The Disrupt 2012 NYC Ha...

The anticipation is palpable. Hundreds of hackers have congregated outside Manhattan’s Pier 94, planning, strategizing, and praying to baby Jesus that their fates will be similar to those of Group.me and Docracy . We’ve seen plenty of Hackathon winners go on to do incredible things , make millions of dollars, and rise to startup stardom levels, but the journey isn’t a simple one. Click to view slideshow. Let me paint a little word picture for you: The hackers will be in a massive warehouse for the next 24 hours and beyond. They’ll have API sponsors and helpful workshops, sure, but the challenge of creating a product, or even a prototype, all comes down to them. Red Bull will be an unavoidable temptation, especially after a couple hours staring at white code on a black background. They know they might crash, but they don’t care. They need the energy. Snacks will abound, and snacks are all they have time for anyway. A huge meal is sure to weigh down the belly and slow their pace. After a few hours, fights are destined to break out. Maybe it’s a disagreement over which API to use, or which color the UI should be, or really anything. They’re under an insane amount of pressure, and even the slightest frustration or hindrance can cause a major break. Teams will turn against each other, and joyously reunite after a few moments of pensive reflection. When the clock strikes midnight, that’s when things get loopy. The empty cans of Red Bull will be joined by full cans of beer, heads and shoulders will begin to slump, and the fights that have since been resolved will resurface. Certain members of various teams will begin practicing their presentations, most certainly distracting other teams from their work, but this is, after all, a competition. The coffee pot will be refilled twice as often for the rest of the Hackathon, and bean bags, tables and even cold, hard floors will be converted into napping pads. And alas, the sun will rise. Obstacles will be overcome. Prototypes will be completed. Presentations will be perfected. And perhaps, just maybe, the beginning of a beautiful story will be written. Disrupt NYC is set to be one of our biggest shows yet, with returns from Michael Arrington and MG Siegler , along with a variety of big names like Marissa Mayer , Sarah Tavel , Fred Wilson , and David Lee and more. It’s going to be huge. If you’re interested in checking out Disrupt and/or the Hackathon yourself, tickets are still on sale here and info on the Hackathon can be found here . Companies who want to join the Battleground can apply for the last remaining spots in Startup Alley . You can find the full agenda here .

Gillmor Gang: Don’t Cli...

The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Gabe Rivera, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — play toe jam football in the shadow of the Facebook IPO. Try as we might, we can’t shake the weight of Facebook’s dominance of Techmeme and maybe the fate of the global economy. Greece, move over. @gaberivera joins near the 30 minute mark. @scobleizer tries a reverse Statue of Liberty play around the forthcoming Samsung phone and the threat to Apple (nonexistent) but our hearts aren’t in it. I fail in a weak attempt to roll up everything under push notification. Face it: our hopes and dreams are now tied to our jobs as feeders of the Facebook Empire  Please Twitter. Save us. @stevegillmor, @gaberivera, @scobleizer, @kevinmarks, @jtaschek Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

The Free Ride Is Over F...

Comcast’s plans to do away with its 250 GB data cap and charge users based upon usage marks the end of an era for cable TV providers, and for the online video industry. No longer will users be able to endlessly stream all the content their hearts desire. Not just that, but the fact that usage-based pricing is arriving at the same time that more, higher-quality content is appearing online could have a dampening effect on demand for services like Netflix or Hulu Plus. Comcast, of course, says that its new, usage-based pricing policy is pro-consumer, and to a certain extent it is. The average broadband subscriber — those who only use up about 8 GB or 10 GB of data a month — shouldn’t necessarily pay the same as those whose usage goes above 300 GB in the same period of time. But for those of us who are avid streaming video users, usage-based pricing models could change the overall value proposition of watching video on the Internet. Can streaming video be a TV replacement? I’m a subscriber to Netflix, Hulu Plus, and MLB.tv. I have a Roku box and an Apple TV, and I frequently purchase season passes to shows like Mad Men, Justified, and Sons of Anarchy. Even though I don’t pay for cable, I take advantage of access to TV Everywhere applications from the likes of Showtime and HBO, from my family’s Xfinity TV account, as well as test accounts that I occasionally get from some of the cable networks to check out their new services. In other words, I watch streaming video in the same way a lot of other people watch regular TV. But instead of recording shows and watching them from a DVR, I watch them on-demand online. I’m also a Comcast broadband subscriber, and I’m probably what the company would consider a heavy data user. While I’ve never bumped up against the 250GB cap, I’ve definitely started to come close over the last several months. In April I racked up 160 GB of data usage, and about halfway through May, I’ve already used 90 GB. That might be atypical for the average Comcast broadband subscriber, but I think that type of usage is becoming a lot more common, particularly for highly connected people like me. More importantly, the amount of data I’m using has rapidly increased over the last year or so. It wasn’t so long ago that I was typically using less than 100 GB a month. And I expect it to continue increasing, to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if I hit and surpass Comcast’s new 300 GB data limit at some point over the next 12-18 months. Part of that is due to me just watching more stuff — I’ve been re-watching old episodes from The Wire, for instance, in addition to a regular slate of weekly shows. And with baseball season up and running, I’m streaming a lot more MLB.tv as well. But part of it is also due to more bandwidth being used by higher bit rate streams, as services like Netflix improve the video quality of their products. Putting things into perspective But what about data usage for everyone else? The average video on Netflix uses up about 1 GB of data per hour, but most of those streams aren’t in full HD. The highest quality setting for Netflix, which is what most viewers would like to stream to their TVs, uses more than twice as much data per hour. According to Nielsen, the average TV viewer consumes about five hours of video a day , or about 150 hours of video per month. For those keeping track at home, that means that you’d have to watch even more video online than your typical TV watcher if you ever plan to max out Comcast’s 300 GB allotment. Of course, that’s where things are now, but video quality continues to improve for all of these services, and that means higher bit rates and more data streamed per movie or TV show. What happens as these services improve, as more content and higher-quality content makes its way online? And what happens as more people tune into those services? Today, about 30 percent of users have streamed a video to their TVs, either because they own a so-called “smart TV” that came with access to streaming video services, or because they’ve connected a game console or streaming box (and in some cases a PC) to a dumb TV. What happens when that hits 50 percent? Or 75 percent? Hell, what happens when Apple’s mythical iTV gets released and users suddenly have access to a whole new set of streaming applications in 1080p? That will change the value proposition of online video dramatically. For me, between all the different subscription VOD services and the cost of 8-10 season passes that I buy every year, I’m probably already paying more for streaming services than I would pay for TV if I just purchased a basic cable package. But then, I wouldn’t have the convenience of on-demand access to most of the content that I want from a number of different services and devices. And I also wouldn’t have the pleasure of watching most of that content without ads. For now, it’s a trade-off I’m willing to make. But in the future, if I have to pay an additional $10 for every 50 GB of video I consume over a 300 GB limit, though? Then I’m not so sure it’s worth it. That’s the world we’re about to enter. What Comcast’s moves are really about For me, the debate over Comcast’s treatment of its streaming Xbox Live app isn’t even about net neutrality or whether it treats the traffic of online competitors any differently than it treats its own. What it really comes down to is, do you want to pay for a TV and VOD service that you can stream to your Xbox or an iPad, computer, or connected TV… Or do you want to piece together an alternative solution from a variety of different streaming services? It’s a judgment between the current value of online video offerings versus what you can get from TV. Due to the relatively cheap nature of most online video services, that made the choice easy for people like me. You could pay $100 for an HD cable package and DVR, or you could pay a couple of different services less than $10 a month each for a lot of similar content on-demand. And you could get those streams on pretty much any device you wanted to access them on. But things are changing rapidly. With the introduction of Comcast’s Xbox app, as well as new applications coming on devices like Samsung Connected TVs and other devices, the cable company is making its service a lot more attractive to potential customers. At the same time, the implementation of usage-based pricing changes the potential cost of online video services and makes bundled pay TV and broadband services a lot more attractive as a result. That’s not to say that the recent moves by Comcast are going to kill the online video industry — I think that Netflix, YouTube and others are beginning to create enough value on their own through device access and new original programming to begin offering a real alternative to cable. But it could make people think twice about how they choose to access content and through what services, if it means additional broadband charges down the line.

Kickstarter: Meet CordL...

My set ritual before going to bed each night is as follows — turn out the lights, plug in my iPhone, take off my glasses and attempt vainly to nod off. Step two in that process can be a bit of a crapshoot in the dark, but the folks at Scrap Pile Labs have recently kicked off a new Kickstarter campaign for a product called the CordLite that just may come in handy. As the name sort of implies, the CordLite is a dock connector cable for iDevices that, well, lights up thanks to a pair of forward-facing LEDs. It’s a very simple concept, but the thoughtful execution is what make this project worth keeping an eye on. Perhaps the niftiest thing about the CordLite is how you actually fire up those lights — the dock connector’s aluminum body is entirely touch-sensitive, so the lights engage whenever someone goes to plug in the cable. Meanwhile, a pair of indicator lights run along the top of the dock connector so there’s never any confusion as to which side is up. Pledging $25 locks you in for one of the first CordLites to roll off of the assembly line, so you’d best shell out the dough if you’re interested — after the Kickstarter campaign ends, the price will jump up to $35. Not a bad deal for night owls, especially considering that Apple’s own dock connector cable is nearly $20 without a single frill to go with it. Though the CordLite is Apple-only for now, Android users shouldn’t feel too left out. The team also has a light-up micro-USB cable in the works, though I suspect we won’t be seeing those out in the wild for a little while yet.

Marketing Lessons Start...

Editor’s note:  This is a guest post by Neil Patel, co-founder of  KISSmetrics  and blogger at  QuickSprout.com . You may have seen it by now… Google’s concept video about its new Project Glass . These glasses will do what your smart phone will do only without having to hold anything…you actually see your options at the side of your view. You can get directions, send and receive texts, make calls, schedule tasks and even share your view with another person. It’s a really exciting idea…especially if you love technology. But the actual product is easily years out from becoming a reality. Was Google wise to release an idea so early ? And should startups do the same? Concept videos give you constructive criticism At this stage Project Glass is nothing but a video…and may not be a reality for a long time. Augmented reality experts point out that there are huge hurdles the Google has to overcome . So why did Google unveil so early? It all boils down to the fact that they wanted feedback on the product. Google wanted to learn the good and bad things people had to say about the glasses. The video currently has gotten over 15 million views which suggests that there is a lot of curiosity in the product… but not necessarily interested buyers. It’s just like when Drew Houston released his Dropbox video . There was no coding…just a screen cast of how Dropbox would work. While Dropbox was certainly fishing for feedback on how to improve its product more importantly it was looking for how many people would adopt and use it. The Digg community responded : But more importantly, there were thousands of people who signed up to be notified for the release of the actual product on the first day of the video’s release. And then thousands more after that. Clearly Drew learned that there was a huge need out there that DropBox could fulfill. Concept videos gauge interest You’ll more than likely get in-depth comments from the innovators and early adopters . The early and late majority will typically just vote up or down on it. While the input from the first group is critical for building a better product…hearing from the second group is critical to knowing if you are creating a product that will have mass adoption. But don’t get discouraged if you only hear from the first group during the first round of your prototype video. While keeping costs low, make the suggested changes from the first group to the product and then release a second video. However, if you don’t hear from the second group the second time around…then you may have a product that nobody wants. Concept videos build your brand Another reason for doing a concept video is to make your company look like it’s a company that is on the cutting edge and is doing cool things in secret. The concept video is a powerful marketing strategy for companies that have long production time tables between products…like cars or iPads. Apple will release concept videos like this one on the iPad 3 that keep people in anticipation of the real product. Otherwise they may fade into background and no longer seem like the cool technology company it is. This is also why Google released their concept video. Remember, however, that this strategy doesn’t always work with small businesses. It’s a lot more risky for a startup to engage in a concept video if the technology is years out from entering the market. The startup without an established reputation or brand is better off just building a superior product behind closed doors . A concept video that gets a poor reception could easily sink their reputation. When should a start up use a concept video? A concept video is a great idea for a start up when two conditions are met: You can keep costs down – Google’s Project Glass video is a high-quality production that probably costs thousands to produce from the sheer man hours alone. Your video doesn’t have to be that slick. Drew Houston achieved his results with something a whole heck of a lot cheaper. You want feedback from focus group – If you are a startup building a killer product behind closed doors you will definitely at some point want to get feedback from real live users and learn from their suggestions . You can do this with a concept video that you only share in private. This will protect you from pre-mature scrutiny from the public. Make sure though you use testers who you trust and can be confident they won’t leak your product early. So how do you create a successful concept video? Here are some tips. Involve the viewers In my opinion the genius of the Google Glasses concept video was in that it shows you exactly what the product could do for you by putting the viewer into the lead role of the video. From the start of the video the camera moves around like it is you looking out from these glasses. This is a great example of allowing someone to demo a product without actually having the product! Highlight the benefits of the features The basic purpose of a concept video is to show potential users how its features will make the life of the user better. This means you have to give examples of ways your product can make the user smarter, more efficient or happier. The DropBox video gave tons of examples on stuff people could store. But then it went on to give scenarios of how DropBox could be used to solve common storage problems people have. Isolate the new features If you have an existing product like the iPad…then how can a concept video help you? In this case most people will be familiar with the general features of the product. What Apple’s concept video needed to do was show off the new features. This could be done without any narration as the action communicated clearly what a person could do with new features like connecting two iPads together, a holograph display of movies and an augmented reality keyboard. Tell a story Another reason the Google video was a success is that it told a story. It was a simple story of a day in someone’s life. It showed him eating breakfast, trying to catch the subway, meeting a friend for coffee and playing the ukulele for his girlfriend…and how Google Glasses was involved the whole time. That narrative…and how seamless Google Glasses fit into that narrative…keeps you glued to the screen! It’s critical to understand that your product must fit seamlessly into the story. If it feels crammed or out of place then this approach won’t work. Create a mechanism to capture leads Finally, if you are going to create a concept video then you need to create a way to capture the leads that you generate, which usually involves driving them to a unique landing page… This is what I think was Google’s biggest failure. They missed…and are missing…an opportunity to capture something like 14 million possible leads of interest. If anything by capturing leads with a basic field that allows someone to join a list of updates on Project Glass will help them to see how many potential customers there are, which would give you quantifiable data to determine if it will be a profitable market. For the startup who doesn’t have the financial resources that a Google has this is an absolute must. Create a mechanism to capture an email address. Final thoughts The concept video is a wonderful marketing tool on some many levels. However, it may not be the best approach for every start up. You need to evaluate your needs, your resources and what you are trying to accomplishing before jumping in with both feet. However, if and when you do decide, I truly believe that it’s a great way to help you save money and reputation…leading to a killer product in the end! What other advantages are there to using a concept video?

Newspaper Attacks UK Go...

UK tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail, has decided to raise the issue of Google’s influence on the UK government, after uncovering the fact that Conservative party ministers have held meetings with Google an average of once a month since the General Election two years ago. There have been 23 meetings between Tory ministers and Google since June 2010, with Prime Minister David Cameron meeting Google three times and George Osborne – who as Chancellor of the Exchequer is supposed to meet with business leaders – four times in two years. The story needs to be a seen in a wider context. The Conservatives (as has the Labour party during its tenure) have recently come under fire for having too close a relationship to another powerful entity, News Corporation. A huge inquiry into Press standards has in large part focused on the ties between Rupert Murdoch’s media giant and the Conservatives. But what the report buries way down in the article, is the number of times the newspaper itself has met with the Government. A Google spokesperson told us: “It’s absolutely right that governments speak with companies about issues that affect their citizens. The British Government makes the list of those meetings publicly available – including the Daily Mail’s 34 meetings over the same period.” In other words, the Daily Mail has met with the Government almost one and a half times a month (on average) since they entered office – that’s quite a bit more than Google has. It’s likely those were high-level meetings, not editorial ones. That said, the issue does raise the question of Google’s closeness to the UK government and its ability to grab the ear of the Government on a number of topics. It’s the kind of access a lot of companies would be envious of. Culture minister Ed Vaizey has met the firm seven times. Culture Secretary boss Jeremy Hunt has held four meetings. In David Cameron’s first months as party leader in 2006 and 2007 (though not yet Prime Minister), he spoke to the annual Google Zeitgeist conference. Three senior figures have moved between the Tories and Google in the last few years. Rachel Whetstone is Global head of communications and public policy at Google and is married to David Cameron’s former chief of staff, Steve Hilton. Naomi Gummer was formerly adviser to Curlture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, but is now a public policy adviser to Google. Amy Fisher Was a press officer for Google, and is now a special adviser to the Evironment Sectretary Corline Spelman. On Hilton, the right wing Daily Mail newspaper has rarely missed an opportunity to attack his more radical attempts to shake up government thinking about technology and its affect on society. But it’s more likely that the Conservatives – in part driven by Hilton’s thinking – have realised that the world has moved away from the green-screen, big-IT projects which used to fill the coffers of the likes of EDS and others, towards embracing a more open standards approach. On the ground this has fed into attempts to open up government data, and led also the innovative project known as Gov.uk , which is taking a startup approach to government online, employing many of the UK’s best engineers and tech stars. It’s also quite something to see a sentence describing Hilton as the “shaven-headed son of Hungarian immigrants” – a phrase which betray’s the Mail’s antipathy to alternative thinking. In March it was announced that Mr Hilton was going to take an academic post at Stanford University in California to be near his wife who works at Google. He plans to return next year, though it’s not yet clear whether he will re-join the government. Of course, back in the real world, these West-Wing-like moves of advisers between big business and governments go on literally all the time. We don’t currently have the equivalent figures for meetings with Microsoft or Cisco, or Facebook, IBM or other companies, but I’d be amazed there were not similar factoids waiting to scurry forth if someone someone decided to lift a few rocks. Indeed, Microsoft, Cisco and many other large tech companies have appeared several times at the government’s ‘Tech City’ meetings. So quite why the Daily Mail has decided to home in on this issue is a little bit of a mystery. It may be that the story was placed as an attack by the Labour party. Their health IT scheme to store patients’ records failed spectacularly just before they left office, so they would have smarted at the suggestion by Cameron that a company like Google could probably do a better job. The newspaper quotes Helen Goodman, Labour’s media spokesman, who says “Of course it is important for ministers to listen to business, but a meeting with Google every month does look like the sort of privileged access that small businesses can only dream of.” Unfortunately, she neglects to mention the numerous tiny tech startups that have been invited to Number 10 Downing Street over the last couple of years as part of the government’s Tech City initiative, and its purchase of an entire building – Campus London – in East London which is housing small tech startups that have have nothing to do with Google. (As disclosure, I’m cofounder of a co-working space that’s a tenant in that building, but frankly, I’d point this out even if it wasn’t). Then again, Google doesn’t help it’s own cause. In Europe it does not have a great record on tax. As Goodman points out: “Ministers must disclose what they discussed. Did they challenge Google over their repellent tax avoidance, which was uncovered by the Daily Mail?” It’s here that criticism could land a big punch. Google has been oft criticised for paying tax on less than a quarter of its UK income. In 2010 it generated £2.1 billion in the UK but with its international operations based Ireland, where corporation tax is much lower than the UK, it escapes a great deal of tax. And Google hasn’t always helped its own cause. Last month Google executive Naomi Gummer, until recently a Conservative minister’s political adviser, caused a furore in the press when she implied (not unreasonably?) that it was the job of parents to stop children seeing adult content online, not Internet companies. Currently a debate rages in the UK about creating an ‘off switch’ at ISP level to block porn, allowing parents baffled by content settings or Net Nanny software to simply order a ‘clean’ version of the Internet direct from their ISP. A Conservative Party spokesman told the Mail: “All these meetings have been properly declared and it is normal for relevant ministers to meet with a company of this size.” Ultimately the Mail’s story does raise questions of perceptions over-all but as a major UK tech player, it would be extremely odd for it not to meet with whoever was in power fairly regularly. Neither Facebook not Twitter, for instance, have anything like the huge engineering bases and offices Google has in the UK. Do we want our politicians remain in a world view of tech dominated by the desktop and ‘licenses’ or one where developers, startups and apps can thrive? I’d hazard not.