As I posted earlier, we are at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas promoting our new Widgetbox Blog Network... here is the presentation we are using at our two sessions:
View SlideShare presentation
Widgetbox Launches The Widgetbox Blog Network with 29 Blog Channels
This week has been slow for the blog because it’s been *very* busy at the Widgetbox office where we launched the new Widgetbox Blog Network in time to hop on a plane and attend / present at the BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas. BlogWorld is a convention of nearly 2,000 bloggers – some who blog as side projects, others as part of large media companies and others that do it for a living. The audience is ideal for Widgetbox because bloggers and blogs are the core of our community and the new Blog Network: - Widgetbox has widgets on over 250,000 unique blogs - Blidgets have been served over 1.5 BILLION (!) times - Widgetbox now reaches over 65 million unique each month (verified by Quantcast)
The Widgetbox Blog Network connects bloggers through 29 channels (from art to celebrities to music to food) using a single widget that dynamically showcases content across all of the blogs in that channel. You’ll notice, for instance, that I’ve joined the Tech News Channel and placed the widget in the top right of my blog template. On each page view, new blog posts are dynamically presented from other bloggers also in the Tech News Channel - and likewise, my blog posts appear on their pages… effectively driving highly relevant traffic across the network and taking advantage of Widgetbox’s large audience / community.
You will also notice that the widget is customized for my blog – showing a badge of my blog and its rank within the Channel (sadly I'm #11).
Joining is easy:
1. Visit http://www.widgetbox.com/network and select the Channel that fits your blog 2. Click the Join This Network button, select your blidget (or create one) and then grab the Channel Widget’s code 3. Add the code to your blog template and press activate
That’s it. Your content will now be automatically populated in the widget and you will begin to see new streams of traffic.
The Price of Being a Wolf is Lonliness
I am at BlogWorld in Las Vegas to talk about Widgetbox's Blog Network (launched yesterday at http://www.widgetbox.com/network). More to come on this shortly... but for now I am watching Robert Scoble (of Scobelizer) and Hugh MacLeod (of gapingvoid) discuss the growth of blogging as a community, culture and business. I've seen Hugh's work before (and it's terrific) here is his latest (and it's terrific):
Netflix's New Marketing Slogan: "Save gas and time."
I am an active Netflix subscriber out of convenience... and in spite of my dissatisfaction with their web experience. I also have an inbox of marketing emails (and have spent time critiquing many of those campaigns). But the below email just arrived from Netflix and it struck me for two reasons.
1. The Title: Save gas and time. Let Netflix deliver your movies again. Fascinating that Netflix is promoting their value proposition as "save gas". Their normal marketing message includes free trials, instant downloads, and unlimited inventory. Not only is it a strange tagline (that honestly isn't very appetizing) - it's a bizarre email subject line. "Save gas and time" neither stands out from the other emails in my clogged inbox nor does it declare itself as anything other than spam.
2. My account with Netflix is active... and consequently I cannot "let Netflix deliver my movies again" because they are already delivering my movies. I'm confused!
I've Officially Pre-ordered my Fitbit
Today I officially placed my pre-order for the Fitbit - my favorite product launch from TechCrunch 50. I figured that I had promoted Fitbit enough (with no affiliation to the company) that I had to go ahead and buy the product. It supposedly ships in December and it looks like they use Yahoo Stores to sell / track the orders. This marks the first time in years (seriously) that I have placed an order from something running a Yahoo Store... I am hoping the Fitbit ships before Christmas or makes a commitment to do so; and if so, this would make a perfect holiday gift.
More From TechCrunch 50 - Best "Best in Show" Write Up
I covered TechCrunch 50 this week and gave my favorites (FitBit, Hangout, VideoSurf and Swype) and was slightly shocked by the announcement that Yammer had won the $50,000 grand prize... great product and slick UI - but not revolutionary or game-changing like some other services (some have argued stronger sentiments that that!). Here is the best TC50 write up that I've seen thus far and it's from CNET Webware. Great list and overview:
TechCrunch 50 Winner: FitBit is my Prediction
I spent the last few days at TechCrunch 50 and, while I won't be present at the 'award ceremony', I'd like to predict the winner... both of which are not traditional Web 2.0 companies. In fact, the highlights of the conference for me were around mobile and off-.com where innovation appears to be happening faster and more interestingly. There were great presentations and launches for .com sites (ie Hangout, VideoSurf) - but top to bottom, the mobile space was really impressive... and this will be a continuing trend as the mobile web becomes more efficient, more widespread and more usable thanks to new mediums and devices. FitBit, Swype, MyTopia and others were all standouts.
With that out of the way, my TechCrunch 50 winner was FitBit. Outstanding little device with amazing form factor: it can be worn anywhere and at any point (unlike the Nike Plus gadgets). It's also available at an unbeatable price point: $99. Better yet, it syncs wirelessly and has a full web interface to track your progress, health and friends. Awesome. This will be *the* holiday gift of 2008 (assuming it ships on time). It's also an important product for a serious issue: health.
My only critique: the website offers relatively little information about the product despite offering pre-orders.... I assume this is a consequence of remaining quiet until their TC50 launch. It's tough to ask for $99 without any meaty information. Also, this image is clearly photoshopped... badly:
TechCrunch 50: VideoSurf "A Website that Doesn't Suck" According to Robert Scoble
VideoSurf: Scoble is blogging and video taping from the panel... very funny. The user interface really is impressive and allows for immediate search and browsing of moments and characters within a video (or set of videos). Panelists: Bradley Horowitz Joi Ito Sheryl Sandberg Robert Scoble
Bradley: It reminds me of Flickr and I've spent years writing algorithms to try to detect and tag videos and images. People are better than algorithms at this... I didn't see any social capabilities here - is this coming? Answer: we are going frame by frame to understand entire videos; people can tag videos but it is not scalable to tag frames.
Joi: How accurate is it?
Scoble: How long does it take to index the videos? Can this be done for streaming video? (Qik, Kyte). Answer: working on solutions.
Sheryl: I like it. Very excciting. I look at this as an exciting development for video and the appllications that follow. I think that startnig out with a consumer facing website is the right approach to build your business.
Scoble: My thought when watching this was "finally a website that doesn't suck."
TechCrunch 50 Language & Platform: Swype Wows Panel
AlfaBetic: Monetizing across languages. Not sure how / if this works... but scaling content across various languages is a big business (if done technically) for big companies like eBay that operate in dozens of countries. Localizing content is immensely difficult and costly. So should this work (and demo isn't clear) it is powerful. Om: whose translation engine do you use? Answer: engine is internally built with emphasis on different locales. What's your accuracy rate? Answer: depends on domain and location - but 80-90 percent.
Om: How many ads can you serve per page there because the bloggers really control that?
Tim: how is this actually done - does blogger need to buy another domain name? (very good question...). Answer: we are interested in a syndication play where we become the portal (bloggers won't sign up for this, in my opinion).
Josh: what are the costs involved in monitoring / cleansing each post? Answer: $1,000 in all langauges per month for all TechCrunch.
Om: I wouldnt use this. If we went international, we would do it dedicated (like TechCrunch) and focus on each location.
Tim: I wouldn't use either - for the same reason.
PostBox: desktop email application. The presentation has a bizarre sound metronome behind it... I can't hear a word they are saying... OK - that was not their noise. He handled it very well - hilarious.
Josh: Question: Do you support POP, Exchange, etc? Answer: Yes: IMAP, POP, SMTP.
Tim: How far have you pushed it scale-wise? Will it support my 10,000s of emails? Answer: we have tested internally and it supports 30,000 messages to date...
Evan: Looks great but is it enough to combat the massive move from desktop email to web-based?
Tim: this is less an email client and more like a personal information management system. I look forward to trying it.
Om: Gmail is convenient and plugins make it easy to mimic what you do but in the browser? How do you get paid? TIm jumps in and says it could very well be Microsoft purchase.
Half the audience raises its hand saying they would download and try it.
Swype: "we will change how people input text on screens." He is drawing a line through a mock qwerty keyboard and swiping series of letters that it renders into words based on clusters of lettering (I think). Appears to be very forgiving. Corrects common mispellings. This is pretty amazing. The ties onto smaller keyboards is clear (video games, laptops, touch screens, gps, etc). Not sure how it works with symbols, caps, etc - all things the iPhone really struggles with. This is killer. Now the demo is wihtout a stylus - he used his finger and it about 50% the speed but still pretty slick. Demo moves to smaller screens (a Windows Mobile cell phone) and its slower than either the Blackberry or iPhone.
By the way... there is an iPhone app that exists already that does this.... not sure how quality stacks up - but it's exactly the same for the iPhone.
The panel tries to swype and Evan says "it's mindless." Josh asks if it will really work without a stylus? Answer: it works best on a screen designed for touch (like iPhone). Jason asks about characters and shifiting (my question): Om: These companies are notoriously difficult to partner / get to market with (speaking of Nokia, etc). Answer: you can approach both the carrier and the OEM... and the iPhone has created a pressure for non-iPhone decks to include better feature sets. Om: sell to Micrsoft now. Josh: isn't this a patent mine field? (great question).Answer: we believe its a strength not a weakness considering our history.
Dropbox: Synchronizing file sharing, updating and portability.
Tim: why isn't this a feature with Google or Microsoft? Evan: Microsoft has a product called FolderShare - how does this compare? Answer: we add a web interface and team dynamic. Josh: I like the user interface. How do you deal with multiple people editing documents at same time (big issue for software like Collab, Trac, Google)? Answer: not really an answer. Has to be manually resolved between versions.
Devunity: the panel is confused as to what it is... good, makes me feel better.
Quick panel recap - favorites:
Josh: Swype. For user experience, its great. Evan: Swype. Looked brilliant and big need. Difficult business though. Tim: Swype. Challenging biz-dev problems but interesting bet. I'd like to try out Postbox though. Om: Swype. By far the most practical.