Jason Ball's TechBytes

Google's Search goes open: Wiki-style

I couldn't believe my eyes this morning when I ran a search on Google. If you are signed in, you can now promote results as well as leave comments. I had asked a Googler last year when they were going to meld Bookmark Sync (social ranking) to Google's PageRank. This is equally good/better.

Google's been wikified.

This appears to be a staged roll out, so here's a screen shot showing where you can promote, remove or comment on a result:

 

There's also a video on YouTube demonstrating Google's SearchWiki in action.

The Android Wars

I was lucky enough to unbox a G1 yesterday. Pretty neat phone, it doesn't outshine the iPhone in my opinion, but it's a great device. Definitely 100x better than any other phone out there (minus the iPhone).

But what makes the G1 great is the apps that take full advantage of *everything* the handset has to offer. Wikitude (worst name ever for the coolest app I've seen to date). Just watch the video.

It doesn't really give the same effect as standing on the 9th floor in a Qualcomm building looking out over the mountains towards Phoenix - seeing your field of view populate with POIs in the area for miles around, but it gives you a pretty good idea... More info/background on Wikitude is available here.

What's clear is that Android is going to be a serious contender- and is a fully functional Battleship.

Go Green- Get out your Bike

Yes, it's another bike post on my blog. I'm turning into a regular gear-head. The WSJ has a feature on cycling in London- approximately 500,000 trips are made via bicycle every day in London. Maybe the credit crunch is having an unexpected positive impact...

Spotify- The Next Great Music App

Congratulations to the Spotify team- they've launched their public beta today allowing anyone to listen to music over the web, in what I think could be the next great music app.

I've been lucky enough (thanks Daniel!) to be one of the beta testers over the past several months- today's the first time I've seen (and heard) ads on Spotify- and they've come up with a great advertising supported music model that's legal. Yes, it's all legit...

Two things you've got to do: 1) Download the app 2) SHARE a playlist. Sharing music via Spotify has to be the most fun I've had in years. (Yes, VCs are kind of sad that way.)

And if you can't wait to get your hands on a beta invite- you can get the premium version of Spotify immediately which has no ads...

This is gonna be a great.

 

Would the real iPhone please stand up?

I agree, the iPhone looks snappy in those Apple TV commericals. I love my iPhone, but it doesn't work *exactly* as advertised. Some guys with too much time on their hands decided to make this comparison video- the "TV" iPhone versus the "Real" iPhone.  

Dropbox- how file sync should be

My beta invite for Dropbox (funded by Y Combinator) arrived this weekend - and my initial impression is very positive. I've migrated my home mac use to a client/server (MacBook Pro/iMac) set up- with my iMac doing most of the heavy lifting.

I've tried multiple back up services and even tried to use iDisk as a "dropbox", but it never worked like it should. I'm now sharing my "Current" folder between the two macs seamlessly- and can even get access via the web if needed. Essentially, Dropbox is what iDisk should be - seamless cross-platform file sharing, complemented by web access:

Apple should acquire these guys ASAP and switch out iDisk for Dropbox...and getting access to these files via my iPhone would make a nice addition to MobileMe too.

Wii Sports Resort: MotionPlus

Normally, I don't post anything portfolio related, but one of our companies, InvenSense, is launching some very cool technology inside the upcoming Wii Sports Resort. The best part is the Jet Ski demo at 2:24.... 

 

European VC takes a nose dive

Don't say you weren't warned: It's back.... VC Doom and Gloom.

According to Venture Source and the NYT, European Venture has hit it's lowest point since 2000. Investment dollars declined by 35% to $1.3 billion and companies receiving investment were down by 42% to 167.

The upshot is that early stage investing isn't dead:

“Venture capitalists are being very selective about the companies they back but they’re by no means abandoning the European market. In the first six months of the year, 44% of venture deals in Europe were seed or first rounds—we haven’t seen this level of early-stage interest since the first half of 2001."

Which is great, b/c these companies can grow up during the downturn and hopefully come out swinging when times are better. For portfolio companies that are long in the tooth though...Fred is rumored to be lurking in his Vadar mask.

Critical Mass London- Get out your Bike [Updated]

<update>

After further thought, I won't be attending. Possibly the most dangerous vehicle on the roads is the Irresponsible Cyclist. 

While I agree that more cycle awareness and support for cyclists is needed, I don't think breaking the law, clogging traffic and generally causing mayhem is the best way to advance cycling in metropolitan areas. 

One of the key criticisms I always hear about cyclists in London is that they "always break the law"- which is something I make a point of not doing. Responsible cycling is really the best way forward... with awareness and respect from motor vehicles- I can't see that Critical Mass promotes that type of protest, so won't be joining. Ping me or leave a comment if you know of any "positive protests" in the City...

</update>

Conditions for cyclists in London can range from pretty poor to extremely dangerous... I literally have *very* close calls on a daily basis. Luckily I haven't eaten any pavement yet, but I'm sure it won't be long, despite being pretty defensive out there.

If you'd like to join an awareness event for cycling, the next Critical Mass London is next Friday at 6pm on the South Bank under Waterloo Bridge, by the National Film Theatre. 

What's Critical Mass? Here's a recent video from the WSJ on its origins:

The Music Revolution

Wow, talk about music news this week. Muxtape got its wrist slapped by the RIAA...

...but there are new music start ups to pick up where Muxtape left off (if it's in fact dead, and not a publicity stunt).

Some new arrivals on the scene are 8Tracks, Grooveshark Lite and Simplify Media. I've covered other cool music sites in the past here as well.

Music startups are not for the faint of heart or the shallow-pocketed. Spiral Frog has spent $12 Million and hasn't even launched. They were reported to be looking for a further $25 Million. And that's pre-launch.

8Tracks has spent about $80k to get the service to where it is today, but has a special license that they're using currently.

I've been watching several guys here in Europe, but see real business model challenges to ad based music services given the royalty rates that the majors are looking for. Silicon Alley Insider has a good overview of why the current licensing model is broken. They calculate 1 ad per song to break even, we've run some numbers and they look higher than that to us- which means if it doesn't work at 1 ad per song, then things just go downhill from there,

Add in the fact that WalMart is pulling/reducing its music inventory, which can't be a good thing for the Labels either... all of which leaves me scratching my head as to where these guys plan on making money (Not online and not in store- that doesn't leave many options.)

So what's next, who's going to start the Music Revolution (or has it already quietly begun)?

(thnx to datsuncog for the tape pic)

The rain in Spain...

It's that time of year again and I'm off for a few days of r&r in the sunny iberian peninsula. Blogging will resume the first week of September.

Under the Hood- Apple iPhone 3G Chipsets

If chipsets are your thing, then feast your eyes on the latest iPhone teardown:

It's interesting that Apple have chosen to go with so many components - making the iPhone larger than it could have been if they had used integrated, monolithic die. It's interesting to see Infineon seem to be taking over the board though...

"...Infineon won big. It supplies the UMTS transceiver, suspected to be the PMB 6952, as well as the baseband processor, which is actually a two-chip module in a single package. The first chip is the X-Gold 208 (PMB 8877), which caters to GSM/GPRS/EDGE waveforms. The second chip is marked the PMB 8802 and is suspected to be the WCDMA/HSDPA accelerator for 3G. While there's still some debate as to whether this combo package with Apple markings may in fact be Infineon's XGold 608 (PMB 8878)..."

More details over at TechOnline.

All things mobile @ Mobile 2.0 Europe

Who knew, my old alma mater, ESADE, has gotten hip and is hosting this year's Mobile 2.0 Europe conference. If you haven't looked at who's attending, here's a comprehensive list.

And hey, be sure to catch the often quoted, Dr Maximilian Niederhofer at 11:45....

iTunes Downloads- 5 Billion Served

Apple announced today that iTunes downloads have now topped 5 billion. I posted back in January 2007 that iTunes had hit 2 billion purchases...

I note we're now comparing downloads with purchases- which may or most likely may not- be the same thing, but the growth curve looks very impressive:

It's worth highlighting that the number of weeks required for the second 2 billion downloads took less than half the time that it took to reach the first 2 billion...hence the exponential curve, not a straight line...the rate of change growth is accelerating... Ray Kurtzweil would be pleased to see exponential growth in action.

You might like... Recommendation Engines

If you're reading this blog, then you might like recommendation engines. I've been continuously impressed by Amazon's recommendation engine. As I've expanded what I buy through Amazon (heart rate watches, cooking utilities, computer peripherals, etc.), Amazon has done a very good job of processing those likes -across categories- and making very intelligent suggestions that have resulted in purchases.

Apple, on the other hand, can't seem to figure out what MUSIC I like despite having bought numerous albums and even being signed up for their artist alerts... Apple constantly alerts me to new hip hop and r&b content. I bought some snoop dogg two years ago...but I'm no big hip hop fan. What about Dave Matthews? I've probably bought about 5 albums. Alerts about Dave? Zero.

I'm aware of the "gift drift" that you can get with Amazon if you buy a friend's kid a copy of The Gruffalo- for the next several months you get offered children's books non-stop (I've actually never had a problem with Amazon's recommendation engine).

Looking forward to the mobile internet, recommendation engines- or agents- are going to become even more relevant- who's around you, what they are listening to, and why you might like it, that your favorite store (based on transaction history) has your favorite stuff on sale and the bus is 12 minutes away... etc.

Apple is smart (understatement), but the problems they have with recommending good music underscores the challenges facing recommendation engines.

If this is something that you're particularly interested in, O'Reilly has published a great book on the topic:Programming Collective Intelligence.

Highly recommended reading.

First-time Entrepreneurs?

Library House's newsletter yesterday (free registration req'd) highlighted an article by David Storey in the FT- making the case that there is no correlation between an experienced entrepreneur/management team and a company's success.

Storey summarises this belief [that failure is accepted in the US, and that it is a source of learning] to dismantle it, arguing that knowledge gained from a failed business makes little difference to future business success, due to the unpredictability of starting a business. ‘The best analogy is with a lottery,’ Storey writes, ‘it is not possible to learn to win a lottery.’

Storey points to research in the UK and Germany which indicates that experienced founders are no more or less likely to succeed in starting a new business than novices. It goes against one of the basic tenants of venture capital investing – focusing on the experience of the management team

At first, I thought that was the stupidest thing I had read in a very long time.

However, after giving it some more thought, I actually agree:

I'm not too worried about entrepreneurs being young or old; experienced or novice. I *am* worried about very large markets where an investment can be the leader (or at least one of the top 3). I'm also worried about great products and real, unmet needs...

An entrepreneur's experience? I've never lost any sleep over that one.

Mozy (aka how not to backup your files)

I posted a great review of Mozy 12 months ago. I even used the word "snazzy".

I just cancelled my account with them. I absolutely DO NOT recommend their backup service. (Please be warned, a rant follows.)

<rant>

My MacBook Pro hard drive failed earlier this year and I needed to restore from my Mozy backup. After following their restore procedure, it became apparent that many, many GB of information were missing. 

I should have known this was coming, and hey to be fair it was beta, BUT they saw no problem in charging me full price during the beta period (I did request a refund, but was told I could "have an additional two months of their service").

Here are some fun email extracts from the saga:

26th June 2007

Sorry to be a pain, but is it normal that I've been waiting 24 hrs for an 8 byte doc to be made available for restore?

That puts a great fear in my heart of what would happen if I needed to restore 18GB....

2nd November 2007

I'm using the Mac client and am trying to restore my "documents" folder. The online archive suggests a file size of 700MB and 4,000 files. When I get the restore email, it is for 200MB and 700+ files.

I've tried twice now, and online it says its restoring less files but then the download is for far fewer files...

2nd February 2008

I haven't used mozy since the problems in november. I've downloaded RC1- it's has caused kernel panics, uses excessive memory (1GB) and has crashed on every attempted backup. I'm even running a fresh install of 10.5...

I really am a very unhappy customer having paid for this service- which was useless when it came to restoring my machine and your support was very sad too. I test lots of beta products and you really shouldn't be charging for this software.

Their answer:

"I always suggest that as the Mac client does work wonderfully for many users, myself included, but there are those times where it doesn't work so well.

I can extend your account by a couple months if you wish to continue using our service."

3rd Feb 2008 (This was after the crash!)

The problem isn't just with the mac client- it was server side. Of the 50+GB i had uploaded, when it came time to restore, only 30-odd GB was available. The restore files that I configured online and downloaded contained a fraction of the files they should have.

And here's the answer:

Good afternoon,

I took a look at the restore that only was able to recover 768 of 5937. It looks like a good chunk of those files are bundles or packages, which weren't supported until 0.9.0.0. I'm not sure why the others weren't able to be recovered. When that happens, we can do whatever we need to do to get the files back.

Except that they DID NOTHING to get them back for me! 

And 768 out of 5937!? That's only 12% of the files I had backed up. I went back and did a double check and virtually zero files were packages (50GB were photos and music- the whole reason for using a backup service).

I've now complained so many times, that I am blue in the face. I have also told them that I'm blogging this.

Please, if you use a Mac and love your files, do not use Mozy.

</Rant>

Smartsynch raises $20 Million (Jackson, Mississippi)

It's not everyday that my hometown shows up in VentureSource, so I had to repost this:

SMARTSYNCH (JACKSON, MS) RAISES $20 MILLION IN SERIES E
--- Industry: Vertical Market Applications Software ---


Credit Suisse Customized Fund Investment led a $20 million round of
series E financing for SmartSynch. Other round investors included Siemens Venture Capital, Beacon Group, and OPG Ventures, Innovation
Valley Partners, Endeavor Capital Management, GulfSouth Capital,
Southern Farm Bureau, and Battelle Ventures. SmartSynch provides
smart metering solutions to the energy and utility industry.

SmartSynch’s solutions provide utility companies and their customers with the unprecedented power to take control of their resource usage. SmartSynch’s core product delivers actionable intelligence from electricity meters via public wireless networks and the Internet.

The Web is winning (go figure)

Right after the mobile world congress this year, I posted that this was definitely the Year of the Browser. Opera have just released some pretty interesting stats on mobile web usage for Q1 2008 through the Opera mini browser:

Social networking stands supreme
Almost 40% of traffic worldwide is to social networks. In some countries, such as the United States, South Africa and Indonesia, the social Web accounts for more than 60% of the traffic.

One Web will triumph over WAP content
Full Web surfing comprises more than 77% of all traffic. Content on WAP and .mobi sites accounted for 23% of mobile Web traffic. This share continues to decline as more consumers both use Opera Mini to access rich Web content and become more comfortable browsing the Web on their phones.

Data Consumed

As the content available to mobile phones improves, data consumption increases. Last month, those 11.9 million Opera Mini users generated more than 33 million MB of data for operators worldwide. This represents an almost 88% growth over the previous quarter.

88% Growth, and they're just talking about OPERA. Nevermind the iPhone, Series 60 phones or Blackberries...I've recently realized that I'm clocking in at circa 100MB of data monthly through my iPhone these days. 

The mobile web is definitely gaining momentum. Start your engines.

Geotag it

One of the areas I've been spending a lot of time looking at is All Things Geo. Three headlines caught my eye today:

Eye-fi Explore -auto geotags your photos before uploading automagically via wifi.

Sony Ericsson- have patented geotagging songs "Proposed technology for a "location dependent music search" would use GPS or a similar mapping method to determine the phone's location and promptly find music associated with the area, whether on the device or on an Internet server. The feature would let users cue songs they associate with favorite areas or download songs from local artists."

MIT Android Demos- a list of recent apps developed on Android- all of which incorporate geo/contextual awareness. My favorite was the last one: snap

It’s kind of like Digg on a map. People can tag certain places and then other users can vote that particular attraction up or down.

So if you’re in a new city, you can pull up your current location and find things around you that other people think are interesting.

If there’s a particular user that’s uploaded a bunch of cool stuff, you can subscribe to his or her stuff. Arrows on the map change color the more popular they get. Very cool

Any other cool geo-related apps out there you've seen? (btw, if anyone has a fire eagle invite, pls ping me)