[DEMO '11] Orange Vallée ‘ON VoiceFeed’ Enhances iPhone’s Voicemail

February 27, 2011

A worthy Google Voice competitor?

The ON VoiceFeed app is a new iPhone service specifically developed by Orange Vallée, the innovation hub of France Telecom, that enhances exchanges with family, friends, colleagues and any contact within the phone by creating customized groups and personalized greetings.

The app also delivers unique features for converting text to voice messages. Google Voice does the reverse, from voice to text.

Here are some of its key features:

  1. Communications Modified According to Contacts and Groups. Using the ON VoiceFeed App, ON users can create personalized voicemail greetings by groups of contacts. For example, a user can inform his work colleagues, via one personalized greeting, that he is stuck in a meeting, and at the same time send a different greeting to his wife that he misses her and will be home late.
  2. Record an Absent Message. The ON VoiceFeed App can easily be adapted to the needs of each user. If a user is, for example, delayed in a meeting, and needs to record an “away” message on his voicemail system, s/he can type the message on his iPhone and the text is converted into a voice message.
  3. Enhanced visual voicemail. ON VoiceFeed makes all the functions of visual voicemail available to iPhone owners. At a glance, you can visually consult all voice messages received and select which is most important to listen to, no matter when they are received. You can also see the Facebook or Twitter status of anyone who left you a message.

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[DEMO'11] Nimble Unveils New Social CRM Platform

February 27, 2011

Nimble brings social to CRM

Today Nimble Contact, a Web social CRM platform, launched as a public beta at the DEMO Spring 2011 conference in Palm Springs, Calif.

Created by Jon Ferrara, the founder of GoldMine, a pioneering SFA/CRM product, Nimble Contact integrates LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google, email contacts, calendar and conversations into one single user interface.

“The problem today is our contacts and our communications are in too many places,” said Jon Ferrara, CEO of Nimble. “Between IM, text messaging, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Skype and email, we can’t keep track of it all. Trying to manage all of this in eight different tabs on your browser isn’t the solution. We created Nimble to solve our own needs and we’re bringing it to the world to help small businesses solve theirs.”

Nimble’s Key Features

  1. One Unified Solution — Nimble connects contacts to calendars, communications, tasks and social conversations — all in one easy-to-use interface.
  2. Social Listening — Nimble lets companies monitor the most popular social networks — LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook — from one screen.
  3. Social Engagement — Nimble’s unified inbox helps companies respond to conversations and engage prospects more quickly via email or social media networks.
  4. Works with your existing tools — Nimble synchronizes with Google Apps, including email and calendars, so users can continue to use their familiar tools.
  5. Easy to Use — Unlike more traditional CRM systems, Nimble’s sleek interface reveals the information companies need to see and hides the rest.
  6. Web-based — As a web-based solution, Nimble requires no set-up or maintenance, making it far easier to get up and running.
  7. Secure — Nimble Contact’s encrypted security and redundant servers are built to keep information safe.

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[DEMO'11] First Look: Cloud9, Bizness Apps, FetchFans, KloudDock, News360, SocialReplay, Speaku, TrendSpottr, V3 Systems, Defensio

February 27, 2011

DEMO conference executive producer Matt Marshall heads the "Orientation Meeting" on Saturday Feb 26th, for the 50 or so demonstrators attending

Here are brief descriptions of our top 10 favourite products to be unveiled this week at the DEMO conference in Palm Springs, Calif. We’ll be posting more hands-on details and videos on these later on as we try them on-site.

  1. Ajax – Cloud9 IDE
    Cloud9 IDE empowers Web developers to lead the revolution of Web technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript. The first-ever cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE) for JavaScript developers, supporting HTML5, Python, Ruby and PHP, Cloud9 enables Web developers to access, edit and share projects anywhere, anytime. Using this next-generation technology, developers can build, test, debug, and deploy millions of applications.
  2. Bizness Apps
    Bizness Apps is trying to make iPhone and Android apps affordable and simple for small businesses. It’s a do-it-yourself iPhone and Android app platform that allows small businesses to simultaneously create, edit, and manage iPhone and Android apps online without any programming knowledge needed.
  3. FetchFans.com
    FetchFans, a social media design application, computer generates highly interactive custom branded Facebook pages, Twitter and blog backgrounds for companies with multiple holdings to effectively and efficiently brand advertise through the social networks.
  4. InfiniWing – KloudDock
    KloudDock brings a platform for diverse functional expansion targeted for Apple laptops. With patent pending locking technology, it utilizes electrical ports on two opposite sides of the laptop for mechanical attachments. With its secure integration with Apple laptop and its slim footprint, it can provide a secure desktop docking station or a carry-on attachment. Its applications are secure locking configuration, kickstand, 3G/4G data modem, GPS, external battery, HDMI/VGA port, Ethernet port, USB hub, and so on.
  5. News360
    News360 is a new way of consuming news on the iPad. The platform collects news from more than a thousand sources, and uses semantic analysis to identify the important trends and stories throughout the day. News360 focuses on making the news real-time, local and social, by using the user’s location and social graph to tailor the news stream to specific interests.
  6. SocialReplay
    SocialReplay helps businesses investing in social media extract key strategic information through qualitative data & analytics of their Facebook Page & Twitter accounts which assists them in the formulation of their marketing programs. The analysis of social media is in its early days and somewhat limited to structured quantitative analysis. Social Replay provides qualitative information that allows individual businesses to analyze the information in ways that match their changing needs.
  7. Speaku
    SPEAKU is a Topic-Driven, Real-Time Network. We make creating a new topic like composing an email. We make discovering new topics as simple as checking an inbox. It is the quickest and easiest way to broadcast rich content that you would typically find in blogs and forums to a live global audience. Speaku is to blogs and forums what Twitter is to status updates.
  8. TrendSpottr
    TrendSpottr is a search and curation service for Twitter, Facebook and other real-time data streams. Using advanced algorithms and curation tools developed specifically for the real-time Web, TrendSpottr filters, aggregates and publishes the top trending headlines, videos, images, phrases, hashtags and places for any search term or topic of interest. TrendSpottr improves the signal-to-noise ratio on the real-time Web by intelligently discovering the most timely, relevant and trending information.
  9. v3 Systems – Stratosphere
    Stratosphere supports up to 400 virtual desktops in a 2U server. These virtual desktops are faster than traditional desktops, use 1/30th the power and cost significantly less than other virtual and traditional desktop solutions.
  10. Websense – Defensio for Facebook
    Security for the social Web that prevents Facebook page owners from attackers posting unwanted content. Protects brand reputation, image, customers and prospects from being infected on Facebook.

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RIM Updates BlackBerry Tablet OS Simulator; Adds Web Browser, HTML5, Flash

February 8, 2011

The BlackBerry Tablet OS Simulator

An updated version of the BlackBerry Tablet OS Simulator, which embeds the full BlackBerry Browser, is going live today.

Web developers can now start testing their web and Flash applications using the tablet’s Browser on the simulator to ensure usability.

3 things to know about the BlackBerry Browser running on the BlackBerry Tablet OS:

  1. The User Agent will continue to match the current User Agent pattern used with BlackBerry smartphone products. This will enable developers to continue to leverage the development investment they have placed into building web pages optimized for BlackBerry already.
  2. The browser builds on the existing support for web standards such as HTML5 for the BlackBerry by adding support for HTML5 Video and Audio based on the underlying BlackBerry Tablet OS.
  3. The browser supports Adobe Flash 10.1, and Flash developers will be able to test the Flash player in the simulator.

More information about the BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator and how it enables developers to start testing their web applications can be found on the BlackBerry DevBlog here. And you can download the BlackBerry Tablet OS Simulator here.

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Facebook Moves Campus to Menlo Park (video)

February 8, 2011

Facebook announced today it plans to move its headquarters from Palo Alto, Calif., to a campus in Menlo Park, formerly occupied by Sun Microsystems.

According to Facebook CFO David Ebersman, the company has been looking for a new space since it outgrew its downtown Palo Alto offices in 2009.

“We feel it’s really important to have our employees in one location that maximizes their ability to interact with one another, that leads to better sharing of ideas, better energy throughout the company. And we are already reaching the point with the facilities we have in Palo Alto where we won’t be able to fit. And so what we were seeking was a place where we could put everybody [including co-founder Mark Zuckerberg] together in one place,” says Ebersman.

The new/old campus was built between 1993 and 1995 and served as the corporate headquarters for Sun Microsystems until its acquisition by Oracle Corporation. The campus occupies 57 acres and contains 9 buildings totaling about 1 million square feet. Which can host more than 3,500 employees, according to Facebook’s director of global real-estate, John Tenanes.

As of the end of 2010, Facebook had 2,000 employees worldwide, with over 1,400 live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Facebook also purchased an adjacent 22-acre tract at 312 and 314 Constitution Drive that is connected to the campus by a tunnel, underneath the Bayfront Expressway, for possible future development as a subsequent expansion phase.

Employees will move to the new campus in waves, with the first group of 500 people moving in mid-June of this year. Facebook will still continue to occupy its offices in Palo Alto through 2011 and possibly into 2012. The lease of the current campus officially ends in 2013, while Facebook signed a 15-yr lease for Menlo Park, with an option to purchase it entirely in 5 years from now.

Below is an exclusive tour of the old Sun campus filmed today as it is being renovated and still occupied by some Oracle/Sun employees:

And more details on the planned move by Facebook’s director of global real-estate, John Tenanes:

Finally, the mayor of Menlo Park talks about how the city will benefit from Facebook’s move:

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San Jose Named Happiest City To Work

February 2, 2011

And San Francisco, Calif. comes second!

The report published today by CareerBliss, an online career community, is based on an analysis from more than 200,000 independent company reviews.

While San Jose, Calif. earns the title of the Happiest City to Work, Minneapolis, Minn., takes the title as the Unhappiest City to Work. Employees in Minneapolis rated very low on all eight factors that measure job satisfaction levels.

“Some may be surprised that a smaller city like El Paso, Texas actually outranks large metropolitan areas like New York and Chicago. Our data highlights how different industries and employers create work environments that greatly affect employee happiness, and the overall temperature of the workforce within a city,” said Heidi Golledge, Co-founder and CEO of CareerBliss.

CareerBliss picked the top fifty cities by evaluating eight factors that affect work happiness: growth opportunities, compensation, benefits, work-life balance, career advancement, senior management, job security and whether the employee would recommend the company to others.

Both San Jose and San Francisco, which rank number one and two respectively, have an average salary that exceeds most cities. For example, CareerBliss data indicates that the average annual salary in San Jose is $82,000 a year, whereas the average salary in Minneapolis, which ranked as the city with lowest worker happiness scores, is $62,000 a year.

The research shows that workers in cities such as Jacksonville, FL and Washington, DC are happier with job security, work-life balance, and growth opportunities.

The Top 10 Happiest Cities to Work are:

  1. San Jose, CA
  2. San Francisco, CA
  3. Jacksonville, FL
  4. Miami, FL
  5. Washington, DC
  6. Memphis, TN
  7. El Paso, TX
  8. Los Angeles, CA
  9. San Diego, CA
  10. Birmingham, AL

And the Top 10 Unhappiest:

  1. Saint Paul, MN
  2. Indianapolis, IN
  3. Omaha, NE
  4. Cleveland, OH
  5. Pittsburgh, PA
  6. Salt Lake City, UT
  7. Brooklyn, NY
  8. Tucson, AZ
  9. Portland, OR
  10. Tampa, FL

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PwC: Venture Capital Industry Not Scalable (video)

February 1, 2011

In 2010, venture capital firms raised $12 billion (down from $16B in 2009) and invested $22 billion (up from $18B). For PricewaterhouseCoopers Steve Bengston, who spoke this morning at SDForum’s Quarterly Venture Breakfast, this is simply not sustainable.

Good News: deals are up

According to the MoneyTree report which tracks venture capital investing, venture capitalists invested $21.8 billion in 3,277 deals in 2010, an increase of 19% in dollars and a 12% rise in deals over the prior year. More here.

“2010 was a kind of a funny year… 3 flat quarters and one outlier which is really more of function of about 3 huge cleantech deals, so it wouldn’t be too much off the mark to say that 2010 was a bunch of $5 billion quarters,” explains Bengston.

Bad News: weak IPO market, lack of funds, no jobs, shrinking VCs, China

“The problem with venture capital is not how much (deals) is coming in, but how much it’s coming out,” says Bengston talking about the lack of IPOs.

Also, 2010 saw the biggest delta between VC investing and VC fund raising ($12B), the lowest since 2004. It’s not scalable!

On jobs, Silicon Valley saw no net job creation in 15 years!

“Here’s a period arguably the greatest period of wealth creation in the history of civilisation and there is no more jobs today than there were 15 years ago,” adds Bengston.

VC industry is shrinking:

“There’s a prominent VC that did their own study that claims that 97% of VC profits come from 15 companies each year. Now let’s say it’s only 90% coming from 30 companies. But it still begs the question: how many VCs do you need to find the 30 really good companies each year. Today the answer is: about 2000; and you might think it’s more than you need.”

On China:

“David Rubinstein, the CEO of Carlyle, was quoted recently saying that China was the #1 economy in 15 of the last 18 centuries. So, just because they had a couple of bad centuries, you don’t want to rule them out. They have a history of success.”

Other highlights of  2010 venture investing:

  • Silicon Valley: 40% of the total VC investments, up from 23% in 1995
  • 30 years ago, Boston was the mecca for venture capital investing
  • Silicon Valley took over Boston about 15 years ago
  • Now, Southern California is emerging as the next big area that might eventually eclipse Boston in a year or 2
  • But no new net creation of jobs in Silicon Valley in the last 15 years
  • About 200 series A deals (~$1 billion invested) per quarter
  • Most of the money has been going in later stages, expansion rounds
  • There were even “N” rounds of investing in 2010!
  • Top active VC: Kleiner Perkins with 79 deals, over a deal/week; then First Round Capital and NEA
  • Intel is the only corporation that has ever made the “Most Active VC” list
  • 72 IPOs in 2010 vs 12 in 2009 or 6 in 2008; timid come back
  • 274 mergers and acquisitions, the biggest since at least ’04; but low valuations
  • Advertising is migrating to the Web and reach 20% of the $600 billion market
  • Asian millionaires exceeds European millionaires

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