Although intellectual property law exists to encourage innovation and invention, patents have become the one legal way private companies can exercise a monopoly over the market. Oversized patent portfolios and prolonged patent lawsuits translate into less consumer choice and higher prices. Effectively, patents become the end in and of themselves, and no longer a means for supporting innovation.

These lawsuits have caused real concern at the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, where the patent wars have raised the prospect of anti-competitive activities. The DOJ is charged with viewing the market as a whole. For that reason, the Department of Justice has invoked a little-known form of consumer protection in ensuring the Patent Wars don’t put new technologies out of the consumer’s reach.

It has been well publicized that the battles between tech powerhouses like Google, Apple and Microsoft go far beyond the features of their latest devices. As many of these companies continue to focus large amounts of time and treasure in the courtroom, there is a concern that innovation will take a backseat to genuine competition on tech. Since Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility last year, things have especially heated up among the three major players — a situation that can only worsen with Microsoft’s acquisition of AOL’s patent portfolio, which is a symptom of a patent “arms race.”

No longer obtained to protect a new technology or a particular state of art, patents are now used in the smartphone arena to block other players from entrance into the arena, or to stop one company from achieving a dominant position.

A patent-centric strategy works extremely well in the software industry because sets of international standards allow our mass communications devices to work together seamlessly. If a company obtains a patent governing one of these standards, or for technology that is widely relied upon (even if not directed to a specific standard), that company can put a chokehold on the market.

Specifically, rival companies have attempted to block Google’s Android operating system and handsets, which Google licenses to other companies for free, while Apple and Samsung have been engaged in a number of lawsuits over handset technology. One such lawsuit resulted in a suspension of iPad and iPhone sales in Germany.

In fact, when so many patents protect vital, standardized technologies with such broad language, lawsuits are certain to follow. And a glut of patent lawsuits can mean licensing deals, which in turn mean higher prices as the costs of production come to include those licensing deals. In a worst case scenario, a licensing deal can’t be reached and the technology is unavailable to the consumer.

And while the lawsuits have played out largely amid corporate attorneys and IP specialists, the consumer isn’t without an advocate as the patent wars rage. As leverage to avoid antitrust lawsuits, the Department of Justice has emphasized a little-known tool to regulate the cost of patent licenses. It can exert pressure to require that crucial patents be licensed under a set of terms known as FRAND (Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) terms.

These terms set strict guidelines regarding the costs of licensing and prevent companies holding vital patents from setting exorbitant, unfair prices. For example, the DOJ recently pressured a consortium led by Apple to commit to FRAND licensing when it bought various Nortel and Novell patents. The government tacitly hinted that it would block the acquisition if the consortium didn’t agree to FRAND terms. If the DOJ hadn’t stepped in, the consortium would have been able to exert enormous leverage on the consumer electronics market.

Google is being required to maintain FRAND terms with the patents that it received upon purchasing Motorola Mobility. Google also bought patents from IBM under those terms.

In fact, companies holding patents which are considered to be crucial to a particular standard may be required to license those patents by the relevant governing standards body under FRAND terms.

Some companies do choose to license their patents widely, even without explicit FRAND requirements. Microsoft, for example, has chosen to license its patents widely, having reached licensing agreements with makers of more than 70 percent of the Android-based smartphones sold in the U.S. On the other hand, Steve Jobs famously threatened to do whatever was necessary to force Google to significantly change Android to remove features that Jobs felt were proprietary to Apple, refusing to even consider payment from Google to license Apple’s patents.

It’s likely the smartphone war will end in a variety of licensing agreements and cross-licensing agreements. Whether those agreements result in competitive prices for the consumer depends on how effectively the DOJ wields its “FRAND” sword.

D’vorah Graeser, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of Graeser Associates International (GAI), an international intellectual property firm specializing in the preparation, filing and prosecution of medical device, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, bioinformatics and software patents. Dr. Graeser is a U.S. Patent Agent and is not an attorney at law; none of the above should be construed as legal advice.

iStockphoto | A-Digit

You’re not that special. Turns out you might fall into a category of digital consumers just like yourself.

IBM’s new Digital Consumer report, which surveyed 3,800 adult consumers in China, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the U.S., showed a large increase in usage of digital devices and content services over the past few years, with 78 percent of consumers calling themselves digital device adopters this past year. It also identified four distinct personalities when it comes to digital consumption:

Efficiency Expert: This is the digital consumer who uses digital devices and services to simplify things. They use the fewest devices but still access the Internet via mobile phones, send emails rather than letters, use Facebook to communicate with people, watch video on demand at home and shop online. However, some surveyed still prefer in-store shopping to online.

Content King: There’s a reason why it’s “king” and not “queen.” This category is composed mostly of males, but represents just 9 percent of the global sample. According to Saul Berman, global strategy consulting leader of IBM’s Business Services division, these digital consumers are the gamers, the newshounds, the movie buffs. “They prefer everything to be connected to their console or TV, often watch TV shows online, they regularly download their media and play games with people online,” Berman said.

Social Butterfly: Some 15 percent of consumers surveyed reported that they frequently maintain and update social-networking sites. This group has a strong female skew, with a high frequency of digital consumption. They might own fewer devices, but they maintain more social-networking profiles, they visit these sites several times a day, they’re “tagging” others on sites, and they’re often viewing what friends are posting.

Connected Maestro: This group is indicative of where the future is headed, Berman believes. About 35 percent of those surveyed take a more advanced approach to media consumption by using mobile devices and smartphone applications to access games, music and video, or to check news, weather and sports. They use instant messaging. They own the greatest variety of digital devices, and they combine some of the behavior of a Content King and a Social Butterfly. This group also has a slightly male skew and, as Berman said, “the majority of this group say they now read digital books over printed ones.”

Interestingly, the study notes that age is no longer the most distinct segmentation when it comes to putting digital consumers into boxes. A full 82 percent of digital adopters are now between the ages of 10 and 64. “Contrary to popular belief, not all early adopters are college age; in actual fact 65 percent are aged between 55-64,” the study notes.

“Making tech simple for that audience is a key factor,” Berman said, “and they’ve seen the benefit in potential by watching people who were the initial early adopters.”

That still doesn’t necessarily mean you’re off the hook in terms of setting up printers and fixing the Internet when you’re visiting home for the holidays.

Readers: Which category do you fall into?

(Image: iStockphoto | A-Digit)

We probably didn’t need a formal study to tell us that.

But that’s exactly what Tobii, maker of eye-tracking technology, set out to do.

The Sweden-based company, in collaboration with AnswerLab, recently pounced on a bunch of people at a San Francisco coffee shop and asked them to participate in a study in which they’d be examining the dating profiles of members of the opposite sex — and during the session, their eye movements would be tracked by Tobii’s sensors.

After participants viewed mock-up pages of eHarmony.com and Match.com profiles, the verdict was in: Men spent 65 percent more time than women did reviewing photos in profiles; women spent 50 percent more time reading the text about a potential mate’s background and interests.

Women also spent an average of 84 seconds gazing at a profile to determine if it was a match, compared to 58 seconds for men.

The study also revealed that people tend to like dating profiles that they feel are more reflective of the kind they would build for themselves. For example, people that prefer to share lots of personal info gravitated more toward very personal dating profiles, while those that stick to “just the facts, ma’am,” liked profiles that had simpler demographic info and data.

Tobii uses tracking technology that zeroes in on a user’s pupil and calculates the point of gaze using algorithms. For heavy blinkers or those with shifty eyes, the recovery time of Tobii’s sensor is between 100 and 300 milliseconds; it draws an “imaginary box” around the user’s head to account for lots of head movement, as well.

For more info on how it works, check out this video from D9, where Tobii general manager Barbara Barclay demoed how Tobii could help users control their laptops with just their eyeballs. Late last month, the company introduced its X1 Light Eye Tracker, marketed mainly to usability and market researchers.

To demonstrate the usefulness of its eye-tracking tech at the consumer level, Tobii is planning to conduct more studies and present more interesting use cases, Barclay said. The next study, for example, might be even more precise: Instead of examining who is looking at pictures versus text, the next study might shed light on which area of the pictures people’s eyes tend to linger on. (We know what you’re thinking right now.)

Ultimately, these types of studies could be most useful for advertisers, as well as Web companies.

The study showed that when there was a great deal of ad content on the right-hand side of a profile page, participants would be distracted by the ads and avert their eyes from the profile information. Great news for advertisers, but bad news for those who want to remain focused on the task at hand.

It’s important to note that the sample for this study was very small: The company managed to convince more than 40 people to try it out, but had to throw away a handful of samples due to inconclusive data, which can be caused by certain types of glasses, lazy or droopy eyes, or an extreme amount of gaze-shifting.

But Tobii’s Barclay says continued testing could help companies determine monetization strategies and how they might conflict with the ultimate goal of a Web site’s content, or to help advertisers make ads more relevant and boost click-through rates.

(Feature photo courtesy of Flickr)

And for those who are into both football and geekery, tomorrow is kind of like the Super Bowl. Well, technically speaking, I guess tomorrow is like the Super Bowl for everyone.

Anyhoo. For everyone looking for some tech to go with their gridiron, there are lots of options.

First of all, NBC is streaming the Super Bowl live over the Internet, for those who can’t make it to a television or want a second screen to enjoy even more of the action.

ESPN president John Skipper said at D: Dive Into Media that he thinks giving away the game for free is a bad idea, but NBC paid for the rights, so they get to do what ever they want.

Verizon is also broadcasting the game live to the smallest of screens via its NFL Mobile service. (However, Peter Kafka notes their marketing of said service could use some work.)

Second, there are a ton of Super Bowl apps, including the official ones for both iPhone and Android, as well as a game program. Peanuts are still not downloadable, but content-tagging app Shazam is offering a variety of commercial tie-ins. Check here for even more game-day apps.

And of course, the big game will be the talk of Twitter, to be sure.

Lastly, as a special treat, AllThingsD will be offering live coverage of the game, the commercials and the social-media hoopla. We had so much fun in January with Footballmer, our liveblog mash-up of Steve Ballmer’s final CES keynote and the BCS championship, that we decided to do it again.

This time, though, I’ll actually get to watch the game, rather than having Ballmer duty. I’ll be commenting on the game, the commercials, the tech and the Twitter commentary. Check back tomorrow before kickoff for that.

This may be Microsoft’s last year with a keynote and booth at the Consumer Electronics Show, but the company is actually stepping up its investment in the biggest European technology show.

Microsoft is planning an even bigger presence than last year at CeBit, the big trade show held in March in Hanover, Germany. Speaking at a CeBit event in Las Vegas, Microsoft vice president Achim Berg (a German former Deutsche Telekom executive) said that the event provides a good place to reach key customers.

At CeBit, Berg said, Microsoft is able to meet with 10,000 chief information officer-types in just a few days, getting a lot of business done.

And, unlike Vegas, Berg said he doesn’t have to spend two or three hours a day in cabs.

“There is no need to wait for taxis,” Berg said at the event (where I also spoke about mobile security issues). “This is a well-organized German fair.”

Though glad to see Microsoft’s continued investment, CeBit officials said they can relate to the pain the Consumer Electronics Show is having in losing a big name. A few years ago, CeBit lost both Nokia and Hewlett-Packard as big exhibitors. And while the show is bigger than it was a couple of years ago, it is down from where it was five years ago.

CES NOTEBOOKS:

• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as it Pulls Back on CES
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• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
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• Complete CES coverage

At next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Tobii plans to show off how its interactive eye-tracking software, called Gaze, works with Microsoft’s Windows 8 Metro interface.

Gaze would go in a compact rectangular device — smaller than the current 8-inch Tobii IS-1 tracker — that sits below the laptop screen and tracks a user’s eye movement using sensors built into the bar. You activate Gaze by tapping the trackpad once, and Gaze takes a few seconds to find your pupil and calculate the point of gaze using mathematical algorithms. An imaginary “head movement box” is created to delineate a range of motion in which you can still move your head and have the device track you.

In terms of precision, Tobii says the sensors measure within a quarter-inch of the tile or icon you’re looking at. For smaller icons or small text, Gaze still allows a user to navigate the cursor using the laptop’s trackpad, by pressing their fingers down on the pad instead of tapping it once.

Here’s a video showing how it works on Windows 8:

Gaze could, theoretically, work on tablets, too. But Tobii business development manager Anders Olsson says that tablet interaction is so smooth to begin with — with capacitive touch within an arm’s length of the user — that tablets don’t need much improvement. It’s boring old laptops that could use a boost.

“Gaze takes away the whole intermediate step of having a mouse or even using touch technology,” Olsson said in an interview. “We see this as an important innovation because, compared to tablets, laptops feel very ancient right now, in terms of user experience.”

While eye-tracking tech like Gaze could make sense for TV viewing as well, given the growing interest in gesture technology, Olsson said Tobii’s technology isn’t quite up to speed for TV. In fact, it could be a couple more years before Gaze hits the mass market.

Tobii doesn’t plan to sell Gaze directly to consumers, but will work with electronics manufacturers to ship on laptops. While the company says it is in talks with computer makers and electronics manufacturers, it hasn’t officially partnered with anyone, including Microsoft, for the development of Tobii Gaze (although Microsoft is expected to show Tobii eye-tracking demos at its CES booth, as well).

Eye-tracking technology isn’t new, but until now it has been used primarily in niche markets, as a tool for people with severe physical disabilities, or for psychological researchers who monitor eye movement to determine cognitive abilities.

Tobii has been around since 2001, and currently holds 13 patents in the area of eye-tracking tech.

(Image credit: Flickr/Mike Garza)

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
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One example is the annual tech prediction by analyst Mark Anderson, which I wrote about last week. Another is IBM’s recurring “Five in Five” series, wherein Big Blue looks at the unfolding technology landscape and predicts what innovations are still just this side of “gee whiz” today, but will be commonplace within five years.

Think back to what we were doing in 2006, and how far things have come in that short period of time in terms of consumer and enterprise technology. The iPhone existed only as an Apple prototype. Facebook had just opened itself up to the population at large, beyond just college and university students. Twitter was just getting started. And a tablet was a not-terribly-popular PC design.

As you’ll see, some of these five predictions aren’t exactly mind-blowing, especially if you pay attention to general technology trends. Over the past decade, you’ve probably already heard predictions saying that computer passwords will go away and be replaced by biometrics of some kind, whether in the form of fingerprints or voice authorization or some part of your eyeball. Also: Junk mail I actually want? That one I’ll believe when I see it. However, I really like the “think to call” idea, which sounds like a super speed-dial.

Anyhow, here are IBM’s predictions for stuff we’ll see by 2016, and a video explaining them in a little more detail:

You will make your own energy: Anything that moves has the potential to create energy. Your running shoes, your bicycle and even the water flowing through your pipes can create energy. Advances in renewable energy technology will allow individuals and scientists to collect this energy and use it to help power our homes, offices and cities.

You will not need a password: Your biological makeup is the key to your individual identity, and soon, it will become the key to safeguarding it. Each person’s unique biometric data such as facial definitions, retinol scans and voice files will be composited through software to build your DNA-unique online password. You will be able to log into your mobile phone or have access to an ATM machine by simply speaking your name or looking into a camera.

Mind reading is no longer science fiction: Scientists are researching how to link your brain to your devices, such as a computer or a smartphone, so you just need to think about calling someone and it happens. Scientists have designed headsets with advanced sensors to read electrical brain activity that can recognize facial expressions, excitement and concentration levels, and thoughts of a person without them physically doing anything.

The digital divide will cease to exist: In five years, the gap between information haves and have-nots will narrow considerably due to advances in mobile technology. Growing communities will be able to use mobile technology to provide access to essential information and better serve people with new solutions such as mobile commerce and remote healthcare.

Junk mail will become priority mail: Think about how often we’re flooded with advertisements we consider to be irrelevant or unwanted — it doesn’t have to be that way anymore. In five years, unsolicited advertisements may feel so personalized and relevant it may seem spam is dead. Systems will be able to filter and find only the data that’s important and relevant to you and will bring you the information without you having to ask for it.

First, publishers need cutting-edge technology to hook an audience through today’s digital media channels of the Web, mobile, social, and search.

And, second, the breakthrough technology can’t just be about product design — it’s got to go beyond to create distribution advantages on the new connected Web.

One Question
Okay, now that we have the truth out of the way, let me ask you a question:

“Is your company a media company, or a technology company?”

I love getting asked this question. And every digital media leader I know hates answering it.

Discomfort, Uneasiness, Anxiety, Fear
The uneasiness begins with the mistaken idea that the two are separable. And they were — back in the 15th century, when Gutenberg first worked his printing magic, and up until a few years ago. But we all know digital technology has inserted itself inextricably into the guts of publishing, replacing ink with bytes and paper with pipes. And now, over the last two years, technology has transformed the basis of publishers’ relationships with their audience, by connecting them through social operating systems, as we discussed last month.

And yet, our uneasiness escalates to anxiety when we realize we still don’t fully understand the new technology’s potential or impact on our business.

That is a scary thought.

Technology Drives Media
I think we all need to collectively swallow our fear. We know every media company must be a technology company today.

In the first generations of digital media, it was easy. In AOL’s past, technology’s key role was simply to provide basic Internet access over dial-up lines. Today, while that access provides cash flow, it no longer has any strategic value in media. Similarly, Yahoo’s early technology prowess was applied to create significant products like Yahoo Mail. But while Mail still drives 73 percent of the audience to Yahoo’s media properties, it won’t secure Yahoo’s future ability to be a great media destination.

These two companies — as well as the rest of us — need to use technology for something more advanced than access and ancillary products. We need to put it right into the heart of media so that we can create breakthrough user experiences and new connections with audiences.

Millions of Ways to Engage
To do that, let’s start by recognizing what’s changed about the medium itself: In analog days, publishers’ products were two-dimensional; and all we had to work with was ink and some paper. And similarly, distribution was mostly two-dimensional; a subscription list and newsstand sales was all there was to it.

But now, consumers have access to millions of sources at their fingertips, and each one can be rich and interactive, reaching us through several different digital channels. Both our product experiences and our distribution can be much more intricate — and much more valuable. And combining the two gives media the chance to do something it’s always aspired to but has never been able to do.

The Future Will Be Personalized
We have recently become ready for a whole new vision for media.

And that’s giving every audience member the right content in the right place at the right time.

To do this takes a combination of data — from the social operating system — coupled with media’s greatest power, that of creating experiences and distributing them.

To achieve this, though, we need technology to do more than output HTML pages; instead, it has to chaperone customized content to every individual.

This is a big change from the original Internetization of media, which was, like generations of offline media before it: “If you publish it they will come.” That worked when directories like Yahoo and search engines like Google matched consumers to content. But that attitude was passive, and today’s social Web is anything but. So publishers now have the opportunity — and the challenge — of taking charge of their distribution.

The key is using the emerging social Web to get signals from, and connect to, the audience. And when we do this, we are putting technology in the role of relating uniquely to every consumer in order to create the ultimate experiences they crave.
Now that’s a refreshing concept for media.

Three Ways to Get Ahead
But what does this mean, practically speaking?

I believe the role of technology in media success must embody these three things:

• Use technology to determine the right content: The social Web offers a wealth of real-time data. Use it to see what matters to your constituents. Tools like Newsbeat are helpful moment by moment and article by article. But you have to go further. The great breakthrough of digital media is being able to connect to your audience as individuals, not just in aggregate. No longer do you have to create for a persona or prototypical user; instead, you can create for real users. Media companies need to develop technologies that give them a proprietary edge when it comes to understanding the specific needs of their potential audience; that way, they can serve consumers better. And the opportunities abound. At Wetpaint, my company, for example, we process Twitter, Facebook, Google, and our own site’s data, all in real time to know what content matters — and to whom. And yet, we can go much further, to ask and intuit feedback from each user individually. The future is a completely personalized experience from every publisher. It’s not far-fetched; in fact, it mirrors what consumers already patch together with all too much difficulty.
• Take control of your distribution: Reach consumers with the right content at the right time and place (via Web, mobile, video, social, and search). Don’t just have your social media team pump the same content from your Web CMS through Facebook and Twitter. Instead, use technology and research to understand the secrets of what works. Truly engaging your potential audience can improve your results by a factor of two or more. We’ve already seen this at Wetpaint, and the results are still getting better each week. Our database of everything we publish tracks all the distribution causes and effects, so we know what works. We also pay attention to who the influencers are, with technology that identifies them as well as who their influencers are; and now we’re building a “CRM”-like system to help us know more about these individuals and win them over.
• Package it into the right experiences: Print is static and flat; but so are too many digital media properties. That’s why I applaud the New York Times for continually looking at how to repackage into mobile apps; and that’s why I like Flipboard, which takes a data-rich, but visually cacophonic, content feed and packages it into an immersive experience. AOL’s riff of ultimate personalization has impressed me even more: they’ve recognized that every consumer should get their own Edition — nailing the concept of personalization better than any media approach before. This is the opportunity for each of us now, as we connect with audience members and try to offer them more compelling experiences in return for loyal usage.

Technology Changes Businesses
Let’s circle back to the discussion of whether you’re a media or technology company.

By its very nature, digital publishing is a technical medium. But, beyond that, what makes technology interesting isn’t its ability to carry bits; it is its ability to change businesses. And we need to change our own by updating our sense of audience, distribution, and experience creation to provide thousands of times more precision than media ever has before.

When we do that, we’re making the content thousands of times more relevant. And I believe that’s how you build a thriving digital media business in the next decade.

Ben Elowitz is co-founder and CEO of Wetpaint, a next-generation media company that is reinventing the media model on the social web. The company has more than nine million unique visitors monthly on all its web properties combined. Ben is also a thought leader on the subject of next-generation digital media publishing and the author of Digital Quarters, a blog about the future of digital media and the steps the publishing industry must take to become profitable.

During the economic turbulence of the last decade, most middle managers were content climbing the corporate ladder. But as more start-ups rake in venture capital and, in some cases, generate enormous wealth for employees when the companies are sold off or go public, some corporate middle managers are changing course. In the last year, executives from American Express Co. and Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal, as well as various Wall Street investment banks and major law firms, have all taken senior-level roles in start-ups.

“From an enterprise and consumer standpoint, [start-ups] have a need for more experienced management, folks that have built more of an operational superstructure from bigger companies,” says Eric Wiesen, a general partner at New York venture firm RRE Ventures.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

At this point — remember, less than 20 years after the ads ran — you’d really have to be a quibbler to argue with any of the forecasts. (Yes, no one Skypes from phone booths, but that’s really because no one uses phone booths, and you can do it from your iPad, anyway.)

If you’re old enough to have a hazy memory of these ads the first time around, the fact that the former future is now present tense might really give you pause. You know, if you were so inclined.

UPDATE: As Richard Raucci notes, the spots were directed by David Fincher, pre “Fight Club” and “The Social Network”. And Terry O’Gara, who worked on the music for the ads, has a fascinating look behind the scenes, with some thought-provoking perspective about sound + vision.

Bonus really, really old video!

Coachella is perhaps the most important of these events, for a few core reasons, and provides the perfect ground zero for my annual state of the union on the landscape of our increasingly social and ubiquitously connected digital world. For starters, it is the first major U.S. festival of the year, as well as being one of the oldest–with the first taking place a dozen years ago when it was still a two-day affair–and its roots lie in the burgeoning world of indie rock and electronica, despite the fact the every year the headliners seem to grow bigger and broader. This year the festival managed to sell out pricy three-day-only tickets within five days, thanks to Kanye, Arcade Fire and Kings of Leon, and although this creates–at its peak–nearly impenetrable 80K crowds, it also generates mass audiences for most of the 190 some-odd bands that will someday be able to look back at Coachella as a kind of credible tipping point.

For many, the grassy desert oasis is a three-day party attended by an almost bizarrely well-behaved crowd, bookended by a handful of bands that have already been validated by the Grammy-watching masses. But as with each of my prior pilgrimages, I approached the weekend with a kind of surgical precision, beginning with the building of a curated schedule, which can now be accomplished by downloading the still rather primitive Coachella app to your phone. I mention this because for those who don’t see much live music, increasingly what you witness as you stare toward today’s stages is a cascade of sleek black smartphones pointed at stages, or the backs of heads buried into phones blasting out texts, tweets, statuses, and ever more sophisticated photo streams. In other words, phones are very much a part of the live experience.

When I look back over the past four years at the way I have chronicled and shared my personal experiences, it has gradually evolved. In 2008 there were a handful of blog posts, MMS photos, and individual texts and emails catalogued sloppily across the still-nascent and less-connected social graph. In 2009, my phone was better, Facebook was bigger, and Twitter was growing. That year, trying to be a judicious, non-polluting reporter, I tended only to post the truly epic performances (Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, etc.). I did this largely using Twitter, which I pushed to Facebook for maximal efficient coverage. I can revisit my Coachella experiences of last year by rereading my real-time, band-by-band, set-by-set trail of digital crumbs left by a combination of Foursquare check-ins and primarily text-only tweets (SMS to Twitter, due to choppy mobile service). In 2011, however, without much foresight, my play-by-play was published exclusively using Instagram photos, with a varied palette of filters depending on time of day, distance from stage, state of mind, etc. After I snapped my first picture, it just made sense to stay consistent. The other new addition to my repertoire was the group texting pod we set up to communicate with the 10 people in our party. There are a couple to choose from: Groupme, which leverages SMS, and Beluga (recently acquired by Facebook), that operates from a sleek mobile app. The concept here is simple. Instead of sending multiple threaded text messages, you send one message that publishes to small hand-selected groups usually in and around events.

This new breed of apps represents a rather beautiful kind of evolution. Not so long ago, each of the developing platforms had a very specific use case: Twitter was for text and links, Facebook for text status updates and photos, Foursquare and Gowalla for geo-based check-ins, and Flickr for photos. Now everything is seamless, and a user can publish to the interconnected social web using almost any of these services to do everything all at once.

Returning to Instagram, my tool of choice of 2011. For every set I would snap a photo using one of the 15 or so different filters, write an occasionally clever note on the band, and add a stage location. Each of these posts would appear first to my Instagram network, then push to Twitter, which would then bounce to Facebook. Each of the core services (Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare) now allows users to take and share a photo, text some narrative, and add location, thus the decision really becomes about where you decide to start your own publishing chain.

For the first time in four years, I managed to take in most of the Friday Coachella line-up, which in many ways was the thinnest day of the three day line-up but still rock solid, optimizing for the real masses who tend to arrive that night. As such, with the sun beating dryly down on the mercifully flat green polo field, LA’s all-girl Warpaint set the tone with a groovy, almost Luscious Jackson feeling set of head-bobbing indie rock to a thick but comfortable crowd of global hipsters. Looking back, this would be one of a handful of emerging bands that left a real lasting impression.

Day one would also have a very specific 80s new wave arc to it, in retrospect. From the twee pop of Pains of Being Pure Heart, reminiscent of the underappreciated Sarah Records bands of a bygone era, to the synth heavy jams of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti–complete with funny hairstyles and John Hughes sweetness–to the more angular dance vibe of YACHT, the afternoon was a nostalgic trip through my adolescence, all performed in the more intimate shaded tents providing shelter from the rays. There is simply nothing like the sweeping relief you feel in the late afternoon moving out of the tents and into the setting sun and open air of the Outside Stage framed beautifully by the backdrop of palm trees against the surrounding mountains. Australia’s Tame Impala played another of the day’s best sets with their psychedelic guitar-driven melodies that exist somewhere between a subtler Verve and rockier My Bloody Valentine, again playing into a broadly 80s theme.

Night fell with the largely two-piece Black Keys, playing the bluesiest tunes of the festival and doing a remarkable job acoustically filling the night sky to a massive crowd. It is hard for me not to root for the much-deserved success of my original hometown heroes. From there, amidst the comfortable temperature of desert night, Aussie band Cut Copy played a tent full of uber-optimistic electronica. The VIP oasis off the main stage provided exactly the right environment to observe the masses lap up the radio-friendly area rock of Kings of Leon. Kids love ‘em. I am, sadly, no longer a kid.

Day two, again hot and cloudless, evolved toward the modern, leaving the 80s behind in favor of a post-modern eclecticism. Another handy consequence of a connected festival is that a quick visit to Pitchfork or Wikipedia on your phone can provide all the context you need to make sense of the music being discovered that you would otherwise know very little about. It began with another one of my favorite sets performed by the loopy, stoney, and groove-laden Brooklyn-based Here We Go Magic. The tight, meandering indie rhythms share a Grizzly Bear influence, and fit perfectly with the slow build of the day. From there, Sweden’s Tallest Man On Earth, a Dylan disciple playing solo acoustic guitar to a massive crowd, bled into an unexpected barn-burner from Oxford’s Foals, who channeled Robert Smith through a dancier punk-funk prism. Next, the beautifully bright Radio Dept, another one of the great Swedish bands to bless the polo grounds in 2011, played a blissful set of shoegazing modernism.

One of the beautiful things about Coachella is stumbling upon totally unexpected sets, which leads me to the quite wonderful Erykah Badu, witnessed from thick shady grass off the main stage. Pure, unadulterated authentic funk and R&B is hard to come by in this day and age, but here it was–a flukish find in the search for shade. It led right into Toronto supergroup Broken Social Scene’s great main stage set, playing the role Pavement filled last year: indie rock for aging hipsters. Perfect stage and time programming is another one of Coachella’s distinguishing characteristics.

The sunset shows on the Outside stage are always among the best, and it was America’s best indie pop band The New Pornographers who put on one of my favorite sets of the festival, with the sublime vocals of Neko Case mixing with the relentless perfection of AC Newman’s pop sensibilities blowing through the cooling air as again the sun released the crowd from the cloudless heat. Next up, the back half of an incredibly moody set by England’s Elbow, whose beautiful melodic grooves drifted gracefully into the night sky. The beauty of the main stage slot before headliners like Arcade Fire and Mumford and Sons is that the crowds begin to make their way over early to get within a quarter mile of the stage. As such, indie wunderkind Bright Eyes ripped through an earthy rock set in front of a much bigger crowd than they would have on any other stage. The nearly full moon hung over one of the most enthusiastic crowds of the festival as Mumford and Sons performed, rather straightforwardly, their radio-friendly breakthrough. For my money, I’ll take the Fleet Foxes, Blitzen Trapper, and Midlake long before this watered-down concoction, and so a few songs into it I wandered over to Big Audio Dynamite, who were rocking to a much smaller and older crowd, sounding every bit as good as they did in 1985. As a zealous fan of Ireland’s Frames, and hopeless romantic and fanatic for the film “Once,” I found the gorgeous set by The Swell Season further proved Glen Hansard again to be the most humble and talented not-yet-a-bonafide-rock-star on the planet. Animal Collective’s weird and wonderful soundscapes bellowed from the main stage in the background, setting the table nicely for perhaps the most anticipated set of the festival, Montreal’s Arcade Fire, who might be the best big rock band on the planet. There is nothing compromised about the music they play and the seriousness with which they take their craft. Most of the festival turned up in droves. One must feel sorry for the handful of bands that had to compete at this time slot, but ripping a page from Springsteen and channeling it through the best indie music of the past twenty years, it is always such a joy to see a little band not even a decade old grow up right before your eyes.

By the time Sunday rolls around, festival-goers are either fully in the groove or totally burned out. I am always the former, and so folk super group Fistful of Mercy (Ben Harper, Joseph Arthur and Dhani Harrison) started the day oh so gently, and perhaps too gently. Thank goodness for Best Coast, Bethany Consentino’s fusion of Liz Phair and The Go Go’s, who shredded through an infectious set of pop jewels. I predict a bright future for young Bethany. One of the buzzing bands to emerge in the past twelve months, LA’s Foster The People, played to a crowd that was much bigger than the smallish tent they played previously. Again, a very bright future for these kids.

Sunset at the Outdoor stage featured yet another of the best sets of festival, with The National filling the fairgrounds with a ferocious, intense, enormous sound. Like Arcade Fire, these guys are all grown up. Duran Duran played a greatest hits set to a thin crowd around the same time, but for the third straight day, dinner at the Kogi truck was in order–and the business that hit it big on Twitter was right there at the center of it, right across from the misting stations in the lush VIP oasis. Eating a spicy pork burrito while swaying to the comeback sounds of The Strokes was the perfect culmination to another epic festival. The festival ended for me with a nostalgic set by PJ Harvey. She was wrapped in a flowing white gown and looked every bit like the indie royalty that she is, playing a wonderful mix of old and new as the festival reached its dramatic end. Many credit Kanye with helping to sell out the festival in five days, but as I trudged wearily but contentedly across the massive crowd bobbing to his loud, energetic set, I was content, still replaying Harvey’s epic “Down By The Water” in my head.

To spend three days in the desert, soaking up the sun, amidst a real-life social network of youth culture passionistas, feeling the same liberating wave of emotions conducted by a dizzying array of incredible acts is an unbelievable privilege. Anyone equipped with a phone can now publish real-time thoughts to those less fortunate, watching at home on YouTube, or through the pictures shared across the connected social web, leaving a digital trail of memories which would have been unimaginable a decade ago. I guess I feel this way every year, but as an old married guy with three kids, live events matter now more than ever in an age without record stores. Art culture is best witnessed in person, not merely through the interwebs. In our increasingly connected world, we need to drink in the real-life versions of all the content we experience, or we will very quickly lose track of what it feels like to experience what is really happening in the outside world. I am already longing for my next visit to the desert…

This is the message Mr. Sheeran, a 44-year-old technology executive in the Seattle area, got instead: “Just wanted to know that your punches ordered the done in the Dipper pickup. Ok. Then you can pick up the French abortion.”

Mr. Sheeran was bewildered. “It sounded like a coded message for a drug deal,” he says.

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U.S. companies are learning this the painful way.

Multinationals are again complaining to U.S. trade officials about a problem they thought was resolved months ago. When China’s President Hu Jintao met with President Barack Obama in January, he agreed to cancel rules that required foreign companies to design their products in China if they hoped to sell to the government–essentially a forced technology transfer.

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Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments in Chicago, spoke with The Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Blumenstein. Julie Louise Gerberding, president of Merck & Co.’s Merck Vaccines unit, sat down with the Journal’s Laura Landro. Marissa Mayer, Google Inc.’s vice president, consumer products, talked with the Journal’s Julia Angwin. And Debra L. Lee, chairman and chief executive of BET Networks, a unit of Viacom Inc., spoke with the Journal’s Alessandra Galloni.

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Horowitz and co-founder Marc Andreessen have been investing since last year from a $650 million fund, so the audience would have loved to hear Horowitz’s opinions. But he didn’t like that idea.

Instead, in just 10 minutes, he gave a history of the great technology shifts that have occurred in the computer industry over the past 50 years and what they mean.

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McAfee Inc., acquired last month by Intel Corp., has provided content-filtering software used by Internet-service providers in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, according to interviews with buyers and a regional reseller. Blue Coat Systems Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., has sold hardware and technology in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar that has been used in conjunction with McAfee’s Web-filtering software and sometimes to block websites on its own, according to interviews with people working at or with ISPs in the region.

A regulator in Bahrain, which uses McAfee’s SmartFilter product, says the government is planning to switch soon to technology from U.S.-based Palo Alto Networks Inc. It promises to give Bahrain more blocking options and make it harder for people to circumvent censoring.

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The tutorial, which runs 40 minutes, is up on YouTube, but it’s unlisted and is only accessible via a private link. Thanks to a helpful reader, I’ve been able to watch it myself, and I’ve uploaded it at the bottom of this post so you can see it, too.

But it is 40 minutes long–and most of you don’t need to watch all of it. Here’s what you need to know if you’re interested in advertising, technology and Twitter’s first attempts at making real money:

Promoted Tweets, Twitter’s first big ad product, hasn’t taken off.
Instead, at least for now, Twitter is pushing customers to spend most of their money on Promoted Accounts, its pay-per-follower product it rolled out at the end of last year. Twitter tells advertisers they ought to spend $4 on Promoted Accounts for every $1 they spend on Promoted Tweets–the original Google-style ad concept CEO Dick Costolo introduced last year. Twitter says that’s because it’s a lot easier to buy the former than the latter, because there’s a lot more inventory available. (And because Promoted Accounts will “turbocharge” Promoted Tweets.)

Promoted Tweets should get a big push in the next month or so.
Until now, the only way you’re going to see a Promoted Tweet is if you click on a search term that someone has purchased, or if you’re using Twitter app HootSuite. But Twitter says the ads will start running in users’ regular “timelines”–the primary Twitterstream they see–on its own Twitter.com site, by the end of Q1. That’s going to make them much more visible, and should hopefully help with the inventory problem noted above.

Twitter is telling customers to expect an “engagement rate” of 1 percent to 3 percent.
Ad buyers are usually trying to measure success by figuring out how many people looked at or clicked on an ad. Click-through rates for most Web ads are very tiny, and according to an ad buyer who has seen Twitter’s presentation, the company says a realistic click-through rate is 0.3 percent. But “engagement” rates–which measure when a user retweets an ad, or likes it, etc.–are supposed to be much higher. My tipster, by the way, says Twitter is requiring new ad buyers to make a purchase of at least $5,000 worth of inventory in order to participate in the company’s beta tests.

Twitter is warning buyers that some users will have a problem with their ads.
At the end of the presentation (around the 35-minute mark), the company takes time out to coach buyers about “dealing with negative user feedback,” which it more or less assumes they’ll be getting. “People are averse to change, especially when it comes to advertising, and this type of feedback is to be expected,” Twitter’s off-screen instructor explains. The company’s suggested coping strategy: Don’t worry! The complainers are an “extremely marginal percentage of the total.”

[UPDATE: So how do the ads actually work? A Twitter ads tester would like to share their experiences with the rest of the world, but can't.]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110216/inside-twitters-sales-machine-a-secret-guide-for-advertisers-video/feed/ 9 http://allthingsd.com/20110215/its-hard-to-cut-the-charging-cords/ http://allthingsd.com/20110215/its-hard-to-cut-the-charging-cords/#comments Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:24:07 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/?p=1649 What if there was a product that made it easy to charge all your household mobile devices and it used just a single cord to do it?

Charging pads are designed to do just that. The WildCharge Pad from PureEnergy Solutions Inc., one of the first charging pads, seemed revolutionary when it came out three years ago. It’s a small, thin pad covered in panels that conduct electricity. It plugs into the wall, and devices can be casually dropped onto it so they can start juicing up.

Yet, here we are still fumbling around to find the right charging cord to plug into our phones, iPads, digital cameras and portable music players. This week, I decided to investigate why charging pads haven’t caught on with consumers.

One reason is that people may not want to buy a charging accessory when gadgets come with their own cords. Also, for devices to work with these charging surfaces, they must have special backs or cases that correspond with the pad. These can change the look of a device, making them bulky.

However, manufacturers of smart phones and other gadgets are starting to incorporate the technology behind charging pads at the design level so they aren’t so obtuse. Palm Inc., now a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard, designed a $20 (after instant rebate) accessory called the Touchstone that works as a magnetic charging dock for its Pre smart phones. A special backing still must be swapped out for the Pre’s regular back, but this looks just like the phone’s regular backing. And last week, when H-P unveiled its TouchPad tablet, due out this summer, the company confirmed this device would also work with a Touchstone charger.

Energizer’s Inductive Charger

But why isn’t there one charging pad that works with several different gadgets and doesn’t require an unattractive sleeve? Of the different charging technologies, there isn’t one that has gained a toehold.

A group called the Wireless Power Consortium—which includes a host of different companies like smart-phone makers, wireless carriers and TV makers—created what it intends to be an international standard for interoperable wireless charging, called Qi (pronounced “chee”). The WPC hopes manufacturers will eventually make devices that are Qi compliant so they all work with the same charging pad and don’t require a sleeve, since the technology would be built in. Products using this charging standard would have a Qi logo on their packaging. Compared with the current situation of using different chargers for each device, Qi sounds heavenly.

Though the WPC includes members like Samsung, LG Electronics, Verizon Wireless and Motorola, none of the companies has introduced a Qi-compliant product. When I asked a Motorola spokeswoman if it had plans to use the Qi standard in its products, she would only say that the company is evaluating the technology for future devices. Likewise for BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion Ltd., a WPC member. A spokeswoman said she couldn’t comment on future product plans.

In September, another trade group, the Consumer Electronics Association, created a panel to sort through various opinions on wireless power technical standards. The sole aim of the group is to collect and share information with manufacturers. This group is examining five issues that include: nomenclature; safety; radio-frequency emissions and efficiency; and standby measurement. A CEA spokeswoman said the panel and the WPC share many of the same members and that the panel plans to share information on a charging standard.

Duracell’s myGrid charging pad, which uses the conductive charging technology.

There are two types of charging technology and it isn’t clear yet which one will become the standard. The Qi standard involves a technology called inductive charging, while other companies, like PureEnergy Solutions, use a conductive charging technology.

One big difference is that inductive chargers don’t require metal-on-metal connections to charge a device like conductive chargers do. This means inductive charging will work through lots of different materials, including wood, plastic or leather. This could allow pads to be built into different surfaces, such as airplane trays and office furniture. Late last year, the first Qi-enabled wireless charging station was installed at Windsor International Airport in Ontario.

One product that is Qi compliant is Energizer’s $89 Inductive Charger (http://energizer.com/inductive), but this still requires sleeves for devices. The sleeves cost $35 each and are available for BlackBerrys, the iPhone 3G or 3GS and iPhone 4. Late this summer, Energizer will introduce a universal adapter with micro- and mini-USB compatibility.

Powermat USA’s $60 Wireless Charging System for the iPhone 4 (powermat.com) uses a slightly different technology that requires devices to rest on charging pads in specific positions.

On the conductive front, PureEnergy Solutions has licensed its WildCharge Technology to other companies. All licensees feature a WildCharge Mark of Interoperability on their products so consumers know which products are compatible with the WildCharge charging pad.

Duracell uses this technology in its MyGrid line of products (http://3.ly/A7Yh), including the $85 iPhone Starter Kit and a $90 cellphone starter kit. RadioShack will use WildCharge Technology in its $50 Enercell Charging Pad (http://3.ly/6gcY), which will be available in June, and skins for devices that charge on these pads will cost about $30 each.

In the future, hopefully, one of these committees will figure out which technology is best to establish one standard that saves people from using a rat’s nest of power cords.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110215/its-hard-to-cut-the-charging-cords/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110208/social-enterprise-apps-are-popular-and-so-is-attacking-chatter/ http://allthingsd.com/20110208/social-enterprise-apps-are-popular-and-so-is-attacking-chatter/#comments Tue, 08 Feb 2011 20:06:57 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/?p=2938 Get out your scorecards. There’s yet another social enterprise play to keep track of. And like all the others, it’s being actively marketed as an alternative to Chatter.com, the social enterprise app from Salesforce.com.

BroadVision today announced Clearvale Express, which it describes as a free and streamlined version of Clearvale Enterprise, its cloud-based business collaboration platform. It was created in part at the suggestion of Softbank, the Japanese telecom concern that is a partner on the product and will resell it in Asian markets.

Above, that’s an ad for Clearvale Express evoking the old “Pepsi challenge” ads from the early 1980s. In this case, Chatter is being portrayed as “Coke,” the established player being challenged by the upstart, which is silly because Chatter is a relatively new player in an increasingly crowded social enterprise market, though Salesforce is clearly the biggest among the new entrants.

Bashing Salesforce is suddenly trendy. On Sunday, Yammer and Socialcast were spotted buying text ads on Google using the word “chatter” in hopes of catching the odd Google user responding to the pair of TV ads for Chatter.com that aired during the Super Bowl.

And that followed an attack video put out by Yammer highlighting how Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff loved Yammer at a 2008 TechCrunch event and accusing him of basically copying it. You can see that video below. Then there’s Jive, which used an industry survey to try to make a case that it’s a worthier player in the space than Chatter or anyone else, for that matter.

I’m betting there’s more of this public pile-on ahead, though with luck it will be followed by a round of deal-making. Last year, Gartner estimated the 2011 market opportunity for all these apps at less than $800 million and said that it’s tracking at least 80 vendors, at least 50 of which are based in the cloud. That makes the social enterprise market seem like small potatoes at first until you see Gartner’s prediction that these apps will replace email–Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes–as the primary tool for collaboration in businesses for 20 percent of companies within three years.

Combine that with a longer-term shift away from email–by teens, college-age people and younger people entering the workforce–and toward communication via Facebook and things like it, and you’ve got the makings of a fundamental shift in what’s considered normal as workplace technology. No wonder they’re taking swipes at each other. It is, however, already getting old .

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110208/social-enterprise-apps-are-popular-and-so-is-attacking-chatter/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110207/engine-yard-ceo-john-dillon-talks-about-competing-against-his-old-company-salesforce-com/ http://allthingsd.com/20110207/engine-yard-ceo-john-dillon-talks-about-competing-against-his-old-company-salesforce-com/#comments Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:00:18 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/?p=2873 When Salesforce.com acquired the cloud development platform company Heroku for $212 million late last year, a lot of people were surprised.

John Dillon, the CEO of Engine Yard, was one of them. Dillon was CEO of Salesforce from 1999 until 2001, when he was ousted by founder and current CEO Marc Benioff. Heroku specializes in the development of Web applications on Ruby on Rails. So does Engine Yard. Now his old company is a competitor. He shared a few thoughts about that in an interview last week. But here are the highlights: First, he thinks Salesforce overpaid for Heroku. Second, he thinks the deal is an admission that Force.com, Salesforce’s own application development environment, isn’t working.

NewEnterprise: So John, what did you first think about the Heroku deal?

John Dillon: I certainly didn’t expect to compete with Salesforce. First of all, we know the Heroku guys really well. We even talked at one point about combining the companies. They’re into Ruby on Rails, which is the best environment for building applications in the cloud. We’re kind of going after the same market. They were going after smaller players and we were doing more industrial-size customers. Both companies had been approached to be acquired at different times, and in either case the deals didn’t get done. We had pretty good confidence in our future. So then Marc Benioff goes out and spends more than $200 million for a company doing maybe $2 to $3 million in revenue. It’s kind of an unbelievable multiple. Of course its a massive endorsement of Ruby on Rails, but it’s also an admission that Force.com isn’t working. You don’t spend that much to buy some additional technology if your core product is working well. I think they’re struggling, and I think they’ve created a bit of a Frankenstein.

You really seem to think Salesforce overpaid for Heroku.

Absolutely. It was somewhere between 80 and 100 times revenue. When VMware bought SpringSource it paid maybe 20 times revenue and that was considered a phenomenal deal.

If that’s true, why do you think Marc Benioff would pay that much?

Because he was desperate to find a way to shore up Force.com. He’s been touting it for three to four years and it hasn’t lived up to expectations.

So what does Engine Yard bring to the table?

We deliver a lot of the components you need to build and deploy and run applications in the cloud. There some 20 to 30 components, the load-balancers and Web servers and app servers, and databases, and Ruby on Rails. What we’ve done is we’ve integrated all that, and we’ve automated the ability to provision it and we’ve hardened it. That means the development team doesn’t have to worry about any of that. And that’s where you make a lot of mistakes that can cause your Web site to go down. But because we’ve used mostly open source, there’s not some big cost that you have to bear, when you’re using someone like Oracle that sells you all this stuff, and then you have to pay 20 percent a year in maintenance. Our customers pay us for success. Building the application is inexpensive. You can build it and if it doesn’t work you can throw it away. But when you build it and deploy it and lots of people use it that you start paying because it’s based on resource consumption.

Who are your customers?

They’re all over the map. And then we have your traditional enterprise companies. From a Web standpoint, we have Get Satisfaction. We have gaming companies like Playmesh that make social games for the iPhone. Most of our enterprise customers don’t let us name them. But we have a few Fortune 500 accounts. About 20 to 30 percent of the time we have customers who sign up using a credit card and we call them up and find they’re inside some household-name corporation.

What kind of an exit are you contemplating? IPO or get acquired?

I’m building the company to go the distance. We have the market opportunity and the executive management talent, and we have the business traction. So it seems very doable. The IPO market hasn’t been very friendly. If it opens up I think we’re a strong candidate to IPO in a couple years. It’s not very much fun to be a public company. We have a very real shot at it. But I also think this is going to be a really wild period in M&A activity. I think a lot of companies that don’t understand the cloud are going to buy their way in because they’re otherwise going to get left behind. Our investors are in it for the long haul and I have plenty of money and access to plenty of money. But if Salesforce is going to pay more than $200 million for Heroku then I like what our value looks like.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110207/engine-yard-ceo-john-dillon-talks-about-competing-against-his-old-company-salesforce-com/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20110202/u-s-firms-china-are-locked-in-major-war-over-technology/ http://allthingsd.com/20110202/u-s-firms-china-are-locked-in-major-war-over-technology/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:29:51 +0000 John Bussey http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=35817 A titanic battle is under way between U.S. business and China, a battle reflected in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last week and destined to dominate relations between the two countries for years.

The new initiatives–shaped by rising nationalism and a belief that foreign companies unfairly dominate key technologies—range from big investments in national industries to patent laws that favor Chinese companies and mandates that essentially require foreign companies to transfer technology to China if they hope to sell in that market.

To hear U.S. business executives describe it, Beijing’s mammoth new industrial policy is like the Borg in “Star Trek”—an enormous organic machine assimilating everything in its path, in this case the inventions of other nations. Notably, China’s road map, which is enshrined in the “National Medium- and Long-Term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology (2006-2020),” talks in those terms. China will build its dominance by “enhancing original innovation through co-innovation and re-innovation based on the assimilation of imported technologies.”

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110202/u-s-firms-china-are-locked-in-major-war-over-technology/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110202/murdochs-daily-the-details/ http://allthingsd.com/20110202/murdochs-daily-the-details/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:00:29 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=56974
At the launch of the Daily, News Corp.’s iPad newspaper this morning, CEO Rupert Murdoch said, “New times demand new journalism.” What does that “new journalism” look like? The details below:

• Over 100 pages of original news, life, entertainment, opinion and sports–every single day of the year
• Original video content
• A selection of articles read aloud
• 360-degree photos you can explore by swiping
• Immersive photography
• Interactive charts, info-graphics and clickable “hot spots”
• The option to save articles to read later
• Web-friendly versions of articles you can share via Twitter, Facebook and email
• In-app comments–including audio comments
• Your local weather
• Your favorite sports teams’ scores, news and feeds
• Crossword and Sudoku puzzles

Pull all this together for a $40 yearly subscription fee (or $.99 a week) and you get what Murdoch says is the model for how stories will be told from now on. “With the Daily, we are taking the best of traditional journalism–competitive shoe-leather journalism and a skeptical eye–and combining it with the best of technology, such as 360-degree photographs,” he said today. “The iPad demands that we completely rethink our craft. The Daily is not a legacy brand moving from the print to the digital world….We believe the Daily will be the model for how stories are told in the digital age.”

(Disclosure: News Corp. also owns this Web site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110202/murdochs-daily-the-details/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20110202/live-from-the-dailys-debut/ http://allthingsd.com/20110202/live-from-the-dailys-debut/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 15:40:14 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=29109 It’s time, finally, for News Corp. to show off the Daily, the iPad newspaper it has been building for some six months.

This debut was supposed to happen a few weeks ago in San Francisco, with Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs sharing stage time. Instead, Murdoch will show off his new publication at the Guggenheim in New York, with Apple content boss Eddy Cue stepping in for Jobs.

We’ve got a very good idea of what to expect: A newspaper that’s both old-fashioned and cutting-edge, which will sell for 99 cents a week or $40 a year. And the best way to experience the new publication will be on an iPad, not at a museum.

Still, it will be interesting to hear News Corp. pitch this one in real time, and to see how it leverages all of its resources and a very rare Apple endorsement. (This Web site, we should note, is owned by News Corp. as well.)

10:40 am: Greetings! So excited to be in the Guggenheim that I’m starting this one a few minutes early.

10:44 am: And here’s Jon Miller, who has been shepherding this thing at News Corp. Here’s some fresh scoop! The Daily will be be live onstage for the demo, he says, but won’t appear at the app store until noon.

[Note: The Daily can be found here at the Apple App Store]

10:47 am: Miller is working the room very well; now chatting up Reuters’ Ken Li.

10:48 And Steve Rubenstein, who has been handling PR for the Daily launch. He semi-taunts me by noting that there were tasty canapés at Rupert Murdoch’s private party Tuesday night.

10:49 am: If you’d simply like to watch a livestream of the event, minus my commentary, head to thedaily.com at 11 ET.

10:50 am: That sound you hear is the rustle of departing page views.

10:51 am: Cunning of the News Corp./Rubenstein/event-planning crew to split up the press by species. Gives us something to talk about.

10:52 am: BREAKING NEWS! Jon Miller says Wi-Fi here at the Guggenheim has been working “intermittently.”

10:52 am: WAAAAAAY More interesting is that Engadget’s Joanna Stern being hassled for daring to take out a camera during a press conference. She is being moved three seats back. Where that’s OK, apparently.

10:56 am: Pre-launch music, btw: Some kinda samba thing going on. Festive and, dare I say, a smidge bit sexy. Rowr!

10:58 am: Slightly curious is that registration staff told media that they’ll have “review units” available after presser. But everyone in media has an iPad, right? It’s required, no?

Perhaps the notion is that the presser will end before noon, and the Daily won’t be available until then, so if you want to get hands-on in the meantime, that’s the way to go. Which would be smart!

On the other hand, if they’re simply handing out free “review” units to the press, well, that’s kinda smart too. Because the press likes free stuff.

11:03 am: Our crack tech guy Adam Tow tells me TheDaily.com site is now saying that the app will be available at noon ET. I can’t see that on my screen, but I’ll take his word for it.

Especially because that’s what Jon Miller said a few minutes ago.

11:05 am: Given News Corp. pub WSJ’s focus on privacy, and Apple’s, interesting to review the Daily’s:

When you use the Services, we may collect certain non-personally identifiable information about that use. For example, in order to permit your connection to the Services via the Internet, our servers receive and record information about your computer and browser, including potentially your IP address, browser type, and other software or hardware information. If you access the Services from a mobile or other device, we may also collect transactional information such as a unique device identifier assigned to that device (“UDID”), your geolocation, or other transactional information for the device in order to serve content to it. We also may use cookies and other tracking technologies (including browser cookies, pixels, beacons, and Adobe Flash technology including cookies), which are comprised of small bits of data that often include an anonymous unique identifier. Websites send this data to your browser when you first request a web page and then store the data on your computer so the web site can access information when you make subsequent requests for pages from that site. We may use these technologies to collect and store information about your use of the Services, such as pages you have visited, search queries you have run, and advertisements you have seen.

11:06 am: And we’re live. Here’s Rupert Murdoch, iPad in hand.

“Good morning. I’m Rupert Murdoch.”

Thanks for the “amazing Steve Jobs,” a man who has “single-handedly changed the world” of technology and media.

“Steve has been a champion of the Daily from day 1.”

“New times demand new journalism.” [hrm]

Trying to take best of traditional journalism, including “shoe-leather reporting” editing, “a skeptical eye” [hrm!] and combine them with awesome tech.

“”Simply put, the iPad demands that we completely re-imagine our craft”

Shooting for audience that is sophisticated and reads a lot, but not print.

We have that, but it’s niche. No “true news discovery.” The magic of newspapers “and great blog” lies in “serendipity.”
True!

Similarly, we must make the business of news-gathering viable again.

Goal is to be indispensable source for news and entertainment. “A robust new voice.”

Shout-outs to Jesse Angelo and Greg Clayman, who run editorial and business, respectively, for the new pub.

Daily will be 14 cents a day–99 cents a week–because no printing, delivery costs, etc.

More superlatives for the Daily, including a “sense of fun.”

Target audience is “tablet” audience–[note emphasis on tablet, not iPad].

And a shout-out to Jon Miller, too.

[Unless I misheard and it was News Corp. CTO John McKinley.]

“We believe the Daily will be the model for how stories are told and how they’re consumed.”

And another shout-out to “all our friends at Apple”

Okay. Here are Miller, Angelo, Clayman.

11:13 am: Miller starting off. Not a demo–this is live production.

Trying to figure out how to produce new news for tablet era. “We think we’ve developed that.”

Angelo shows off home screen of the Daily, with Egypt as main headline. Applause.

Have been doing live production for about six weeks.

11:14 am: They have a reporter on the ground in Cairo right now. Josh Hirsch [sp?].

Lots of big pictures, video embedded in text.

And here’s one of the 360-degree photos. Which look cool!

Can put audio behind them, etc.

HD video–here’s a clip about prisoners making toys in Angola prison. Note the bluesy background music. ’Cause it’s about a prison, duh.

11:16 am: Back to Miller. Have rethought navigation.

11:17 am: Back to Angelo, showing off swipey carousel. Sorta silly to describe this to you in a liveblog, but there’s a “play” function and a “shuffle function,” and a video anchor who will discuss the main stories of the day.

11:18 am: Back to MIller. “The Daily is not an island” can share to Facebook, Twitter, email.

11:18 am: Angelo: We can also pull HTML5 pages into device. Can also link out. [Subtext--we are TOTALLY NOT ignoring the Web, you dummies. We're not idiots.]

Bringing Twitter feeds directly into app. So you can see what Lily Allen (used to be semi-famous a couple of years ago) has to say about something.

11:19 am: Miller: We have apps and games section, with a link directly to Apple Store.

And we have an awesome sports section [sounds familiar!].

11:20 am: Angelo: Yes, check out our awesome sports section. Troy Polamalu talking about Clay Matthews’s hair.

“For sports fans, we really think this is the showstopper”–customizable sports filter by team/sport, brings in scores, tweets, etc.

11:21 am: Miller: Publishing once a day, with updates throughout the day “as the news warrants.”

Verizon sponsoring first two weeks of free subscriptions.

11:22 am: The art in this liveblog, by the way, is coming directly from livestream. Nice job, Adam Tow.

11:22 am: Here’s Eddy Cue. Never seen him before. A very, very, very big deal in media circles.

Running through iPad, iOs success. iPad customers are huge news eaters. 200 million news apps downloaded so far.

I’ve been using the Daily for the last two weeks. “It’s amazing.” Amazing that it’s done every single day. More superlatives, etc.

Basically, a repeat of what Miller et al just said.

Okay. Here are the new details on push subscriptions. First time Apple has used this tech. 99 cents a day, $40 a year. [ahem].

11:26 am: And now, oddly, press conference comes to a halt for a photo opp.

11:26 am: Waiting for them to set up chairs for Q&A.

Questions and Answers

How will back issues be handled? Where will old copies be stored?

Angelo: Best thing to do is to save articles you care about. And it will also be archived on the Web. Internal archiving not there for 1.0.

Q: When will other pubs start using subscription option?

Announcement “very soon for other news publications.”

Q: How will you measure impressions, etc. for advertising?

Miller: Will have tech built into app for that. I should have mentioned during presentation that we love advertisers.

Q: For Rupe: How will you measure success?

A: We want to sell millions. But keep costs low. We have spent $30 million so far, “all of which has been written off in figures we’ll announce today.” But overall costs $500,000 a week going forward.

Q: Another question about subscriptions.

A: A non-answer from Cue.

Q: Who/what does Daily compete with? And how will other News Corp. properties be integrated?

A: Miller: Gotta compete with everything. “you’re competing with Angry Birds at some level.” [Hey that's my line!]

Murdoch: In NY, for example, we already have multiple outlets competing with each other. This is another.

Q: What about breaking news? How will that work?

A: Angelo talking up twitter feeds, sports scores, but “we can drop in a new page if we want to, and we will.” BUT! As a conusmer, I don’t like Web sites that change constantly. It’s not a great experience. [THAT IS: This is a newspaper, not a Web site.]

Q: What’s the political tone of this thing. Centrist, right?

A: Murdoch: “The editorial position will be in the hands of the editor.” Cue Angelo, who sorta hedges. On op-ed page, “We’re patriotic.”

Q: Someone wants to know if Rupert is really into this. Also, will there be an Australian version?

Murdoch. Duh.

(An Australian version “always a possibility.”)

Q: Why do this with the Daily instead of existing brands. Also, what’s up with your phone hacking newspapers in the U.K.?

A: Murdoch: Existing tablet apps are what got me excited about launching a new one. No comment on “the other matter.”

Q: You’ll be working with other tablets besides iPad, right?

A: Murdoch. Yes. And “we’ve been quite honest with Apple about that.” We’ll defnintely be on all platforms. But Apple will be the dominant one this year, in my opinion.

[Sorry, missed a Q. Seems to be about what apps Murdoch likes.]

Q: More about the editorial voice, please.

A: Angelo: Thinking it through. We know that people spend a lot of time with these apps–35 minutes, 40 minutes. “It’s unbelievable.” So how do you create content rich enough to keep people there?

Q: What did Steve Jobs say about this in the last couple of days?

A: Murdoch: “He did call me last week” and told me app was “really terrific. He was extremely flattering.”

Q: How will people find this stuff, since it’s not on the Web?

A: Cue: We’ve downloaded 10 billion apps. People can find this stuff.

Miller: We feel really good about this. We didn’t want to make compromises.

Q: I ask about what’s available on the Web.

A: Some of it will be mirrored on the Web, when it can be done technically. [Sorry, hard to type and write.]

[Sorry, now even more confused about what's available on the Web and what isn't. Going to have to follow up with the gang later.]

[Where's Greg Clayman, by the way?]

11:47 am: Q: How do you balance a subscription model with a large audience that advertisers want?

Murdoch: “They’d pay a much lower rate per thousand if it was free. They realize it’s something that people want.” And we can tell them more about who sees it. “It’s not just scattered out there….We’ll draw a better class of advertiser, and a better rate.”

11:48 am: Q: What’s the split between ad and subscription revenue?

Miller: Subscription will be larger at start, and then eventually 50-50, “which is the magic number.”

And we’re done. Will try to follow up, may have more answers/comments here, or in a separate post. Thanks for checking in!

---

Here is the press release announcing the Daily:

Introducing The Daily

First National Daily News Publication Created for iPad Launches today in the Apple App Store

New York, NY, February 2, 2011 – Today Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of News Corporation, unveiled The Daily — the industry’s first national daily news publication created from the ground up for iPad.

“New times demand new journalism,” said Mr. Murdoch. “So we built The Daily completely from scratch — on the most innovative device to come about in my time — the iPad.”

“The magic of great newspapers — and great blogs — lies in their serendipity and surprise, and the touch of a good editor,” continued Mr. Murdoch. “We’re going to bring that magic to The Daily — to inform people, to make them think, to help themengage in the great issues of the day. And as we continue to improve and evolve, we are going to use the best in new technology to push the boundaries of reporting.”

The Daily’s unique mix of text, photography, audio, video, information graphics, touch interactivity and real-time data and social feeds provides its editors with the ability to decide not only which stories are most important — but also the best format to deliver these stories to their readers.

“News Corp. is redefining the news experience with The Daily,” says Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think it is terrific and iPad users are really going to embrace it.”

Led by Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo and Publisher Greg Clayman, The Daily is the first application made available on the App Store as a subscription — which will be billed directly to an iTunes account. And because this paperless paper requires no multi-million dollar presses or delivery trucks, it will be priced at just 99 cents a week (or $39.99 for an annual subscription).

“The Daily launches at a moment when advances in technology are changing the job of the modern editor,” says Mr. Angelo. “These advances are giving us new ways to tell stories. We intend to take advantage of all of them, and make The Daily the new voice for a new era.”

Each day The Daily will publish up to 100 pages focused on six key areas: news, sports, gossip and celebrity, opinion, arts and life, and apps and games. It will offer views from across the political spectrum. They will come from across cultures and generations, across America and the world.

The Daily will feature Sudoku and crossword puzzles, localized weather reports, and a customizablesports package that captures news on the user’s favorite teams. Subscribers will also be able to leave comments on Daily stories in either written or audio form — as well as bookmark them in-app to read later.

As readers move through The Daily’s content, they will be helped by several highly intuitive navigation tools. And while The Daily lives on the iPad, most of its articles can be easily shared via Facebook, Twitter and email. The Daily will link out to the web, as well as bring the web into the app.

“In short, says Mr. Murdoch, “we believe The Daily will be the model for how stories are told and consumed in this digital age.”

The Daily has bureaus in New York and Los Angeles, as well as stringers across the country. Full companybios are available at TheDaily.com/about. Executive staff includes:

John Kilpatrick – Executive Creative Director
Steve Alperin – Managing Editor
Mike Nizza – Managing Editor, News
Richard Johnson – LA Bureau Chief
Sasha Frere-Jones – Editor, Arts & Life
Chris D’Amico – Editor, Sports
Elisabeth Eaves – Editor, Opinion
Peter Ha – Editor, Apps, Games and Technology

The Daily is also changing the way advertising is offered and consumed within a news publication. Full-page ad units are completely interactive, customizable, and offer a rich mix of branding and direct response opportunities. Launch advertisers include HBO,Macy’s, Paramount, Pepsi Max, Range Rover, Verizon, and Virgin Atlantic Airways.

“With The Daily, Rupert Murdoch has given us the chance to rethink the entire experience of news delivery and consumption,” said Mr. Clayman. “The ability to actively listen to and engage with our audience means we can continually provide an experiencethat consumers value in this fast-evolving tablet space. Together with our customers, our advertising partners, and the team at The Daily, we are excited to create a new form of media.”

About The Daily
The Daily is a first-of-its-kind daily national news publication built exclusively as an application for tablet computing. It provides readers the engaging experience of a magazine combined with the immediacy of the web and the need-to-know content of a newspaper, all while elevating user experience beyond the printed word. The Daily is a subscription-based news product, published 365 days a year, at the cost of $0.99 cents a week or $39.99 a year. For more information on The Daily go to: www.thedaily.com.

Finally, here are screenshots from The Daily’s listing in the App Store:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110202/live-from-the-dailys-debut/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20110202/new-digg-ceo-calls-previous-launch-a-tragedy-commits-to-community/ http://allthingsd.com/20110202/new-digg-ceo-calls-previous-launch-a-tragedy-commits-to-community/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:30:10 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=3127 Matt Williams was named CEO of Digg late last summer, just a week after the social news service pushed a long-awaited relaunch that went terribly wrong, taking its site down and upsetting users (and when Digg users are angry, they let you know!).

Now, five months into the job, Williams is finding a voice of his own, separate from Digg founder Kevin Rose’s, and trying it out on the Digg community; the longtime veteran of Amazon recently participated in a well-received Digg Dialogg video interview, posted on Tuesday, to answer user questions. (It’s viewable here).

“There was a launch that was in violent disagreement with what our community expected out of the Web site,” Williams told Leo Laporte, who facilitated the interview based on Digg users’ questions. “It’s truly a tragedy of the ages, to some extent.”

But Digg is still a “very vibrant Web site,” with close to 20 million monthly unique visitors, Williams said, and the opportunity to hone a focus on social news that other companies may not have.

(Plus, despite layoffs, a perceived lack of relevancy relative to other social start-ups and multiple leadership changes, Digg still has plenty of money in the bank.)

“It is our top priority to rejuvenate the community,” Williams said.

Digg’s latest launch, called V4, was seen by many as a move to devalue the site’s homegrown community. V4 was the most significant in a string of product changes that took power away from the small body of users that set the agenda for the news site and gave a stronger voice to publishers and Digg’s own curators. And V4 was also an overdue, complete technology overhaul that left out many much-loved features.

In the Laporte interview, Williams quickly tackled precise details about previous features the Digg community wants reinstalled, noting, for instance, that the site has already brought back the “bury” button, allowing users to counteract other users’ votes on submitted stories. He said Digg is also planning future features such as a honing of its news-ranking algorithms for slower weekend traffic, when less-worthy stories may make it to the top.

Beyond those tweaks, Digg will make large-scale efforts to become more personalized, said Williams, and to create communities around specific topics. That’s not necessarily something that the old-time crowd will love, but it may make the site more useful for a broader audience.

Williams encouraged users not just to visit the site, but to comment on and vote up stories with Diggs; those participatory behaviors have decreased as a portion of overall traffic since the launch of V4, he said.

Being the voice of Digg is no small task, and it’s not just because of the company’s hypercritical user base. Digg has long been associated with the founding presence of TV and online video host Kevin Rose. And until Williams joined, Rose had been interim CEO after longtime leader Jay Adelson was pushed out of the company in April. Now Rose is occupied with his many angel investments, a new video show and a newsletter called “Foundation.”

Digg users were uncharacteristically positive in the comments section of the Williams interview entry. (The friendly tone makes me wonder if the old crowd has indeed high-tailed it somewhere else!) “Digg is in good hands,” said one. “I must say that Digg is doing a fantastic job listening to the community and implementing new features,” said another. One user even acknowledged, “I realize changes take time to implement.”

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