) has nationwide.

People standing in line waiting to get their coffee can look at the screens to see headlines and a sentence or two of the stories, as well as photos and some videos too.

Viewers can go to www.NYT2day.com on their mobile devices to view the same articles displayed on the screens. Gary McGuire, chief executive of RMG, said that the company’s strategy is to offer the best video entertainment and information it can to engage people while they’re on the run. That’s increasingly necessary in an age when viewers aren’t sitting still in front of their TVs to watch 30-second commercials anymore.

On a monthly basis, the New York Times can reach six million people on the run through the 800 locations, McGuire said. Murray Gaylord, vice president of marketing at NYTimes.com, said that the screens are a way to extend the company’s brand to business professionals in key markets.

RMG pipes in the pages to the screens via broadband Internet connections. It can send messages and coupons to the phones of the people standing in line, as long as they turn their Bluetooth radios to reception mode. Through its 60,000 screens, RMG Networks says it can reach 25 million people a month. RMG’s investors include National CineMedia and Kleiner Perkins.

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Brief: Average time online higher than years ago; sky still blue

The nagging you get from your wife, kids, or any of those other annoying people in your life is well deserved: you’re spending more time online than you used to. Not just that, but you’re likely spending more time online at home compared to years ago, though the trend over the last year indicate that things are flattening out.

American adults are now spending an average of 13 hours a week surfing the Internet, according to new data from Harris Interactive, up from only seven hours in 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002. This isn’t the highest ever year, though: in 2008, the average peaked at 14 hours per week—which Harris attributes to the presidential election and the beginning of the current financial crisis—before settling back down to 13 hours in 2009.

The number of adults using the Internet at home has increased dramatically over that same time period, too. Harris says that a mere 22 percent accessed the Internet at home as of January 1998 (as well as 22 percent at work); that number has gone up to 76 percent accessing it at home this year and 40 percent at work. There has been an increase in Internet use while at “other” locations as well (school, coffee shops, etc.), reflecting our growing use of laptops and other portable devices.

It’s not just the average number of hours that’s flattening out, though (and we assume if you’re reading Ars, your average Internet time per week is way higher than 13 hours, just like those of us on staff). Harris says the total number of American adults online has reached 184 million—not much of a change since 2007.

So what are people doing with all that extra time online? Undoubtedly playing games, watching Internet video, and galavanting around social networks, among other things. All of those activities have taken off in recent years. But don’t surf too much, lest you eventually find yourself at an expensive Internet addiction rehab center.

What is a “Brief” post?”

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Forget the Web 2.0 Glamour – the Money’s in the Enterprise

The Web 2.0 world may seem at times like a glamorous, hip place. Services get wild attention. The names are something out of the space age. The companies work out of coffee shops and lofts.

But the money has a way of running out before the entrepreneur can find a way to make a profit. No wonder the enterprise world can look so enticing to a Web 2.0 company.

So, we thought it might provide some perspective by looking at companies that are showing signs of reaching into the business market or have made the big switch.

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Posterous is a stylish miroblogging service that has gained attention for its ease of use, especially the simplicity in it as a publishing tool. We corresponded with the company today and were told that it will launch a “Posterous for Business,” service.

The news follows an update to Posterous that allows multiple users to create group blogs that allow users to post to a group page on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. A company logo may be placed in the Posterous blog with a description. That’s a big deal. Facebook group pages are becoming important for business users. It can be a bit clumsy trying to update to group pages from outside Facebook.
This is an important development for the microbogging service, pointing to its entrance into the business market.

Box.net started as a consumer service for people to store online files. In 2007, the company turned to the enterprise and has not looked back. In February, the company launched a new interface. Today, their client roster includes companies such as Nike, Oracle and Marriott. Its direction is pretty clear. The enterprise is where box.net sees its future.

Xobni launched in January of 2008. The company billed itself as a social network for your inbox. Cool service. Today, Xobni places a good bit of its attention on the enterprise market.

Xobni offers a service that allows administrators to provide Xobni for employees. It can be customized and has features to make it regulatory compliant. Control features are built into the service. In November, the company announced its integration with Salesforce.com. Xobni’s future looks more and more like an enterprise play.

No Going Back

There is no looking back once Web 2.0 companies switch to a business focus. The business market is so entirely different than the consumer world. Free services can remain intact but once the move happens, it’s rare to find a small company that can manage to dive deep into the enterprise while maintaining its focus on the Web 2.0 world. Some have been able to do it. Wordpress is an example of a company that has had success with both consumers and the enterprise. Perhaps that will be the case with Posterous, too.

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Augmented reality startup Tonchidot raises $4 million, will use virtual goods for revenue

Finally, a decent fundraising round size for an augmented reality startup.

Tonchidot, the Japanese startup behind the augmented reality browser Sekai Camera, raised $4 million from DCM and existing investor ITOCHU Technology Ventures. Augmented reality is a young field that allows you superimpose data and graphics over the real world in a camera viewfinder.

There are two things that are interesting about this round — Tonchidot becomes the second of several augmented reality startups to raise a venture-backed round this year. It’s a decent size for a first round, and four times what Dutch competitor Layar raised this fall. Although a number of startups have launched products this year on the iPhone and Android-based phones, few venture capital firms had gotten their feet wet in the space. That seems to be changing now.

The second thing to note is that Tonchidot sounds like it will take a very different route to monetization than all of its competitors. It will use its augmented reality browser for more game play. Other competitors like Layar and Wikitude will take the advertising route, letting businesses pay for augmented reality tags or ads or sponsor layers in the browser that point to nearby places like fast-food locations or coffee shops.

Like many other mobile technologies, augmented reality will probably evolve very differently in Japan. Users can tag locations with data and comments in the browser that other people can pick up later if they use Sekai Camera in the same place. Ken Inoue, Tonchidot’s CFO, suggests that there might be special virtual goods that users pay to leave in different places.

“We think augmented reality provides a really interesting user interface, and a place to combine social interaction, marketing and content creation,” said Osuke Honda, a principal at DCM. Specifically, Honda says Tonchidot’s technology could be used to stage game play in the real world. For example, you could have robots battle each other through your phone on a real physical location like a playing field. Or it could be used in cosplay, a type of performance art popular in China and Japan where people wear elaborate costumes.

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Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey shows off his new mobile payments startup

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey just launched the site for his up-and-coming mobile payments startup SquareUp.

SquareUp’s product lets people process credit card payments through their mobile phone. It’s a small device that attaches to the audio input jack. Receipts are sent to your e-mail and mobile phone. You can also use text messages to authorize payments in real-time.

Dorsey recently found new space for the company in San Francisco’s SoMA district and the startup has been testing its technology in local coffee shops like Sightglass. SquareUp is backed by Khosla Ventures.

Receipts look like this:

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Elance Index: Online Contract Work Shows Growth

The other day, National Public Radio (NPR) featured a tech worker who has been out of work for some time. He spends his days in San Francisco coffee shops looking for work.

His job search may improve if the “Elance Work Index,” proves true. Elance reports that they are seeing a 46% increase in hiring for contract work, compared to a year ago.

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Contract work is always hot during a recession as employers look to get their work done without hiring people full-time. In other words, it’s a great time to be in consulting.

The “Elance Index,” looks at the top 100 skills in today’s online job market. The results arrive from more than 100,000 jobs posted on Elance in recent months, making it a credible barometer of online hiring trends.

Tech skills carry 11 of the top 25 spots in the index. And marketers look like they have better prospects, with skills in graphic design, social media and search engine optimization (SEO) being the kind that employers want. Writers are also in demand

First, let’s look at the top ten on the Elance Index:

Some tech highlights:

• Knowing PHP is still a great bet for getting a job. It remains the #1 sought-after skill by prospective employers.
• HTML skills jumped two notches to the #4 slot.
• People with Java skills have some reason to be optimistic. Their skill advanced 36 slots to the #24 position.
• Joomla! rose 15 spots to #6.

In marketing:

• Graphic design is a hot skill to have. It rose to the #5 slot.
• Illustrator is in the #8 spot.
• Social media marketing came in 14th on the index.
• SEO skills are still in demand, ranking #15 in the index.

In writing:

• Content Writing moves up 6 spots to #2.
• Article Writing came in the #3 spot.
• Copywriting and Creative Writing move up to the #12 and #13 spots, respectively.

Contract jobs are not a reality for many people. Health insurance costs can be steep for contractors. On the upside, skills in web development, online marketing and writing may be signs that the overall web technology market is rebounding, with employers focusing more on those types of projects.

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