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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A Bloggers Heyday in San Diego

September 20, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Looks like the upcoming DEMO show will draw a ton of bloggers once again. The PR folks tell me the list already includes such names as TechCrunch, MobileCrunch, Techdirt, GigaOM, Gizmodo, Engadget, ForbesOnTech, buzzmodo, Kauffman’s eVenturing blog, Marc Orchant, Dan Farber, Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed, and others…including yours truly, of course. Demofall06logo I’ll continue to post a heads up or two about companies who’ll be presenting there over the next few days, and will be blogging onsite as well — starting late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, as the opening session fires up.

Oh, many of the usual press suspects will be there, too, I’m told: AP, USA Today, Business2.0, CNet, WSJ, PC Magazine, Forbes, Computerworld, InformationWeek, ZDNet. Notice how I list them second? 🙂

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Esther Dyson Calls It Quits (but only sorta)

September 18, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Just got an email from Esther that she’s discontinuing the annual PC Forum conference. Wow, what a bummer… Such a great, long-standing industry event. She leaves a huge legacy. But she goes out in style, after an excellent conference this past March, which I was lucky enough to catch. Estherdyson200 Here’s the terse email she sent to those of us on her Release 1.0 list: “Word has slowly gotten out that the PC Forum last March was the last ever. So let me interview myself.” And a link then takes us here (requires registration), where she explains her decision. It’s all quite upbeat and positive, but it still comes as a shocker. Few individuals command as much respect in this industry as Esther. She’s one of a kind, that is for sure! And many, many people will miss her annual event. She built up a huge fan base and following over the years, and attracted the very finest speakers. Pcforumlogo300_1 Here’s a rundown of those speakers through 2005. For more about the swan-song event in March 2006, read my coverage here. Esther launched her conference near the dawn of the PC revolution, about the time I was going off on my own as an independent consultant, and I’ve followed her all this time, as has the entire technology industry. But, as she reminds us in her self-interview above, she’s not done yet! I know we’ll be hearing much more from her…. Good luck, Esther!

MindTouch Wants to Wow With Wikibox at DEMOfall

September 15, 2006 / / 2 Comments

St. Paul-based MindTouch…no, wait, it’s headquartered in San Diego….no, wait, most of its people are in Minnesota. Oh, who cares — they have a whiz-band new wiki box Mindtouchlogo I’d heard they’d be debuting at DEMOfall week after next. Picked that up at the “MinneDemo” event last week, and I blogged at least a mention of them and Aaron Fulkerson in my recap the next day. Gee, going from “Minne” to the full-on Monty demo at the biggest of all demo venues in the universe — all inside of three weeks! These guys have it goin’ on for a little outfit from Minnesota (or is it San Diego?). Here’s an article from the St. Paul Pioneer Press today that kinda lays it all out — or should I say, lays it on thick? [Example: “the next must-have office machine for small to medium-sized businesses — as common as a fax machine”] I’ll be following up on MindTouch soon, pre or during DEMOfall. Now if we can only get ’em to stop calling their wiki box a “managed office server.” [Can you tell these guys are former Microsofties? Not for the use of the second word, but for the lack of any name cachet. End of editorializing…]

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Austrians to Attack DEMOfall!

September 15, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Hey, maybe The Governator will drop by, too? [Becky, could you work on that?] SystemOne, headquartered in Vienna, will be launching its enterprise collaboration platform at the upcoming DEMOfall event. Here’s their one-sentence company description [read with Ahh-nold accent]: “System One helps businesses to ensure lasting success by making optimal use of the knowledge production factor.” Got that? I can hardly wait till their six minutes of fame. Techcrunch reported that SystemOne’s product is a wiki “that gathers your resources as you write.” The writer, Marshall Kirkpatrick, goes on to say: “The real power here is the semantic analysis, the relevance.” Who could not like that, especially any blogger? Trouble is, it’ll be mid-’07 till a version for the little guy is available. They’re starting at the top and dumbing down. Here’s a screencast so you can see how it works. Stand by — I’ll definitely be reporting more on this one from San Diego…

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Surfers Get Their Own Online Video Site

September 13, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Southern California-based GrindTV will launch a newly redesigned site in mid-September, complete with a dedicated Surf Channel [sneak-peak screen grab shown here], which it just previewed at the Action Sports Expo in San Diego over the weekend. Grindtvsurf400w GrindTV also announced it has surpassed one million unique viewers per month. It says it has signed major partnerships with such brands as Body Glove and is attracting Fortune 500 advertisers. [GrindTV is a division of PureVideo Networks, which also owns StupidVideos.com and is funded by Softbank Capital. PureVideo’s network of sites stream approximately 60 million videos to six million unique visitors a month.] In GrindTV’s recent news announcement, it quoted Scott Daley, Body Glove’s VP of marketing: “We have so much great video footage and, aside from our own website, we had no place else for people to view it. GrindTV gives us that dedicated outlet that focuses on the core group, who appreciates seeing the best athletes in the world, in and out of the surf.” Other brands signed on include Nissan, Sony, MSN Video, Microsoft Mobile, TagWorld, and Helio (the latter being a joint venture between EarthLink and SK Telecom, headed by Sky Dayton, an avid surfer).

But professional videos aren’t all you’ll find at GrindTV. It says it already has more than a thousand professional and user-generated videos, plus more than 5,000 photos of athletes and contests held worldwide. These current numbers are for all their channels, not just the Surf Channel, although they will of course be increasing as time goes on. Other GrindTV channels, as noted by the icons on their new home page [preview shown here], include Skate, Snow, Moto, Bike, Air, Wind, and Wake.

GrindTV.com bills itself as being created “for and by adrenaline junkies” — that is, fans and practitioners of extreme and action sports. It claims its user-generated videos “showcase the most outrageous, untamed, awe-inspiring sports content on the Web, as well as original video and photographs captured by the GrindTV producers.”

User-generated video is one of the hottest things happening on the web these days, and YouTube is hardly alone. Specialty sites like Grind undoubtedly will continue building very loyal audiences. Do not underestimate the size and spend represented by the surf and related markets. The annual Action Sports Expo event now has close to a 20-year history, by my count at least. The industry may be SoCal focused, but it has a worldwide footprint. It is one big, monster market, and advertisers are right to covet it. Just pick up a copy of Surfer Magazine, one of my longtime favorite reads, on your local newsstand sometime and feel the heft. Then try to imagine the heft of the online marketplace it represents….

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