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.

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Conferences I Plan to Blog…

December 20, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Just to update you, o faithful blog readers, I thought I’d mention what conferences I’ll be blogging from in coming weeks and months. First of all, I’m happy to report I’ve been accepted again as a press registrant at the DEMO 2007 event, which is January 30 – February 1. This will be about my fourth DEMO event. Demo07banner The venue this year was switched from Phoenix to Palm Desert, California, which should be a glorious locale at this time of year (especially when I’ll be escaping Minnesota winter!). I always look forward to this conference, not only because 70 of the hottest startups in the country pitch their businesses here, but because it attracts so much buzz and media attention, more than virtually any other event all year long. The media list is like a who’s who. As always, companies you’ll be reading about a year, two years, three years from now will first be heard from at DEMO. And I’ll do my best to report the highlights for you… [See categories to the right for my coverage of both DEMO events in 2006.]

Another event I’m thinking about covering (but not sure yet if I can break away) is the big momma of ’em all: CES …which used to stand for Consumer Electronics Show, but now wants to be so much more (see theme). Being a content guy, how could I not like this one? Haven’t been to Vegas in a while — caught an Interop show there a couple years ago, and of course attended many Comdex events back in the day. CES, by the way, may be big, but it still doesn’t draw as many people as Comdex did in its heydey. Nonetheless, the show is today the “world’s largest tradeshow for consumer technology and North America’s largest annual tradeshow of any kind.” Get this: it will feature 2700 exhibitors covering floorspace the equivalent of 35 football fields(!), and will have 140,000 attendees — 25,000 of them from other countries. Ces07logotheme Those attendees will include manufacturers, retailers, content providers and creators, broadband developers, wireless carriers, cable and satellite TV providers, installers, engineers, corporate buyers, government leaders, financial analysts and the media. [How could I not like pal-in’ around with those installers, huh? Cable guys attend this thing?? Maybe I should reconsider….] Anyway, there will be a ton of press at this one, and the bloggers will outnumber them — guaranteed. The combined total will easily be in the thousands. Robert Scoble, the well known author and former head blogger at Microsoft, who’s now VP of Media Development at Podtech, will even have his own suite where bloggers can hang out. Here’s what he said on his blog: “By the way, our BlogHaus at CES will be open to ANY blogger, not just those ‘blessed’ by Microsoft or some other company. You just need to have me put your name on the list so you can get up to our suite.” I did.

Finally, I’m looking out to March and thinking I’d love to blog ETech again. O’Reilly is my favorite publisher and conference producer. [You’ll note I recommend many of its books under the “Reading” subhead at the right. Disclosure: I do get free books from time to time, but only post those I really find of value.] Oreillyetechlogo I’ve really enjoyed reporting on this conference in the past, and love running into my old blog buddies there, like Doc Searls and David Weinberger. Sure, it’s a developer event. But, as I’ve said before, some of my best friends are developers…. 🙂 And this event draws an awesome, a-list of attendees, too, at all levels, and many other great bloggers. Anyway, it would be fun to capture it again for y’all, and I hope to get out to San Diego for it in late March. [Okay, it’s an excuse to hang out again at my favorite beach, too 🙂 … ]

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Speaking of Design: This Is iPhone?

December 19, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Oh, how we’ve waited and waited, so long, for the perpetually rumored “iPhone” product from Apple. Only to read yesterday that Apple doesn’t even own the damn trademark! What a cruel hoax. Turns out it’s been owned since 2000 by Cisco, after they acquired IngoGear. [Though, for some strange reason, Apple does own the www.iPhone.org domain, which takes you to a MacBook page. What’s with that? Is Steve Jobs going weird in his old age?]

Well, anyway, you all know how into design Cisco is….[that was a joke]. Please try to stifle your oohs and aahs, friends, but here are the new models, in all their glory, as introed yesterday by the Linksys unit of Cisco:

Linksysiphones_1

Read more of the gory details here, here and here.

These things don’t even look like they come from the same company, let alone the same product family. I thought they hired some wiz-bang new senior VP of something or other there at Cisco who was gonna drag them kicking and screaming into the wonderful, design-conscious world of consumer tech products? And this is what we get? Steve Jobs must be laughing his ass off….

Bad design, bad marketing, ho-hum introduction. All attached to a name that everyone’s just been hanging on, waiting, to hear big, big things about.

Another marketing misfire. Two in one day. They’re everywhere, people….

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Sony Design: Holiday Feast

December 19, 2006 / / 0 Comments

One of the coolest, most colorful [can you say red?] holiday promotions I’ve seen this season is Sony’s Holiday 2006 campaign, featuring Michelle Wie. They pulled out all the stops on this one, even slipping in some tie-ins to the recently released Sony Pictures “007” film, Casino Royale. Sonyholiday06page

I first saw this campaign in a very nice, glossy Sunday newspaper insert, which jumped right out at me. It was a gorgeous piece. So, I just had to visit the special site they set up at “www.Sony.com/Holiday”. There’s no arguing that Sony remains a big player in design in consumer electronics. And studies rank the Sony brand among the very top recognized brands in the world, year after year. No doubt they’re pulling big traffic, and sales, with this promotion.

The coolest product I saw in this lineup was the Vaio UX Micro PC, which literally fits in a Christmas stocking! It sounds like a pretty amazing computer, despite its small size, with a full sliding keyboard. [Two photos included here.]Sonyvaiouxchristmas Street price is about $1700. For connectivity, it has both Wi-Fi and Cingular Edge Network functionality built-in (if you get an account from Cingular), the combination of which will give you Internet access just about anywhere you could ever want to work. Yes! For Windows machines, the Vaio lineup is flat-out THE most impressive of all from a hardware design standpoint, with the UX shown as the smallest (far left) in the product line diagram.

Sonyvaiofullline

Check out the colors of some other Vaio models, including the AR Series and the C Series. With certain of these, you not only can choose color or pattern, but custom engraving as well. Laptops for the upwardly mobile, tres chic, I guess! Sonyvaioarcseries
Flip one of these babies open in the airport and watch heads turn. The C Series colors include pink, green, white, or your choice of five eye-popping “Graphic Splash” limited-edition designs, which are available in Green Storm, Red Storm, Blue Streaks, Angel, and Pink Swirl. Each features a widescreen display. Sonycseries5colors

But you want more, you say? How about accessories such the Vaio speakers shown, or the “James Bond 007 TX Spy Gear bundle”….which will provide “all the tools you need on your next mission.” Sonyspeakers007 The limited-edition kit shown includes Vaio TX notebook, a privacy screen, and and Cybershot digital camera, which are all are packaged in a stylish aluminum attaché case. Get this: also included is an exclusive welcome letter and a serialized glass photo certificate verifying it’s a real Sony Vaio notebook. Hey, that glass certificate will look good as you strike a pose with your martini glass, no? Shaken, not stirred, of course… And here’s a shot of yet another James Bond/Casino Royale product bundle offered on the site, this one including the above UX Micro PC model. Sonyspygear

Now, as a good reviewer, let me tell you what I found wrong with all of this. Sony knows design, and has for a long time. I’ll give ya that. But they’re certainly no Apple (in many ways). Let’s look at a few things. First of all, what does Michelle Wie, a 17-year old golfer, have to do with all this? I don’t get it. And isn’t her last name awfully suggestive of “Wii,” a competitive product to Sony’s PSP? What’s more, the Sony site they send me to is really slow-loading….even on a good broadband connection. There’s a mysterious lag time after you click to go to a new page, which is extremely annoying. Is the site too Flash-heavy? Or maybe it has something to do with the platform it’s built on (all the URLs have “Intershop” in them). But I would ask, what does this annoyance do to the “brand promise”?

What really amazed me, however, was this: one of the coolest products featured in the Sunday supplement — right on the cover — was nowhere to be found on Sony’s site! That was the red Cybershot camera. I searched and searched, using the model number and every other method I knew. Zip. Only black or silver. No message that the red was sold out (if that could possibly be the case). Simply nothing. And this is the showcase product on the cover of the newspaper flyer! Beats the hell outta me.

Guess we’ll have to put James Bond on that one….

Another Party Post (If You Can Stand It!)

December 18, 2006 / / 1 Comment

Okay, I promise this will be it — for the holiday season, anyway. At the risk of appearing to do nothing else but attend parties, swill wine, and nibble cheese at various and sundry functions, I offer up here my final party post of 2006…well, I think, anyway. We’ll see… 🙂 Christmaspartygraphic_1 This one was the annual holiday function of the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA), held Wednesday evening December 13 at the gleaming new Guthrie Theater along the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. Again, it was a balmy evening, in the low 40s…with no snow (!).

I was gonna shoot some pix of this hot new venue (my first time there), and did take my little pocket cam with me. But then I realized others have probably shot much better photos than I could. [Oh?] Check out these very cool Guthrie pix I since found on Flickr. [Thank you, “jpnuwat.” Whoever you are, you shoot some really amazing stuff!!] I now think I’m gonna throw away my pocket cam in shame, because my shots, a couple of which are shown below (after one of his), leave….uh, a little to be desired? Guthriecjpnuwat

Oh well, these two of mine show the one thing I wanted to capture Wednesday evening: the great view off the outside deck, which my friends and I decided would be a terrific place to hold a reception in warmer weather.

The event drew what looked to be 100 to 150 people, and was crowded into a long, narrow lounge on the fourth floor. But it was fun, and the food was great, as was the wine. Soon as I walked in, I ran into an old buddy I hadn’t seen in years: Terry Anderson, head shooter at TKA Photography in Edina, who was there to capture some shots of the occasion for MIMA. Guthrieview1_1
I also met some other really interesting people, including James Schmit of Greater Web Traffic, a state IT employee and former longtime Carlson Companies staffer, who’s doing some SEO/SEM work in his spare time. Let’s hear it for moonlighting! Guthrieview2_1
Then, after running into friends Tom Borgerding (the original MIMA prez) and Jason Bakker of Campus Media Group, Bloomington — the best darn college marketing firm on the planet — I met Jennifer Meyer, CEO of Web Emarketing, who not only is an accomplished search-engine marketer, but a surfer, too — I kid you not! She’s spent time at Surfer’s Paradise near Brisbane, Australia, and also frequents the Pacific side of Costa Rica in her spare time. [Naturally, we’re gonna exchange some surf pix links while on our respective New Year’s vacations.] After hooking up with MinneDemo colleagues Rob Metcalf of Flyspy and Jeff Pester of Slivercast.com, I was introduced to Martin Davis, principal of Ratchet, an accomplished interactive development shop, spun out of Fallon in 2004, that now serves a large part of the downtown ad agency community. Martin also has really cool business cards, designed by Duffy Design — seriously, you should stop by sometime just to get one! 🙂 Finally, I had a chance to chat at some length with another fascinating guy, Andrew Ecklund, CEO of Ciceron. I’d known his name for a long time, and had briefly met him once in the early days of MIMA, in like 1997, but we’d never had a chance to really talk. He was a font of information, a funny guy, and his firm is doing some excellent web marketing work for clients such as Andersen Windows, US Bank, and Target Center. In particular, he’s really excited about web video, and especially about Brightcove, which I’ve written about before — a company that kinda/sorta has Minnesota roots, since it was founded by Jeremy Allaire and friends, formerly of Allaire Corp., which was founded here. Andrew’s firm is working on some really cool, new video stuff, with a group of well-regarded local film and video talents. I’ll definitely be watching for more news on this….

Well, that’s it from the Minneapolis web marketing and Internet startup party scene for another holiday season….Whoops, no, wait! What’s this? Why, it’s another invitation to a little gathering of players in our local startup community, on Wednesday the 20th downtown. Just an impromptu get-together for beer to meet an out-of-town VC visitor from California. But how can I miss that?… 🙂

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With Multiple Devices, Synching Is an Issue

December 14, 2006 / / 0 Comments

If you shoot digital pix (is there really anyone left who doesn’t?) and have multiple devices, especially both a Mac and PC, plus a smart phone, and/or you travel a lot, then you really should check out Sharpcast. It just announced at the Le Web show in Paris its Mac uploader. This is great news for anyone using Apple’s photo organizing/editing app — iPhoto — which is flat-out the best one out there, my friends. [Not a day goes by when I don’t use it…and love it.]

Sharpcastsynchitall

So, synch your brains out, Mac digital shooters — across all the toys you got! Even if some of them say “Windows” on ’em…. With Sharpcast, Mac users can back up and share their albums online and view their iPhoto albums on a smart phone or Windows-based PC. You can export iPhoto albums directly from your Mac to your Sharpcast Photos Web albums in just a few clicks, where they are backed up, easy to share, and automatically synched all the way down to your mobile phone and PC desktop. You can get the iPhoto uploader as a free download at www.sharpcast.com/download.

But, Wait – There’s More
The photo app from Sharpcast is the first thing out of the chute for this well-backed startup. [See my coverage from DEMO ’06 back in February.] It’s built on the company’s patent-pending universal “push” synchronization platform, which it says “marks the first time that Blackberry-like push synchronization capability is available to the average consumer, outside of an enterprise setting.” It automatically backs up photo collections online, organizes them into web albums, and keeps the collection constantly up to date across all of a person’s mobile phones, all their PCs, and the web. It thus eliminates the hassles of manual uploading, sync cables, etc, so people can get on with creating and enjoying their media.

Here’s what’s coming from Sharpcast next: it previewed at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco its upcoming product code-named Hummingbird. It’s a solution for backing up, sharing, accessing, and syncing ALL your documents, photos, music, and video — across all the computers you use, the web, and optionally your mobile phone, in what the company says is “a completely automatic way.” Sharpcastsynchgraphic Watch for a publicly available version of Hummingbird in the first half of 2007. Anyone interested can sign up as an “alpha” tester at www.sharpcast.com/products/hummingbird.

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