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.

Page 10 of 141

I Say a New Web Site Every 20 Years — Whether You Need It or Not!

Yes, these are the words I live by. Actually, it was 21 years that I had the same basic web site for my consulting business, before I launched a new site just recently. It’s at my original domain name, gtamarketing.com. (Please tell me what you think of it in the comments below!)

You can see screenshots of the old vs. the new below. Pretty stark comparison, huh? I kid you not: my old site had a footer that read “©Copyright 1995-2016.” It lived a long life! I launched it in early 1995 when I began working  with my first Internet client, Creative Internet Solutions (later acquired), a relationship that actually began in late 1994. The first popular browser, Netscape, was just being launched. Oh, I updated the content many, many times over the years, of course — often adding pages here and there, and unlinking others when they became dated or no longer seemed relevant. But the site used the same, basic, plain-HTML structure for all those years. I built every bit of it myself originally and ongoing — and managed the hosting and did all the maintenance and updating all by my lonesome, too. (Yes, I know how to code — haha — but don’t ask me anything beyond HTML!) 

BEFORE: my 21-year-old web site.

BEFORE: my 21-year-old web site.

For some reason, I never got around to creating a new mobile/responsive site during recent years — even though I knew I should have. It’s the “cobbler’s kids with no shoes” syndrome: I helped many clients create modern new sites during this time, but never had time to do my own! It just wasn’t a high priority — alas, clients must always come first.

AFTER: my brand-new, mobile responsive web site.

AFTER: my brand-new, mobile responsive web site.

Continue reading

DoApp Has Been Acquired by Newscycle Solutions

DoApp logoDoApp has gone and done it — and, yes, it’s cool.

The highly successful Minnesota mobile startup has been acquired by Newscycle Solutions, a 500-employee Bloomington MN-based firm that “develops and delivers software technology to empower the global news media industry.” DoApp has developed more than 1,500 mobile apps for the news publishing and broadcast industries.  All DoApp employees will join Newscycle. The acquisition closed on June 10, 2016; the price was not announced.

DoApp was founded in early 2008 by former Google employee Joe Sriver and a small team. It has been entirely self-funded and profitable for six years. Newscycle Solutions is made up four merged companies and is owned by Vista Equity Partners, based in San Francisco, which was the most active firm in the M&A business last year. (Within the past two weeks alone, it acquired Marketo and Ping Identity, deals valued collectively at $2.4 billion.) Continue reading

TruScribe Summons Kickstarter to Get You ‘Talking’

TruScribe-crowdsourcingThought you’d heard it all on Kickstarter? Well, how many times have you run into a project there that’s about launching a language? You read that right. Get your credit cards out, startup and crowdfunding lovers: here’s your chance to say you were there back in ’16 when history was made.

But here’s the deal: you gotta tell a lot of your friends, because the folks at TruScribe have set a pretty hefty goal for this one: it’s $100k.  Of course, that’s befitting the ginormous implications here — I mean, how often do you get to impact the entire freaking global community, with that single audacious goal to allow everyone on the planet to communicate visually? This is big stuff, people!! What’s a lousy little 100 Grover Clevelands?

TruScribe, as you’ll recall, is a whiteboard video animation company that was cofounded in Minnesota. (I TruGlyph-logowrote about them here on Minnov8.com back in 2014.) A large part of its staff is in Madison WI, but Minneapolis became its headquarters a while back, with great new digs at International Market Square. It was named the 253rd fastest-growing company on the Inc. 5000 list in 2015, which was understandably touted far and wide. (As a point of reference, crazy-fast-growing LeadPages of Minneapolis was #220.) In February 2016, TruScribe announced the first part of its new initiative to transform into a full-fledged software business, with a new iOS app called TruGlyph. (You can download the app here.)

What’s coming next you can see in their new (and very first) Kickstarter project. Here’s an excerpt from that page on what it’s all about: Continue reading

Minnesota Startup NativeX Will Be Acquired by Chinese Mobile Ad Firm Mobvista

[Note: This post first appeared on Minnov8.com.]

Ryan (left) and Rob Weber, cofounders of NativeX.

Ryan (left) and Rob Weber, cofounders of NativeX.

Minnesota’s NativeX announced today it is being acquired by Guangzhou-based Mobvista, Asia’s largest mobile advertising company. The company said the all-cash deal is valued at 160 million yuan, or 25 million US dollars. Once the transaction is completed, NativeX will become a subsidiary of Mobvista.

NativeX was founded by Minnesota twin brothers Rob and Ryan Weber and traces its beginnings to a former company they and a third brother, Aaron, founded in St. Cloud more than 15 years ago, called Freeze.com. The firm later changed its name to W3i, then made a major transformation to mobile ad technology in early 2013, rebranding to NativeX. It specializes in monetization and advertising through proprietary native ad technology for mobile games and apps.

Mobvista also has offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, New Delhi, Singapore, and San Francisco. NativeX has offices in St. Cloud (Sartell), Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Finland.

Rob Weber will continue as CEO of NativeX, and serve as a vice president of the Mobvista Group. “We currently have 40 employees in Minnesota,” said Rob, “and we’re planning for all of our current employees to stay on. Also, as part of the growth opportunity presented in light of the merger, we plan to hire additional employees at both our Sartell and Minneapolis locations.”

Rob continued: “Ryan and I are very excited with our new partnership. Strategically, it makes sense to combine forces with a strong force in Eastern markets. We are planning to stay on board in the same roles we have now.”

The full text of the press release follows:  Continue reading

A New Optimization Game in the Age of Mobile

AppStoreIcons-VentureBeat

Graphic: VentureBeat

If you publish apps (and it’s hard to find a company these days that doesn’t), you’d better be up on the new science — and art — of App Store Optimization. Yes, say hello to another acronym: ASO. We all know about SEO — it’s such common practice, we do it like breathing. But when the whole world has gone mobile, when everyone and their mother are publishing apps, if you aren’t into ASO – well, you’re falling behind. It’s a major new focus for app developers and publishers, and a Minnesota firm is ready to take you to school on it.

ASO is the direct result of a phenomenon VentureBeat calls “invisible app syndrome.” In a post today, it explains: “With over 1.5 million apps in each app store, it’s easy for apps to disappear and never be seen… App Store Optimization (ASO) can bring your app out of hiding, placing it squarely in front of the customers who need or want it, and keep them clicking through.”

Minnesota-based NativeX is an experienced player in helping app publishers NativeX-logooptimize for the app stores. It describes itself as “the premiere ad technology choice of top-charting mobile games and apps.” It has an expert team of engineers, data scientists, account managers, and designers, and has been recognized as a leader in effective monetization and user acquisition. Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »