Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Category: Innovation (Page 42 of 77)

The Year in VC: Forbes Reports It Well

January 27, 2008 / / 0 Comments

As I look forward to DEMO, starting tomorrow evening — a VC lovefest like no other — I really enjoyed reading Forbes.com today.  I continue to be impressed by their coverage of tech.  It surely has something to do not only with their great reporters and editors (especially in the Silicon Valley bureau), but with their very well respected tech-savvy publisher, Rich Karlgaard, whom I count among my most admired colleagues.Forbeslogo

And the fact that he hails originally from the part of the country where I live also makes him very special, too!  Though he’s a Stanford boy and has lived in the Valley for many years, he gets back to the Minnesota/Wisconsin/Dakotas area regularly, and I suspect that’s partly because it keeps him feeling grounded to his roots.

Forbes uncorked an awesome set of stories the past couple of days on the current state of VC — well, really tech deal-making in general.  It’s all tied to their annual Midas 100 List, which ranks the top tech deal makers in the world. Forbesmidaslist08It’s fascinating reading.

According to Forbes, companies that venture capitalists helped launch hauled in $34 billion from 86 public offerings and 304 acquisitions during 2007. No less than 31 IPOs happened in the fourth quarter, worth $3 billion — "more than any other quarter since the third quarter of 2000."  That’s a very telling stat.  Their assessment of who did what, and how much they and their investors profited, can be viewed here by rank, by name, or by company.

Some of the related stories to this coverage included the following, which is great reading for anyone involved in technology startups:

• Big Wins For Venture Capitalists – An excerpt: "Recent credit crunch and market woes be damned: Technology’s most powerful deal makers have been on a winning streak."

• Venture Firms Peek Out Of Silicon Valley – I love this part: "More and more firms are thinking that if they want differentiated deal flow, they need to look outside of Silicon Valley," said Village Ventures co-founder Matt Harris. Village Ventures manages $750 million in funds focused on 14 small cities across the country, from Boise, Idaho, to Tucson, Arizona. This article also includes a profile of a VC from my part of the country: John Neis, co-founder of Madison, WI-based Venture Investors, who’s one of the Midas 100.

• The Golden Google Touch – "Google has been a bonanza for venture capitalists John Doerr and Michael Moritz, who helped fund the Google when it was a start-up. Their personal gains, according to Forbes’ estimates, are likely north of $800 million apiece."

• Hot Or Not: Where VCs Will–And Won’t–Invest – "Forbes asked 10 top players to give us their assessments of areas they feel are hot–and which are not."

All in all, a great overview of the current situation, and you’ll see even more links of interest, too.  They even have some informative videos posted that are part of this coverage, such as interviews with certain  players they cover in these articles.  I’m really impressed with the expanded coverage Forbes.com is providing on their site, and the quality of that coverage.

[I’m excited that Tech-Surf-Blog will be part of the Forbes Financial & Business Blog Network when it launches soon. (Yes, that’s part of the reason I’m starting to include ads on this site.) ]

What do you think of the current state of tech deal-making?  Are you positive or negative about 2008 when it comes to VC funding, IPOs, or M&A?

DEMO ’08 Announces Presenting Companies

January 25, 2008 / / 1 Comment

Well, have I ever got a linkfest for you. Following up on my post of January 7, the big event next week is now taking shape: I just got the early word that no less than 77 new products (!) will be launched at the DEMO ’08 conference. Check out the list — did I mention it’s with links? — that I inserted for your clicking pleasure below. David Weinberger would love this one. And my other Cluetrain friend, Doc Searls, too. He once described a post I did as "linkier than a vest of chainmail."  Well, this one’s got more, Doc — about eighty, if you can stand it.  I’m getting so adept at inserting links in my Typepad WYSIWYG interface, it’s scary. Remember, it’s not so much how many people read your posts, it’s how long you engage them. Well, this one’s got a lot to keep you engaged if you’re hooked, like me, on just having to know what’s coming next in tech.

The rules for DEMO presenters state their products must not be previously available or promoted publicly, so many of the links below are brand-new sites, and some may not have much info online till Monday morning, the day registration opens.  So keep watching their sites…that’s right, via those links below.

Most of you probably don’t need me to tell you this, but DEMO is a twice yearly "emerging technology showcase" that’s known for launching some of the tech industry’s biggest innovations.  Now in its 18th year, the events have hosted a "who’s who" of company and product debuts, including those from VMWare, Google, IronPort, Apple, salesforce.com, Palm, Intel, HP, Yahoo!, Logitech, TiVo, and GrandCentral. The show’s producers, led by Chris Shipley, select presenters from hundreds of applications. Each firm launches its new product in a six-minute live stage demonstration attended by journalists, investors, and business professionals from around the globe. The press corps, of which your humble blogger is a part, will number close to 100. As I like to say, everyone from Walt Mossberg on down. (Okay, I’m at the bottom.) DEMO ’08 is being held January 28-30 in Palm Desert, CA. [You can still register — click on the graphic at right.]

DEMO kicks off 2008 with a variety of technologies for consumers and businesses alike. Here are some hints about what’s coming next week:

• a personalized telephony service converging data and voice
• broadcast-quality video delivery service for the Internet
• a Web-based platform for scalable storage delivery
• a portable learn-to-read system
• a service that enables image and video collaboration
• a solution that teaches you to play your favorite popular tunes
• a collaboration solution for business and personal use
• TiVo for your mobile phone
• HD video conferencing over IP networks
• multiple technologies for students, parents, and children
• and products from all over the world, including Australia, Canada, Finland, Israel, New Zealand,  Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.

Here are the DEMO ’08 demonstrators:

2Win Solutions, Ltd.; Raanana, Israel; www.2win-solutions.com
800 PBX, Inc.; Fremont, CA; www.800genie.800pbx.com
Acesis, Inc.; Mountain View, CA; www.acesis.com
Asankya, Inc.; Atlanta, GA; www.asankya.com
Aternity, Inc.; Westborough, MA; www.aternity.com
atlaspost.com; Taipei City, Taiwan; www.atlaspost.com
Avistar Communications Corp.; San Mateo, CA; www.avistar.com
BitGravity, Inc.; Burlingame, CA; www.bitgravity.com
blist, Inc.; Seattle, WA; www.blist.com
Buzka, Pty Ltd.; Subiaco, Australia; www.buzka.com
Capzles, Inc.; Culver City, CA; www.capzles.com
Catalyst Web Services, LLC; Alexandria, VA; www.catalystweb.com
CellSpinSoft, Inc.; San Jose, CA; www.cellspin.net
Celsias, Ltd.; Wellington, New Zealand; www.celsias.com
CHALEX Corp.; Grasonville, MD; www.chalexcorp.com
Circos.com, Inc.; San Mateo, CA; www.circos.com
Citiport, Inc.; Taipei City, Taiwan; www.citiport.net
Citrix Systems, Inc.; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; www.citrix.com
Cozimo.com, Inc.; Berkeley, CA; www.cozimo.com
Delver, Inc.; Herzliya Pituach, Israel; www.delver.com
Ecrio, Inc.; Cupertino, CA; www.ecrio.com
Education.com; Redwood City, CA; www.education.com
Eyealike, Inc.; Bellevue, WA; www.eyealike.com
Fabrik, Inc.; San Mateo, CA; www.fabrik.com
Flypaper, Inc.; Phoenix, CA; www.freshbrew.com
GoldMail, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.goldmail.com
good2gether, Inc.; Melrose, MA; www.good2gether.com
Green Plug, Inc.; San Ramon, CA; www.greenplug.us
HealthPricer Interactive, Ltd.; Vancouver, BC; www.healthpricer.com
Hubdub, Ltd.; Edinburgh, Scotland; www.hubdub.com
Huddle.net; London, England; www.Huddle.net
Iterasi, Inc.; Vancouver, WA; www.iterasi.com
iVideosongs; Alpharetta, GA; www.ivideosongs.com
Jodange, LLP; Yonkers, NY; www.jodange.com
Kaazing Corp.; Mountain View, CA; www.kaazing.com
LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc.; Emeryville, CA; www.leapfrog.com
LegiTime Technologies, Inc.; Westport, CT; www.legitext.com
LiquidPlanner, Inc.; Bellevue, WA; www.liquidplanner.com
LiquidTalk, Inc.; Chicago, IL; www.liquidtalk.com
Liquidus Corp.; Chicago, IL; www.liquidusmedia.com
Livescribe, Inc.; Oakland, CA; www.livescribe.com
MANDIANT; Alexandria, VA; www.mandiant.com
MOLI, LLC; West Palm Beach, FL; www.moli.com
Movial; Helsinki, Finland; www.movial.com
Nirvanix; San Diego, CA; www.nirvanix.com
NotchUp, Inc.; Los Altos Hills, CA; www.notchup.com
Notebookz.com, Inc.; Berkeley, CA; www.ileonardo.com
Pathworks Software Corp.; Mountain View, CA; www.pathworkssoftware.com
Redux, Inc.; Berkeley, CA; www.redux.com
Review2Buy, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.review2buy.com
Ribbit Corp.; Stanford, CA; www.goribbit.com
Rove Mobile, Inc.; Ottawa, Ontario; www.rovemobile.com
Santrum Networks, Inc.; Taipei, Taiwan; www.santrum.com
SceneCaster; Richmond Hill, Ontario; www.scenecaster.com
Seesmic; San Francisco, CA; www.seesmic.com
Silobreaker, Ltd.; London; England; www.silobreaker.com
Skyfire; San Jose, CA; www.dvclabs.com
SpeakLike, LLC; New York, NY; www.speaklike.com
Sprout, Inc.; Honolulu; HI; www.sproutfusion.com
Squidcast; San Francisco, CA; www.squidcast.com
StackSafe, Inc.; Vienna, VA; www.stacksafe.com
Standout Jobs, Inc.; Montreal, Quebec; www.standoutjobs.com
STEP Labs; San Jose, CA; www.steplabs.com
Sterna Technologies, Inc.; San Mateo, CA; www.friend-ltd.com
support.com; Redwood City, CA; www.support.com
SupportSpace, Inc.; Redwood Shores, CA; www.supportspace.com
Symantec Corp.; Cupertino, CA; www.symantec.com
TimeTrade Systems, Inc.; Bedford, MA; www.timetrade.com
Toktumi, Inc.; San Francisco, CA; www.toktumi.com
TubeMogul, Inc.; Berkeley; CA; www.tubemogul.com
Vidyo™, Inc.; Hackensack; NJ; www.vidyo.com
Visible Measures Corp.; Boston, MA; www.visiblemeasures.com
Voyant, Inc.; Austin, TX; www.planwithvoyant.com
xtranormal, Inc.; Montreal, Quebec; www.xtranormal.com
Yoics, Inc.; Palo Alto, CA; www.yoics.com
YouChoose, LLC; Thornton, PA; www.youchoose.net
Zodiac Interactive; Valley Stream NY; www.zodiac.tv

The DEMO conferences, which are now held in China and Europe as well as the U.S., focus on
emerging technologies and new products that are hand-selected from
across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. DEMO has earned a reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow’s
cutting-edge technologies, serving as a launchpad for
companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping
them to secure venture funding, establish critical business
relationships, and influence early adopters. More information about the conferences is at Demo.com.

Oh, one more thing: my buddy Mike Garity at Network World Conferences, which runs these great events, would especially want me to tell you this:  videos of the live stage demonstrations launching each of the 77 products will be available on Demo.com beginning Tuesday afternoon, January 29.  That’s a new wrinkle, and I hear a whole new Demo.com site is launching, complete with community and social networking features. That will be cool.

Let me know what you like from the above list, or want to know more about.  I’ll be live-blogging from the event, as always.  Hell, I might even Twitter, too…from my iPhone…while simultaneously uploading the pix I’m shooting to Flickr…or maybe Tittr.

UPDATE (3:30 pm Central):  To fix three links…  🙂

Macworld 2008: Thoughts and Images

January 16, 2008 / / 0 Comments

It was a long, hard day at the office-away-from-home.  My feet sure hurt, I’m on mega-sensory-overload, and more people are definitely not something I want to deal with right now — trust me.  But, somehow, I seem to have survived Macworld Day One, as I blog here from Annabelle’s Bar & Bistro next to the hotel, just up the street from site of this huge gathering. Annabellesbistro_3

Watching the Steve Jobs keynote on the live blogs, starting at 9:00 am, was quite an experience again — even if it was uneven as far as connections go here on-site, on the press room wi-fi. (This is the first time I’ve tried to watch the keynote from the event itself.) All the bandwidth the techies could muster here was being challenged beyond belief, I’m sure.  I Twittered a lot while I was watching live blog updates from Gizmodo and Engadget (simultaneously listening to a fun, live discussion of the proceedings streamed from Mactalk in Australia) — though a few of my tweets somehow just disappeared into the ether, I later realized. I was pretty happy with Twitter up till then, though I later saw bloggers saying it was a big disappointment this day. Anyway, a few images I snapped last night and today are included here, and everything I’ve shot so far on this
trip is now up on Flickr.

Mosconewest_2

As I said on my Twitters, the market sure didn’t seem to like the keynote today — AAPL just kept trending down throughout the whole thing.  Counting after-hours trading, Apple’s stock had drooped more than 9%, or more than $16, on the day.  That sure went against what the pundits were predicting!   And it also was the opposite of what happened during most, if not all, previous Macworlds — at least those in recent years that I’ve heard about. And Forbes’ take later in the afternoon sure echoed what the market was saying — with this less than complimentary headine: Jobs Fails to Wow at Macworld.  Maybe the worshiped one is losing the magic touch, huh?

Ipodkiosk_2

I’ll be here at Macworld till 1:00 pm or so tomorrow, when I must leave for the airport, so I may grab some more images with my new Canon Powershot before I leave.

ThinnovationlineupMetreon

Aaplclose011508

High Anticipation at Macworld

January 15, 2008 / / 1 Comment

The hotel is stirring early this morning. I thought I’d sleep in till maybe 5:30 or so (still kinda being on MN time and all), but no way — doors were slamming in the hallway early. [And then I found out this damn hotel doesn’t even put coffee out in the lobby till 7:00 am? Geez…] Anyway, the line for the Steve Jobs keynote must be hugely long already, two blocks down 4th Street. I’m convinced people were in it all night.Macworldkeynotesign

I don’t care — I’ll follow it on the blogs.  If all those bloggers really want to invest that much effort, work that hard, to type faster than the next guy, who am I not to relax and take advantage of it?  I did it last year while sitting comfortably in the CES Bloghaus — I’ll do the same this year.Stevejobsiflubbed

Which blogs are the best bet?  Well, Paul Kedrosky suggests these major names, but there are many. For the past several years, Apple has not provided a live video stream (rather, a tape-delayed broadcast hours later), but Kedrosky says they really have an obligation to, since it’s such a market-moving event.  And he’s right — an analyst on CNBC this morning even said GOOG and EMC will get a boost today from Macworld, with announcements related to the event. So, it’s more than just AAPL here, which is likely to get a 4-5% pop itself, I just heard.  Here’s what I said in comment on Kedrosky’s blog:

yeah – Walt Mossberg et al get unfair advantage to trade stocks 🙂

the competition to get into the keynote is unreal – soo restrictive – I talked to a guy in the press registration line yesterday who’s been to 12 Macworlds, and even he can’t get in this time

when I asked the lady behind the desk about a live stream, she said, "Well, I can’t say" – so there may be hope

We’ll see if that live stream happens. You might want to watch the Macworld Expo site.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 Graeme Thickins on Tech

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑