|  |  |  | | | | | GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  When Comcast announced that it would be partnering with Skype to bring video chat to the living room of its subscribers, there was some question about whether or not it would succeed where other home-video-chat services failed. For the service to really take off, it would need to be drop-dead simple: After all, Mom and Pop aren’t going to sign up if it’s not as easy to make a video call as it is to make a phone call.
On the Comcast Voices blog on Thursday, the company showed off a couple of videos demoing exactly how it will do just that. The good news, not just for Skype but for Comcast subscribers, is that it looks like the companies succeeded in creating a service that virtually anyone can use. The key to the service, from a user-experience perspective, is that it doesn’t try to do too much. In fact, it’s the lack of user distractions that really stands out. With a totally stripped-down user interface, the service is really just about making voice and video calls to other users. Meanwhile, even while viewers are making calls, or trying to, they’re still able to see TV that is playing in the background. “We didn’t want to decorate the screen with elements that weren’t relevant,” Comcast Interactive Media user-experience guru Susan Oppelt said in one video. Another key is in giving users other people to talk to. The application taps users’ existing Skype buddy lists, and it also connects with the Comcast Connect address book. So users can connect with any of Skype’s existing 660 million users, whether they are on the desktop or mobile apps. By connecting with Comcast Connect, the app also becomes presence-aware on any and every device, Michael Connelly, the VP of Product Development and Management said in another video demo. The Skype integration goes beyond just bringing the video-chat experience to the TV, however. Connelly says in the video that Comcast is also blending Skype functionality into its Xfinity Mobile applications. By doing so, Comcast will enable its users to make and receive Skype calls on whatever device is best for them, he said. While Comcast’s implementation of Skype video calling looks cool and seems to be pretty easy to use, its adoption will ultimately depend on the price at which it’s made available to users. So far, Comcast hasn’t mentioned how much it will cost. But the good news is that users won’t have to buy any new hardware to get up and running: Comcast plans to lease equipment to subscribers in the same way it leases DVRs and set-top boxes. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Werther (far left) at our Structure Big Data conference. For anyone concerned about the difficulty of doing advanced analytics tasks with Hadoop, the answer might be just around the corner. A stealth-mode Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup called Platfora is working to make Hadoop usable even for the non-data-scientists among us. According to the details available on its web site, Platfora is working on software that will let users do new kinds of processing with Hadoop via an “intuitive and beautiful user experience.” It will provide “Data science for mortals — questions and exploration rather than walls of math.” All of this sounds great, but it will be a while until we see what Platfora has up its sleeve: Founder and CEO Ben Werther told me the company isn’t releasing details right now, but should have more to say in the three-to-six-month time frame. Werther was formerly vice president of products at DataStax, a startup software and services company dedicated to the Cassandra NoSQL database. At our Structure Big Data conference in March, DataStax launched its own Hadoop distribution that seeks to provide a more real-time analytics experience for web applications by replacing the Hadoop Distributed File System with Cassandra. As for Platfora’s mission, Burying the complexity of Hadoop underneath layers of abstraction is nothing new. Datameer, Hadapt, IBM and others all have their own unique approaches for letting users take advantage of Hadoop processing without having to worry about the steep learning curves around MapReduce and cluster management. They’re all fine approaches, but in such a new space, there’s plenty of room for innovation, which has me very interested to see what Platfora is up to. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Something is percolating in Facebook’s Seattle office.
On Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg told reporters in a visit to Facebook Seattle the company plans to “launch something awesome” next week, according to a Reuters report published Thursday. The new product was developed at Facebook’s Seattle office, he said. Facebook Seattle, which opened in March and currently has around 40 employees, is the company’s only engineering outfit outside of its Silicon Valley headquarters. As of press time, Facebook’s public relations team has not responded to GigaOM’s request for comment on the impending launch. The new product could well be an iPad app, something that has been notably absent from Facebook’s portfolio for some time now. According to reports published earlier this month, Facebook has been readying an iPad app for over a year and was in the final stages of testing as of mid-June. Meanwhile, the company is also understood to be building an HTML5-based platform to serve a mobile version of its site through the web, rather than through a native app interface. One thing is certain: Between all the IPOs, blockbuster fundraising events, and major product launches, it has been a very busy summer for the tech industry. And with Facebook apparently planning to kick off July in “awesome” fashion, it looks like 2011 may not have one of those traditional summer slumps at all. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
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According to a news report on Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission is looking into Twitter’s business practices — and specifically, the way it has dealt with third-party developers whose products and services rely on the Twitter platform. Although the news doesn’t necessarily mean Twitter is under official investigation, since the FTC often conducts informal inquiries that never proceed to the official stage, it means the company’s behavior must have raised enough critical flags to catch the regulator’s attention, which is rarely good. The report from Business Insider, which appears to be based on anonymous source, says the FTC has contacted UberMedia, the company founded by well-known technology entrepreneur Bill Gross that has had a fractious relationship with Twitter for some time (we’ve reached to UberMedia for official confirmation, and will update if we get a response). Another maker of Twitter-related apps reportedly said that the company’s legal counsel “advised us not to talk about” the topic. Twitter communications manager Matt Graves, meanwhile, told us the company had no comment on the reports. If the FTC — which rarely comments on investigations when they are in the informal stage — is actually conducting some kind of inquiry into how Twitter has treated third-party apps and services, the regulator is going to find plenty of material. The network has had a love-hate relationship with what some have called its “ecosystem” for the past year or more, something we have documented a number of times here at GigaOM. From fledgling service to dominant player When Twitter was just getting started as a fledgling service and trying to expand its user base, the company seemed happy to allow anyone to build a Twitter-related app by using the open API (the application programming interface that provides access to Twitter’s data). Soon, the market was filled with Twitter clients and services that posted photos to the network — such as Twitpic and Yfrog — URL shorteners like Bitly and other applications. But that attitude changed dramatically when Twitter started buying apps and creating its own competing features. The turning point seemed to come when the company acquired Tweetie, a Mac client for Twitter, and Twitter investor Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures wrote a blog post about how third-party companies should focus on other things apart from just “filling holes” in Twitter’s feature set — the implication being that this was a recipe for disaster.  Evan Williams Twitter co-founder and former CEO Evan Williams later admitted that the company “screwed up” in the way it handled this affair and its evolving relationship with developers. But soon Williams was replaced as chief executive by Dick Costolo, and a number of observers say the Twitter culture changed dramatically as far as its ecosystem was concerned: the company started tightening the rules on use of its API, and it also started cracking down on third parties like UberMedia. Gross’s company seems to have originally triggered Twitter’s ire by trying to launch its own advertising service, just days before Twitter launched its own ad-related offering called Promoted Tweets. Gross began buying up third-party Twitter clients like Echofon and Twidroyd, and there was talk that UberMedia wanted to create its own alternative Twitter-style network — but then Twitter shut down several of the company’s apps for what it said was behavior not allowed by its terms of use. Twitter nabs TweetDeck from UberMedia At about the same time, UberMedia was reportedly in negotiations to acquire TweetDeck, a popular client used by power users of Twitter to monitor multiple accounts and lists through a single interface. But following the shutdown of its clients (who were later reinstated by Twitter after UberMedia responded to the company’s complaints), the deal fell through. Within weeks there were reports that Twitter was negotiating to acquire TweetDeck, and that acquisition ultimately went through in May. What the FTC’s interest is in opening an inquiry is, or whether it will amount to anything but a few innocuous letters to Twitter competitors, is impossible to say. But whatever the outcome happens to be, an inquiry can’t be a positive thing for a company that is busy trying to grow quickly enough to justify the valuation its last financing assigned to the company. Some observers believe that financial pressure has contributed to the kind of behavior the regulator is allegedly looking at, by forcing Twitter to control its platform more rigidly and squeeze out potential competitors (Twitter has launched a site for developers that appears to be aimed at repairing some of those relationships). This isn’t the first time Twitter has come under FTC scrutiny: the company was the subject of an investigation about privacy breaches that saw user information taken from the system, and Twitter eventually settled with the federal regulator in March. Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Social Sidekick and Wikimedia Commons Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
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Research in Motion’s declining fortunes have been well documented. It’s losing momentum in sales as consumers drift to other platforms like iOS and Android. More recently developers have started to back off the platform, saying it’s not worth their effort. And now there are signs that the workforce is restless and concerned, potentially on the verge of losing hope. In an open letter sent to BGR, an unnamed senior exec lays out in painstaking detail where the company has gone astray and what it needs to get back on track. Though the post ends on a hopeful note, it is littered with doubt and fears, alternating with anger at the squandered opportunities the company has had. It is not surprising given the state of the company, but it shows how precarious things have gotten for RIM. RIM responded with a statement that questioned the veracity of the letter and provided some general upbeat talk about the company’s efforts to weather its transition. But it doesn’t address the major points raised by the letter, simply reiterating that RIM is addressing the situation and is still in a strong position to tackle the challenges ahead. It’s a bland response and doesn’t do much to get at what I see is the real issue: keeping up morale at the company. While missing customers and developers is obviously a huge problem, RIM can’t afford to lose the trust and confidence of its employees. These are the only people who can engineer a turnaround for the company. But they need a reason not to lose hope. Here’s a look at some of the points raised by the letter: - RIM’s culture doesn’t support open communication and criticism and doesn’t hold people accountable. And executives are too dismissive of competing products instead of learning from them.
- The company took too long to understand the disruption brought by iPhone and Apple’s commitment to the end user and instead built devices based on strategic alignements and partner requests or in an effort to achieve “feature parity.”
- RIM hasn’t focused enough on its developer community, offering them inadequate tools that have resulted in sub-par apps. And it hasn’t prized software enough, failing to recruit the kind of talent that can go up against Apple, Google and Microsoft.
- The marketing message around BlackBerry is muddled and unfocused, latching on to features like Flash or multitasking instead of clearly defining what the company stands for.
- RIM’s structure with two co-CEOs needs to be rethought because it’s not efficient. The company hasn’t been able to move quickly in its response to the iPhone or in its transition to QNX. That has led to too many products, some that were not ready for launch. The writer suggests that they step down with both still involved but no longer carrying the CEO title.
But more than the individual points, there’s an undercurrent of frustration about where the company is going and how well positioned it is to recover. The writer starts off by stating, “I have lost confidence,” saying the company has fallen further behind during the “chaotic” transition. Later, he says “we are demotivated,” when talking about the state of RIM’s software and said the culture of the company needs to change so people who fail are let go. But most importantly, there is a sense that all is not well at the top. The writer said the company’s overconfidence clouded its decision-making, leaving it flatfooted when Apple came with its iPhone. “We missed not boldly reacting to the threat of iPhone when we saw it in January over four years ago. We laughed and said they are trying to put a computer on a phone, that it won't work. We should have made the QNX-like transition then. We are now 3-4 years too late. That is the painful truth… it was a major strategic oversight and we know who is responsible.”
I have no doubt that co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have read this note. But the real issue is what they do with it. It’s clear that the employee trust is wavering, which tends to happen when you announce layoffs. But the bigger issue is that the rank and file want some direction, some sense of purpose from the top, something to keep them from bolting when the headhunters come. The writer pleads explicitly for that, saying “We need an injection of confidence.” I’ve said that the smartphone game is still being played out and so RIM can afford to see its sales dip for a time. Developers will come back when the user base demands it, though better tools would help. But it’s all dependent on getting back to putting out a top notch product. And for that to happen, RIM needs to engage its employees and get more out of them than just long hours. IIt needs to open up those channels of communication and show that it knows how to listen while still being disciplined in setting a course of action. This is a very pivotal time for RIM, and from the sound of the last quarterly earnings report, patience is necessary as deadlines get pushed out and the forecast gets more hazy. Taking this letter to heart could show that management is prepared to do battle again. But if it’s just business as usual, I have little confidence in any turnaround taking root. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  I teach technology and innovation to working professional MBA students who are changing courses and teams every ten weeks. Collaboration tools are critical to our effectiveness. Over the last two years, my courses have served as testing grounds for two locally-grown, student-designed tools: Acceledge and Piazzza. These tools, as well as other student-built offerings, such as Coursekit, are the result of a growing student frustration with “old-school” collaboration.
My students come to class straight from their jobs at a variety Silicon Valley firms large and small. They are required to do team projects, and much of the team work is virtual. They tell me they have the following requirements for collaboration tools: - Privacy. While they are interested in sharing examples from work, they don't want these examples available publicly.
- Threaded/searchable Q&A with the answers coming from both students and faculty.
- Ability to share relevant links and files for commentary. Basically Facebook for the classroom.
- A simple, clear calendar with readings and due dates available at a glance (in other words, project management tools).
And there’s also my additional requirement: On-line quizzes with a gradebook that supports the U.S. regulations for educational privacy. While all faculty at my university have access to Angel (a Blackboard course management system), in my classes, I’m happy to beta-test student-built tools, and I find especially interesting the simplicity offered by these solutions. An effective collaboration application is not about how many features the tool has — it’s about getting the task done. Acceledge  This term I used Acceledge, founded by one of my students, as my main course management tool instead of Angel. It’s a custom-built tool, based on the open-source Moodle learning platform. Its simplicity is what drew me to say "yes" to the trial. Because of the customizations added on top of the Moodle base, the students only saw the features they told me they needed — there was no wiki, and no deep detail around each topic.
Piazzza  Pooja Nath, Founder and CEO of Piazza, was still an MBA student at Stanford when she approached me two years ago about trying her Q&A tool. From the Piazza site:
I started Piazza so every student can have that opportunity to learn from her classmates. Whether she’s too shy to ask, whether she’s working alone in her dorm room, or whether her few friends in her class don’t know the answer either. I want Piazza to be a remedy for students who are not given the intellectual space, freedom, or support to fulfill their educational potential and desire for learning. And I want Piazza to empower instructors to have a positive, personal impact on more students. Piazza is designed to connect students, TAs, and professors so every student can get help when she needs it — even at 2AM.
Again, the simplicity and student-focus is what made me say "yes” to the trial. The only repeat complaint I've had from students is about the quality of some the questions posted by their classmates and the fact that Piazzza is not an integral part of the overall course management tool. Both my students and I find huge benefit in the control they have over when and how they see questions. Coursekit The University of Pennsylvania is apparently feeling the same push by students to take control of their collaboration space. Coursekit is the result of frustration on the part of Wharton undergraduate Joseph Cohen (cofounder & CEO). From the Coursekit site: We started Coursekit out of frustration with existing school software. We’ve re-imagined what a class should look like online. We give instructors and students amazingly designed tools to manage their courses — gradebook, calendaring, file management — and we make it unbelievably easy to interact with one another. We believe that there’s a lot more to class than lecture. Post links, videos, files. Start discussions. Write a blog post. Ask about an assignment. Classes are meant to be social, but they rarely are. We’re changing that.
There is much to be learned from the priorities of students with multiple courses (projects) functioning in self-managing teams. They aren't looking for bells and whistles; they are looking to simplify and be effective. We can all learn from these students’ experiences and perspectives: Translate academic team project to basic team work, gradebook to performance appraisal, and you have a web working environment with needs similar to those of most organizations. Take the students' perspective for the moment — frankly, we are all students in this quickly-changing environment — how could simplification enhance your projects? What is the minimum viable product for your setting? Photo courtesy Flickr user Harry Wood Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  In the wake of Google pulling the plug on its energy tool PowerMeter, Microsoft says it has now killed its energy service, Hohm, too. Microsoft writes on its blog that it will discontinue its Hohm service starting on May 31, 2012.
Microsoft writes: [D]ue to the slow overall market adoption of the service, we are instead focusing our efforts on products and solutions more capable of supporting long-standing growth within this evolving market.
Google gave the same reason for killing PowerMeter: just not enough people and utilities had signed up to use it. Microsoft had already publicly discussed how it was trying to evolve the Hohm service, after launching it two years ago. Unlike with Google's PowerMeter, Hohm offered more accessibility to a regular consumer that didn't have a smart meter yet, creating a web portal that let people look at the energy efficiency of their home. Microsoft licensed algorithms from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Department of Energy to create it. Other plans for Hohm were to use it as a software layer for electric vehicle charging and even broader building energy management. Also in contrast to Google's PowerMeter, Microsoft intended Hohm to be a revenue-generating product. Clearly it didn't work out that way. Other companies that have launched services and gadgets in the home energy management space have changed course considerably or folded. Check out my article from the summer of 2009: Where Not To Make Money: Energy Management Software, GigaOM Pro (subscription required). Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Ever since Google started to roll out its Google+ project on Tuesday, many of its users have been particularly excited about its group video chat service Hangouts. I agree, but not just because it's fun and easy to use. The real kicker is the technology that powers the service. Even in its infancy, Hangouts is an interesting cloud service. But in the not-so-distant future, it could evolve into a standards-based video conferencing solution that runs natively in many browsers and on a whole range of devices.
Google has been quiet about its plans for Hangouts, and hasn't revealed all that much about some of the components powering the service either. However, there have been some key developments in recent months that indicate what makes Hangouts work and where things are going: The cloud Making video chat work at scale can require a lot of resources, which is why there has been a movement towards peer-to-peer (P2P) solutions to offload video and signaling traffic between the clients involved. Skype makes use of P2P for that very reason, as does Chatroulette. However, P2P can introduce latency, which can be especially bothersome if you chat with 10 people at a time. That's why Google went down a different route for Hangout. "To support Hangouts, we built an all-new standards-based cloud video conferencing platform," explained Google Real-time Communications Tech Lead Justin Uberti in a blog post on Tuesday. He added that Hangouts uses a client-server model which "leverages the power of Google’s infrastructure." Browser integration Hangouts currently requires you to download the same plugin that also powers video chat within Google Talk. However, Google is working on making both Hangouts and Google Talk itself work in the browser, without the need for any plugins. This will be done in part through a new framework for realtime communications (read: text, voice and video chat) dubbed WebRTC that the company open sourced in May. WebRTC is supported by Mozilla and Opera, and Google started to integrate the framework into its Chrome browser earlier this month. "Work has started to move Google Talk completely to WebRTC," it says on the project's web site. At that point, users won't need a plugin anymore to use Google Talk, and the same should eventually be true for Hangouts. Here's what a Google spokesperson told me via email about the connection bewteen the Google+ video chat service and the framework: "A lot of the technology in Hangouts feeds into the WebRTC, and we contribute a lot of feedback to help shape the WebRTC interface. At this point though, our plug-in and the protocol are different efforts." He refused to reveal any future plans, but trust me, the writing is on the wall… Open codecs Google Talk and Hangouts currently use technology Google is licensing from Vidyo to facilitate video chats. Video is transmitted in H.264/SVC, with H.264/AVC and H.263 being used as fallback solutions. However, there are strong sings that Google will eventually switch to open codecs. Google open sourced its VP8 video codec last year as part of the new WebM video format, and real-time communications were one of the big issues that VP8's programmers wanted to improve with the codec from the onset. In fact, VP8 is already being used by Skype for its group video calling feature, and Google's WebM project manager John Luther wrote in February that VP8 is an "exceptionally good codec for real-time applications like videoconferencing." So when will Hangouts be switching from H.264 to WebM? Google+ Project Lead Bradley Horowitz indicated on This Week in Google on Wednesday that his team is already testing alternatives to the current codec. A Google spokesperson didn't want to discuss any future plans for Hangouts when I asked about the codec issue, but here's a clue: WebRTC is based on the VP8 codec, which means that H.264 could get displaced as the default codec for Hangouts as soon as the video chat service rolls out its native browser integration. Device integration This is where things get really interesting: Hangout's cloud-based architecture and its upcoming browser integration will eventually make it possible to deliver an optimized group video chat experience to a whole range of devices. Desktop users will get to view full HD video, users on mobile devices will receive optimized streams to deal with bandwidth issues. And Google TV users could see Hangouts appear on their TV sets sooner than they think, thanks to the fact that Google TV in fact comes with a full-blown Chrome browser. A few companies have started to bring multi-person video chat to mobile devices, but cross-device video conferencing is still in its infancy, and Google could have a good chance here to capture the market early on. Of course, the company didn't want to comment on the specifics of bringing Hangouts to mobile devices, but what Google's spokesperson told me wasn't exactly a denial either: "Again, we can’t comment on future product plans. However, Google Plus heavily invests in mobile products as we believe you should be able to share and communicate, whether you are on the web, tablet, or phone."
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  The town of Cornelius, CO has found that a new pilot program replacing paper with iPads is saving the administration money, time and helping the environment along with increasing government transparency, according to the Huntersville Herald. Cornelius Mayor Jeff Tarte and the town’s five commissioners recently each were issued an iPad 2, paid for by the town, which they premiered at the town’s board meeting on Monday June 20.
The iPads all plug into the town’s NovusAgenda software, providing commissioners with all necessary meeting materials, including budget worksheets, zoning maps and PowerPoint presentations, which once comprised 210 pages of printed materials each. These packages used to be distributed in paper form to 19 members, which meant a whole lot of time spent copying, and money spent leasing and maintaing copy equipment, in addition to the cost of supplies. Town Manager Anthony Roberts says he’s amazed with how much sense it makes to use iPads and digital material instead of paper. "It's just a no brainer," he told the Huntersville Herald. "We used to print all those agenda packets and people threw them in the recycling bin after the meeting.” Plus, Roberts says, going digital helps transparency, since “the beauty of this system is you have everything online. It's there forever and a day, and the general public sees everything." There’s an initial expense associated with the system, but the NovusAgenda software is a one-time fee that should last years, and the iPad 2′s are actually relatively cheap, since only the 16 GB Wi-Fi versions are required. Roberts says the city spent between $700 and $800 on each laptop it was purchasing anyways, so the iPad is a much more economical solution. With a gradual rollout, there’s no reason to think the savings wouldn’t scale for larger cities, too. The iPad is winning fans in government, business and education because it’s easy to use for almost anyone, and because it’s very flexible thanks to its support of custom apps that plug into third-party systems and server software. Cornelius is a good example of how it can have an impact at the municipal level, and Roberts points out a very good reason why we might see other cities (many of which are facing budget crunches) follow suit: "People ask why? To save money. They're cheaper. That's why." Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  The Federal Communications Commission sent its net neutrality rules on their final steps to becoming a real law on Thursday. The agency sent the rules to the Office of Management and Budget to ensure it complies with arcane paper reduction rules and then the rules are on their way to printing in the Federal Register. And once that happens, then anyone can file a lawsuit and get the ball rolling on testing these things in court.
The rules, based on a set of principles adopted in 2005, are an attempt to provide regulations that will keep ISPs from discriminating against traffic on their networks. So a broadband provider couldn’t block content from Yahoo or play favorites with certain web sites or services. The FCC had started this process in September of 2009. Now, it could be as soon as 35 days before these rules hit the Federal Register or a bit longer, but for bureaucracy watchers (and those who care how the net neutrality fight plays out) this is a significant move. Also, today the FCC offered up some details on how ISPs will need to comply with the transparency requirements in the original order. In general ISPs will have to offer consumers a web site that will disclose how the ISP manages traffic in cases of network congestion and will also give customers details about the speeds they should expect. For a refresher on the net neutrality rules, check out our overview post or the original order in its entirety, and for details on how ISPs will have to tell consumers about their broadband speeds and methods of handling congestion click on through to read the order. And prepare for a flurry of lawsuits in August as companies and public interest groups try to find a court sympathetic to their position. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  It’s not quite the $150,000 offered to Y Combinator companies, but DreamIt Ventures is dangling some cash of its own to its startups in an attempt to keep them nearby and ensure the accelerator program stays competitive.
The Philadelphia-based organization, which recently launched a New York class, said it is teaming with venture fund Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania to launch DreamIt Plus, a program for graduating start-ups that allows them to potentially receive up to about $60,000 in total funding. The money along with additional support from Ben Franklin is designed to help start-ups that are still looking to lock up their Series A round of funding. If DreamIt start-ups can get any lead angel funding for their team, Ben Franklin will match the funds up to $30,000. DreamIt has reached out to a handful of local angels to help including Ed Harvey, Fred Kielhorn, Dave Kurtz, and Gabriel Weinberg. In exchange for the money, start-ups will be part of Ben Franklin’s portfolio and must remain in the Pennsylvania area. The offer will be good for companies in DreamIt’s upcoming fall class, which is currently taking applications, and may extend to qualifying companies in the current New York class provided they move to Pennsylvania. Kerry Rupp, managing director of DreamIt, said the Plus program came about because many teams were not from the area but were willing to stick around because of the connections they had made. By offering an incentive, DreamIt can keep them working in the area and can also use the money as a way to appeal to new startups. The additional money seems to be an acknowledgement that even among the accelerator programs, there is growing competition to get good candidates and with the money flowing to Y Combinator, competitors like DreamIt need to step up with more support. New World Ventures, an early stage fund in the Midwest, recently partnered with Chicago incubator Excelerate Labs to offer Excelerate startups $50,000 in convertible debt with no discount or cap. The money can be a motivator it seems. Y Combinator saw its applications jump by 40 percent after SV Angel and Yuri Milner made the offer and ended up with a class of more than 60 start-ups, up significantly from the most recent class of 44. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Updated. Companies that make online games, social networks, and web coupons seem to be able to raise a lot more money in IPOs right now than companies that make energy technology, greener transportation, and biofuels. Zynga’s reported potential $2 billion raise could deliver Zynga five times Tesla’s combined IPO and follow-on offering. If Groupon raises at least $750 million, it would bring in more than the IPOs of Amyris, KiOR, Gevo, and Zipcar, and the planned IPOs of EnphaseEnergy and Luca Technologies combined. It’s kind of sad, actually.
Greentech IPOs Social media IPOs that have happened or are planned: | Company | Sector | Size of IPO (or planned IPO) | | LinkedIn | Social media | $352.8 million | | Pandora | Social media/music | $235 million | | Zynga | Social media/gaming | Estimated as much as $2 billion. | | Groupon | Social media/online coupons | Potentially $750 million or more. | | Kayak | Social media/travel | $50 million (not every one is huge) | | Facebook | Social media | If it ever IPOs, a heck of a lot | Image courtesy of schumachergirl1956. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  I, like millions of others, have health insurance, but ask me if I understand it, what I’m paying for and where my expenses are going to, and I don’t have much of an answer. But just as software is helping organize personal finance, travel, banking and billing, we’re starting to see some cool solutions that tackle the problem of health care information.
Simplee, a Palo Alto, Calif.-startup, is looking to bring a Mint.com-like approach to health care expense management, with a free service that lets people understand their plans, what they’re paying for and how they can optimize their coverage. The service, which has been in private beta for the last month, is now available to the public today. The website works by connecting to a user’s healthcare accounts and bringing in the data, so health, vision and dental records can all be aggregated in one place. Simplee said it has 65 percent of the market supported with many big insurance plans on board such as Aetna, Anthem, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Cigna, Delta Dental, United Healthcare and Vision Service Plan with 80 percent of the market expected to be covered by the end of this year. Now you have to comfortable letting Simplee have access to your records, but if you do, there’s a pretty good tradeoff. Simplee keeps track of your medical expenses and how much a user has paid in deductibles. For families, it helps a user understand when a family member has hit their deductible and how much their insurance plan is covering. Users can manage their ongoing bills and track specific bills by service, subscriber and medical provider. It all comes in a clean dashboard that helps users see where there money is going. It also alerts users to what kind of benefits they receive under their current plans, so they can take advantage of services they didn’t realize they were covered for. Simplee co-founder and CEO Tomer Shoval, who used to lead the north American business of Shopping.com, came up with the idea after racking up family medical expenses on vacation. He said the service is increasingly important as families pay more of their medical expenses out of pocket. He said Simplee will start by aggregating data and giving users good management tools. But he said the next phase, which he hopes can be monetized, will involve arming people with data on how to select their health care plans. And over the next year, he is looking at creating a shopping engine for health procedures based on Simplee’s database of health care bills, so users can compare prices between doctors and find a professional that fits their budget. Simplee, which has raised $1.5 million from Greylock Israel and some angels, is part of a growing group of health care startups that are tapping into available data and building tools that help make sense of the health care mess. Cake Health and Medify are two others that are trying to tackle this issue. But Simplee is also part of a larger movement in software management tools that use clean user interfaces and user experiences to help simplify more complicated tasks. Mint.com has helped with personal finance and we’re seeing some of those lessons pop up in other startups like BankSimple, Manilla and Project Slice. The real power is in easily organizing data in one place and making it easy to manage, which helps users make better and more informed decisions. It’s good to see this come to health care, which has been more of a black box than other areas. But as information becomes increasingly available online, it makes more sense to have these kinds of tools available. I know I don’t spend much time understanding my health care and that might work right now. But I’m not getting any younger and as my health care needs grow, along with my family, I’m going to want something like Simplee. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
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MobileBeat 2011 — VentureBeat's 4th annual flagship conference on the future of mobile — is gathering the brightest minds in the industry on July 12-13 in San Francisco to explore this year's hottest macro trend: the arrival of true mobile computing now that 4G is here. We'll dissect the multi-billion dollar sectors that are being transformed by the new, resource-rich mobile networks and platforms: Payments, e-commerce, phone & device makers, cloud, web development, mobile gaming, and more. Learn firsthand what the major players from within these sectors are doing to leverage 4G. GigaOm readers click here and use discount code “VB-Om” to get 20 percent off! Recently confirmed speakers: - Jason Spero, Head of Mobile, Google
- Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO & Co-Founder, Yelp
- Humphrey Chen, Executive Director New Product Technologies, Verizon Wireless
- Stephanie Tilenius, VP Payment & Commerce, Google
- Aaron Levie, CEO & Founder, Box.net
- Laura Chamber, Senior Director, PayPal Mobile
- Matt Murphy, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
- David Williams, VP of Mobile Products, AT&T
- Mihir Shah, President & CEO, Tapjoy
- Rich Miner, Partner, Google Ventures
- Omar Green, Director of Strategic Mobile Initiatives, Intuit
Secure your spot for two packed days of groundbreaking content and unparalleled networking opportunities. MobileBeat has sold out every year to date, and this year’s program is laying the foundation for what promises to be the hottest mobile event of 2011. Join 700+ mobile industry leaders as we explore who will win in the 4G Nirvana! GigaOm readers click here and use discount code “VB-Om” to get 20 percent off! 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was not bluffing.
On Wednesday evening, Amazon terminated its associates program in California after Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that will impose state sales taxes on online purchases made by California residents. Earlier that day, Amazon had sent an email to its California-based marketing affiliates warning it would shut down its associates program in the state if the bill was passed. California is not the only state in which Amazon has battled over sales taxes. Over the past two years, Amazon has terminated its associate programs in such states as Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Texas over similar sales tax impositions. Amazon has vowed to continue dropping states that pass similar sales tax laws from its affiliate program — and with the company’s latest moves out of Texas and California, CEO Jeff Bezos has shown he will not back down, even in some of the nation’s largest marketplaces. There is an old saying: ”As California goes, so goes the nation.” If that bears out to be true, the Amazon associates program could soon be a thing of the past altogether. Here is the text of the email Amazon sent to its California-based affiliates: Hello, Unfortunately, Governor Brown has signed into law the bill that we emailed you about earlier today. As a result of this, contracts with all California residents participating in the Amazon Associates Program are terminated effective today, June 29, 2011. Those California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM orSmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned before today will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule. You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program. To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect your ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com,MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. As mentioned before, we are continuing to work on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available. Regards, The Amazon Associates Team
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Flipboard, one of the first iPad applications to really take advantage of the new device’s touch interface to create a kind of digital magazine, released a series of updates and new features Thursday that turn the app into even more of a tablet newsstand. As newspapers and magazines continue to try to capture readers with their own site-specific apps, Flipboard is making it easier for users to create their own constantly changing iPad magazine — one that pulls from hundreds of sources, and has social feeds and signals built in. As we’ve argued before, this looks a lot like the future (or one version of the future) of digital publishing. Among the new features in the updated version of the Flipboard app is the ability to pull in an unlimited number of RSS feeds from websites or content publishers you want to follow through the app (readers were previously limited to 21 feeds). When you can aggregate and then browse hundreds or even thousands of sources — from RSS feeds to magazine publishers like The Economist, one of Flipboard’s new partners in this version — one of the big issues is finding content, so there’s a new “content guide” built into the app that allows users to search across all their sources, and also recommends content from Flipboard partners. 
In addition to the content guide, Flipboard has added a number of enhancements aimed at using social signals to filter content — including a new tag or banner that says “popular on Flipboard” to highlight articles that have been read or shared by a lot of app users (popular articles will also be featured in the content sections that Flipboard sets up such as Art & Design, Technology, etc.). And the way tweets with links appear has also changed: The article that’s linked now shows up expanded with the tweet in a small strip at the bottom, which highlights the content being linked to rather than the tweet itself. 
The content guide — which isn’t driven by an algorithm but involves Flipboard staff highlighting content from various sources — is obviously the kind of editorial function newspaper and magazine editors used to perform. But they did it within their own publications, whereas Flipboard is doing it by drawing from a vast and growing selection of digital sources (content from LinkedIn and its LinkedIn Today social news platform is also included in the new update). In an era when anyone can become a publisher — thanks to what Om calls the “democracy of distribution” phenomenon created by social-publishing tools like blogs and Twitter and Facebook — the ability to search, aggregate and filter hundreds of sources from different platforms is a crucial function for a media outlet. It’s one that Flipboard, and other similar apps such as News.me from Betaworks and Pulse, are currently doing a lot better than any existing mainstream media entity. In fact, they’re doing it better than Google News too. 
While Flipboard’s new features add a lot of utility to the app, they still don’t include one of the big elements that a digital-content service should theoretically allow, which is personalization — in other words, recommendations and filtering based on a user’s actions and social graph. While some apps such as Zite (and services such as the Washington Post‘s Trove) have made steps towards what some call “The Daily Me,” no one has come up with a killer offering. If anyone is well positioned to do this, it’s Flipboard, since one of the company’s earliest acquisitions was The Ellerdale Project, which was working on exactly that kind of smart recommendation technology. According to comments made by CEO Mike McCue after the latest release, Flipboard is close to releasing a new version with personalization built in. Having recently landed a $50-million funding round, the company certainly has the runway to move forward with it — and that will extend the gap between Flipboard and the majority of the mainstream media even further. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja Edit Note: This is an excerpted and updated version of a blog written by Harold Feld on the Wetmachine blog. The original post can be found here. LightSquared on Thursday filed a report that shows that its planned wholesale LTE wireless network would interfere with existing GPS equipment, and suggested a three-part plan to resolve the issue. The report, filed with the FCC, could throw the operation of LightSquared’s network into some doubt. But Feld argues in this post that the bigger issue here isn’t so much the fight between LightSquared and the GPS industry, but how the FCC will handle it and continue to make more spectrum available for wireless broadband. For some time now, I've been rooting for LightSquared, the planned wholesale 4G network using both terrestrial and satellite networks. Despite the fact that it faces tough odds trying to build out an expensive wireless network, a wireless network built from ground up for wholesale only could totally change the wireless market. I just love the fight between LightSquared and the GPS industry because it manages to contain everything that makes spectrum policy in this country like running a marathon with concrete blocks on your feet: bad neighbors operating critical systems so they can get away with being prima donnas, hostility from other federal agencies, unanticipated interference issues that crop up on deployment, and efforts to politicize the FCC's technical process. For a spectrum wonk such as myself, it simply does not get better than this.
Today, the FCC received a report (PDF) that confirms that, yes, when LightSquared operates it system, it creates interference for existing deployed GPS systems. As a result, only the following things matter: - The LightSquared folks are right about how the GPS guys knew this day would come and conveniently chose to do nothing. But in the short term it doesn't matter, because the FCC will not allow anything to happen to GPS.
- On the other hand, if the GPS guys get their way, it means taking another 40 MHz of prime spectrum and rendering it useless forever. That also isn't going to happen. That suggests a phase in/compromise.
- Whether LightSquared actually survives the compromise as a viable service will depend on a lot of things. The dimensions of any such compromise will depend on the interference tests. While it is clear that LightSquared's system as proposed causes interference with GPS systems, a lot of questions remain about what ought to happen to make it so that GPS and LightSquared can live together in harmony.
 And the precedent of how to deal with annoying neighbors is almost more important than what actually happens to LightSquared. If the GPS guys get their "sit on your rear-end veto," then we can pretty much kiss off spectrum reform in the most useful spectrum bands. Every potentially useful band has neighbors that built systems on the assumption that nothing would ever change. So the FCC either finds a way to balance the interest of incumbents with fostering the expanded use we need for our expanding wireless demand, or we forget about "spectrum flexibility" and resign ourselves to the current state of the universe pumped up by the occasional auction.
The FCC is not going to let anything happen to GPS. But that doesn’t mean the GPS guys will be happy. Here is really the most important thing. The FCC's engineers on spectrum issues are extremely conservative. They recognize that making predictions about possible interference is not nearly the precise science that people like to think it is. From an engineering standpoint, it is easier to loosen interference restrictions later than try to mitigate interference if you were too optimistic. But from an economic standpoint, this approach can take a service that was economically feasible and make it into something simply not worth doing. The FCC tries to balance these competing interests, taking into consideration things such as how important (economically and politically) is the existing service and how useful (from the FCC's perspective) the new service would be. So for LightSquared and GPS the tests mandated by the FCC show that, if LightSquared turned on its network tomorrow, it would have fairly widespread impact on existing GPS systems. So is the show over for LightSquared? Not necessarily. LightSquared is trying to demonstrate to the FCC that it can take "mitigation measures" to bring the risk of harmful interference down to safe levels. Here are the standard kinds of interference mitigation measures in these sorts of situations. Require upgrades for the existing systems. LightSquared has already indicated it will pay to protect "critical" systems related to national security, public safety, and extremely expensive precision applications. This probably also applies to other wireless providers collocated in the same area whose towers rely on the GPS for precision timing rather than the location function. This approach alone cannot possibly work for millions of already deployed consumer GPS systems, and will probably be resisted by the GPS coalition as underinclusive. Which brings us to the next popular choice. Offer an internalized guard band. The problem of energy leaking out of the band allocated to one service into another service is an old one, and the traditional solution is to require a "guard band" between the services. LightSquared can be required to limit the actual operation in its system to something far smaller than its actual 40 MHz. The idea is that by increasing the separation between the LightSquared operations and the frequencies GPS units receive, you attenuate the strength of the energy that interferes. LightSquared has offered to begin transmissions only in the lower 10 MHz of spectrum it has, in order to mitigate GPS interference. Phase in over time to replace deployed systems. A third approach is a gradual phase in on the theory that consumer GPS units, the most numerous and with the worst shielding, will be replaced over time with better units designed to shield against the increased energy generated by LightSquared's operations. This is what LightSquared has proposed Thursday to get it to eventually be able to use its full 40 MHz. The Commission can also require that, as LightSquared ramps up operation, it must work with providers to notify consumers about the possible need to upgrade their GPS units. None of these is mutually exclusive, and a combination play seems the most likely – if the FCC does anything at all. But, does a solution leave LightSquared financially viable? The most likely problem for LightSquared is if it has to sacrifice too much capacity for an internal guard band. LightSquared's business model depended on access to 40 MHz of spectrum. If Lightsquared must take too much spectrum out of action, or if it needs to eliminate the large contiguous blocks that make LTE more efficient, it may jeopardize its ability to sell enough wholesale capacity to give adequate rate of return. In theory, this entire proceeding involves one licensee and its direct neighbors. But the reality is that what happens here will dramatically impact whether investors try to innovate and repurpose spectrum for wireless broadband generally. LightSquared has spent well over a billion dollars already. If the FCC indicates it will pull the plug on that kind of investment because of political pressure, only the most well-connected incumbents will take any kind of risk, and then only for the most conventional kinds of investment. Harold Feld blogs at Wetmachine and is also the legal director at Public Knowledge. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Skype, still in the midst of being swallowed up by Microsoft, just announced that video chat is finally coming to Android devices, though to only a limited selection of devices so far. The feature is part of a big update for the Android app that includes a UI redesign that adds usability to the app.
The video chat feature will only work initially on Nexus S, HTC desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo and Sony Ericsson Xperia pro. If you have one of those devices, you can 2-way video call with other Skype users on other platforms such as iOS, Mac or Windows. That is, at least in theory. I had trouble connecting an iPhone 4 with a Sprint Nexus S for a video call. As on iOS, it works over both cellular and Wi-Fi (when it is working). You can toggle between cameras and camera views, position your preview window and mute the video. With the app redesign, you get a new menu and the ability to update your status right at the top. By syncing your Skype contacts with your phone, you can make a video call from your phone contacts list. It’s too bad that the Skype service is limited to so few Android devices right now. But video calling will get more useful as support expands to more Android phones. This is another important step for Skype as it aims to become a ubiquitous communications service. It’s got a solid service on iOS, including a new iPad app, and it’s working its way into the living room. But Android is the fastest growing smartphone platform ,and it represents a big opportunity, especially as people look to make more cross-platform video calls. Rivals such as Tango, Qik, Oovoo and Fring have already been doing cross-platform video calls, and Fring and Oovoo have started pushing group mobile video chats. Google is also pushing the edge on its new Google+ service, which makes video conferencing easy with its Hangout feature, which could eventually make its way to mobile. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  It’s difficult to find a more fitting corporate name than PHP Fog. It’s cloud computing Platform-as-a-Service with a laser focus on PHP applications. The fogginess comes from the innate nature of the cloud and, more specifically, PaaS, where code enters the mist on one side and running applications emerge on the other. It’s what PHP Fog does in the foggy middle that’s so unique and garnered it a place in our second-annual LaunchPad competition.
When I first covered PHP Fog in January 2011, I likened it to Heroku (a popular PaaS offering for Ruby applications), but PHP Fog might have actually surpassed its forerunner on the automation front since then. As with Heroku, PHP Fog users deploy their code to the platform using Git, at which point the automated process for scaling and other features kicks in. What PHP Fog does that’s fairly unique, though, is offer push-button deployment for specific PHP applications such as WordPress, Drupal, SugarCRM and Joomla.That capability is part a fast evolution for PHP Fog, which also already has endured its first public security breach and appears to have come out stronger in the end. Founder and CEO Lucas Carlson has hinted on several occasions that what we see today is just the beginning for PHP Fog. If the evolutionary paths of PaaS startups past is any indication, those plans might include a catalog of add-on features and support for non-PHP applications. Although PHP is the foundation of many large web sites, including Facebook, so the company has many options for new features even within PHP. PHP Fog launched in 2011 and is headquartered in Portland, Ore. It has raised $1.8 million from Madrona Venture Group, First Round Capital and Founders Co-op. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | I’ve been playing with the Google+ service on my Android handset to get a sense of what it has to offer on Google’s operating system. I’ve been especially interested in Huddle, the group texting app that is currently only available to those on Android handsets. The verdict: Google made some thoughtful decisions for mobile users for the Google+ service overall, but Huddle isn’t as intuitive as other group texting platforms. First, the good stuff. Google tries really hard to explain what you will be sharing on your phone and offers you the ability to instantly upload your images and videos to Google+ if you so desire. While that’s a nice ad hoc backup, I didn’t feel comfortable doing so, so I turned that off. Still, sharing an image was as easy as clicking the menu, tapping share and then selecting Google+. I even had the option of sharing location at a varying levels of specificity ranging from not at all to down to my street address. This was cool, but the constant GPS access while I was playing with the service was a real battery suck.  However, if I had elected to instantly upload my photos and videos, Google put some real thought into making sure the process didn’t come back to bite me when my bill arrived. It offers me a lot of options on when and over what networks those uploads should take place as shown in these images.
The Google+ app for Android makes sharing really easy and it’s a nice experience overall. But then there’s Huddle, the group texting app. First, because you must have an Android handset in order to access Huddle, it can be a bit of effort to find some folks to group text. And while it’s easy to find people in Google+ to add them to your Circle (a self-defined group of contacts) and it’s also easy to find them to start a Huddle, once a Huddle exists it’s not fun to add new folks to it. For existing groups, to add new people, you need to scroll through a long list of contacts to find people.  Thus, my group maxed out at three until I randomly invited someone in that I didn’t know thanks to the clunky scrolling and adding contacts feature (or my butterfingers). Then I couldn’t figure out how to delete them. In general the Huddle app works as advertised but I enjoyed using Beluga more as a group text option or even GroupMe. The UI for those apps are much nicer and the entire act of joining and organizing groups was more intuitive. Those difficulties aside, if you’re going to spend a lot of time playing with and optimizing Google+ the Android app is a great place to start and makes it easy to keep updating while on the go. For those with sharp eyes and a desire to know, I was using an HTC Incredible, and the screenshots are taken on a T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide by my colleague Janko. Check out the gallery below for more. Picture 1 of 8 The Google+ notifications stream.Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  It won’t be long before most phones will be smartphones, which are outselling feature phones in recent sales, according to new figures from Nielsen. The firm said that smartphones made up 55 percent of recent phone acquisitions in May 2011 in the U.S., pushing past feature phones for the first time.
The numbers, which count people who bought a phone in the last three months, are up from 34 percent a year ago and reinforce similar findings from NPD. Together, they further confirm that the rise of smartphones is certain and is still on pace to eclipse feature phones in overall marketshare this year. Nielsen said smartphones account for 38 percent of the market right now. Verizon + iPhone = Sales The growth of smartphones in recent sales was driven by the iPhone, which arrived on Verizon in January and went from accounting for 10 percent of recent sales in February to 17 percent in May. Meanwhile, among recent acquisitions, Androidremained at 27 percent from February to May. That follows other reports that Android’s marketshare gains have slowed with the expanded distribution of the iPhone. Whether that continues could depend on how many more carriers Apple partners with and whether it introduces cheaper handsets to compete with Google’s army of Android devices. RIM’s Painful Transition One company that is not enjoying this fight is RIM, which saw its share of recent acquisitions fall from 11 percent in February to 6 percent in May. That kind of tumble places more pressure on the company as it struggles though a painful transition period shifting from the old BlackBerry OS to QNX for its smartphones. Even with the promise of new phones later this year, RIM is under the gun to gain back users who are finding more to like among Android and iPhone choices. 
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Entrepreneur Steve Blank has spent a lot of time thinking (and writing) about how ineffective old-fashioned board meetings are when it comes to building and scaling startups. This is the Internet age, yet founders and investors are still waiting six weeks to discuss progress over a long mahogany table? Startups aren’t small versions of large, slow-moving corporations. So why, Blank asks, do we treat still them that way? The question was on his mind this spring, when Blank met with coder, entrepreneur and founder of Techcofounder Ben Mappen. Mappen came to pitch Blank an idea for a startup. But by the time the check arrived, Blank, one the biggest names in the lean startup movement was pitching Mappen on his vision for offering startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. “The minute I heard his idea, I thought ‘Wow. Not only is this a great idea but this is really right up my alley,” Mappen said. “I asked him if he was doing anything with it and he said no. So he gave me his blessing. Driving home from that meeting I was like, ‘Holy cr** what just happened? I’m working with one of my heroes.” Mappen put his own idea on hold. The result of that lunch meeting is LeanLaunchLab — a startup-building software based on lean startup principles and the customer development method of searching for a business model. The blog-like software will allow startups to instantly record their progress and issues and serve as a narrative by allowing them to post customer interviews, surveys, videos and prototypes. Board members, investors, advisers and others will be able to view the project and add their input instantly. No need to wait for board meetings or coffee shop get-togethers. “It's a tool that completely shortens the feedback loop,” Mappen said. “Founders wish investors spent more time with them and shockingly, the investors I’ve surveyed feel they aren’t doing enough for their companies. The number one reason is lack of time. They don’t have time to for all the coffee meetings and phone calls and board meetings. Now, they can give advice on their own time. One hour a week per company is all it takes.” The product has received seed funding from Shawn Carolan of Menlo Ventures. More than 700 startups signed up to participate after it was first demoed in May at the Startup Lessons Learned conference in San Francisco. Now, Mappen is about to launch a beta version of the software, with an initial group of 20 early-stage companies to serve as participants. While Mappen sees LeanLaunchLab as providing founders with a way to communicate complex information and get feedback and guidance for startups in between board meetings, he believes the product could really be revolutionary for early-stage and angel-funded startups — which typically don't have formal boards or directors — as well as companies outside the tech orbs of Silicon Valley or New York City. For them, there’s no formal way to get advice and no great way for advisers, investors and potential advisers to actually see what progress the startups are making. Even those valuable Starbucks meetings are impossible. “In places like Pittsburgh and Anchorage, [the] founders are no less smart. They’re no less passionate. They just have no access to capital,” Mappen said. But for more established, venture-backed startups, Mappen said the boardroom will always have some value. “We aren't trying to completely replace the board meetings,” Mappen said. “There are somethings you need to do in a board meeting, like hiring and administrative details. But you shouldn’t have to sit back and rely on them for everything.” Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): 
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