Startup Diaries

At last - Microsoft Actually Does Something Cool

It's kind of hard to admit, after all I said about Microsoft and their kind of pathetic tries to become a major web player, they finally came out with something kind of cool.

First time I heard about Tafity, their Silverlight based search engine, I was sure I'm going to hate it.
I believe that search should be very fast application and not something with a lot of bells and whistles. Still, I got to admit that after playing around with it, I think Microsoft actually done great job. If they will put more effort to it (and a lot more resources. This thing take ages to load)  it could be a really useful application.
I'm not talking just about the nice UI (thanks to the great graphics engine of Silverlight), but to some of the ideas behind the innovative user interface. For example:

- Instead of showing 10 results and a list of more result pages, you can simply scroll to see more results. How the hell no one has done this yet??

- The ability to stack search results in a few piles on the sidebar can be really important when you do intensive research on a subject.

- The fast way you can navigate between images, news, web, feeds and books results can also save you some time.

So is it enough to make me leave Google? Not yet. But they are on the right path...

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Tafity, Silverlight

At Last - Facebook Feed Opens Up

At last!! This was just the thing that I waited for to change my mind about Facebook.

Although Facebook opened up with their API a couple of months ago, there was still no way to access the update feed without logging in to the site. This actually made Facebook almost useless for me. I simply don't have the time to keep logging in all the time in order to see the updates.

Now Facebook allows you to subscribe to your feed using RSS. If I'll have some time on the weekend I will try to come up with a small app that will also show me desktop tooltips whenever the feed will have new updates.

Finally Facebook becomes a useful tool also for me...

Technorati Tags: Facebook

Stop Using Google Reader

When you read through the blogosphere it seems that everyone agree that Google Reader is the best reader out there. Anyone who is "hot" claim he use it.
So a few weeks ago I started using it myself. I got to admit that I was quite happy with it. Until now.

can someone explain to me how the hell a Google information and knowledge based application such as Google Reader does not have any search capability???!!
Are they completely mad???
We use feeds not just to get updated on the latest but also as a way to learn and explore topics. It is vital that we will have a way to actually search and find posts we read in the past.

Anyway, for me no search means it's time to look for a new reader. This brings me back to what I think is one of the wonders of the Web 2.0 world - the fact we still don't have any perfect RSS reader. Each one has advantages but also disadvantages.
What do I want? A reader that will do the following:

- Offline and Online capability (meaning double interface. Or some use of technology like Apollo.

- Search. The best you can give me (even better if it integrates with windows/outlook search using a search provider.

- Simple. I don't want fancy animations and graphics. Simply make the experience as fast as possible (one thing Google Reader is good at).

- Easy way to manage and organize feeds.

- Mobile access.

- Alerts to my email inbox or through a desktop widget.

- Ability to subscribe to Audio and Video feeds.

- Easy way to share posts using email.

- Easy way to subscribe to feeds from any page.

 

Now, if you already have this - instead of charging for it, simply use very targeted text advertisements (with very high CPM) in the background to monetize it.

Technorati Tags: Google Reader, Google, RSS, RSS Readers

The Joke of Google Video

That's simply outrageous. I really hope someone will take Google to court with it.

Techcrunch just reported that Google decided to close down its Video marketplace product. As the product never really took of it seems like a reasonable decision.
The problem is that all videos already purchased by users will stop function in the next month. Instead of giving users their money back, Google decided to give them Google checkout credit. This means that users have to use the money to buy something else in one of the shops working with Google.

This is like Virgin selling you some DVD movies and a year after coming to your home, taking all the DVD back and telling you that instead of giving you your money back, you can buy something else in other departments in the store.

Such an obvious disregard of users is something even Microsoft didn't do all these years...

Technorati Tags: Google, Google video

Is Seadragon the Ultimate Answer?

Not often I encounter in technology that makes me do wow. While revisiting new Microsoft technology Photosynth (which made me wow a couple of months ago when it was declared) I found out about another new technology Called Seadragon.
What is Seadragon? Microsoft claims it's a technology that enables you to show any amount of information (for example hundreds of high def photos) without consideration of bandwidth. You can view a demo of it in the embedded video (Thanks Yosi for the link).

If they can make this demo a common reality in our browsers it has the potential to reinvent the Internet and what we can do with it.

Technorati Tags: Seadragon, Photosynth, Microsoft

WebbAlert

How cool is to get updated on what's happen in the web world from such a beautiful face. I just wish they will use a better hosting platform so it will be easier to see the show also outside of the US...

The Open Business Concept

Fred Wilson wrote this week about the need for an open social network, one where the users have complete control on their information.
Sean Ammirati wrote about the possible creation of an open ad network. An ad network where publishers get the all cake of the advertising budget (instead of the Google and rest of the ad networks way where they take a big cut of the advertising money).

It all brings me back to an old vision I had when I started my company NuConomy.
Back in the early days of 2006 when I just started to roll the idea in my head I thought about what was back then an absurd idea - do rev share with the end users. I thought about businesses like YouTube where millions of people are producing and uploading every day (basically doing all the work) and in the end Google (back then it was still YouTube) takes all the money.
It sounded very unfair in my head. I had a vision of a web where the people who produce the content gets not just the glory but also the money. I decided to develop a system that can measure the end user contribution to the business in order to decide how big his cut of the cake should be (I got to admit that today running incentives programs is just a feature in our system. The platform itself changed its focus to next gen analytics).

In my head I even envisioned totally new structure of business. Something I called "The Open Business" (taken from the concept of open source).
Imagine a business that his owned by its employees and ran completely by its employees. Everyone share of the business is decided by their direct contribution to the business.

Lets take for example the idea for an open social network.
You take an open source platform and start a new social network with a business model around advertising. Each user who joins the network gets a status of a virtual employee of the network and a shareholder of the company. How many shares does he gets? Depends on his exact contribution to the business.
Users that has more friends, upload and write more high rated content, invite more friends and drive more page views or clicks on ads gets bigger cut of the revenues every month.
It's that simple. In the open business the users are the shareholders. They are the employees. They not just own their information, they own the business itself.

I also gave a lot of thoughts about how this concept of open business can help drive the open source community.
Think of an ad based open source project, where all the developers that contributed to it gets a cut of its revenues. How you decide how much each developer will get? By their exact contribution the project. You can measure stuff like number of created/solved bugs, number of developed features, rating of features, spent hours, etc.
I know that most people who participate in open source are doing this for the community and not for profit, but can the open business be an open enough model that the community can actually embrace?

Technorati Tags: open business, open source, rev share, business, ad network