AllThingsD » textbook

Start-Up Slader Looks to Solve the Math Homework Problem

Drake Martinet — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 23:36:25 +0000

Slader, a quiet New York-based start-up, is picking away at what the school-attending quarter of this country’s population would probably list as the biggest pain point in their young lives.

Homework.

Of course, textbook publishers, test-prep services and an army of private tutors have been making a fortune from it for decades.

But co-founders Scott Kolb and Kyle Gerrity are building a service to take homework help, or at least math homework help, in a new direction.

For those readers who haven’t been assigned math homework in a while, let me set the stage.

A high school pre-calculus teacher, using one of five or so major math textbooks on the subject, assigns homework — let’s say Chapter 1, Section 1, problems 1-30. Remember to show your work.

Most of these text books have solution sets in the back, usually only for every other problem.

Are you having terrible high school flashbacks yet?

The answers in the back are almost always just that, numerical answers, and offer no help to someone who hasn’t any idea how they might arrive at that answer on their own.

Solutions is where Slader steps in.

Slader spent all last summer with a bunch of math nerds, developing step-by-step solutions to most of the math problems in most of the high school math books used in this country — at last count, that’s about a million solutions in 275 textbooks.

Slader users, who are a mix of math students and the parents tasked with homework help, log in to the Web-based service and spend “points” to see the fully-formed solutions, and, hopefully, to learn something as well.

Users pay for blocks of points, or subscribe for an allotment of points every day, or they buy “gold,” which is transferable to other Slader users and can be converted to points.

While this might sound overly complicated, the reason for the monetary obfuscation has to do with the convoluted economics of high school finances.

Co-founder Kolb explained:

“Our customers are sometimes parents who have credit cards, but we are also seeing demand from students, many of whom do conduct transactions online even if they don’t have a card to do it with. Kids buy pre-paid debit cards with cash, pay friends with credit or debit cards to buy things online, or use PayPal.”

Economics aside, the Slader team does have some serious issues ahead if they intend to scale beyond the current beta product.

According to Gerrity, every three years or so textbook publishers issue new editions of their math books that are then adopted at different rates across the country.

It’s that variation that turned the roughly 100 distinct math texts Slader covers into 275 versions, and in most cases, “Problem 47 would become problem 48 in the next edition,” Gerrity said. “We have the data, but every time [textbook publishers] release a new edition, we have to go through the whole thing with a giant Excel spreadsheet, even though it’s 99 percent the same.”

That means staffing is a huge part of scaling, and for a small start-up, that means a need for outside money, which it has done without thus far, aside from a small angel investment.

And growth won’t simply come from adding more textbook solutions, either.

Gerrity said that Slader’s current growth is driven by word of mouth within high school friend groups.

“We’ll see a sign-up from some school we’ve never seen before, and pretty soon there will be 12 more,” Gerrity said. “A little Facebook digging will reveal that all 12 are on the track team together or something.”

Kolb said he hoped to better monitor, track and understand that kind of viral growth, but that problem is certainly complicated enough to be the value proposition of a whole separate company.

Barriers aside, the 2010 U.S. census puts Slader’s potential market size at near 20 million high school-aged people, not to mention the parents and teachers whose job it is to help with all that math homework.

Even regional market domination could mean big business for the start-up, but Slader hasn’t arrived at that solution just yet.

I met up with Kolb and Gerrity during a recent fundraising trip to the West Coast, and shot a little video interview:

[ See post to watch video ]

Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt Joins Kno Board

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:01:45 +0000

Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt will join the board of Kno, the online education start-up.

He is currently the principal at REH Advisors.

The Silicon Valley-based Kno began its life offering a student-aimed tablet and education platform, but now is focusing solely on the software part of its business.

The company announced plans this summer to allow those who buy textbooks from Kno to read them on Facebook and via the Web. It also has an Apple iPad app that takes the product beyond just an electronic version of a traditional textbook.

Kno’s current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway. Marc Andreessen, as well as co-founders Osman Rashid (also CEO) and Babur Habib (also CTO), are also on its board.

Here is the official press release about Hundt’s appointment as a Kno director:

FORMER FCC CHAIRMAN REED HUNDT JOINS KNO INC.’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Hundt Brings Unparalleled Experience in Education and Communications

Santa Clara, CA, November 1, 2011 — Today, Kno, Inc., www.kno.com, a pioneer in education software, announced that the company has named Reed Hundt, former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to its Board of Directors.

“I’m very excited to join Kno’s Board of Directors because the company shares my passion for education,” said Reed Hundt. “While I was at the FCC, one of my highest priorities was making sure our nation’s classrooms were connected to the Internet, precisely in order to foster a software revolution in learning. I believe that Kno’s student-focused software will bring education into the 21st century and help transform the way students learn now and in the future.”

Hundt brings decades of relevant experience to Kno’s Board and is a long-time advocate for technological innovation in education. He is currently the Principal at REH Advisors, an advisory firm that serves clients on a variety of issues. Prior to establishing REH Advisors, Hundt served as an Adviser to McKinsey and Company for more than 10 years, as well as a Member of the National Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, among other distinguished roles.

Hundt served as Chairman of the FCC from 1993-1997 and played a major role in implementing the Snowe-Rockefeller program that directs more than $4 billion annually to connect all classrooms to the Internet and is hailed as one of the largest single national commitments to K-12 education in American history.

“The work Reed accomplished while Chairman of the FCC makes him an exceptional addition to our Board and his expansive knowledge of the education technology space will serve Kno tremendously in its efforts to improve how students learn,” said Osman Rashid, co-Founder and CEO of Kno, Inc.

Babur Habib, co-Founder and CTO of Kno, Inc. continued, “Hundt brings decades of relevant experience to Kno’s Board and is a long-time advocate for technological innovation in education. We look forward to working closely with Reed to help guide us as we extend our reach to professors and administrators.”

Hundt has also taught seminars at the Yale Law School, Yale School of Management, Yale College, and Columbia Business and Law Schools, demonstrating his passion of education. He also serves on the Boards of Intel Corporation, Serious Energy and UNCF, an educational assistance organization.

Hundt holds a B.A. in History from Yale College and a J.D. from Yale Law School. He also is the author of “In China’s Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship and You Say You Want a Revolution: A Story of Information Age Politics.”

Chegg Buys Zinch in Another Move Toward a "Social Education Platform"

Kara Swisher — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:00:03 +0000

Chegg — best known for online rentals of textbooks to college students — said it has just bought Zinch, a start-up that links high school students and college recruiters.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The purchase of the San Francisco-based Zinch, said CEO Dan Rosensweig in an interview earlier this week, is part of a larger plan involving a series of acquisitions aimed at “how we move from two-day relevance to relevance all year around for students.”

By that, he meant the short time period when students either buy or rent their textbooks for the semester.

That’s certainly been a good business for Chegg, which is the leader in the online textbook-rental arena, including digital distribution.

But to further solidify its relationship with students and expand its market base to include high schoolers along with college consumers, Chegg has picked up a number of start-ups like Zinch, using its stock and also the whopping $220 million in funding from a number of venture firms, including Kleiner Perkins.

In late September, for example, the company bought CourseRank, which helps students share course schedules, take classes with friends, and read and write reviews on classes and professors, as well as find out how they grade.

Also scooped up by Chegg: Notehall, which is a student-to-student note-taking trading market; Cramster, a social homework helper; and Student of Fortune, a homework-answers site for student questions (which a recent filing by Chegg noted was bought for $5.9 million in stock).

Also being tested are such offerings as deals for students and other ways to leverage the original textbook relationship.

“This is the beginning of a connected student network that we hope to build into a giant platform,” said Rosensweig. “We want to have a student using us all the way through for a 10-year span, from high school on.”

In related news, Chegg said it has hired former Palm CFO Andrew Brown as its new CFO. Prior to Palm, he served as the CFO of Pillar Data Systems Inc., a storage start-up funded by Oracle’s Larry Ellison.

While a CFO hiring often indicates a soon-to-happen IPO, Rosensweig said that Chegg has more than enough capital, needs to focus on building up its offerings and is in no rush to go public.

We’ll see, but here’s the official press release from Chegg about Zinch:

Chegg Plans to Expand into $7 Billion College Recruiting Market and Increase Student Base By Over 3.5 Million

Chegg enters into a definitive agreement to acquire Zinch, the leading digital network that helps high school students research, connect with and pay for college

SANTA CLARA, Calif., September 15, 2011 – Chegg today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Zinch. The acquisition is subject to standard closing conditions and is expected to be completed by the end of this month. The acquisition will expand Chegg’s social education platform into high schools. Zinch, founded in 2007, connects prospective college and graduate students to scholarships, admissions officers and other students who have been through the same process.

The acquisition of Zinch, with over 3.5 million members, $1.9 billion in scholarships and over 5,000 school profiles, will significantly expand Chegg’s customer base and its social education platform. Colleges and students will be able to connect more effectively for less through Chegg, helping to streamline the college recruiting process globally. In addition, unlike any other company in the education space, Chegg will provide resources to students at every major milestone before, during and after their college career — including bridging the gap from high school to college.

“Our mission has always been to save students time, money and help them get smarter,” said Dan Rosensweig, president and CEO of Chegg. “With our acquisition of Zinch, we’re extending our mission to high school students through the $7 billion college recruiting market, while continuing to break down the barriers of a college education, from the high cost of tuition and textbooks to helping students make money, pick their courses and get the academic help they need.”

At Zinch, over 3.5 million students have built online profiles to showcase themselves as “more than test scores” to shine in the admissions process, and to be matched with schools and scholarships that might be a good fit. Colleges and universities worldwide, including more than half of the US News top ranked national universities, use Zinch for cost-effective student recruiting and outreach.

“Getting in and paying for school is daunting. Together, Chegg and Zinch can not only make higher education more affordable and accessible, it gives students an edge in finding the right school, getting admitted and reducing the cost. Students can put their best foot forward, be recognized for their achievements and be discovered by programs that fit their interests,” said Anne Dwane, CEO of Zinch.

The acquisition is subject to standard closing conditions and is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
To learn more about Chegg’s social education platform and its network of services, go to www.chegg.com.

My Picks for Yahoo's Next CEO -- Maybe Snoop Dogg, Ya Digg?

Kara Swisher — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 14:00:32 +0000

The firing of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz leaves open one of the bigger and more difficult jobs in tech — one that has taken its toll on many.

Nonetheless, rapper Snoop Dogg stepped right up to the Twitter plate yesterday, as soon as news broke of the ouster.

Tweeted Snoop Dogg:

“Im takn over as tha CEO of Yahoo. Need sum of tha Snoop Dogg content ya digg. Nuff Said.”

Not nearly nuff!

Thus, while the Yahoo board has yet to begin a search, I have already been hard at work on selecting the next CEO.

(Last time, the company took none of my suggestions, but after the most recent result, the directors might want to pay mind!)

Sources said Yahoo is looking for an experienced Internet type, either from inside or outside the company.

“Yahoo has put its flag in the ground as a digital media company with a technology base,” said one source. “The job requires big buckets of expertise and needs someone who will grow the company.”

Here I go with the outsiders:

Peter Chernin: The former News Corp. exec has been eyeing Yahoo for a possible takeover with other investors. Both Yahoo and I had picked him when co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down as CEO almost three years ago, and he had declined the offer. This time, perhaps a big chunk of the company and total autonomy would work, even if making a hit like “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is more fun.

Sheryl Sandberg: The COO of Facebook is sort of the anti-Bartz, with a smooth and efficient persona, and she is an experienced tech exec. But the former Google exec is at a place of growth at the social networking site, and is unlikely to want to leave the big show, especially since a blockbuster IPO is looming.

Jason Kilar: The Hulu CEO is in the midst of the process of selling the premium video service, with Yahoo as a bidder. While he has some tense relations with the studios, Kilar is top notch in his dedication to consumer products, and has a lot of experience from his stint at Amazon, too.

Dan Rosensweig: Currently CEO of IPO-headed Chegg textbook rental service, the former Yahoo exec never got a chance to run the company as its top leader. Well-connected and still well-liked by the troops at Yahoo, it still would be pretty hard for him to go home again.

Dave Goldberg: Sure, he’s married to Sandberg (see above), but the savvy CEO of polling phenom SurveyMonkey is one of the sharpest thinkers in Silicon Valley. He sold his music company to Yahoo many years ago and has a strong background in consumer online services.

Jon Miller: The chief digital exec at News Corp. almost got the CEO spot years ago when Carl Icahn was agitating for change at Yahoo, before Time Warner blocked him via a noncompete. With the mishegas at the media giant, and dwindling digital businesses there, it might be a good escape hatch for Miller.

Susan Wojcicki: The accomplished Google exec, who runs all its ad products, has the kind of calm, cool, collected persona that Yahoo could use right about now. The search giant was founded in her garage, and she has been a key part of its success since then. Wojcicki is also an understated class act in hey-look-at-me Silicon Valley.

Todd Bradley: The Hewlett-Packard exec just got blindsided when the company kicked webOS to the curb. While he is in line to run a possible spinoff of the device business, Bradley might also want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

Mike McCue: The CEO of Flipboard would certainly energize Yahoo with his intense focus on quality and consumer delight. The news app start-up could be a good addition to Yahoo, and McCue, the former Netscape and Microsoft exec who is well-liked in the Internet scene, would be, too.

Joanne Bradford: The former Yahoo advertising head bolted Bartz’s regime early on to run revenue for Demand Media. Well-liked in the ad business, she also knows where all the bodies are buried at Yahoo. Since ads and media are key at the company, she’d make an interesting choice.

Yusuf Mehdi: The Microsoft online exec would also be a left-field candidate to run Yahoo, given his even-keeled personality and longtime experience in the sector. And, though pricey, Mehdi’s impact on Bing search has been important. But he’s also been involved in the software giant’s lackluster ad and search partnership and still has not turned around the situation at MSN.

Kevin Johnson: The former Microsoft exec and current CEO of Juniper was once slated to be the CEO of Yahoo, had Microsoft managed to win the company in its hostile takeover attempt. In fact, Johnson was the architect of the idea of Yahoo running the media and Microsoft running the tech.

Tim Armstrong: Well, he might have been a good candidate before the downward slide of AOL and a recent series of questionable judgments. If Armstrong can’t keep a loud tech blogger in line, it’s not clear he can wrangle the Yahoo beast.

And here’s the insider scoop:

Ross Levinsohn: The former News Corp. exec is running the Americas for Yahoo, which puts him in charge of the company’s key businesses. But he’s still struggling to turn the ad business around, and how well he does that could be a major determinant of his success. But fantastic hair!

Blake Irving: The former Microsoft exec has an amiable nature and is well-liked at Yahoo, but he still needs to show that the company can ship some innovative products, and quickly. Like Livestand, the news reader, which is muchly late.

David Kenny: The Yahoo board member is now president of Akamai, which might preclude him from the job. But the well-regarded exec — he’s a snazzy dresser, too — ran one of the Internet’s top digital ad agencies and now has tech chops from the content delivery network.

Memo to Yahoo board: I have a million more ideas, from former Viacom exec Tom Freston to former Yahoo board member Eric Hippeau. Or why not bring back a passel of former Yahoos to advise, such as former CEO Terry Semel or former president Sue Decker?

Or Oprah! I hear Winfrey will be in Silicon Valley later this week, and she has a lot more free time now.

Like Snoop Dogg, she would fo shizzle be the bomb to cover.

Kno Taking Electronic Textbooks to Web, Facebook

Ina Fried — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 07:01:14 +0000

After shifting its focus to software, electronic textbook seller Kno now has set its sights on making college students’ homework a lot more social and interactive.

The company is this week announcing plans to allow those who buy textbooks from Kno to read them on Facebook and via the Web, in addition to its current iPad app. On the iPad front, the company is also adding features, taking the product beyond just an electronic version of a traditional textbook.

Among the new features: The ability to automatically turn any book diagram into a quiz by blocking out various elements; another creates a separate journal out of all the highlights and annotations one makes in a book. The company also hopes to add the ability to include audio recordings and handwritten notes.

“This fundamentally changes how a student interacts with a textbook,” said Ousama Haffar, Kno’s VP of marketing. Beyond just lightening students backpacks by digitizing books, Haffar noted that Kno’s software reshapes the way students take notes and, ultimately, how they learn.

Kno announced its iPad app in June, along with a catalog of tens of thousands of textbooks available for purchase.

Beyond the iPad, Kno is trying to make its books more accessible, adding both the Web-based reader and a Facebook app. These apps allow reading of books, but not the more advanced features like highlighting and annotations. That, Haffar says, is coming.

The company hasn’t disclosed download figures, but says that the numbers are in the tens of thousands, with a goal of reaching a million downloads by the end of this fall. Kno’s rivals include the publisher-based CourseSmart and San Francisco-based Inkling, which last week announced it had raised $17 million in Series B funding.

Kno originally fancied itself a hardware maker as well, but has since exited that business. These days it has about 50 employees — smaller than before — and is focused entirely on software.

Haffar said he is not worried about competing against large companies like Amazon, insisting the $9 billion textbook market has room for several players. Plus, he said, Kno is focused on doing one thing well.

“Our focus is singularly on building the best software for the education market,” he said. “We’re not selling diapers. We’re not selling electronics.”

Intel Capital, Condé Nast Owner Invest $30 Million in Kno; Intel to Consult on Student Tablet Hardware

Kara Swisher — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 02:17:57 +0000

According to sources close to the situation, Intel Capital and Advance Publications will lead a $30 million investment round in Kno, the high-profile student tablet start-up.

In addition to the funding from its venture capital arm, Intel itself will consult with Kno on its tablet design. Kno, which is getting out of the hardware business, will now focus on its software to manage the devices that are aimed at the college market.

Intel will not manufacture tablets either. Instead, its engineers will consult with Kno on power management, graphics, display, systems integration, which it does for a variety of its customers.

Along with Intel Capital and Advance, current investors will also participate in the round, said sources. But Intel Capital and Advance, the owner of the Condé Nast publishing empire, make up a big part of the funding.

Sources said Intel Capital’s investment is $20 million and Advance and others make up the rest of it.

BoomTown reported in February that the much-funded and high-profile Silicon Valley start-up–aimed at making tablet computers focused at students–was considering selling off the entire hardware part of the business.

Sources said Kno execs have recently decided that the quicker-than-expected uptake in tablet production by a multitude of powerful device makers had made its efforts to package a seamless offering less critical.

Instead, the company will now focus on its robust software and services to offer students on the Apple iPad, as well as upcoming tablets based on Google’s Android mobile operating system and others.

The move is a dramatic shift for the company, which had not shipped significant numbers of the touchscreen device as it has long touted.

In fact, Kno said in November that it would ship a $599 and $899 version of the tablet by the end of the year.

The lower price was for its single-screen device, while the clamshell double-screen version was more expensive.

And, although it has been reported no pre-orders were fulfilled, Kno did indeed ship several hundred of them, built by China’s Foxconn, before stopping doing so earlier this year.

Many have been dubious about Kno’s ambitious hardware efforts.

That’s because marketing a new and complex product like the Kno takes a lot of effort and cash, especially since it is an increasingly competitive market for mobile and portable computing products that includes Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Amazon, Dell and many others.

Before this $30 million, Kno has raised another $46 million in funding to add to an earlier $10 million round.

Sources in February said that the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company considering going back out to raise even more.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with angel investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

Sources said the shift to deliver textbook and other student-related delivery system would be a better path for all that investment money, since Kno has established a wide range of partnerships with colleges and universities.

In addition, Kno co-founder Osman Rashid has a lot of experience in digital education market. He was also the co-founder of Chegg, the textbook rental business that is reportedly aiming for an IPO soon.

BusinessWeek was first to report that Intel Capital was making the investment in Kno, but the post did not mention Advance’s involvement or that Intel itself was licensing the hardware design business from Kno.

Exclusive: Kno Student Tablet Start-Up in Talks to Sell Off Tablet Part of Its Business

Kara Swisher — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:16:00 +0000

Kno–the much-funded and high-profile Silicon Valley start-up aimed at making tablet computers focused at students–is considering selling off the entire hardware part of the business and is in talks with two major consumer electronics manufacturers to do so, according to sources close to the situation.

Instead, the company will focus on its robust software and services to offer students on the Apple iPad, as well as upcoming tablets based on Google’s Android mobile operating system and others.

BoomTown could not determine which two companies Kno was in serious discussions with about unloading its hardware business, but the company has signed an NDA with one of them.

But, if a deal is struck, the move would be a dramatic shift for the company, which has yet to ship significant numbers of the student-focused touchscreen device as it has long touted.

In fact, Kno said in November that it would ship a $599 and $899 version of the tablet by the end of the year.

The lower price was for its single-screen device, while the clamshell double-screen version was more expensive.

And, although it has been reported no pre-orders were fulfilled, Kno did indeed ship several hundred of them, built by China’s Foxconn, before stopping doing so recently.

Many have been dubious about Kno’s ambitious hardware efforts.

Kno recently raised another $46 million in funding to add to a $10 million round, and sources said that the Santa Clara, Calif., company was considering going back out to raise even more.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

A Kno spokeswoman declined comment.

But sources said the shift to deliver textbook and other student-related delivery system would be a better path for all that investment money, since Kno has established a wide range of partnerships with colleges and universities.

In addition, Kno Co-founder Osman Rashid has a lot of experience in digital education market. He was also the co-founder of Chegg, the textbook rental business that is reportedly aiming for an IPO soon.

You can see Rashid here, along with the Kno tablet prototype in the full demo video that the company did last year at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference:

[ See post to watch video ]

(Want to see it bigger? Click here.)

Waiting for the Big Fish? The Next Web IPOs Might Surprise You

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:00:18 +0000

No, not Facebook.

Not Zynga.

And probably not Groupon.

At least not yet, when it comes to the blockbuster Web IPOs that Wall Street and investors have been waiting for, and now expecting to roll out sooner than later in the wake of the return of the Web IPO in recent weeks.

Not so fast.

That’s what multiple sources with knowledge of the situation said when queried by BoomTown after the successful public outing by Demand Media, followed by LinkedIn’s S-1 regulatory filing last week.

While these events spurred a great deal of speculation about which Web wunderkind would belly up to the public trough next, sources said that those looking for IPOs well above the $5 billion range will have to wait a little longer.

Because, while companies such as social networking giant Facebook, social buying phenom Groupon and social gaming’s Zynga have all been courted heavily by investment bankers such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others–all remain well-funded and willing to hold off opening their books for all to see until the last possible moment.

“There’s not a lot of reason to expose all kinds of information that is keeping these companies ahead too early,” said one person close to the situation. “In fact, once that much data is out there, you could argue that they lose a lot of their magic to investors.”

Some of that financial information is already out there, although in small bites, which has only been a taste for investors.

Full-scale sunlight will be different. While it can be cleansing, it can also be disappointing to those with too-high expectations of these companies.

Thus, expect to see more small IPOs–at least in comparison–from outfits such as Chegg, which has also been deep in talks with bankers for a while now.

Chegg, like LinkedIn, has been highly successful in a niche arena–in its case, online rentals of textbook to college students.

In the fall, the Silicon Valley company raised another $75 million in funding, on top of a previous $144 million.

Venture firms, such as Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, Insight Venture Partners and others have presumably handed over that money in hopes of big returns in disrupting a $10 billion college textbook business.

Chegg got its start in 2005 at Iowa State University as a classified rental service, where books were the dominant item, but evolved its business to focus on actually doing the textbook rentals.

Typically, a rental costs a fraction of what buying a book outright does. It is ordered online and then sent to a renter, who then returns it.

The company’s unusual name, Chegg, is a mashup of “chicken and egg,” and its model is similar to that of innovative video rental outfit Netflix.

And a Netflix-like business is what presumably may keep Wall Street investors interested–at least until the bigger fish arrive.

A New Social Network Where Inquiring Minds Run Wild

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 23:38:35 +0000

If brief communications like Twitter’s 140-character messages, Facebook status updates and text messaging leave you longing for more substantial discourse, you may be in luck. This week, I took a look at Quora, a question-and-answer site that encourages thoughtful—even long-winded—discussions.

[ See post to watch video ]

Quora (Quora.com) was launched about six months ago by two former Facebook employees who wanted to create a forum where in-depth questions could be posed and answered. Users vote answers up or down according to how good they are, the idea being that the best answers get pushed to the top of the queue by the community of users. Few of these questions can be answered with a simple yes or no. For example, one question asks, “What role did social media play with regards to the revolution in Tunisia?” (See here for the answer with the most votes: http://3.ly/8Gqf.)

One thing to be wary of: There’s nothing that qualifies the most popular answers as accurate, nor do people who write the most popular answers necessarily qualify as experts. This could lead to confusion or even danger, like medical questions that are answered incorrectly. Quora users are required to register their real email addresses, and some answers are more believable than others according to who answers, like the CEO of Netflix answering a question this past fall about how much the company spends on postage per year (answer: between $500 million and $600 million).

As soon I signed up for Quora by submitting an email and password, I walked through steps to “follow” certain topics that interest me—like technology, journalism, media and news—so whenever those topics are discussed, the related questions and answers appear on my Quora home page. I also linked my Twitter and Facebook accounts to my Quora account, which clued Quora in on some topics or people that might interest me according to the information in those accounts. Once these accounts are linked, it’s a lot easier to share Quora questions or answers with people on Twitter and Facebook.

People, like topics, can be followed. If someone I follow posts a question, answers a question or votes an answer up or down, this activity appears on my Quora home page.

Though Quora may sound simple, I found it uninviting, geeky and poorly explained. The site lacks instructions on how to use it; people just have to figure it out as they go. For example, a newcomer might not know that Quora answers can be voted up or down by seeing two tiny triangles that appear beside each answer. If I select the up triangle, this indicates I voted for that answer, and news of this vote is shared on the Quora home page of anyone who follows me. A number beside each answer indicates how many votes it has received so far. But unless you’ve used the site for a while, you wouldn’t know any of this.

After a few weeks of use, I found I preferred using Quora less for asking my own questions and more for reading other people’s questions and answers about topics I liked. I occasionally voted on answers to show whether I supported them or not. One user asked me a direct question, which I answered. I asked a question of the Quora community, but no one replied.

I found Quora’s questions and answers to be rather smart and entertaining. Its Silicon Valley roots are evident in its numerous technology-related questions and answers. I typed “tennis” into a box at the top of the screen and one of the first questions that surfaced was “Is tennis popular in Silicon Valley?” Instead of that question, I selected “What is the history of tennis’s strange scoring system?” and read the answer with the most votes, which seemed right to the best of my knowledge. Interestingly enough, this answer also included a link to a related article on Wikipedia.

But compared with the rest of the Web, where images, videos, animations and sound entertain website visitors, Quora’s text-filled pages can come off feeling a bit like textbook reading assignments. This is because all but a handful of questions are answered with just text. Video isn’t enabled on the site, though founder Charlie Cheever told me that this might be possible in the future.

Another problem with Quora is that most people who use the Internet are conditioned to rely on search engines like Google, Bing or Wikipedia for queries, typing the right key words to get the intended results. And people are often searching for quick answers that take just a couple seconds to read.

Plenty of other question-and-answer forums exist, like Yahoo Answers, which has been around since 2005, ChaCha.com and Ask.com. Facebook introduced Facebook Questions to a small number of its users over the summer, but when asked, a company spokeswoman wouldn’t say whether or not this offering would be available to all users anytime soon, if at all.

Quora’s combination of social networking (following topics and people) and in-depth answers helps differentiate it from those services.

Private messages can be sent from one user to another through Quora, and new messages are indicated with a red number that appears over your personal “Inbox” at the top of the Quora site. Likewise, when new notifications appear on the home page, a red number is shown above Home at the top of the page. This home page can be viewed in one of three views: Your Feed, All Changes or Followed Questions; users can toggle between these views.

Only people who have created accounts can browse the Quora.com site, though links to content can be opened by anyone. This differs from Twitter.com, which can be visited and searched by anyone regardless of whether or not they have a Twitter account. Quora also lacks one central home page where everyone can go to see every Quora question and answer, or which answer received the most votes on the entire site. Mr. Cheever told me that the site deliberately tries to keep your world small so you can focus on the topics or people you follow.

Quora relies on its community members to police one another, like Wikipedia, and less than 100 users are also granted administrator privileges to do more serious operations like deleting answers that use hate speech or other offensive remarks, which aren’t permitted according to the site’s policies. Every edit made to an answer is logged in the Quora system for everyone to see. This helps users understand an entry’s history on Quora.

This site doesn’t put much emphasis on interaction with others, though you are notified whenever someone follows you and you may be prompted to suggest topics for someone who starts following you. Like Facebook and Twitter, a list of users who you might want to follow is suggested in Quora.

For now, Quora feels like a website designed for techie insiders without instructions for mainstream users. But its smart community, intriguing questions and way of showing users just the content they want to follow will keep people coming back to the site. With a lot of polishing, Quora could be a social network people use every day.

Exclusive: Chegg Buys Cramster

Kara Swisher — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:02:25 +0000

According to sources close to the situation, online textbook rental company Chegg has acquired Cramster, a social online homework help platform.

The Pasadena, Calif.-based Cramster is the leading online study community, offering expert Q&A help, study groups and practice tests and problems. College and high school students, teachers, professors, parents and other experts add information into the network on a large range of subjects.

It was founded in 2002 and now has one million members, using either a free or premium service.

The Cramster purchase is one in a series of start-up acquisitions that Chegg has been making of late, part of a strategy to be a central place for student needs.

In late September, the company bought CourseRank, a Mountain View, Calif., start-up that helps students share course schedules, take classes with friends, and read and write reviews on classes and professors, as well as find out how professors grade.

To expand, Chegg has raised a whopping $220 million in funding from a number of venture firms, including Kleiner Perkins.

That’s because Chegg has become the front-runner in the increasingly competitive online textbook rental space, as it seeks to disrupt the $10 billion college textbook business.

Chegg got its start in 2005 at Iowa State University as a classified rental service, where books were the dominant item, but evolved its business to focus on actually doing the textbook rentals.

The company’s unusual name, Chegg, is a mashup of “chicken and egg,” and its model is similar to that of innovative video rental outfit Netflix.

Chegg now serves close to 7,000 schools across the U.S.

Typically, renting a book costs a fraction of what buying one outright does. It is ordered online and then sent to a renter, who then returns it.

Terms of the Cramster deal were not clear.

Kno Prices Its Student Tablets at $599 and $899 to Ship by End of the Year

Kara Swisher — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 05:00:01 +0000

Kno, the high-profile Silicon Valley start-up trying to jump-start a market for tablets focused on students, announced tonight that it will have a limited number available by the end of the year for sale at prices of $599 and $899.

The lower price is for its single-screen device, while the clamshell double-screen version is more expensive.

Kno would not say exactly how many it has ordered for its first tablet production run–the device is being built by China’s Foxconn–but co-founder and CEO Osman Rashid said in an interview earlier today with BoomTown that units would number “in the thousands.”

Rashid said the Kno tablet will initially be aimed at 10 college campuses across the U.S., although he also declined to name them.

“We are going to do online and offline marketing, in a very focused approach,” he said, noting that Kno would be working with some college bookstores too.

Marketing a new and complex product like the Kno will take a lot of effort and cash, especially since it is an increasingly competitive market for mobile and portable computing products that includes Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Amazon, Dell and many others.

Kno recently raised another $46 million in funding to add to a $10 million round, and sources said that the Santa Clara, Calif., company could be back out raising even more early next year.

Its current backers include prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

Kno’s Rashid said his company pushed the go button after getting good feedback from students in a beta test, half of whom used the single-screen device and the other half the two screens, along with its related education platform software.

“We found that 85 percent of those using the single screen wanted the dual-screen version and that those using two screens took three times more notes,” said Rashid. “Students said they love the fact that they can write in the textbook itself and it appears the way it needs to be, even in digital form.”

The first Kno will have an aluminum body, and the company will also offer a set of accessories, such as a cover and a stand.

And Kno will watch initial sales carefully. “As a start-up, we want to make sure we are meeting demand, but also that we roll it out in a careful approach,” said Rashid.

Indeed–and it will be interesting to see how that goes for the ambitious and innovative Kno.

Until the results are in, here is the official press release from Kno:

Kno Announces Pricing and Pre-Order Availability for Tablet Textbook; Pays for Itself in 3 Semesters

Delivers Significant Student Impact for Less than 1% the Cost of a 4-Year College Education

Santa Clara, CA–November 9, 2010–Kno, Inc., a powerful, groundbreaking tablet textbook designed specifically for students and the education market, today revealed the price of its 14.1 inch single and dual-screen tablets at $599 and $899, respectively. The company also announced that it is now accepting a limited number of pre-orders for an initial shipment that is expected to be on customers’ doorsteps by the end of the year.

“Kno’s extraordinary benefits represent only a tiny fraction of the overall cost of college, but its impact on the student’s career–and the energy it adds to the experience, the thrill of learning, and the ultimate grade–is dramatic,” said Osman Rashid, Co-Founder and CEO of Kno, Inc. “Even better, when you do the math, it actually pays for itself and still saves $1,300 in digital textbook costs.”

Kno has been beta-testing the product with students and the response has been overwhelmingly positive for both the single and dual screen devices. Far more than just a digital textbook, Kno is creating a powerfully effective new learning environment that will make students at all levels more successful at processing, grasping and retaining both facts and concepts.

“My experience with Kno has been really incredible. My books have become more interactive and the ability to hand-write electronic notes on the book pages themselves has changed how I retain information,” said Melissa Lin, a sophomore majoring in Biology at UC Berkeley that has been beta-testing the Kno tablet. “I see a ton of difference with the Kno. I can carry everything with me including my books, my notebooks and a browser for research. And, with the lower cost of digital textbooks, it will pay for itself in three semesters which is really great.”

Digital textbooks, which typically cost between 30 and 50 percent less than physical textbooks, will be priced separately and will be sold through the Kno bookstore, which will be accessible on every Kno device. Starting today, students will be able to browse Kno’s bookstore at www.kno.com/store/books, which will include tens of thousands of the most popular textbooks and supplement materials. Kno has previously announced that it is working with major textbook publishers including Cengage, McGraw Hill and Pearson. The company recently added publishers including Macmillan, Bedford, Freeman & Worth and Holtzbrinck as well as BarCharts Publishing, Kaplan, Random House and a large number of the University Presses.

“According to the not-for-profit College Board’s 2010 report, the average college student spends approximately $1,100 a year on book and supplies,” said Babur Habib, CTO and Co-Founder of Kno, Inc. “Kno can reduce that cost while bringing education into the 21st Century, providing students with a far superior learning experience than they have today.”

To learn more about Kno, please visit the Kno blog at http://blog.kno.com or visit us on Facebook www.facebook.com/GoodtoKNO, Twitter www.twitter.com/GoodtoKNO and YouTube www.youtube.com/GoodtoKNO.

Kno to Also Make a Single-Screen Tablet Textbook

Kara Swisher — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:40:50 +0000

Kno, the start-up that is creating a digital tablet for students, said it is also planning on releasing a single-screen version.

The company–which was started by the founder of Chegg, the online textbook rental service–had debuted a double-screen tablet (pictured here) at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

The current clamshell device has a pair of touchscreens that open and shut like a book, and Kno will offer an online store linked to the tablet for the purchase of materials.

Some felt the double-screened device might be too cumbersome, given the plethora of tablets in a variety of sizes that are being planned and released soon, all influenced by the popular Apple (AAPL) iPad.

Kno said its single-screen tablet will be smaller and sold at a lower price point, but will be shipped at the same time as the original double-screen, by the end of the year.

The company will be announcing pricing and ship dates soon.

When it does, Kno will be headed right into a competitive and increasingly innovative tablet market that now also includes Amazon (AMZN), Samsung, Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Google (GOOG).

Kno is certainly girding for battle in this portable arena. It nabbed an additional $46 million in venture funding from a panoply of Silicon Valley bigs earlier this month.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based Kno previously raised almost $10 million in funding from prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

In addition, well-known techie Marc Andreessen is now on Kno’s board.

Here is the video of a prototype of the double-screen Kno in action at D8:

[ See post to watch video ]

Want to see it bigger? Click here.

And here is the official press release from Kno:

Kno Breaks New Ground with the World’s First
Single Screen Tablet Textbook

Kno Continues the Pace of Innovation in Integrated Learning with a Smaller Version of the Kno

San Francisco, CA–September 27, 2010–Kno, Inc., the groundbreaking tablet textbook and dynamic learning platform, today announced its further commitment to the education market with a single screen version of its tablet textbook. The single screen version extends the breakthroughs and functionality of the dual screen version announced in June.

“Kno fundamentally improves the way students learn,” said Osman Rashid, the CEO and Co-Founder of Kno, Inc. “We are driven to innovate in a category that has been static for too long. Even though the Kno pays for itself in 13 months, the smaller up front investment of the single screen version will allow more students to use our learning platform.”

Kno, short for knowledge, is a transformative learning platform that blends a touch-screen tablet, digital textbooks, course materials, note-taking, web access, educational applications, digital media, sharing and more into a powerful and engaging educational experience that is not available on any other tablet or eReader today.

“From day one, we designed the Kno with flexibility in mind,” said Babur Habib, CTO and Co-Founder of Kno, Inc. “We developed the product to have multiple configurations and meet different student needs. The single screen maintains the elegance of our fluid, intuitive interface while capturing the richness and ‘page fidelity’ of the original textbook.”

The company plans to ship both the single and two-screen tablet textbooks to consumers by the end of 2010. Pricing and pre-order announcements will be made in the coming months.

Exclusive: Chegg Raises $75 Million in Additional Funding from Asian Firm

Kara Swisher — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 03:55:15 +0000

Chegg, the online textbook rental service, has raised another $75 million from Asia-based Ace Limited, according to sources.

Ace seems to be nonexistent on the Internet, although sources said it is a Hong Kong-based investment firm.

The round comes after a huge Series D investment in late 2009, which already brought Chegg’s funding to a whopping $144 million.

Venture firms, such as Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, Insight Venture Partners and others have presumably handed over that money in hopes of big returns.

And, of course, the inevitable IPO for the Silicon Valley start-up.

That’s because Chegg has become the front-runner in the increasingly competitive online textbook rental space as it seeks to disrupt the $10 billion college textbook business.

Chegg got its start in 2005 at Iowa State University as a classified rental service, where books were the dominant item, but evolved its business to focus on actually doing the textbook rentals.

The company’s unusual name, Chegg, is a mashup of “chicken and egg,” and its model is similar to that of innovative video rental outfit Netflix (NFLX).

Chegg now serves close to 7,000 schools across the U.S., with 120 employees in Silicon Valley and more at a warehouse operation in Louisville, Ky.

Typically, a rental costs a fraction of what buying a book outright does. It is ordered online and then sent to a renter, who then returns it.

There is, of course, lots of competition.

The Barnes & Noble (BKS) College division recently began testing a textbook rental program, for example, and is rolling it out to 25 U.S. colleges. And BookRenter is a smaller rival.

In a bid to expand its offerings beyond books, Chegg recently acquired CourseRank, a Mountain View, Calif., start-up that helps students “share their course schedule, take classes with their friends, read and write reviews on classes and professors as well as find out how professors grade.”

Here is a video interview I did with Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig recently at Chegg’s Santa Clara, Calif., HQ:

[ See post to watch video ]

Here's What VCs Get for $46 Million: The Kno Tablet D8 Demo

Kara Swisher — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:55:13 +0000

Today, Kno, a start-up that is taking on the textbook by replacing it with a tablet aimed at students, nabbed another $46 million in venture funding from a panoply of Silicon Valley bigs.

And what are those moneybags getting for their dough?

Well, here’s the demo for Kno, which debuted at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

The clamshell device has a pair of touchscreens that open and shut like a book, and Kno will offer an online store linked to the tablet for the purchase of materials.

In fact, Kno shares a co-founder with Chegg, the online textbook-rental service.

That would be Osman Rashid–and you can pretty much draw a straight line from Chegg to Kno.

But rather than focusing on making an old business better via the Web, as Chegg does, Kno will be headed right into the competitive tablet market that now includes Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Samsung, Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and, reportedly, Google (GOOG).

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based Kno has previously raised almost $10 million in funding from prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

In addition, Marc Andreessen is now on Kno’s board.

Andreessen Horowitz is upping the ante this new round too, as you can read in the press release below.

Kno Funding FINAL FINAL Release

And, here is the full demo video for Kno at D8:

[ See post to watch video ]

(Want to see it bigger? Click here.)

Chegg's Dan Rosensweig Talks About the Next Wave of Online Textbook Rentals and More!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:58:21 +0000

Earlier this week, BoomTown went down to Santa Clara, Calif. to the offices of Chegg, the online textbook rental leader, to pay a visit on longtime Silicon Valley exec Dan Rosensweig.

The voluble Rosensweig has had a series on interesting posts, from stints at CNET Networks and Ziff-Davis before a top job at Yahoo (YHOO). After that, it was as a partner at the Quadrangle Group and then running the Guitar Hero division of Activision Blizzard (ATVI).

Now he is CEO of Chegg, where he arrived in February.

After raising $144 million in funding, Chegg has become the front-runner in the increasingly competitive online textbook rental space.

Venture firms, such as Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital and, most recently, Insight Venture Partners, have presumably handed over that money to co-founders Osman Rashid and Aayush Phumbhra in hopes of big returns.

And, of course, the inevitable IPO.

Chegg got its start in 2005 at Iowa State University as a classified rental service, where books were the dominant item, but evolved its business to focus on actually doing the textbook rentals.

The company’s unusual name, Chegg, is a mashup of chicken and egg and its model is similar to that of innovative video rental outfit Netflix (NFLX).

Chegg now serves close to 7,000 schools across the U.S., with 120 employees in Silicon Valley and more at a warehouse operation in Louisville, Ky.

Typically, a rental costs a fraction of what buying a book outright does. It is ordered online and then sent to a renter, who then returns it.

All this activity has attracted a lot of interest from both big and small players, especially given the $10 billion college textbook business.

That makes for lots of competition. The Barnes & Noble (BKS) College division recently began testing a textbook rental program, for example, and is rolling it out to 25 U.S. colleges. And BookRenter is a smaller competitor.

Today, in a bid to expand its offerings beyond books, Chegg said it had acquired CourseRank, a Mountain View, Calif. start-up that helps students “share their course schedule, take classes with their friends, read and write reviews on classes and professors as well as find out how professors grade.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rosensweig talks about all that and more, such as digital downloads, in the video interview below, which includes a tour of Chegg:

[ See post to watch video ]

And here’s the official press release about Chegg’s acquisition of CourseRank:

CHEGG.COM ACQUIRES COURSERANK

Popular college course planning site that helps students with course and professor selection, hopes for rapid expansion

SANTA CLARA, Calif., August 19, 2010–Chegg.com, the number one online textbook rental company, today announced that it has acquired CourseRank, the Mountain View-based start-up that provides college students an easy and convenient way to create and share their course schedule, take classes with their friends, read and write reviews on classes and professors as well as find out how professors grade.

“We are excited about adding CourseRank to the portfolio of content and services we can offer students to make college easier and more affordable,” said Dan Rosensweig, President and CEO of Chegg.com. “We all share a commitment to saving students time, money and making them smarter. It’s amazing how popular CourseRank has become on campus, having nearly 100,000 users and growing every day.”

Founded by five college students and already being used on 175 colleges and universities across the U.S., CourseRank helps students manage and plan their academic careers. CourseRank’s scheduling, planning and course review system guides students by arranging relevant course information in an easily accessible display where they can track their progress towards the goal of graduation, mapping courses taken, and grades received. A feature for students to find textbooks for their courses using CourseRank is currently in beta for select schools.

“We’re excited to be part of the number one online textbook rental company in such a hot space,” said Filip Kaliszan, Co-Founder and CEO of CourseRank. “We share Chegg’s commitment to using technology to make life easier and cheaper for college kids, and we are excited about expanding our reach to more schools, adding many new features in the next few months.”

CourseRank, founded in 2007 by three Stanford University students, has seen tremendous growth in the past year. To date, the company has achieved adoption by some of the country’s top schools including Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Cornell University.
Students can sign up for free and the first 5,000 will be entered for a chance to win cool prizes. For more information, visit www.courserank.com.”

Full D8 Demo Video: Kno

Kara Swisher — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:59:58 +0000

As promised, All Things Digital is posting the full videos from our eighth D: All Things Digital conference, held in early June.

Here’s the demo for Kno, a start-up that is taking on the textbook by replacing it with a tablet aimed at students.

The clamshell device has a pair of touchscreens that open and shut like a book and Kno will offer an online store linked to Kno for the purchase of materials. Kno shares a co-founder with Chegg, the online textbook rental service.

[ See post to watch video ]

Want to see it bigger? Click here.

Note: We’ll be posting full D8 videos on Mondays and Thursdays. Next up: The demo for Dell Streak.

D8 Tech Demo: Start-Up Takes on the Textbook With Kno Tablet

Drake Martinet — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:12:52 +0000

Our garages have no flying cars, our cities are still built on the ground and our robots just barely clean the floor. But today, Kno, the secretive start-up formerly known as Kakai, hopes to answer one of technology’s promises by replacing the dense poundage of textbooks weighing down backpacks everywhere with its new tablet device (also called Kno).

The clamshell device resembles Microsoft’s (MSFT) recently abandoned Courier project with a pair of touchscreens that open and shut like a book. Details have been sparse from the company, but we do know that it will offer an online store linked to the device for purchase of materials. Kno shares a co-founder with Chegg, the online textbook rental service, and early partnerships with Cengage Learning (CHC-WT), McGraw Hill (MHP) and Pearson and Wiley indicate that the device will include access to both textbook-style and reference-database content.

Now up, the unveiling of the Kno tablet, via video (below) and liveblog.

[ See post to watch video ]

11:13 am: Walt and Kara take the stage again to begin the Kno demo.

11:13 am: The Kno co-founders, Osman Rashid and Babur Habib, take the stage to showcase the Kno. They say 90 people have been working for a year on the Kno.

They say their hope for the Kno is to change the way students learn.

11:15 am: The founders are unpacking what they are calling a “typical backpack.” Their example has two to four textbooks.

They say students have asked to replicate the analog experience of the book.

11:16 am: The Kno is revealed. The device is large, with two 14-inch screens that open like a book.

Rashid says that 95 percent of textbooks will fit on these screens. He adds that he feels e-textbooks have failed because textbooks don’t fit on other devices.

11:18 am: Walt, donning his Personal Technology columnist hat, asks for the weight. Kno weighs 5.5 lbs.

11:20 am: The founders announce a platform for getting books as well as several major partnerships for content.

11:21 am: The device has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and supports all document-creation formats and PDFs. The software is Linux-based.

The founders say a virtual keyboard is coming and the Kno will have a laptop mode for content creation.

11:23 am: Kno guys say that the stylus is important for learning, and the Kno will have one.

The software looks very slow, but this is a very early prototype, the founders remind the audience.

11:25 am: Kno will allow for highlighting and stickies, and includes a UI element to help students know how much more they have left to read.

Answering Walt’s pushback on the technology, the founders add that the OS is Linux-based with WebKit- and hardware-accelerated Flash and a full browser.

11:28 am: Walt asks if the device will include Facebook and Twitter. The answer is yes, but the founders say the feedback from faculty and staff is good and they hope for acceptance from professors.

Pricing will be announced over summer; they say it will be below $1,000.

Kara reminds the crowd that the company is in stealth mode.

Rashid says the company will be raising funds over the summer.

11:31 am: They finish with an examination of the “binding,” which is made of seat-belt-like material that allow for flexibility between the twin panels. They have plans to customize colors for school affiliation.

11:33 am: The Kno guys leave the stage with Kara as D8 transitions to the next guest, John Donahoe, CEO of eBay (EBAY)

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as we were able. It was not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

In the Kno: Kakai to Demo Student-Focused Tablet at D8

Kara Swisher — Fri, 14 May 2010 07:01:50 +0000

Recently, BoomTown uncloaked one of Silicon Valley’s hotter “stealth” start-ups, called Kakai.

My take: An advanced tablet device and related service aimed at students.

Today, Kakai is taking another step out of the shadows by changing its name to Kno, which is short for knowledge.

You can see its new logo above–and on the new Kno Web site is this message: “Our stealth days are almost over! You’ll need to wait a few more days to really Kno.”

Actually, you will be able to see exactly what the company has come up with at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference, where it will be demoing the Kno for the first time in public.

The Linux-based foldable double-screened device is designed to feel like a mix of notebook and textbook.

Gesture-based and portable, Kno will be aimed directly at the education niche. The endeavor goes well beyond the tablet itself by including robust software and a seamless Web site to deliver course material, allowing for note-taking and offering other audio and video capabilities.

Founded almost exactly a year ago, Kakai had been one of the start-ups in Silicon Valley in the deepest of stealth modes, despite a panoply of high-profile players involved.

As I wrote:

“In simplest terms, it’s essentially a Kindle for students.

But that’s just the tip of what is perhaps one of the more ambitious and innovative efforts on the part of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who already has one hit under his belt.”

I was referring to Osman Rashid, whose other start-up is fast-growing online textbook rental leader Chegg.

And you can pretty much draw a straight line from Chegg to Kakai.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Kakai/Kno has raised almost $10 million in funding from prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

In addition, Marc Andreessen is now on Kakai’s board.

Rashid, who founded Kakai with Babur Habib, has worked in companies related to the consumer electronics industry.

You can check out their efforts on June 2 on this site, when we will be providing ongoing coverage of D8, where we will also be featuring four other demos of cool new innovations, along with interviews of top tech and media execs.

In the Kno: Kakai to Demo Student-Focused Tablet at D8

Kara Swisher — Fri, 14 May 2010 07:01:00 +0000

Recently, BoomTown uncloaked one of Silicon Valley’s hotter “stealth” start-ups, called Kakai.

My take: An advanced tablet device and related service aimed at students.

Today, Kakai is taking another step out of the shadows by changing its name to Kno, which is short for knowledge.

You can see its new logo above–and on the new Kno Web site is this message: “Our stealth days are almost over! You’ll need to wait a few more days to really Kno.”

Actually, you will be able to see exactly what the company has come up with at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference, where it will be demoing the Kno for the first time in public.

The Linux-based foldable double-screened device is designed to feel like a mix of notebook and textbook.

Founded almost exactly a year ago, Kakai had been one of the start-ups in Silicon Valley in the deepest of stealth modes, despite a panoply of high-profile players involved.

As I wrote:

“In simplest terms, it’s essentially a Kindle for students.

But that’s just the tip of what is perhaps one of the more ambitious and innovative efforts on the part of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who already has one hit under his belt.”

I was referring to Osman Rashid, whose other start-up is fast-growing online textbook rental leader Chegg.

And you can pretty much draw a straight line from Chegg to Kakai.

In addition, Marc Andreessen is now on Kakai’s board.

Rashid, who founded Kakai with Babur Habib, has worked in companies related to the consumer electronics industry.

Exclusive: Kakai, Stealthy No More–It's a Kindle for Students and Much More

Kara Swisher — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:00:35 +0000

Founded last May, Kakai is one of the start-ups in Silicon Valley in the deepest of stealth modes, despite a panoply of high-profile players involved.

But while there have been sketchy reports suggesting that the start-up may be working on some kind of e-reader, BoomTown has found out exactly what it’s up to via reports of a concept video the company has shown potential investors and interviews with several sources close to the situation.

In simplest terms, it’s essentially a Kindle for students.

But that’s just the tip of what is perhaps one of the more ambitious and innovative efforts on the part of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who already has one hit under his belt.

That would be Osman Rashid, whose other start-up is fast-growing online textbook rental leader Chegg.

Chegg recently hired former Yahoo (YHOO) exec Dan Rosensweig as its CEO, taking over from Rashid, who wanted to focus on Kakai.

Interestingly, you can pretty much draw a straight line from Chegg to Kakai.

But rather than focusing on making an old business better via the Web, as Chegg does, Kakai is plunging right into the competitive tablet market that now includes Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Samsung, Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and, reportedly, Google (GOOG).

While these efforts, including Apple’s iPad, for example, are mostly aimed at broader media markets, sources said Kakai’s effort focuses solely on the educational niche, offering a Linux-based foldable double-screened device.

Gesture-based and portable, it is designed to feel like a mix of a notepad and a book.

While Kakai declined to comment, sources said a key part of the endeavor goes well beyond the tablet itself by including robust software and seamless Web site to deliver course material, allowing for note-taking and offering other audio and video capabilities.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Kakai, which is nearing 50 employees, is now prepping the device to be ready for a demo in several months.

It’s paying for all this with almost $10 million in funding from prominent venture players like Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

In addition, Marc Andreessen is now on Kakai’s board.

Rashid, who founded Kakai with Babur Habib, has worked in companies related to the consumer electronics industry.

Until he reveals more specifics, though, don’t expect much from Kakai’s homepage (see below), which has a very funny trio of jokes that play with the company name, asking “Which Kakai are you looking for?”

The possibilities include Kakai Bautista, a singer-comedienne in the Philippines; Neferirkare Kakai, third Pharaoh of Egypt during the Fifth dynasty; and Kakai, an Austrian pumpkin that yields valuable oil that promotes prostate health.”

Not looking for the singer, the pharaoh or the pumpkin?,” reads the bottom of the Kakai homepage. “Well, we wish we could tell you more, but you’ll just have to cool your jets.”

Perhaps now it’s time to start heating them up.

Almost Famous: Mehdi Maghsoodnia of BookRenter

Drake Martinet — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:35:13 +0000

A feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: We took a coffee break (and made an interview and video) with Mehdi Maghsoodnia, CEO of BookRenter, a company that claims to be “numero uno” in online textbook rentals, a bone of contention between it and larger competitor Chegg.

Who: Mehdi Maghsoodnia

What: Chief Executive Officer

Why: BookRenter is in a battle with competitor Chegg. Mehdi freely admits that Chegg holds more market share, but says his model has the staying power to outlast it. Presumably, Chegg begs to differ.

Where: bookrenter.com (Web site); @bookrenter (Twitter); Campbell, Calif. (analog place)

Who else: BookRenter is in a battle for the hearts and minds of college students everywhere. On one side, it competes with college bookstores, Amazon (AMZN), and a trial-rental program from Barnes & Noble (BKS). Once a customer goes the way of rental rather than purchase, BookRenter has to fight with Chegg, the textbook service now led by longtime Silicon Valley exec Dan Rosensweig and whose eggshell has been stuffed with $144 million in venture funding.

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job Ever: I used to sweep the grounds for a hotel in San Francisco, called Roberts at the Beach Motel (it’s still there). It was right next to the zoo, and the wind would blow all the dust, sand and junk into the hotel, and my job was just to sweep the floor. That was not at all fun.

Geek Crush: I’m a fanatic in terms of business models, and I track the careers of people I admire. I keep track of Maynard Webb, who used to be the COO at eBay (EBAY). I track people with clever minds and clever ideas.

Gadget of the Moment: I love my Apple (AAPL) iPhone–for the first time recently I traveled without my laptop. It was great. The app environment is fascinating. If you look on my phone, the apps are in two distinct sections. One is all the games that keep my kids busy, and the second category is functional things for me. News feeders, banking…and I watch all kinds of videos on the TED app when I’m traveling.

International Businessman of Mystery: I was born in Iran. Then, we moved to London. I traveled a lot and lived all over. I realized early on that a consequence of that is I’m culturally very unmarketable. It’s pretty impossible to market to me. Which, by definition, means I’m not the greatest marketer, because I don’t know what makes people want to buy things.

It’s All in the Family: I sit on the board of Nature Air, an airline in Costa Rica. It’s the first regional green airline, and it’s the family business.

Bio in 140 Characters

Mehdi grew up global, but landed in Silicon Valley. He spent time as a VC then moved to head CafePress. Now he’s CEO at BookRenter.

The Five Questions

Let’s get right into this. How are you guys different from Chegg?

When I was at CafePress, we were the biggest online t-shirt retailer in the world. We spent a lot of time getting shirts in from China, organizing them, putting them in bins, tracking them, printing them and so on. I observed how much of our management bandwidth and resources went into back-end fulfillment as a retailer. I came out of CafePress and was sitting on the venture side when I saw Chegg and BookRenter. I said, “These are two teams satisfying specific demands out there, but with totally different business models.”

Chegg was trying to do everything–taking on warehousing, buying the books, etc. There were many companies doing that, by the way. Amazon among them. The BookRenter team was clever, and they said, “Let’s flip this on its head.” Investing in a book as stock is a losing venture, because your individual investment on the book loses value over time. You also lose money on leasing the warehouse, forklifts, all of it.

At BookRenter, we have all kinds of partnerships that handle those logistics, including recent partnerships with school bookstores themselves. We are in a cyclical business, where maybe four months out of the year we are handling books, and, in the other eight, the books are in the students’ hands. Our costs adjust within those cycles as quickly as changes happen.

How do you track and price all the books when you don’t own them?

So, most of the business is done today on an inventory capitalization model. That is to say, you have a position on what books you have. Everyone buys books and then has to find a match for that book in a rental relationship.

BookRenter takes a very different approach. Our software system creates rental relationships in real time, which means it figures out prices and availability for every new rental. If you come to us and say you want to rent a biology book, the system turns around and queries our suppliers and decides who will be able to get us that book at the lowest overall cost. Our cost algorithm is complex and takes into account things like the reliability of the provider for meeting its commitment on that book.

Once the determination has been made, only then do we take a position on that book and add it to inventory. I can offer as many books as [Chegg] or anyone else, because I’m offering that book virtually. I only pay when I have a paying customer.

You’ve got a lot to say about how you are going to gain on Chegg. Is this really a market that is worth the fight?

Oh yes, the market is growing very fast. We saw 300 percent growth year over year in January. The textbook business is a $9-billion-a-year industry. Someday we hope that a third of that is rentals. The value proposition is there. Renting is cheaper than buying. It’s even cheaper than buying used. Eighteen months from now, we are still going to be a smaller player, but we have the longevity.

Do you do this for the competition, or is it something else that drives you?

I’ll be honest. The best possible outcome for us is that Chegg stays prosperous. Both of us are fighting the same battle in terms of converting some of the buying market to a renting market. So, we are all in the same market development boat. But what I really like about this is the process. I see our business as a 0.9 version, so there are so many things we can still work on.

Organizationally and market-wise, it’s a very exciting thing to design a system for. You have to balance the needs of all kinds of partners. It’s like playing multidimensional chess with very good players. It’s just fun. Also, the growth factor is great. If I had to solve these problems in a business that wasn’t growing, that’s not a lot of fun.

I’ve been there man, that’s deadly. You put a lot of intellectual work into it and you can’t get anyone to care.

As a current student, I’ve got to ask: How have you dealt with undoubtedly the biggest customer problem–highlighting?

[Laughs] You know, that was a real issue early on. Our early policy was no highlighting at all, of any kind. It turned out that students didn’t seem to mind [the highlighting], and in fact many liked it. It was like someone had already done the work of showing them the important parts of the book. Today, we will only charge for damage if there’s been a real issue, like, someone spilled water all over the book and really ruined it.

The In Living Color Interview

[ See post to watch video ]

My Kid’s an Honor Student at iPad University: Apple on the Rebound in Edu

John Paczkowski — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:20:50 +0000

In the ’80s, Apple’s share of the U.S. education market stood at 50 percent. These days, it hovers around 20 percent, thanks largely to falling PC prices and the advent of the netbook. But that’s changing, and quickly too (see chart below; click to enlarge).

With Apple (AAPL) inking multiyear Mac contracts with a number of school districts, it’s growth in edu is on the rebound. And now, with the iPad and its promise of hand-held education just a few weeks from market, Apple could be poised to see significant growth in higher ed.

Obviously, it’s impossible to predict whether the iPad will be the digital device to transform the classroom, but some analysts are enthusiastic about the possibility. Among them: Needham & Company’s Charlie Wolf. Reflecting on Apple’s performance in the U.S education market in a note to clients this morning, he suggests there may be big things ahead for the company.

“The soon-to-be-introduced iPad has the potential to change the buying dynamics in both the secondary and higher education markets,” Wolf writes. “At $500 before typical education discounts, the iPad is price competitive with all the PCs schools now purchase.”

That’s not all. Wolf continues: “And the device has the potential to go much further if, as it appears certain, education content is customized for the iPad to exploit its unique multimedia capabilities. It is not difficult to imagine classrooms where the iPad takes center stage, capturing a significant percentage of the school market in the process.”

Not difficult to imagine at all, though it may take some time to get there. As my colleague, Peter Kafka, reminds me, the iPad-as-textbook is likely quite a way off given that it requires buy-in from educational publishers, not to mention school boards and academia. Beyond that, there’s the need for applications that really take advantage of the portability and breadth of use that the iPad offers and to position it as a true an educational tool.

“To be successful in the secondary ed market, the iPad will need content and application developers to write applications that exploit the unique form factor and features of the iPad–content and apps that materially improve the ‘educational experience’ in the classroom,” Wolf told me in a brief email interview this morning.

“If that doesn’t happen,” Wolf added, the iPad could enjoy some success. But it would be far less than that which would occur if the iPad becomes a unique educational tool.”

Wolf believes higher ed will be easier, though. “Again it will depend on content developers–the publishers–exploiting the dynamic features of the device to enhance the educational experience,” he said. ”Simply formatting text books for the iPad will be OK, but it would eliminate any chance of a hockey stick of adoption.”

[Image credits: Needham & Company, Adam Tow]

Rosensweig to Leave Guitar Hero; Takes Over as CEO of Online Textbook Rental Start-Up Chegg

Kara Swisher — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:00:20 +0000

Longtime Silicon Valley exec Dan Rosensweig (pictured here) is stepping down as CEO and president of the Guitar Hero division of Activision Blizzard to take a new job as president and CEO of Chegg, the top online textbook rental start-up.

Both companies confirmed the move, which is somewhat unexpected given that the former Yahoo (YHOO) COO landed the job running the top gaming franchise in March of last year.

It has been an eventful, but also a particularly tough year at Guitar Hero, in the face of yet another withering downturn in the gaming market.

While Activision (ATVI) introduced a new version of its flagship Guitar Hero game, as well as a new DJ Hero, Band Hero and a Guitar Hero: Van Halen version, sales were weaker overall, even though DJ Hero was the the No. 1 new game in both the U.S. and Europe.

Nonetheless, according to a recent report from research firm NPD Group, sales in the videogame space were down eight percent in 2009 from 2008.

And while Guitar Hero did gain market share as the most popular such game in its genre, most expect its trajectory to be downward.

Guitar Hero 5 sold slightly fewer than 996,000 units from September through December in North America, for example, according to NPD.

While global sales were better, Guitar Hero: World Tour, in comparison, sold 3.4 million units the year earlier.

In contrast, Rosensweig–who is probably much more suited to the pure Web space and the Silicon Valley scene–will be taking over a much faster-growing business at Chegg, based in Santa Clara, Calif.

It has become the front-runner in the increasingly competitive online textbook rental space.

To help maintain that lead, Chegg has garnered a huge $144 million investment kitty.

Top venture firms, such as Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital and, most recently, Insight Venture Partners, have presumably handed over that money to co-founders Osman Rashid and Aayush Phumbhra in hopes of big returns.

The pair started Chegg in 2005 at Iowa State University as a classified rental service, where books were the dominant item, but evolved its business to focus on actually doing the textbook rentals.

The company’s unusual name, Chegg, is a mashup of chicken and egg and its model is similar to that of innovative video rental outfit Netflix (NFLX).

Chegg now serves close to 7,000 schools across the U.S. and has a cute and student-friendly practice of planting a tree for every textbook rented, bought or sold.

With 120 employees in Silicon Valley and more at a warehouse operation in Louisville, Ky., Chegg claims it has grown over 600 percent year over year since its founding, although the start-up would not provide more specifics on financials.

A spokeswoman said that company rented more books in January of this year than all of last year and has saved students more than $137 million.

Typically, a rental costs a fraction of what buying a book outright does. It is ordered online and then sent to a renter, who then returns it.

All this activity has attracted a lot of interest from both big and small players, especially given the $10 billion college textbook business.

While one can assume that a lot of Chegg’s business will eventually move to digital downloads, especially as the use of e-readers explodes, the physical business is strong for the near term.

The Barnes & Noble (BKS) College division recently began testing a textbook rental program, for example, and is rolling it out to 25 U.S. colleges. And BookRenter is a smaller competitor.

But with Chegg, Rosensweig is getting to ride the lead horse in the space, taking over from current CEO Rashid.

In an interview a year ago, in fact, Rashid said, “I do not want to be a long-term CEO. My passion is solving the problem and getting the company to a place where it can be taken to the next step.”

While he will remain chairman, the entrepreneur has recently closed $7.5 million in funding for a new stealth start-up called Kakai. Sources have said it is focused on the even more crowded e-reader space.

The replacement for Rosensweig–who had been working in private equity since his departure from Yahoo (YHOO) in late 2006 and has also worked at CNET Networks and Ziff-Davis–will be the Guitar Hero division’s current COO, David Haddad.

Until he has something to say about Chegg, here is a video interview I did with Rosensweig in September, when the new version of GH5, as well as Band Hero and DJ Hero, were launching:

[ See post to watch video ]

Here is the full press release from Chegg about the appointment:

Chegg.com Names Daniel Rosensweig As President and Chief Executive Officer

Appointment accelerates explosive growth of market leader in textbook rentals

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/–Chegg.com, the No. 1 online textbook rental company, today announced that it has appointed Daniel Rosensweig as its new President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Effective immediately, Rosensweig joins a company that closed $112 million in funding from Insight Venture Partners, Pinnacle Ventures and TriplePoint Capital in November. That round added to the already impressive list of investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Foundation Capital, Gabriel Venture Partners and Primera Capital.

“We are thrilled that Dan is joining us as our President and CEO,” said Osman Rashid, co-founder and chairman of the board at Chegg.com. “Chegg.com has been growing at an exceptional rate, and now is the time to bring in a world class leader that has successfully managed high growth consumer businesses and innovative business models. With Dan’s breadth of global business experience and passion for the consumer, we know he is the right person to lead Chegg.com through the next phase of its growth.”

Rosensweig joins Chegg.com from Activision (Nasdaq: ATVI) Publishing’s Guitar Hero franchise, where he served as CEO and president, launching Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero and DJ Hero in 2009.

A proven leader, Rosensweig was previously the Chief Operating Officer at Yahoo from 2002-2006, where he oversaw the company’s worldwide operations including its product development, marketing and advertising sales.

Rosensweig started his career at Ziff-Davis, where he spent 18 years in a variety of senior positions, including president of the Ziff-Davis Internet Publishing group, vice president and publisher of PC Magazine and president and CEO of ZDNet, which he built from a standalone Ziff-Davis company to a publicly-traded, highly-trafficked Internet network.

“The opportunity to lead one of Silicon Valley’s fastest growing companies that offers real financial value to students is unparalleled,” said Rosensweig. “Chegg.com has a powerful business model and, I believe, the opportunity to transform the textbook industry.”

The high cost of textbooks is a real social and economic problem that is burdening millions of students and their families. Chegg.com’s innovative and convenient textbook rental model is helping relieve this burden and has already saved students more than $137 million.

“We invested in Chegg.com because of its impressive business model and unique value proposition – helping students and parents save on the overall cost of education,” said Deven Parekh, managing director of Insight Venture Partners. “With Dan joining the company, we are building a powerful consumer brand on college campuses across the country.”

Apple iPad Event Liveblog

John Paczkowski — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:00:40 +0000

After months of feverish speculation and as many years of wishful thinking, Apple uncrated its tablet computer–the iPad–at an invitation-only event in San Francisco this morning.

Liveblog

9:13 am PT: Quite a scene here this morning; the queue for media credentials is nearly as long as some of the iPhone 3G launch lines I saw a few years back. Moments ago, an Apple PR rep slipped through the doors of the Yerba Buena Center to ask that the press waiting outside take two big steps back. The last time that happened to me, I was at a Jesus Lizard show.

9:54 am: The doors open and the press enters the event hall. Initially, at least, the scene is pretty crazy. “This is like the subway in New York,” an attendee behind me jokes. More like the subway in Tokyo, I think to myself.

A Bob Dylan soundtrack plays as media and guests file in. It’s momentarily interrupted by a “please take your seats, our event is about to begin” announcement.

10:00 am: Interesting stage set-up today: Instead of an empty stage or a simple table, there are a black leather chair and side-table. Lights are dimming….

And Steve Jobs takes the stage to a standing ovation.

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical product, but first a few updates….A few weeks ago we sold our 250 millionth iPod…I didn’t want to let that moment pass without recognizing it.”

10:05 am: Jobs offers a quick overview of Apple’s retail operations and some of the new stores it has opened recently before moving on to the iTunes App Store. “A few weeks ago we announced that three billion applications had been downloaded from the App Store–that’s in 18 months…amazing.”
He notes, as he did in the company’s earnings release the other day, that Apple is now a $50 billion company.

Apple is a mobile devices company, says Jobs, “the largest mobile devices company in the world now. Larger than Sony’s mobile device business, larger than Samsung’s and, astonishingly, Nokia’s as well.”

10:07 am: A quick historical overview now. Jobs touches on the first PowerBook, introduced in 1991. He moves on to the MacBook and then the iPhone.

“All of us use laptops and smartphones, now. And the question has arisen lately: Is there room for a device in the middle?…We’ve pondered this question as well.”

This “middle” device, says Jobs, must be better at doing certain tasks than either the laptop or smartphone. If there’s going to be a third-device category, it must be better at browsing the Web, video, photos, music, etc.

“Some folks say this device is a netbook…. The problem is, netbooks aren’t better at anything.”

10:10 am: But we have something that is, says Jobs, “and it’s called the iPad.”

Photos of the device appear on the giant screens. Very thin. Very slick. “IPad offers the best Web browsing experience there is–way better than laptops.” There is no camera that I can see. That’s not going to go over well with folks hoping for a device that supports video iChat.

10:13 am: Further details: The “iPad is a dream to type on,” Jobs says, pointing out its life-sized onscreen keyboard. It’s also an awesome way to enjoy media. iTunes, iTunes University and YouTube HD support are built in.

10:14 am: Jobs sits down to demo the device: “Using this thing is remarkable. It’s so much more intimate and capable than the laptop.” He loads Safari and surfs over to the New York Times (NYT). The iPad loads quickly and Jobs is able to easily navigate the page, loading stories and zooming in on articles.

10:15 am: Demonstrating landscape and portrait now. “This device adapts to the way I want to use it.”

Definitely an impressive browsing experience. Fast and elegant.

Now, an overview of Mail. Also elegant. Nice split-screen presentation. Hit compose, and a nice onscreen keyboard pops up. Jobs types out a message to his colleagues at Apple. Seems relatively easy.

10:19 am: Moving on to iPad’s photo capabilities. It supports iPhoto’s Events, Faces and Places features. It also offers built-in slideshows complete with soundtracks and transitions.

Running a slideshow demo, Jobs pauses and looks out at the audience with a Chesire Cat-wide grin. He’s clearly relishing this moment.

10:22 am:: The iTunes experience on iPad is much as you would expect. Similar, if not identical, to what the software currently offers. Calendar and Contacts apps are also nice and, again, similar to what you’d find on a MacBook or iPhone.

10:24 am: Demoing Google Maps now. The iPad supports Google Street View and the implementation is very slick.

10:25 am: Moving on to video. Jobs calls up an HD clip from Google’s (GOOG) YouTube and displays it in both portrait and landscape. That finished, he fires up iTunes and loads “Star Trek” to demo the device’s video features, scrubbing, etc. Then he shows us a clip from Pixar’s “Up.” Tap to go full-screen. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

10:27 am: Watching that is nothing like actually having one in your hands, says Jobs.

iPad is one-half-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds, and comes with 9.7 inch IPS display–“very high-quality display”
Full capacitive multitouch
16GB-64GB flash storage
iPad is powered by our Apple’s custom silicon–“We did it inhouse and it just screams,” says Jobs.
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, accelerometer, compass.
Battery life: 10 hours.

“And in addition to 10 hours of battery life, iPad offers a full month of standby time,” Jobs notes. “It’s also a good environmental citizen,” he adds, noting that it’s a very green device.

10:31 am: Jobs invites Scott Forestall to the stage to talk about apps on the device.

“We built the iPad to run virtually every app in the App Store right out of the box,” Forestall says.

Evidently, a built-in pixel-doubling feature automatically scales iPhone apps to full-screen iPad apps.

10:35 am: Forestall runs an unmodified racing game from the App Store. He first demos it in the screen size of an iPhone. Then, using the pixel-doubling feature, he blows it out to full screen. Very slick.

“So you can buy the iPad, take it home, hook it up and download all your iPhone apps and run them with no problem at all,” he says.

Forestall announces a new iPhone software development kit specifically geared to the iPad. He notes that iPad-specific applications will be featured “front and center” in the App Store.
He then invites Gameloft’s Mark Hickey to the stage to demo some new games the company has developed using the new SDK.

Hickey notes that the iPad’s additional screen space is a boon for developers, particularly those building games. He demos a first-person shooter that showcases this. “We’re now able to interact with the game world in ways that we weren’t able to before.”

10:40 am: Next up, the New York Times. Martin Nisenholtz takes the stage to talk about its iPad effort.

After talking up the Times iPhone app, Nisenholtz segues to the the paper’s new iPad app: “We think we’ve captured the experience and essence of reading the newspaper.”

The app is largely what you’d expect. Tap to resize text, zoom, breaking news updates, video. “This is everything you love about the paper and everything you love about the Web.”

10:44 am: Now, a painting application called Brushes that was famously used to create a New Yorker cover.
The app is impressive enough on iPhone; it’s even more so on the iPad. It supports “playback” of paintings, and as the presenter notes, brings us one step closer to a real virtual painting studio.

10:46 am: EA’s Travis Boatman take’s the stage. The topic of his presentation: Need For Speed.

“Building for the iPad is a little bit like holding a high-def TV screen a few inches from your face,” he says.

The iPad version of Need for Speed boasts a number of touch-activated enhancements: Tap on the car to view its interior, tap on the rear-view mirror to look behind you.

10:52 am: Up next: MLB.com’s Chad Evans. He demos the outfit’s iPad-optimized app, which uses the device’s additional screen space to display video excerpts and MLB TV.

MLB TV can be streamed like and enhanced with onscreen stats and data. “This big display really allows us to create a much more immersive experience,” Evans says.

10:52 am: Forestall returns to the stage to make another brief plug for the SDK before Jobs takes over for him.
“Let me show you another one of our apps that we’re very excited about,” Jobs says. “An e-book reader.”

Behind him a photo of Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle appears. “Amazon did a great job with their reader and we’re standing on their shoulders here….Today we’re announcing the iBooks store,” says Jobs, adding that it will be supported initially by Penguin, Simon & Schuster and a number of other big publishers.

The iBooks Store interface begins with a simple bookshelf view. Tap the screen and it loads a more iTunes-like view. Purchase a book and it’s added to your bookshelf with a slick little animation.

The reading experience seems very appealing. Much more book-like. From where I sit, the pages look like they’re written on paper.

“We use the e-pub format, the most popular open-book format in the world,” says Jobs. “We think iPad is going to be a very popular e-reader not just for bestsellers, but for textbooks as well.”

10:58 am: And here’s another new product announcement: A new version of iWork tweaked for use on the iPad. Jobs invites Phil Schiller on stage to demo it.

“We have a completely new version of Keynote, a completely new version of Pages and a completely new version of Numbers–all optimized for multitouch.

Schiller demos Keynote first. Creating presentations appears intuitive and simple–a slide navigator on the left, tap to load individual slides in the main window, drag to rearrange.

Nice use of multitouch gestures to enhance the app. Pinch to resize photos, tap to insert animations and transitions. These are all fairly advanced techniques and the device seems to handle them well.

11:05 am: Moving on to Pages now. Also impressive, though creating a written document on a tablet device like the iPad seems like it might be a drag. A nice tool for editing, though. Simple controls.

11:07 am: Moving on to Numbers. This application also makes good use of multitouch gestures and boasts a data-entry keyboard along with some 250 built-in functions. The software’s gesture capabilities makes Excel look antediluvian.
Powerful and fast.

So what’s Apple going to charge for iWork? $9.99 each, says Schiller, who notes that all three applications are compatible with their Mac versions.

Jobs returns to the stage, grinning. “Isn’t that great?” he asks for what’s easily the 10th time. iPad, he says, will synch to Mac or PC via USB.

11:14 am: Evidently, there will be two iPad models–one with Wi-Fi-only and one with Wi-Fi and 3G. The 3G device will come with two plans: 250 MB per month for $14.99, unlimited data for $29.99.

And who’s the carrier? AT&T.

A small groan ripples through the audience.

Jobs allows that AT&T is also throwing in free Wi-Fi at its hotspots. He follows that up by noting that there are no contracts for the iPad. You can cancel at anytime.

All iPad 3G models are unlocked and they use new GSM micro SIMS, so chances are they will just work, Jobs says, after noting that Apple hasn’t yet worked out international carrier deals.

11:16 am: Now a quick overview as a wrap-up. Jobs touts the overall tablet experience along with the new iBook app and iBook Store. “This is an amazing product with tremendous breadth. What should we charge for it?…When we set out to develop the iPad we not only had aggressive UI goals, we had aggressive price goals, because we wanted to put this in the hands of as many people as possible….IPad pricing starts not at $999, but $499,” Jobs says to a huge round of applause.

$499 for 16GB base model.
32GB for $599.
64GB for $699.
Adding 3G requires an additional fee.

Apple will ship Wi-Fi models in 60 days and 3G models in 90.

11:20 am: Apple has created new accessories for the iPad: A standard dock and a second dock with a keyboard attached to it. “Keep one of these in your den and you can write the next “War and Peace” on it.” The final accessory, a new case that doubles as a stand.

Running a video now. It features a number of Apple execs enthusiastically talking up the iPad.

11:25 am: Let me circle back here for a moment to pricing. Adding 3G to iPad requires an additional $130. So we’re talking $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB and $829 for the 64GB version.

Designer Jon Ives on the iPad: “In many ways iPad defines our vision, our sense of what’s next.”

11:32 am: Jobs returns to the stage and recalls the “middle device” scenario he mentioned earlier today. “Can we create this new category? The bar is set pretty high, but we think we’ve got the goods.”

“This is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” he adds. “The reason the iPad is going to be so great is because Apple has always strived to be at the junction of technology and liberal arts.”

And with that he concludes. Lights go up and Dylan begins playing over the speakers again.

View the slideshow

PREVIOUSLY:

Apple’s Tablet: A $2.8 Billion Business?

Apple’s Tablet: MacBook Airbus?

Apple Announces Jan. 27 Special Event: “Come See Our Latest Creation”

Major Apple Product Announcement Set for Wednesday, Jan. 27

Apple Pitching Tablet to Publishing Industry; Spring Launch Expected

Time (Finally) for the Tablet? Apple Developers Supersizing Their Apps for January Event.

The Apple Tablet Is Delayed? So What?

$1.9 Billion in Capex? What’s Apple Planning?

Apple’s Tablet: Read Different?

Imaginary Demand for Mythical Apple Tablet Exceeds All Estimates

Apple Tablet Coming to AT&T?

New From Piper Jaffray Analyst Gene Munster: The Apple iPad

Rumored Apple Netbook Actually an E-Book?

iTablet: Apple’s Killer App for Higher Ed

iFugly

Highlighting Text in E-Books and IE8 Accelerators on a Mac

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:01:41 +0000

I’m waiting for e-book devices that allow the reader to highlight text. This is essential for students reading textbooks, and for nonfiction readers. Any chance of that happening?

A: Your wait is over. Major e-book readers I’ve tested, such as Amazon.com’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader Daily Edition, already allow highlighting. In other words, you can select any section of text in a book and give it a gray background so it stands out from the rest of the text, persistently. It’s not yellow or any other color, because the screens are grayscale and don’t display colors, but it is highlighting. You can also add notes on e-readers.

I have a Mac laptop that I use at home with Safari and Firefox installed. My office environment uses Windows and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8. One of the features of IE8 that I really like and often use are “Accelerators.” I would like to know if there are accelerators available for download for the most up-to-date versions of either Safari or Firefox.

A: Accelerators are a particular feature of IE8 that allows users to perform an action on a highlighted portion of a Web page—like mapping an address or translating a word—even using services provided by companies that compete with Microsoft. Microsoft has put a system in place for companies to write accelerators and users to download them.

Firefox, on both Windows and Mac, has a massive collection of add-ons, some of which work in a manner similar to Accelerators, but it doesn’t have a directly competing feature. Safari on your Mac also can accommodate added features from third-party companies, some of which can work like accelerators, but it also lacks a feature that specifically goes head to head with IE8′s Accelerators.

I am going to law school in the fall, and I was wondering which laptop you would suggest I get for this three- to four-year time period of my life?

A: It really depends on your priorities, resources and environment. If you’re on a tight budget, value lots of choice, and enjoy playing games during breaks from work, you might pick a modestly-priced Windows 7 laptop. However, I’d stay away from netbooks, which can be cramped for writing long documents. If you have more to spend, and value freedom from malware, great built-in software and the convenience of dedicated stores, you might buy an Apple MacBook or MacBook Pro. But I would also recommend asking the school and current students, since it can be advantageous, or even necessary, to be using a laptop that the school prefers or that runs any special software the school requires.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

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