Greetings from the Mile High City. I love the way my morning reading starts out before I head down the elevator for the kickoff of Defrag…talk about timing: My colleague Ed Kohler’s post on Overlapping Starfishes … a reminder that Feedblitz’ book-of-the month is David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous (David’s our opening speaker at Defrag) … and a blog post from Defrag producer Eric Norlin that gets at why this conference is timed perfectly. I love it. Bring on Defrag! 
Category: Messaging/Collaboration (Page 5 of 9)
You say you’re feeling down, bunky, because everyone seems to have a Facebook app but you? Well, got a web site? Then, perk up, son! Because you are well on your way to having a social app — one that’ll actually run on a whole bunch of social networking sites that have at least as much traffic as Facebook — and maybe even on Facebook itself soon. At least that’s what Marc Andreessen, founder of social-networking platform Ning, has to say on his blog post today.
It’s all thanks to the "Open Social" spec set to be announced tomorrow by Google, which says it already has about a dozen partners, including Hi5, LinkedIn, Ning,
Friendster, Salesforce.com, and Oracle. See this Wall Street Journal story (actually dated tomorrow!) and this one in the New York Times, which was published today.
So, how can you transform your web site into an "Open Social" app? Andreessen says it’s even easier than developing a Facebook app. He says you "just take your current HTML and Javascript front-end pages and create a version of those pages that use the Open Social API."
Andreessen believes web site owners will soon begin maintaining multiple sets of front-end pages for their web sites, in order to get "maximum distribution across the largest number of users." And he says it’s easy. They’ll have a single back-end, but multiple sets of front-end pages. Here’s how he defines what those multiple sets will be:
• One set of standard HTML and Javascript pages for consumption by normal web browser.
• Another set of HTML and Javascript pages that use the Open Social API’s Javascript calls for consumption with Open Social containers/social networks.
• A third set of pages in FBML (Facebook Markup Language) that use Facebook’s proprietary APIs for consumption within Facebook as a Facebook app.
• Perhaps a fourth set of pages adapted for the Apple iPhone and/or other mobile devices.
"The overwhelming good news here," said Andreessen in his blog post, "is that these pages can all be served and serviced by the same back end code."
I think this "Open Social" spec is big news. It’s something I know a lot of insiders have been been thinking about, at least in the back of their minds, since the Facebook juggernaut took off some five months ago. Walled gardens — proprietary platforms — just don’t last on the Internet. Like my buddy PXLated said in a previous comment, "The Internet just routes around ’em." Indeed. Let the party begin….
UPDATE (11/1): Marc Andreessen did another very informative blog post with a screen cast and screenshots showing how the Open Social spec can be implemented, using three actual Ning social networks as examples.
Next Sunday, I’m off to Denver for a really cool conference called Defrag. (Here’s the blog, which will tell you what’s really goin’ on.) I’m looking forward to it, because it’s different — a smaller, more intimate kind of event. The kind of event "where you send your brains for a workout," say the producers. 
There’ll be a couple hundred really smart people participating, many whose names you would know. Folks like Esther Dyson, Jerry Michalski, Clay Shirky, David Weinberger, Doc Searls, Paul Kedrosky, Brad Feld, Jeff Clavier, Chris Shipley, Steve Larsen, and a couple of new players I’ve met in the semantic web movement, Nova Spivack and Alex Iskold. 
And that’s just a few I can remember — there are many more smart Internet minds who’ll be there. We need this kind of event after Esther Dyson retired her great "PC Forum" conference after the 2006 edition. (I’m so glad I got to cover that one. It was soo timely, and everybody-who-was-anybody was there.)
Defrag is being held at the very cool, new Denver Hyatt. Here’s an invitation to all my friends here in the Minnesota technology community: please join me at Defrag! (At least two already are, and we’re flying out together.) Denver’s not that far — and, hey, you guys need to get out of town once in a while! 🙂 I even have a special discount code that will get you $500 off. But you have to act fast, since that expires soon: the code is "DefragMN"…and you can use it when you register right here. I guarantee you, you won’t be sorry you attended this conference! Check the agenda.
One of the three producers of Defrag is a guy I know named Eric Norlin, and I’m looking forward to meeting the other two. I met Eric back in ’99 through my work with Net Perceptions, and he’s become an even more plugged-in guy since then. He’s been in the digital identity business and has run other conferences, such as Digital ID World. He lives in Florida now, but was in Colorado for many years, so has lots of contacts there. (He also was based in the Twin Cities for a couple of years, quite some time ago.) Early on, Eric even worked with the NSA, so he’s just an interesting cat to say the least. It’ll be fun to see him again. Here’s how Eric and friends describe their newest creation:
Defrag is the first conference focused solely on the internet-based tools that transform loads of information into layers of knowledge, and accelerate the “aha” moment. Defrag is about the space that lives in between knowledge management, social networking, collaboration and business intelligence …. it’s a gathering place for the growing community of implementers, users, builders and thinkers that are working on the next wave of software innovation.
The sponsors of Defrag are BEA, Yahoo, Me.dium, Newsgator, ThinkFree, Adaptive Blue, AOL, Dapper, HiveLive, Lijit, Near-Time, Siderean, Microsoft, ZDnet, ProQuo, and Collective Intellect. For more on the sponsors, see this post on the Defrag blog: All the Cool Kids Are Doing It.
And here’s more insight into what this inaugural Defrag is all about, from another of Eric’s blog posts, Inter-Twining at Defrag:
One of the earliest phrases that I hit upon to help describe Defrag was ‘networked knowledge’ … That idea — that knowledge is not simply a passive, managed asset, but an active agent in a system that is working for me — is the core of what we’re exploring.
I’m pumped! Watch for my live blogging next week — Monday and Tuesday, November 5 and 6. Take a look at the agenda and tell me what you like. I especially like "Social Networking in the Enterprise." Cheers.
It was a full day of panels and speakers, but it almost seemed to fly by. Lots of content! But it sure as hell held my attention. The last panel of Day 1, as it turned out, was the first chance to focus on The Big FB — the elephant in the room, shall we say? We didn’t get to hear yet from anyone at the company itself (that would come the next day), but we did from three very well known external developers of Facebook apps: one big company (eBay) and two smaller/startup firms (Renkoo and Openhive).
Renkoo’s success with its "Boozemail" app was accidental, said CTO Joyce Park. Her company first thought its functionality was too sophisticated for Facebook. But they decided to give it a try and reasoned there was a common interest out there in one big thing — drinking! 
They had modest expectations for their app, but, in a litle more than three months, it’s been used — are you ready? — 120,000,00 times. Now, Park said, her firm is even looking to "export it everywhere" — meaning, beyond Facebook(?). Yes, as you might imagine, they’re developing "branded drink icons" for the liquor industry (for use only by people aged 21 and above, of course). One problem, though: the liquor companies don’t like the word "booze," so the implication was that, wherever else the app may be used, it may have a different name. Park also showed a brand-new app Renkoo was introducing at Widget Summit: "HaikuZoo," which is an app for sharing virtual pets. Yes, friends, you can even buy decorations for your pets’ profiles. Is this a great country, or what?
Rolf Skyberg of eBay jumped in next — the guy with the best darn title at the whole place: "Disruptive Innovator." Rolf talked about his firm’s ‘eBay To Go’ Facebook app, which lets you personalize your Facebook profile with something you want to share that’s on eBay; he said "we’re now calling this one a widget." 
He also talked about ‘eBay Marketplace’ — an app that displays what I’m looking for (interested in buying), what I’m selling, and who my friends are on Facebook.
"Widgets are part of our strategy to put eBay where the people
are," said Skyberg. He noted that his firm is now publishing APIs, and
even paying people to develop apps. That appears to be the case with a new one Rolf mentioned, called Giftbay.
The remaining panel member was Ryo Chijiiwa, CEO of Openhive, who
was a late add. He showed an app that lets people share their book
collections. He said he launched it within a week of the Facebook
Platform launch. But he said it wasn’t viral enough — for three
reasons. The app wasn’t inherently social, it lacked lightweight
features, and it was too complicated. So, I’ll be damned if I know why
he was on the panel if this was the case — but he talked so softly I
couldn’t understand a thing he said from this point on. So, you figure it
out. I couldn’t even find his app on Facebook. Maybe it
self-destructed? …dying that oh-so-painful death of (hush) non-virality.
Naill Kennedy started asking followup questions: "Joyce, yours isn’t the only drinking app on Facebook — what’s your differentiation?" To which the CTO of Renkoo responded: "I think maybe Happy Hour (another app) went overboard with virality. They force you to spam a lot of your friends." How are eBay’s apps different? "We’re looking for people who are active on both sites," said Skyberg. "There’s lots of ‘stuff’ that defines people."
Moderator Kennedy: "Are you worried about brand dilution on Facebook?" (a reference to the many eBay-related third-party apps there now) "Most of the the apps now are about search," said Skyberg. "We wanted to add things that will really bring the two communities together."
In the audience questions later, someone asked about commerce apps. "I don’t think there are many good apps on Facebook for that," said Renkoo’s Park. "I mean, isn’t it kind of creepy to buy your friends’ stuff?" Yeah, I guess how do you ask for a refund if it isn’t as-advertised… But the best audience question of them ALL was the last one: "Have you thought about cross-integration of your apps? For example, can you send booze to your virtual pets?" To which Rekoo’s Park, seemingly missing the humor, answered: "No, that disturbed people." Making it sound like they actually did consider it… 🙂
In a brief session following, three new companies/services gave quick pitches: WebWag did a cool demo of its Widget-On-Demand feature, grabbing a stock section off the MarketWatch site (GOOG, of course) and creating a widget of it for his home page — in about five seconds. Gydget creates cool fan widgets — great for bands, sports teams, and the like (here’s some coverage). And NetVibes, a sponsor of the event, announced it now supports more widget platforms (including iPhone), so your can write your NetVibes widgets once and run them everywhere. 
They also let you localize for different languages. Their new widget for Facebook is pretty cool, too — I put it on my NetVibes start page. (Right side of creenshot.) NetVibes was sponsoring the reception, which we were all now ready to bolt for….
UPDATE (10/17, 7:40 am Pacific): To add link to story about Gydget.
UDATE (10/17, 3:25 pm Pacific): To add more content.
UPDATE (10/11, 10:00 am): To add links to news about two of the companies pitching at Minnedemo tonight. Be there or be square, dudes! (and dudettes, of course). Here’s some lowdown on FanChatter and Pokeware….and four other startups are presenting as well, as you can see at the Minnedemo web page.
——
Lots of things happening here in the Twin Cities technology community this second week in October. The IPO of local tech darling Compellent Technologies is expected to price tomorrow and start trading on Wednesday. I caught the news as soon as the Wall Street Journal hit my front step at 6 a.m. this morning (page C7): Offerings Rejuvenate IPO Market – Compellent Technologies, Virgin Mobile Will Debut; Heavy Buzz, But Any Pop? (subscription required, but soon Rupert Murdoch may change all that!). 
For those who can’t click through to the story, here are a couple of excerpts:
A computer-network-storage company and a provider of
cellular-phone service will be the focus of the market for initial
public offerings this week.
The market for such deals still is coming back to life
after its late-summer break, with six offerings that together could
raise as much as $1.39 billion scheduled to debut over the next five
days. If all actually make it that far, they will top the
companies that went public in all of September. ….
Compellent Technologies Inc., an unprofitable but
fast-growing computer-network-storage company, is getting much of the
buzz. It is scheduled to begin trading Wednesday on the NYSE Arca under
the symbol CML. Research firm Gartner Inc. named Compellent the world’s
fastest-growing disk-storage company last year, just four years after
it was formed …. Compellent…revenue
doubled in the first six months to $20.9 million, compared with a year
earlier. The company is selling 12 million shares between $10 and $12.
That’s a big IPO, folks — but 12 million shares is a typo. [I love it when I can catch typos in the venerable Wall Street Journal 🙂 ] An accompanying chart (not in the online version) says 6.9 million, which sounds more like it. That will still put the amount raised somewhere in the range of $69-83 million, which makes it the largest tech IPO in this town in quite some time. Compellent has raised more than $50 million in venture capital, beginning in 2002 with investments by Crescendo Ventures and El Dorado Ventures, both Silicon Valley firms populated by former Minneapolitans I know. [Watch for more from me on Compellent on Wednesday.]
The MN Startup Schmoozin’ Event of the Season
The day after watching the big IPO pop or not, we switch our emphasis to the new, upcoming success stories in the MN startup community! The long-awaited periodic gathering of our local tech entrepreneurs and developers, playfully called Minnedemo, fires up at 6:30 pm on Thursday. 
It’s a free event, and is at St.Paul’s legendary Irish bar and restaurant, O’Gara’s (actually, we’ll be in the large, attached venue called O’Gara’s Garage.) This organization is part of the very popular grass-roots BarCamp phenomenon, which is international in scope. The last event we had for our local group, an all-day Saturday event in the spring (see my coverage), was the largest Barcamp event to that date ever in the U.S., with close to 400 in attendance! So, don’t let anyone tell you the Twin Cities isn’t a hot tech market!! I’m betting this event will pull close to 300, and the first 200 to show up get two free beers or sodas — can you beat that? That’s courtesy of our illustrious sponsors (see site). And I’m betting there’ll be some good munchies, too. After an hour of networking, six local startups will demo their offerings [note: no Powerpoint allowed — yeah!]: Adaptive Avenue, FanChatter, Pokeware, PROserver Virtual Appliance, SOTAcomm, and Wonderfile. (See Minnedemo site for more info and links to those demoing companies.)
The Company That Started It All
I owe a lot to Control Data. I may have been only a mere neophyte when I worked there, but, wow, did they put a lot of trust in me, and did I ever learn a lot. They actually gave me some rope to do stuff, and they just kept promoting me! How cool is that? And I kept stepping up to the challenge. It was a fun, fun ride, and I will forever be grateful to this technology pioneer, this unbelievable cauldron of innovation and entrepreneurship to which our entire state’s IT community owes a huge debt of gratitude — if not its very existence. 
Do you realize how many thousands of companies were spawned by Control Data?
I cannot miss this event on Friday, and I invite anyone who’s involved in the local information technology to attend. You’ll be in some very great company! It’s the Control Data 50 Year Celebration at the Minneapolis Convention Center on Friday afternoon, and it’s even free. One of my favorite all-time entrepreneurs will be speaking, a guy I admire tremendously: Larry Jodsaas. He was a Control Data executive who later risked it all to lead VTC Inc., a Control Data semiconductor spinout, which was a huge success and became a 15-year client relationship for me before it was acquired by Lucent (Agere) in 1999. It’s a great story. There’s a cocktail reception following this event and, for those who sign up separately, a dinner after that, with U.S. Senator Norm Coleman speaking. I’m really excited about this event, and I hope you’ll join me!
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