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Posts Tagged ‘Perspective’

An Experiment: Putting The Audience On Stage (For Real) At TechCrunch Disrupt

There are good things about conferences and there are bad things about conferences. One of the bad things is how little the audience gets to participate directly in the content being created. Sometimes there’s a question and answer period at the end of a panel where people line up at a microphone to ask questions. But that’s usually it. Other than booing and applause, and of course the back channel on Twitter, there’s not much of a feedback loop.

That’s partially a good thing, of course. A room full of 2,000 people all shouting their opinions on a topic isn’t much of anything except chaos. But sometimes there are people in the audience who have a really interesting perspective on a topic, or even know more about the topic than the people on stage.

The idea of an unconference has evolved over the years with Foo Camp and BAR Camp (and others) where the audience and the speakers are one. Those types of events are really rewarding, but they don’t work on a large scale single track event. Again, it would just be chaos.

A couple of years ago Dave Winer had the idea of putting people from the audience, literally, on stage (there’s a link out there somewhere but I can’t find it). As far as I know no one has ever really experimented with this yet. But we’re going to try it out at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York on May 24-26.

We’re going to leave an empty seat on stage for many of the group panels at TechCrunch Disrupt and invite someone from the audience to come up and participate. I’m not sure how exactly we’re going to do this yet. We could just ask for a volunteer from the audience right before the panel, for example. But a better way might be to take volunteers for the panels early on in the event and pre-screen them for interestingness, passion for the topic, knowledge, etc.

I particularly like the idea of including audience members in the group of experts who judge and comment on new startups launching.

I’m guessing some of the smartest things on stage will be said by these audience members. And it will certainly freshen the format. And I really like the idea of a panel of top experts in a field along with someone who may not have the resume, but certainly has the knowledge and opinions, to be up there too.

We’ll expand the discussion of this on the Disrupt blog over the coming weeks, and announce firmer plans closer to the event.

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Big Changes Are Coming to Digg: More Power to Publishers, Less Power to Top Diggers

Last night, during Digg’s annual SXSW party, Digg’s CEO Jay Adelson announced a set of significant changes to Digg. Among the changes Adelson announced are a streamlined submission process, a personalized homepage, an unlimited amount of topic pages, a new commenting system and better curation tools. Earlier this morning, we got a chance to sit down with Adelson to discuss these changes in greater detail. Some of these changes will surely be extremely controversial in the Digg community and might also make some publishers who rely on Digg’s traffic a bit nervous.

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It’s hard to underestimate the influence these changes will have on the Digg community. Not only did the Digg team create a completely new backend architecture, but Digg is also making a lot of changes to how the site will work from a user’s perspective – some of which will surely be controversial among Digg’s most active users.

Digg will launch the new site in alpha in a few weeks. You can sign up for an account here. It’s important to note that Digg plans to work directly with its users and is looking for feedback from its alpha users. The alpha site, for example, will feature a large feedback bar at the bottom of every page.

Personalized Homepages as Default

On the new Digg, every user will get a personalized homepage which will be populated with stories that are popular among this user’s friends and relate to topics this user has expressed interest in. This personalized homepage will become the default Digg frontpage for all users who have signed in to Digg. Users who are not signed in will still see the old Digg homepage. With this, the Digg team is clearly looking to get more users to sign up for the service. Digg will also update its users’ profile pages.

Submitters Lose Power

Another major change to Digg – and one that will surely create some controversy among the most active users of the service – is that the new Digg will de-emphasize the power of submitters and put an even stronger emphasis on who votes for stories, as well as on outside signals from third-party services like Twitter and Facebook. Indeed, the new Digg will now allow publishers to auto-submit their stories through RSS feeds and a number of other mechanisms that the company plans to unveil in the next few weeks. Until now, while Digg didn’t forbid publishers to submit their own content, this behavior was generally discouraged by the Digg community.

As Adelson told us, on the new Digg, submitting a story will basically mean that you are the first voter. Currently, a relatively small group of submitters has a lot of power over which stories will appear on the Digg frontpage.

Signals from Twitter, Facebook and Co.

While there will still be a role for those users who regularly discover new and interesting content, the new Digg will put a strong emphasis on votes and signals from your friends on third-party sites like Twitter and Facebook. Indeed, Digg will create a social graph for you that will take all of this information into account when it create your personalized homepage. On the homepage, Digg will also expose why a story appeared in your feed.

While Adelson couldn’t go into details, it seems like Digg has established a very good relationship with Twitter and has had access to Twitter’s firehose feed to almost a year.

Once the new digg comes out of beta, anonymous users will also be able to vote on stories. While the team is still working out the details, it is clear that Digg is looking to get as many signals as possible to augment the current voting process. It will be interesting to see how Digg will weigh all this information in the creation of personalized pages and the new topic pages.

The submission process for stories that haven’t been submitted to Digg already will now be a one-click process.

Digg will also soon use third-party sign-on systems, including Google, Twitter Connect and Yahoo to allow its users to sign in.

Working With Publishers: What Will Happen to the Digg Effect?

Obviously, quite a few publishers will worry that the old Digg effect – which would often take sites down because of the huge amount of traffic a story on Digg’s frontpage can create – will now disappear. Adelson, however, who also noted that Digg “wants to be a good source for traffic for publishers,” thinks that this new system will create a more regular stream of traffic to publishers.

In the long run, Adelson noted, Digg also plans to open up its advertising platform to share revenue with publishers. This project is still in its early stages, but according to Adelson, this could involve using a widget on the publisher’s site or by using Digg’s salesforce to sell ad inventory on these sites directly.

To make all of this work, Digg completely stripped out the old infrastructure and started over by building a completely new platform. This, said Adelson, will allow Digg to easily make changes to the frontend and react to user feedback during the alpha and beta phase. At some point in the future, Digg might also open this platform up to third parties.

A Completely New Platform

Digg is clearly taking this new version extremely serious. The company plans to hire 50 engineers this year to help with scaling the architecture. Adelson was clearly proud of the work his team has done on the backend architecture. The new site will be “wicked fast,” thanks to a complete retooling of every aspect of the site, up to the point where the bottlenecks for Digg are now network speed and latency. This is quite a feat, given that Digg now offers an almost unlimited amount of topic pages and a personalized homepage for every user – all of which will have to be recalculated constantly.

How Will Users React?

It will be very interesting to see how users will react to all of these changes. Adelson and the rest of the Digg team are very aware that this will create some controversy, but Adelson clearly thinks that this is the right way to go for Digg. The topic pages will allow Digg to cater to users who care about every type of news, be it the Boston Red Socks or the latest gadget news.

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Insights: Three Reasons Why Zoho Joined the Google Apps Marketplace

Since the announcement went live yesterday about the Google Marketplace, we’ve had a number of companies come to us about how its applications will fit with the service.

We’ll do a fuller look at these companies this week but for some immediate perspective we decided to take a look at Zoho, a service that competes with Google Apps. So it is it interesting that the company joined Google Apps Marketplace in its launch.

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Buy why would Zoho offer its applications to integrate with Google? Yes, the companies compete. But Raju Vegesna of Zoho says that it is far more important to complement Google Apps. Over the past few years the company has worked to make it simple for Zoho customers to use its services in tandem with Google Apps. Zoho offers Google Sign-in, Google Apps Sign-in and recently it integrated with Google Docs.

Vegesna gave us three reasons why Zoho decided to be part of the launch. His perspectives should provide some insights about the symbiotic relationship Google Apps Marketplace will foster.

Extending The Relationship

For many developers, integrating with Google Apps represents a significant business opportunity. Google announced at its launch that it passed the 25 million customer mark over the weekend.

Vegesna:

“First, we have 50% more apps than Google, especially on the business side (CRM, Project Management, Web Conferencing etc). This means, these additional apps can really complement Google Apps. Google has over 20 million users on G Apps and our Business apps can be sold to those customers. “

Google Dominates The Landscape

To play in this era, you have to play with Google. They dominate as much as any company has in the past 30 years. The domination in large part is now solidified by its investment in its cloud infrastructure.

Vegesna:

“Second, we understand that this is going to be a Google dominated eco-system (IBM dominated Mainframe era, Microsoft dominated PC era and Google will dominate the web era) and we wanted to be an important player in this web era. We talked more about this here and here.”

A Platform Built On Email, Not CRM

Yesterday, we touched on why the marketplace makes sense for companies standardized on Google Apps. With all the contacts in one place, people can add applications to fine tune Google Apps. Does a company start with the same foundation if the platform is built on CRM?

Vegesna:

“Third, when someone builds a platform, email is a great app to build the platform around, rather than CRM (which salesforce did). We think it’ll be a good and succesful platform for online apps which will move the web app momentum forward and we want to be a key player (the same way Adobe was a key player in PC era).”

For more about the Zoho integration:

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Super Talent debuts SuperCrypt thumbdrives with USB 3.0, 256-bit encryption

Hot on the heels of its USB 3.0 thumb drive the kids at Super Talent have announced the SuperCrypt line of secure portable storage. These devices are available in capacities up to 256GB and offers up to 240 MB/s transfer rates, with your choice of either 128-bit ECB (SuperCrypt) or 256-bit XTS (SuperCrypt Pro) encryption. As for the rest of us, this bad boy is fully backward compatible with USB 2.0, so you’ll be able to access Grandma’s famous top secret chicken recipe (why else would you own one of these?) on damn near any computer you need to. No word on a price or release date, but we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled. In the meantime, feel free to check out the PR after the break.

Continue reading Super Talent debuts SuperCrypt thumbdrives with USB 3.0, 256-bit encryption

Super Talent debuts SuperCrypt thumbdrives with USB 3.0, 256-bit encryption originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Polaris’ Ryan Spoon and Hollrr’s David Hegarty on life in incubator Dogpatch Labs (video)

I recently stopped by Dogpatch Labs, the San Francisco incubator space run by Polaris Venture Partners. The venture firm recently exported its self-described “frathouse for geeks” concept to Cambridge, Mass. and New York, but San Francisco is where the idea began in 2008.

Basically, Dogpatch is a cool space (the San Francisco location is on Pier 38) where entrepreneurs can rent desk space with a bunch of other startup folks. There are lunches, talks, and other community events. And even though it’s owned by Polaris, you don’t have to be or to become a Polaris portfolio company to get in.

I interviewed Polaris’ Ryan Spoon about life at Dogpatch Labs. For an entrepreneur’s perspective he introduced me to David Hegarty, chief executive of just-launched product recommendation site Hollrr, known as the “Foursquare for Products.”

(Sorry for the shaky camera. I’m buying a tripod before I do another video, I swear.)

Companies: Hollrr, Polaris Venture Partners

People: David Hegarty, Ryan Spoon

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Facebook earns patent for news feed, publishes one on application affinity

Facebook earned a patent for its core news feed and published one for prioritizing communication from apps based on how closely users interact with them.

It’s hard to put too much weight into either patent because from a strategic perspective, Facebook would do better financially by prioritizing development on its advertising, metrics and payments offerings, than by pursuing a more litigious strategy of suing other companies. Both patents, which were found by AllFacebook, were also filed a long time ago; one in 2008 and the news feed one in 2006. The company iterates and adapts at a significantly faster pace.

Officially, this is what the news feed patent covers:

“A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method further may further include displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers and dynamically limiting the number of news items displayed.”

The patents reveal a bit about different ways the company could have designed the news feed. In it, many approaches are described. The company could have created a news feed where users ranked the types of activities they wanted to see first, like relationships changes or events at the top.

Instead of just comments or likes, the calls to action under news feed items could have been more intricate, including e-mail prompts or a link to join a group.

According to the patent:

“…an active link may enable the viewing user 101a to download a photo added to the subject user’s 101b photo album, to enroll in a class the subject user 101b has enrolled in, to join a club the subject user 101b has joined, and so forth. In some embodiments, the active link and the informational link may enable the viewing user to perform the same function.”

Initially protested by 10 percent of the social network’s user base, the news feed has become a core part of Facebook’s experience by distributing shared content, status updates and profile changes through social groups.

“The launch of News Feed in 2006 was a pivotal moment in Facebook’s history and changed the way millions of people consumed and discovered information on the site,” said spokesperson Jaime Schopflin. “We’re humbled by the growth and adoption of News Feed over time and pleased with being awarded the patent.” The company hasn’t yet responded to questions on whether it will actively defend the patent.

The second patent covers how to allocate space for communication between applications and users. This was a core problem that the company had tried to solve since the beginning of the platform: developers were overwhelming users with notifications and prompts to use their apps. This technology would have ranked notifications from apps that users regularly interacted with in a positive way, higher than communication from others apps.

The patent might be somewhat moot now that the company is removing app-to-user notifications altogether starting next week. Developers will have to ask for user e-mails directly or request that they bookmark the app inside Facebook.

Tags: Facebook, News Feed, patents

Companies: Facebook

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Nokia hints at augmented reality Maps and 3D smartphones in its future (video)

You know what happens when we see a video pop on Nokia Conversations (Nokia’s official blog) featuring a senior VP from Nokia’s smartphone division? Everything stops — who knows what might be revealed during an informal, semi-scripted chat. When asked about Nokia’s future smartphone technologies and experiences, Jo Harlow, SVP of Smartphones dives right into a discussion of augmented reality as a means to enhance existing Nokia services like the Ovi Maps experience. She then shifts to an entertainment perspective since “everyone’s talking about 3D.” As she sees it, there’s an opportunity for mobile to be earlier to 3D than typical television development to mobile. That means content, specifically 3D games, which Jo says “could be very, very interesting in terms of enhancing that experience.” One can only imagine that what interests Nokia’s Senior VP of smartphones will ultimately interest manufacturers on the way to retail. And it’s not like Nokia’s been shy with its 3D prototypes in the past. Watch the discussion unfold in the video after the break.

Continue reading Nokia hints at augmented reality Maps and 3D smartphones in its future (video)

Nokia hints at augmented reality Maps and 3D smartphones in its future (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Talkcast reminder: 10 pm tonight, special guest Shawn King

Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts

It’s talkcast time again, and tonight we’ll be joined by a special guest: Your Mac Life’s own Shawn King (see the Macworld interview with him posted earlier this evening). We’ll get Shawn’s perspective on Macworld expo, the upcoming iPad launch, and the rest of the Mac and iPhone market — plus, as always, we’ll take your calls and questions. Join in, won’t you?

To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the “TalkShoe Web” button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (take advantage of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 — during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8.

If you’ve got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Gizmo or X-Lite SIP clients; basic instructions are here. Talk with you then!

TUAWTalkcast reminder: 10 pm tonight, special guest Shawn King originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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