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

Tag: Adaptive Avenue

Widget Summit, Day 2: Platform Mania

So, how many platforms do we need for widget development, anyway?  And how many will survive, or thrive?  That’s surely an open question — one that will likely get answered in the next year or two. And then there’s the question of what is a widget, really?  Or "mini web app" … "social media app" … "gadget" … or whatever we call them. Or does the name really matter?

This post is my final coverage of the Widget Summit conference — specifically, the last five breakout sessions, which extended through end of day Tuesday. (All the rest of my Widget Summit coverage is here.) I thought the best sessions to catch on the second day would be those devoted to widget/web-app platforms from the majors. So, two sessions I attended were about development on (guess what?) Facebook, while the other three were on Apple’s iPhone, Microsoft’s new Popfly platform, and Google Gadgets. Here’s the way the rest of Day 2 played out, in the order of appearance:

Redmond Wants a Piece
Popfly is a new plug-in for Silverlight, Microsoft’s new Flash competitor. It’s now available on the web in private beta — and, according to Dan Fernandez, Popfly product manager and evangelist, the goal is to "democratize development." He said there’s a huge world of non-professionals using MySpace and other sites and doing some amount of HTML and Javascript to build web apps or widgets. "There are 7 million ‘pros’, but 107 million ‘non-pros’," he said.  MIcrosoft wants a piece of that. [Like they want a piece of everything else in the Web 2.0 world if they can get it, no?]  Popflyslide
"Users are the stars," said Fernandez, noting that it’s all about "embracing expression."  He mentioned a recent study that found people spend more than an hour a week changing their online profile. He showed how, with Popfly, non-pro developers can snap together different "blocks" to build an app. They’ll be able to make what he called "Popfly gadgets" for Windows Live Spaces. In the audience questions following, someone asked when the product will actually be released, but Fernandez indicated he had no idea. Another obvious question came next: "What about Adobe AIR?" To which Fernandez said, "That’s a different audience."  As in real developers. He did say that Microsoft is looking at the possibility of going open with Popfly. He also said that cross-platform support is being addressed. "Support for Mac is in the Silverlight runtime," and Linux support is (or is coming), too. [By the way, here’s some coverage of the Popfly demo at Web 2.0 Summit, which Steve Ballmer did a day or two afterwards — with Fernandez at the keyboard; he told me that morning at The Palace Hotel he was hoping his demo would work so he didn’t get shot…  🙂 ]

The Facebook Gurus Speak
Tyler Ballance of Slide is the developer of some of the most popular apps on Facebook — including Top Friends, Fun Wall, Fortune Cookie, and Famous Quotes.  He of course talked about FB’s favorite term of late — the "Social Graph" — and about the concept of "Social Utility."  Slidestats
Tylertitleslide
To develop a successful Facebook app, you need "real social interactions," Tyler said. "Helping users interact is what makes a good app."  But how about what we commonly know as widgets, other than Facebook apps?  "Little biddy things you drop on a page," as Tyler called them. Socialgraph
He said using those on Facebook "isn’t too brilliant…they might work on Facebook — some do — but it’s probably not the way you want to go." On the other hand, he was happy to tell us that his Fun Wall app is "the best implementation of the widget idea on Facebook." [How humble of him.] He also said that "just porting apps to Facebook doesn’t work" and "just putting an RSS feed on your profile, for example, isn’t that interesting."  The point is that FB users use this platform differently — "it’s unique." He talked about a new app he’s working on (or has just completed?) called "Why Are You Awesome?"  He said it let’s you tell your friends why you are and — a key point he stressed — "it gives them a reason to check back."  A couple of other key points Tyler made were these: "Notifications" are important, because people "crave these updates"….and the "Feed" is the "highway on Facebook — put things there that are interesting and relevant."  He talked about the pros and cons of FBML (Facebook’s own markup language). It gives you the native look and feel, making the app "indistinguishable from the platform," he said. On the negative side, FB’s bugs become your bugs, "and you’ll always be the one to get blamed." The other option for developers is the "embedded iFrame" approach. On the plus side, it gives you "near complete control — you’re only constrained by space and the terms of service."  However, you must call the Facebook API "lots"….and if an iFrame app is done wrong, "user experience suffers." So, what do you do? "Pick the one that you’re most comfortable with, and what you can ship the fastest. If it’s more than three days, forget it." Perhaps the most interesting insight was this: "Figure out how users interact with your app. And don’t take things so seriously. Facebook users don’t sign on to do work."  [I’m not so sure FB’s leaders would agree with him there, as they try to make the platform attractive to more adults — meaning those active in the workaday world, concerned about things like, oh, productivity, business networking, and the like?  Employers are already cutting off Facebook from their corporate networks because it’s perceived to be all about screwing off. So, the notion that FB users don’t care about work can’t be something FB’s investors like to hear.]  The audience questions began with "What about useful and fun apps — are there any"?"  I didn’t hear a good answer. "Is there any way to link to several pages within an iFrame app?" Tyler said it would be better and easier to use FBML in this instance. [He did note, in passing, that Top Friends is an iFrame app. And, later, he noted he works on this app "all day long."] Another general tip Tyler gave was to make an effort to stay on top of Facebook changes. "They’re definitely building out the platform." He also said metrics of what what people do inside the app are very important — "not so much their whole social map."  But be careful you don’t violate FB’s terms of service: "You can only hash someone’s data for 24 hours."

Dave Fetterman is the creator, lead engineer, and a founding member of the Facebook Platform project.  He was formerly with Microsoft and has a master’s in computer science from Harvard. He opened his talk by telling us how many Facebook developers there are now. Davefetterman
Are you ready?
It’s more than 50,000! He also said the site gets 54 billion page views a month. Yes, that’s a "b." 

Fetterman launched into his advice for aspiring Facebook developers — the first and most obvious being "Make your app social." To be quite blunt about it, he said this: "Your content’s not interesting unless it’s interesting to your friends — or my friends." He also stressed the benefits of privacy. "It’s not a burden — it’s an asset."  So, how does one get viral distribution?

Fettermanslide_5
Fetterman talked about the Facebook News Feed, and also about adding an app from the Profile (he said to develop with FBML for this), and he stressed the importance of Notifications "from granular updates." He said that mass distribution in "now easy."  But he noted that "spreading an app is entirely different from spreading
a widget."  The latter, he said, is like "mailing HTML."  He gave his take on how an app is different from a widget [see his slide here: "Widgets, eh?" you have to forgive Dave — he’s a Canadian  🙂 …] Fettermanslide2_3

Facebook’s goal is to make developers as comfortable building on its platform as on your own site, Fetterman said. He added that FB has its own flavor of Javascript now, called FBJS — "to help you play in our environment." The goal is to give you JS while ensuring that you "remain safe" on Facebook.  He also said they have "MockAJAX."  New solutions he named as being in the works now are: message attachments, fb:mobile, and fb:ref. For more, Dave said to go to developers.facebook.com and wiki.developers.facebook.com.

iPhone Calling
Matt Drance was next up, the "Sharing Technologies Evangelist" at Apple.  How’s that for a title?  He does a bunch of stuff, and one of those is helping third parties develop for the iPhone platform, which was his topic this day. Matt said the iPhone was only 109 days old, and that it’s already had three updates in three months. He reminded us that the iPhone’s Safari browser is the same one for the new iPod Touch. Last week, Matt said a new iPhone web apps directory went live. "Apple is very serious about the web development platform for the the iPhone." [What Matt didn’t let us in on was the news that Uncle Steve was about to drop, the very next morning, that Apple was planning to open up the iPhone to third-party apps. Can’t blame him, I guess — he’d like to keep his job. But, c’mon, Matt — we wouldn’t have told anyone! 🙂 ] Mattdrance

Matt talked about the Safari "WebKit," which is a web development engine. And he gave a bunch of pointers for those who plan to develop for the iPhone: understand the browser prefs (JS can be turned off, popups disabled, etc) … you need to separate your page content (JS, CSS,and HTML), and "be well formed and standard" (he specifically recommended the CSS Zen Garden site for inspiration) … know your resource limits … know your scripting limits … understand windows and dialogs (window.open and target="_new") … use supported content types, including Word, Excel, PDF, Quicktime (no Java, Flash, or SVG for iPhone, at least not yet) … use native fonts … test and bug with Safari 3 … and remember that the iPhone’s input device is a finger — which is a lot different from a mouse! Matt reminded us that the iPhone does not have cut & paste, drag & drop, or selection — at least not yet.  Finally, he advised, even if you don’t yet have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you should get Safari 3 and see how your site or app looks in it.

GOOG Got It Goin’ On (Oh, Really?)
We were lucky to have presenting, in the very final session, Adam Sah, the architect for Google Gadgets. The most common place to find them, said Adam, is on iGoogle start pages. Google Gadgets is a platform for multiple sites, not a plug-in. Adamsah
"The end-user owns the page," said Adam. "Why do they like gadgets? Because they’re just remote HTML, cached by Google."  And why do providers like them? "Because it’s an easy, cheap way to create interactive content," he continued. "You can write one in 30 seconds. And it’s high leverage — write once, run all over. Whataregadgets_2
You get free, effective distribution to tens of millions of users." He showed a slide identifying all the distributors of Google Gadgets. He said Gadgets are "frictionless and scaled…you don’t have to cut a deal with Google." 

Adam also spoke about the newest type of Google Gadget — "Gadget Ads."  He said they’re paid-placement gadgets that reach hundreds of thousands of sites. "A Google Gadget ad is nothing more than buying traffic for your gadget," said Adam. "They’re great for time-sensitive content, like movie openings," he said, " and great for ‘seeding’ viral distribution." What percentage of Gadget Ads get syndicated by others?" someone in the audience asked. Adam said it’s still too early in the game to talk about that. But, speaking of virality, he recommended that "putting an ‘Add to Google’ or ‘Email This’ button inside your gadget will get you free traffic." He said "It’s been hard to get initial virality started, but not so now with Google Gadgets." 

In closing, he said what makes a good Gadget in general (not necessarily the ad type) is a very small or no logo, usefulness or utility, and no registration required. He also put up a slide (shown here) with a whole bunch of resource links. Googgadglinks_3
One link he didn’t mention, which I found on my own, was this one: Google Gadget Ventures, a page that tells you how you can develop new gadgets with the financial support of Google. 

That’s right — yet another company is stepping up with a financing program for widget (gadget) developers.  Life is sure good if you’re an entrepreneurially minded developer these days, wouldn’t you say?

A recent interview of Google’s Adam Sah was just published on this ZDnet blog.  It drills in further to some of the topics I touch on here in this post.

UPDATE (10/23): To make a couple of clarifications regarding Dave Fetterman’s presentation.

UPDATE (10/24): I didn’t mention in this post yet another platform: MySpace. It announced, after Widget Summit ended, that it, too, was opening up its platform to developers.  But I figured most of you had already heard that. For some perspective and links on the topic, however, including developments at Web 2.0 Summit, here’s a recent post from Seth Levine’s blog.

 

Minnedemo – Hot Damn!

Oh, was the joint a-jumpin’ Thursday night, gang. For those of you who weren’t there, that joint was O’Gara’s Garage in St. Paul. For those of you who were — lucky you (especially if you were smart enough to get there early). The crowd had to be 350 or 400 — it was basically shoulder-to-shoulder at its peak. Minnedemoogarasmichaellehmkuhl
The schmoozin’ was in high gear, the kegs were flowing (7 kinds!), and there wasn’t even any entertainment!  Well, I guess we were our own entertainment — and six of our community’s latest, hot startups got up on stage halfway into the evening to pitch their wares. [Photo of O’Gara’s courtesy of Minnedemo attendee Michael Lehmkuhl.]

Don’t let anyone tell you the Minnesota tech community isn’t hotter than a pistol! You could feel the energy, the entrepreneurial juices flowing.  You know we have something special going on here in Minnesota when you experience one of these BarCamp events (which we call Minnebar and Minnedemo) — and when you see how we keep attracting more and more of the important players from the community with every meeting.Minnedemocrowdstefanhartwig
And it’s not just the Twin Cities — we had people there from Sioux Falls, Fargo, St. Cloud, Wisconsin, and more.  [Photo of the crowd early-on courtesy of Minnedemo attendee Stefan Hartwig, of sponsor Electric Pulp — one of those dudes from Sioux Falls! Yes, this is the outfit Guy Kawasaki has made famous.]

What was the coolest thing I heard at the event? That was from Robert Stephens, the illustrious founder of Minnesota’s own Geek Squad (acquired by Best Buy in 2002). See my recent coverage of Robert being named MN Entrepreneur of the Year. And, yes, he was just interviewed on 60 Minutes, too! I had a great chat with Robert, during which I mentioned that I’d heard Best Buy was hosting an event that very day in Silicon Valley, just for VCs.  He said, yeah, that he was supposed to be speaking there. I asked why he wasn’t. "Because I’d rather be here. I really believe in the Minnesota tech community."  Now, is that freaking cool, or what?  Screw the Valley, he’s more interested in the action here! Robert is a major supporter of our state’s entrepreneurs — a hero in our midst, for sure.

What else really impressed me?  Well, besides the great startups that pitched and just the huge energy of our collective developer/entrepreneur/interactive/marketing community, I have to say that I continue to be really pumped about the quality of new players we keep drawing to these events. We had partners from at least two major VCs firms (and three more I knew really wanted to be there but had schedule conflicts), another from the largest "network of angel networks" in the country, an investment banker whom I know is currently raising a large chunk for a local startup, and more major, local angel investors than I’ve seen at any of our previous meetings. Yes, that’s right, the guy (or lady) you were standing next to could be one — so, don’t spill beer on ’em!  🙂  Seriously, they were there to catch the buzz on what’s new, who’s starting up what, and to schmooze with their colleagues about the latest deals circulating. [Unfortunately, some of the newer ones didn’t realize how noisy these gatherings get, and how hard it can be to hear the presenters, unless you move right up near the stage. But, hopefully they’ll follow up with individual entrepreneurs for one-on-ones — that’s really the intended outcome, anyway, for the startups pitching at these events.] And there were major dudes present as well from some of our state’s largest Internet-related businesses — trust me, I know these people! And I brokered at least two key introductions of local startups to some of these guys. They definitely wanted to know more about some of the technologies pitched. And, there’s more — we even had an NBA player, formerly of the Timberwolves (and a serious geek), in our midst! Not to forget our local media people — I know the Business Journal was present. Not sure if the Trib or the Pioneer Press made it (I was just too busy to see everyone I wanted to).  And, you just know that Minnesota’s best and brightest tech bloggers were there — Steve Borsch, Ed Kohler, Ben Higginbotham, and….well, you know. And so many of the developer attendees have great blogs of their own as well!  (See the links in the list of attendees on the Minnedemo site for those.)

So, who were the startup founders that pitched?  Well, it was an awesome combination of really smart developers, serial entrepreneurs, a major ad-agency producer, a female entrepreneur with a company just coming out of stealth, even a former Silicon Valley researcher that holds a patent on the technology he was pitching.  Minnedemoadaptiveave
People, you would be amazed if you drilled into the backgrounds of these folks — I can say that because I know many of them. There was a huge amount of experience and expertise represented on that stage on Thursday night — a proud moment for Minnesota entrepreneurship. Here’s a quick rundown on who got 10 minutes each to pitch to this raucous crowd:

•CrashPlan (Matthew Dornquast) – a virtual appliance for automatic, off-site backup
•FanChatter (Marty Wetherall) – mobile sports fan chat, photos, more (see news release)
•SOTAcomm (Gary Doan) – plug-and-play appliances integrating best-of-breed open-source "unified communications" apps for running a small business
•Wonderfile (David Carnes) – tag-based file management and collaboration
•Pokeware (Maryse Thomas) – monetizing video streams by giving consumers extensive access to products and information within them (see news release)
•Adaptive Avenue (David Quimby) – distributed commerce, "site within a banner," enabling a whole new category of clicks ("engagement" clicks)

[Photo of David Quimby presenting courtesy of Ben Wallace.]

But did you think we only have six startups here in Minnesota worthy of presenting?  Wrong, bucko! There were sixteen more — count ’em, 16!! — who were stacked up on the waiting list in case someone dropped out. They’re definitely worth a look, too….and they’re all listed here on the Minnedemo site, with links so you can learn more.

Remember to say thank you! (My daddy taught me that!) What an awesome event — and we owe it all to the event co-organizers, who donate a huge amount of their time to these things: developers Dan Grigsby, a successful entrepreneur who really knows how to give back to the community, and Luke Francl, a developer at local hot shop Slantwise Design. And the sponsors who pay the freight to make these events happen. We love ’em!  Read about ’em and support ’em. They keep coming back, too — all are repeat sponsors:
•Kinetic Data
•Split Rock Partners
•New Counsel
•ipHouse
•Electric Pulp

What’s the takeaway? Minnesota’s startup and Internet community is a one exciting place to be! You like it here, and I know the vast majority of you want to stay here. I’m proud to be a part of the community, and each and every one of you out there should be, too. It’s great to know that if you can work hard, think big, and make good stuff that improves people’s lives or work, or just helps them have more fun online — whatever! — that you can make a real contribution to our economy, and advance your own lot in life as well.

I can’t wait for our next Minnedemo or Minnebar event.  Meantime, keep building on the energy…and keep on networking!  🙂

Big Week for Tech in Minnesota

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!). Compellentlogo
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. Minnedemo
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. Cdc50yrceleb_2
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!